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Don't Force It, Ease Into It

If you pull back on a pose, if you ease up on one element of a pose, it will enable you to correct the other aspects so that everything can fall into the correct place.  Changing your approach and your focus to a pose will get you better results in the long term.  It just won’t happen instantly.  It will however, help you to get all the parts of your mind and body to work together smoothly.  Which is what we’re after, isn’t it?

The same is often true of work and even life.  Sometimes just pushing harder is not the answer. Many times pushing ourselves to the edge is counterproductive to what you want.  Working an eighteen hour day rarely produces eighteen hours worth of progress.  There is always a diminishing rate of return.  

I listened to my yoga instructor today as she told me to pull back in a pose. I thought, “but I’m trying to go deeper, why should I pull back?” 

 

She anticipated my thoughts by saying, "these poses should always be easy.  If they are hard, then you're focusing on the wrong aspect of it."

I thought about it more after class and began to understand what she had said.  Every pose is made up of tens if not hundreds of movements.  Many of them are about changing the details of what you are doing.  Is your knee turned outward?  Are you spinning your triceps upward?  Is your tailbone tucked under?  Are you feeling the stretch here, or here, or here?  

Every one of these elements is a very specific part of your pose.  So if you’re straining, you’re most likely trying to force something further, hoping it will all fall into place.  But you are also neglecting some of the other elements in your pose.  And by doing so, while you may be stretching your hamstring a little further, you are most likely neglecting the myriad of other details that make the pose effective.  

In the first hours you feel like you can do anything.  But as the day progresses you start to slow down.  And after ten hours your productivity is so low it hardly makes sense to even be working.  Yet, there you are.  Compelled to work longer and harder, thinking it will produce the results you need.  

Instead of fighting and pushing yourself to what you think is the edge, think about pulling back.  Think about focusing on another element of your work, or taking a break altogether.  It will get you where you want to go with better results.  And in the end, it may even get you there faster.

Dharma in Plain English

Words and language are one of the most powerful tools man has ever created.  When used properly, they can bring people together. They can unite and inspire whole communities to do great things. They can help us spread world changing ideas from one people to the next, and from one generation to the next.  

They can also be used to do great harm.  They can be used to control or mislead people.  They can be used to create barriers designed to divide people into different classes based on nothing more than how those people speak.

Some people do this by creating our own languages, rich with secret words and meanings that only those indoctrinated can decipher.  They can create a velvet rope that keeps those uninitiated in their secret meaning out.

It is why it is so important that we constantly explain important words and the ideas they stand for so that they are open to everyone throughout the ages.  Only then can we be sure that everyone benefits from the ideas those words represent.  You see, ideas are power, and great ideas should be used to empower everyone, not to laud power over them.

In some ways, dharma is such a word.  It holds the key to a very powerful idea that anyone can use to gain happiness and so much more.  But to those uninitiated, it can pose a mystical barrier to their personal growth.  Which is why it needs to come out of the shrouded mystery of language so that anyone can bask in the idea behind it. 

Today, dharma has many meanings to many people.  To some it refers to someone’s life-path, or their lifestyle.  To others it has a karmic overtone that implies doing the right thing.  To others still, it refers to the truth - or the true path for someone to stay on.

I refer to it as the Simple Truth.  And yes, while there are some simple truths that everyone abides by [thou shalt not kill], one's dharma is different for everyone.  It is, in effect, the essence of your being that you need to be true to if you want to be happy and live the life you love. 

This is how Krishna referred to dharma in the Bhagavad Gita.  In this ancient text, Krishna tells a warrior, "better your own dharma badly performed than the dharma of another done perfectly."  

What he is basically telling this warrior that it is better to follow your true calling even if it means killing others during battle, than to try and be something you are not.  It is better to be true to yourself and do wrong, than to be untrue to your own nature and do right.

Now, I do not think Krishna, nor anyone, thinks that killing is okay. Nor do I think that anyone is promoting the idea of living anything other than a compassionate life.  But I do think that this is still wonderful advice to those who want to be happy and life a life they will truly love.

  

To be clear, the idea of being true to oneself is not just a Buddhist one.  It has been echoed throughout the years by great minds the world over.   Shakespeare wrote it into Hamlet when Polonius said, "This above all.  To thine own self be true."  

Richard Bach said it when he wrote, "Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."

So whether you refer to it as dharma, or being true to yourself, or finding and following your own Simple Truth, remember that the important part is not the words, but the idea behind the words.  

So find your dharma, find your own true self, find your own Simple Truth.  Just make sure you share that knowledge in whatever language others are comfortable hearing it in.  For that is what will make you happy, and will enable you, and everyone, to live the life each loves.

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Steve Jobs on Life

Sometimes you read something, and there is just no way to improve upon it.  I had that thought when I read this quote from Steve Jobs.

 "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  

Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. 

Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.  

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

They somehow already know what you truly want to become. 

Everything else is secondary."

Meditations on morning tea

This morning, as with all mornings, I poured myself a cup of tea from my teapot. It was a lapsang souchong - a smoky tea that is soothing but also a strong cup of wakeup. It doesn't just sit there. It pulls you into your day.


After the first few sips, I began to meditate on my tea and my morning ritual.  It was not just me waking up and getting a cup of tea.  It was a ritual that I have built over time.  I thought about what went into this pot of tea I was enjoying.  It was more than just tea leaves and water. There was a whole ceremony around my morning tea that has become a welcoming experience.


Part of it started months ago when I bought a new teapot. I took my time to find just the right one -  simple and white so as not to distract me and not to take away from a peaceful morning.  It has just the right kind of strainer that I enjoy. Not so fussy as to require straining with every cup, but requiring that the strainer be cleaned between each pot. The spout is just above the water line so that water doesn't pour out when I overfilled it, as I am want to do. The tea itself was picked from a larger metal canister weeks ago from my favorite coffee and tea store - Porto Rico Importing Company. Between pots it sits in a small, double lidded metal canister to keep it fresh.  


Each of these things reflects a side of me, the practical and the dreamer.  Each of these is now a part of my morning tea experience. It was cultivated from trying different pots and cups and teas.  Until I found what works for me.  The fact that I use my wife's coffee measure, only filling it three-quarters of the way full, is the result of experimenting until I found just the right level for a good pot of tea. It is also a small symbol of us, instead of just me.

You see, my cup of tea is not just the act of me pouring out tea from a pot. It is the result of trying something - tea - and then refining it for my own personality.  My own Simple Truth, as it were.


That is how life is.  It is about learning from someone else, then adapting it for yourself.  It is about not changing who you are inside, but constantly adapting and evolving to the universe around you.  


That is how we grow, while still staying true to our own Simple Truth. 

Time, Cost & Quality

I have told my clients for years there are three legs to any project; time, cost and quality.  The trick is you can only have two of the legs.  You can have a finished project that is inexpensive but it will either take longer to complete or the quality will suffer.  You can have one that is of very high quality, but it will either be more expensive or will take more time.  Or, you can have a project that is quickly completed, but it will either cost more to rush it or the quality will suffer.  People understand this for  the most part.  there is always a trade-off.  But knowing how to balance these three elements to a project enables them to make the best decision for their needs.


In many ways, the same is true for self discovery.  If you want to learn about yourself, there are many different ways to go about it.  Some are based in religion.  Some in philosophy.  Some in therapy and science.  Each can be right for different people.  Yet no matter how you approach your own self-discovery, the same rules apply.  To find out who you truly are takes time.  It often has a cost attached to it.  And the quality of the outcome, your ability to make real change, is dependent upon th equality of your self examination.


For me, the quality is the one factor that cannot be sacrificed.  It is the most important factor that you should never be willing to settle on.  


So when you're starting down your path, or even taking a look back to see where you have been or where you are going - make sure the quality of your self-discovery is the best possible.  The rest is for you to decide how important time and cost are to you becoming YOU.








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Bring Compassion Into Your Life With Simple Choices

You are born with compassion.


You wake up with it every morning. 


You simply need to remember to incorporate it into the little choices you make every day.  In doing so, you can bring it to life.  



In every choice that you make, you can either rely on the programing that your primordial ancestors endowed us with [see amygdala below], or you can rise above and personally evolve by making the right choices.  


Remember, life is lived in the little choices we make.  Not in the earth shattering decisions we see in the movies.


The next time a car cuts you off, don't raise a finger, simply smile.  The next time an co-worker puts you down, don't raise your voice, simply stick to the facts.  Remember, you are traveling on a speck of dust, spinning through the Universe at more than 66,660 miles and hour.    No matter how great a slight, it is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.  But the small choices you make are not.  


So choose the path of compassion you were born with.








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jeffrey cannon