Doors of Perception

We had the second meeting of our Yoga for a World Out of Balance Meditation Book Group yesterday at Yoga Bliss.  We began with a yoga practice to explore sensation and also a sense of interconnectedness, relatedness as we moved together.  We practiced sitting meditation and explored walking meditation as a way of broadening our field of awareness.    Our discussion focused on the second and third chapters, Restraint in Times of Unrestraint and Lack.

The author, Michael Stone, describes our personal, collective and global ills that result from living without restraint.  He states that these ills arise from problems of perception. Perceptions color our worldview.  Our mental state affects the choices we make.  Action and perception create an infinite feedback loop we can think of as karma:  the relationship between actions and their effects.  We have an opportunity to perceive more clearly through practice:  our willingness to pause and attend to experience moment by moment.  Nothing is hidden if we are willing to see.

Yesterday, we created an intimate circle in which we gave each other the gift of our kind attention.  Each of us shared stories of grief, pain and loss:  life events that challenged our ability to stay in “control” and hold onto our world views, even our sense of self.   In this place of change and disorientation, we really feel the anxiety of ungroundedness.  We have a direct experience of the painful impermanence of our “selves”.

It often feels like we’re alone, separate from the rest of the world, pursuing the mundane drives of consuming and producing.  Yet in life challenging times, we no longer find meaning or satisfaction in superficial pursuits.  Perhaps the painful gift of crisis is the ability to see through the veil of distorted perception.  We are challenged to sense the underlying restlessness of lack, the uneasy feeling that we aren’t complete or whole that the author describes.  We feel the “need” to fill in or cover over whatever emptiness or experience we wish to avoid.   These are strong motivations.  In the moments we can stay with these difficult states we create fertile ground:  the pause between perception and action.  Is this the ground from which compassion and ethical choices grow?

The author asserts that our motivations color the kind of world we perceive and the choices we make.  What motivation brought us together?   I was so moved by the facial expression of love and attention one student offered an other while listening to her experience.  So much depends on the way we see each other or, conversely, look and do not see, hear but do not listen.  So much depends on the way we reveal ourselves or hide.  Yesterday, we experienced intimacy in action: our practice manifested as support and witnessing.  I witnessed Ahimsa, presence with and reverence for life.

Sharing stories of perception and choice both reflect and reveal our humanness to each other.  In meditation, we stop long enough to allow our distortions in perception to be revealed.  Perhaps we sustain attention long enough to experience the “inherent unity of all relations.”   Michael describes this as becoming “so fully present that there is simply experience unfolding in which we participate without separation.”  I felt this yesterday.  Our practice enabled us to see each other.  The effects of these actions will unfold in time.  Our willingness to stay on the path can create another feedback loop of reflection, revelation and heart felt action.

I deeply appreciate this opportunity to share this journey together.

You can find this week’s homework and other resources at:

Yoga for a World Out of Balance Homework 2