Meditation Secrets Revealed

Interview with Claude AnShin Thomas conducted by Vlad Moskovski

I first met Claude AnShin Thomas at a talk that he gave, and the first thing that struck me about him was his straightforward honesty. There was something very sharp and clear about his talk, his attitude, and his vision. I am honored to have the chance to interview Claude AnShin, who has experienced so much in his life. He has been many things. A combat soldier in Vietnam, martial arts teacher, musician, political activist, peace advocate, and ascetic wondering monk.

Vlad: You have walked many miles on foot, what is the longest continuous journey you have done on foot and what inspired this journey? 

The longest continuous journey I would have to say was from the Auschwitz concentration camp inPolandtoVietnam. I was ordained in Auschwitz, a decision made by my teacher. In preparation for that ordination, I sat in the selection site between two railroad tracks in Auschwitz/Birkenau. I fasted there for four days, no food or water, and I chanted from sunup to sundown.

I then walked to Vietnam, through something like 25 or 27 countries. Most of the places I walked through were places of current or past fighting.  The experience of being a combat soldier has shaped the way my Zen Buddhist practice has developed.  It has helped me come into a more conscious relationship with the sources of conflict that are within me. It has also given me a greater insight into the reality of separation that exists amongst those who call themselves peace advocates. A lot of these people see the soldiers as the enemy. I realized through my own experience that people seldom pay attention to the suffering of the perpetrator.  However, if we observe carefully, we can see that within each victim there is a perpetrator and within each perpetrator there is a victim.

Vlad: What was it like to be walking through these countries on foot?

That was a long time ago. I can only say now in hindsight that it was incredibly important, and intensely powerful in the sense that it got me into a more intimate connection with how I was affected by my military service. It brought into a sharper focus the full spectrum of the experience of war: the war before the war, the war itself, and the war after the war. It refined my understanding that War is not a finite experience.

The pilgrimage helped me understand the experience in a more certain and clear way.  It made me realize clearly that I don’t have any enemies. The whole notion of enemy is a fabrication. The demonization of the other helped to absolve the roots of war in me. If I want to be an advocate of active non-violence, I have to be awake to the sense of war in me, to the soldier in me. I have to be able to embrace the reality of my duality, understanding that I don’t know the specific experience of anIraqor Iranian soldier, or a Chilean soldier. I don’t know their exact experience, but I do know that I am not different from them. I try not to focus on precise experience, which can create a sense of separation, but rather to see where am I connected, where it is that our experiences intersect.

Vlad: If I understand correctly, you don’t have a permanent home, is this part of your spiritual practice? How did that come about?

Somehow, from the very beginning, it just made sense to me and I did not know why. I feel the critical importance of living a very direct life. Everything that I have read and studied talks about the importance of renunciation through the maturation of spiritual practice, of not being rooted in fame or gain. I want nothing more than to wake up. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. My life is committed to that, because of all the consequences to living in forgetfulness.

My vows – no home, no resources, no saving, no insurance, none of the trappings of security bring more sharply into focus the reality that these sorts of this do not provide security. I am often invited to teach meditation or to work with cultures of violence in support of a desired transformation out of this cycle. The invitations come from all over the world. I do not charge for my services. I do everything for free, but if people want me there, they have to get me there and I don’t fly business class or first class. You chuckle at that, but I can’t tell you how many Buddhist teachers I know who won’t travel any other way than business class or first class.

Vlad: Would you recommend this wandering lifestyle to others who may want to follow in your footsteps?

I think this way of living is the best way in the world. Now, would I recommend this to others? Not my job. People need to find their own way. People have the sense somehow that it is a glamorous life and it is not.

Let’s say somebody embarks on this path. They need to be fully committed to it, because they have no real sense of the its’ demands. I had ideas of what this might be like, but in truth there is no way that I could ever know what this lifestyle is like. That is the wonder of it. It just keeps revealing itself day by day, year by year. I suppose I will live like this until I don’t live. I hear monks and priests talking about retirement, and I go, “are you kidding me?” To be a monk is not a job, this is a life commitment. You don’t retire from this.

Vlad: For many years you have, and still do, live with post traumatic stress, how has meditation and Zen practice affected that?

Living the life of spiritual development has taught me to live in a more conscious relation with myself. That being said, the 4th noble truth tells us that the cure for suffering does not entail the elimination of suffering. It does not mean that suffering goes away. Not in my experience. In my experience it means that I learn to live in a different relationship with my suffering. As a result my suffering does not haunt me in the ways that it did when I was attempting to eliminate this suffering.

I have not slept for more than 2 hours consecutively since 1967. I still don’t. When I was wrapped up in the notion that I had to get my life to conform to certain standards, I was in a place of non-acceptance. Through spiritual practice I was catapulted into a place of awareness and acceptance of my life as it was. I am then encouraged to take responsibility, not pretend that I am someone I’m not, or that there is some fixed way to be in the world.

I think there is a false impression marketed in regards to the issue of feelings and transformation on the spiritual path. Ideas are sold that healing is the absence of suffering, that it means everything goes away and becomes like it always was or is supposed to be. When in reality, there is no supposed to be. There is no fixed place where we can stand firm except in the reality of not knowing, in the reality of impermanence.

Spiritual practice is not an intellectual matter. I can’t think myself into a new way of living. I have to live myself into a new way of thinking.

Vlad: What advice, if any, do you have for vets?

First let me say that I am not in the advice giving business. What I pass along to Veterans is what I have learned and experienced through my own life. That healing is not the

absence of suffering, it is learning to live in a more conscious  relationship with how we have been affected. How we react and respond to the world makes absolute sense based on the nature of our experiences. We can’t ever go back to who we were before our military service, and the very nature of our experiences in war can’t be changed. I pass along the message that healing is possible, if one is willing to give up ideas of what that means. The very heart of healing rests with the acceptance that this is like this because that was like that. I think acceptance grows  out of the desire to accept.  But it must be supported by disciplined spiritual practice.

What I talk about often is the roots of war that are within us. I think the majority of people never consider this reality. It is something foreign to them. I think it is incredibly important to understand that the non-veteran is more responsible for war than the veteran. Because they think they are not responsible. People look to the violence that is external to them, and never reflect on the roots of that violence within them. We must pick up the roots of war within us and commit our lives to the transformation of this violence.

The world is constantly communicating to me, but if I am so set on the answer that I want to hear or what I think I should be hearing, then I loose my capacity to hear. Understanding is not the accumulation of information, but rather how that information manifests itself in real life terms in my life. It is a two-fold process, of asking the question, and being able to listen to the answer.

Vlad Moskovski interview with Megan Cowan, co-found and executive director of programs at Mindful Schools.

Imagine a classroom in a public inner- city elementary school. Perhaps images of loud screaming kids comes to mind. Nope, this is not the classroom we are talking about. In this mindfulness classroom the kids are quiet and contemplative. They are learning to noticing their feelings and observe their thoughts. This is happening in every classroom, spreading like wildfire across many schools, with teachers and staff learning along side the kids. Welcome to the world of Mindful Schools. A non-profit that is integrating mindfulness into education.

Vlad: How did Mindful Schools start, and what was your involvement?

In 2007, at the first Mindfulness in Education Conferences I met Laurie Grossman and Richard Shaknman who had just started a pilot program teaching mindfulness at Emerson Elementary School in Oakland. My whole background is in mindfulness meditation and kids and I have been teaching kids mindfulness in a variety of context for a while and was looking to get more into the public arena. So I went and saw Richard teach at that first school and I think the three of us knew right away, “Oh yeah, a perfect fit”. At the time teaching mindfulness in schools was new and for us it was just an experiment, but it was very evident that the impact was powerful. I taught the second school that we piloted and things just flowed from there. My involvement was from the beginning, but it evolved from us doing a program to us really starting to learn something that was going to become an organization. Since then, there has been a strong surge in the field. In a way, we caught the wave.

Vlad: What inspires you to continue going into schools?

The classroom is why I do this work. If I haven’t been in the classroom in a while then I start to get depressed. I feel like I get more from the kids then they get from me. For me it is such an honor and such a gift to be able to work with them. We work primarily with elementary schools, and I think that age group feels very healing to me. I get a tremendous amount of joy from being able to connect with them, and teach them a skill that I find valuable and see them embrace it and take in on in a way that is improving the way they relate to their life. There is a magic of seeing how they apply mindfulness on their own.

Vlad: Is there an underlying assumption underneath the work that Mindful Schools does – an ideology?

I think it is a fundamental assumption that self awareness does improve the quality of your life. I guess we could say it all comes down to a preventative mental health tool that gives young people the capacity to notice and navigate their experiences and emotions. If you teach that to them while they are young, you are giving them a much stronger foundation from which to approach challenges and difficulties and recognize and appreciate the things that are good and going well in life.

Part of what happens when you are self aware is that you don’t take yourself or your thoughts as personally or as seriously so you can rebound more quickly from being depressed or being caught in an obsessive thought pattern. You can catch it sooner, and you can see it more objectively, and are much more empowered to make choice around those thoughts and emotions.

Vlad: How do you imagine mindfulness will help and change this generation of kids?

I don’t feel like I am operating in this work with an idealized vision of how we are going to change the world. If we are building one interactions to the next then I feel like we are connecting with kids. We are embowering them, giving them a tools that help them navigate through life maybe in a way they did not have before. There is this ripple effect in how they relate to their classmates, their teacher, their families, and the challenges in their life and the decisions that they make. When you follow it out step by step, I guess theoretically we could be looking at a more peaceful world. But you know, it is a big world and there are a lot of people and it is a big jump.

Vlad: How is mindfulness being regarded in the public school system? Do teachers, staff, and principals get it?

We have been, as of this Fall, in just over 50 schools and work with about 14,000 kids all in the Bay Area. I think that I have encountered every single reaction, from incredibly supporting and engaged in the work to not interested or even objecting to the work, but the large majority are really interested and responsive. My general sense is that there is something intuitive that people recognize about the potential benefits of teaching kids mindfulness.

Living in our culture that is moving full speed ahead constantly, people don’t allow themselves any down time to stop and deliberately let their body become still and bring awareness into their physical experience to start to notice the content of their mind. There is a relief in that, just the stopping. We teach the program to the kids and the teachers. And then, over the course of the two months, or however long we are at a school we are preparing the kids to take ownership over leading mindfulness in the classroom.

Vlad: I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about meditation and the brain. Is mindfulness gaining popularity-recognition?

It is hard to say when you are in it, I think it is everywhere! Every time I’m at a staff meeting in a school I ask, “Raise your had if you’ve never heard of mindfulness and usually plenty of hands go up”. You look in any arena, mindfulness based things are popping up everywhere. Most notably in medicine and psychology.

Vlad: Is mindfulness a set of skills or can it also be part of a spiritual path? In other words, what is the relationship between learning mindfulness and spirituality?

I think that ultimately mindfulness still holds a place in both of those worlds. That mindfulness is used as a spiritual practice in deepening ones own understanding and wisdom in a spiritual context, and it will continue to be utilized as a life skills or a mental health tool. When you pull it apart, mindfulness is a universal human capacity to pay attention. It just so happens that certain contemplative traditions have utilized that capacity with spiritual means. And it is found most obviously in Buddhism, but looking at oneself in a contemplative way is found within all contemplative traditions. I think we are really fortunate that it got such a methodical laid out structure in Buddhism. That is what makes it really accessible.

Vlad: Do you think anything is lost in taking it out of the Buddhist or spiritual context?

I think it depends on what your intention is. I think there is this concern that Buddhists are co-opting education, they are trying to sneak in the back door or something. For Mindful Schools, our intention is to give kids tools that help them navigate their world more easily and that is really sincere. And in that way, I absolute do not think anything is lost. You don’t need a religious context for that at all.

And then I can say for people, for myself, that learning mindfulness when I was young as a life skills would not have been enough for me. I wanted something more out of it and I like that there is a place to pursue that.

For more info and to get involved check out: http://mindfulschools.org/

An interview with Saraswathi Devi by Vlad Moskovski

In a large gymnasium on the UC Berkeley campus, every Friday dozens of students and people with mild to severe disabilities gather to be in community to practice yoga. The lead instructor is Saraswathi Devi: tall, with long flowing white hair, she has the air of someone that is comfortable being in charge while being completely present with an open heart and helping hands. Being in the class fills me with a sense of gratitude and appreciation and thus inspired I decided to interview Saraswathi about her work.

Vlad: How did you get started teaching yoga to people with disabilities?

I would say that there is an underlying spiritual reason. Having been born blind in one eye with related neurological and biochemical disabilities that caused learning issues and other challenges, I was naturally inclined from earliest childhood to embrace anyone who was suffering or challenged.

I began to study with my teacher, Swami Vignanananda, in 1974. He authorized me to teach in 1976. At the Prana Yoga Centers, we teach asana, pranayama, meditation and yoga philosophy. In the very early days in the West, asana classes were not as compartmentalized as they are today. We had 20 something’s, seniors, pregnant women, children – everyone in one class – but, soon enough we were teaching classes at all levels and offering pre and postnatal yoga, children’s classes, programs for educators and psychologists and more. It continues to evolve.

Around 1988 or so, the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society invited me to a workshop given by someone living with MS who was a yoga teacher. I was inspired and encouraged by what he had developed, especially because it was so similar to the adaptations I was doing with some of our students whose needs were not being met in the standard ways. After that, the MS Society invited me to do workshops for them. The disabilities work expanded from there. A group of people with MS asked me to teach a weekly class and that lead to being invited in 1995 to teach at UC Berkeley, where we created a substantial program for people living with many varieties of physical and developmental disabilities. Also, I teach a similar class at the new Ed Roberts Campus and therapeutic yoga at Yogalayam/Prana Yoga Center, where I continue to teach in the classical manner – from asana to philosophy. Through Yogis on Wheels, our sister non-profit, we’ve begun serving disabled children in South India.

When many people encounter someone who can’t walk or who speaks with impediment or maybe can’t speak at all, whose body or face might be differently configured, who drives a wheelchair wired with all kinds of equipment, they usually don’t see a person in front of them. Instead of seeing someone with thoughts and feelings, a mind, a personality, they see a disease or a mobility device. In these classes, I’m interested in dissolving all such conventional societal membranes. We offer instant love and respect to very student who comes through the door – no matter who, no matter what. That process of entry into the spirit of any and every person fascinates and thrills me. A disabled person deserves that kind of communication as much as anyone. When I’m rolling on the floor with someone who has cerebral palsy or toning into the ear of someone with a serious brain injury or holding someone in Cobra Pose, while pressing my fingers deeply into acupressure points along their spine or applying Reiki energy to the muscles of their back, I feel that I am breathing right into the heart of creation with that person. For me, offering yoga to another is a very intimate spiritual communication more than it is a physical practice. I love doing that, being in that. I love the service of that.

Vlad: Did Swami-ji, your Guru, do this kind of work?

No. Not disabilities yoga per se. Swami-ji was a great yogi in every sense of that word. Those of us who worked very closely with him received plenty of instruction in the physical skills, but the training was even more a very intensive spiritual guidance that was designed to awaken in each of us a fullness of character, a commitment to selfless service and an evolving Inner awareness. So, Swami-ji expected us to take the teachings and share them widely, telling us, “stay faithful to the practice, keep your balance and you will find your way.” That was a great invitation to me. I eventually found myself working from childbirth to the deathbed and everywhere else in between.

Vlad: The people who come to these classes at UC Berkeley – what do you think yoga does for them?

I can’t speak for them, but I can speak from what I observe and what they tell us. Each of the students has different needs and concerns, so the benefits are different. Some examples are improved circulation, loosening of joints, reduction in pain and stiffness, increased strength and balance, better digestion, improved sleep, increased ability to handle stress, enhanced self –esteem. Some of the students have progressively advancing disease. Progress may be retarded in some cases. But, the psychological effects may be more important. Some of the students tell us the class is the highlight of their week. Others say the class in one of the few places in the world where they feel loved and respected. Most of them acquire more joy and satisfaction in living. You can see this in their faces over time. Most of the students have been coming to class for years. Many have become my dear friends. There is a lot of laughter. We have fun.

Vlad: How is this class physically different from a regular yoga class?

Picture a room full of people with very limited mobility lying or sitting on the floor or propped against the wall, each one supported by two to six helpers, being held in yoga postures.

We make liberal use of the usual yoga props – mats, blankets, blocks, bolsters, straps, sandbags, eye pillows, chairs, benches, walls and an inversion table. We also use light free weights and massage tools. The students practice as independently or interactively as necessary. Most of them require a very high level of intervention. There are usually 24 to 28 students enrolled. They range in age from early 20’s to early 70’s. They live with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, multiple systems atrophy, advanced arthritis, spinal cord injury, brain trauma, severe birth disorders, down syndrome and more. Some cannot speak, think or see conventionally. Some are challenged psychologically.

We have two assistant instructors, a few senior helpers and about 60 volunteer assistants. Many of our volunteers receive UC academic credit. The training is mostly on the job, but we also provide out- of-class workshops. Our approach combines modified techniques from Yoga Therapy and Thai Yoga Massage, itself a hybrid between held postures and acupressure. To that, we add a little bodywork, range of motion, muscle resistance and the gentle use of free weights. And, at the beginning and ending of class, we practice breathing, meditation and visualization techniques.

What is unique about this class is the generous number of people working with each individual student, allowing us to bring the students into positions that would never otherwise be available to them. The more helpers, the more fine-tuned and detailed the experience we’re able to offer. We hold the postures for as long as possible, sometimes for 5 to 10 minutes or longer. It takes time to move through thick barriers such as edema, spasticity, neurological damage, numbness, weakness, pain, fear. We fold, stretch, swing, rotate, twist, balance, and hang upside down. We emphasize working with each student as a whole person, rather than simply responding to a clinical picture. While we get to know the details of their bodies’ strengths, weaknesses and needs, even more importantly, we come to know our students’ minds and hearts.

The helpers derive at least as many riches from this experience as the students do. The class has social and political implications. Most of our assistants find their lives changed markedly by learning to unhesitatingly respect and value persons they previously thought were so different from themselves, only to find that the disabled are people just like themselves.

Vlad: What lessons have you learned from doing this work?

I learn a lot about how a person with disabilities copes with everyday living. Some of our students can’t feed or dress themselves and almost none of them can drive a car. Using a computer requires multiple adaptations. They need help with an infinite number of details the conventionally-abled take for granted. Everything has to be done at a much slower pace and with much greater complexity. There are accessibility, financial and housing issues. Health care provisions are limited and tedious. There is psychological strain within families and between friends. There is social and political prejudice to contend with every day. I am inspired by the incredibly beautiful humanity of these students – by a thousand qualities I see in them – their intelligence, perseverance, patience, kindness, cheerfulness, compassion.

I continue to learn about managing a lot of people in subtle detail, each one with unique and changing requirements, in a large room, all at once. We are attempting to provide each of the students a private lesson experience in a large group setting. I try to apply this skill to many other situations. There is a lot in the yoga teachings about keeping oneself very well balanced in health, perceptions and behaviors. An aspect of that is to move gracefully through certain periods of dis-equilibrium into periods of greater equilibrium. This class, with its moment to moment shape-shifting, its many bodies and personalities, is a very good place in which to fine-tune that skill. Filled with equanimity, we are free to love easily.

Vlad: Do you have a story about one of the students you would like to share?

Brendan, about 30 years old and living with cerebral palsy, arrived in class about three years ago. Always quiet and shy, he was not easy to get to know. Speech issues made some of us wonder about his level of cognition. One day recently, he said”I’ve written a poem. Would it be all right if I read it to the class?” I said, “Are you kidding? Absolutely, please!”

The next week, Brendan came to class and I asked, “did you bring the poem?” He said, “Oh, I forgot, but I think I can speak it from memory.” We gave Brendan the floor and he recited the poem, but only after he gave us a fifteen minute introduction as to why he had written it. Most of us had only heard him say maybe five words in a row.

The basic idea was,”I am a fully grown adult and I still don’t understand why I was put on earth this way. I may never know. Society treats me like a lesser being. I get very angry, because I don’t deserve this. Much of the time, I don’t feel comfortable where I am, although I do feel comfortable when I’m with my family and friends who love and respect me. And, I do feel comfortable in my acting class. We were all thinking “acting class? Wow!” Then he said, “and you guys are like family to me. I feel safe expressing to you for the first time these deep parts of how I feel. By then several of us were crying. After the recitation, Brendan said, “would anybody like to ask a question?” Here is Brendan, who kind of slips through the cracks wherever he goes, invisible not just because of the cerebral palsy and the wheelchair, but because he is so reserved and quiet. And here we all are, raising our hands and asking him about his life and where he went to school. At the end, I said, “Brendan, you can see the tears in these eyes. Look at these faces. Every single person in this room will remember this moment for the rest of their lives, because you shared your truth with us. That is moving enough, but you also spoke for others with similar experience. And that has great meaning for people across the globe.”

For more info on Saraswathi and to visit her classes go to: http://www.yogalayam.org/

An Interview with Richard Whittaker conducted by Vlad Moskovski

The world is full of restaurants where people come to sit, to enjoy each other’s company, and of course to eat. Karma Kitchen is a little different. As one of the more public projects of Charity Focus, Karma Kitchen is a restaurant that offers individuals the possibility to be a server one day, and a guest the next. In this radical place, there is more laughing, more cheer, and more spontaneity than in most restaurants. Here one can come alone and leave feeling a part of a big family and an even bigger ideal – to live a life based on the generosity and service to others.

Vlad: How did Karma Kitchen begin and what is the basic premise behind it?

Karma Kitchen is an experiment in generosity. On the outside it looks like a regular restaurant, but the atmosphere is different; it’s friendlier, there is more human connection in the air and it leads to an elevated and festive atmosphere. It’s really quite wonderful and no two Sundays are the same. Each week the staff people are all volunteers except the cooks who work for the restaurant and get compensated.

Part of the idea is that this is a special experience for the volunteers. As a volunteer, you are serving the food, but you really want to have the feeling that you are connecting with people. In this attentive openness towards a customer, you might learn that someone has just come to town, or they are on their way somewhere. Maybe someone wants to sing a song, or an anniversary has just happened. There’s any number of things that can be revealed, and if something has been discovered about one of the guests that might be shared with the whole restaurant, the waiter might check with the guest and alert the maitre d’. So there’s this additional dimension where all those who are volunteering are alert to hidden possibilities.

Of course, for the volunteer, there’s also the experience of just trying to meet the basic demands of being a good waiter or dishwasher. It just so happens that at the restaurant [Taste of Himalayas], which is where Karma Kitchen is now, there’s a fellow named Juan who is the most extraordinary dishwasher. One time, as a volunteer, I was assigned that task. I was muddling along as best I could wrestling the dirty dishes, spraying them, and loading them into this commercial machine. There were two of us and sometimes we would fall behind. Then Juan would sweep in. We’d have to get out of his way because Juan is known as “The Hurricane.” Seemingly throwing dishes in every direction and making a big racket, but never breaking anything, he’d just completely take care of the whole mess. In the time that it would take me, or any ordinary person, to do 3 or 4 dishes, he’s done 50. It was really amazing.

Watching Juan showed me how much we miss in this culture by overlooking the maestros that exist in every field of endeavor. We celebrate the maestro who is the conductor of the orchestra, but no one like Juan gets celebrated. I watched Juan wash dishes. I actually watched very carefully, and I saw that he had mastered something to such a degree that it deserved my real feeling of respect and honor. So Karma Kitchen is a place in which one has all kinds of fresh impressions, like my impression of Juan. I think it’s because the basic premise is novel and unexpected. It’s really an exploration of what happens when you actually try to act from generosity and service.

Vlad: Why do you think it’s so popular? There is always a line out the door.

Well, you go there and it’s really fun. It’s really rewarding. I’ve met people and had some astonishing experiences as a guest. For instance, I met this woman, Susan Schaller, and heard her story—which is truly amazing. I could not believe I was sitting across from a person with a story that is the equivalent of the Helen Keller story. That’s my most dramatic experience in meeting someone new there. But people love it because it’s really enlivening.

Vlad: So everything is run by volunteers, what do you think motivates people to volunteer their time on a Sunday afternoon to work in a restaurant serving food and washing dishes?

If your wife has been trying to get you to wash dishes for years, and you’ve been resisting that and now you’re volunteering to wash dishes, that’s strange, isn’t it? [laughs] It seems that people are drawn to the possibility of giving something instead of just concentrating to getting something. And those who already have experienced that shift from “myself and what I want” to a focus on giving and sharing with others know the special feeling that can happen. The thing about Karma Kitchen is that it’s like a little laboratory where people are experimenting and trying to put something new into action. I think that’s what draws people. There may be a few people who just go there to get a meal because they don’t have any money and that’s ok, too, because often they end up coming back to volunteer and serve as well.

Vlad: Is the idea of a pay it forward restaurant spreading? I hear about other locations?

Karma Kitchen has been giving rise to some copies of itself. I think there is one in DC, in Chicago, and another one or two in the process of being born. Charity Focus projects have had a tendency to spread. Karma Kitchen is one of them, and there are several others. I think there’s a widespread interest in service and a feeling among a lot of young people that there has to be a different model from the selfish, capitalistic attitude of “I’m going to get mine and the hell with you.” Many people feel very deeply that something has to change, and that this change has to be in the direction of some kind of service to a greater good.

Charity Focus projects are like pure versions of this. They’re pretty radical about that, about carrying out their experiments without any focus on the bottom line—without counting the pennies. The interest is in a kind of selfless service. In something that is truly generous.

Vlad: So, they don’t worry about the bottom line?

The truth is that there has to be a certain amount of income or such projects would not keep working. It’s not as though money is ignored. But it’s not worried about—and Karma Kitchen has been more than supporting itself. It almost seems as if there’s a law, that if something is given with certain kind of purity—if something is truly generous—it always causes a reaction of gratitude. And when you feel grateful, the impulse is to give back. So the bottom line takes care of itself.

With Karma Kitchen, there’s not going to be a big worry. If in fact, people were not paying it forward, they would just close it. I don’t think there’s a big commitment to, “We’ve got to keep this going.” Instead, the attitude is “Let’s try this and see if it works. Let’s see what happens.” In Charity Focus’ philosophy, there is a willingness to fail.

Vlad: I ask the question about the bottom line, because I see this transition happening from a more capitalist model, at least around here in the Bay Area, to being more gift economy, and of course it brings up concerns in those that don’t have complete faith in generosity or in this law that you speak of.   

I think you have to verify it. If someone gives something to me, and if it’s a real act of generosity, I know how I feel. I know my impulse and response is that of gratitude and the wish to give back and reciprocate. Karma Kitchen is verifiably functioning. The money comes in—although it may fail in the future. The core people in Charity Focus, while they are very upbeat and full of hopefulness, have not abandoned their critical judgment. They are all very bright people, who look very carefully at things. They are going to be realistic, but they’re also capable of making these unusual leaps and trying things out. It’s how things can actually be tested rather than just thought about.

Vlad: For me, it really comes down to having faith in something that is very pure, Charity Focus is very pure around their intentions.

It would seem to me that purity is an ideal. In moments one might experience a pure impulse, and the next moment one may say, “Oh, I see how I could benefit from that, and I want to benefit from that.” There are moments when something actually pure might act through one, but to think that one can be pure—I would be extremely suspicious of that. For a lot of Charity Focus people, Gandhi is a great exemplar. There is a saying of Gandhi’s that, “if you wait until you are pure before you begin to serve, you will never begin to serve.” You have to start wherever you are and then maybe by following the path of service, you will move in the direction of more purity.

For more info visit:
KarmaKitchen (US), CharityFocus (incubator), DailyGood (news), Karma Tube (videos), HelpOthers (kind acts), Conversations (artists), iJourney (wisdom), MovedByLove (India), CFSites (technical)

A conversation with Nipun Mehta conducted by Vlad Moskovski

For the last fourteen years, Nipun Mehta and a team of dedicated volunteers have been revolutionizing what it means to embrace generosity and bring it into daily life. CharityFocus has inspired thousands of people around the world and include projects such as: Smile Cards, Karma Kitchen, Karma Tube, and many more. CharityFocus is an experiment in the joy of giving and together this community works from the intent to “be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Vlad: Is there an underlying philosophy to CharityFocus that informs everything you do?

I think one of the core underlying values is that everybody has something to give. This goes against the grain of our dominant culture. Even early on when I was giving, people would tell me, “You have to have something before you can give.  Go out and get some money and then you can give.”  But that is a reductionist view of giving. Yesterday, I was talking to a woman who is really engaged with the deaf community. A typical response of our dominant culture is, “Those guys really need to learn how to talk and communicate” and she is saying, “Maybe that’s not the answer. Maybe they have different gifts.”

Another friend was telling me a story of talking to a homeless guy who treated him to a coffee. It was so profound for that fellow to *receive* that cup of coffee from a homeless man.  And he does it every time they meet.  Someone did something really nice for that homeless man once and he was never able to thank them but now he wants to pay it forward. Underneath this coffee is a certain kind of inner transformation. That’s one of the fundamental pillars of CharityFocus, that in any situation, you can manifest a heart of service.

Vlad: What is the connection of generosity and spiritual growth?

Before you practice any act of kindness you have to have an intent and our capacity to deal with the subsequent thoughts is what manifests spiritual insight.  Regardless of what happens at the external level of  impact, that inner transformation and insight is ours to keep. This is why sages say that it doesn’t matter if you give a million dollars or a penny — what matters is *how* you are giving it. And when you approach it in that way, generosity is a great catalyst for spiritual growth.

All of a sudden life looks very different. Everywhere you are trying to say, “Where can I give?” Even if you can’t give anything, the fact that you had that thought carries the potential for inner transformation. To be generous you have to recognize interconnectedness between you and the other. First step along this generosity path is a sense of sacrifice or even faith.  If I give something away, I’ll have less of it, so you need to figure out a compelling reason for you to suspend your selfish tendencies.  The second step is to realize, “Oh, when I give, I actually receive.” The third step, after you’ve done a lot of giving and receiving is to see it as a dance — sometimes you may give a lot, sometimes you may receive a lot. It does not matter, you are just doing a dance and you can’t dance unless you let go.

Vlad: There is a big focus on doing small acts rather than big ones. I think the quote you share from Mother Theresa is, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” Do you think this empowers people?

Surely.  If we look at the world through the lens of inner transformation, it really does not matter how big or small our act is.  What matters most is that we are in the space of inner generosity. When we continue doing ‘small acts with great love’ and we hold that space within us, it starts to shift our deepest sub-conscious from a me-orientation to a we-orientation.  Our culture tends to admire those who do big things and we often create halos around them but really that just points to our own insecurities about sub-consciously wanting to be powerful like them.  When we let-go of that and start being we-centered, those patterns come undone.  If you really break it down, all those people in positions of leverage are just doing the same small acts that you and I might be doing.  They might have come together in an elegant way or in a way that is very visible or has created a dramatic impact, but that is just happenstance.  If we get caught up in that, we lose the capacity to be still and hence to love.  So the keyword in “small thing with great love” is love; small is all there is, but it is love that shifts our orientation and empower us.

Vlad: What I hear is an element of humility.

Gandhi used to say, “I am less than dirt” and a lot of people look at that and say, “Oh, he is so humble.” He is not trying to be humble — he is actually lower than dirt. We are all dirt that has come together for a short period of time and that is going to disintegrate again. We are constantly integrating and disintegrating and in that whole unfolding, our highest capacity is to be an instrument of a Nature and our lowest capacity is to be an instrument of our ego.  Ego leads to separation and isolation and everything seems like an uphill battle. But when we are instruments of nature, when we see ourselves as we really are — lots of molecules arising and passing in each moment — and become catalysts for something much larger than the ego.  In its early stages, that creates a sense of humility, but over time it becomes a way to be natural, to be inter-connected with life and to be a servant of a constant emergence.

Vlad: How has meditation influenced you?

Without meditation, I would be in a very different space and CharityFocus would have taken a very different trajectory. Meditation has given me a view of my inner landscape, of my mind, and that’s been priceless.  It shows me that how I’m aware of a very small portion of my mind and yet each of my daily decisions are influenced by my subconscious parts.  That’s a jarring insight.  It means we’re basically throw darts in the dark and hoping to find happiness.  People smoke even when they know it’ll cause them intense suffering.  Why do we do it?  Because of the heavy yet subtle conditioning of our mind.  It pleases our senses in the short-term, so we are taken by it.  We do that with all our subtle habits too.  Meditation, then, helps you see that clearly.  And not just see it, but also realize the depth of that problem and ultimately start to unravel it.  Its very humbling endeavor [laughs] but also invaluable.
Even more troublesome, for someone like me, is that the problems that meditation uncovers aren’t going to be solved by putting them on your todo list.  Getting milk from the store is easier, creating revolutions is easier, changing other people is easier … than changing yourself at the depth of your being.  That takes a lot.  The real revolution is the inner revolution.   When we serve and allow “what is” to do its natural dance, that’s a revolutionary act.  Sometimes things work out just the way we want them, sometimes they work out exactly opposite how we want them.  It’s all good.  We have to just stop putting a spin on it.  It’s not positive thinking, not negative.   The problem is thinking it self.  These are simple things to say and very hard to put into practice. [laughs]

Vlad: What is the direction you see CharityFocus going?
Really, the main thing I’d like CharityFocus to do is stay true to its values.  With that foundational strength, it’ll be fun to see how we can get creative with the power of inner transformation and shift our cultural narrative towards greater generosity. For example, after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there was no looting.  People were civil.  That was not the work of some nonprofit organization telling everyone, “Ok, please be good.  Don’t fight.”  No.  It happened because of their culture, because of the 5000-year plan of their ancestors.  In 5,000 years, people are not going to remember a building or an organization; they are going to remember values and if those values are aligned with our basic human nature, and in way that generosity clearly is, then its going to survive.  So I hope that CharityFocus continues to work a 5,000 year plan and continue to plant seeds for tress we will never see.

For more info visit:
CharityFocus (incubator), DailyGood (news), Karma Tube (videos), HelpOthers (kind acts), Conversations (artists), iJourney (wisdom), KarmaKitchen (US), MovedByLove (India), CFSites (technical)

An interview with Sean Feit conducted by Vlad Moskovski

It is a lovely and warm Friday evening as I walk into the back studio of Yoga Mandala to attend a ceremony done on the first Friday of every month. No cult here, but yes there are some intriguing symbols and plenty of chanting and singing involved. It’s called a kirtan and it is the embodiment of spiritual devotional singing and chanting in the Hindu tradition that is at the heart of one major branch of yoga called Bhakti Yoga. Blissed out after the amazing evening, I decided to interview the charismatic and wildly funny conductor of the kirtan – Sean Feit.

Vlad: You lead kirtan, essentially devotional singing, how did you get started with that?

Sean: I had been doing long Buddhist retreats for many years, and at a certain point in the unfolding of the practice it became clear that another kind of medicine was needed. I noticed that one of my strengths was faith, and connected with that energy. It is not very emphasized in the Vipassana tradition that I was practicing in at the time. But I had faith in the process, and in the possibility of guidance coming from wherever it comes from.

To anthropomorphize that guidance made sense to my heart. The forms, images, and stories – the human-shaped archetypes of the divinities really worked for me more than a dry, “pure” wisdom-all-the-time kind of approach. I’d been doing yoga for a decade and really loved the yoga deities.

I started to connect with the forms of the deities, and because I was already a musician kirtan was easy and I started doing it. I grew up Catholic, and really like the rituals, I really like being in relationship with something, but didn’t want to be part of a church. But devotion and faith still turns out to work for me. So I’ve transferred my affection to the blue guy and the monkey – somehow those images just resonate.

Vlad: What is your favorite part of leading a kirtan, what is that sweet moment that you savor?

Sean: The moment, like in any practice, is when you are actually feeling something. When I am singing to somebody and things line up and I get it for a second. It’s a little like the way they say you have to repeat a mantra 100,000 times because you only actually have to say it once but most of those times you weren’t really there. I like that about bhakti – its tolerance of endless failure. When you get it it’s really sweet. It doesn’t ask you to be perfect in any way. The moment is whenever I am actually available for it: I’m singing, or other people are singing, and the heart is just there.

Vlad: Devotional chanting is considered a major part of Bhakti Yoga, so what is Bhakti yoga?

Sean: To me, and this is a very idiosyncratic definition, bhakti is something like permission. The spiritual world is so full of methods, prescriptions, and things you have to do a certain way! If you don’t do the exercises right they don’t work. Bhakti is the part of the path that takes you as you are, and whatever works for you – do that. The heart of the practice is just the feeling of being connected. It’s different from asana where there are lots of things to do, and meditation with lots of things to not do. Bhakti is really simple, really sweet. What do you love? How you get lit up?  Just do that!

Vlad: So what is the textbook definition of Bhakti Yoga?

Sean: Heart opening practices like mantras, and thinking about the wisdom stories, connecting with aspects of whatever you call Divine, with what makes you feel connected. One of the things that seems important to me about bhakti is what Krishna says in the Gita: all the paths work, but the bhakti path is easier, because it gives you a form to focus on.  It’s not absolute truth, of course.  There is no Krishna, no blue guy, no monkey God, but thinking about Krishna or Jesus or whoever you like does something. It’s what I call a skillful use of duality. You take on the dual, understanding that ultimately it’s fictional. If I already understood that my self is fictional I would not need to do that. But as long as I think I exist, it may be helpful to think that the Divine exists as something that I can have a relationship with.

Within the bhakti tradition, you reflect on Kali, or Krishna, or whoever is your favorite form and as that reflection matures you let go of the separation, you take the deity into your body and you feel like you are Krishna or Kali. In bhakti yoga losing yourself in the devotion brings deep happiness that leads toward wisdom, love, and clear seeing.

Vlad: How is Bhakti path different from the traditional yoga as we know it in the West – in theory and practice?

Sean: Yoga in the West, through some brilliant marketing maneuvers, has become a self-help practice that is often little more than physical exercise. Bhakti tends to look more like Pentecostal Christianity: just sing all day and lose yourself in loving! But really get involved in your worship, really adore God!

It’s strange and interesting to have public yoga classes that are essentially all about physicality and the cultivation of body, but within this near-universal focus on body there are tidbits of philosophy and spiritual affirmation – teachers play Sanskrit mantras and chants in the background. I say it as if I am critiquing it, but I do it too!

It is an interesting recipe: 90 percent exercise, 5 percent rest and 5 percent affirmation. It’s come a long way from Indian yoga, and certainly a long way from the roots of yoga in the Tantras and earlier meditation traditions, but Western yoga has lead to Indian music and Indian mantras sung by Westerners – and it’s a signal of authentic spiritual seeking in the Bay Area and throughout the Western world. It’s problematic – colonial, orientalist, and appropriation – but that’s how the symbols are working right now, and the amazing thing is that it really works for people. It has good effects, as we get out of our heads and into our bodies. We could all use some exercise, after all, and endorphins make you susceptible to suggestion, so we are in this open state and our teachers – who are kind and well-intentioned – plant in us information about wellbeing and freedom.

Vlad: Would you change this in any way?

Sean: I like teaching classes sometimes that are not within that model. I would love to teach a regular Saturday morning class that was an hour of asana, with no music and just focused silence, then an hour of sitting in silence, and I’m never sure where to put the kirtan piece – maybe after.  Certainly some chanting in there somewhere.

The sitting thing is so interesting because across the tracks in the Buddhist world, total beginners will come to a sitting group and sit for 45 minutes regularly. They just deal. But in the yoga world, the standard form is movement, and nobody can sit still. Its partially because in the Buddhist world, discomfort is considered grist for the mill, whereas in the yoga world it is considered a sign that you are doing it wrong. I’m working on bringing those two worlds together.

Vlad: If somebody was going to choose a yoga path – what advice would you give them on how to do that?

Sean: I would say, “who are you? What are your strengths and temperament?” “Do a practice that mostly relies on your strengths, but that will open into your weaknesses. If you absolutely can’t sit still for one minute, start doing a fast vinyasa practice for a couple of years and do that until you can sit still.”

One of the things Buddha admitted was that yoga, like spiritual paths in general, was not for everyone. The Buddha actually considered not teaching after he attained enlightened because the thing he realized was too subtle for most people to understand. The story goes that Sacca, the king of the gods, overheard him thinking this, and materialized before him saying, “Blessed one you are wrong, there are beings with little dust in their eyes who would be able to understand the Dharma that you teach.”

Yoga – by which I mean an integrated practice that includes meditation and spiritual inquiry – is suitable for people with relatively little dust in their eyes, but folks with a lot of dust may need something else. There are so many ways that the psyche gets traumatized, and may be not available for deconstruction, and yoga at its heart is a deconstruction practice. It’s a practice that challenges who and what you think you are. A lot of us are not ready for it.  But the asana practice on its own – and this is how yoga is most often taught in the West – can be an appropriate doorway, because we can engage with it on many levels, including just as physical conditioning.

There is a strong movement to bring the physical practice of yoga asana to a lot of different populations, and in a way I think that runs parallel to the way yoga in general has become more widely adopted. It speaks to our level of inner health. That actually before we do anything really deep, we have to be in our bodies and be here! The physical practice of asana is right for our culture, for the amount of stress and disassociation so many of us carry. It is then a practice that is right also for bringing to a wider populations and it does seem like it can really help.  And when folks hunger for more, the deep river of the tradition is right there.

Interview with Marty Fleetwood conducted by Vlad Moskovski

Modern yoga in America has become an icon for fitness, health and spirituality. In addition to these varied perspectives is it possible to use yoga to bring people together in a positive environment to facilitate emotional healing? For the last few years, Marty Fleetwood and a team of dedicated teachers have been doing just that by bringing yoga to homeless shelters though a collaboration between Homebase, Boss, and the Piedmont Yoga Studio.

Vlad: What moved you to want to share yoga with this community?

When I started working as a lawyer in the 80′s homelessness as a public interest problem was very confounding. So going out and interviewing homeless people and realizing they were just people. Bad things that could happened to anybody happened to them and they lived at an economic level at a time in our country where you could not hold on to your housing and there wasn’t cheaper housing to go to with the resources that you had. And that really enraged me.

When I took the yoga teacher training and was thinking about teaching I talk with the director and owner of Piedmont Yoga Studio (PYS), where I did my teacher training, about developing some kind of  piedmont yoga community programs. Teachers could go out of the studio into the community and teach. Piedmont Yoga Studio was all for it and they said they would sponsor us, so we got PYS, Boss, and Homebase where I work all to bond together and we began in fall of 2008.

Vlad: How does yoga help homeless? Does it address directly any of the underlying challenges and issues that homeless people deal with?

One of the foundation research pieces done by Stanford on homelessness was to answer what leads to one person or family becoming homeless when an equally poor person or family does not. A big differentiators is whether you have an effective social network and relationships to other people that support you in life. It is pretty basic. One of the key things we are doing is creating a place to have a positive common experience with other people. It’s nice to see the bonding among some of the participants. Chat on your way in, chat on your way out, maybe develop some relationships. It is a healthy way to connect to other people.

If you think about what happens in a yoga class, this a fun way to learn to follow directions, show up in life and learn how to be in a common endeavor with people arriving at the same place. Clients say, that we have given them tools to calm themselves, less hurried, stronger – its giving them something to do that allows them to feel good about themselves.

Vlad: What have you learned about teaching homeless?

We have found the space that works best is as close as possible to where people sleep. If we can do yoga right near there that’s much better than trying to transport anybody anywhere.

We have a schedule that is three weeks on and two weeks off. In the beginning we had graduation ceremonies, we would give out certificates. Right from the beginning we had a soft journaling for feedback. The goal of the journals was not feedback for the teachers of the program, it was for the participants to be self-reflective. We are helping people be responsible for their own wellness. The program is not about just transferring resources, but building capacity and knowledge within your body to control yourself. Self awareness leads to self control and if you can control yourself, you can control the environment that you are in.

Another feature we evolved is the three teachers rule – one teacher and two assistants. It works really well because you can never predict who’s coming into the room. We keep our minds open and the door open – everybody is welcome.

We went out of our way to figure out nametags that you could clip to the mat. It is all part of how boss creates a welcoming environment in many of its programs. You create transparency around things without requiring people to remember, there is no anxiety or expectation. It’s a conscious action to give everybody space to feel included.

Vlad: What keeps you coming back to teach more classes, is there any particular sweet moment in class that you look forward to?

I like teaching yoga. I particularly like teaching people that don’t have rich opportunities in life because they are much more engaged with what they are doing, they appreciate the honor and opportunity. There comes an understanding that the adjustment that you making on somebody is the friendliest touch that body has had in six months and the most neutral non- demanding touch. It makes you realize your presence is a gift to other people and that gift may carry them a long way. What could be better than that. Serving people who appreciative the service.

Vlad: What is unique or special about working with this population?

The fabulous thing about this population, is that they are verbal and vocal. During class there is a lively sense of camaraderie and community about what is happening in the room.

The other thing we do that isn’t part of a regular yoga program is we read them a story. A lot of the feedback we got in the class is they love being read to. It creates a safe space and makes them feel like nursery school naptime.

We always do pranayama, both at the beginning and at the end of class. We do it that way to bring them into the room, to help them understand that this is a relaxing space. To connect their mind to breath and then slowly start doing movement that connects their breath to their body’s movement. Students use that a lot to deal with anger.

Vlad: How has sharing yoga with homeless changed your life?

It has made me absolutely appreciate the privilege of being alive and the blessing of having a body that does what I want it to do most of the time. It allows me to be just a human being with other human beings. They don’t come with a lot of expectations and they seem to appreciate what we have to give.

This being in community with them is what teaching yoga has given me. I just show up and say, “hey I’m just a yoga teacher, I’ve come to where you guys are sleeping tonight to teach you yoga.” It just makes me feel good and alive!

Links:

Piedmont Yoga Studio

http://piedmontyoga.com/

Home Base – The Center for Common Concerns

http://www.homebaseccc.org/

Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS)

http://www.self-sufficiency.org/