The practice of seva helps us realize through our own experience that we are inter-connected in ways that reach far beyond age, race, class, and material wealth. This practice helps cultivate space and opening of the heart to give unconditionally. The challenge is to reduce the illusion of separation between self and other. What is the difference between you and the homeless person sitting on the sidewalk? Consider that person may have been just like you. Situations change quickly and here they are, without a roof over their head. Just a small turn of chance resulted in that person’s unfortunate situation. On first glance you may see a person with old or filthy clothing, perhaps in need of a bath, on the outside they appear disheveled. Look deeper. What is the expression on their face? Have they not experienced joy and sorry, love, and laughter just like you? Look deeper. What is the desire in their heart? Deep within every person is the desire to be happy, to be safe, to be free from fear and anger? Do you share this in common also? Look deeper. Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see the light within them? Who are they beneath the societal norms, behind the mask of a person with thoughts, memories, and habits? We are all divine. Infinitely capable of the greatest gifts of love and joy despite the harshest of realities.

In doing this work, certain qualities are cultivated that shape us. Practice humility, control the inner ego of striving and boasting. Be simple in your thinking and find solutions that are straightforward. Balance kindness and be firm when necessary coming from a place of love. You don’t have to be perfect to practice seva, know that you are ready anytime with whatever tools and resources you have available to you. Karma Yoga invites us to adjust our lofty standards and the harsh expectations that block the heart from opening and contort the eye from seeing clearly. We must forgive others that may have done us wrong in order to face new situations without resentment, greed, anger or delusion.

Make no mistake, this is not charity work! The practice of seva is as much for our own benefit as it is for those that we hope to serve. Seva is not about solving the world’s problems, rather, it is the practice of opening ourselves up to be available for the universe to use us! To be a humble tool for positive peaceful change. And holding this, in every moment can we focus our mind and heart on the thought, “How can I be most useful, how can I serve the greater good for all of humanity”. That is the greatest and most selfless thought we can have. It is this thought that liberates our egos and frees us from the grips of contempt and fear. This thought will never bring you suffering because even if hardship befall you, nature and the universe will witness that you are dedicating yourself to help all beings and you will be supported, you will be upheld and provided for. There is almost infinite inner and outer power available to those who giving of themselves to the world and ask nothing in return. Give of yourself and you shall have everything.

To practice of seva is to connect with people and look deeper. To look at the world through this lens is to embody an experiential mode of being that encourages growth of empathy and the practice of generosity. Consider practicing seva with everyone. Try not to limiting your practice within the confines of your comfort zone. Be like the water jug, full and ready to give unconditionally nourishing whoever is thirsty.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broad concerns of all humanity.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

An excerpt from Andrew Harvey’s forward to Bhagavad Gita Annotated & Explained

I believe that the whole of humanity is now in the thick of a battle whose outcome will determine the fate of the planet. This battle is between those forces of Life that want to see us living in harmony with the creation, inspired by divine love, and so able to re-create our devastated world with the powers of the Divine itself, and the forces of death – of ignorance, pride and greed – that have brought us to the moment where we have almost destroyed Nature and polluted the world’s min and heart with violence and materialist vision of humanity. The destiny of this vision is so reductive that it threatens us all with despair and meaninglessness at a moment when hope and resolve are crucial. This tremendous battle is being fought out in every arena of our life – in politics, industry, the arts, the sciences, the universities, the media, and in the depths of all our psyches.

The signs are not encouraging. We have known about the progressive degradation of the environment for more than twenty years now, but almost nothing significant has

been done to counteract it. Two billion people are now living in poverty, yet our addiction to an economic system that thrives on such desolation continues unabated. Much of organized religion continues to be largely divisive, drunk on outmoded visions of exclusive truth, and wedded to a vision of the Divine that obsessively restricts transcendence at this moment when the entire immanent body of God-Nature is in mortal danger. The majority of modern seekers in the so-called New Age who pride themselves on participating in a  mystical renaissance are in fact largely trapped in a narcissistic coma, apolitical, unconcerned by and blind to the approaching potentially terminal tragedy of the destruction of nature.

Despair, however, is a luxury those who are growing awake in this darkness cannot afford; all those who see the extent of the potential danger and tragedy threatening humanity and nature are compelled to respond with the deepest of themselves. In the Bhagvad Gita, thos who long to know how to fight wisely for the future will find a handbook of spiritual warriorhood and divine realization that will constantly inspire and ennoble them and infuse them with divine truth and sacred passion.

This reminds me of the story about a Mexican fisherman who lived in a small village. He would wake up early, spend his morning hours fishing, catching just enough to sustain him and get his family by. In the afternoons he would spend time with his kids, his wife, and in the evening sit around with friends chatting away or playing music. Then one day a tourist, who turns out was a business professor at Harvard, came to visit the small village and became friends with the fisherman. During their usual afternoon conversation the Harvard professor said, “hey, you are extremely good at fishing, why do you stop when you have caught enough? Why not fish for longer and catch more fish?” The fisherman replied, “well, ok, then what?”

Plans unraveled forming dreams of grandeur, the professor replied, “well, then you could hire some men to help you fish, buy some boats, and really grow a business.” Ok, replied the fisherman, and then? “Then, you could create a huge company, even a corporation and manage whole fleets of ships, move your company headquarters overseas even to make better business deals. After that, you could enlarge your company, grow rich, and perhaps one day when you are old and finally decide to retire you will be able to spend your time fishing for fun, have much more time for family, and friends.” The fisherman smiled, “ah my friend, I have everything I need already. Right here.”

When we are happy it seems that time flies, the world is a bright and sunny place filled with goodness, hope, love and many other warm fuzzies. When we are down, the opposite. So does that bigger salary make us happier, research on happiness says no. If we look far enough in our past we may come to the conclusion that certainly money can bring us comfort, but happiness – probably not. The trap is so easy to fall into because we compare, we plot, and we forget past lessons. How often have we heard that happiness is found within, probably everyone. And yet, we continue to make decisions based an belief system that assumes happiness comes from the outside.

This is where the practice of yoga and meditation come in. When we practice looking within, we see our beliefs, our desires, and our thoughts hung out on the film of our

awareness. The scene expands, time slows, and we are able to really look at all the ‘stuff’ that makes us tick. Examining, prodding, questioning, we bring into our consciousness not simply the notion but the understanding and the wisdom of the true cost of this disease. Thus we begin to unravel our assumptions, question our beliefs, and generate alternative thoughts and behaviours.

Can we cure ourselves of the productivity disease. Maybe, or perhaps it can be transformed. There are many types of hunger: physical, emotional, sexual, but the one that interests me the most is the spiritual hunger. The kind that consumes our selfish desires, our personal sense of me and mine. This hunger is the fire in our bellies that makes us question everything we value down to the very bones of the meaning and purpose of our life. Make this the hunger that keeps you going in your practice, in your search for wisdom and peace. This type of hunger is safer, causing less harm to others. Let us be more gentle with ourselves, with the expectations we put on our lives and the lives of others and practice every moment giving instead of taking.

Shaila begins to speak. Her voice, like her personality, fits her well. It is like a warm whisper that washes over the gathered crowd at this public talk. I am moved by her peaceful and calm demeanor and awed by her experience in meditation and the clarity with which she is able to describe the most subtle of concepts. Shaila has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience and has studied with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand. She has taught since 1996 in the USA and internationally, and is the founder/lead teacher at Insight Meditation South Bay.

Vlad: You have done many long retreats in your life, what is the longest period that you have been silent on retreat, and where?

My longest retreat was a ten-month retreat at the Forest Refuge in Massachusetts in 2003-2004. During this retreat I emphasized concentration, and practiced jhana as the basis for insight for the first time. Following that retreat I wrote my first book, Focused and Fearless in order to encourage the cultivation of concentration, and to share the techniques I had learned for establishing the deep absorption states of jhana.

Vlad: Do you think it is important for serious meditation practitioners to do long retreats or can we advance in our practice just going about our lives?

We must use whatever opportunities we have, and not long for opportunities that we don’t have. A meditation student who has young children is not going to run off and attend a ten-month retreat—that would be irresponsible. But even with many worldly responsibilities, we can take a lot of care with the daily practice and the continuity of mindfulness throughout the day.

Generally I don’t encourage the average practitioner to do multi-month retreats. Only a small proportion of students have sufficient interest and enough skill in meditation, and also have the social and economic opportunities to make use of such extended periods of seclusion. I usually encourage students to attend regular and frequent retreats of one week, a few weeks, or a month. These are long enough for the mind to settle, for the concentration to develop, and for a rich experience of insight to occur. I introduce jhana practice in ten-day retreats and am pleased with the results.

Vlad: You teach jhana and vipassana meditation. Many people have never heard of jhana, can you tell me briefly what the difference is?

Jhana refers to deeply concentrated meditative states in which attention is steadily absorbed by the perception of a single meditation object. The Theravada tradition describes four particular absorption states. Skilled meditators can cultivate these peaceful and blissful states, and allow the mind to abide in them for whatever period of time they wish. But the purpose of deepening concentration is not to indulge in meditative bliss. Strong concentration allows deep insight to happen. I never teach concentration or jhana divorced from insight (vipassana). The purpose of cultivating concentration is to realize liberating insight.

Different kinds of concentration develop with different types of meditation objects. For example, when practicing insight meditation (vipassana) we contemplate the characteristics of changing mental or material phenomena, and develop a type of momentary concentration called khanika samadhi. The mind becomes unified through the momentary knowing of perceptions as they arise and perish. Jhana, however, refers to a subset of samadhi practices that use fixed, rather than changing, objects for meditation. When practicing with the breath as a jhana subject, for example, we steadily focus on the breath at the area of the nostrils until it transforms into a mental reflection of the breath, called a nimitta. Essentially, the objects that lead to jhana include certain concepts and mental objects; absorptions do not develop when observing changing sensations or fluctuating feelings.

Vlad: Why the dominance of Vipassana, insight meditation, in the US?

Vipassana practice is liberating. When we devote time to develop strong concentration, we do so to strengthen our vipassana. A steady mind makes it possible to see things very clearly. The Theravada Buddhist tradition offers a carefully crafted sequence of exercises designed to guide the mind from distracted and obstructed habitual states, to liberation. First we learn to calm, strengthen, and energize the mind through concentration practices. Next, we use the concentrated mind to carefully discern the nature and functions of matter, mind, and their causes and effects. Once the concentrated mind has discerned mind and matter, then we contemplate mind and matter as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. Clear seeing of these universal characteristics propels the mind through a sequence of insights that culminate in the realization of nibbana (nirvana in Sanskrit).

Although monastics and very dedicated lay practitioners have, for centuries, practiced deep concentration, most lay people don’t have the time, inclination, or conducive living conditions to engage in rigorous traditional training. Some time ago, a historic movement began to emphasize forms of meditation that could be practiced by lay people. Emphasis was wisely placed on mindfulness and shorter retreats, which can be easily integrated into a lay lifestyle. Mindfulness is the basis of all these practice, and may be the most important factor for developing both concentration and insight.

Vlad: I am sure you have had many amazing teachers, is there one in particular that you would say is your main teacher? 

I really could not say that there is one single teacher in my life; I feel deep gratitude for several teachers who have guided me, and several meditation centers that have provided the opportunity for practice. I started meditating in 1980, and in the mid 80′s I met Christopher Titmuss, an English dhamma teacher who startled me with a rather direct approach to enquiry. I continued to attend retreats with many different teachers, but noticed that my practice progressed most rapidly with Christopher’s guidance. Over the years I returned to his retreats with some regularity, and gradually he came to know my practice well. It was Christopher Titmuss who asked me to serve as a dhamma teacher, and he has remained my mentor.

I cherish the years that I spent in Asia—practicing in monasteries in Thailand, and studying with a guru named H.W.L Poonja in northern India. I lived in Poonjaji’s home for several years in the early and mid 1990′s. He taught a direct realization of the mind and stirred a powerful love of freedom. I also have sat many retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and I continue to appreciate the clarity and integrity in this community of western dhamma teachers.

In 2006 I met Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw—a highly skilled practitioner and teacher of jhana and vipassana. Practicing with him has refined my approach to both jhana and vipassana. I wrote my second book, Wisdom Wide and Deep, at his request—to present this systematic training in a form that would be accessible to Western practitioners.

Vlad: If at all possible, can you describe what it is like to be on a long retreat?

Long retreats help us get past our personal stories and particular attachments. Once you settle into the silence and let go of the busyness of daily activities, an impersonal and objective way of seeing the mind and body tends to arise. On retreat we are just less caught up in all the things that stimulate our identities, so we will see how attachment functions as an impersonal process, rather than focus on personal attachments to particular things.

I like long retreats—they are lovely, and allow me to go very deep in the practice. But I also like short retreats, because they allow me to integrate the dhamma into daily life. So I try to do both long retreats and short retreats so that there is both a deepening and integration of the meditative experience.

Vlad: That state, the universal or impersonal, does that experience last after the retreat is over?

Well, we live our lives. We don’t live anybody else’s lives, and we don’t live sequestered in retreat. By “impersonal” I am referring to what is not bound by my particular story, my life, my roles, or my activities. We must integrate our understandings and insight with how we live as unique individuals interacting through personal relationships and making daily choices.

During meditation we might see, in refined detail, how misperception functions. For example, we might have a fleeting experience of seeing something attractive, and then blinded by ignorance and desire, we misperceive that sight as something that might bring us happiness, if only we could possess it, control it, or keep it. But no impermanent perception can be a reliable source of happiness. With insight we recognize the misperception, contemplate the impermanence of the experience, and discover that when we see with wisdom, equanimity naturally arises. Wisdom, clarity, and equanimity certainly influence our experiences long after a retreat ends. Nothing that we find in the world can actually be possessed as mine, or be identified with as who I am. Attachments fall away, and then we live our individual lives fully, but without, or at least with less, attachment. Suffering diminishes.

To find out more about Shaila Catherine, her books, classes, and retreats check out Insight Meditation South Bay. 

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.

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/

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.

THIS IS A SHORTENED VERSION OF THE INTERVIEW: for full interview click HERE

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.

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. We offer instant love and respect to every student who comes through the door – no matter who, no matter what.

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.

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. 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 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 have two assistant instructors, a few senior helpers and about 60 volunteer assistants. Many of our volunteers receive UC academic credit. At the beginning and ending of class, we practice breathing, meditation and visualization techniques.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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/