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.

Related posts:

1. Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga in Public Schools – Part 1

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/

Related posts:

1. Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga in Public Schools – Part 1
2. Happiness in Old Age
3. Mindfulness Meditation Being Used In Hospitals & Schools

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/

Related posts:

1. With Loving Eyes

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/

No related posts.

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)

Related posts:

1. Karma Clinic – A New Model of Economics and Health
2. The Gift of Generosity

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Related posts:

1. Wise Quote for Inner Peace
2. Wise Quote for Mindfulness
3. Wise Quote from Taoism

Everyone knows that people are strange, but sometimes that strangeness comes out in such beautiful and unique ways that it inspires one to want to share it with others. While passing an intersection one day I saw a man standing on the corner holding up a big sign. The sign read, “You Are Perfect” and the man holding the sign had a big smile on his face. He was clearly enjoying himself and unlike many people I see with signs wanting a handout or advertising something, he wanted nothing at all. He was simply there to spread this message and make people feel good. Passing him by, I could not help but smile. I would not be surprised if that sign made many people slow down just a bit, think just a little deeper, and perhaps even smile.

Like a gardener planting seeds to eventually sprout into plants, this man is planting a thought seed that we are all perfect and that so much of the stress in our lives comes from self- induced desire to compare, strive, and fight to achieve something better. If only we could take a little time each day to contemplate the meaning of, “You Are Perfect”. But who is this you that is perfect? Is the body perfect? No certainly not, there are aches and pains, things break and despite our best efforts the body is bound to change, grow older and eventually decay. So is the personality perfect? We all have our insecurities, our weaknesses, our faults and all those strange quirky things that we do that make each person so unique and individual.

What is left of the “You” then? If we look at the above statement through the eyes of Yoga, we can talk about the you that is perfect as something that is ever constant – the unchanging self which is within all of us. After all, the full aim of Yoga – from the root word to yoke or join – can be interpreted as the joining the individual “you” with the cosmic “YOU”. The individual “you” is compromised of memories, feelings, sensory perceptions. On a conscious and sub-conscious level it manifests in our habits and our character.

The big “YOU” is the spirit within, it is the real you and it is changeless and timeless, always present in the now. Maybe, that man standing on the corner was simply reminding us that it is the big “YOU” that is perfect. Since it is a part of you and within you, it is available always for you to experience. To remember that truth and look within for it is spiritual practice. This is meditation, this is Yoga. To touch that truth within is to experience bliss, event if only for a moment. Once that stillness and peace is felt, we begin to yearn and desire for another taste. Having tasted an intoxicating fruit, we hunger for another bite. This desire is the drive and the fire which propels us towards a spiritual life.

May we all one day remember and dwell in the experience of this bliss. To know this is to truly know that “You Are Perfect.” May we all reach perfection not through striving, not through struggling, but through discrimination, dispassion, non-attachment, and a keen mental sharpness. Ask yourself these words, “What am I becoming, and what is the world asking me to become?”

A short video about the man with the sign. His name is Benjamin Smythe and you can find his website here!

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