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

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

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/

Related posts:

1. Changing the Face and Zip Code of Yoga

A conversation with Karma Clinic founder Dr. Aumatma Binal Shah conducted by Vlad Moskovski

Dr. Aumatma is one of a several Karma Clinic practitioners offering her knowledge as a Naturopath based on the gift economy model. At its core, gift economy is a shift from consumption to contribution, transaction to trust, scarcity to abundance and isolation to community.

Karma Clinic is a grassroots non-profit, under the umbrella organization CharityFocus, that believes in the goodness and generosity of all beings – practitioners are fully sustained by the gifts of gratitude from the community which they serve.

Vlad Moskovski: How is the gift economy model different than a free clinic?

When something is free it’s often not valued. Although in a gift economy there is no requirement that someone pay something, still the changing of the word takes it out of the free context. It does not have a cost attached to it because someone else has already paid for it. Because somebody else was generous and they are offering it to you and you can pay it forward to keep that chain going.

V: What services do you offer?

Naturopathy, is an umbrella term – we use things that are natural for therapy. Our training allows us to be at forefront at integrative medicine – so we learn conventional medicine and the alternative medicine. My foundations are homeopathy, herbal medicine, and nutrition. I also do some functional medicine, using  nutrients in high doses to cure imbalances. I do a fair amount of testing to see what’s needed.

V: How do you get people to follow through?

I still haven’t figured that one out. In the beginning people would check it out, but not come back. Now, when people call to come in I’ll say – look its really imperative that you follow up. Regardless of your financial situation, you just need to come back. What’s most important is for people to have their healing process. More and more people are following through, it’s very rare for a person not to come back – unless they have gotten better. And then I hear it from their friends whom they refer to me.

V: Has Karma Clinic grown?

I see new patients all the time, yes its constantly growing. Mostly people get better and they move on which makes space for new people to come in. And it has grown in the sense that its spreading. There is one in Portland, and one in Ashland Oregon. Another one possibly starting in Sebastopol.

V: What inspired you to start Karma Clinic?

I had a vision when I was 18 in meditation that I was going to be running a free clinic. I assumed it meant being a doctor because I had a white coat on. At the time I did not want anything to do with medicine or free. I ended up studying pre-med in college and in my last semester found out about naturopathic medicine, and it hit me that’s what I was supposed to do and the vision suddenly made sense. All the pieces fell into place and I went to naturopathy school after graduating.

As part of the training in naturopathic school, I worked in lots of free clinics, and got frustrated because people were not getting better, they were not making any of the lifestyle changes we were asking them to do, and we only had 15-20 minutes to spend with each individual.

Next, I went to work with my mentor charging enormous amounts of money. I would have these beautiful interaction but would walk out of the office and have to tell people they now owe me 500 dollars and my heart would drop every time. I realized that was not something I wanted to do either.

Then one day I got an email from a friend about a conversation about gift economy healthcare. And I thought this is perfect –  the meeting point between free and totally not free. So I moved to California, and began Karma Clinic in November 2008.

V: Does the philosophy of gift economy have anything to do with the healing that happens?

On a deep level our economic system has wounded a lot of people, it is so deep that most people are not even aware. People say, “I’ve been to so many doctors, I’ve paid so much money and I’m not gotten better.” There is great mistrust towards doctors. There is a wounding by our system in general, a feeling of being screwed over – not necessarily related to doctors. On the third level, the transaction model creates a different type relationship than the gift economy relationship.

When the practitioner does not expect anything from the client, it removes the whole aspect of transaction economy. They are not coming in with this mentality of “now I owe you something” – instead they are saying, ” thank you for this amazing gift.” Such interactions heal relationships between doctors and patients. The immediate trust that comes out of that contributes to healing process. If the patient has trust, whatever I give them it will have more power.

V: That makes so much sense. And it ties into the idea of treating the root of the problem rather than the symptoms.

I’ve had a lot of people say, “this is so healing to the way I view the world.” Because our world is so much based on money the people that have been hurt are unconsciously walk around promoting that mentality. A lot of people have been transformed to the point of wanting to contribute and give back the generosity. They may not give up their jobs necessarily, but they are bringing that generosity into everything that they are doing.

V: You mentioned trust, is it a big part of Karma Clinic?

There is trust that if you are offering that is need, then it will be sustained. The flip side is if the people that are receiving it, really pay it forward then the cycle continues.

On a personal level, that has been the biggest growth arena for me – to trust in the universe. Trust that you will receive what you need and this person will give what they need to give. All without much analysis or judgment on what is happening. If you give your gifts they will be received.

V: Inherent in that philosophy is that everyone has something to offer?

Absolutely, everyone does have something to offer, we all have gifts and passions. It does not really matter what it is. If we all freely offer gifts as gifts we would all have plenty to go around.

V: It sounds like there is an element of not just giving, but also not expecting anything in return. If you are told that you need to give – the classic example of giving gifts on Christmas and all the obligation that come with it, is that still gift economy?

No, I don’t think so. I guess on some level, it promotes the economy with gifts.

I think inherent in the gift economy the trust that this gift is being given to you and it has a really high value. Do with it what you will, but let it move through you and don’t let it sit for too long. It does not have to go back to you, it could go to someone else. It could go to holding a door for someone else, or a smile. Move from that place of generosity, and the bubbling feeling of wanting to sharing it with others.

V: Where do you see karma clinic in 5 years?

I have no idea, it might stop tomorrow, it could continue. My intention has always been to run it as if it’s an experiment. This removes the hesitation to change it around if it’s not working.

V: And my last question, how have you grown through this work?

More trust in the universe and life’s generosity. A deepening of my understanding of what it means to serve and be in leadership in each moment. Karma Clinic has deepened my ability to listen to people, spirit, and nature when appropriate – when I am working with people.

To find out more about Karma Clinic visit their website: http://www.karmaclinic.org/

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An interview with Bidyut Bose, PhD –  Niroga Founder

Interview conducted by Vlad Moskovski

It brings me great pleasure to interview Bidyut Bose, or BK , as many of us know him. He is a leader in the Yoga community inspiring many with his dedication, wisdom, and caring. Bidyut Bose, PhD, is the executive director of Niroga Institute (www.niroga.org), a nonprofit organization that brings Transformative Life Skills (TLS) to students, vulnerable youth, cancer survivors, seniors and people battling addiction. The work of Niroga directly uplifts thousands of people every week in schools, juvenile halls, homeless shelters, cancer hospitals and rehab centers. Niroga also trains minority young adults to become Certified Yoga teachers, prepared to serve their own communities with cultural competence and linguistic sensitivity.

Vlad Moskovski: How did Niroga begin?

While employed in the high tech industry in Silicon Valley, I observed the ravaging effects of chronic stress on my colleagues and the entire organizational culture. Having grown up with yoga and meditation, I knew that there was a solution to this. I essentially became a student of stress and began to look at the impact of chronic stress on society. Feeling the need to give back, to serve selflessly, which was a big part of my growing up, I decided that perhaps this was the time to step back from the high tech world and start to serve my community.

When I learned that one out of every two kids in inner city schools are dropping out, I realized we have to do something about this colossal waste of human potential. When a kid pulls a gun on another kid because they feel ‘dissed’ – in that situation what if we can create a space between stimulus and response? An increase in self-control could be the difference between life and death on the streets.

Even before Niroga was born, we were asked to work with a small group of young women in an alternative high school in Marin. Right after the first session, the teachers came back saying, “The kids took to the breathing and the quiet sitting like fish to water.”  And I thought, “This is great – there is hope!”

Next came an alternative high school in Oakland. There is a video on the website, where the therapists, foster youth services, teachers, and the principal all say that everyone has given up on these kids and that the teaching of Yoga, breathing techniques, and the other tools are making them realize that each one of them has potential. Then, people from probation, healthcare, and education in Alameda County called us together saying – we need this program in Juvenile Hall.

The first thing I asked was, “How long is the average length of stay in juvenile hall?” About 3 weeks, I was told. So I said, “Then we have two conditions.” Here we are – a puny non-profit, and we are setting conditions for these heads of agencies! The first condition is that it has to be a daily program. Five days a week for both boys and girls. The second condition is, we have to have one class a week for staff. The staff need these tools just as much as the youth. My idea was simple: change each individual kid, and along the way, also the very culture of the institution to make a long term impact. We did research, used standardized scales, measuring chronic stress, and self control or emotion regulation. We showed we could get measurable results working with hundreds of youth.

Then we began to look at where are the youth are going once they get out of juvenile hall. We started to go into schools, first providing hour-long yoga classes in after-school programs, and then during school offering a distilled version of the hour-long class. We compacted it into 15 minutes, keeping the same structure and called it Transformative Life Skills (TLS).

When we went into the classroom with the 15 minute interventions, the teachers modeled and worked with the kids. Very naturally, trainings evolved for schools and school administrators. We now have training programs for school teachers and school- based behavioral health providers so they can teach this in their classrooms and not have to rely on us. We are effectively giving them tools to help themselves, as well as enhance their professional practice.

Next we began to look at the social elitism in the practice of yoga. In order to reach those individuals and communities that need these practices the most, we have to change the face and zip code of yoga. The face from white to black and everything in between. And the zip code spanning the hills to the flats. As a social justice part of our movement, we began to train people of color to become certified yoga teachers. And so the Integral Health Fellows program was born. Every year we are training 25 yoga teachers, and about half are people of color. We make it affordable by offering a scholarship, it is a pay-forward model. Upon graduation, we require them to serve their community – to give back two hours a week for the next 50 weeks. That’s 100 hours of volunteer service by each of the graduates. It’s a huge contribution in community capacity building.

Vlad: Are you surprised at how Niroga has grown, did you expect this?

We started just about 6 years ago, in March 2005, and I came into this with the spirit to try not to have any expectations. I was just seeing how it evolved. The first few years our growth was almost exponential, doubling year after year. Then it flattened out with the economic crisis. Now it’s starting to grow very quickly again, the demand is there. But, the resources are not quite there – we are still vulnerable as an organization.

Vlad: What is the biggest challenge that Niroga faces right now?

I think it’s getting the pervasive awareness of the power and potential of these transformative practices. Right now there is a confluence that is making it accessible. Neuroscience is showing that chronic stress really messes up our bodies and our minds, the brain and our behavior. And at the same time there is convincing evidence that mindfulness practices mitigate these effects. Major developments in somatic psychology on optimal treatment of trauma, which is of course the reality of many of the people we serve, speaks to the combination and integration of the kinesthetic, emotional and the cognitive. So yoga, breathing techniques, and meditation fit into this space.

The fact that being able to regulate our emotions affects everything we do, is huge. And yet in a culture that does not know how to do this, it becomes a challenge to not only realize how important it is, but also figure out ways to systematically build these capabilities. This awareness is a really powerful catalyst, this understanding is a game-changer.

When we look at violence prevention, the notion of tough on crime simply is not working. Whether it is a prison or juvenile hall, all of them seem to be running at full capacity. So we know that incarceration is not going to get us out of this mess. You can try to create safe environments, enhance walkability, better lighted streets, clean parks, but you can’t just do that and stop. You have to also change our ability to regulate ourselves and that internal environment is often missed or dismissed.

We need to influence people who are making the decisions. City council members, board of supervisors, the politicians all the way through to Washington. How much importance are they going to give to this powerful catalyst that enables us to make healthy lifestyle choices, that changes our behavior? If we can get them to think along these lines, then the resources will get lined up. This is the biggest challenge, not only for Niroga, but for all mindfulness organizations in this space.

What we are trying to do is transform ourselves so we can change the world around us. Imagine getting to this magical tipping point where most of the people in the community are practicing these skills of self-mastery most of the time. How beautiful that would be!

Vlad: Where do you see yourself and Niroga in 10 years? How will it grow and change?

The big picture dream for me is generational transformation. How do I affect children, their children and their children’s children. In that process, everything we are trying to do is to get these TLS skills to as many people as possible, in as many places as possible. So that they are able to use these skills for themselves and be a lamp unto those around them. One lamp lighting another, there is no other magic to this. We are hoping for that type of exponential, viral effect that seeds the community with peacefulness, joyfulness, and mindfulness. In this way we can counteract the negative spiraling down – the pettiness, smallness, violence, and greed. To pull ourselves back out, so that each one of us can tap into the infinite potential that is within us. That’s the dream!

For this to become a reality it can’t be just Niroga. I think the dream is a shared dream, it’s up to each one of us to play a part in that dream. I have no clue what will happen in 10 years, but I know this much – I am going to keep working at this until my last breath.

Vlad: Is there anything you would like to say, directly to yoga teachers interested in this dream? That are passionate about spreading yoga and working with diverse and disadvantaged populations?

Two things. First – deepen your own practice. Deepen it so you live a life that is aligned with the spirit and essence of yoga. Without that, you will not be able to operate from a position of strength.

And then, grounded in that strength, practice and teach yoga in the spirit of Karma Yoga. The very essence of Karma Yoga is to try to work a little bit more selflessly, so that you really feel like every student is the very embodiment of the divine. So that every act becomes an act of worship. That way we transform everything around us into the sacred, so there is no secular left. And so it becomes all encompassing, it becomes universal, all-accepting.

Like Mother Theresa used to say – I’m serving Christ. Christ in the poor, the destitute, or the one ridden with leprosy. How can I treat every single potential student as my teacher, as the divine embodied in front of me. Strive with every ounce of your strength for self-realization, and then translate that into action. You grow a little bit, and you are able to serve more effectively more selflessly, and through that you grow – elegant positive feedback, reinforcing itself, spiraling upward.

Just start where you are, you don’t have to wait to be highly evolved. A little bit each day, two minutes, five minutes. Work to the best of your ability without caring what comes out of it, without caring what others will think about it. Somebody gives you a dollar for your class or a hundred, you treat them just the same. One person comes to your class or a thousand, you teach the class just the same. That becomes Karma Yoga. We have all of these opportunities to practice. What a blessing! That is how I feel about my life, that every breath, every moment I have to teach is a blessing, an opportunity to grow and propel myself forward.

Related posts:

1. Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga in Public Schools – Part 1
2. Yoga and Meditation for Youth
3. The Ojai Yoga Crib – A Yoga Retreat Like No Other

ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2011) — Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s grey matter. To read full article click here.

Related posts:

1. Mindfulness Meditation Being Used In Hospitals & Schools
2. Improve Your Brain & Memory Through Super Brain Yoga
3. Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga in Public Schools – Part 1