Nourishing Rage and Letting It Go

He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me – in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.

This verse, at the very beginning of the Dharmapada, speaks of the very simple truth that if we bring to mind our wrongs and nourish our hurt and anger, we make ourselves miserable. This verse caught my attention a long time ago, because that is exactly what the mind does--it repeats the list of the wrongs someone else has done to us: “He did this. She did that.” followed by your favorite four-letter word for people you dislike. Like a bulldog with a bone, the mind chews on hurtful events over and over again.

Another Buddhist scripture speaks of revenge being like trying to throw a hot coal at an enemy, we burn ourselves before we even have a chance to hurt anyone else. Someone who says “I will never forgive!” is really saying that they will nurse their grudge internally and turn it around and around in their mind, making themselves feel terrible, while the object of their hatred is untouched – this is assuming one is not planning to break the law by doing violence, which leads to its own cycle of suffering.

Now, I'm not so perfect that I've never nursed a grievance. There's a huge amount of energy in anger and you feel like you're going to explode if you don't do something with it. I tend to talk about it until I run myself to a stop. During domestic arguments, I do housework --- the place is never so clean as when I'm rolling on a big internal rant. Ideally, one should use that energy to resolve that situation. I had something happen at work that was unjust, and I used that anger to solve the problem in a professional way, then poof! Anger all gone. Sometimes, I find what's under the anger is essentially anxiety – and knowing that doesn't make it go away necessarily, but it does give me a tool to fight it with. Because., as the Buddha makes clear, it's your own anger that's the real enemy, not the person you're raging about.

It's hard to let go. I sometimes hang on to the illusion that if I can only just explain how they hurt me, they'd understand and admit they were wrong. And let's be honest with ourselves: There is something pleasurable about the idea that we can have the last word and put someone in their place. We fantasize about it. I think that the next time a doctor asks me if I eat French fries when I've come in to have an ingrown toenail treated, I will tell him exactly what I think of him and his stereotyping, and I will stomp out of his office, numbed toe and all! (And I've eaten French fries less than a half-dozen times in the last ten years. Bastard!) Anyway, it's a very satisfying picture to think that you can let 'em have it and leave them speechless as you storm out the door.

But that usually doesn't happen. People aren't “put in their place”; they just defend and justify themselves, and do their best to put you in the wrong. The more you try it, the worse the conflict becomes. The more you justify yourself, the more ammunition you give to someone who wants to put you down. In my experience, the only way to really end any conflict is absence and stubborn silence. It takes two to fight. Nobody can keep a fight going by themselves, except in their own minds.

Probably the best tool in your arsenal for that mental fight is the practice of metta (loving-kindness) meditation. It really is the opposite of the “He wronged me” rant quoted from the Dharmapada. Instead what you do is say phrases like “May he be happy. May he be healthy. May he be safe. May he be at peace.” You can google metta and find a wide variation on the theme, but the basic idea is that we start with wishing ourselves well, then those who are close to us, then in ever-widening circles until we embrace the entire world with loving-kindness. But included in this practice are those wishes for those who “we have difficulty loving” or “a person that we find difficult”. If I stop and think about it, I don't really want anything bad to happen to a person who has made me angry. What I want, mostly, is for them to leave me alone – and if I keep stewing about what they've done, it's just a way of keeping them in my life. Ideally, one should be able to endure obnoxious people and still wish them well, but I'm not that saintly yet. One step at a time. :-)

'Tis the Season to Think About Generosity

I'm planning, eventually, to talk about the chapter of the Tao Te Ching that the Study Group is looking at each week, but at the moment, we are only a few weeks from the end of the book, and it makes sense to begin here when we are back at the beginning.

So, I'll begin at another kind of beginning, the first paramita, or perfection in Buddhism, which is dana or generosity. Virtually the first thing I was told when I went to my first daylong meditation at Sky Creek is that there is a dana bowl for the Center, and another one for the teacher, and that's the usual custom. The idea is that the dharma is priceless and no teacher can charge for it, so it is up to the conscience of the student to decide what he/she can pay for it. This kind of giving goes back to the earliest days of Buddhism.

Generosity is one of those universal virtues, praised by all the major religions, and part of the celebration of Christmas in this culture. The local schools here have been having canned food drives, bell-ringers stand with their red buckets in front of every major store, and a huge box collecting toys for poor children stands in the middle of my bank.

I have a hard time considering virtues in relation to myself, though. Immediately, I find myself thinking about all the ways I fall short, the many times when I have not been generous, kind, or what-have-you. I don't find that dwelling on all the things you ought to do and haven't done is really that productive. Probably, the truth is that, as in all other qualities, I am more generous than some people and less than others. One thing I have noticed about generous people is that they appear to do it without even stopping to think about it, as if there is a basic security there that they can give without causing themselves any hurt. So, I think the key to developing the virtue of generosity is cultivating a sense of abundance, realizing that we have enough and that giving away some of it will not deprive us of anything we really need.

One thing that stops a lot of us from giving is a defensive guard – we suspect we are being scammed by those cardboard “Will Work for Food” signs. Even reputable organizations can seem rapacious in their constant pleas for money. I once gave to Doctors Without Borders in the wake of a disaster, only to find myself on the receiving end of an avalanche of requests in the mail from all kinds of charities. Phone calls are even worse: I gave to breast cancer research, only to be hounded by people who said (wrongly) I hadn't paid them what I had pledged, and were pursuing me as relentlessly as a bill collector. Chico State calls me a few times a year, starting with the claim that they are just updating their records, and leading me through a series of interactions that end with me agreeing to pledge money, and feeling foolish at the way I've been manipulated. This kind of exchange takes the humanity out of charity. Instead of giving from a sense of compassion, I feel put upon and used.

Generosity is, of course, more than giving money to a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. It is, more than anything, a state of mind, a willingness to give something that all of us need, whether it is food, care, affection, information, time, or a place to sleep. It comes from a sense that we have enough, or that even if we are short now, that situation will change. Having the kind of job I do has been rather useful in teaching me the temporary nature of material circumstances. One month out of the year, I'm poor enough to qualify for government assistance. A few months later, I'm caught up and have enough extra to go on a weekend out-of-town. Today, I have enough and you don't and it won't hurt me to give; tomorrow our circumstances could be reversed, so it would be better for both of us to take care of each other. It comes out of our common humanity, and understanding of our human needs.

In the end, the whole point of Buddhism is the ending of suffering, then generosity is the first perfection because it ameliorates suffering at its most basic level, both in the needs met in the receiver and the attitude required from the giver.

"Even if a person throws the rinsings of a bowl or a cup into a village pool or pond, thinking, 'May whatever animals live here feed on this,' that would be a source of merit." --from the Sutta on Giving

A Little Bit About Meditation

When I tell people that I meditate, I get some strange reactions. Some people dismiss it as unprofitable navel-gazing and a waste of time. My devoutly Christian dentist gravely warned me about the spiritual dangers of “stopping thought” and “kandaluni”(I assume he meant kundalini.). When I told him I usually just focus on the breath he was much reassured: “Well, there's nothing wrong at all with deep breathing.” Mostly people find the idea of sitting on a cushion too daunting: “Oh, I can't do that. I can't concentrate that long. My mind wanders.”

The truth is, meditation is just not as complicated as all that. It's just going with the flow of the present moment. Musicians have told me something similar happens when they are into playing and going with the music. From what Jeff tells me, he experiences something like it while riding his motorcycle. You are totally “into” what you are doing. The object can be your breath, a mantra, an ideal, or just the field of sensation your body experiences. It can be devotional in nature, or you can just count your breaths up to ten over and over. Whatever the focus, you bring it to the front of your awareness. “Concentration” is really too harsh a word, because it implies a kind of force. As for “emptying your mind of thought”, that doesn't happen, so I don't know what folks are so worried about.

You don't even have to be sitting down. There are Buddhist schools where work is considered a meditation. (Remember Grasshopper on the show Kung Fu sweeping up the leaves in the temple? He was meditating.) You can also lay down or stand in a relaxed posture. The point is that you bring your mind into the present moment and try to keep it there.

This is where people think they are failing to do it right and that they aren't “good at meditating”. But the truth is that the moment when you are aware that your mind has drifted away from your object and has begun to tell its own story is very important. That awareness of what the mind is doing is part of the learning process. You just say to yourself “I'm thinking.”, and bring it back to the breath. And you do that again and again during the time allotted for meditation. Sometimes I'll give myself credit for having positive thoughts, if that's the case, although one should strive to observe without judgement.

It's strange that we think that meditation on a single object is “boring”, but if you pay attention to your thoughts you find that the mind throws up the same old stuff again and again. But for some reason, we aren't bored by that. Counting to ten is boring, but re-living that argument you had with someone last week for the hundredth time isn't boring. In fact, because the human mind is wired for self-protection, we think that if we keep re-living bad experiences, we'll be more ready to defend ourselves. Maybe we will, but in the meantime we're causing ourselves to suffer unnecessarily.

Meditation takes us out of all that, as well as out of worry about the future. It's just a tiny mini-break from the internal drama we create for ourselves. If I'm sleepy, I can exercise first or do walking meditation. There are times I'm just too wound up to meditate silently, and I try exercise or chanting. Sometimes I just have to cry. Other times I have to put my energy into resolving the situation that has me hung up – and there always is some kind of solution that will release that energy and return me to a calmer state. I don't worry much on the discipline aspect of it, as in setting a goal to meditate a certain amount of minutes at a certain time every day. I do the best I can with the circumstances I find myself in. Mornings are best, especially if my daughter isn't home and sleeping in my yoga room. If she is home, then I have to do things differently. One of the things that meditation teaches you is that life is constantly changing, and you're better off accepting that. And it's hard for everyone – I certainly don't have some sort of special talent or ability. But I do think it's worth the effort, because it gradually changes your attitudes even when you're not on the cushion.

Going to Sky Creek

The Sky Creek Dharma Center is supported by four different Buddhist sanghas that each have their own “take” on Buddhist thought and practice: The Monday night group is associated with Thich Nhat Hahn; the Tuesday night group does Vipassana meditation out of the Thai Forest Tradition and is associated with Spirit Rock Meditation Center; the Wednesday night group is Soto Zen and is associated with both Shasta Abbey in Redding and the Zen Center in San Francisco; and the Thursday night group calls itself “Dharma Buffet”, and I have read that it includes some Tibetan Buddhist practices. Since it was also once known as “Twenty-somethings”, I assume it attracts a somewhat younger crowd than the rest. I don't know precisely how the governance is done, but there is a board that has people from all four sanghas. Sky Creek also has a couple of non-Buddhist groups that meet there. I have recently been going to the Taoist Study group – not because of any philosophical preference, but simply because it's so much easier for me to drive to Chico on Sunday mornings as opposed to a weekday evening. We meditate 15 minutes, then discuss the Tao Te Ching for 45; early arrivers can do some Chi Gung practice to loosen up before meditation. I have been trying, as part of my practice, to learn deep listening, to focus on what others are saying rather than getting filled up with what I might want to say.

For me, the best part of Sky Creek, better than any particular group or teacher there, is just the center itself. It looks like it was, at one time, somebody's “dream house”, built on a generous bit of countryside, with a creek running through it. I feel happier and more peaceful just to set foot there. The thing I missed, more than anything during my years as a Baha'i was having a place, that was there set aside for spiritual purposes – and now, as a Buddhist, I have it. And it's not so very complicated; some of the groups I mention above aren't any bigger in terms of membership than our Baha'i community in Red Bluff was. But they do work together with each other, and very likely had some support from their larger affiliates – or maybe they were just lucky in having some well-to-do members. However they managed it, they own the property outright, and to me it's a little piece of heaven right outside Chico.

Exactly how I made the journey from unenrolled Baha'i to Buddhist is kind of hard to describe. It's something that I never thought would happen, and was not at all my intent when I began looking for local places where I might find a group to meditate with. These groups don't get hung up on what you believe, specifically. The only question I have been asked is whether or not I'm a beginner at meditation – because the practice is the center of what you're doing there, not teaching or reaffirming yourself in a particular set of propositions. Even textual study is done with a critical eye – it's not at all uncommon for me to hear someone say that they just flat disagree with a passage in the Tao Te Ching. But it would be wrong to call it irreverent – it's a very respectful atmosphere. Nobody bows as much as Buddhists do. Sometimes I'm not all that sure what we're bowing to – the room, the statues of the Buddhas, the current teacher, each other, or just to the East. In any case, I could have retained Baha'i belief and meditated with these folks, and no one would have had a problem with it because beliefs of any kind are rarely discussed.

Anyway, the final collapse of my attachment to Baha'u'llah paralleled the collapse of my marriage, and I have the feeling that the two were intertwined, but I cannot precisely place either one as cause or effect. All I know is that by time it was over, my dance with the Divine Beloved was done, and I had a real-life romance going on, and my spiritual life was more like calming water than a roaring fire. This isn't something that I could have chosen earlier, although I've long admired Buddhism for its extremely practical approach. It took a change in my emotional life before I could change my spiritual direction. Now I feel like enough time has gone by that I can comfortably change direction in my blog as well, maybe to make weekly posts on what I've been studying and/or thinking about. It would be nice to begin writing again.

What Regular Teachers Probably Don't Know About Their Sub

1. I have to take my house phone and my cell phone with me when I take a bath, because I might miss work calls. I’ve missed work calls because I don’t answer my cell phone while I’m driving, until I can pull over. Sub clerks want the spot filled, and aren’t going to mess with voice mail unless I’m specifically asked for by the teacher.

2. I have to get up at 5 a.m. or even earlier in order to fit in all my morning routines, before I have to leave for work. Sometimes things get skimped on, like my exercise program or breakfast.

3. I have to prepare myself for work, scheduling all appointments around it, even when it turns out that no calls come.

4. If I don’t get a work call, I don’t get paid. That means I get a tiny paycheck in July, nothing in August, and another tiny paycheck in September. January and February are also pretty lean because of Christmas break. Easter break and testing week can also disrupt the cash flow, although not so severely because there is some variation between school districts.

5. Rising gas prices will influence how far I’m willing to drive for a half-day.

6. I can get work calls so late that I already think I have the day to myself, and then have to shift gears at the last minute.

7. I like being scheduled beforehand, but few teachers do that, even when their absence was for an event planned months ahead of time. If you really want me in your class, call me early, otherwise you’ll have whatever sub happens to be available that morning.

8. One of the many skills I’ve acquired is the ability to figure out where tiny country schools are in the middle of nowhere, and where the portable buildings are for alternative education. I’m never given a key for the latter and sometimes have to wait in the rain for the aide to arrive. (An umbrella is in my backpack at all times.)

9. Sometimes the first challenge of the day is figuring out the little “trick” to unlocking the door. Technical difficulties in general can make a good day go down the tubes in a hurry.

10. Once inside the classroom, my first challenge is locating the lesson plans -- which may be on the teacher’s desk, on the overhead projector, stuck with a magnet on the white board, or on any table in the room.

11. Subs should not be required to do morning yard duty. They need that time to look over the lesson plans, and simply find where materials are in an unfamiliar environment. Also, bear in mind, I won’t know I’m required to do morning yard duty until I find the lesson plans. On rare occasions that’s happened either just before or even after the morning bell rings.

12. Next is figuring out the roll procedure. Even if computers are used, it is helpful to give me two paper lists of the class -- one to take roll on if I can’t get the computer to work; one to make sure all kids returned after lunch. (Subs have tragically overlooked a missing child -- remember, we don’t know these kids by sight.) I try to make sure I know how many kids I have that day, but late arrivals and early departures can sometimes get that number a bit confused. Besides that, having to huddle behind a computer takes me out of my “power position” in front of the class, which may be crucial in establishing my authority. (Remember, these kids don’t believe I’m in charge until I convince them.)

12. Please leave the lists and signs I need for any sort of drill or emergency -- by the door or some other very obvious place. I will call the office at the first opportunity if I can’t find them. Because I don’t know the kids, this sort of preparedness is even more crucial for me than it is for you.

13. Please let me know where the extra pencils are, and where I can find the type of paper needed for all assignments ( or leave out a stack). I’ve never yet been in a class where somebody didn’t need a pencil, and if I have to hunt for one, I’m not teaching, and impaired in my ability to supervise the class.

14. Seating charts are hard to read when you‘re trying to find out the name of that kid with the big mouth in the middle of the math lesson; names on desks are better; name tags that I can actually put on the kids are best. Leaving me without anything that identifies the kids is not a nice thing to do.

15. When writing lesson plans, please be aware that I might not be familiar with the materials you use. If you just say “Kids do their Flapdoodle”, I might not know what the hell you’re talking about. If the kids know, please tell me where it is (in desks, or stacked on the counter, etc.); it reduces my anxiety level.

16. If a lesson is incomprehensible to me, or just isn’t working, I will do something different. Overplanning is better than under planning, but I can pull a lot out of my bag o’ tricks if I have to.

17. Because I’ve worked in a lot of Special Ed classes, I can usually distinguish between the kids who have learning disorders and kids who are just being obnoxious and react accordingly, but it’s nice if you give me a head’s up.

18. If kids are 2nd grade or younger, I will let them go to the bathroom, regardless of what your policy is. (One girl and one boy at a time.) Accidents at school are no fun for any of us. The system I like best for older kids is giving one “Potty pass” per day, then having them suffer a consequence in exchange for any more than that.

19. Do not tell your aide to take over the class for the day. It’s insulting, and I’d rather be teaching than just following an aide around. Your class can endure minor variations in the usual presentation for one day.

20. Please give me a list of which kids ride the bus, which get picked up and which go to SERFF (the after school program). It’s especially important to tell me if a child is forbidden to go with a non-custodial parent. Remember, I’ve just spent a day with these kids and I’m lucky if I’ve got their name memorized; I don’t know their parents either by name or by sight. I have to trust the kids for that.

21. I’m usually happy to do your correcting for you, except for writing (I don’t know what your rubric is), or math where there isn’t a key (quickly going down a row of math facts is fine, but I’m not going to calculate answers to a whole page of problems). I usually won’t stay past 3:30 to do this, unless we have an exceptionally good working relationship. If your kids have been really horrible and my nervous system is fried, I might not stay even if you want me to.

22. I will give you a report about behavior -- if your class is really terrible, I won’t sub for you again until next year. My favorite teachers are those who put the fear of dire consequences into the kids should they get their name written down by a sub.

23. I will have a bad attitude if I see:

A.) Lesson plans that include the insinuation that I’ll do nothing all day but show movies and play games if not warned otherwise.
B.) School policies that threaten to take you off the sub list if teachers complain about you. Your principal will get any warm body with a credential in there rather than teach all day, and we all know that, so cut the crap. Besides, I resent the implication that I won’t do a good job unless threatened.
C.) Principals that create menial jobs for subs to do in order to keep them around until 3:30, even when I’ve taught 4-hour Kindergarten or on minimum days. By this I don’t mean clearly useful things like correcting and copying, but I don’t appreciate being told to rearrange bookshelves, sweep floors, or to ask if I might “help” in other classes (teachers always say “no” in the afternoon, and are annoyed at the interruption) just so you can feel like you’ve gotten the last ounce of work out of me for your money. It’s not like we’re paid that extravagantly. Any principal that tries this, by the way, eventually gives it up as more trouble than it’s worth.

24. I will have a good attitude if I see:
A.) Principals and staff that say things like “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
B.) Secretaries that tell me that teachers asked to have me back.
C.) Kids who clearly fear what I might tell the teacher because they know they’ll be in big trouble when she gets back, if I give a bad report.
D.) Well-written lesson plans with the materials logically organized, including any teacher’s manuals and keys I might need. The best arrangement I ever saw had materials in piles labeled “morning”, “after recess”, “after lunch”, and “extra”, including everything that was needed for me and the kids for each lesson.



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American Veda

I've been reading a lot of books lately about the history of yoga, and alternative spirituality in general, but I thought *American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles, to Yoga and Mediation -- How Indian Spirituality Changed the West" was worth a review. I don't usually review books here, but this one really grabbed me.

Goldberg’s main thesis is that what he calls “Vedanta-Yoga” has had a profound impact on American religious thinking. The book starts, as all books on alternative religion in America seem to, with Emerson, and traces the Vedic thread through New Thought, Theosophy, Vivekenanda and the Vedanta Society -- as well as a full chapter on the prominent intellectuals influenced by them, then on to Yogananda and his Autobiography, and the Baby Boomers and Beatles visit to India in the Sixties. There is also a chapter about the dark side -- the scandals associated with some of the prominent gurus in the ‘80s, as well as the deep disillusionment of their followers. Then, the impact of “practitioner/pundit” -- just as the best and the brightest of young Baha’is did in the same era, some of the kids that turned to Vedanta-Yoga became professional academics in order to study their new religion.

One thing is made clear from the beginning: We aren’t talking about normative Hinduism as it is practiced in India. Goldberg asked us to picture the situation if someone had introduced a Christianity into the East that was “ a mixture of the intellectual rigor of the Jesuits and the contemplative practices of mystics.” That is, it would be barely recognizable to its original adherents, and much adapted to the soil in which it was planted.

In fact, the teachers that brought Vedanta and Yoga to our shores made a point of telling us we did not have to abandon our Judeo-Christian heritage in order to benefit from them. One of my favorite stories in the book involves a Westerner who went to India to consult with a guru, who asked him if he prayed to Jesus. When he said “No”, that he’d left the Catholicism of his childhood behind, the guru slapped him in the face and told him that he’d just swapped one narrow viewpoint for another, and to start praying to Jesus again! Others who abandoned their churches (or synagogues) returned enriched by their detour through Hindu spirituality, with a renewed interest in Western mysticism. Along with putting Sanskrit words like “karma” and “guru” into the dictionary, Vedanta has influenced virtually every form of “alternative religion” in America, including the “spiritual, but not religious” trend. Every time you hear someone refer vaguely to “the Universe” or “Higher Power” instead of God, you’re hearing Vedanta. The idea that there are many ways to God is another popular Vedantic idea -- the one which led me to abandon the Eastern path for the more Abrahamic Baha’i Faith, which puts a very different spin on it. (Some of the ideas that Goldberg describes as coming from Vedanta are also found in Sufism -- which with Baha‘i has a lot of affinity, but there’s no doubt that it’s the Indian influence that has popularized them in the U.S.)

One of the most interesting points the book makes is that many times people aren’t even aware of the source, and may not have arrived at the door of Vedanta-Yoga through spiritual seeking at all -- a person could be just looking for relief from an ailment, addiction, or stress. Hatha yoga, certainly, is generally presented as a purely physical practice, almost completely separated from its roots as an aid to meditation, but nevertheless exposing practitioners to Vedantic ideas, however vaguely. And, it sometimes acts as a springboard into a deeper investigation of Hindu spirituality. Goldberg even talks about the appeal that Vedanta has in the scientific community -- a group which is usually thought of as being indifferent, or even hostile, to religion. Indeed, one of the major advantages that Vedanta-Yoga has is that it does not require one to take scriptures literally even where they conflict with science. It’s very pragmatic -- you try it yourself and experience the results, much like a scientific experiment.

One thing that Goldberg mentions is changing is that younger generations, while still interested in Vedic religion, are far less naïve and less inclined to give themselves over completely to a guru. In fact, my guess is that some of the scandals emerged as the Baby Boomers themselves matured enough to say “Hey, that behavior’s not o.k.” and were willing to blow the whistle. One thing I’m seeing, that Goldberg doesn’t mention is that more overt adherence to Hinduism is becoming acceptable, especially with women seeking feminine forms of the divine. On the Internet, I’ve found comments like “Lakshmi is my home girl” and “I’m so glad Durga came into my life.”

I found the whole book fascinating, and found myself clicking my Kindle highlighter every few pages in some chapters. And, I couldn’t help but think about the impact that the phenomenon had on my own spiritual development. I was introduced to it at the age of 14, by my uncle -- he’s at the older end of the Baby Boom generation, and I’m at the youngest cohort (depending on how you define it). I read, and still have a copy of the Isherwood translation of the Bhagavad-Gita. The idea that God allows souls to come to Him through many paths was an exciting revelation, and a principle I continue to hold to after all these years. But I eventually abandoned Eastern religion as a dead-end , attributing the nightmares I had to my meditation practice. Even more significant, the way Vedanta was presented to me back then was very intellectual, and in my heart I missed the devotional and emotional side of spirituality -- a history that made me an almost perfect candidate for conversion to the Baha’i Faith.

But the more I read about alternative religion in America, the more I have to confront the depressing truth that Baha’is are barely a blip on the radar. (That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to non-Baha’is, but when you’re in the Faith, it seems like the whole world.) Not only has Vedanta-Yoga permeated American culture to an extent that even the non-religious are influenced by it, the Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements (HIMMs) started by individual gurus had more initial success, more long-lasting and stable communities (in spite of some rocky moments), and more American followers than the Baha’i Faith has ever been able to achieve, in spite of nearly constant effort for the last 120 years. I don’t suppose the Baha’i administration will ever ask itself why.

Foundational Yoga Books from Yoga Vidya

I’ve been asked to review four foundational yoga texts from Yoga Vidya. Brian Akers saw my blog post on Yoga history, and liked it well enough to send me copies. Which is a surprise, because I’m neither an expert on Dharmic religion nor even on hatha yoga -- outside of practicing it every day. My curiosity about how hatha yoga became transformed from an obscure, often secret, practice into something that soccer moms do at their local gym is just a quirk of mine -- I’m always interested in the history of whatever I happen to be into. And, of course, as all my friends know, I love to read books on religion and religious history. My only claim to expertise is the two journal articles I got published on the Baha’i Faith, which were very specifically focused, and a far cry from examining medieval spiritual texts.

Undaunted, however, I decided to begin with the oldest, and most familiar of these books, the Bhagavad Gita, which I first read back in high school -- as many others did -- in Christopher Isherwood’s translation, which is still on my shelves.

I compared Lars Martin Fosse’s translation with the one I have, and found, to my surprise that a whole phrase out of one of my favorite verses had disappeared -- or rather, the earlier translator must have invented it to make it sound more pleasing. In translation, there is always something of a trade-off between eloquence and literal meaning, and Fosse, as he says himself, leans towards the literal -- although his translation is quite smooth and lucid. The Sanskrit original is there for comparison, for those who know it -- or become inspired to learn it.

Fosse‘s introduction is definitely worth reading, to understand the history and context of theBhagavad Gita, as well as its place in the classic scriptures of the world. Again, I found myself fascinated at the interplay of ideas between India and the West, and how, as in hatha yoga, they have become not simply “Eastern“ or “Western“, but a product of several exchanges between the two.

The word “yoga” occurs nearly 150 times in theGita, but we are not yet talking of any form of physical culture, but a type of mental discipline, based upon knowledge, selfless service, or devotion. One could almost use it as a synonym for “spiritual path” or “spiritual practice”. So, in this sense, we can see the book as a foundational text -- maybe *the* foundational text, for yoga.

It seems to me more practical to consider the three hatha books together, since there is a good deal of overlap between them. Unlike the Gita, which has been read as sacred scripture in India for over a thousand years, and has been a source of inspiration for spiritual seekers in the West since the time of the Transcendentalists, these medieval (dating between 1300 and 1700 C.E.) hatha texts were meant to be secret teachings for spiritual aspirants that worked with a guru, and are not particularly well-known even among the millions who practice yoga today.

Westerners are accustomed to an asana-based practice i.e. mostly consisting of physical poses, with maybe a little easy pranayama or a few minutes meditation, depending on the teacher. These traditional texts relegate the asanas to only one section, giving equal or greater prominence to meditation, pranayama, cleansing practices, etc. Seasoned yoga practitioners who are at least familiar with the idea of these practices will find these books interesting. They would be overwhelming, even shocking, to beginning yoga students, or those who think of yoga as primarily a tool for fitness and relaxation.

Here we find a hatha yoga that is presented as a necessary foundation for Raja yoga , so they would be of most interest to those who are pursuing yoga as a spiritual path.

I found myself rather put off by some of the extravagant benefits promised the hatha yogi -- that this or that pose or breathing technique will destroy disease, grant magical powers (known as siddhis), or even conquer death. Any Western reader is going to find some of the practices bizarre, like Khecharimudra, which encourages the yogi to lengthen his tongue by various means so he can stick it into the hole behind the soft palate, where, it is promised, he will find sustaining nectar. (Nectar? More like post-nasal drip.)

However, to be fair, one would be hard put to find any religious text that isn’t jarring to modern sensibilities in some way. Christian gnostic texts can get pretty weird in places, too, but this does not negate their value. Unlike earlier translations, those published by Yoga Vidya don’t omit the less appealing passages.

I found it interesting just to compare what I was reading with the yoga I’m familiar with -- for example, I had no idea that a one-legged forward bend and the shoulder-stand were considered mudras, not asanas -- I thought mudras were hand gestures that were used in meditation. But other things strike me as being quite familiar -- the dietary advice, for example. All three books have black-and-white photos demonstrating the asanas described, and like Yoga Vidya’s translation of the Gita, the Sanskrit original is also included.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is the best known of the the three, Yoga Vidya’s version is translated by Brian Dana Akers . The Pradipika was written in the 15th century by Yoga Svatmarma, who describes asanas as the first step, which enables the practitioner to gain “steadiness, health, and lightness of body.” Some of these poses will be familiar to even the most casual yoga student; others are extremely difficult and way out of range for anyone who hasn’t been practicing for many years. My guess is that Svatmarama assumes that the aspirant will be guided by his guru as to preparation for these advanced positions. He regards Siddhasana, sometimes known to us as “Half-lotus“, to be the most important asana of all, reinforcing the purpose of hatha yoga as a physical preparation for mental discipline. After asana, the book presents pranayama (breathing practices, bandhas(energy "locks"), mudras to movekundalini, and finally meditation to attain samadhi.

I was also pleased to see in the Pradipika a recognition that women can also be yogis, or more properly called, yoginis. Most of the time, these classical writers assume the practitioner is male. In the West, most yoga students are women.

The Gheranda Samhita was composed around 1700; Yoga Vidya’s version was translated by James Mallinson. “Gheranda” is the teacher in the text, the author is unknown. The book presents a sevenfold path, instead of the familiar eight levels outlined by Pantajali (None of these hatha books spend any time on yamas or niyamas, i.e. the restraints and observances that constitute the ethical part of classical yoga.) I found the Gheranda Samhita to be very comprehensive and clear -- indeed, of the three classical hatha books, I enjoyed this one the most. It begins with purification practices, then asana, mudras, pratyahara, pranayama, meditation, and samadhi. The chapter on meditation (dhyana) includes specific visualizations that the aspirant should practice.

Before reading the Gheranda Samhita, I had been wondering exactly how yoga was tied into Aryuveda medicine: Well, here it is; various cleansing practices are said to balance the doshas, a concept that seems to me akin to the “humours” of medieval Western medicine. I also have enough trouble trying to maintain a healthy diet without being told that a kapha type like myself should eat more beans and avoid nuts; I’m still trying to get as much plant protein as I can. But that’s my own bias -- Aryuveda seems to be growing in popularity among those interested in alternative medicine, and the Gheranda Samhita would be useful for them.

I’m afraid that the Shiva Samhita was my least favorite of the three. Besides being badly organized and confusing at times, it also has more elements that are going to seem odd or even repulsive to most of us. The book is framed as a conversation between the Hindu God Shiva and his consort, Parvarti. The first two chapters are philosophical explanation. Even when it does get around to presenting yoga practices, this book has the least emphasis on asana practice of the three hatha books. On the one hand, it insists on devotion and obedience to one’s guru, on the other it will promise that some of those practices will allow the aspirant to avoid any penalty for sins, even those so heinous as killing one’s guru or sleeping with his wife. While reading it, I couldn’t help but think it’s no wonder that hatha yoga had such a bad reputation in the 19th and early 20th centuries, because there seems to be a clear thread of yogic thought that holds you can sin all you like as long as you perform the proper asanas and mudras. Then, the book will turn around and tell us that the greatest obstacle to liberation is “enjoyment.” This muddling is due to the book being a compilations from several authors, and there seems to have been no attempt by any of them to explain these contradictions.

There is a detailed explanation of meditation on the chakras, so a person interested in this approach might be interested in this book. I also was intrigued to notice that the schedule recommended for pranayama (morning, noon, evening, midnight) is exactly the same as one of Sivananda’s early books that I recently ran across. So, in spite of its faults, the Shiva Samhita is a historically influential hatha yoga text -- and the historically-minded may value it simply for that reason.

Overall, Yoga Vidya has done a terrific job in making foundational yoga texts more accessible to the Western reader. I hope to see more from them in the future -- maybe a translation of Pantajali’s Yoga Sutras?

Yoga History

Ever since I’ve got my Kindle, I’ve been spending a lot less time surfing around online, and a lot more time, reading -- reading actual books, instead of drifting through snippets of information here and there. It’s a higher quality experience. I’d mentioned in an earlier post that I was curious about the history of hatha yoga, and I’d been unable to find very much online about it, but I’ve just finished reading Mark Singleton’s Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. This is a scholarly book, published by Oxford University Press, which answered a whole lot of things that I’d found confusing in my own poking around in used bookstores and the Internet on the subject. His main thesis is that there is no evidence of an asana-based yoga practice existing before the 20th century. He says “Posture-based yoga as we know it today is the result of a dialogical exchange between para-religious, modern body culture techniques developed in the West and the various discourses of “modern” Hindu yoga that emerged from the time of Vivekananda onward.” It isn’t news that today’s yoga practice mixes Hindu tradition with Western ideas, but what’s really fascinating in this book is that the mix of West and East began in India itself, where groups like the YMCA who believed that virtue could be taught through physical exercise sought to enlighten a people they regarded as backward and feeble. It is this mixture that was brought to American shores as “Hatha Yoga”, and explains why, when I bought Yogi Ramacharaka’s 1930 book on the subject I did not find the familiar asanas we know today, but gentle calisthenics. What Indians did was counter this condescension with fitness regimes of their own. The familiar Sun Salutation(Surya Namaskar), that some Christians object to as sun worship, was created by the Raja of Mysore, purely as a fitness regimen that wasn’t even associated with yoga until later.

Now, of course, some of the poses are old, from the hatha yoga tradition. But a close reading of the medieval Hatha Yoga Pradipika reveals that cleansing practices (called kriyas) and pranayama are given more prominence than the physical poses, and half of those described are sitting meditation poses. All of the standing poses, with the possible exception of Tree Pose, are 20th century creations. I’ve noticed that even some older yoga systems created for Westerners have few, or even no, standing poses. You can, however, find standing poses that modern practitioners would identify as yoga asanas, in Western books on “harmonic gymnastics”, which was a spiritualized form of exercise for women in the early 20th century.

Another thing that had puzzled me, when I went looking for the roots of American yoga, was that the first books on yoga, at the turn of the last century, by Vivekananda and Blavatsky, did not so much as mention physical postures, but were books on philosophy and meditation. It turns out that these early yoga teachers distanced themselves from hatha yoga, which was associated with charlatans and ascetics with bizarre practices. This association was quite justified -- hatha yogis in India had, historically been religious fanatics with a penchant for violence. Under the British, they drifted from town to town, gaining money for doing astonishing postures and tricks. One objection Vivekananda had was that hatha yoga was done primarily to gain physical immortality and magical power, which he rightly did not regard as spiritual goals. The picture of the ash-covered disheveled yogi holding one arm up so long that it withered, or the mountebank contortionist was an object of morbid fascination and revulsion in the publications of that era.

Even as late as 1969, Richard Hittleman thought it necessary to distinguish himself from this stereotype in his book Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan: “those groups of people of the Far and Near East who do strange things such as walking on hot coals, sticking needles into their bodies, allowing themselves to be ‘buried alive’ and so forth are known as Fakirs and are never to be confused with Yogis.” (p.204) But, in 19th century India, the terms ‘fakir” and “yogi” referred to pretty much the same group of people (Fakirs were Muslim and Yogis Hindu, but these religious lines were often crossed), and there was no such thing as a physical yoga practice that, as Hittleman claims, was “designed solely for the development of human potential.” This also explains why ‘Abdu’l -Baha’ was so disdainful of yoga, and the Indian gurus that taught at Green Acre; he had some solid basis to dismiss yoga as “superstition” in 1912. The irony of it is, of course, that although yoga teachers were shoved out of Green Acre, which remains a Baha’i school to this day, it was yoga -- in its revised form -- that became a major influence in the lives of millions of Americans.

More Calories Out than In? It's Not that Simple.

I wrote the following sometime last week, and decided not to post it because I figured maybe folks were getting tired of my talking about my diet and exercise thing. However, I ran into this and now I can’t resist. In the comments section a lady talks about her experience:

I invite you to come and spend a week with me, while I weigh and measure and record every GD thing that goes in my mouth; while I walk, swim laps, or ride my bike and also do resistance training WITH a personal trainer (who is also a nutritionist) EVERY DAY EXCEPT SUNDAY (that's the day I do a spring water fast).
I also invite you to observe my weekly weigh ins, which, sadly, produce nothing in the way of LOSS--which confounds my trainer, but even SHE is slowly coming to the realisation that NO, you can't just necessarily change your body with sheer will power and self control--something she and I argued about a lot our first couple of weeks.

But, as this woman mentions, when an overweight person says this, we are assumed to be lying. No matter how healthy we claim our diet is, it is assumed that we are like the guy in the song “Junk Food Junkie” -- presenting a pious face to the world while secretly pigging out on Ding-Dongs. So, here’s my take:

Everybody knows the drill about weight loss, right? You have to burn more calories than you take in. One pound equals 3500 calories that you’ve not used and stored away in that spare tire around your middle. To get rid of it, you’ve got to exercise more or eat less -- preferably both.

Now, I’ve been working on this for the past few years -- initially, I was quite successful and took off 30 pounds, and to date, have kept them off. I’m still, however, medically obese -- which is a lot thinner than what is generally thought to be “obese”. I’m not, nor have I ever been over 230 pounds. I’d have to get down to 170 to be medically just “overweight”. (Just picture me shouting “Hooray! I’m overweight!”) That’s a weight I haven’t seen since my mid-20s.

According to Nutrition Data (which I really like and recommend), a woman of my age, size, and activity level is burning between 2300 and 2600 calories a day, depending on what exercise I happen to get done. I eat between 1600 and 1800 calories per day, pretty consistently. That means, if the formula of “burn 3500 calories to lose a pound” works that I should be losing a pound a week, at least. I’m not; I’m stuck in the same 5 pound range I’ve been going up and down in for the past three years. This is not the notorious “diet plateau” -- this is the weight I’ll stay at, unless I start going to starvation level calories. The depressing thought that torpedoed dieting in my youth -- that in order to be thin, you have to eat like a Third World famine victim for a lifetime-- turns out to be actually true. And who but an obsessive-compulsive would voluntarily starve themselves for longer than a few months? My husband thinks I’m already obsessive enough. .

However, every number other than the one on the scale is great. My last blood sugar test results were “excellent”, according to my doctor. My blood pressure and cholesterol are down where they should be -- with the help of medication. (The blood sugar I control without meds.) Nutrition Data, which tracks your actual nutrition as well as calories, shows me that I’m eating a very healthy diet, chock full of protein, vitamins, and minerals -- and where there are gaps, I supplement. (I’ve discovered one reason you see 2000 calories as a standard is that it’s almost impossible to get all the RDA of your nutrients from food alone unless you eat that much.) I almost never go beyond the recommended amount of fat, and seldom go over with carbohydrates. I really can’t eat healthier than I’m eating right now.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t think any of the diet or nutrition experts really know all that much about weight loss. My doctor once told me, in another context, that if you have a dozen remedies for a disease then it’s a sure sign that nothing really works. God knows there’s more than a dozen contradictory theories about what will make people lose weight permanently.

So, maybe a little kindness is in order. I get a little resentful of the “just stop stuffing your face and get out and exercise once in a while” attitude you get from the obsessive types who think that if you don’t run five miles a day and totally renounce any form of dessert you aren’t really trying. My injured back muscles won’t take running for five minutes, and I‘m working on healthy ways to satisfy my sweet tooth. Even when I eat something “bad”, I’m very careful to have only a small portion. In fact, one of the major changes I’ve made is that I never “pig out” any more.

But I’m not losing weight. Nor will I, unless I eat a diet that is less healthy than I eat now.

The Difference Between Asperger's Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism

I find it somehow comforting to read articles about Asperger’s Syndrome -- to read about the symptoms and characteristics and be able to say “Aha! There’s Trevor!”. I guess it makes me feel more able to deal with his differences to know that they are part of his disorder and not some kind of unique weirdness that only we have to live with.

A story hit the news a while back that they (whoever “they” are) are considering getting rid of the Asperger’s label altogether and simply lumping them in with high-functioning autism. According to Dr.Tony Attwood, the only real differences are in early development, but as they grow older, there really isn’t much difference between them.

Some quotes that struck me:

They also noted that the profile of social skills in children with autism includes self-isolation or rigid social approaches, while in Asperger's syndrome there can be a motivation to socialise but this is achieved in a highly eccentric, one-sided, verbose and insensitive manner.

In other words, autistic children really don’t care if they socialize, whereas Asperger’s kids do -- they just don’t know how. Trevor’s approaches tend to be awkward -- when he was younger he tended to open with inappropriate questions like “How old are you?” to an adult. He’ll talk your ear off with details about a story he’s writing -- he’ll do that even to strangers, and he really doesn’t appear to care whether or not they are interested. He can be insensitive -- then when he makes someone angry, he gets very frustrated and down on himself, even self-punishing.

There is general agreement that children with Asperger's syndrome may not show any conspicuous cognitive delay in early childhood. Indeed, some can be quite precocious or talented in terms of learning to read, numerical abilities and in some aspects of their constructive play and memory. Children with autism can be recognised as having developmental delay in their cognitive abilities from infancy and diagnosed as young as 18 months of age with a mean age of diagnosis of five years. Children with Asperger's syndrome are often not diagnosed until after they start school with a mean age of diagnosis of eleven years (Howlin and Asgharian 1999). However, the signs of Asperger's syndrome in very young children may be more subtle and easily camouflaged at home and school

With autistic children, it’s usually quite clear early on that something is wrong. Every autistic child I’ve seen in my work as a substitute teacher starts Kindergarten in a Special Education classroom. Even the highest-functioning one I know of started there, even though by fourth grade he was in a general ed classroom with an aide who helped him, and I’ve heard that in middle school, he didn’t even need the aide any more. However, I’ve never seen a child with an Asperger’s diagnosis in Special Ed or with a one-on-one aide; they are in regular classrooms and get the support they need from pull-out programs. (Speech, for example.) As far as the disorder being “camouflaged”, you can check out my own
story on just how long it took for us to understand that something was wrong with Trevor. The school never diagnosed it, either. As I've said before, Trevor's precocious abilities in reading and math misled us into thinking we were raising a budding genius, not a kid with a learning disorder.

The DSM criteria refer to children with Asperger's syndrome as having, in comparison to children with autism, no clinically significant delay in age-appropriate self-help skills and adaptive behaviour. Clinical experience indicates that parents, especially mothers of children and adolescents with Asperger's syndrome, often have to provide verbal reminders and advice regarding self-help and daily living skills. This can range from problems with dexterity affecting activities such as learning to tie shoelaces to reminders regarding personal hygiene, dress sense and time management.

Trevor was ten before he could tie his own shoes, and we’re still working on “self-help and daily living skills”, even though he's a young adult. He's made a lot of progress with hygiene, taking care of himself without reminders now. But it was an issue throughout adolescence.

The final, and to me, the most important difference that Attwood mentions is that a diagnosis of autism gets help; a diagnosis of Asperger’s does not. The reason that Far Northern put us through all their testing, even though they knew they couldn’t help a kid with Asperger’s, is that they were hoping they could re-categorize him. But, to no avail; he has Asperger’s Syndrome, and the state won’t pay. Virtually every agency I’ve contacted asks me if we have gone to Far Northern, which appears to be the funding conduit for most forms of assistance for learning-disabled adults. Not qualifying there closed a lot of doors for us.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about getting rid of the Asperger’s diagnosis. I know I would have been a lot more resistant to a diagnosis of autism -- and Trevor is definitely different than the autistics I have known, both in his history, his abilities, and his problems. On the other hand, if Asperger’s were not considered a separate disorder, he would qualify for a whole smorgasbord of programs -- SSI, independent living assistance, job training, etc. The label isn't nearly as important to me as getting the help he needs to become a functional, independent adult.

Substitute Teaching in Rural Northern California

I meant to do a write-up on this last week, when I thought I would have the leisure -- because I almost never get called during the first week of school. But, I got called for a three-day job on the second day of school, and then again for Friday. That's substitute teaching -- you never know what's going to happen, and your day's plans can change by a simple phone call.

From what I hear, subbing in a rural area is quite different from doing it in a city -- even a small city. There, you pretty much work for a single school district, which keeps you working every day. It's almost like having a full-time job. All the large districts are now automated, so you can pick an assignment online, or you get a recorded message by phone.

I work mostly in Tehama County, but I'm also on the list in Glenn County, going as far south as Orland. I don't work every day -- and that's not from choice. If I don't get a call, then I don't work, and there's no way I know of to make there be a job when there isn't one. I have run into subs who claim they work every day, but I have no idea how they manage it. As a new sub, I hardly got work at all, in spite of running around to all the schools and dropping off a card. It takes time before you establish the relationships that get you onto the "short list".

One of the districts I work for has just started an automated system. In some ways, it seems great to be able to just pick a job out of a list -- although none have appeared, so far. On the other hand, if my most regular districts did that, I'd miss the personal touch. There are some teachers who call me first, then when I assure them I'm available, they tell the sub clerk about the arrangement. Can't do that kind of thing when it's all taken care of by computer. Most of my jobs come from "regulars" i.e. teachers that ask for me.

Another thing that's different from urban subbing is that you have to work for several districts -- unless you don't mind a lot of days off or have a special relationship with a particular district. It's a bit complicated at tax time, because I get W-2s from each individual district -- and they vary from year to year. I don't get *a* paycheck. Each district sends me a check separately. If anybody had reason to attach my wages, they'd have a helluva time chasing them down.
Each of these districts does their accounting differently, too. In a rural area, a district can be quite small, containing only one little elementary school, in contrast to a city where a school district can have dozens of schools. Red Bluff is the largest that I sub for, and it has three elementary schools and a middle school.

I didn't start out to be a sub -- almost nobody does. Almost all substitute teachers are either just out of school and hoping to get into a permanent position, or they are retired teachers who are just earning a bit extra. For one thing, the pay is extremely low compared to having a full time job. I make between $85 and $115 per day, and there are only 180 days a year I can work -- and I don't work all of them. You do the math. Most people who don't get a permanent job move on to something they can make a living at. It wasn't so bad for me, really -- once I got past the disappointment. Before becoming a sub, I was a stay-at-home mom, so we were used to getting by one income. And I love the job.

One of the great things about being a sub is the variety. I normally work in K-5, but in special education I've worked with every level from preschool to post-high school. I've worked in resource (which is mostly tutoring for kids in regular classrooms), and in community day school (which is for kids with behavior problems.) I normally avoid the larger middle schools, but in the one I do work in I've taught every subject, including fly fishing and calf roping. (Only in Red Bluff would you get an elective class in calf roping!) A job can be for half a day; the longest I've ever worked in one place has been three months.

And I love the kids -- the eager kindergartners wanting to share their achievements, the autistic kid making a breakthrough, the middle-schooler just developing an interest in politics or science fiction or whatever.

You have the bad days. One probably isn't supposed to say this, but there are some classes that are just impossible. When I get one of those, I don't sub for that teacher for the rest of the year. That's the reason I don't do middle school any more; I'm not so desperate for a day of work that I have to put up with spitballs, rudeness, and refusal to stay on task. After seven years of substitute teaching, I'm fairly skilled at getting kids to do what I need them to do, but I'm not a miracle-worker. Part of it is my own temperament -- I can deal with an autistic kid in full meltdown better than a snotty group of 7th graders who decide it's fun to give the sub a hard time. But mileage varies from teacher to teacher. I've known teachers who are at a total loss with little kids, and some are downright scared of special ed. (Oooh, yuck, diapers!) Some teachers just love teenagers.

Anyway, another school year has started. I'm not scheduled for tomorrow, but that could change the next time the phone rings. With substitute teaching, you never know . . .

Of Course Exercise Won't Make You Thin

The Time article "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" is getting a lot of discussion out there. Apparently, like those who drink diet soda, Americans who hit the gym just make up the lost calories by eating more. It's big news, I guess, that vigorous exercise makes you hungry. That's why ranchers used to serve huge dinners at lunch time to their hands -- after a morning of hard physical labor, they were ravenous.

O.K., I'm going to come out with a dictum: Do not think about weight loss, do what is healthy for your body. Don't exercise to lose weight; exercise because it makes you healthier and especially resistant to the maladies of middle age. Don't eat right to lose weight, eat right because your body needs you to. Now, if you do this, you may very well take off some weight, in a slow, sustainable way. It probably won't make you acceptable in anyone's weight table, or get you into size 5 jeans -- but if you put your focus on that you'll only make yourself crazy, which doesn't improve your chances.

Like most overweight people, I have a history. I was small as a little kid, and around the age of 8 I started getting chubby, probably due to emotional overeating and Mom's lack of cooking skill that led us to eat out quite a bit. But when the courts sent us to live with Dad, my step-mother put me on a diet, and as it happens, I was just hitting puberty. So, the summer I turned twelve, I lost ten pounds and grew three inches. The fat, rejected, teased 6th grader turned into a cute 7th grader who got whistled at when she walked to school. It was a catepillar-to-butterfly metamorphosis, made even better by the fact that starting school in a new town meant that no one knew I'd ever been fat.

At fifteen I was full-grown, and perfect: five foot four-and-a-half, 125 pounds -- and an emotional basket case. All the folks who just say fat people just need to summon up enough will power to stay away from the donuts really don't have a clue. You don't get anywhere by lecturing someone who is depressed; you have to take care of the depression before they can get their act together, on anything.

The weight began creeping up: "Oh my gosh, 130 pounds!" So, I dieted -- 1000 calories a day, lunching on an apple and a can of diet Pepsi. I did that several times through high school and college, literally shedding tears over it. Fat meant nobody would like me. Fat meant I was a horrible person. Fat meant I didn't have the right to exist on the planet. It was a huge emotional trip.

Frankly, that why MeMe Roth makes me mad: She's really just an adult version of the playground bully, who makes it her business to tell the overweight that they are disgusting and shouldn't exist. (She was complaining about plus size panty liners, for heaven's sake!) Her health message -- and some of her points are valid--gets lost in her finger-pointing.

But I digress. The weight crept up, and I dieted. Then it crept up again. Somewhere in there I pretty much decided I had to live on starvation-level calories for the rest of my life, or I was doomed to fatness -- faced with that choice, I gave up. I was around 140 pounds when I graduated from college, and afterwards, I quickly plumped up like a Ball Park Frank.

Healthy eating takes cooking skill, and money, and I had neither. It also takes a certain amount of emotional stability, and those post-college years were really the low point of my life. Somewhere, as I matured, I began shifting my focus towards health, rather than recovering my adolescent beauty -- which by that point would become impossible, thin or not. I'd go on an occasional "health kick", then it would slip away. At this point, I resented the amount of mental attention it required; I'd get bored and want to go on to something else. The problem with fitness gurus is that health is their profession, or at least, their main hobby. Normal people have other interests they'd like to pursue.

A few years ago, I started working on making sustainable changes -- things I could live with. For six months, I didn't lose any weight, but I felt better. Then, I was diagnosed with diabetes. This gave me a motivation -- I'd really just as soon keep my eyesight, and my toes. With further dietary changes, strict watch over my blood sugar, and water pills for high blood pressure, I took off thirty pounds. Slowly, over a period of a couple of years -- and to date, I've kept them off.

But the weight loss stopped. I don't know if it's accurate to call it a plateau, because I've been stuck in it for close to two years. I eat around 1800 calories a day, and every time I try to go lower than that, I just get crazy hungry and am in bigger danger of eating the wrong foods. I'm still working on where I can sustainably cut.

Anyway, the focus these days is health -- whole grains, veggies, good fats, exercise. Health is something I can feel good about, and it distances me from the emotional traps involved in losing weight.

It's My Birthday and I'll Blog if I Want To

I turned 49 today -- an age that doesn't get much in the way of special attention. And August is invariably the bottom of the year for us financially -- I haven't had a paycheck since early July, and there are back-to-school expenses for the kids. Not a good time for going out to dinner in a nice restaurant. So, I celebrated by going to see "Julie and Julia". I don't mind at all going to see a movie alone -- I never really got why some people think that going to the movies is a social occasion. In fact, I like just being out on my own, doing my thing. The last movie I saw was "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", and my kids, who are old enough to know better, talked so much that I found another place to sit, feeling rather that it was a mistake to bring them along.

"Julie and Julia" is definitly a chick flick, and judging by the audience, an old chick flick. In fact, most probably remember Julia Child being on public television. But unlike most films of that type, I laughed most of the way through it. Meryl Streep was as terrific as all the reviews say she was. I was reminded very much of my Grandma, who liked Julia Child because, in spite of the fancy cuisine she taught, she was very much a *real* person. Grandpa could never stand her voice -- but he had a thing about voices. I never got to watch "All in the Family" as a kid 'cause the second Edith hit the high note in the opening song, Grandpa would change the channel.

But Grandma loved Julia, and she loved cooking. "You cook by feel", she'd say. And I found she's right -- at least the way I cook. I don't have much use for making my way through a fancy recipe which requires a lot of special and expensive ingredients that I don't normally have around my kitchen. I make things, like soup, where I can just use what I have. No canned tomatoes? Fine, I'll just throw in some V-8 juice. Beans, onions, celery, carrots and some herbs will make a soup of some kind -- and if I have fresh parsley, so much the better.
So, for me, Julia Child is more fun to watch in action than to actually try to emulate. She was a character -- and in Streep's performance, at least, I got the picture of a woman who really loved life.

Also, from what I understand, she didn't think much of the current fears about fat and carbs -- and she lived to be 92. I wouldn't dare add all that yummy butter to anything nowadays -- I use olive oil on my breakfast toast, and that sparingly. (Locally processed olive oil -- good stuff!)

The reviewers were rather negative about the parts of the movie that dealt with blogger Julie Powell -- and I think that's a bit unfair. A well-loved personality like Julia Child played by an actress like Meryl Streep is an unfair comparison to just about anybody. Julie Powell took on a tough project, and wrote a good blog about it. If I was trying to cook fancy and unfamiliar cuisine in what Grandma would call a "t.v. dinner kitchen", I'd probably be reduced to a meltdown or two myself.

Anyway, I had fun watching a lot of talk about fine dining, without actually having a birthday dinner.

Meme Roth Just Hates Fat, or Even Slighly Plump, People

I've been seeing quite a bit of this woman around lately, particularly on Fox News. And, as my husband said "The woman's a bigot. It's like putting the head of the KKK on t.v."

The Guardian interview (click on the blog post title) reveals a woman with *huge* hang-ups who needs to get her own house in order. She's not concerned with health -- nobody who refuses to eat until she does her four-mile run, no matter how late in the day that might be,is really concerned with health. She has a terror of being fat and is mostly concerned with looks and vanity. There is already a great deal of shame and stigma associated with being overweight; Roth is a victim of it as much as a perpetrator. She appears to be personally offended by fat people being in public, as in her condemnation of American Idol winner Jordin Sparks -- who is not even fat and just fails to meet Meme's rail-thin ideal. She was on Fox News yesterday griping about Obama's nominee for Surgeon-General, Regina Benjamin, who isn't thin enough to suit her. The impression one gets is that Meme would prefer that all fat people just slink away and hide from the public eye, preferably unemployed so they can't afford to eat.

Fortunately, most professionals who deal with obesity know that education and positive encouragement work a whole lot better than shame and stigma.

Just recently I ran across a magazine in a doctor's office that told a story of a woman who lost 100 pounds -- o.k., terrific for her. But I noted that, not only does she diet, she works out two or three hours every day. And I couldn't help thinking just how large a chunk that is out of a person's leisure time. Most people have little enough time between work, taking care of their families, and just the necessary things we have to do in life, without filling in most of our free time with exercise -- particularly if you don't really enjoy exercise. It's kind of a hopeless message to tell the overweight that diet and exercise have to become an obsession or we are just worthless hunks of flab. We are human beings -- who need time to think, to do something creative, maybe to have a relaxed conversation or watch a movie. I'd rather die of a heart attack than live that kind of a life, where I'm so frightened of putting on an ounce that I can't enjoy anything.

I can't help but wonder how long it's been since MeMe Roth watched a movie or read a book, or spent time on a hobby -- or would she consider such mind-engaging activities a waste of time?

As far as healthy habits go, it's far better to make small, sustainable choices than to make it an obsession. That's what I did -- and I lost 30 pounds and got such good control of my blood sugar that I could go off medication. I exercise a more moderate half-hour to an hour a day -- yoga, tai chi, walking. I don't do exercise that I hate; I found types of exercise that I enjoy, and that I will stick with because I enjoy it. I'm not yet thin enough for MeMe to let me out in public, and maybe never will be, but I eat a healthy diet with little meat or junk food, lots of veggies and whole grains -- and I have time to do other things in my life that I like a whole lot better than the treadmill.

Twitter vs. Blogging

A few days ago, I jumped aboard the latest Internet bandwagon and got a Twitter page. I really had low expectations of the experience -- after all, what can you write in 140 characters that's worth reading?
But I'm finding some advantages -- the biggest being that because I have to keep it short, I can make more comments on a wider variety of topics. On my blogs, I usually feel like I have to write a relatively well-thought out essay -- which means, in practice, that many ideas, or even draft posts, never are actually posted. The blog just sits there, as the most recent post gets older and older. Most visitors who arrive usually do so from a search or link, not because they are regular followers of the blog. Sometimes, I don't have time or thought to spare for writing. It's easier to find five minutes several times a day, than an hour once a day, or even once a week.

This gives me the space to comment on a wider variety of topics -- Baha'i stuff, Asperger's Syndrome, yoga, teaching, whatever I'm reading, or whatever topic in the news takes my fancy. When you don't have to write well, it's easier to to write broadly. It always bothered me, back when I was entangled in forum debates, that people tended to put me in a kind of box, based upon whatever impression my posts on Baha'i issues gave them. If I was angry, they saw me as an irredeemably angry person. If I was inspired, they saw me as spiritual. If I was concerned they saw me as compassionate. No doubt, if I stumbled, they dismissed me as a fool. The truth is that I'm all of those things -- sometimes. Human beings are complicated, and always in flux. Twitter captures that, I think, whereas other forms of online communication remain frozen in time.

There are disadvantages, though. Because Twitter is short and fast, it also tends to be more trivial. Do people really want to know the small details of my day? Probably not -- but I put them down anyway. Twitter begs to be constantly updated. When I read it, I tend to gravitate towards links, which lead me into a more in-depth discussion of a topic, but more personal tweets will sometimes make me smile.

I tried to get my Twitter updates put here on Karen's Thoughts, but Blogger put it on Unenrolled Baha'i -- my guess is because it has a more up-to-date layout.

Looking for Asperger's Resources in Tehama County

I haven't talked about this much online, only privately to friends, but my 19-year-old son, Trevor, has Asperger's Syndrome. It's really been a long journey with him -- he was diagnosed late, but he was always "different". When he was little, I thought I was the mother of a budding genius. He knew his alphabet and numbers by the age of two -- in fact, he had an extraordinary fascination with them. He would ignore pretty pictures of bunnies and duckies to point at the page number, or the beginning letter. He used to read license plates. When he was two, he began reading words -- the first being "Sears" and "Raley's". When he got money for his 4th birthday, he chose a toy clock, and within a few months could tell time -- he'd already learned digital time from the microwave clock. He knew the times tables when he was six.

When I took my little genius to pre-school, the teacher suggested he had speech delays, and really pushed for him to be tested. Trevor got speech help from preschool clear until sixth grade, and it was this speech teacher that first suggested that he had some characteristics that were similar to high-functioning Asperger's kids.

Trevor remembers his school years with intense bitterness. Kids played tricks on him because he was naive, or just teased him for being different. Once he said to his speech teacher, while they watched the kids on the playground, "They're playing. I'd like to play, too, but I don't know how." By middle school he routinely spent his recesses just pacing the perimeter of the playground, alone. The few rare friends he had would inevitably dump him after a while -- in one instance, at a parent's insistence.

My thought, for most of those years, was that Trevor just had the social awkwardness you often see in nerdy kids, and that as he matured, things would get better. Then, one day, he became frustrated with something or another, and started screaming and hitting himself in the head, and I could no longer deceive myself: Normal eleven-year-olds don't do that. In fact, with the hindsight gained in my experience as a substitute teacher in Special Ed classes, I can see that this is fairly typical autistic behavior.

So I went searching for information on autism-spectrum disorders -- and in my amateur fashion it seemed like Trevor was hyperlexic. And, actually, I wasn't wrong -- hyperlexia is characerized by the kind of intense interest in letters he had as a young child. It was just one of the cluster of characteristics that make up his disorder.

In his Freshman year of high school, Trevor had a severe bout of depression that required professional intervention. It was around that time, I found that Sacramento State did low-cost testing, and I finally got the official diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. At this point, having the label was important so that he could get help when he stated attending community college.

That's where he's at now. College has been better than high school, with it's social pressures -- but it is not problem-free. In spite of his high intelligence, Trevor's grades are pretty average. He has trouble with organization and needs support from me to take care of the paperwork involved in attending college. When confronted with a new situation, he just freezes like a deer in the headlights.

Trevor desperately needs job experience. It's too much to ask to just have him go around town filling out job applications. We've tried nagging him to do that and gotten nowhere. He's afraid of new situations, and nagging just makes him feel bad about himself, which paralyzes him even more.

Another factor is that his odd mannerisms mark him as "different" and most potential employers would just roll their eyes and dismiss him. And his difference is noticeable: One driver's training instructor chewed me out for even thinking about allowing him to drive, comparing him to her retarded daughter. It has been really hard for me to see my early-reading math whiz grow up into a teenager that people mistake as retarded. They say that people with Asperger's Syndrome have about a 50/50 chance at being able to live a normal life -- but the older he gets, the worse the odds seem to be.

He also has big emotional hang-ups about being rejected because of his "difference" -- and job-hunting is 99% rejection. To just push him out into the world is a sure way to send him into depression. Besides that, Trevor tends to make mistakes that mark him as lacking "common sense" and bosses are unlikely to put up with that. So what he really needs is a program that takes account of his disability. He's quite capable of working, but he needs very clear and specific instructions about what he's supposed to do, and what he should not do. He's not a kid that will simply see what needs to be done and jump in there -- a bad thing in the job market where being a "self-starter" is so highly valued.

However, the local job programs for people with disabilities don't deal with Asperger's -- for them, Trevor is not severly impaired enough. We wasted all last summer trying to get him into one -- and after much testing, discussion, expense and paperwork, we were just told what we were told when I first called: "We don't do Asperger's". I think they figured that they could somehow recategorize him into another disorder on the autism spectrum, but no such luck.

So, we're just stuck. I really want to find some alternative to just keeping him in school as long as we can before just giving up to allow him live his life back in his room -- to write his stories, surf on the 'Net, and play video games.

Working Just for the Health Insurance

There's been some talk lately about the slowing economy, and the big drop in the stock market, forcing retirees back into the job market. But there's a problem that the media seems to have overlooked, and surprisingly, I couldn't find much about it on the web at all, and that's folks who could retire, but don't, because they'd lose their health insurance and wouldn't be able to afford to carry it on their own. Everything I could find was on working people who can't get health insurance at all -- which I suppose puts us in a luckier category. But, the older I get, the more people I run into who can't retire. The days are gone when someone could retire and look forward to 20 years of comfortable leisure afterwards, like my parents' generation did.

My Jim is 57 years old and has worked for the Probation Department for 30 years. The total cost of his insurance is $1000 per month -- largely paid by his employer. He's nine years older than I am, so even at 65, when he could get Medicare, he couldn't quit work because then I wouldn't have health coverage. So, my husband can't retire until he's 74 -- and we'd better pray that his health allows him to do that, because there's no way I could ever replace him as primary breadwinner at this stage of my life. Substitute teachers don't get health insurance; we're considered to be independent contractors.

*sigh* Life is fragile, you know? A perfectly decent, hardworking, responsible family can just go straight down the tubes when disaster strikes -- and health-related disasters are one of the biggest factors sending people into bankruptcy.

My online friends in other countries are continually astonished at the American disdain for taxes, I know -- but it would take a revolution to change it. No way are we getting a "one-payer" system -- maybe small adustments here and there, covering certain classes of people, but not the full-scale socialized medicine. The voters in this country will never stand for it. To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure that should happen, myself, although there are some good arguments for it.

I guess, in spite of liberalizing tendencies as I've grown older I still do have that conservative streak -- I can't help but feel that my health care shouldn't be somebody else's problem. If I can't afford to go to the doctor, then I don't go to the doctor -- just like I don't get things like dental implants that my dentist thinks I should have but insurance doesn't cover; I just live without a couple of molars. Just like I can get accupuncture for my TMJ (which insurance partially covers), but not the dental treatment from a specialist (which insurance doesn't cover at all).

Maybe it's generational -- my grandma and Jim's mother would both say, in such situations, that "There ought to be something there" or "They ought to have this" -- meaning a government program to take care of whatever problem was under discussion. But I never had that sense of outraged entitlement. If I had my act together enough to have developed a career, we wouldn't have this problem -- and that's an easy stone to throw for anyone who cared to. So, I can worry -- but I don't really feel like I have the right to bitch.

It's strange -- I wouldn't be resentful if there were public programs for other people; I just don't feel like I should be asking for one for myself. An American thing? The way I was raised? I don't know.

Covenant Talk

It's been a long time since I've written anything about the Baha'i Faith on Karen's Thoughts; most of my Baha'i Writing these days is over on Unenrolled Baha'i -- and I made a promise for that blog that I wouldn't talk about the Baha'i administration. I wanted it to be a positive place, focused on "living the life". However, several days ago, my friend Baquia has posted a talk from former house member 'Ali Nakhjavani, which obliquely mentions folks like me. The first half talks about "Baha'is and non-Baha'is" advancing the idea that the Covenant is not important -- which is a distortion of what's being said out here. The second half refers to "freethinkers" who go "back to Baha'u'llah." So, I think I'm pretty safe in my assumption on who he's talking about.

*sigh* I have been hesitant to address this; I know what I'm letting myself in for. I really have no wish to go back to the old days when all these issues were constantly argued out on email lists , but they did have one advantage: liberal positions on those issues were very visable to a regular audience. These positions are now so much part of my universe that to talk about them is a bit like teaching the ABCs, but there are people who don't know them. It disturbs me to see people who give up on Baha'u'llah because they accept the conservative stance as the only possible stance. I'll never understand the fundie preference that a person renounce Baha'u'llah rather than be a liberal Baha'i.

Anyway, Mr. Nakhjavani's talk is really quite a standard spiel about the Covenant -- I doubt if anyone in his audience heard anything that they already weren't familiar with. It all sounds fine, even inspiring, except that this "domino theory" of the Covenant when it gets down to brass tacks means you must accept every single decision of the UHJ as right and good, or all the dominos fall down and you aren't a Baha'i. People can get really absurd about it -- you don't like Ruhi? What's the matter, do you have a problem with the Covenant? Worried about the environmental impact of the terrace gardens? You aren't loyal to the Covenant. In its extreme form, "the Covenant" has devolved into a form of taqlid -- the blind obedience forbidden in the Writings of Baha'u'llah.

First and foremost, my "problem with the Covenant" has always been the appalling way that a number of people have been treated -- from the editors of Dialogue magazine to the disenrollment of Sen McGlinn. I just can't get behind this unspiritual suspicion, looking for "internal enemies" in every corner, and seeing "agendas" in every email conversation. That unreasoning fear just sucks all the compassion out of the religion and leaves it an empty husk. I want no part of it. I didn't just wake up one day and decide "Hey, it would be cool to be a freethinker, because I'm just not down with those stodgy old authorities"; it was a painful ethical choice that I wish I didn't have to make.

I've kept Baha'u'llah, Mr. Nakhjavani; it's only the paranoia I've left behind. My covenant with Baha'u'llah doesn't require it.

Democracy Now! Staff Arrested

This was just an astonishing story to wake up to this morning. After wading through the news reports, it appears that there was some mischief at these protests -- thrown objects, vandalism and the like. However, several reports are saying that the police were way out of line, gassing, pepper-spraying, and arresting even peaceful protesters.

According to Amy Goodman's interview, made just as she had been released from jail, she'd heard that two members of her staff had been arrested as they were filming the police as they cracked down on the protesters. She went to find out why they were arrested, and was told to back off -- and she didn't.

Generally, if you don't follow a police officer's instructions, you are at risk for arrest, even if you think those instructions are unreasonable. I'm aware of that, having a husband in law enforcement, but most law-abiding middle-class people may not be. If you refuse to listen, they'll slap the cuffs on you, and you can sort it out in court later. We drilled our kids in two rules: Do whatever a cop tells you and never piss off a judge.

But, as Amy points out, we're talking about the press here -- the freedom of which is so vital to our democracy. I'm really concerned about why reporters filming the protests would be arrested. These are professionals, and just doing their jobs. Amy's press credentials were plainly visible; the cops should have let her through.

These charges will almost certainly be dropped -- the actions of these reporters are going to look very different in court than they did to cops whose minds were on crowd control and adrenaline was pumping.

I couldn't find a way to embed the video of her post-arrest interview which tells the story, but here's the more dramatic video of her arrest, which is all over the web this morning:



Here's an update: Producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous were arrested while trying to get out of the way. Before that, they were just doing their jobs, filming what was going on. Several other journalists were arrested as well, including one who yelled "It's a Republican paper, for Chrissakes!" Press passes were consfiscated. Amy, in her upset at what had happened to her producers, took what she should have known was a risk. But, the arrest of Nicole and Sharif is legitimate cause for some real outrage -- they were backing away, not challenging the officers at all.

I'd like to know what the cops' orders were. This thing needs to be investigated.

Digging Up Yoga History

I tell students who complain that history is boring that whatever they are into, it has a history: music, sports, fashion. The most boring way to approach history is the way we're forced to do it in school -- broad, sweeping survey courses where you have barely time to get the gist of what was happening before moving on to the next chapter. History buffs are invariably into small slices of history -- like the Civil War, or local history.

Grandma still laughs about my tendency, as a kid, to look up the history of whatever I was doing. When she taught me to crochet, I tried to find out where it came from. I haven't changed much.

I've found myself curious about the history of yoga in America. As far as I know, nobody has written a book about that, and I've only been able to get bits and pieces. I know that it was brought here by Swami Vivekenanda after the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893, and that it was enthusiastically promoted by Sara Bull, Sarah Farmer's friend at Green Acre. Yoga was one of the many new religious ideas floating around at the time, and arguably the most influential in the long run -- although it has achieved that status partly by being separated from its religious roots.

Anyway, my husband and I happened to be cruising a used bookstore with a large metaphysical section. I found some old Baha'i books there, too, like Horace Holley's *Religion for Mankind*. (Baha'i books always end up in the metaphysical section of used bookstores, although they really don't belong there.) I found a couple of old yoga books. One was from the 1960s, rather quaintly old-fashioned, like Richard Hittleman's books seem now. (Hittleman dominated the yoga bookshelves when I was young.) Iyengar's *Light on Yoga*, written around the same time, holds up better.

A more interesting find was *Hatha Yoga* by Yogi Ramacharaka, which was copyrighted 1930, although I found mention of an earlier edition in 1906. I went digging through Project Gutenberg, and found a few more very early yoga books, ranging from 1906 to 1922 -- and it's clear that yoga was taught very differently back in the early days. Annie Besant's book on yoga is entirely metaphysitcal and focused on meditation. She mentions Hatha Yoga, but doesn't give any clues on how to practice it. These early yoga books, when they do mention the physical practices, spent many chapters on diet and healthy living. Pranayama, or breathing exercises, are emphasized a whole lot more than asanas, or the actual yoga poses. Ramacharaka's book has one small chapter of thirteen exercises, only four or five of which were familiar to me. Another startling omission is the static hold -- one of the things that differentiates yoga from other forms of exercise is that you stretch into a position and hold it for a period of time, sometimes several minutes. There is not a hint of that in these books. In fact, a couple of the exercises reminded me of warm-ups I've learned in tai chi class.

So, when Sara Bull was practicing yoga at Green Acre, she was certainly doing something that looked very different from my morning practice. I find myself wondering when the more familiar yoga poses began to be practiced. What's curious is that these early teachers were from India, and one would think that an older, more authentic yoga would have been taught in those early days, with Western adaptations gradually creeping in as it became popular. Of course, another thing we don't know is how much reliance there was on oral instruction -- it could be that some things were considered too esoteric to be published for a general audience.

Anyway, I'm just collecting information as I come across it.