Yoga and the Art of Living Without Hope and Fear

The ghouls delighted at Selby Gardens at Old Spanish Point! As for me, I faced my fears head-on!

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Whew, what a month it has been. I arrived back in NYC on October 1st facing a lot of unknowns in my personal and professional life. On top of that, a lot is happening out in the larger world that has filled me with anxiety. I must say, I started out the month feeling very apprehensive.

 But what got me through the month was one very specific teaching from Pema Chödrön. She’s offering an online meditation course called “A Field Guide for Dark Times.” I was lucky enough to receive a free teaching that pretty much set me on my way and helped me to get through everything I needed to accomplish. Specifically, in the teaching she said the following which really stuck with me:

 … perceive the world just as it is, free from hope and fear …

 I – like you, I am most sure – operate often in life while under the umbrella of hope and fear. We hope for certain outcomes, we fear others.

 But, I wondered, what would it feel like if I could try to act without hope and fear? So that’s what I set off to try to do. Every day I would wake up thinking “ok, here’s what I have to try to accomplish today in order to get me closer to my goals.” And at the end of my morning mediation practices, I would quietly say to myself: “may I act without hope and fear.” That became my mantra.

 I’m happy to say that this personal mantra really did help as I navigated some situations that normally would have made me feel fearful. And I achieved outcomes that were not only favorable but also better than I could have imagined at the outset of this month.

 The outcomes aside, though, the real benefit to me was that it spurred me to take action on my desired goals, gave me that kick-in-the-pants I needed. Though I was often wading into unknown territories for me, still it spurred me on just to begin wading … then swimming … then sprinting towards my goals.

 As I was practicing trying to live without hope and fear, I also recalled another teaching from Pema that I heard many years ago and have previously shared in my e-Letters. She said:

 The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say “I wonder what’s going to happen today,” … and carry that kind of curiosity through your life.”

 This approach to life can really help to open up our minds and move it in the opposite direction from feeling stuck mentally, which is a state of mind we can often find ourselves mired in. In fact, if I am being honest with myself, I’d have to guess that around half the time my mind is feeling constricted and stuck and the other half open and free. So, yoga and the art of living without hope and fear involves a daily recommitment to doing whatever we can to try and maintain a curious mind, an open mind. The results, I have discovered, can be profound.

 Pema has a suggestion she calls Positive Insecurity for what we can do when find our mind closing down:

 Whenever you’re in a hot spot or feeling uncomfortable, whenever you’re caught up and don’t know what to do, you can find someplace where you can go and look at the sky and experience some freshness, free of hope and fear, free of bias and prejudice, just completely open. And this is accessible to us all the time. Space permeates everything, every moment of our lives.

 So here are some thoughts and ideas that came to me as I was contemplating Pema’s teachings and what yoga and the art of living without hope and fear means to me:

 ·      Create as wide a mental space for yourself as you can. Be open to any and all possibilities, even outcomes you couldn’t even imagine at the moment.

·      Pema might say that the benefits of being able to engage with the world without hope and fear is that it may just spring forth within you an openness to things just as they are – good or bad – which may then bring out even more compassion within you.

·      Scary as things may seem to be in the outer world at the moment, we really don’t know what’s going to happen on the planetary level. If we can perceive things as they are without hope and fear, perhaps this is the first individual step we can take in helping the planet begin the long path back towards healing.

·      Our work in yoga is to use the raw materials of our own selves and our own habitual patterns in order to find some liberation. We can face our own inner monsters with a kind of curiosity and openness. If we can approach them without hope and fear, chances are we will come out on the other side a bit less scarred … and scared.

 Lastly, Pema reminds us:

 The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving.

 I hope yoga can help you to keep moving. And because I am well aware of how scary this journey can feel, as always, I bow down to your best efforts. Pa Dum Dum. … Imua!

May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you take actions without hope and fear, …
May whatever you accomplish somehow serve those nearest to you, and ultimately benefit All Beings Everywhere.

Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun

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Images from this past month that I encountered without hope and fear.

No Kings rally in NYC, Oct 17. Without hope of any particular outcome and fear of reprisals, I did what I could do.

Probably my favorite sign of the day! Clearly they had no fear!

Yup, I entered the Corn Maze at Stony Hill Farms ... and survived to tell the tale! I didn't encounter any Children of the Corn, phew!

It was another thrilling night at the Village Halloween Parade. Even the ghosts and goblins were free from hope and fear as they carried on as they have been doing for eternity! 

Without fear and hope, I hung out with a couple of my buddies at The Purple Tongue.

Photos from around Florida, NYC, and New Jersey all shot by me, with the exception of the photo at The Purple Tongue which was shot by Jen Yip.