Yoga and Finding Freedom through Not Knowing
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Celebrating Freedom as America turns 250 years old.
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This past month we celebrated and contemplated Freedom in America.
Freedom can come in all varieties and forms.
There’s the freedom to fail.
The freedom to express ourselves as who we are, to “dance like no one is watching” (according to William Pukey).
The freedom to choose our own path, our own actions, as long as by doing so we are not harming anyone.
There’s also our freedom and power to choose our response to life’s most difficult choices, as was Holocaust Survivor Victor Frankl’s philosophy as expressed in this quote of his: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
This month, I’ve found myself contemplating quite a bit a quote from Pema Chödrön that I’ve long remembered and have shared in my e-Letters before:
The best spiritual advice is when you wake up in the morning and ask yourself “I wonder what’s going to happen today” and take that sense of curiosity with you through your entire life.
Especially when things get a bit rough and uncertain in my life, I find this practice comforting and try to follow it as best I can.
In this month of July alone, in my life I’ve encountered more than my usual amount of uncertainty, unknowns, and apprehension.
I went to a reunion of my Stanford gymnastics teammates from the late 70’s. Reunions can always stir up feelings of fear. In my case, I wondered how would they treat me knowing I’m gay and married to a man? As it turns out, no one even batted an eye and to a person they all treated me as an equal.
My husband is transitioning back up here to the northeast from Florida. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding how long the Florida house would take to sell, especially given all the turmoil in the current economy – particularly events concerning the housing market. Thankfully, fingers-crossed that by this time next week, he will be on his way back up here.
There are family concerns as several of my older siblings are facing health challenges. Also, several of my friends are facing life-threatening illnesses at this time.
There are also several business matters that are causing me a bit of stress.
What has gotten me through a lot of this is something I realized after contemplating Pema Chodron’s quote further. I realized that there is great Freedom that can be had in not knowing how things are going to turn out, not preordaining the outcomes.
This realization renewed in me a plan to live each day and each moment with a sense of discovery. I don’t know how things are going to turn out exactly with each of the various situations I’m facing right now. And what has been a bit freeing is that I don’t need to know right now.
I do suspect (and in some cases have already found out) that though things might end up working out much differently than I’ve thought they would, I have an overall feeling that in many cases things are going to work out better than I could have hoped for.
And I also know that in some situations there will be difficult times ahead. I am already anticipating that they will make me feel groundless – something I associate with being uncomfortable and to be avoided at all cost. But as Pema Chödrön also says:
… groundlessness isn’t something we need to avoid. The same feeling we find so troubling when we open to it can be experienced as a huge relief, as freedom from all restraints. It can be experienced as a mind so unbiased and relaxed that we feel expansive and joyful.
I, of course, do not know what uncertainties you are currently facing, what feelings of groundlessness you are currently experiencing, and what is keeping you up at night. I do know that my feelings and yours are not too dissimilar from each other’s. And because of that, I hope you can accept my deepest wishes that you can remain open and free as you let go of needing to know the answers right now. I wish for you to also know that I am there in spirit for and with you.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches:
No step is lost on this path of Yoga, and no dangers are found. And even a little progress is freedom from fear.
As your yoga, meditation and/or contemplative practices continue to mature, may you take baby steps each day to finding more freedom within the quiet spaces of your mind and heart.
May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you find freedom in letting go of needing to know how things are going to unfold, …
And may whatever freedoms you experience somehow benefit those nearest to you, and from there spread out to somehow help All Beings Everywhere.
Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun
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Images from this past month that made my mind feel freer
OK, well no, as someone who has a fear of heights, this image of these two daredevils scaling the Empire State building decidedly did not make my mind feel freer. However, their message certainly did:
When the Power of Love
beats the love of power
the world knows Peace
The tall ships that sailed up the Hudson River on July 4th were a marvelous sight to behold. Again, though I have a fear of heights, I can just imagine the sense of freedom those sailors standing atop the ship's masts must have felt. Sail4th ye brave souls!
Delaware Botanic Gardens - wiitnessing Nature's diversity frees my mind to imagine the many possibilities that exist!
Delaware Botanic Gardens - I was mesmerized by this butterfly fluttering about so freely.
The ball dropped at midnight on July 4th in Times Square to herald America's 250th birthday. For sure, this country's journey has been remarkable. May we never forgot how lucky we are to have the freedoms that we do have.
Photo Credits:
Images of daredevil couple atop the Empire State Building by ABC-7 Eyewitness News.
All other photos shot by me.