January 2021 | Eclipse
NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in January 2021. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.
I hope you’ve had a good start to the New Year. Here in London January often feels like the darkest and coldest of months (hence the title of this newsletter), but even in a total eclipse there are still glimpses of light around the outermost edges of that darkness. It felt like the perfect metaphor for the moment we all find ourselves in right now - in amongst the darkest darkness of prolonged isolation and solitude, but with lightness gradually re-emerging.
Looking back on this past year, the word that springs to the forefront of my mind is ‘humbling.’ When our lives are running smoothly it’s easy to kid ourselves into thinking that we’ve got it together, and certainly in the case of this yoga teacher, that we are slowly chipping away at some sort of elusive truth about the nature of our own mind and life… and then along comes 2020 to prove you dead wrong; to prove that in fact, there’s still a long way to go.
I suspect this is why I have always enjoyed revisiting the basics. This is where the deepest, most universal truths can be found - if only we have the patience to look long enough. For those of you following my online classes, you find yourself right there with me as we explore the second of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and as you begin to relate your own life experience to these ideas, you might find yourself uncovering some of your own truths.
The Satipatthana Sutta tells us that the Buddha felt quite strongly about this second foundation, known as Sati Vedanā or Mindfulness of Feeling/Sensation in English. To him, this was the key to understanding the source of our unhappiness, and if we could learn to properly identify our feelings this would lead us towards a more peaceful existence.
The first step to developing Sati Vedanā is the ability to distinguish between the three types of feelings identified by the Buddha: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings.
As we tend to experience one emotion at a time (we actually very rarely feel ‘mixed feelings’) these are fairly easy to keep track of once we actively choose to observe them.
Observing our feelings or sensations usually leads us to the realisation that they are ever-changing without our conscious control.
In the case of physical sensations (like that annoying itch that suddenly makes itself known as soon as you decide to sit in meditation) these tend to subside after around 90 seconds without interference.
This leads us to another important realisation: that feelings are just feelings. They are not part of us and don’t need to become part of our identity.
Meditation is always fertile ground for physical sensations, emotions or thoughts to not only rise to the surface, but to become overwhelmingly magnified in our mind.
Students often tell me something akin to: “I can’t sit in meditation, because every time I do, my knee hurts.” That’s a pretty definitive statement that doesn’t leave much room for anything else to take place.
If these sensations were truly part of us, they would be unchanging, but even people living with chronic pain experience something different every hour of every day.
Our Self (sometimes referred to as our ‘Buddha nature’ in Buddhism) is permanent and if our feelings were identical with the Self then they would be equally fixed, but feelings change and our so-called Self has no control over these changes.
Meditation has given me countless a-ha moments - it’s when, by chance, we might experience these philosophical ideas more viscerally through the subconscious machinations of our mind. This often leads us towards deeper insights into ourselves and the wider world around us - I like to compare it to Dorothy and her rag-tag group of friends lifting the curtain to expose the Wizard of Oz. We might be scared to look behind that curtain, fearing what might be hidden behind it, but I have found these insights to expose the beautiful simplicity of who we are at our core - before we took on the labels and roles associated with functioning within a society full of ‘musts.’
I hope you’ll continue to join me on this exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of yoga and we’ll see where it might lead us to.
With love,
OM x
Monthly Mantra
“In the depth of winter I find within me an invincible Summer.”
Albert Camus
January Playlist
A collection of songs to let your mind daydream about the warmer climes that lie ahead.
Featured Flow
If you’d like to revisit the first of the Four Foundations, I’ve recently released it on my YouTube channel in the form of a Yang to Yin practice.
Reading Recommendation
I’ve had a real desire to re-read In Praise of Shadows recently which, although it focuses on the nature of Japanese architecture, also lays bare a deeper culturally motivated difference in thinking that allows us to reflect on our own perceptions
Thank you for reading - if you have any questions please feel free to reach out via email.
Copyright © 2021
Oceana Mariani
