Hard Questions

I talked to Emily, one of Kelly’s teacher-trainees, yesterday about Hitler. I first met Emily on the van from Cancun, and was immediately impressed with her knowledge and gravitas. It is inspiring to see all these young women, many just in their 20s, already immersed in the teachings with their whole lives ahead of them to change the world. She suggested several possibilities for understanding the Holocaust. One was that Hitler, and the millions who died, were all bodhisatvas, teaching the world compassion and the evil of anti-semitism and racism. Another was that Hitler was our perception – the evil and hatred inside of him and those who worked for him and supported him could only exist because it exists inside those who perceived him. We talked about the fact that the lives of Jews all over the world is dramatically better now than it was before WW II, because of the enormous tragedy of that war. Also, the state of Israel was formed as a direct aftermath of WW II – something for which Jews had been striving for so long.

Well, it’s a tough one, no question.

Yesterday’s teaching was about the perfection of patience. In Kelly’s words:

The goal of a yogi is to cultivate bodhi chitta – bodhi meaning awakened; chitta meaning mind. The foundation of yoga is to awaken to the suffering of others. To do this, we must cultivate a compassionate mind. First, we must, ourselves, realize happiness. We must become happy because one drowning man can’t save another. But the motivation behind our effort to be happy must be to show others how to do the same. If the goal is purely selfish, it is not bodhi chitta.

It is said that the opposite of patience is anger; and the antidote to anger is patience. Anger often starts with a small complaint – for example, it’s too windy; or it’s too cold or hot; crowded or empty, etc. And before you know it, you’re “hating” the wind or the temperature or the person sitting too close to you. And sometimes you feel that if you could only change this or that, you would be happy. But your mind is your same mind, wherever you go, whatever you buy, no matter how many pounds you lose or gain. To purify the mind, we must cultivate patience as the basis of our thoughts: “Steep your mind in it like a tea bag in hot water.” We can never vanquish all of our external enemies – there will always be another one. But if we can vanquish our inner enemies – anger, jealousy, etc., the outer ones will go away because they are only reflections of our inner selves.

Kelly reminds me of Tinkerbell, in many ways. She is small, blond, and very beautiful. And inside her tiny, glamorous body is a fierce warrior – funny, blunt, unblinkingly honest, and sometimes profane. Her teachings are always filled with great, quotable nuggets that zip into your consciousness like arrows to a bulls-eye. For example, after yesterday’s teaching, she told us, “just lie down, take a spiritual valium.” Or the day before – “doing perfect asana poses won’t make you a being of light who will never die. Your bodies were designed to fail, so give up wanting to be a Yoga Journal poster-child.” Or, “if we had the power to instantly make ourselves happy in the present moment, we’d all be in a state of orgasm all the time.” (By this, she means state of bliss, by the way.) She is a great teacher. She is also very entertaining.