The Yamas & Niyamas

by Deborah Adele

  Contrast this image of contentment with a sweet story my friend told me about her childhood. She remembers as a little girl of six, standing on her front porch, gazing into the distance, and thinking to herself, “Somewhere, people are having so much more fun than I am.” Perhaps you, like I, can see the innocence of longing coming from this small child. And yet, as we grow through the years of our life, it is this continued longing that keeps contentment out of our grasp.

  In this country, advertisers magnify this longing in us, so that wanting what we don’t have has become a contagious plague. Rather than experiencing contentment, we can find ourselves busy getting ready for the next thing, tossed about by our preferences for what we like and what we don’t like, and riding the waves of annoying disturbances. The jewel of Santosha invites us into contentment by taking refuge in a calm center, opening our hearts in gratitude for what we do have, and practicing the paradox of “not seeking.”

  Always Getting Ready

  There is a Chinese proverb which states, “People in the West are always getting ready to live.” There is a remarkable truth to this proverb. When we are little we can’t wait to get big, when we are big, we can’t wait to get out of the house, then we can’t wait to get through college and get a job, then we can’t wait until our vacations, and finally, we can’t wait until retirement. As the Chinese proverb states, we never really live, we just get ready.

  Along with getting ready for the next thing, we tend to look at other people’s lives and see what is missing in our own. We look across the fence and see what we don’t have, rather than look inside the fence and enjoy what we do have. When we look over the fence, we move ourselves into lack. A friend tells the story about how envious one of her sisters was of her during the time my friend led wilderness adventure trips. One day, the sister decided to go on one of these trips. On a particularly hard day she found herself sitting miserably on the beach. A cold wind was blowing through her and she was not feeling well from her monthly cycle. She looked at my friend and calmly said, “I’m not jealous of you anymore.”

  When we expect the world to meet our needs, we turn outside of ourselves to find sustenance and completion. We expect our partners to fulfill us, our jobs to meet our needs, and success to solve all of our problems. And when it doesn’t, we continue to play the “if only” game, looking for that one more thing. Or we play the “planning” and “regretting” game. We let our contentment be managed by all these uncontrollable variables. As long as we think satisfaction comes from an external source, we can never be content. Looking outward for fulfillment will always disappoint us and keep contentment one step out of reach.

  Pleasure & Avoidance

  We spend vast amounts of our lives moving towards what we like, whether the object is food, clothes, colors, music, self image, conversation, hobbies, friends, activities, or beliefs. We see our preferences in all these areas as that which gives us pleasure and we seek the permanence of that pleasure in our lives like it was a matter of life and death. Likewise, we move away from what we don’t like. Anything that puts our pleasure at risk we see as repulsive and to be guarded against.

  We think we are free but in truth we spend huge amounts of our energy maneuvering ourselves and manipulating others so that our days will be filled with what we like and be void of what we don’t like. I have noticed this maneuvering of life as a physical feeling of “gripping” in my body. When I find myself around something that gives me pleasure it is almost like something in me grips with the desire for that pleasure. The same gripping sensation happens when I think I might miss out on the pleasure. Likewise, when I find myself in a meeting feeling bored or restless, I feel tenseness inside my body as if I am trying to protect myself from the unpleasant experience.

  In truth, the yogis tell us, things are neutral. It is the personal labeling we put on these things that makes them appealing or repulsive to us. When I was a small child I was made to sit at the kitchen table and finish eating my plateful of squash. It took me several miserable hours to complete the task, after which I swore to hate squash for the rest of my life. For decades I carried on my hate campaign towards squash. It wasn’t until very recently that I looked at a squash in the store with more curiosity than hatred. I boldly bought the squash, brought it home, cooked it, and ate it. Much to my surprise, I loved the taste! The point is that the squash was neutral. It was my long history of giving meaning to the squash that made it at differing times, both repulsive and pleasurable.

  Seng Ts’an poignantly stated, “The way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences.” If you want to begin to experiment with the truth of this statement, try spending days doing what you don’t like and not doing what you do like and see how attached you are to your preferences. It is our need to satisfy our preferences that keeps us from contentment and makes our days difficult. Our seeking and avoiding (tensing and gripping) become expensive uses of our energy.

  Oscar Wilde once said that there are two kinds of unhappiness in the world. One is not getting what you want; the other is getting what you want. Perhaps he knew that satisfying our likes and avoiding our dislikes just keeps us on a roller coaster of needing to continue to satisfy our likes and avoid our dislikes. True freedom and contentment begin to find their way to us when we can see things as they are, neutral, and not spend so much energy manipulating things according to our preferences. I am reminded of the wisdom of a 116 year old man, who, when asked the secret to his longevity, replied, “When it rains, I let it.”

  We are Responsible for our own Disturbances

  Not only do we ride the waves of likes and dislikes, we also ride the waves of emotional disturbance. Think of how often you feel upset, hurt, left out, not appreciated, put upon, etc. It is easy to give the power of our emotional state to someone or something outside of ourselves. When we give away our emotional well being to what others are saying or not saying or to how the day is unfolding, we are at the mercy of things beyond our control; we have allowed our own contentment to be determined by what other people say or do; we have made ourselves helpless.

  Carlos Castaneda writes, “Think about it – what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.” Whether we react to this perceived offense with a verbal explosion, silence and withdrawal, confiding in someone else, or saving the offense until six months later when no one else remembers, emotional disturbance is an inappropriate and wasteful use of energy. It is a stance of powerlessness that guarantees contentment will always be out of reach.

  In my experience consulting with companies, private coaching with individuals, and in my own family life, it is clear to me that emotional disturbance takes a huge toll. It causes a loss in service to the client, unnecessarily sloppy work on the team, pain and misunderstanding in the family, and a toll on our own health and well-being. When we are hooked on our disturbances, we have tunnel vision and we regress to the level of intelligence of the emotional disturbance. When we are not hooked, we have access to a panoramic vision, we can see all the angles, we can see a clear win-win, creative direction.

  As if outside events weren’t enough to hook us into emotional disturbance, when things are quiet we can tend to play and replay stories in our minds that are sure to cause us to be upset. Whether we’re remembering what someone did to us ten years ago or yesterday, the mind has an amazing ability to relive this disturbance over and over and over again, bringing us deeper and deeper into discontent.

  There is a Japanese proverb that states, “The noise does not disturb you, you disturb the noise.” I admit, as a lover of silence, I had to think about this for a long time. I have always viewed loud noises as disturbances of my “calm, peaceful” nature. What this proverb so brilliantly taught me is the reality that when I am upset by noise, I am the one who is disturbing the flow of life, not the nois
e! There is no escape; we can always trace our emotional disturbances back to ourselves. We keep ourselves out of contentment.

  Much like emotional disturbances can easily hook us, the glitter and promises of the outside world also demand our attention. I especially noticed the stimulation of technology when I returned from a month Sabbatical in the woods. I wrote the following as I watched myself slowly move from a place of contentment to the captivating buzz of stimulation:

  Ringing. That’s what it was. On Sabbatical I never heard any ringing. No ringing of the doorbell announcing someone wanted to see me. No ringing of the telephone creating a duet with the programmed ringing of my cell phone, often making a trio of sounds as my computer would chime in “mail truck,” announcing at least one new email has arrived, making a total of at least three people who were trying to contact me at the same time. Nor was there the ringing of my alarm clock telling me it was time to start the day or get up from a nap.

  Now that I am home, I am witness to the cacophony of rings. Unlike the sounds of nature where I could sit in pure delight being drawn more and more inward in contemplation, these rings are impatient taskmasters jolting me from my present state and demanding an immediate response. Notice me now. Answer me now. Attend to me now. Whatever I was peacefully doing is now forgotten, my attention now shifted to the “ring.” And I notice that my responses range anywhere from total annoyance to the excitement of an unknown Christmas package. Who is on the phone? Who just emailed me? Now what does someone else want from me? The stimulation and demands are constant and I begin to wonder, “Who is running the show here?” If I’m not careful I become a yoyo to my responses of the various ringing sounds. A willing slave to drop whatever I am doing to respond to the ring. I am being trained to need stimulation and let a ring call me from my contentment. I am becoming one of Pavlov’s dogs.

  Gratitude

  It is not easy in this culture to stay contented. So how do we get there and how do we stay there? I can spin out of contentment so quickly that I am caught off guard with the surprise of it all. I watched myself one particular morning and learned once again the need for gratitude as a tool to keep myself centered in contentment. I was visiting a friend and was suddenly overcome with the beauty and location of her home. The rumblings of discontent had begun. I hadn’t traveled this pathway for quite some time, but now on it, I watched with amazement at how fast the terrain became steeper and steeper until I was at a dead run, tumbling down into the land of discontentment. Nothing was right with my life; nothing was right with me.

  My morning began with meditation and a lovely visit to a friend’s beautiful home. How did I end up here, bruised and disgruntled with the whole of my life? And how did I get here so quickly? One brief moment, a twinge of jealousy for someone else’s home, and within an hour I had forgotten that I have a beautiful home, a rich life, a healthy vital body, a loving family, and a passion for life. I had imprisoned myself in lack.

  I began to trace back my morning until I landed on a secret. Somehow gratitude had slipped out of my heart, leaving me vulnerable to the rumblings of discontent. I had reversed a formula in my head. Instead of being grateful for what I have and happy for my friend, I had slipped out of gratitude and into envy.

  I discovered the secret of gratitude many years ago when life took me from my home town, Kansas City, to a town of one-hundred in eastern Montana. I did not have yoga skills at the time, nor had I honed a very grateful heart; the move felt harsh for a city girl. From a sunken place of despair, something creative and playful called out to me in the form of a challenge: “Let’s play the thank you game,” the voice said. I had no idea what the thank you game was, but I began to search hard for clues and cracks and pauses in which I could, with some kind of honesty, say thank you to life. What I discovered turned my world upside down. It wasn’t long before my step was lighter and slowly almost everything began to bring a smile to my face and words of gratitude to my heart. I was alive again, and the small town was enchanting.

  Practicing gratitude protects us from our own pettiness and smallness and keeps us centered in the joy and abundance of our own life. When stimulation pulls at us and disturbance beckons us, it is the gratitude uttered from our lips that keeps us strongly rooted in contentment.

  Maintaining Center

  The Buddhists speak of developing an abiding calm. A centeredness that is unshakeable. Like a tall tree so rooted in the earth that great winds cannot topple it. This for me is the image of contentment. It means not riding the waves of the ups and downs of life. It means that we not only agree to what is in the moment, but we actually welcome it. It means that in all the noise and demands of modernity, we stay in the abiding calm center. This is the mastery of life that contentment invites us into. The practice of gratitude and “nonseeking” can help us stay rooted in this jewel.

  The Paradox of Not Seeking

  There is a paradox to Santosha: The more we seek it or need it to look a certain way, the more it eludes us. I find that I am continually faced with my illusions of contentment. I have an image in my mind that I will always be centered and calm, that life will always seem perfect to me. It is, I think, this very image that keeps tripping me up and keeping me from the contentment I seek. Think about it, it is easy to be content when we feel great and things are going our way and we like ourselves. But what about when chaos and interruptions abound or we feel bored or depressed? What then?

  Discontentment is the illusion that there can be something else in the moment. There isn’t and there can’t be. The moment is complete. That means if I am bored or sad, I will only be discontented if I am not content to be bored and sad. Building contentment with boredom, sadness, impatience, depression, disappointment, and loss, builds our ability to be that tall tree so rooted in the earth that great winds cannot topple it. Being content with our discontentment is itself a gateway to the calm depths within.

  The paradox of not seeking contentment, allows us to appreciate what we have. Swami Rama stated it this way, “Contentment is falling in love with your life.” In the beloved classic The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy embarked on a long journey to discover that she already had contentment where she was. In the words of Swami Rama, she had fallen in love with her life.

  Santosha, or contentment, is performing duty and right action with pure joy. It is the true understanding that there is nothing more that can or does exist than this very moment. When we are purely in the moment, the moment is complete. When we do something in the moment to fulfill an expectation for another moment, for instance exercising to get our bodies to look a certain way rather than for the pure joy of movement, we will miss contentment. When action is complete in the moment, and the process is enjoyed for the pure joy of the process, action becomes being, and being becomes contentment.

  I am inspired by reading mystics from all traditions. One of the things I notice is how they all love God – in whatever form they understand God. They never need approval from anyone because they are too busy having a love affair with God. The mystics are always content. Nothing can pull them out of contentment, because they see with eyes of love and wonder that keep them out of any kind of neediness.

  Maezumi Roshi, a Zen master once said, “Why don’t you die now and enjoy the rest of your life?” The mystics have “died” to their own needs, to their own wants and desires, to disturbances and stimulation, and now they can live fully in the tranquility of contentment. The mystics have learned that there is nothing missing; life is complete the way it comes to us in each moment. When we understand this, we sink into contentment.

  Questions for Exploration

  Living with these questions, taking time for reflection, and journaling will give you new insights into your life and the practice of contentment. For this month, frame your exploration in the following statement by Swami Rama:

  Contentment is falling in love with your life.

  Week One: This
week notice when you find yourself getting ready for the next thing or looking for contentment from something outside of yourself. Journal your observations.

  Week Two: This week notice how much energy you expend moving towards what you enjoy and avoiding what you dislike. Notice any physical gripping sensations in your body. Journal what you notice.

  Week Three: This week take responsibility for all your emotional disturbances. Trace every annoyance and upset back to yourself. Choose to stay in the disturbance or to return to the calm center of contentment (or to be content with your disturbance).

  Week Four: This week practice gratitude and nonseeking. Be content with each moment as it is. Ponder these words from the mystic Meister Eckhart, “If the only prayer you say in your entire life is ‘Thank you’ that would suffice.”

  For this month ponder the words of Swami Rama and fall in love with your life as it is.

  Tapas

  Can you show courage

  And stay in the fire until

  You find the blessing?

  ~ C.L.

  Self-discipline

  Tapas

  My husband talks about growing up on a large acreage outside of town. Periodically, to care for this land, his father would do a controlled burn. My husband watched as his father diligently prepared by checking the wind speed, wind direction, and the weather forecast for any unwanted or unforeseen surprises. And then my husband watched in disbelief as his dad lit a match to the field, and everything went up in flames. As a small child, none of this made sense to him, especially as he gazed at the stark after effects of the burn; everything looked charred and ruined. But within a few weeks, tiny green growth would sprout through the seemingly dead land, bringing new life and beauty, a kind of new beginning. My husband began to understand that the land had to be burned of its debris in order for it to produce its luscious bounty once again.