Ahimsa: Offering the Gift of Connection

The concept of ahimsa (usually translated as non-violence or non-harming), the first of the ethical precepts as described by Patanjali, can be considered the very foundation of yoga; it is the very foundation of all of the teaching in our Samarya Center community.When we consider these “restraints” and “observances” (yamas and niyamas) as described in yoga philosophy, we may wonder, how do we do we put them into practice; how do we live them?  One way of looking at this is to consider that ahimsa is not only about committing to a life of non-harming (or at least committing to thoughtful attempts at decreasing any tendency for harming) but is also about cultivation of the opposite. This idea of cultivating the opposite of disturbing or harmful thoughts is described in sutras 2.33 and 2.34 as a practice called pratipaksha bhavana. With this practice it is further suggested in sutra 2. 35 that in the presence of one firmly established in non-harming all natural instincts to harm will cease. So, if we want to live ahimsa, we are not only invested in what we are not doing, but also in how we nourish, encourage, and cultivate our capacity for love and kindness, so that others too may feel its benefit.One of the things I love most about yoga is its celebration of direct experience and its clear relationship between the theoretical and the actual. Yoga provides the student with guidelines and practices that are readily applicable to everyday life. For me, it has always been through direct experience, and through using these concepts as a lens and framework for my entire life, that I conceptualize my own life in a way that feels healing, productive, and joyous. I find I am constantly discovering new meanings and nuances within my yoga study and am often surprised by how they emerge to inform my experiences.Not so long ago, through an intensely personal experience, I realized another facet of ahimsa, and indeed all the yamas and niyamas: that we can not only invite our exploration of these concepts in ourselves but also how we can reveal and facilitate their presence in others.In the midst of one cold and rainy Seattle winter, I left for the tropical climes of Costa Rica. I wanted to be in the warm sun, but I had an even greater reason for leaving. I had a surprise planned for my Seattle community, and I needed to leave for a bit of time for it to work out in the way that I imagined. I had recently discovered I was pregnant with twins, and I delighted in the idea of settling into my pregnancy in the slow-paced jungles of Costa Rica and of my quiet return with my big belly. It was perfect. I would get to rest and be totally inwardly focused through my first trimester, and then, when I was feeling like myself again, I would come home, having passed the stage of worry and anxiety, confident in the progression of my pregnancy.But life had a different plan for me. While I was in Costa Rica, I began to sense that something was wrong. I went first to the tiny rural clinic near our home, where I was lovingly reassured and sent home. Todo esta bien,  tienes que relajarte—everything is OK, you just need to rest. I went home and rested, and I felt better for a few days. I was scared, but as the days passed without incident, I regained my confidence and continued to fantasize with my husband about our new life with our two new babies, just the four of us in our jungle home in Costa Rica. But soon my confidence turned once again to the dark cloud of anxiety and not-knowing, and I returned to the clinic more scared than ever. I was once again treated with sweetness and compassion. Tranquila corazon, todo esta bien corazon, no llores—don't worry, dear heart, everything is OK, don't cry. And, next, tienes que ir directement al hospital en San Jose—you have to go right to the hospital in San Jose.Numb, my husband and I made our reservations on the tiny "puddle jumper" plane for that afternoon, and we were soon caught in a riptide of rapid motion from which we could not swim away. From the plane to the taxi to the emergency room, straight into the triage center of the hospital. I was given a blanket, and a young nursing assistant began to ask me questions, patient with my Spanish, with an open heart that comforted me even more than the warm blanket he offered:  “We have to wait for the doctor, he is 45 minutes away, but we can take you for an ultrasound now to check on your babies.”  My husband followed as I was rolled in to the ultrasound room, only to find out what we already knew. The pregnancy was not viable, and I would have to have an immediate procedure to clear the pregnancy for my own health and physical wellbeing.Everything was moving so fast, and suddenly I was speaking Spanish words I never knew I knew. No, I am not allergic to any medications; yes, I have had surgery before; yes, we have a hotel room in San Jose; no, I do not have insurance. I was filled with fear, loss, and despair and at the same time surrounded by love, understanding, acceptance, and compassion. As the nursing assistant wheeled me into surgery, he took my hand in both of his and looked directly into my eyes without a hint of awkwardness: Toda esta bien. I remember only two things before I went under: another male nurse wiping the tears off of my face and brushing my hair back, and the anesthesiologist saying, “You go to sleep now.”When I awoke, I was immediately aware of this great void in my body and in my heart. And, yet, miraculously, at the same time, my heart overflowed with an equally great sense of gratitude, love, hope, and knowledge of the innate kindness of others.As the riptide calmed, I had both these thoughts: “This is why you are not supposed to tell anyone you are pregnant before the end of the first trimester,” and, “Why not?” And thus began my reflection on these two important questions and on ahimsa.First, why is it that we often do not want to expose our pain or even to disclose situations in which we may possibility feel pain at some point?  Why shouldn't I tell people I'm pregnant?  Why shouldn't I share this experience with you?  The answers are in many ways obvious and, precisely because we are reluctant to share our deep personal challenges, also grounded in an everyday reality. In other words, we don't share our experience of pain because we don't want to burden others, because we don't want to show failure, because we don't want to be exposed, vulnerable. But why do we feel this way? Because we are afraid of other people’s reactions and how those reactions will affect us. Maybe we don't want to be the center of attention; maybe we want to be able to decide when we want to focus on our suffering and when we want to put it away for a while; maybe we don't want to hear other people's stories, solutions, or truisms, or perhaps even their judgments; maybe we don't want people wondering about our lives and what we may or may not do next.I know that I cycled through all of that. And, I perpetrated violence upon myself by asking myself a barrage of questions: “What did I do wrong, how did I cause this? Why aren't I younger; what is wrong with me? Why was her pregnancy successful when she is not as healthy as I am; don’t I deserve this—look at all I do for others—why can't I have this?” But I didn’t want to let myself stay there. Those kinds of thoughts, though they may arrive unbidden, do nothing to bring peace and only muddy the waters of presence. They have no satisfactory answers and only serve to add suffering to my pain. I cultivate the opposite of these anxious and agitating thoughts when I simply sit with my grief, sit with my feelings, sit with what is.  And I give others the opportunity to do the same when I share my loneliness, fear, or despair. In many ways it is a gift I can offer, in sharing my pain, and my suffering; I give the people around me the chance to also practice sitting with grief, fear, sadness, and what is.We know that pain is an inevitable fact of life. But the truth is that we can differentiate pain from suffering. Certain events of our lives—a miscarriage, a lost job, a heartbreak, a sleepless night—are indisputably painful. And yet we can learn to bear these challenges with grace when we are offered opportunities to just be with them—not to try to change them, not to push them away, not to fear them, but to simply accept them as a natural part of the ebb and flow of life itself. Just as joy comes and goes, so does despair. This is a lesson that we can practice again and again, until we find that our natural reaction to pain is witnessing it, accepting it, and creating a spacious container to soften its hard edges. This takes practice and determination, but it is indeed entirely possible.Perhaps we are not very good at being with suffering precisely because we don't talk about it. Perhaps we must learn to tolerate some exposure, some poor attempts from others to console us, some awkward or frustrating moments of disconnection, to get to a real heart connection, to find that place in which we can allow others to help us bear our suffering and in which they, in turn, can get better at this task. What I saw, again, in my recent painful situation, was that when I had no choice but to be fully exposed and vulnerable, all of the people around me immediately and instinctively dove into their deepest well of pure love. In a very dark moment, I clearly felt the radiance of unobstructed, unself-conscious connection holding me up.The impulse to love is there. The impulse to connect is there. Sometimes we are so guarded that we not only deny each other the opportunity to act on this impulse, but when faced with that moment of being a witness to another person's pain, we second-guess ourselves and allow fear of failure or disconnection to trump our natural instinct to simply be.The truth is, I did tell many people about my pregnancy early on; my immediate family alone counts as close to 25, so I had a lot of “untelling” to do. As the most immediate sting of loss faded to an early morning heartache and heaviness, I continued to be touched by the simplicity of the responses to my news and by the number of women who had had a similar experience that I had never known about before. A few of my beloved friends said, "I don't know how you feel, but I can imagine"; to which I said, "You too have experienced loss, disappointment, trauma—you do know how I feel."  It's a delicate balance we can learn to strike between usurping someone's experience with our own and knowing that in fact, suffering is suffering; and by a certain age, we all know what that is. We can connect, we can practice ahimsa—the cultivation of a gentle heart—by simply allowing ourselves to feel and be with this shared hurt. And we can get better with practice.I'm not saying that you should just go out and tell everyone about your most private challenges. And I'm definitely not saying that if you did, everyone around you would act with courage and grace.  I am suggesting that we might consider being more transparent, seeking support from others without fear of judgment and learning how we can offer a net of real support for people we care about. I do feel vulnerable through sharing my story, but if after reading it even one person feels more connected, if one person feels less alone, if one person is inspired to contemplate how to act directly from the heart, then it was worth sharing. If we can see that we perpetrate violence on ourselves and others in the simple act of insisting on our own separateness, if we understand that removing these barriers and accepting love and caring toward ourselves and from others will lead us to connection and grace, then we might be just that much more courageous in our love for ourselves and indeed for all beings everywhere.When I finally returned from Costa Rica in April, the Seattle sun was starting to reemerge. My experience already felt like old news, and I was ready to step back into my familiar life in the Pacific Northwest. I looked different, but only because of my tan, and if I happened to have a big belly, it was from beer and guacamole. Todo esta bien.