Bodhichitta

B o d h i c h i t t a.

This is my favorite word.

Today we began class with this word.

While the students were slumbering in a restorative twist, I told them how much I just love to say this word - B o d h i c h i t t a.

Bodhichitta is Indian Sanskrit, and it means awakened heart. Actually "chitta" means both heart and mind, since in Indian Sanskrit, there is no distinction between these two places.

We could say that an awakened heart is one definition of enlightenment. Somehow, that can feel like a pretty tall order.

I like the description of bodhichitta as ... s p a c e.

We have been working a lot lately with BREATH - and its relationship to space. The instruction has been to follow the journey of an inhale from its beginning to its end. I like this exercise, because for me it produces the same effect as listening to a very long gong at the beginning of a meditation practice. I can s t a y with that gong from its beginning to its end. There's a sense of travel - of taking me along - but afterwards, it won't be long before I l e a v e.

Unlike the gong, which returns only once again at the end of meditation class, an inhale is followed by an exhale, which is followed by an inhale, and this cycle is infinite (almost). The breath is so beautifully suited for working with being present, because breath itself is always present. Yet, it is never still. It is always moving. And in this way, it is also beautifully suited for teaching us something about life - there is nothing to hold on to.

After awhile of travelling the breaths from beginning to end, I asked the students to notice that place after the inhale and before the exhale - after the exhale and before the inhale - the place between breaths. In that place, there is a g a p. There is s p a c e. There is s t i l l n e s s. A place to rest. To rest the mind. This place is b i g.

Space is so very very big.

A couple of months ago we talked about the idea that time is big. Well, I had just read this idea in a yoga magazine; and it was funny to me, because I used to see a therapist in New York, who in all our time together, offered me only one certainty in life (thankfully leaving out death and taxes): "there is never enough time". At the time that worked for me, because it taught me the meaning of good enough. Now, however, reading this phrase "time is big" - hmmmmmmm - this feels so much more OPENING - not so constrictive as "there is never enough time".

Probably most of us are usually trying to accomplish more than is possible. We continually run out of time. We feel pressured for time. Doing less doesn't seem like an option. Or what about those times, when you find yourself stuck in traffic. WORSE - there's no traffic, just a very slow driver in front of you. Do you feel tense right now just thinking about that?!! Does it feel like I'M GONNA BE LATE?!! Or imagine you are actually not going to be late for anything, but still, you just want to go FASTER!!!! You could say..."time is big". And something might loosen. Open. You still won't get where you want when you want, but that's totally out of your control right now (pretend there's no way to pass). If time could feel bigger, you might stop cursing out that so-and-so in front of ya. : )

In class I often cue students to widen their collar bones or their hips. Today, I confessed that really you can do neither of these things. The point is that when you, at least with your mind, widen your collar bones or your hips, you may experience a sense of expansion, of opening, of space.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah s p a c e.

Space has an interesting power. It dissolves barriers. It dissolves separation. It connects us.

Some yogis are surprised when I say that the point of yoga and meditation is not to go inward. It is to open outward. Yoga means "to yoke" - to connect. We connect body, mind and spirit. We connect movement with breath. We connect the spaace inside us with the space outside us. We connect with gap.

Recently, I heard Pema Chodron give a meditation instruction that she heard from another teacher. "Have you ever noticed that between your thoughts, there is a gap? .... Make the gap bigger."

Gap is the experience of bodhichitta. The experience of opening out to the world. We can touch in on this place between breaths, between widening shoulders, between widening intervals of thought.

Or we may touch in on this place with a fully experienced emotion. To suppress an emotion - to not fully experience it - is to separate ourselves from our own selves and from everyone around us - to close down. To fully open up to an emotion is to open out. The fully experienced joy of a sunset is opening. The fully experienced sadness of a loss is the same. Loneliness is like that also. When we learn to make space to fully experience our emotions, we learn that we are not alone with any of this. We ALL feel these things. Just like me, that person feels angry. Just like me, that slow driver ahead also knows frustration. The walls crumble. The separation dissolves. The space opens up to the size of IT ALL.

So we can work with space.

Lightly.

We can touch in.

Tap in.

Tap into the nourishing infinite spring of bodhichitta.

Come on in, as they say....the water's fine.

And so is the space.