Resting In the Center

by Keely Rakushin Garfiled

Much of my practice is devoted to sitting and staring at a wall for days on end.  In fact tomorrow, I am off to attend my annual year-end silent retreat and I am filled with a bit more of the usual mix of dread and relief.   What can I say - It’s been a rough year!  Like a deer in a headlight, instinctively my response to the major disruption of life as I know it, has been to become even more still and quiet.  I am serious about this.  Nothing less than a transformation at the base is in order.  I am not where I was and not where I will be, but for the time being it’s safe to say, that I am delivered here and now.   

Here and now, as a dancer and choreographer, I am enveloped in waves of movement and sound.  On the other end of the spectrum, as an integrative yoga therapist and hospice caregiver, I often tend to my patients at the closing stages of their lives, and I am present as they chart the journey into stillness and silence.  As a yoga teacher, it’s the same story when barefoot, I accompany my students from Sun Salutations to Corpse Pose.  In between coming and going, there is a place where I simply try to rest, akin to the pause at the end of the exhalation.

Ram Dass said, “The quieter you become the more you can hear.”  Several years ago on a silent retreat, I was in the communal bathroom in the morning brushing my teeth.  Eyes lowered as is customary, still I spied that the woman at the sink next to me had on warm, fuzzy pajama pants with sheep and ZZZ’s roaming about the landscape of the soft fabric.  My cheeks flushed.  I was angry that I had not thought to bring my cozy pajamas.  “IDIOT!” a loud shout, that literally made me jump.  Horrified, I realized that the venomous voice was mine, and issued from inside my own head!  I was shocked that I would berate my self so violently and find such fault in nothing much at all.  Deep down I thought, if this is the way I talk to myself, how is it I am addressing others?   A wave of compassion arose in me and I made up my mind to change.

These days, I feel as though I have a sign plastered on my forehead that states, “Do Not Disturb!”  I don’t mean to be aloof but I wish to meditate on this day and night.  It feels like it might save my life.  To this end, I dial down the noise around me.  As for the noise within me, here and there, I experience space like a clearing.

Earlier this month, I observed Rohatsu - an all-night sit commemorating the Buddha’s enlightenment.  The last few meditation periods where the dark sky yields finally to the sunlight peeking through the blinds behind the altar, are extraordinarily tough.  Even well-mannered knees and hips cry out, my back threatens to break ranks, and my mind is in revolt and peculiar reverie all at once.  I lean heavily into my yoga practice hoping a mindful body will shore up an embodied mind and I listen carefully…

for the perfect sequence to prepare for sitting perfectly still with everything. 

• Supported Adho Mukha Svanasana - to climb into my body, to stretch my back, to find my arms and legs, to contemplate my navel, to find the crown of my head.

• Uttanasana (back of mat) – to dwell in the ground of my legs and the place where they meet my torso, to hang my spine and drop my brain and my story.
• Tadasana (back of mat) – to stand presently, to notice earth and sky, and my place in the midst of it all.

• Kinhin (walking meditation to front of mat) – to place my intention in the palms of my hands, to use my feet to walk on the path.

• Surya Namaskar – to be one with breathing in and out, to know moving parts.

• Vrksasana – to see inside and outside, to harmonize falling and catching.

• Utthita Trikonasana – to follow the center all the way to the edge, and to follow the edge all the way back to center, to know a twist, a forward bend, a backbend, and slightly turn each thing.
• Dandasana – to stabilize fluctuations.
• Bharadvajasana – to loosen things up, to taste the grace of the central channel.
• Baddha Konasana – to convince my hips, groins, knees, and low back that they are happy to sit.
• Virasana – to serve my legs.

• Sirsasana – to invigorate my brain, to let my inner body condense as my outer body magnifies.
• Balasana – to empty, to rest, to fill.

• Salamba Sarvangasana – to see my toes, my belly, my nose, my third-eye as my inner body expands and my outer body narrows.
• Supported Setu Bandha – to watch the front of my body rest in the back of my body, to expand my lungs.
• Sukhasana – to sit without being pushed or pulled.
• Nadi Shodhana – to calm my nerves.
• Savasana – to absorb and be absorbed.
• Zazen – to find out for myself.