The Second Niyama - Santosha (Contentment)

How timely that on our journey through the Yamas and Niyamas from Pantanjali's Yoga Sutras that we land on Santosha - Contentment for the month of January.  As we look back on the year 2011, at our challenges and delights, we can try to put them in perspective to see how we continue to grow and learn from the unique path of our lives.  We can see how our lives are intertwined with so many others including family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and even those as far away as the other side of the globe.  Honoring our journey and realizing so many others share similar challenges, we can grow our compassion for self and other and come closer to learning the lessons we are given and seeing how we grow from each step along the way.  (See last post - poem Foundation Stones).  Below is a lovely affirmation on Santosha that comes from Kripalu Center for Yoga to help us deepen our practice and experience of contentment.

"I am content.  I am grateful for what I have and for what I don’t have.  I learn from the joys and the disappointments Life brings me.  I honor the good in myself and others.  I refrain from criticism and fault-finding.  I accept Life just the way it is.  I enjoy my Life!"

More on freedom

Estuary  by Danna Faulds

There is peace here, where the river

widens to meet the sea.  The rapids

are past; the boulders and the rocky

places at last give way to a broad

and sweeping current, flowing

slowly into vastness.  The river

moves silently, tastes the salty tide

that marks its demise, and slips

without a backward glance, into

the ocean's infinite embrace.

This Saturday, I asked the class, what freedom means to them and on what levels they ponder and work towards freedom.  We had a beautiful dharma talk highlighted by the wisdom of the sharing in class.  "Freedom from oppression, being lucky, having choices, and freedom from incarceration of emotions" were some of the replies.  We can consider our freedoms and the sources of our oppression on so many levels.  Ultimately, the broader layers including business, government, and international affairs, don't work unless we find inner freedom as individuals and the peace that comes from reconciling our own mistakes and finding a way to compassion for all beings -- including ourselves and the most hurtful people in our lives. 

Pantanjali gives us a prescription to this freedom in the Yoga Sutras with his eight limbs of yoga.  The first two limbs - the Yamas and Niyamas - are applicable in a practical way for our daily lives.  Recently, we have been focusing on the first limb, the Yamas, translated as restraints or masteries, of which there are five.  The first is Ahimsa, translated as non-violence or compassion.  In a very direct way, it is clear how to master non-violence.  Do not physically harm another being.  However, as we look more deeply, which beings do we include?  Do we include animals?  Do we go deeper to consider the harm caused not just by our physical actions but by our words and even deeper our unspoken thoughts?  Do we include non-harm and compassion to ourselves?  Do we even notice the ways in which we keep ourselves "incarcerated by our emotions" and by the stories we repeat in our minds about how life has treated us or how we have "performed" in this life? 

Do we include compassion toward even the most hurtful people in our lives?  Do you think those who cause the greatest harm in the world or even to you personally know inner freedom from suffering?  If they did, do you think they would commit the horrible actions that bring so much suffering to others? (See Thich Nhat Hanh's poem: Please Call Me By My True Names).  Can we see the potential we have, and the actual times we have caused suffering to others or in ourselves, and work towards lessening the harm in the world? Can we find a way to forgive ourselves and the other, to flow beyond "the rocky places" to the "ocean's infinite embrace?"

There is peace here, where the river

widens to meet the sea.  The rapids

are past; the boulders and the rocky

places at last give way to a broad

and sweeping current, flowing

slowly into vastness.  The river

moves silently, tastes the salty tide

that marks its demise, and slips

without a backward glance, into

the ocean's infinite embrace.

Estuary  by Danna Faulds
from her book Go In and In