Heavy dreams last night and a busy morning had me awake shortly before my alarm went off.  The day was what I like to refer to as a “natural caffeine” day, one where I’m careful to  provide calming substances such as fish oil and relaxing tea to my system. I used a cornucopia of practice techniques to occupy my mind in order to rest in the bliss of meditative mind.

Meditation: On mornings like these, I try to do breath work (“pranayama”) or mantras prior to beginning my normal meditation routine in order to relax my mind and begin gaining control over the endless egoic chatter.

My typical form of meditation is a type of vipassana or pointed focus meditation where I simply watch my  breath.  As thoughts arise I say the word “thinking,” silently to myself, and return to the silence and vastness of my “clear deep heart mind.”

I want to take this moment to mention two of my teachers.  First, is a Tibetan Buddhist nun by the name of Pema Chodron.  I recommend all of her books, most importantly, “The Wisdom of No Escape.”  She talks a lot about this technique of saying “thinking” as a reminder to return to meditative mind when the egoic chatter takes over.

The second is Jun Po Denis Kelly, a zen master who I have worked personally with for about three years.  Jun Po coined the phrase “clear deep heart mind” as a reference to meditative mind.  I find this phrase very accurate and useful.  You can visit his website at www.hollowbones.org.

I have learned to sit through the discomfort of my mind’s chatter and today was no exception. Despite my best efforts I only found small moments of silence in a fury of scheduling concerns, goals and aspirations, and random thoughts about the dreams from the night before. Nevertheless, the simple act of sitting for a mere 19 minutes in the face of this turmoil gives me sufficient peace of mind to face my day, confident that whatever arises I can put my best foot forward.

Asana Practice: I took to the mat around 2pm when my morning meetings were over and I had a small break before the start of my next appointments.  I knew full well that my mind was active and my heart heavy, so I put some dance tunes on and got to work.

The practice was simple without any real key poses.  My goal was to keep myself moving, I wanted to provide enough action that my mind would be occupied, so that I could live in the space between thoughts.  I chose a few of the flow sequences that Shiva Rea designed as a part of her Prana Flow vinyassa style.  In addition, I added the body vinyassa of raising and lowering my arms, in conjunction with my breath, in postures such as high and low lung, and warrior 1. This repetitive flowing motion helps to inform my shoulder blades, teaching me to draw them down my back while the upper arm muscles externally rotate around the bones.  Additionally, this motion helps remind me to keep my front ribs tucked in even as my arms go above my head, ultimately opening my front body in a healthy way.

Lesson Learned: When your mind acts up, take charge. Choose a practice, either on your cushion or on your mat, that is sufficiently active to grab hold of your egoic mind.  This will allow you to feel and experience the vast, silent bliss of your clear deep heart mind.  Overtime, and with practice, these techniques will inform your day-to-day life and help you find silence and calm regardless of the level of stress in your job or at home.

Aerial Yoga Class: I had the good fortune of taking an Aerial Yoga Class (using Om Gyms) at the Movement Climbing and Fitness Center in Boulder, Colorado this evening.

This studio is amazing. It has a state of the art climbing facility with all types of yoga classes, spinning classes and other aerobic fitness classes.

The class was taught by Rainbow Michael Haynes, a yoga and flow arts teacher and performance artist that works in Boulder as well as internationally.  He’s an interesting cat, check out his store at www.cosmicfiredance.com.

The class had me hanging upside down for probably half of the 60 minutes. I usually refrain from inversions the first three days of my moon cycle, but I had a chance to attend the class for free and I couldn’t pass it up.  The side effect seems to be that inversions stop my cycle for a few hours then bring it back with a jump-start, which tends to restart the cramping cycle.  Ultimately I think the discomfort was worth it, because the class totally altered my consciousness and filled me with shanti, which means peace, rest, calmness, tranquility, or bliss.

I followed the class with about 15 minutes of seated meditation.  I found myself swimming in the shanti state where I happily would have rested for hours.  I was quite disappointed when my alarm went off.

Lesson Learned:  Inversions are a lovely way to calm the mind and create an overall sense of shanti.