“Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti" for the World

Exhaling, taking a moment to actually allow my heart to break open.

I am willing at this moment to cultivate the awareness of some small spark of light, a light in my soul for being absorbed in the quality of ease. This inner peaceful experience arises from my practice to go inward and breathe into my life force. I can remember that humanity is kindness and compassion even as my eyes and ears witness war raging right now in Ukraine.

War is such a disconnect from the essence of our true nature. We are living in the shadow of ourselves, and how painful it is to be living the horrors of turmoil caused by this aggressive display of false power. So many families are uprooted; so many people are fleeing the only home they know to escape the violence of war.

The heaviness of the situation is being lived in our own neighborhoods. We are all connected as one global humanity. People are dying, and we are all suffering. This battle being fought on Ukrainian soil is also being waged internally.

The teachings of yoga from the wisdom of the Mahabharata, in the Bhagavad Gita, illustrate the struggle and suffering caused by our own internal battle. The moral dilemma and despair about the violence and death against one’s own family. Today the landscape of Russia and Ukraine is this exact picture of the story of the Gita. Families have to take a side and fight their own kin, many with relatives living and existing in both lands. Just a week ago, most were living peacefully in these two nations, and they now are having to make the cruel choice of harming their own kin. The pain of this extends around the world.

The text offers tools for us to look into our inner landscape and acknowledge our own struggle with the opposites. To witness the battle between our identity and our soul. How can I maintain a quality of peace as the world is raging? The mind is seeking balance but it takes a willingness to come inward. How can we cultivate stillness and harmony when the outer world is spinning? I ask myself what is the right action now?

One tool is chanting. “Om shanti, shanti, shanti.” When chanting, sound becomes light, the light becomes space, and within this space, there is the possibility for the heart to open. The quality of peace is within us. The ripple moves out into the world and our presence can heal.

We chant shanti three times. Shanti is the vibration to bring about the ease of 3 different types of problems. First, adhidaivika are the problems that arise from the forces over which we have no control as in natural disasters from mother nature. The second problem, adhibhautika, arises from beings around us as in war or abuse of any kind. The third problem, adhyatmka, is caused by factors centered on ourselves such as our own worries, fears, and doubts. The mantra helps us to still the roaming mind and allow for freedom from agitation from these disturbances.

Chant “Shanti” three times. It is always done in threes. Each time becoming deeper. The first time for purifying the body, the second time for the mind, and the third time for the heightened spiritual experience of touching the soul of humanity. To chant is to pray for the peace of all beings in the world.

Let us all come together and use the mantra as an opportunity to practice our own peaceful ceasefire. As we can still the mind, we begin to move into the next right action. Here are a few organizations that I have researched that are providing ways to help:

• Ukraine’s Voices of Children Foundation & Longwood Care combine efforts to support children and families affected by the war with GoFundMe.

• Save the Children is raising money for the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. Save the Children has been operating in Ukraine since 2014, including in the conflict-impacted regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Currently, teams are working with Ukrainian migrants and asylum seekers in refugee camps in north-eastern Romania and assessing needs in Poland and Hungary. 7.5 million Ukrainian children and families are in mortal danger.

• CARE is raising money for its Ukraine Crisis Fund, which is aiming to reach 4 million with immediate aid and recovery, food, water, hygiene kits, psychosocial support, and cash assistance — prioritizing women and girls, families, and the elderly.

Please comment below if you know of other ways to help.

In love and light,

Laura Jane

A Tribute to Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, by Duc, Flickr

I wanted to write a tribute to the great Vietnamese zen master and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed on January 22, 2022. How do I begin to express my deepest respect and admiration for his teachings on cultivating a practice of mindfulness?

He inspired in so many the notion of presence as the antidote to fear and the crucible of love. The center of all Buddhist philosophy is to embrace this habitual fear inside ourselves: the fear of loss, the fear of our own death or those closest to us, the fear of change, or the fear of being alone.

The practice of mindfulness is not to push the fear away but to bring attention to its opposite, fearlessness. It is only in the here and now that we can experience total relief, expansion of space to embrace compassion for the sorrows and despairs that human beings experience.

So much of our daily suffering is influenced by our surroundings which affect our emotions. Our joys and sorrows, likes and dislikes, are colored by our environment so much that often we just let our surroundings determine our thoughts. We go along with the “public” feeling until we no longer even know our own true aspirations. We become strangers to ourselves, molded by learned habits of identity and beliefs. We live between our outer shell of the false self and that inner self that is quietly waiting to be revealed. How often do we confuse the two and assume our roles in life to be enough? Take away the role, and we must ask, “Who am I?“

I fell into the teachings as a way to heal my broken heart and the loss of an assumed identity that no longer was serving. His practice of simply breathing in life, exhaling gratitude for being alive was practiced in a walking meditation. It was in the movement that deepened my connection to the source as a way to unfold and release my grip on my little self.

My practice today is to see from the lens that all beings are human. Everyone struggles with a learned mind of doubt, worry and fear. Love is not a thing or a place or even an object. To surrender my superior judgment of holding on to being right offers a small gateway of opportunity to just listen. The teachings allow for patience and acceptance that perhaps I might be wrong. I often just say out loud to myself, “Laura Jane, you are wrong.” If I can develop truthful communication not only with my inner self but with the relationships that present themselves, then perhaps I can be more accepting of differences. I might be able to cultivate and embrace a peaceful space in my own consciousness. I do not need to win, or be right. Can I offer a safe space for others to be seen in a new light of understanding? I can meet each soul where they are and not where I want them to be?

These are the practices that Thich Nhat Hanh was so brilliant in sharing and ultimately led him to be nominated by Martin Luther King Jr. for a Nobel Peace award in 1969 at the Paris Peace Talks. As a young child, I was influenced greatly by the Vietnamese War and question today how once again the United States continues to influence the world through the lens of war. Iraq and Afghanistan were twenty years of my Vietnamese daughter’s life.

Today, we are witnessing great strife and turbulent waves of conflict both on our own shores and around the world. Can we not learn to come inward and nourish a place of inner peace without fueling the flames of anger and rage over confusing information. What is truth? We all see from the lens of our surroundings, and the bias that is formed around those beliefs both good and bad, pleasant or unpleasant.

My passion for these tools is found in our daily yoga practice off the mat. The living breathing existence of being still can offer so much more than the striving of our small mind. Collectively we can make a difference, not in protesting or resistance, but in a shared collective of the heart.

We can be the quality of ease and peace that we want to feel in the world. It begins with the breath. It is valuable to experience the awareness of space in the physical body as the armor falls away and the space in the heart expands. There is a presence of beauty and awe in the feeling of our aliveness.

In honor of this amazing dedicated teacher, I bow and offer my greater Self to the gift of being present to the miracle of life. Each moment is a miracle if I choose to be present. Let us slow down and create during this month a new beginning and start seeing the world through a lens of love, not fear.

Thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh.

With love and light,
Laura Jane

Moving Forward Through the Heart of Gratitude

Happy New Year and welcome the renewal of opportunity for living in this moment of time.

Today, as I reflect on the past year, the blessings have outweighed the struggles that have been presented throughout 2021. As I grieve all the losses, I’m fully aware of all the gifts that have been presented in the challenges of growing. My commitment to our community has only gotten stronger.

I am constantly inspired by the dedication of our amazing teachers at YAF. I have been humbled by the willingness of each teacher to show up, practice, respect, and constantly share their wisdom with enthusiasm and an open heart. They have continued to keep our doors open. Thank you for all you give!

May we move into this new year with a renewed sense for the awakening of humanity to live with integrity for all. And thank you for the loyal commitment of you, our students, who continue to amaze me with the passion to go deeper into the practice of living from this greater place.

With love and light,

Laura Jane