The Wheel of Time

by mary

It was a warm, sunny day in Istanbul and the background hum of a massive steamer ship gliding through the Bosporus set a calming tone for those of us wandering along the wharf. Looking up at the nearby park we saw a woman, dressed in street clothes, holding herself up with a powerful grip of the arms on some steel bars while rhythmically spinning her legs from side to side. How she managed to keep the even momentum going for three or four minutes seemed miraculous. Getting a little closer, it became clear that her feet were actually supported too, and that the other equipment around her was part of the grown-up’s exercise playground situated next to the kid’s slide and swings in Bebek Park. Another reminder that things aren’t always what we think they are. That the background hum of the steamship we heard, would sound loud and complex from the bow of the ship, and that that reality would be as genuine to those on board as ours was from afar.

 They say that reality for most children is to think they are the center of the universe, and when they realize that’s not so it is said to be the “end of innocence.” Yet that day in the park was a reminder that even though childhood is in my distant past, I for one can’t actually hold onto the idea that the world doesn’t revolve around me for more than a few minutes at a time. Swept by a wave of insight into the interconnected nature of all things, I may swoon with a feeling of great joy and compassion for others for a moment, and then the hang nail on my pinky finger gets snagged and I’m back in the comfortable reality of me, my and mine.

It’s a familiar place where change and the unknown don’t rule and where the same illusions are offered up time and again. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The danger, it seems, is when we believe our reality to be more important than that of others. Or when we delude ourselves into thinking that the ideas and dreams that fuel our separate reality are fixed and more actual than they are. It is often in the face of change that we fall into a fixed mindset that makes us believe our plan is THE plan; that the world indeed revolves around us–and it’s then that we start to suffer.

A year ago change was in the air, but I wasn’t suffering too much. In fact felt like a kid playing hooky; liberated, independent, free from the responsibilities of running the Yoga Workshop. I must say I was a little sad to be moving on. And having been raised Catholic I also felt guilty for no particular reason. But mostly I felt relieved because my plan was beginning to take shape. Without running the studio I’d have time on my hands in which to focus on other aspects of the practice I’d neglected for so many years. My private reality–that of Richard and me skipping off into the sunset of semi-retirement–held a certain appeal, and as usual, it seemed quite real at the time.

The image I had of the liberated me was that of someone who looked and behaved very much like the old me, but with these massive empty hands, full of time just waiting to be filled. Early in January I reflexively managed to fill it, beginning to work with Richard on putting together the book version of the Yoga Matrix CD set. With expanded content, stunning illustrations by our friend Susan Chiocchi and even a new chanting CD, the book is done and will be released in August by Shambhala Press!

Coinciding almost to the instant with turning the book in, we find ourselves in an unexpected flow of change that doesn’t have much to do with our sunset lit reality at all. And this time as the renewed owners of the Yoga Workshop it’s delightful because our reality and our plans are taking shape in an organic manner rather than being built upon an idea of what things should be. (We’ll be putting up information about the metamorphosis of the studio over the next couple of weeks, so keep checking back in.)

Reflecting back on what I’ve learned in the last year; it may be that I’m one step closer to remembering that my perceptions are no more real than the next person’s, and perhaps the next time I hear a steam ship in the distance I’ll be reminded that my separate reality is just that–separate. I am holding out hope too, that I’ve learned a little about the nature of time. Perhaps the next time I feel I just don’t have enough of it on my hands, I’ll recall that it was when I shifted my perspective and imaged I had some extra that we finally got it together to finish the book. The fact is I have exactly the same amount of time on my hands that I’ve always had. Yet another example of thinking the world revolves around me! Time doesn’t even know who I am, let alone adjust itself and its availability depending on what’s up in my tiny little corner of the universe.

It’s time’s plan, not mine or anyone else’s that actually THE plan. The great teacher, of course, is the Kala Chakra or the wheel of time. Because all else aside, everything from our own fleeting thoughts to the solar system itself must eventually answer to the passing of time. It is the misperception of permanence, and the unspoken belief that somehow we might be the ones to slip through the grips of time and death with our reality unchanging and at the center of the world, that trips us and casts a shadow of suffering on an otherwise enjoyable sequence of events.

Time is always there, it’s the ability to be present for it that is often missing.