Writing from the Inside Out (9 page)

Below are two techniques that offer an opportunity to enliven your internal awareness.

1. Ujjayi Breathing: The Sound of the Ocean Inside

To breathe making the ujjayi sound, move the glottis as you would when whispering or when relaxed in deep sleep. This narrowing of the breath's passageway produces an oceanic sound that is extremely useful for bringing the attention inside during meditation and asana practice. The effects are made more dramatic when closing the eyes and ears, as when performing yoni mudra.

2. Yoni Mudra: Closing the Sense Gates

The thumbs are placed over the entrance to the ears, the index and middle fingers are placed lightly over the eyes, and the middle and pinky fingers are placed over the mouth.

Optional: Yoni mudra with kumbaka (voluntary cessation of breathing). Position the hands as described above, with the ring fingers pressed against the nostrils on either side, temporarily closing off passageways of breath at the point of inhalation/ exhalation.

To perform yoni mudra in meditation posture, seat yourself on a small cushion or rolled-up towel so that the abdominal muscles do not need to exert any work to hold your torso tall.

Be sure that you are breathing into the whole range of fullness in your chest cavity: the abdomen, the middle chest, and the upper chest. To test the fullness of your breath, be attentive to the extension of your belly, the expansion of your ribcage, and the slight raising of your clavicle.

Position the hands into yoni mudra, paying particular attention to the sound of the closed-off ears. You will notice that, in this position, you can be acutely in tune with the slight movements and repositioning of the arms through the vibrations heard through the tip of the thumb.

With equal attention, begin making the ujjayi sound during the in-breath and out-breath. Hear the sound of the ocean inside and dissolve into the infinitely varied, distractionless tranquility.

Breathing in, be beneath the flowing waves of the ocean.
Breathing out, be above the waves churning against the shore.
Inhaling, pull into the endless flow of the sea.
Exhaling, emerge from beneath the waves onto the surface.

This meditation, which combines yoni mudra and the ujjayi breathing, is a powerful addition to any introspective practice. Whether you predominantly practice yoga asanas or seated meditation, this meditation is an excellent addition to deepen your practice. It brings the attention inward and demonstrates the overwhelming richness of the internal sense environment, which is very helpful for encouraging a more regular practice.

Solo meditation is recommended for those seeking to develop introspection in an independent fashion; however, group yoga and meditation are wonderful opportunities for sharing the positive vibes of a group dynamic. For maximum effect, the following positioning is encouraged.

Each meditator sits on his or her cushion in a circle facing away from the center of the circle. For introspection, it is psychologically beneficial to have the group energy confirmed at your back, with each meditator facing outward, like the radiating warmth of the sun's rays.

When the meditation feels complete, the teacher/facilitator signals the conclusion to the students by touching them lightly on the head or shoulder. The students, with eyes still closed, release from yoni mudra and relax their hands to their waist, feeling the tranquil quiet of the self at rest, contrasted with the memory of the churning energies inside.

 

 

Normally, when something gets bumped, nudged, knocked, or hit, it makes its sound, and that sound is not a pure tone. Instead, the sound is a mix of several different tones, and thus is classed as predominantly percussive rather than musical. Then there are objects, like chimes, that ring and ring, the note continuing at a steady volume. After the moment of sounding, the object vibrates in unison, and the sound produced is clear.

At some point in the process, the ringing object comes into itself. There is a sharp volume curve after the bell, tube, or bowl is struck, or the string is plucked, and then the object has a bit of time for the sound to reach the extent of its dimensions — and the sound, having traveled the sum, revisits the source.

For a tightly drawn string, I can measure its pitch. How tightly is the string drawn? How wide is the string, and what is it made of? Then, what is the string fastened to, and what are its characteristics? In the case of a guitar, what is the wood? How has the wood been shaped? And, how does the shape of this object interact with the surrounding air?

Production of sound is one thing — the ticking and clicking of insect legs — and resonance is another. In a quiet room, I'm able to hear the grasshopper taking bites from a leaf, because the leaf is constructed so that it readily rings forth with its paper bag rain patter notes, even as it's being munched. And, in that resonance, I am made to feel.

It also happens that I feel things that haven't produced the physical ringing of a bell, yet are metaphorically or symbolically striking. This resonance happened to me earlier this morning as I read a haiku written by a friend and former retreat participant Bill Dollear:

Old acquaintances

Flee from my circle of life

Like melted snowflakes.

Writing the haiku, Bill did not actually strike a bell, though I reacted to his haiku as if he had. I told him that I was struck by his lines. The way he wrote them produced a kind of reaction that I could only refer to as resonance. Good writing has the capacity to be present in such a striking way that when a reader comes to experience it, the language resonates with him.

Good writing doesn't require a reader to be successful — it is simply present, and directs presence toward openness. It exists in eternal space, where it is possible to create a response that is fresh no matter how much time has passed, unique based on the reader and the circumstances that have brought him or her to the moment of witnessing the play of language. Writing is unique each time it is read. Reading and rereading create different experiences.

The repetition in good writing shows its living structure; musical patterning connects me to the way I live each day. There is a fair amount of repetitive action in ordinary life. Yet, there's no way to sum up experience — it simply has to be felt. And, being felt, where attention is heightened to experience the immediate moment, each movement and encounter will not be felt as truly repetitive. Nothing in nature ever repeats itself. I grasp the concept of repetition, and I can find repetitive actions, but when truly present to the repetitive thing, I find that each iteration is unique. The linear model of experience passing through time is helpful but sometimes incomplete — perhaps it would serve me better to feel that experience blooms and unfolds as time moves forward. And while I can find comfort and order in a cyclical model of recurrence — such as the movement of the sun giving rise to the recurrence of days and years — no day is ever the same, no New Year's celebration is ever the same. I pass familiar geography, but I do so from a different perspective. Each moment changes everything — how could it not?

I return to the contemplation of sound produced by natural objects, remembering another class of sonic production that I haven't mentioned: the flute. Rather than being as obvious as two objects striking each other and one producing its sound, a flute-type instrument makes its note through the friction of air; provided that the air is blown at a particular speed and volume, the flute will resonate. Brass instruments are similar, and make their sound from a resonance that follows a buzzing sound. With the resonance of musical instruments comes an increase of sound. But resonance as a whole occurs in minute ways as well. The grain of wood affects the flow of resonance through a harp. The shape of an ear, and how it is positioned relative to a tone, affects the shape of the tone that gets picked up. I'm describing a tone as something with the quality of shape because of the perception that even within a pure tone, a clear note, there are discernible characteristics, and the characteristics I notice depend on many factors. A straight-on tone is open to more of the full spectrum. An ear facing somewhat away from a sound hears more of its reflections, both from the environment and the ear itself. In this way, even a pure note is perhaps understood as “only” characteristics, without a single part uncolored by circumstances. Even in the silence of the earth turning on its axis, I am present to all sound.

When I hear something beautiful, something that resonates with me, I open myself to that experience. I may want to turn the volume up, and I will also want to clear more within myself, sensorily and attentionally, to more fully witness it. To the extent that I'm able, I strive to become a better sounding board to that experience. Resonance naturally carries an emotional quality.

There is an even more mesmerizing class of sound body: the object that resonates with sound. The crystal glass that breaks when a pure — let's say piercing — note is sounded. The glass's characteristics have imparted their own pitch, let's say a particular nuance of oscillation within the vibratory frequency of the note A. Not a perfect A, but a little sharp. When that vibration resonates with the glass, the glass, too, sounds, and perhaps because the glass is not perfectly constructed, an exterior, powerful tone overwhelms its construction, and it bursts. Of course, tone resonance is not always visibly destructive. It may be thought of as a kind of magnetism — for awhile, the vibrations effect the object, and it rings back against the vibrations. Play a tone against a standing fluid such as water, and you can see the wavelength of the sine wave. Such is also the mechanism of poetry and of any emergent form. It transcends structure and support.

 

 

In communication, we use images. The image as imparted by me is a relation between the thing and you, halfway between the expression and the audience. There is no exact science to the use of images. The chief talent is adoration.