Run, run, run away

It's so ironic that yoga is supposed to help me be a calmer, nicer person, but I am becoming a super bitch the longer I stay at home in Taiwan.

I have a confession to make: the only reason I am staying in Taiwan for so long is because I am waiting to go to India for a month of yoga study. I don't know why I was so stupid and didn't finish all the errands before I came back to Taiwan. I naively thought that Taiwan is developed enough that I can do a few simple things once I get here, like confirming my flight schedule, exchanging/transferring some money, printing a few things, etc. I called the airline in Taiwan and the customer representative was totally useless. I went to a bank and the teller doesn't know how to wire transfer money to a non-western country. Nobody told me banks are closed for the entire week during Chinese New Year. They just assume I should know about it. Any time I ask a question, friends and family would eagerly tell me they can help me, or they have a friend who can help me, when in fact neither they nor their "friends" know much about what I am asking for. I wish I could just be referred to professionals, but I don't live in a very convenient place and it seems very important for my family to try to solve my questions "for" me by asking the wrong people rather than admitting they don't know what I I am talking about and let me find information myself over the Internet or call a professional to find out. If I want to purchase an item, they would insist they know the cheapest place to buy it. It would take from hours to days just to get something simple like an alarm clock. I think I end up saving like 50 cents more, when everything is already cheaper in Taiwan than in North America. This whole time everyone keeps showing hospitality by offering to show me around. I ended up feeling more stressed out than entertained when I got dragged around to way too many tourist locations in one day. Today I spent hours and hours in the car, where I was taken to bakeries, restaurants, junk food stores and night markets quite a ways from where we live. Luckily I have already visited this place (Yi-Lan) before, or else I would be seriously bummed to have the chance to visit a place known for its gorgeous sceneries but never get to see any of it.

I am sad to say I was not a very nice person today. I have done nothing but eat way too much food for the past 2 weeks. I realize I should be grateful for all the kindness, but getting me to try out delicious local delicacies when I am already full is torture rather than enjoyment. Walking up and down crowded night markets for hours where every vendor screams at you to buy their stuff is not a relaxing exercise. I can't take deep breaths either because air quality is terrible in crowded places with too much traffic. I really hate the way I am right now. I exude terrible energy and I know I make people around me unhappy. I desperately want people to leave me alone. I think I can go back to my calm self if they stop offering me things (eg. food and "help"), but they seem to double their effort in their offerings the more frustrated/bitchier I get. Stop feeding the angry beast!

I don't know why my family brings out the worst in me. I am never like this around anyone else. It's not just a matter of control. Nobody else generates such strong negative reactions within me. Probably because nobody else would repeatedly force me to do things I don't want to do, even if the forcefulness/strong insistance come from kind intentions. Meditation, deep breaths, gaps between thoughts, all that go out the window. I feel like a train wreck unable to shut up, just politely decline and get away.

It's only a couple more days before I head for India. It's not going to be an easy trip because I bought a ticket with way too short of a connection time, transferring at one of the crappier airports. I am sure there will be plenty of challenges for me to somehow make it to my destination. I was pretty nervous about it before I arrived in Taiwan, but my family managed to make other supposedly easy errands over-complicated as well, so I can't even discuss about this with them. Somehow I still think the chaos in India will be easier to deal with than my current situation. I will let you know otherwise. The yoga itself will undoubtedly be awesome. I wonder how much things will change afterwards. Not expecting magic bullets but I hope the yoga will help.

Cold practice

It was about 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahreheit) this morning indoors (no heater at home). First time doing yoga practice in such a cold environment. I did the full primary series practice in long sleeves, and barely broke a sweat. At my yoga studio I usually start sweating in samastitihi, right when we are about to start chanting. Practice certainly isn't easy in this kind of environment, but it's "safer" for me since I can't collapse into poses and over-stretch when it's so cold.

I watched what I could in David Garrigues' video about breath and receptivity (reviewed in Nobel's blog). Couldn't watch the whole thing because I'm "borrowing" neighbor's wi-fi with my iPad and the connection is not so great. Took me 10 minutes to watch 3 minutes of the video. David mentioned that there should be a balance between effort and receptivity. He also said that the breath will do its own thing depending on the body condition and environment. Well, my breathing in sun salutations were done in slow motion today (I am known to rush through the whole series in 60 minutes). I guess in the cold the body's too stiff to rush through the motions. My mind wasn't awake enough to dominate my natural breathing pattern, and it wanted to take its time to heat up the inner body. Cold practice sucks for the ego, but is good for my body and breath.

It's bizarre to be practicing yoga in an environment where everyone else barely cares about their bodies (or they try to eat their way to health - diet supplements sell really well here). My sister has a haunch back so severe, I've only seen such a curved spine among really old people. She refuses to do much about it. I don't understand how she holds herself up. Last year when I saw her, her back got much better since she had a massage therapist friend who manually adjusted her and really improved her spine, but now it's back to an old lady spine. Her son and daughter also both have haunches, non-severe ones but nobody says or does anything about it. One cousin tells me she has lower back pains and unknown foot problem such that she can't walk for more than an hour at a time. As far as I know, no one's conditions are completely hopeless, but everyone seems to choose to let the body worsen rather than doing something to improve it. I guess in a culture where watching TV and eating are the biggest national hobbies, as long as the mouth and eyes still function, the rest of the body parts don't really matter.

Thanks for asking, but I don't feel like talking about my yoga practice with you right now

I never ever thought I'd get to this point, where I don't want to discuss yoga with people (specifically non-yoga practitioners. To my yogi friends: you guys don't apply to this category).

From the amount of yoga videos and yoga articles that I compulsively post on Facebook, most of my friends whom I haven't seen for a long time get the hint that I am slightly obsessed about yoga. When I first started yoga, I couldn't stop talking about it, whether people wanted to hear about yoga or not. Like a zealous religious fanatic, I would shove complementary yoga passes into people's hands and try to get them to come to a yoga class with me. Over time, I learned that most people have strong mental resistance against trying something new. Some people didn't enjoy physical education in high school and concluded that all physical activities suck, period. Others seemed to think that I would be so inconsiderate that I would take them to an advanced yoga class when they are not that active in their day-to-day lives (or maybe they think all yoga movements are too advanced for them). So I stopped mentioning yoga in social situations. However, whenever I meet up with friends, especially the ones who are on Facebook but whom I haven't seen for awhile, they would always casually ask me about my yoga progress. I get questions like "How's it going with you? Are you still doing yoga? (It's only been 2 years) Wow, you must be a yoga master by now"; "So which new poses are you learning lately?";  "Are you going to become a yoga teacher soon? That's not a bad profession, eh? Probably make a good side income."

For awhile I got so tongue-tied that I couldn't even answer them. I blame too many years of grad school for worsening my social skills (which were not so good to begin with). As a total nerd I'm pretty clueless about what people want to hear, since they obviously don't care for yoga. I do admit also I got a little offended by the implications of these questions (which I can't blame them because they honestly don't know much about yoga besides what mainstream media portrays it to be, but it still affected my ability to think straight), so I usually just answered, "Yep, still do it sometimes", and left it at that. I would get a somewhat stunned look and an awkward pause, before people clumsily find another topic to talk about. There's a good chance I have offended them for shutting down an innocently casual conversation-starter like that.

Upon some serious pondering (the only thing that a nerd like me knows to do), I believe that people want me to casually talk about my yoga progress, with a sense of humor, and maybe some gossip, as if I were reporting about my progress in, say, salsa dancing or figure skating: "Oh it's going great! I fell on my butt soooooo many times but I just mastered pirouetting on one foot last week!" "I'm so much more flexible now that before I started yoga. I used to not be able to touch my toes, and now I can almost do a split!" "OMG, there's this one yoga teacher who is super hot! Men who practice yoga have such nice bodies! I go to his class all the time, and he's the only teacher who can get me into a handstand! You should come try his class with me sometime! He has the most sexy voice ever and you'll feel so relaxed in this class!" "My butt is so much perkier now after all the yoga I've been doing. It's super awesome. The yoga inversions help reverse the aging effects that gravity has on a woman's skin and boobs! I feel younger than ever before!"

The above examples have nothing to do with my personal practice, by the way (or maybe some of them do, but I don't really talk like that in real life), but I think these are the type of things people who don't do yoga expect to hear. I'm not sure if they want me to sell yoga to them as a miracle panacea, make self-deprecating jokes about yoga, brag about how many poses I've mastered, demo some fancy asana on the spot, make claims about how close I am in becoming a teacher, or what. Fellow yogis and yoginis, please share your experience with me on this matter.

I guess I personally take (Ashtanga) yoga sort of seriously, even though I haven't been practicing it regularly. I'm not saying it has to be so serious; I'm just in a weird mental state at this moment and just don't feel like going along with what people want by feeding them superficial comments about yoga (I'm 99.5% certain they prefer to hear something short, funny and snazzy rather than how I'm trying to burn through my samskaras with metaphoric/energetic fire generated by breath and postures). Don't get me wrong; I'm not going through post-graduation depression. I'm feeling a sense of peace that I haven't felt for years, as I used to always have my thesis project in the back of my mind at all times. I don't really feel like defending myself or pretend agree with people when they make uncreative assumptions about my vacation plans, career plans, or my yoga practice. I'm aware my social behaviour makes me seem like a total snob, and I'm pissing off some of my friends. Let me be clear: I don't think I'm above other people. I just feel like I need to step off the hamster's wheel of social expectations (how to talk; how to behave; how to proceed through life in a conventional way) for a bit and just be. I'm pretty sure it's only a temporary phase, some sort of cognitive fatigue (societal expectation fatigue?) maybe. Once the phase passes I'll happily get back on the hamster treadmill and conform to social norms again.

We live in an interesting time

I just finished watching an interview with Slavoj Zizek... such a fascinating talk. I haven't read any of his books yet, but I know I must add him to my gigantic list of authors I need to read. There's a lot to digest from this interview. If you're not used to thinking all over the place, he might just sound like a crazy man to you. However my brain operates the same way (though I know next to nothing about the world compared to him) so this one interview answered so many questions I've been pondering for a long time now.

Zizek pointed out current weirdness of societal values everywhere in the world. In the West (I'm guessing that includes US/Canada and Western Europe), the society currently implicitly encourages a kind of "spiritual hedonism" - "be true to your self,  have a full life, realize your potentials". In other times the public had been told to live a life to sacrifice oneself for the greater good (for the family, the community, the religious group, the corporation, the country, etc). It's great for the individual, but not so great for production/manufacturing (where's the fulfillment working in a factory?). In this way, totalitarian style of ruling (eg. China, Singapore), where citizens are taught to place country and work before the self,  running capitalism can achieve much better efficiency + productivity than the western way of ruling countries - good for building a strong, rich country, not so good for the individuals, especially the blue collar working class. Nevertheless, it means China will eventually dominant over the West, and the West is scared.

It's really interesting how the human mind is so malleable. If you were recently born into North Korea, your society will tell you that your country is more important than you, and without access to international media, you would probably believe it and that's how you would live your life. If you were recently born into the West, society shows you this "spiritual hedonism" and you would take many things for granted: benefits, libraries, maternal leave, nice roads, etc. depending on where you live. If you were born in the Middle East, depending on which religious group you were born into, your family would teach you about the disputes and injustice that some other religious groups have done to your group for thousands of years, and you might spend the rest of your life obsessing about getting back at them.

I feel I'm anxious because I am deeply conflicted by the fact that I am educated by the West ("be the best that you can be"), but my parents try to instill traditional Chinese values in me (study hard, gain critical thinking skills, and then forget about the educational enlightenment part and focus on conforming to family values and to society - I think they do not fully realize that western company cultures are not quite the same as Asian companies/bosses). So I turn to yoga + meditation for some peace and equanimity, but my ligaments feel a bit overstretched and my SI joints hurt (from hamstrings being over stretched)? Meditation also does not provide me with job hunting skills, or skills that would help me dealing with family whose fundamental values are almost polar opposites of my values.

Either things will resolve on their own, and the world will self-reorganize into a better place, or the world will end soon and I don't need to worry about my future right now, I guess. I don't really like to be in denial, but I don't have too many alternative options here. 2012 should be an interesting year for me (and for the rest of the world).

p.s. I had a not so great yoga practice today. Learned a thing or two about my body nevertheless.

The effects of yoga

For the past month I was working on a paper and final revisions of my thesis, and my yoga studio membership had expired, so I hadn't been going to yoga classes much at all. Even after I completed everything and felt a huge mental and physiological relieve that I was done school, for the past couple days, I hadn't slept well or felt well within the body. My ashtangi friends invited me to their house for mysore practice on Christmas day, which was lovely, since I haven't done the primary series for ages (lacking discipline to practice it on my own). It was also wonderful to be able to spend time discussing yoga with them and enjoy delicious food prepared by my friends (I am so spoiled). The next day I felt sore everywhere and my hamstrings felt overstretched, and I still had trouble sleeping at night.

It worked out that the studio was selling some relatively cheap single class passes for December so I purchased some and started going back to the studio again. I ended up taking a pilates class, a hot yoga class, and a vinyasa flow class. Last evening I noticed the therapeutic magic of continuous practice of yoga. The past couple of weeks I had been experiencing uneasiness within. The inner body was unhappy and anxious for no reason. The night before, I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I attempted a short CD guided sitting meditation. The center of the chest under the rib cage felt like it was going numb and about to die off. I  was so anxious I wanted to stand up and run away, but the CD said to sit and feel the body, observe any thoughts and sensations that happen, so I had to force myself to sit for 30 minutes while different parts of the body went numb and then turned into pins and needle sensations. It was miserable. But after last night's practice, even though certain muscles are very sore, I felt like the crazy energy and sensations inside the body were gone. So many people think of yoga as a work out or stretching, but I really think it has a huge soothing effect on the subtle body.

I did another practice hot yoga practice today because it was taught by a teacher who always make me smile from the bottom of my heart whenever I see him. It was another great practice (sometimes I don't know if it's the yoga teacher or the yoga; it's probably an additive effect). I thought the calm and pleasant feeling would last me through the night, until I called my mom to say happy new year, and the conversation ended badly, even though neither of us wanted this to happen. I think I'm beginning to understand why some regions of the world (Africa and Middle East come to mind) are permanently in conflict, even though everybody involved really wants peace.

Anyways, after I hung up the phone, a whole bunch of negative memories, associations, stories came up and fueled my anger + discontentment. Then that washed over and went away. I checked in to the inner body: it's still maintaining that post-yoga calm. This in turn prevents me from hanging on to the drama and  going to bed angry. I think some of the indescribable discomforts in the body are associated with certain emotions or memories. Feeling that discomfort triggers negative emotions, and anxiety ensues when the discomfort refuses to go away. When the nadis are clear, good and bad feelings come and go freely, without the body holding onto the bad emotions.

Lesson learned: a regular practice of yoga works for the subtle body like fiber does for the bowels - it keeps the channels clear and so I don't become a chronic emotional mess. Temporary emotional episodes are probably unavoidable in life and as long as they pass through, I am okay dealing with them.

2011 Reflections

In 2011 I:

- Finally got myself out of graduate school after a long long time. Woot!

- Made use of 911 service for the first time in my life, and subsequently had to use it 2 more times later in the year - all necessary emergencies for friends and family (good things and bad things like to come in threes!). Won't go into details, but suffice to say this was indeed an eventful year. I got an opportunity to deal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, rode in an ambulance for the first time, and I got to interact with a total of 10 firefighters (was never in any situations involving fire, but I learned that firefighters are first responders so they'll usually arrive first if the dispatcher cannot get an ambulance or cop cars to the scene right away.

- Went to a Kino workshop (sorry I didn't blog about it; was trying to stay anonymous but fellow Ashtangis found out about this blog anyways). Kino helped me with my first ever drop back.

- Went to Thailand for the first time ever, and loved it! Hoping to go back again next year.

- Vipassana retreat is not going to happen in January. It's okay.. I will definitely go on one in the future.

I hope 2012 will be a great year. I am in dire need of chakra balancing, meridian cleansing, nervous system restoration, and all that stuff. Seriously. Doing a PhD causes serious brain damage. I hope it's a non-permanent one that can be reversed somewhat.


I have made zero plans for job hunting, but I do have several travel plans. I may or may not blog about them. We'll see how it goes. Will let you know if I get a job by the second half of the year or if I will remain as a bum for the rest of my life.

Things to think through over the holidays

So I successfully defended my thesis, finished the revisions, submitted the final draft to the libraries. Yay me! People are totally curious (or sympathetic, because I don't have a job lined up): what are you going to do now?

Um.. learn some life skills that are actually practical to life(!), try to undo some brain damage caused by fitting my square brain into the spiral-shaped academia manhole, as well as hoping to heal the neural pathway stresses from constantly shoving massive amounts of useless information (the info are only useful if I keep working/studying in the same narrow field, which I'm not exactly sure if I'm going to do) into my brain. All these years of education have killed so much creativity, caused so much mental trauma, and took out my capacity to socialize like "normal" people, pay attention to every day life details (my home looks like it got burglarized multiple times, because I just haven't had time or calmness to reorganize everything). Practically every other thing that comes out of my mouth is either related to yoga or my area of research, because my brain does not have space to process stuff that normal people care about, like jokes, small talk, culture, movies, books, arts, technology gadgets, fashion, sports, entertainment, relationships, etc etc).

So, the plan is to watch a lot of cool movies, read a lot of books, learn about a bunch of topics that I have not had time to learn about but I think are of huge importance to know a little about them, and of course, do a lot of yoga. Oh yah, and go on a Vipassana retreat if I get the chance - clear the brain, hope some of the neural pathways will heal or at least take a break from being over-stressed. Below are a list of topics I am suddenly interested in blogging about, but then realized I know next to nothing about the issues:

- War against "evil": what the heck is evil? How can people be so sure that they themselves are the "good guys" while the others are the "bad guys"? Why do I feel like whoever tries to launch a war against evil are the most evil people themselves. Perhaps my definition of evil (hurting and killing innocent people) is off with other people's definition of evil (Those who try to hurt me or my kind of people are considered as evil; their life circumstances and childhood/cultural history does not matter at all, at least not to me).

- Religion: I'm not talking about those who were raised to follow a certain religion. I am talking about adults who voluntarily choose to follow or study a religion. What kind of people are drawn to Christianity? What kind of people are drawn to Buddhism? When I try to read the Bible, I don't know if it's the way it's written or what, the ideas are just words; they don't really speak to me. When I read Buddhism ideas, specifically Buddhism explained by some westerners (and not the Chinese version of the same material, strange eh?), the teachings seem to verbalize ideas I already strongly believe in. My cousin is the opposite. A girl I know was introduced to Christianity in her 30s, the teachings totally spoke to her. She now reads a passage of the Bible every night before bed and always find it insightful, comforting, inspirational, and/or educational. This came up while chatting with a friend. A preliminary response is that this girl is the type of person who feels unloved, who suddenly felt a need to know the purpose of life, who thinks it's important to obey authority, and to please other people. So believing in an all-loving God who has a set of rules for her to follow for the rest of her life which will lead her to heaven fits her personality/original set of personal beliefs. For me, I used to obey parents, teachers, and adults/authorities until their logic didn't make sense, until I realized nobody knows exactly what they are doing and the ones who know the least love to give strong orders/suggestions the most. I have also suppressed intuitions and tried so hard to be analytical all my life, thinking that I can reason my way through everything. That has worked up to a point and then failed for a significant aspect of my life.  I am very attracted by the Buddhist idea that looking within will help me find the answers I am looking for (I guess authority figures have lost my respect and trust). These ideas are specific to me and this girl though. A broader understanding is needed.

- Economics: our economy is very broken obviously, and politicians keep applying patches + quick fixes that work for a short period of time and then fail again. Gone are the days when you can hold 1 job from school graduation until retirement at 65 years old and then live comfortably on a pension until death. I've had the fortune of hearing honest talks by a good number of medical and (bio)chemical Nobel Laureates, successful professors as well as industry scientists who work in giant pharmaceutical companies. So, supposedly my training would lead me directly to one of these 2 paths - academia or industry. Their presentations as well as my past years of experience in grad school make me not want to jump at the first job opening available anywhere. If you talk to scientists who do research on drugs and vaccines, their intention is to come up with a new drug that will cure or alleviate suffering from diseases (this was my intention too when I decided to study biology as a major). When I talk to the average people or read the media, the public seems to think that the purpose of developing drugs is to make big money (evil big pharma). Some even go as far to say that pharmaceutical companies can actually cure diseases, but they purposely only sell drugs that temporarily suppress symptoms but keep you sick for a long time. I think this misunderstanding exists because people vastly underestimate the complexity of biology and over-estimate the abilities of scientists (these drugs are less than ideal because they are already the best effort that teams of brilliant researchers can come up with, not simply a money-making gimmick). Anyways, I need to teach myself a bit about economy and try to think things through.

- Dualism: again I know very little about this topic, but it's central to yoga I believe, and possibly the source of so many problems in the world.

As you can see, I've got a lot of reading to do. I feel like a bit of self-education will help me navigate through life better, rather than just conforming to current moulds of society: find a husband; have 2.3 kids; take up any job that's stable and pays the bills, who cares if you like the job or not; raise kids to 18 and your responsibility is done when kids make it to college;  constantly compare yourself with your peers regarding your salary amount, the size of your house, the niceness of your car, the maintenance level of your external beauty, the achievements of your kids, etc. Make sure your kids do what you want them to do, or else argue with them until they run away from home. Constantly worry about money. If you have extra cash, spend it on luxury items like yachts and jewellery, and then complain you don't have enough money. Make sure to find issues to worry about if finance isn't your biggest worry.

I don't think I can change the world, but I'd like to gain insight and perhaps modify a few biased beliefs that I was brought up with. I'd like to figure out some stuff that are society norms but are not necessarily the right way to do things. I'd also like to get an idea of how to navigate myself through this imperfect world and not turn into a permanently bitter person.