(Thanks, Mary.)

The other day I was refilling our four feeders. Look who showed up a few minutes later to clean up the spilled seeds:

I head up to Kripalu Center to co-lead a ten-day intensive training for yoga teachers on Exploring the Energy Body:  Teaching Pranayama and Meditation.  While I’m more of a meditation guy, I have experienced how yoga changed my life and am happy to get back into a yoga immersion scene.

Here’s an amazing story of rehabilitation and transformation through yoga:

Campers

Such depth and deep change over the course of days of continuous practice.

For me, the retreat is full: I lead two movement classes a day, each day is filled with interviews with practitioners and an evening talk to prepare and share keeps things lively and amazing.

There’s nothing like a week of dedicated, sincere practice with like-minded people.

Do catch one if you can. The next one is in the fall.

The Teaching Team: Jonathan Foust, Pat Coffey, Tara Brach and Eric Kolvig

A Question: Why are these two goofballs smiling?

This week’s talk was on “The Power of Inquiry.”  (If you missed it, it’s available on my podcast).

The questions we ask ourselves can dramatically reframe our experience.  They can be used in the realm of self-improvement and problem-solving as well as inquiring into the nature of the self and accessing the non-dual.

All inquiry questions require a particular internal attitude:

1. Drop all expectations of ‘getting it right.’
2. Inquire with a sincere desire to know the truth
3. Be prepared for unexpected
4. Look for a ‘feeling tone’ or an experience that is outside the linear mind

The Five-Problem Solving Questions have gotten me out of jams quite a few times.  Credit to Tony Robbins, who turned me on to this.  As promised, here they are.  The following is my personal adaptation:

1. What’s great about this situation?  What could be great about it?
2. What’s not perfect yet?
3. What am I willing to do to resolve this situation?
4. What am I no longer willing to do to resolve this situation?
5. How can I resolve this situation and have a great time doing it?

While questions can help us in the relative, they can open up a sense of what lies beyond the mind itself.

Ramana Maharshi claimed that sincere inquiry into two questions could help reveal your true nature:

1. Who am I?
2. What do I really want?

Inquiry requires a curious blend of not just a high degree of sincerity and openness, but an intensity and desire to know what is true.

For more on inquiry meditation, check here.

(Thanks, Nichole.)

We’ve got six large dead trees near the house that support all species of local woodpeckers.

This one surprised me … I’ve never seen one on the bird feeder.  It must have thought it found heaven.

The next morning I woke up around 4:00AM to the sound of the wind chime frantically shaking.  I ran downstairs to find a young raccoon wildly swinging on the cage.  It managed, despite  that frenzied rocking, to clean out the entire feeder.