I sailed through the first three plus decades of my life without accumulating a single cavity, a record that fueled delusions of dental grandeur. When my dentist told me a few years ago that the surface of one of my teeth was sticky - a nice way to say decaying - and required a filling, the news crushed my sense of toothy superiority. Part of me had really believed that I'd live cavity-free until 120, despite my propensity for eating sweets.
A few weeks ago this same dentist discovered another sticky spot on a rear, upper left molar. Today I went to get it filled. The room was cold and I was told to keep my coat on. Lying back in the chair, swaddled in my green down jacket, I stared at the dentist and his technician, who looked like a pair of nerdy riot police behind their blue plastic face shields. I tried not to gag as they inserted multiple objects into my mouth. First came a numbing swab of novocaine, followed by three injections of the stuff, not to mention their latex covered fingers. The technician sprayed the inside of my mouth to rinse out the excess from the swabbing.
I was handed a New Yorker magazine to entertain me while the drugs took effect. It was a brief respite before the next oral invasion, during which the dentist inserted the filling and the technician placed a suction tube in my mouth. I must have look stricken or distressed because they kept asking me, "Are you OK?"
"Un huh," I grunted affirmatively, trying to suppress my gag reflex. I wasn't really OK, but I wanted to get the procedure over with as soon as possible, rather than interrupting and prolonging it. Putting my yoga practice to work, I focused my attention on my breath, feeling it rise and fall in my belly. This exercise took my mind off the buzz of activity in my mouth, which normally prefers its privacy and to remain mostly closed.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably just five minutes, the dentist asked me to bite down and see if it felt right. It didn't - there was too much filling. I braced myself for the next invasion, a whirring tool to remove the excess material.
"Could you lick the tooth and make sure it's not rough?" the dentist asked, wanting me to test his handiwork.
I licked. It was smooth.
"You're all set. We'll see you in six months for your cleaning," he said, leaving the room and leaving me with my second filling and an uncomfortably numb mouth.
"How long will it take for the novocaine to wear off?" I asked the technician. My left cheek and lips felt enormous, as if someone had injected too much collagen.
"Um, just a few hours," she said, with just the slightest hesitation.
"Is that two hours?" I tried to clarify.
"Well, it's a few hours ... but once it starts to wear off it will go quickly," she replied.
It took nearly five hours for the novocaine to dissipate enough that I could eat something. Twelve 12 hours later there is still a slight ache in my gum, a reminder of my dental discombobulation.
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Idolatry, revisited
Earlier today I attended a meditation workshop at my synagogue called, "Letting Go of the Burning Coal: Anger and How to Heal It", led by Rabbi Alan Lew. The workshop was scheduled to run from 10am-4pm and, like many events held at my synagogue, for reasons that were not apparent it didn't start at the stated time. And because people know that events at my synagogue (even if organized by different groups) tend not to start on time, they have learned not to knock themselves out to arrive on time. And so it goes, creating awkwardness for the people who did arrive promptly and who need to leave (at the original) "on time", when the event might run quite late.
In fact, by the time lunch rolled around we were 30 minutes off schedule. I had intended to leave at 4pm to get to a yoga class and I started to wonder if I'd have to choose between completing the retreat and keeping my commitment to practice yoga three times a week. Poor planning and sliding schedules tend to push a few of my buttons: there is the button of respect - when people don't honor appointments or plans I start to feel that they are not respecting my time and, therefore, not respecting me; and there is the button of irritation - it gets ignited when I believe (rightly or wrongly) that I am in a situation that is being run less than competently. Needless to say, given the increasingly casual world we live in, I'd be better off if I could figure out a way to reprogram these buttons.
Being somewhat, but not completely, self-aware, I ruefully realized that I was in exactly the right place to become angry and annoyed.
Could I learn something about myself and how and why I get angry, I wondered, as I quietly steamed about the schedule during the silent vegetarian lunch. Why didn't the Rabbi shave a few minutes off of lunch (after all, we were not allowed to speak, just eat, so it wasn't social time) in order to make up for the time he lost in the beginning?
It wasn't until 3pm or so that Rabbi Lew actually gave us some instructions on how to work with anger in meditation. "Finally!" my huffy inner voice hissed.
And then he, too, mentioned anger as a form of idolatry, although not in the way that I had heard it described by a woman at Elat Chayyim, where I had spent Yom Kippur. Back in September, a fellow retreatant had mentioned that persistent anger is a way of keeping oneself at the center of things, raising oneself onto a pedestal. But Rabbi Lew had other explanations as to why anger is akin to idolatry. First, by being angry at another person, one gives that person tremendous power over one's life. And fixating on this person puts his or her image in the forefront of one's consciousness, whereas it is God who belongs at the forefront. Secondly, by treating anger as something in the body that must be expelled or gotten rid of, one gives anger a solid form (turning it into an idol) when in fact it is formless. It is energy which we can either suppress (rarely a good idea), express (often a bad idea) or - as we learned today - simply experience and inhabit it, watching it rise and fall. Since we can't exorcise it once and for all, we might as well learn to live with it.
The workshop, despite the 30 minute delay, ended on time, rendering my dilemma moot and making me realize that I had gotten steamed up over...NOTHING...my mind had chosen to chew on the delay much like a dog masticates a bone. My mind does this a lot, the content varying depending on the situation. As a meditator, my job is to figuratively remove the bone before my mind sinks its teeth into it and direct my mind's attention toward something else. Rabbi Lew suggested compassion - can we turn our feelings of anger to thoughts of compassion for the person who is pissing us off? After all, if they are showering us with harsh words and ill feelings, imagine how bad it must be for them.
His recommendation is not new or earth shattering, but it was worth hearing once again, something for my mind to chew on during yoga class while my body rested in downward facing dog.
In fact, by the time lunch rolled around we were 30 minutes off schedule. I had intended to leave at 4pm to get to a yoga class and I started to wonder if I'd have to choose between completing the retreat and keeping my commitment to practice yoga three times a week. Poor planning and sliding schedules tend to push a few of my buttons: there is the button of respect - when people don't honor appointments or plans I start to feel that they are not respecting my time and, therefore, not respecting me; and there is the button of irritation - it gets ignited when I believe (rightly or wrongly) that I am in a situation that is being run less than competently. Needless to say, given the increasingly casual world we live in, I'd be better off if I could figure out a way to reprogram these buttons.
Being somewhat, but not completely, self-aware, I ruefully realized that I was in exactly the right place to become angry and annoyed.
Could I learn something about myself and how and why I get angry, I wondered, as I quietly steamed about the schedule during the silent vegetarian lunch. Why didn't the Rabbi shave a few minutes off of lunch (after all, we were not allowed to speak, just eat, so it wasn't social time) in order to make up for the time he lost in the beginning?
It wasn't until 3pm or so that Rabbi Lew actually gave us some instructions on how to work with anger in meditation. "Finally!" my huffy inner voice hissed.
And then he, too, mentioned anger as a form of idolatry, although not in the way that I had heard it described by a woman at Elat Chayyim, where I had spent Yom Kippur. Back in September, a fellow retreatant had mentioned that persistent anger is a way of keeping oneself at the center of things, raising oneself onto a pedestal. But Rabbi Lew had other explanations as to why anger is akin to idolatry. First, by being angry at another person, one gives that person tremendous power over one's life. And fixating on this person puts his or her image in the forefront of one's consciousness, whereas it is God who belongs at the forefront. Secondly, by treating anger as something in the body that must be expelled or gotten rid of, one gives anger a solid form (turning it into an idol) when in fact it is formless. It is energy which we can either suppress (rarely a good idea), express (often a bad idea) or - as we learned today - simply experience and inhabit it, watching it rise and fall. Since we can't exorcise it once and for all, we might as well learn to live with it.
The workshop, despite the 30 minute delay, ended on time, rendering my dilemma moot and making me realize that I had gotten steamed up over...NOTHING...my mind had chosen to chew on the delay much like a dog masticates a bone. My mind does this a lot, the content varying depending on the situation. As a meditator, my job is to figuratively remove the bone before my mind sinks its teeth into it and direct my mind's attention toward something else. Rabbi Lew suggested compassion - can we turn our feelings of anger to thoughts of compassion for the person who is pissing us off? After all, if they are showering us with harsh words and ill feelings, imagine how bad it must be for them.
His recommendation is not new or earth shattering, but it was worth hearing once again, something for my mind to chew on during yoga class while my body rested in downward facing dog.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Inversions and Inspiration
In yoga we practice inversions, postures where our bodies move into upside down positions. Inversions include headstands, handstands and shoulder stands, the common theme being that the head is below the heart.
The point of standing on our heads is to invert our view of the world and, with that, to get a handle on how the way we normally view things might not be the most effective or productive. Being upside down does give you an entirely different perspective and headstands in particular leave me with a biochemical high that allows me to view the world through slightly rosier lenses.
But the practice of yoga itself is an inversion, a turning upside down of many of our assumptions about how life works and how to experience fulfillment. On Saturday morning, in an intensely heated studio, our teacher urged us to tune into our bodies and our breath, allowing what we discover inside to inspire us to action in the world, rather than having our behavior be motivated by external stimuli or expectations, as mine as been for much of my life. Another inversion is the idea that if you relax into pain or difficulty, rather than resisting, it will cease to be painful or difficult. "Pain" is the label that our mind gives to strong sensations, and once we identify something as "pain", rather than curiously exploring what the sensation actually feels like (is it a dull thudding? sharp tingles? a burning feeling?), we are likely to intensify that sensation, rather than ease it. Ditto for strong sensations caused by difficult emotions; do we repress our fear and anger or do we go into it, and see what is really going on? Easier said than done, but worth attempting all the same.
This particular instructor, a dark haired man in his 30s, has a strong regional Boston accent and occasionally mixes up words, but he is one of the more inspirational and passionate teachers I've encountered. He is not there to strike a pose, wow us with medically accurate descriptions of our anatomical workings, or lecture about the eight limbs of yogic philosophy while strutting his yoga butt. He's a very real person, with real problems, and he brings all of himself to the class, exhorting us to do the same. It is refreshing to have an instructor like him in the exceedingly cerebral Boston area, where intellectualism and accuracy rule.
Had I taken this person's class six years ago, I probably would have dismissed much of what he had to say because he's a regular guy wearing baggy shorts and a crucifix around his neck, not an impeccably attired and well spoken expert. I'm glad to observe that, since beginning my practice six years ago, my attitudes have inverted enough to allow me to not only appreciate people like him, but to seek them out.
The point of standing on our heads is to invert our view of the world and, with that, to get a handle on how the way we normally view things might not be the most effective or productive. Being upside down does give you an entirely different perspective and headstands in particular leave me with a biochemical high that allows me to view the world through slightly rosier lenses.
But the practice of yoga itself is an inversion, a turning upside down of many of our assumptions about how life works and how to experience fulfillment. On Saturday morning, in an intensely heated studio, our teacher urged us to tune into our bodies and our breath, allowing what we discover inside to inspire us to action in the world, rather than having our behavior be motivated by external stimuli or expectations, as mine as been for much of my life. Another inversion is the idea that if you relax into pain or difficulty, rather than resisting, it will cease to be painful or difficult. "Pain" is the label that our mind gives to strong sensations, and once we identify something as "pain", rather than curiously exploring what the sensation actually feels like (is it a dull thudding? sharp tingles? a burning feeling?), we are likely to intensify that sensation, rather than ease it. Ditto for strong sensations caused by difficult emotions; do we repress our fear and anger or do we go into it, and see what is really going on? Easier said than done, but worth attempting all the same.
This particular instructor, a dark haired man in his 30s, has a strong regional Boston accent and occasionally mixes up words, but he is one of the more inspirational and passionate teachers I've encountered. He is not there to strike a pose, wow us with medically accurate descriptions of our anatomical workings, or lecture about the eight limbs of yogic philosophy while strutting his yoga butt. He's a very real person, with real problems, and he brings all of himself to the class, exhorting us to do the same. It is refreshing to have an instructor like him in the exceedingly cerebral Boston area, where intellectualism and accuracy rule.
Had I taken this person's class six years ago, I probably would have dismissed much of what he had to say because he's a regular guy wearing baggy shorts and a crucifix around his neck, not an impeccably attired and well spoken expert. I'm glad to observe that, since beginning my practice six years ago, my attitudes have inverted enough to allow me to not only appreciate people like him, but to seek them out.
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