Yoga and the Art of Being Pono, Balanced

My teddy bear acting a balancing ball for this playground seal.

The end of May is here. At last. All around us signs of life are springing up.

As we reopen and resume normality, a fundamental question we can ask ourselves is: " is this pono?"

In Hawaii, where I was born, there is a practice of asking: “is it pono?” We learn this from a young age, as children. Essentially this means (according to this source): “… for Hawaiians. To be pono means to be in a state of harmony or balance with oneself, others, the land, work and life itself. … [At every step in our life we ask] ‘will what I am about to do help bring harmony and good into the world?’”

A goal of yoga is to achieve balance, or a feeling of equanimity in our minds, both on and off our yoga mats. Thus, as we practice the physical asana, a useful question we can ask ourselves each step of the way: “is what I am doing right now, how I am relating to myself in this yoga posture, going to bring harmony and good into my world, and by extension to the outer worlds as well?” If we can answer “yes” to this, then we will achieve more balance.

From the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra 2.62 reads:

Sthira sukham asanam

Essentially this means that in yoga postures (this sutra speaks specifically of meditation posture, the original yoga posture), there has to be a balance of steady effort with comfort and ease. Balance exists in the equality of this opposition. Another way of saying this is in everything we do, we have to balance equally our efforts – to provide steadiness and stability – with surrender – to provide lightness and comfort.

Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, from Yoga Alliance, suggests:

Ask yourself, “How can I find balance between effort and ease? What steps am I taking every day – on and off the mat – that allow me to transform my world?”

This is particularly relevant right now at this time when the world is experiencing events of perhaps cataclysmic proportions. Yes, we need to balance our outrage and protests against the deaths of black men like George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery with the spaciousness of mind to allow for a bigger understanding to emerge so that compassion and grace can help to lay the foundation for solutions to arise that ultimately will create a better world. Yes, we have to balance seriously following the guidelines of the medical experts on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 with the courage to begin to venture out safely, for both ourselves and the larger community. In this situation, yes, it is the pono thing to do to wear a mask out in public, for the good of all. Please do this so that we don’t risk another uptick in the infection and death rates, which will cause us to have to go into shelter-in-place again.

But as we balance venturing both outward and inward, it’s good to remember this passage from the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna says to Arjuna:

You have control over your actions alone, never over its fruits.
Live not for the fruits of action,
Nor attach yourself in inaction.
Established in yoga, O Arjuna, perform actions having abandoned attachment, 
And having become balanced in success and failure.
For balance of mind is called yoga.

The goal of yoga is not to be able to stand on your head. The goal of yoga is to help us to live in pono with the ourselves and the entire planet. Now, go forth and use your yoga practice to help the world out of these messes in a pono kind of way.

May you be steady and comfortable in all your actions, …
May you let go of success and failure, …
May you do what is pono, …  
For the benefit of all beings everywhere. 

Aloha with Metta,
Paui Keoni Chun

Addendum, posted 6/1/20: It occurred to me yesterday after reading this NY Times editorial by the sister of Chris Cooper — the black man who was bird-watching in Central Park when a white woman attempted to call the police on him — that this was an example of pono in action. Chris acted with equanimity and calm as he confronted the woman. Acting gracefully while under the fire of explicit/implicit racism, his actions will certainly lead to transformative conversations about the racism that exists in all of us. Bravo Chris for practicing yoga off the mat with both sthira and sukha, and for remaining balanced through it all.

#meditationfun. Life is a real balancing act for both me and my teddy bear right now!