Yoga and the Importance of Balance

This past month, I returned to Hawaii to celebrate a milestone birthday for my oldest brother. Coming back home gave me a chance to create some balance in my life as I reconnected with my family and bathed in the natural beauty of this island paradise in ways that touched all my senses. It reminded me that creating feelings of balance in one’s life is so very important.
 
I got to visit with my cousin, Kaili, who is a well-respected Native Hawaiian sculptor and installation artist based in Hawaii. She gave me a personal tour of some of her art pieces in Waikīkī, downtown Honolulu, and in her own studio in Nuʻuanu. Particularly, her piece Muliwai caught my attention. She explained to me that in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language), Muliwai is the place where the fresh water from the mountains meets the salt water from the sea, and creates the proper conditions for a certain fish called the Hinana (baby ‘o’opu) to thrive. She said that the Hinana were one of many fish that Hawaiians ate to sustain themselves. According to my cousin, “we [Hawaiians] knew and still know their lifecycles and know when to harvest [them] and when to let [them] grow.” In other words, Hawaiians didnʻt over-harvest. Rather, they balanced the “taking from Nature” with periods of letting nature replenish itself. In this way, they could live in harmony and balance with nature and thus experience harmony and balance within themselves. As we say in Hawaii, “so akamai!” – so smart!
 
In the installation’s description above, it says: 
 
“Where the wai (fresh waters of the mountains) meets the kai (salt waters of the sea), there you will find the muliwai, Here, the brackish water sustains a nutritious environment for fish and sea creatures that together feed the people of the land.”
 
In addition to meaning “slightly salty,” another definition of brackish is “unpleasant or distasteful.” And that got me thinking about life itself. What are the necessary life experiences one needs in order to live a full and meaningful life? I would argue that we need to experience both the refreshing parts of life as well as the salty parts of life. The balance of the two will help us to keep moving in the direction of Enlightenment, which is what we’re trying to achieve in our yoga practice both on and off the mat. From a yoga perspective, we need a balance of stimuli – both the light and the dark, the easy and not so easy – in order to create the right conditions for us to reach Enlightenment.

The installation description also states:
 
“In tribute to the rhythmic flow of the muliwai, the undulations of the artwork highlight the ebb and flow of lunar and tidal connections, reflecting the brilliance of the ahupuaʻa, the gifts of the muliwai, and how the ingenuity of our kanaka maoli fuses with the creative forces of our world, allowing all to flourish and bloom.”
 
The key takeaway for me as it relates to yoga is that the Hawaiian people (kanaka maoli) flourished and bloomed because they were able to ebb and flow with nature rather than against it. And the lesson for us is that we can ebb and flow with things just as they are, rather than constantly fighting to have things be something different than they are. 
 
At the moment, I am working my way through a course on Equanimity given by the Buddhist Meditation Teacher, Sharon Salzburg. In the first lesson she offers these words:
 
Equanimity is engaging with life with perspective and wisdom.
 
and
 
Equanimity’s strength derives from a combination of understanding and trust in the cycles and tides of our life’s experiences.
 
The Hawaiian people surely understood this in ways that we can learn from. There is a rhythm to life, and our job is to try to stay in the flow, swim with the flow, and not to try to resist the flow, especially when it leads us into brackish waters. Because that is where we may truly find the life-nutrients we need to help us move forward spiritually. That is where we may gain more perspective and wisdom.
 
No less important as a practice, the installation description starts with these words:
 
“Famous is the Āpuakehau stream, flowing through the ahupuaʻa of Waikīkī from the verdant mountains to the thriving ocean, giving birth to the abundant muliwai laden with gifts of life-giving food that fills the ʻopu of our people. Mahalo e Āpuakehau for sharing your many treasures.”
 
The Hawaiian people knew the importance of saying Mahalo (thanks) to Nature for its gifts that filled their ʻopu (stomachs) to samtosha (contentment). So I will conclude here by saying that our practice of cultivating balance in our own lives needs to include slowing down at times and observing the non-man-made things around us. Cultivate balance by pausing and giving praise to the beauty around you that is always being given to you freely by the Universe .
 
May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you flow with Nature, ...
May you be like the Hinana and thrive in the brackish waters of your life, …
May you practice balance in your life, … both for your benefit and for the benefit of All Beings Everywhere.
 
Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun

Mahalo - thanks! - to Nature for giving us such beauty!

Me and Cuzin Kaili.