Yoga Retreat in India 2013

Bristol, Michael and Carrie are pleased to announce a yoga retreat in Northern India from 10-20 March 2013. Join us for 10 days at beautiful Basunti, a retreat centre located in Himachal Pradesh in Northern India. The Basunti website, http://www.basunti.com, has great pictures and gives you an idea of the location, climate and facilities.

Michael and Carrie will teach a daily Ashtanga morning practice and Bristol will teach Jivamukti each evening. Bristol, Michael and Carrie will also alternate in offering a gentle yoga practice daily for those who prefer a quieter pace of practice. We will chant and meditate daily.

To keep us nourished for all of this practice, we will enjoy vegetarian food prepared by Dave, a Basunti owner and a founder of Neal’s Yard Bakery. Many local Indian favorites are featured and as much food as possible is grown organically in the Basunti garden.

There will also be plenty of time for relaxation. We can swim or sunbathe at the pool or the reservoir lake. Basunti is in the midst of a 60 mile wildlife reserve so you can also go for walks looking for birds and butterflies. You can also visit the local village or hire a fishing boat to travel on the lake. We will take a day trip, probably to McLeod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama’s monastery is based (and there is great shopping there!). We also plan on having a masseuse available should you wish to book a massage.

Should you wish to explore India further you can choose to extend your stay in Amritsar, where the nearest airport is located. You can also easily fly from Amritsar to Delhi or other Indian cities. It is possible to arrange a trekking excursion for after the retreat.

The cost for the retreat is £1000 or $1600. This includes all yoga tuition, food and lodging but no transportation. The cancellation policy is 50% until December 31 2012, 100% thereafter, unless you can find someone else to fill your space. Accommodation is in double rooms but it is possible to arrange a single room for an additional fee.

We hope that you can join us! Please email bristol.maryott@gmail.com for more information.

Partner Scorpion (Vrschikasana)

For this partner yoga pose, you’ll need two friends and some familiarity with pincha mayurasana, the forearm balance on the previous post. You will also want to have warmed up with some backbends such as bhujangasana (cobra pose), shalabhasana (locust pose), dhanurasana (bow pose) and ustrasana (camel pose). If you have a tight back you will probably want to practice these backbends for some time (under the tutelage of a teacher!) before you try scorpion or vrschikasana.

One of your partners will be in downward dog. They have their hands very wide (at least mat width) and you place your forearms down between their arms. You are facing them. Your elbows should be lined up with their hands so that your heads are almost touching.

The other partner is going to be the spotter. They will help you get up into forearm stand. If you can kick up, they will simply catch your hips (being careful of their heads). If you can’t get up into forearm stand by yourself yet, they will help you to lift up. Start in your dolphin with your partner in their downward dog position. Lift one leg up and ask the spotter to bring their arm under your leg and hold their arm steady. Then press your leg down into the spotter’s arm. This will work like a lever and help you to lift the other leg up. You are then in forearm stand and your partner can catch your hips!

Now, start reaching your head towards your partner’s head. Feel that you are melting your heart towards the floor and arching your upper back forwards. Now bend your knees and the spotter will help guide your feet to your partner’s back. You may be able to even walk your feet down your partner’s back towards their head to deepen the backbend. Try not to collapse through the lower back by strongly lifting through the navel and pelvis — uddiyana and mula bandhas. You may be able to bring your knees a bit closer together. Remember to breathe!

When you are ready to come out of the pose, kick gently off of your partner’s back and your spotter will help bring you down. Rest in child’s pose and your spotter may even press on your hips in child’s pose to further release the spine.

As you rest after this very deep backbend, feel the openness of your heart. Feel gratitude for the assistance of your partners and that you have a healthy body which can practice such difficult asanas. Feel that your body is a vehicle through which you find your highest intention.

Pincha Mayurasana

Pincha mayurasana, or peacock feather, is a challenging inversion that requires both flexibility and strength through the shoulder girdle. We are asking our arms to stay bent parallel and then reach back behind our ears.

So let’s start by working on flexibility through the shoulders. Take hold of either end of a strap in each hand with quite a bit of strap between your hands. You should be properly warm before trying this stretch. Now reach the arms straight up and then reach them behind your back until both hands and the strap reach your bottom. Try to keep your arms straight. If it is too tight and your arms bend, widen the distance of your hands. Alternately, if you don’t feel anything, move the hands a bit closer together. Do about 5-10 rounds of this. You can also open your shoulders through practicing prasarita padottanasana c (standing straddle bend c), garudasana (eagle pose) or gomukhasana (cow pose). I am making a mental note to cover all of these poses in future on the blog.

Now let’s try a pose called dolphin, a variation of downward facing dog or adho mukha svanasana. Place your forearms on the floor with your hands and elbows shoulder width apart. Tuck your toes under and lift your hips up and back to straighten the legs. The shoulders should now be in line with the elbows, not forward of them. Look down at the floor, keeping your head lifted. If your neck bothers you it is fine to look straight back behind you. Keep drawing the ribs in towards the spine and lifting strongly through mula and uddiyana bandha. Stay for at least 5-10 ujjayi breaths.

After you’ve come down and rested in child’s pose, take stock of your dolphin. Was it a struggle or did you feel pretty steady? If your chest felt like it was collapsing and the shoulders kept coming forward of your elbows, you need to work on opening the shoulders. Stick with the shoulder openers and gaining strength and flexibility in dolphin as it is not appropriate for you to kick up just yet. Or, if you feel like your legs and hips were really tight and you could not straighten them, you’ll need to practice hip and leg opening before you’re ready to progress. Try agnisthambhasana (double pigeon or firelog pose) and supta padangusthasana (reclining big toe pose). If your hands were really sliding inwards, try placing a block between your hands with the block above the outstretched thumb. And it can be helpful to try to catch the skin on your outer elbow on the floor and really widen your hands to counteract the slipping.

If you were feeling steady in dolphin, you may wish to try kicking up. There is a chance you may flip yourself over so make sure the area is clear around your mat. Find your dolphin position again with the forearms down. Strongly draw the mula bandha or root lock upwards, lifting the pelvic floor diaphragm. Also draw the belly up and in, towards the spine. Bring the shoulders over the elbows and gaze at a steady point. Now step one leg half a step in. This will be your kicking leg and your power comes from it. Lift the other leg, keeping the leg and foot active. Now hop, trying to lift both legs into the air. Ideally, the top leg goes enough past the center line that the bottom leg lifts as well. Then draw through your tailbone to bring the legs together.

Hop at least 5 times on each leg. You might feel very far away, in which case, just keep practicing! Remember what Guruji, Sri K Pattabhi Jois, would say, ‘Practice and all is coming’. If you did manage to get up, that’s great! You probably got up and had a mini freak out that you were actually up there and fell out of it. But from those few quick tastes of the pose evolves a steadiness and calm that allows you to maintain the posture. If you did get up, there is also the chance that you kicked over too far and flipped. We hope that you are okay! Everyone has to flip when they are learning inversions. And no one has ever died (as far as we know!). You learn to flip into a backbend or roll. It’s really a great sign because it means you are actually going for it. Just get up and try again. If you’re really worried, you can ask a friend to spot you (tell them to be careful and duck their head) or use a wall. However, the wall is very addictive so try not to use it if you can help it. Also, having both feet on the wall will make you banana and stick your ribs out; instead, bend one knee and place that foot flat on the wall and then straighten the other leg up towards the ceiling to lengthen your torso.

Confront abhiniveshah or your fear of death and give this beautiful pose a go. Think of the peacock feather that this pose is named after and try to feel light and elegant by really lifting your bandhas, energizing your legs and drawing the ribs in to reach up towards your highest intention. Also, don’t think too much — focus on your breath.

Tomorrow we will look at practicing a variation of this pose with partners!

Thank You Meditation

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the States, a day of appreciating the bounty and blessings in our lives. So take some time away from your family visit (and all of that food!) and sit down for a thank-you meditation.

This is a very simple meditation that helps us to practice gratitude and reminds us of the plethora of beautiful beings in our life. Sit tall, probably on a cushion with your hips above your knees. You may wish to set a timer. Close your eyes and breathe in and out through the nose. Visualize a being and silently say ‘thank you’ and then silently say their name. Then just go on to the next being who pops into your head. Keep silently thanking absolutely everyone you can think of.

To finish, sit for a few minutes. Feel the lift in your energetic vibration and know that you have also sent positive energy to every being whom you have visualized.

This is a great meditation to practice thankfulness anytime… not just on Thanksgiving!

Kapalbhati

Kapalbhati is a breathing practice which helps to build both heat and focus. Its translation, skull-shining breath, is an apt description — it is like banging your prana against the top of your skull and sahasvara chakra, yelling I’m present! I want my consciousness to ascend!

I practiced with a great group of yogis this afternoon but always feel so tired if the practice is later in the day. Kapalbhati is great for those times when you are yawning on your mat. Kapalbhati also brings lots of oxygen into the body, is said to stimulate weight loss and strengthens the belly. Indeed this practice has such cleansing effects that most consider it to be a kriya or cleansing exercise rather than a pranayama or breathing exercise (restraint of the breath and life-force).

On a metaphysical level, kapalbhati awakens the agni of your tapas, or the fire of your practice. This pranayama pumps the belly in and out, creating a feeling of physical heat. We feel all of this vital energy and reconnect to the deeply-burning flame of our yearning for true Self-knowledge. By consciously lifting our prana upwards, we attempt to awaken our kundalini or consciousness. The aim of this is to lift consciousness through the heart and direct it towards our higher intuitive centers of being, rather than allowing our awareness to reside within our small selves.

If you suffer from high blood pressure or heart or lung problems, kapalbhati is not appropriate for your practice. Practice samavritti or even duration breath instead by exhaling and inhaling for 6 counts each.

Start by assuming a steady seat with a long nice spine. It is preferable to sit with the hips higher than the knees, perhaps on a cushion. Softly close your eyes and inhale and exhale through your nose. Inhale and then to exhale pump the belly up and in so that the air is forced quickly out through the nose. Continue these short, sharp exhales through the nose. Do not worry about the inhale, it will happen automatically. Think only about the exhale. The belly is pumping up and in to pump the diaphragm but the chest should stay as still as possible. The gaze is internally placed upon the third eye.

If possible, practice two rounds of 50 short, sharp exhales. Then sit and breath quietly through your nose, finding even duration of the inhale and exhale. Feel that the energy within your body has lifted, fostering an expansion of the heart and a connection to that sat guru, the true teacher within.

Sthira Sukham Asanam

In this yoga sutra (II.33), Patanjali tells us that our asana should be steady or sthira and joyful or sukham. On the most basic level this sutra can be applied to our asana yoga practice. We want our postures to be steady and sustained — characterized by deep, even breath, a softly-fixed gaze and not wobbly or wavering. We also want our postures to be joyful — we want to feel our hearts expand in this practice and the prana move through every cell.

The meaning of this sutra, however, is much more profound than a yogi simply feeling good within their yoga posture. Instead, the meaning of this sutra rests on the translation of the word ‘asana’ which means seat. So we want our variety of seats to be steady and joyful. This encompasses our meditation seat. We must practice meditation if we wish to truly understand our selves. And we must practice meditation steadily, daily for a certain amount of time. And it should be joyful, we should recognize that we are tremendously lucky to have the time and space available to sit in quiet daily. It is a luxury for us to have this good karma.

Your seat is also your connection to the earth. It is how we ground ourselves upon this planet. And right now, we have a pretty unsteady, painful seat. We must refine this connection if we want to evolve. We must start to treat every being on this planet as we wish to be treated, as that will manifest in our future reality. So if we want a world that is steady and joyful, we must start by creating relationships that are such. Think about the mountains of paper cups created by our global coffee habit. Think of those drugged cows who never see the light of day as they are painfully mechanically milked so that we can drink the milk they produced for their babies that they never get to see. Think of the chickens who can’t spread their wings and whose feet grow around their cages so that we can eat their eggs. Think of the plastic bags floating in the ocean so that we can carry our groceries 100 feet. Now we could keep going but it is important to not become overwhelmed or discouraged either. There is very much suffering on this planet. But if we have good intentions and commit step by step to manageable changes, we can establish that steady and joyful seat that will nurture us and every other being. So recycle viglantly. Refuse plastic bags. Compost. Carry your neighbor’s groceries. Call your mother. Go vegetarian, preferably vegan. A vegetarian diet produces the least harm for the planet, the animals and is also healthier for your body (for more information read Yoga and Vegetarianism by Sharon Gannon).

The magic of the yoga practice is that all of these asanas or seats are interconnected; the more your physical yoga posture becomes steady and joyful, the more you feel drawn to meditation. Similarly, as you connect with your highest, loving, Divine self through meditation and yoga, you are no longer able to close your eyes to the suffering of Mother Earth.

Bija Mantras

Our subtle body contains 7 chakras, or wheels. These chakras are energetic knots where the ida and pingala nadis, the left and right side channels of the body, cross over the sushumna nadi, or central energy channel of the body. Our goal is to bring the energy into the central channel or sushumna nadi. When our energy is in our sushumna, we feel centered, balanced and filled with the magnitude of our being. We recognize oneness. The yoga asana practice helps to direct energy into the sushumna; I think every yoga practitioner has experienced this shift in perception that happens after a great practice, all of a sudden we are acting from the fullness of our heart when before we felt limited.

When we are not balanced, our energy is in the ida or pingala nadis, rather than the sushumna. If this happens often, the ida and pingala nadis become enlarged and our energy continually resides there. The ida or left channel is associated with our whinier tendencies while the pingala or right holds our angry energies. The places where the ida and pingala wrap around the sushumna, these chakras, become tighter and tighter as the ida and pingala grow. Like a vine choking off a tree, these side channels tighten around the sushumna nadi and it is harder and harder for us to lift our energy out of that point. Thus we become stuck in that chakra.

Our karma, what we have thought, said or done, is held in this physical body. Different types of karmas are held in certain chakras:

• Muladhara — root chakra. This chakra has to do with our survival, food, relationship with our parents. It is associated with the element of earth, the color red and our sense of smell.
• Svadhistana — her favorite standing place, just at the sacrum. This chakra has to do with our creativity and our sexuality, especially relationships. It is associated with the element water, the color orange and our sense of taste.
• Manipura — jewel in the city, behind the sternum. This chakra is the home of our ego. It has to do with our sense of self and our relationship with those who have hurt us. It is associated with the element fire, the color yellow and our sense of sight.
• Anahata — the unstruck sound, or heart chakra. The heart chakra is the home of our compassion and loving kindness. It has to do with our relationship with those whom we have hurt. It is associated with the element air, the color green and our sense of touch.
• Vishuddha — the poison-free place, the throat chakra. The throat chakra is the center of our speech, saying what we mean and meaning what we say. It also has to do with our relationship with our guru, the one who shows us truth and removes poison from our lives, just as Shiva drank the poison from the milk ocean which turned his throat blue. It is associated with the element ether, the color blue and our sense of hearing.
• Ajna — command centre, the third-eye. This is our intuition and highest Truth. It has to do with the relationship with our highest Self. It is associated with akasha or space, the color violet and our intuition.
• Sahasvara — the thousand-petaled lotus or crown chakra. This is our universal consciousness and our relationship with every Being. It is our ability to act from our Divinity and see the Divine in others. It is also associated with akasha, clear-pure light and our Divinity beyond words, I-AM.

When, for instance, we are struggling with a relationship, a lot of karma will accumulate in the svadhisthana chakra and that energetic centre will become clogged. The ida and pingala will shut off the flow of energy through our sushumna there and we will not be able to lift our energy. Our whole world-view will become permeated by the svadhisthana chakra energy and we will keep struggling with that relationship and feeling needy and possessive.

The yoga system gives us a way to avoid getting stuck in these chakras. The physical asana postures and conscious breathing literally flush energy through the body. We are practicing pranic plumbing. Practicing with a high intention is vital as it helps us to bring energy out of the side channels and towards the central channel. And when we practice with a high intention to see the Divine in others, we begin to resolve karmas where we treated other beings without care and were unconscious of their light.

It is especially effective to use sound as well to open these chakras. Each chakra is associated with a bija mantra. Bija means seed. These mantras function like a vibrational key, turning open the lock of each chakra. Chant the following bija mantras for each chakra and see if you can feel the vibration rise up through the centre of the body.

• LAM — Muladhara
• VAM — Svadhisthana
• RAM — Manipura
• YAM — Anahata
• VAM — Vishuddha
• OM — Ajna
• Silent OM — Sahasvara

Try chanting these bija mantras at the beginning of your meditation or asana practice. They will help to direct your energy towards the sushumna and open the subtle body from the inside out. You can also chant these mantras in association with asana postures during your practice:

• LAM — Muladhara, chant during standing poses
• VAM — Svadhisthana, chant during hip openers
• RAM — Manipura, chant during twists
• YAM — Anahata, chant during backbends
• VAM — Vishuddha, chant during shoulderstand
• OM — Ajna chakra, chant during headstand
• Silent OM — Sahasvara chakra, also chant during headstand

Feel the energy move through your heart and up towards your sahasvara chakra. Experience a taste of cosmic oneness and feel blissfully connected to all beings. Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu — May all beings be happy and free.

 

Sitali and Brahmari

The fourth limb of Patanjali’s Ashtanga yoga system is pranayama, or restraint of the breath and life force of the body. By giving boundaries to the breath through these breathing practices, the life force or prana becomes more vital, we feel expansive and more present in the body.

In our asana practice, we practice ujjayi breath, a breath where we constrict the back of the throat. A slight whispering sound is produced in the back of the throat. This builds heat during the asana practice and the audible nature of the throat also helps to keep our attention focused.

It is important to practice pranayama besides ujjayi breath. Today we will focus upon two practices, sitali and brahmari.

Start your pranayama practice by sitting up nice and tall, perhaps on a cushion, so that your hips are higher than your knees. Relax your shoulders and close your eyes.

Sitali is a cooling breath which calms and focuses the mind. Bring the tongue close to the roof of the mouth. If you can, roll your tongue into a tube with the edges curled up. If you can’t roll your tongue (don’t worry, I can’t either!), simply keep the tongue flat close to the roof of the mouth. (The practice is then called sitkari if the tongue is flat). Suck the air in through your mouth bringing the air across the tongue. It will make a sucking sound. Now if you are just practicing sitali, you could simply exhale through your nose. However, today we are going to link sitali with brahmari breath.

For brahmari you exhale through your nose making a buzzing sound in the back of your throat like a bee. In fact, brahmari means bee! Brahmari reduces anxiety as it helps to lengthen the exhalation. The vibration also helps us to practice nada yoga, or deep inner listening, where we connect to the sound of subtle vibrations going on within us and throughout the universe all of the time. When you need to inhale, again practice sitali.

Do about 10 rounds of sitali and brahmari, then breathe evenly in and out of your nose for a few minutes. Feel present in the breath, body and mind. My teacher Sharon Gannon always reminds us that each breath we take in has been breathed before by countless beings — let the practice of breathing consciously remind you of your connection to every being on this great earth.

Bakasana

Bakasana, or crow posture, is a difficult arm balancing asana. The knees are placed on the outer upper arms and the body is tilted forward so that the feet draw off the floor and hug up towards the body. We will go through some steps for finding the lift of the feet but, even if you can lift your feet easily, you can always draw your knees higher or straighten your arms more. This pose is a great reminder that there is always another layer to deepen into in every asana.

So let’s start with drawing the feet up. As a beginner this is one of the most intimidating yoga asanas because you look around and everyone is floating on their arms. But there is no secret velcro knee elbow patch. Instead the magic is in the bandhas or lifts in our subtle body.

We’ll start with mula bandha. For more information on mula bandha look back at the Hanumanasana or Uttanasana posts. However, mula bandha is a lift through the pelvic floor that allows you to float. It will feel like a lift through the vaginal walls if you are a woman or lifting the perineum if you are a man and you also want to try to lift the pelvic diaphragm as well as the genitals. So once you’ve gathered everything up down there you want to be able to maintain that lift throughout your whole asana practice. And crow is a great indicator of that as without mula bandha your crow will not soar!

The next bandha is uddiyana bandha or flying-up lock. Exhale all of the breath out of your body and curve your abdomen in under the spine on an exhale retention. Hold this lift and then, when you need to breath, relax the belly first and inhale. Now find a bit of this lift through the belly but relax it enough to still breathe. You will feel that the kidneys are lifted and the body feels light. Now maintain the lift in the belly but lift your chest up towards your chin and extend through your skull, as if you were trying to do a backbend with your upper back. This is the feeling you will need in your chest in order to not topple forward in crow. It is an energetic shift towards the last bandha, jalandhara bandha or the the cloud-catching lock.

So let’s set up. Bring your arms forward and flat in front of you, shoulder-width apart. Make sure you are on a hard, even surface as you don’t want the back of the wrists sinking into squishy padding. Bring the feet together and the knees wide behind each arm. Bend the knees deeply towards a squat and draw up the mula bandha and the lift of the belly. Feel as if you are lifting the kidneys up and forward. Squeeze your knees into your outer, upper arms, as if you were hugging around your armpits. Now lengthen through the top of the skull and feel how the chest reaches forward. The upper back will still be rounded but you will energetically be reaching forward and up rather than collapsing into a hunch. Keep your drishti or gaze steady on a point in front of your hands. Now shift the weight of your body forward into your hands and feel the feet become light.

This is the point where some yogis become afraid and think they will topple onto their heads. To conquer this abhinivesha or fear of death, start with your feet on a block. This will help you maintain the lift and height of the posture as you practice drawing one foot to your bum while keeping the other foot on the block. Then switch feet. Every single time you practice this posture, try to draw both feet up and in before you come down. Even if you just think about it and your lift off that block is invisible to the naked eye, you are on your way! You are planting the seeds and as Guruji Sri K Pattabhi Jois would say, ‘Practice and all is coming.’

When you can get your feet off the block and hug both feet up towards your bum, you are ready to refine the posture. See if you can straighten your arms. Keep your knees as high as you can. Try practicing this pose without trousers or a long sleeve shirt on and when you are very sweaty; you will really have to use your bandhas to keep your knees from sliding down. Try to  find more length in the back of the neck. Don’t have saggy feet, your feet should be pointed and active. Keep feeling that strong lift through the kidneys.

For those yogis whose crows have been taking flight for a long time now, you can practice jumping into crow. If you have any wrist injuries you should wait until you are healed to try this variation (and you probably want to skip crow altogether). To jump in bend your knees and look forward of your hands. Draw mula bandha up strongly (it should really already be applied) and lift the abdomen up and in to feel a puffing up through the kidneys on the back body. Keep your gaze steady on that spot forward of your hands and try to jump your knees to your outer upper arms. Imagine that there is a very strong yoga magnet drawing your knees into your arms.

As this pose connects you to the energy of the crow, leave out some bird seed for your feathered kin.

Vitarka badhane pratipaksha bhavanam

In this yoga sutra (YS II.33), Patanjali advises the yoga practitioner that, ‘When disturbed by disturbing thoughts, think of the opposite’. Easier said than done right?

Our disturbing thoughts come from our karma and past actions; indeed, everything that manifests in our life comes from our karma or past actions. When we really understand this, we realize that the disturbances in our life are actually under our control. Due to the karmic time lapse we think that things ‘happen to us’ but yoga philosophy tells us that we really have created those situations, through either individual or collective karma that has accumulated in some particular misfortune. This is not about blame or judgment or saying that someone deserves suffering — on the contrary, it is about saying that no one deserves any suffering and so we as individuals have to do everything in our power to end it around us so that these cycles or samskaras do not go on.

This does not mean we are suppressing, in denial or imagining the situation to be other than it is. Very sad and horrible things happen. And they are difficult. We may certainly grieve. But if we want to truly change the situation, it does not serve us to be disturbed by disturbing thoughts. Instead, we must choose to see the proverbial glass as half-full. And we must start working to create overflowing glasses for everyone by planting very good karmic seeds through serving others.

So how can we put this sutra into action?

It is pretty easy with simple disturbing thoughts. For instance, I left an expensive scarf that I really liked and that had sentimental value in a foreign country. I kept seeing holiday pictures of me in the scarf and feeling very bad that I had left it behind. However, it is not going to get me the scarf back to feel sad about it. There was much poverty in this country and, to turn my thoughts around, I thought about someone else finding the scarf and valuing it more than me. Then I gave away lots of scarves as gifts from my trip. If I want to plant karmic seeds to have scarves in the future, I must provide and rejoice in others having scarves.

Then there are more difficult disturbing thoughts. I have a very good friend who is a very wonderful and cheery person. She has, however, had much sadness lately and her dog is getting old and there are difficult times when the dog is very uncomfortable. She thinks that she must put the dog to sleep before the dog suffers any more. However, it is very difficult for my friend as she has had this beautiful dog for 14 years and loves him very much. And there are those moments when he seems lively again and she wonders what is the right thing to do. She keeps bravely turning her thoughts around to not be about her grief but to how she can best serve and support her dog.

The most disturbing thoughts are so difficult that there seems to be no way to turn them around. This may be how we feel when we lose a loved one. In this case the only thing that can be done is to practice service. If you can’t think of how to serve at the moment, just sit down right now and send blessings to every being who enters your head. Through helping others you will feel better too. And by serving sincerely you are changing your karma so that you can diminish the suffering for yourself and every other being on this planet.

To read more about this sutra I recommend this commentary from my teacher Sharon Gannon.