On Embarrassment and Hope

A Dharma Talk

“You ever done time? I’m just saying, I mean it seems like you’ve been through some shit so I was wondering. We’re here but we all make prisons for ourselves.” I was sitting in a circle giving a dharma talk to a group of women at Rikers before we began asana. I had just started volunteering as a yoga and meditation teacher. This was years before I’d work there full-time and get to know The Island as it’s called more intimately than I’d care to. I was embarrassed at the thought that I might have done time. On top of that, I was embarrassed at my embarrassment. Did that mean I was unconsciously judging the women I was sitting with?  In that moment, two things flashed in my head. First, I thought, I’ve been exposed. Second, I’m exactly where I need to be. 

A dharma talk takes place before the start of a yoga or meditation class. It’s supposed to set the tone by revealing a lesson that the teacher has learned from a personal experience and connect that specific lesson to a broader lesson through the teachings. The teachings being the wisdom from the Buddha or lessons that come from yogic texts. When Buddhists refer to The Dharma they’re talking about the general teachings. What I love about this is that it lacks dogma or a need to believe in God. It’s practical, logical and makes sense that resonates. We all suffer and we have ways to end it. Don’t harm people or other beings. Stay away from extremes. Don’t hold onto anything too tightly but don’t ignore things either. These lessons may seem basic but for me they provided a sense of stability and grounding and provided context and meaning for how I had been living my life. 

An authentic dharma talk is transcendent and can take you to the depths of your soul, asking questions that you didn’t know you had inside you. A shallow dharma talk feels like an ad for energy drink or word art you’d find in the clearance section at Home Goods. Because the practice squared me off with my bullshit, my dharma talks were usually straightforward and laced with profanity, I didn’t really know any other way to teach. The power of the dharma talk is also in the length. If a class is 60 minutes a dharma talk shouldn’t be more than 10-15, though gifted teachers can weave the talk into an entire asana class without sounding reductive or preachy. Honestly though, my idea of a perfect asana class would be laying down and hearing a wonderful teacher talk the entire time. But hey, that’s me.

Yoga was the first thing I did for myself. Standing on a mat and being confronted with my own heart sent me on a journey that took me to Rikers Island. 

There is no room for phoniness at Rikers. Lies? Sure. Violence? Yes. Laughter? Plenty. There is lots of room for love. But phoniness is sniffed out from the other side of the bridge. I cringed for a moment and was confronted with a little shame at the idea that I had some time in prison. Me? I grew up in suburban NJ hoping I was the most preppy girl ever but wishing I could be cool like Denise Huxtable from the Cosby Show. I also carried pain because of personal and societal trauma. 

Therapy saved my life. Meditation and yoga allowed me to live with joy. I became truthful in a way I didn’t know was possible. I was open-hearted and transparent. It took a lot of work to get to the other side of that storm.  

That astute woman in a dorm at Rikers recognized me as a fellow traveler. I should have been honored. She saw me and while she didn’t use those words, that is what she was saying. A few women in the circle chastised her, it’s bad form to ask if someone has done time and still I could see the women in the circle wanted to know. I confessed that I hadn’t and visibly blushed and wondered if I lost the group. This occurred during the time when I thought teaching yoga was about me rather than we. I don’t remember how the class went, but I remember the feelings that stayed with me. I was hopeful and angry. Hopeful because I was bonded to these women, these community members who were funny, insightful, fragile and strong. It was an honor to be with them. I was also angry that these women were isolated, on an island away from society’s eyes, away from their families, and away from life. It wasn’t right. It still isn’t. Rikers Island is not a place for people.

I was a little naive and self righteous at the beginning of my Rikers journey. Studying yoga opened my eyes and I couldn’t keep it inside. I wanted the world to know the transformative power of these practices. I won’t lie, in the first few years, I was insufferable. I thought I knew it all when I first taught yoga and mindfulness. I was wrong and wrong. It’s alright. I crawled through a lot of metaphorical crap to get to a place that feels authentic.  The mistake in my early teaching days was in hiding what liberation means for me and what it takes to maintain it. The ‘crap’ for me isn’t what most would think. The scariest part was in the possibility. 

The idea of freedom would wake me up in the middle of the night covered in sweat wondering what if? What if I disconnected from societally imposed narratives? What if things I said left me on the outside the very communities where I wanted to belong? What if I really, I mean really looked at the way I have been colonized? Was I ready to change it? And what was with this lingering shadow of shame? 

My body shook with fear and excitement. So I dug in. I rested. I still dig in. I still rest. That thing that got words stuck in my throat, hidden in a pose or stashed neatly behind an exhale during a sit shows up sometimes, but it doesn’t live here anymore. It’s been over a decade. A few decades  if you count therapy, questionable choices, hard truths and lessons learned. The fact is, a decade isn’t a lot of time in the scheme of things. But time is relative and even as I type this I wonder if it’s forever or a blip. There is a deeper, rounder knowledge that I’ve glimpsed but don’t fully appreciate, that will become clear the older I get. Because I know it’s a wisdom that’s collective and ancient. It was this wisdom that nudged me to look at the heaviness of a confining life in the first place. The fact is, I‘m in it now, and not going back. 

I show up by working with subtle energy in intimate spaces. That is where I am my best as a teacher. I believe in the power of people, nature and thought. Joy is my birthright. And, I say the things that are wrapped in fear/shame because I know that the only way to joy is through. Sometimes it’s enough. Sometimes it feels like a waste of time. I’m grateful for all of my practices that help me unpack the noise and love hard. I can feel the ancestors nodding and it feels like alignment. It feels like unconditional friendliness. The people at Rikers and my own heart are responsible for much of who I am now. 

If I had my way everyone would spend time there. Not as punishment but to bear witness to what’s happening. I spent over 10 years traveling across the bridge to Rikers Island Correctional Facility. I’ve seen things that people wouldn’t believe. I’ve also encountered generosity. I’ve danced with hope. And I still believe that the place should be burned down to the ground.

We are individually and collectively lifting veils and confronting uncomfortable truths about who we are. What if instead we considered who we could be? What if no one was left out? Teaching meditation and yoga at Rikers island didn’t change the world, but it changed me. And that’s what contemplative practice should do. What if teaching wasn’t the point? What if it was to live my life differently? What if the answers that I’m looking for aren’t in me but in us? 

It’s been over a year since I crossed the bridge but I think about Rikers and jails all over the world every day. Our forgotten siblings. But I can’t forget, because as long as they are there, I am there. We

are there. It’s an uncomfortable truth to consider that we aren’t safe with prisons or jails and that the safety we seek is inside us. Angela Davis wrote, “Because it would be too agonizing to cope with the possibility that anyone, including ourselves, could become a prisoner, we tend to think of the prison as disconnected from our own lives.” 

I will never be disconnected. And I know that the answer is in how we love. Sure, it sounds trite. It is also true. I refuse to shut down the possibility of a world where can all be free. I’m grateful that I’ve landed in this place of unabashed hopefulness. I’m not embarrassed about it. We can keep each other safe. It will require work and nuanced conversation. And hope. Always hope.