Laughter, The Dalai Lama and Yoga Memes

Memes are an enriching addition to our social media culture that give us a much needed touch of humor to everyday life. I get especially happy when I see yoga memes that offer insight and laughter to my practice, and I feel humor offers something valuable to any activity we silly humans take part of. 

The Dalai Lama wrote an article for the Daily Beast regarding how he manages to approach life with a sense of humor despite the challenges his country faces. I thought the passage is a good reminder to all of us, whether we are facing challenge on or off the mat, to not approach the world with too much pessimism, judgement and sadness.

"I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher. Laughing is a characteristic of the Tibetans, who are different in this from the Japanese or the Indians. They are very cheerful, like the Italians, rather than a little reserved, like the Germans or the English.

My cheerfulness also comes from my family. I come from a small village, not a big city, and our way of life is more jovial. We are always amusing ourselves, teasing each other, joking. It’s our habit.

To that is added, as I often say, the responsibility of being realistic. Of course problems are there. But thinking only of the negative aspect doesn’t help to find solutions and it destroys peace of mind. Everything, though, is relative. You can see the positive side of even the worst tragedies if you adopt a holistic perspective. If you take the negative as absolute and definitive, however, you increase your worries and anxiety, whereas by broadening the way you look at a problem you understand what is bad about it, but you accept it. This attitude comes to me, from my practice and from Buddhist philosophy, which help me enormously."

The Dalai Lama mentions here that laughter is actually a tool for dealing with our challenges, not a chore to do despite of our challenges. Yoga is also a tool we can use to find peace despite the extremely difficult world we live in. Yoga is not just an exercise for our body, but to help train our minds put aside our troubles to pause and really enjoy the simple things- like laughter. 

Anyways, here are some of the yoga memes I came across that I especially liked. Feel free to comment with any yoga memes you come across that you would like me to add. Enjoy! 

Why Children of Uttarakhand, India Need Your Help

Last post I mentioned that Gogo Guru and Mango Tiger are collaborating together for a yogathon to raise money and gather supplies to send to the children of Uttarakhand province of India. This province is in a rural area of farming villages in India nestled along the Himalayan mountains. 

Despite India's recent economic success, education is slowly improving in rural areas. The fact is that even though areas like Uttarakhand are growing economically, only 10% of profits are kept in the state. The rest goes to outside provinces leaving very little money for the state to build much needed infrastructure. This 10% is garnered almost entirely from the workers' wages, who by the way, do not make that much. 

When you look at the schools in places like Uttarakhand, you begin to realize how much infrastructure is needed to support a viable school system. The schools in this area go without playgrounds, bathrooms for girls (sometimes none at all besides the great outdoors), cafeterias and certainly nothing as frivolous as an auditorium or gymnasium. Frequently there isn't even an enclosed building for the school. Instead students learn in open air classrooms that maybe have walls. If there is a building, there are usually not separate classrooms for different age groups.   

The basics of foods, supplies, restrooms or even warm clothes are often not available to children, making education a difficult task. It is hard to focus when you are hungry, need to pee, feel cold and stuck in over-crowded classroom. For girls, the lack of restrooms at schools is often reason enough from them to drop out due to lack of privacy. Even those who bare the embarrassment often drop out once their period begins. Beyond the basics not being met for female students, they face the challenge of cultural biases against females that are still pervasive in the Indian culture that makes female infanticide, childhood marriage and childhood prostitution still common, if not legal. 

For both genders, poverty becomes a double edged sword where they could escape poverty with education, but what are they to do in the mean time? Sometimes parents wonder if it wouldn't be better for their child to work than spend their time in school?  Many children never do attend primary school with only an average of around 70% of children actually going to primary school. As the grades go higher, fewer and fewer children attend. 

Parents often do not have enough money to spend on new clothes or school supplies. Families spend no money on new clothes for children, but rely on worn down hand me downs that don't keep children warm. Such small things are something that our first world nation can easily supply to change lives. 

Even the smallest donations can make the hugest difference to children in these rural communities. A warm sweater can keep a child warm for years. Ten dollars can buy lots of school supplies. Please consider dropping by the yogathon to make a donation of clothes or money this Saturday. If you cannot make it and still would like to help, visit Mango Tiger's website here to make a donation. 


References: 

WHERE IS UTTARAKHAND MONEY IN DELHI OR 

MUMBAI

Punjab, Uttarkhand poorest on teacher-pupil norms

Menstruation – A Barrier to Education

Charitable Yogathon at Gogo Guru this Saturday in Ellicott City

Want to do yoga for a good cause? Gogo Guru of Ellicott City is hosting a 5 class yogathon on June 15th to raise money and gather supplies to send to children in Uttarakhand, Northern India. They are working with the non-profit Mango Tiger that brings backpacks, jackets, school supplies and warm clothing to children in small villages who are in need. Bring cash, your checkbook or supplies to make a donation for the classes. How much you donate and how much time you spend in the yogathon is entirely up to you.

To find out more about the children of Uttarakhand, read my follow-up post about the unique challenges the children of this province phase. Here is the flyer for more information:

Donate to Future Yogic Art Exhibition at the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian is looking for donations to fund the Yoga: The Art of Transformation exhibit at the Arthur M. Sackley Gallery which is set to open this fall. Yoga: The Art of Transformation will be the world's first exhibit dedicated strictly to yogic art. No matter how much money they raise, the exhibit will open. Whether you have spare change to donate or not, it will definitely be worth checking out. The thing is with the money they raise, they can add lots of cool things, like yoga classes. 

The Smithsonian is largely funded by our tax dollars to pay staff, maintenance, utilities, etc., but the museum's fundraising efforts finance all exhibits.  Usually The Smithsonian reaches out to the rich and corporations for money, but due to the popularity of yoga this time they decided to try their first crowd sourcing campaign. Crowd sourcing is basically when organizations try to gather donations from lots of smaller donors rather than a couple of big ones. 

What is also rad about this whole thing is if you make a donation your name will be displayed on a digital plague in the museum lobby. I don't know about you, but I never expected my name to be displayed in The Smithsonian. Now you can add your name to the countless corporation names and private donor names all over the place that help keep the museum exhibits fresh and admissions free to the public. You will forever have bragging rights for being a patron of the arts! That isn't very zen, is it? Oh well. 

I feel very fortunate to have free access to museums largely thanks to The Smithsonian. Us folks surrounding the Washington D.C. area are lucky to have free access to such elaborate displays of knowledge. The first time I realized museums in other places charge for admission I was shocked! Donating to The Smithsonian or having a membership gives you a chance to give back to the invaluable access to knowledge that sometimes many of us take for granted as people a "normal" things. 

Image from Smithsonian Website. Just a little taste of awesome things to come in the Yoga: The Art of Transformation Exhibit!