When Czar Alexander commissioned Carl Faberge to decorate an egg as his Easter gift to the Empress Marie, in his wildest dreams he would not have imagined what my family does each year at Easter time. 

Easter morning for us means "egg fights."  When my father was a young boy, he and his friends would gather, each holding his respective egg competitor.  The boys would then knock the eggs against one another (round side to round side or pointy side to pointy side).  The egg that broke was the loser and would be forfeit to the owner of the winning egg.  The winning boy would go home with several gems.  Competition was fierce.  Dad tells us he would treat his egg with wax in order to gain advantage.

For as long as I can remember, we've held these contests every Easter.  No longer do we give up our eggs to the winner, but there is surely a sense of competitiveness at the table and beforehand.  We sneak to the refrigerator prior to the day and test eggs with our teeth.  By the time breakfast arrives, we've already chosen our eggs.

Several years ago, during our pre-Easter coloring session, someone cut a photo from a newspaper and glued it to his egg.  This launched yet another tradition.  Instead of simply coloring or decorating our eggs, we now create an egg community each year.  We use feathers, pom-pons, pipe cleaners, eyes, pens, paint and other materials to create characters for the Easter table.  The new recruits are then photographed and placed in our egg archives.

Here are some of our eggs from this year.  Happy Easter!

The first day of school!  The cool weight of a blank notebook in hand.  The rattle of pencils in a case.  The smell of chalk. Today, thousands of New York City students return to school.  A good day to think about our teachers and to thank them for their gifts to us.

I was lucky enough to attend a yoga practice led by David Life at the Jivamukti Center yesterday.  The "focus of the month" at the Center is Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, one of David Life's gurus.  Before our asana practice, David spoke about our gurus and the concept of individual significance.

Unlike textbooks or landmarks, teachers are dynamic, living beings. For this reason, each student may look upon his teacher in a distinct way.  Each student will interact differently with a single teacher.  Since teachers will change over time, a single teacher may interact differently with the same student at different times in his life.  

Each student's perception of his teacher is like one snapshot; one frame of a filmstrip.  Once the teacher is removed, the student decides what that snapshot means to him.  Sometimes these photographs are blurred or become cracked and faded.  We fill in the blanks when parts of the picture become unclear or frayed. 

If we are away from one of our gurus for a time, we may be surprised or upset that he is "not the same" as we remember him.  We are shaken by the change;  how dare he?  Our teacher may tell us that our interpretation of his teachings is wrong, that he "never said that!"  We lose the comfort of that old photograph. We may need to get our camera out again. 

When we teach, all we can hope is for our students to hear or see what we put forth.  We cannot transfer the essence of what we know or confirm that our pupils understand it in the way that we wish.  As teachers, we give a gift and may never know if it is used well.  We release our students out into the world and trust that they will take that photograph and make it more beautiful through their experience.

I would like to thank all of my gurus for their generous gifts to me. I am compiling a list, which is under construction.  I am going to keep adding to this.  Try it yourself.  It amazes me how many people have influenced me profoundly.

Serenity Now?

Maitri Karuna Mudito Peksanam Sukha-Duhkha Punya-Apunya Visayanam Bhavanatash Chitta Prasadanam (I.33)

Translated: By cultivation of feelings of friendship and fellowship toward those who are happy, by great compassion and love toward those who are unhappy and suffering, feelings of joy for those who are virtuous,  and feelings of indifference towards those who are wicked... a yogin should attain undisturbed peace and happiness (serenity), chittam.

Looks easy, right?  Then why aren't we all able to have serenity, or a stillness of mind?

So we ought to be happy for those who are happy; 

Sometimes not so easy.  Many a time during residency I would be on my way home in the wee hours of the morning after more than 60 hours of trauma call.  I would often see groups of people stumbling towards their cars after a night out at the bar.  Drunk.  Giddy.  Laughing.  Were they happy?  Probably.  Was I happy for them?  Not really.  Did their presence frustrate me?  Sometimes.  Did I resent them in that they could be drunk and irresponsible when I had just been attending to people who had been broken to pieces in auto accidents?  I did. 

But whose serenity did those feelings disrupt?  Not theirs;  Mine.  If only I could have been happy for them.  "Hey, they look happy. Isn't that nice?"  I would have felt much calmer.

Great compassion for those who are unhappy or suffering;

Compassion is "a deep sympathy coupled with a desire to help." We see and hear about those unfortunate people in the Hurricane Katrina disaster area.  Of course we want to help.  Of course we sympathize.  But we are also angry and frustrated.  On the smaller scale, when we deal with a co-worker who is unhappy at work or a friend who is struggling with disease it is sometimes simpler to feel frustration, despair or helplessness.   Only when those negative feelings are removed can we feel serenity and take positive action.

Joy for the virtuous;

Many people are blessed with more virtues, talents and skills than we are.  We know this, but it still bothers us at times.  We want to compete against them.  We want to be better.   We want to win.  While this attitude may make us work harder and be more successful, it will not bestow upon us talents and virtues we do not possess.  Study might.  Practice might.  Frustration and envy will not.  But no matter how much study or practice we undertake, there will always be someone who is better.  And to be frustrated or angered by this is not conducive to our serenity.  A feeling of joy towards and admiration of those people who are so gifted will.

and Indifference towards the wicked.

This is the hardest one.  There are few people who can feel indifference towards those who attack and kill children or civilians.  It is nearly impossible to overlook those who abuse others.  There are degrees of "wickedness" that are too extreme to allow for us to have a still mind in their presence.  We must act.  We must fight.  But we can't fight everyone.  If we are able to feel indifferent to smaller transgressions, we will be calmer and can focus our energies on the more egregious actors.   Tricky part here is:  which battles do we fight and which do we avoid? 

Leaning in.

In times of crisis or when our conscience overwhelms our need to be calm, we must "lean into the uncomfortableness" of certain issues.  We cannot always be still and serene.  After all, we are on a planet which spins, wobbles, orbits and hurtles through the universe at incredible speeds.  We must adjust constantly for the spin and wobble of everyday life and work towards making ourselves better.

More is More.

After the death of my great grandmother ("GG"), my family went to her apartment in Queens to clean it out.   This woman saved everything.  She had an unopened set of bedsheets from the 1940's.  She had saved the claim slip for a package which was sent in 1925.  She saved paper bags and "gently used" aluminum foil.  She washed and preserved sandwich bags.  This is not to say that she had many possessions.  My GG lived through the Great Depression.  People had nothing.  She saw value in the smallest, seemingly worthless thing and preserved it as if it was precious. 

Few who lived through those times in the US are still with us.  My grandfather and his peers speak of those times and of how difficult they were.  Our "depressions" today are cushioned by the sheer opulence of our lifestyle.  We complain when gas prices are high, yet so many of us still own SUV's and other low fuel efficiency vehicles.

In the Second Book of The Yoga Sutra, we find the "five observances," or yamas.   They are guidelines about how to make ones life and one's universe better.  The second yama is Santosa, or "contentment."  To use only what one needs and to be satisfied with what one has.  The first yama is Saucha, or "cleanliness."  This refers not only to personal hygiene, but to the living of an uncluttered life.

I'm not saying that it is at all easy to achieve these yamas.  They are goals;  something to which we may aspire.

Gluttony is the opposite of the first two yamas:  When one cannot be satisfied with what one has;  when one consumes more than one needs;  when one disrupts the saucha of one's life with needless clutter.  I am the first to admit that I am a "sinner" here.  I have many more clothes and shoes, for instance, than I need.   And for sure I eat and drink more than my body needs.  In fact, as "Paul from London" and others have pointed out, these traits are present in almost everyone in some measure.  When they dominate a personality, however, they can be truly deadly.

Roots

In American culture, "more" is synonymous with "better."  Unusual to find a household today with only one car or only one computer or television.  We have become accustomed to excess.  Perhaps our desire to hoard or acquire more and more is rooted in fear.  Are those who raised us severely scarred by the Depression?  Are they immigrants from a place where it is a struggle to survive?  Or is it hard-wired in the human animal to take whatever is available, regardless of whether we are content with what we have?

A simple fish, when presented with more food than it can process, will literally eat itself to death.  Not because its system is overwhelmed with food.  It will die because its tank becomes fouled with its own waste and excess food.  It will suffocate in the products of its consumption.  When we humans take the consumption of goods and services to a point where we can no longer process our intake, we become Gluttons.  All of the resources we have become dedicated towards the purpose of processing our consumption and there is room for little else.  Forget about a good relationship!

Gluttons are packaged in myriad ways.  Some eat until their bodies can no longer process sugars correctly or regulate blood pressure and circulation.  Smokers consume so many cigarettes that the lungs can no longer perform gas exchange correctly.  Some drinkers consume so much alcohol that not only do their livers become scarred and dysfunctional, but the drinker is unable to function in other realms of life. Some purchase so many goods that their debt is unmanageable.  Others revel in a "conspicuous consumption," where they become addicted to the showing off of their excess.   

We like to think these things are not our fault.  We label as disease the failure of our bodies and minds to process our excesses.

At the Start

Gluttons surround us.  In New York consumption is everywhere, and it is nearly impossible to know whether a date is a Glutton or is... well... a New Yorker.  Normally, the signs of true Gluttony are end effects of consumption.  It's easy to see, for instance, if your date is morbidly obese.  Not so easy to see if he is an alcoholic or if he abuses other drugs.  You can watch a person smoke cigarettes, but can't tell right away whether your date is drowning in debt.  What's tricky here is that your obese date may, in fact, be less of a glutton than the other, less conspicuous consumers out there.  Your smoker may be making a real attempt to quit.  But, obesity is something we see.  We smell smoke.  The other products of excess may not turn until much later.

So your first few dates, months, years with a Glutton may be perfectly normal.  Unless, as I experienced, he asks on your first date if you would write for him a prescription for OxyContin. 

Later

Since many excessive behaviors may seem harmless, it is easy to become attached to a Glutton and decide that we like or love him.  Unfortunately, we also become entangled not only in the excessive behaviors, but in treating the end results of them.  I cannot list the number of relatively young, excessively overweight patients I have treated who have end-stage arthritis in more than one joint.  When they come in for preoperative medical evaluation, the Pandora's Box of other medical conditions related to obesity is opened. 

"Did you know you were diabetic?  Did you know your cholesterol is extremely high?  Did you know your circulation is poor?"  Up until that point, none of these issues had brought that person to a doctor.  Pain did.  And who, besides the patient, has paid the price for these health problems?  The patient's spouse and family.  Luckily, most of these conditions  are treatable...

...Unlike the end results of smoking or high alcohol consumption.  Lung cancer and liver degeneration are much trickier problems.  They approach slowly and attack before one can prepare for them.  And they ruin the life of the Glutton and the people who love him.

So What do We Do?

If I could invent some sort of early warning system for dates who have tendencies towards dangerous Gluttony, I would.  In my own dating life, I have come up with guidelines in order to protect myself:

1.  I will not date anyone who smokes cigarettes, ever.  It helps that the smell of them repulses me.

2.  I will not tolerate any sort of drug use.

3.  I drink alcohol socially.  However, if my date reports that he drinks every day or if he always gets drunk when he drinks, I end the relationship. This is a tough one. 

4.  While a couple of extra pounds on a man is fine, I look for men who are conscious of their diet and exercise regularly.

5.  If I become involved with someone, I "gently remind" him to have regular medical checkups.

Of course I monitor MYSELF for these behaviors too.  It's far too easy to substitute consumption for love or other emotional needs. I am lucky to have extraordinary people in my life who send me "gentle reminders" when they see my slipping into that pattern.

The next pass:  LUST.

This morning I accompanied a friend to the doctor's office.  He had injured his wrist after a serious fall from his racing bicycle. I was worried about a severe injury, so I recommended this particular hand specialist.  In addition to his being well-published, this physician is thorough and has excellent rapport with patients. 

We looked at radiographs of the wrist and discussed the various ligaments which allow movement in three planes of motion while creating a structure stable enough to support body weight or use a screwdriver.  A miracle, indeed.  Medical researchers and surgeons have made numerous unsuccessful efforts at a wrist replacement.  Hip and knee replacements have been used with good results for about thirty years.   Sure, the scoring systems we use in our journal articles report "excellent" results.  And patients are satisfied for the most part.  Not "perfect."  Not "natural." Good.  Satisfied.  A little grade inflation never hurt anybody, did it? 

Why can't we come up with better solutions?  Why can't we prevent arthritis and injury to begin with? Why do the people we love die from cancer and other horrible things?  Don't we know enough?  Why can't we fix it?  We are scientists after all.

Or, more appropriately, we are only scientists.  People.  Human machines, just like everyone else. 

I was raised a Catholic.  Went through all of the sacraments, but I was never devout.  Aside from funerals, baptisms, weddings and other events, I have not attended a church service in years.  I'm not sure if my ideas would fit into a particular belief system.  Yogic philosophy and Buddhism hold the most intellectual appeal to me. 

Over the past six years, work in the medical field has only strengthened my belief in something much larger than us.  Debate rages between proponents of Darwinism and those of "intelligent design."  The latter theory holds that the advantages presumably conferred by eons of evolution were, in fact, designed into the system by our Creator.  Complex immune systems and opposable thumbs are gifts from God to "higher beings."

We science folks come in many religious flavors.  Many scientists reject outright the existence of a God.  Others are devoted Catholics.  Some have a vague theism, as I do. 

So who is right?  Does anyone need to be right?  What matters to me is that our world is made up of beings and natural phenomena which are designed beautifully, magically:

The Grand Canyon.

Simple explanation here:  the Colorado River used to be one MOTHER of a river and eroded out the Canyon to make it look the way it does today.  But why does it makes us feel the way we do when we look at it?  Why are the colors of the rocks and the river so beautiful that they defy words?

The Human Eye.

Surely this is one for the Darwinists.  Rods and cones.  The Central Nervous System branches out with a complex series of "on and off" switches to allow us to see in color and to fend off predators.  Then, why do our eyes come in colors?  Why do they all look a little bit different?  Why do I feel one thing when I look into the eyes of my adorable niece and feel something very different when I see fear in the eyes of a patient?  How do my friends know exactly what I am thinking by looking at my baby browns?

Shakespeare.

Okay, so a guy wrote (or maybe, did not write) a whole bunch of plays and poems and lots of people borrowed his ideas to create literature as we know it.  But why are the Bard's themes so universal?  Why do people from China to Bah'rin identify with The Tempest in the same way?  Why is Lear tragic to everyone? 

Mozart.

To some, music is simply a mathematical progression, organized in a variety of ways in order to be pleasing.  So how does W.A. Mozart manipulate our emotions so effectively with the addition or removal of a violin, or a pause?  Why is his Jupiter Symphony so evocative?  And why do so many composers and musical artists fail to move us as he does?

Lesson?

Someday we will be able to explain almost everything.  The human genetic code will have its Rosetta Stone.  The very essence of matter will be understood.   We will travel into space as easily as we drive to the grocery store.  Our curiosity strives to rid us of magic.  Hard science toils towards erasing our concept of God.  The challenge?  Hold on to it.  Enjoy it.  The magic of God, or whatever you choose to call it, is what makes life fun.  It's what give us the curiosity to learn.   It is what allows us to feel joy and wonder.  And I don't know if I would want to live in a world without those things.  Would you?

On occasion there are multiple, seemingly divergent meanings for a word.  For instance, the word "title" has five meanings in a standard dictionary, ranging from "the simple name given to books, plays, or music" to "a sports championship" to "a source of income or work requirement for a candidate of ordination into the Church of England."

Another definition is "a legitimate or alleged right or claim to something."  It follows that entitled would mean to hold that right or claim.  When we are entitled to something, we either know or assume that we hold the right to have it.  New York is filled with people  who believe in their entitlement. 

Namaste or Should I Go?

I am on call for the weekend.  This means I see all of my group's postoperative patients in the hospital each day and hold the group's pager in case of emergency.  I take this responsibility seriously, so this pager does not leave my side.  Despite the tether of the beeper, I try to live my life as normally as possible.

After rounds that Saturday, I go to my favorite yoga studio to attend a 75-minute practice.  I place pager and cell phone on silent mode and set up my mat next to the door in case I need to answer a call.  The chances of this are small;  I have just seen all of my patients.  However, as we are setting up before practice begins, the pager is buzzed. I leave the room to answer and to deal with the patient issue, which is done quickly, and before the start of the class.

When I return to the room, another student, a woman two mats away from me, sneers at me: "take those things out of here!"  She makes a sweeping away movement with her manicured hand, which sports the Upper East Side standard issue three-carat engagement ring.  Her face is made up and she wears a designer yoga outfit. 

I respond my telling this woman that she would want these things in this room if it were her parent in the hospital under my care.  Not satisfied with this, she complains to our instructor, asking her to throw me out of the class!  I explain to the instructor the situation, and show her that both items are on silent mode.  This instructor does not own the studio.  She is concerned that there has been a complaint.  She asks that I leave.

I am livid.  What right does this over privileged woman have to make me leave a class that I have paid for?  Because I have a sense of responsibility for my work?  In no way was I disturbing her or her right to practice.  But she believes that her payment for her class entitles her not only to her own space, but to everyone else's space as well.  I was not feeling very yogic.

In the end, we contact the owner of the studio (I have been going there for a long time) and she gives her permission for my items to sit next to me during practice.  And I am not paged.  I do not need to leave the room at all.  Who does leave the room is my adversary.  Right in the middle of practice, which was, apparently, too difficult for her.

Run Hit Wonder.

More than ten thousand runners.  Ninety-six degrees.  Ninety-four percent humidity.  Five miles.

These are not the 0ptimal conditions for running.  Nike's event boasts live music at every mile and a concert at the finish. Central Park is overrun with people in red race shirts.  We are shoulder to shoulder in the start area, jockeying for shady respite from the evening sun.  Most of the race is run in a mob, where we tread carefully in fear of stepping on someone's feet or of slipping on a discarded water cup.  We wear the heat on our faces and in the sweat that pours off of us. 

At the fourth mile, a runner collapses in front of me.  I assist her while her friends find a medic.  She is OK;  some gatorade and cooling measures revive her.  I continue my run to the finish, where New York Road Runners volunteers are present to remove the timing chips from thousands of shoes.  They are seated in rows, behind wooden frames so that runners can rest their shoes while the chip is clipped off.   

The finish area is even more crowded that was the start.  A large red mass of sweaty runners push and shove to reach the chip removal area.  Some runners duck under a barrier and approach the volunteers from behind their seats.  One volunteer is protecting herself from this onslaught by refusing to remove the chips of people who do not stand in line.  A reasonable stance, in my opinion. 

Her resistance causes more trouble;  Led by one man with a British accent, several runners chant "the customer is always right!  Do your job!"  She begins to cry.

Had I not been there, I would not believe this could happen.  What is it about a mob that allows normally polite, educated people to behave in this way?  What made this group think they had some special claim to this volunteer's space?  Is it that there were more of us?  Is it that we had paid to participate in the event?   Or that these people suddenly defined themselves as customers?

Questions.

When we are entitled, we believe we have  a right or a claim to something.  From where did we obtain this right?  How did we pay for it?  When we buy something or pay for a service with money, we do deserve certain privileges.  But who defines what we are due?  Where is the boundary?  My yoga classmate apparently believes her fee gives her the right to tell the other students what they can and  cannot have in the room.  The race participants think that their race and concert ticket gives them the right to harrass a volunteer. 

And they only paid with money.  What about people who pay with their suffering?  What about those who have paid with their lives or with the lives of their loved ones?  What are they owed?