Eoin's Bliss Blog

Hello from San Francisco. This is my last day away before heading back to BC after our 5 months of exploring Japan, Indo, Oz and India.

India is such an inspirational country. There is so much wisdom that comes from there. I had an amazing time going deeper into Ayurveda and Yoga and the culture in general. We had a great time at KARE Ayurvedic Retreat Centre outside Bombay in the lush mountains above a gorgeous lake. It is so mice to see Nature in India and not the crush of the urban density. I definitely had thoughts of the Jungle Book with me all the time. I also had my first trip to the Himalayas where there is so much beauty and high vibrations from years of spiritual practice, but so much of it is getting mowed down for human habitation. The big issue of our age. check out the video

I came to view the trucks on the highway as portal to the essence of this great land typified by color, commerce, chaos and soul. Nothing represents this to me like the trucks of india. Colorful and bright, each one marking the driver’s highest beliefs. Each piece of art is like a personal tattoo that creates a collective consciousness across every road in the country. Like bees that travel through a hive spreading the pheromones of the Queen, each truck spreads the soul of India along the asphalt pathways of the Indian heart.

Check out this video. Enjoy the ride. A big toast to you mother india! Horn OK Please. Blow it loud, baby!

excerpt from ‘the happy map‘

Watch life. It grows. Plants, Hair, fingernails, your cells. It loves to continuously move and change forms.

When we are pushing our boundaries, when we are involved in the creative process, something happens. There is a sense of aliveness. A freshness to each new experience. This is why we love traveling because every new experience causes us to make new mental maps and not just to rely on the old and the stale.

One of the primary keys for any blissologist is to walk through life with his or her jaw around our knees in a complete state of awe and wonder.

Habitual living is about reinforcing the personality we already have. It seems by a certain age, a lot of decide unconsciously, “that’s it, I know who I am and I don’t have to change.” If we were a tree, this would be like rooting ourselves into the ground, settling into old habits which has it’s merits. But the freshness and the nourishments in life come from the green leaves that absorb the energy of life and convert into fuel for change.

Here are some ways we can grow. Learn something new. A new skill, a new activity. Why is it that we take our kids to science exhibits and music classes but rarely expand our creative juices? Kids brains are malleable and sponges for a zesty life. We often buy into a myth that the goal of life is only financial or to settle into old habits. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Our work should be what helps us grow. Every interaction with people in our business life is a chance to grow new networks, to grow our hearts and mind bigger. Cease the chance.

Even in our relationships, we always spend so much time justifying how we are justified in maintaining personality traits that may or may not serve us. You are more malleable than you think. When people criticize you, you may feel angry and hurt, but perhaps there is a chance to grow there. Perhaps there may be a great mirror being held up by someone we don’t like at that moment.

As an example, I once lived in a group setting where there were several couples living on the same property. One of the women had a child and her world seemed to revolve around the needs of that child. Even though she was a kind person, unconsciously other people came second. It was a case of crossing the line between mothering and smothering.

The other woman in the group felt like she should discipline her child more and respect the needs of the adults. This is a lesson best learned early in life.

The situation came to a head and it seemed like when you saw it from the outside, both parties were offering amazing opportunities for the other to grow. All they had to do was let down their defenses and see it. To stop rooting their personality traits deeper into the ground and grow in a fresh new way.

Remember every challenge is an opportunity to shed our old skin and create a new fresh perspective finally tuned for the bliss path. The snake is a revered creature in many native American and Hindu cultures, because once a month a new skin is shed.

At any age, this is a valuable process. May your leaves stay green and budding.

March has been a truly inspiration month. We have been creating the most powerful and impactful project to date. We have just shot not one, but 6 yoga routines plus 7 meditation ones. Each one has a totally different feel so you are sure to be inspired.

There is a lot more to be said, but we are about eighty percent finished the filming. We’ll fill you in on the details later, but just know that you will freak when you see the scale of what we are up too. You can always take a peak here

Now that the filming is “in the can”, we are fully catching our breath. We intend to enjoy a little more of the splendors of Bali and Indonesian living. We love the village life here. The way people, and dogs and even chickens use the street as a collective backyard to lounge and socialize. There are thatched roof huts everywhere where groups of people lounge lazily shaded from the afternoon heat. It is good to see that even though the fast paced tourist culture has been transplanted on Bali life that the social network is so strong

We just went through Nyepi, the Hindu New Year for the Balinese and there are decorations, offerings, music, parades and purification ceremonies everywhere. We have been deeply initiated into the soulfulness of the Balinese Heart.

April finds us in Australia, where we are absolutely loving life. Watching the ASP Surfing World Tour in Bell’s Beach and surfing everyday and then off to teach in Sydney for the Australian Yoga Conference.

It’s been a month since we left Canada and we are adapting to life in Bali has been interesting. The checkerboards prints you see draped on every statue and altar in Bali represent a belief in good and evil and the tension between the two. The checkerboard of Bali to me doesn’t seem to be about good and evil, just challenging and easy.

For sure Living in Bali has many pleasant sides. Like being warm. Ridiculously warm. The sun is so intense. I have tan lines on my back even though I have yet to expose my naked skin to the sun. You can get sunburned through a t-shirt or rash guard. It’s like being on a different planet here on the equator. Even Insiya who grew up in India has commented that she never understood the purpose of air conditioning until she started driving here.

And man, do we drive. The beaches where the surfing has been recently is in Nusa Dua which is a part of the island saved for swanky tourist hotels and not where the locals live. Thus, we have over a one hour drive each day to the beach when we decide to go. That combined with daily errands means we are in the car about 3-5 hours every day it seems.

I have mixed feelings about the driving. There are no rules. You can park anywhere, go as fast as slow as traffic will allow. You can drive the wrong way on the roads. Anything goes.

Call it anarchy, but it actually works out. I almost in a weird way prefer it to our over-regulated system where a lot of times I feel like the police are ticketing people as a source of revenue rather than maintaining order. If you ever drive in Indonesia, so far I have learned this: Do not drive slow and cautiously. If there is any gap in traffic a scooter will fill it – front, back, side, it doesn’t matter. Go fast and leave little space so people don’t swerve in front of you. The drivers are like water in a stream, always finding the path of least resistance. That is the Bali way, flow like water through chaos.

Sounds like mayhem, but there is a catch, the whole system functions because you have to put your self in harm’s way and let other drivers avoid you. There is a lot of trust in other people. The funny thing is, it somehow works.

When we arrive home, we travel down a narrow street lined with potholes, school children, scooters and an endless assortment of stray dogs and chickens. There is always something that reminds me of the simplicity of things.

A farmer with bags of rice piled five feet high on the back of scooter, bags of grain five feet wide hanging off the side. We pass a gentle looking ladies in sarongs with a tray of flowers incense and offerings called ‘chanang’ to put on an altar or at the side of a road. My neighbours all have pigs, geese, chickens, goats. Even though the morning sounds of farm animals mixed with every kind of tropical birdsong is my alarm clock, I always think, wow, there is a lot of the world who doesn’t even need to set foot in a grocery store.

On the complicated, there are many challenges consistently. We spend a lot of time searching for internet cafes that have some kind of decent bandwidth. I have been trying to upload a 3 minute video to youtube that would take me 2 minutes in Canada for a week now. Each café we go to says that it will take anywhere from 300 to 3,600 minutes to upload completely. Like scooter traffic, we find an opening and flow into it. The Bali dance is called adaptability.

And that brings up the beautiful thing about this culture. There is an acceptance to the flow of life, a spirit and philosophy that bomb blasts in Kuta couldn’t dim. A forgive and forget, accept and move on mentality that we all need a dose of.

As I walk past the temples on my way out to the beaches, I am infected by the spirit of this land. The steep waves that crash on the outer reefs fill me with what the Balinese call Taksu, a life force that animates us to live with courage and patience.

The YES retreat was a total blessing. Everyone had the best week ever. It took literally of a week of driving to so many internet cafes to be able to find the bandwidth to upload…

Next week finds us shooting a whole new set of DVDs and I pray that some of the soul of this amazing place will come through to living rooms across the world.

We’ll be sending photos.

Love,

Eoin and Insiya

tokyo was an amazing trip for us. it sure didn’t involve much sleep because there was so much to do in such a short period of time. the morning we arrived we learned of the untimely death of one of my closest friends, hitoshi. it rocked my world and put a new twist on our day and an incredible sadness that will be with me for life. i felt lucky in a way to be in tokyo where hitoshi is from as we got to see his mother before she left for the goodbye service in canada.

the workshops went amazing. i love teaching in japan, we had so much fun and there was great learning had by all. on sunday when the workshops were over we had an interview with a japanese magazine about healthy, green living called sotokoto. it was nice to share ideas about the ocean and how they relate to yoga and blissology.

right after, we connected with insiya’s friends for dinner in ginza on the other side of town. tokyo is massive and so slick. i love the public transportation there. after some good laughs we got home a little late, only to wake up again at 5:00 to head to tsukiji fish market

tsukiji market sells more fish in two weeks than the world’s next biggest fish market in england does in a year. to put it in perspective, 4, 409, 245 pounds of fish were sold every day! that’s a lot of bulging eyeballs and gills.

here’s a short video of our tour

the same day, we took the shinkansen from tokyo to osaka to connect with my old karate sensei, kenji. his life is simple and he quietly has such a positive effect on so many people. i have learned so much about karate, hari (japanese acupuncture) and blissology from him over the years. i feel lucky to have connected with kenji, the living human version of Yoda.

check out the video:

after a long day of traveling, we are finally in bali. today is orientation day to recover from many long days of traveling, giving and teaching, an deep emotional loss, and lots of fun too.

in closing, let me say that on the happy map, i define richness as “time spent alone or with friends and family in beautiful natural places.” after losing a dear friend, i can say, make time. hitoshi called me three times the day before we were scheduled to leave asking to go for a walk and i just could not fit it in because we had to have our house and home office packed up and moved in vancouver.

do not miss a chance to tell someone how much they mean to you. it sounds simple, but it is what life is all about.

This is the year of reconciliation. It’s true that life exists in tension and that is what makes it exciting. For the last decade there has been a constant tension between two goals of mine.

One is to build a community of like-minded people who are on a quest of living a positively charged life. I have found this in Vancouver. Every night I show up to teach class, I swear the biggest beneficiary is me. The room is so full of amazing souls and I feed off the collective energy that we all create. The smiles and connections I have with everyone is the most beautiful high I know.

The second is to live a life on the ocean. In the surf every day, playing with the seals, letting the force of the ocean stir up my juices. The ocean is my shrine, my playground, and my university.

The winding drive back and forth to the waves of Vancouver Island is not much of a solution. It is unsustainable to our lifestyle and to the planet.

My problems would be solved in a heartbeat if we could just pull Vancouver Island out of the way, a little further south so the surf came right into Vancouver beaches. Since that doesn’t look likely to happen anytime soon, we are going to take some time to solve it as we mobilize the Bliss Army over in Asia this winter. After a lot of soul searching and soul surfing we have decided at least for this year to run our classes in Vancouver seasonally.

After that, I am not sure. We will be deciding that course in our travels. Looking at the possibility of moving to California, Australia, or Vancouver Island. Or maybe we will realize that we can fill our surf bug another way and still call Vancouver home.

Regardless, our hearts will always remain here and we will always spend a lot of time every year in Vancouver. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth with very consciously evolved citizens. More importantly, I truly feel that the people who come to yoga classes are our family. Like connective tissue, the sinew of my heart is wrapped around those of our Vancouver community of yogis and blissologists.

It is with supreme gratitude that I write this and also with a big pang of sadness. I am not sure how this is all going to turn out, but all I have ever known is to follow my heart and it has always lead me to the most beautiful places.

A double fisted toast. One cup behind us to the past and great memories, one hand straight out in front eagerly awaiting the people we are about to become. Thanks for filling the cup!

Come out to a farewell celebration for Eoin and Insiya Saturday January 24 at Chai Gallery, 7 p.m. onwards. We hope to see you.

This article explains my core philosophy about where yoga needs to go today. It is page 1 of our teacher training manual and tries to explain the values most of us share when we come together to practice.

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Millions of people have lived on this planet who were immensely happy and had no clue how to do one yoga pose. What was it that helped them be happy? I have spent a lot of time exploring this question and by process of extraction I have come up with two really simple answers: these people had excellent relationships with Community and with Nature

The last 100-200 years have been an experiment with a way of living that ignores much of this wisdom and have tended instead towards rational “left brain” modes of thinking and an emphasis on economics has become the dominant ethos. The effects are apparent in every aspect of modern life.

Let’s briefly look at our food as an illustration. After WW2 we experienced a dramatic increase in the industrialization of food production. We became very adept at monoculture, chemically enhancing and altering the structure of our food. We basically became masters of making food more economically efficient. Now when you walk into Safeway most of the nutritional value in our food has been compromised in order to make it a more profitable industry.

What is really perverse here is that we call this “food” and the nutritious food of out ancestors “Health Food.” What’s up with that? Why not call health food “Food” and the stuff you buy in Safeway “nutritionally compromised food grown for profit?”

Joseph Campbell is by the far the most influential person in my life and one of the reasons why I teach yoga today. He looked at the shape of our cities to illustrate how our value on economics is paramount in modern life. According to Campbell, if you look at the buildings in a city, you will see the values of the citizens of that city.

This is particularly important when you consider that after September 1996, over half of the population of planet earth now living in cities with forecasts of 80% by 2050. Up until about 120 years ago, the biggest buildings in any city were structures like churches, mosques, or temples. Of course there were political and authoritarian aims of these institutions but they also created a place of community gathering and spiritual connection.

“Now what are our biggest buildings?” Campbell asked. Office towers and Apartments. Both are icons of the over-emphasis of economics we, as both yogis and citizens of the planet need to be concerned with. That office towers represent these values is obvious, but what about apartments?

Think about the name. Half of the name means reminds us of “compartment” and the other half of the word is about being “apart.” Compartments that keep us apart.

Because economics have been accepted as the force that most shapes our society, we accept a model where we are so busy that we just don’t have time for others and deepen increasing the isolation. I have had the experience of living in an apartment and noticed one day that the person across the hall is suddenly gone and that there are new tenants living there. A slight waves of sadness rolled across my chest and voice went of in my head when I realized, “wow, I didn’t even know that guy’s name.” I wanted to get to know him. But it was too busy until it was too late. This is a commonplace experience for far too many of us.

Here’s a thought to consider in medieval times when a person was punished by a society it was learned that banishing that person was not nearly as punishing as allowing him to remain in the society but not ignoring him or her. They lived as a ghost, with no one ever making eye contact or acknowledging that person. Consider for a moment that in our modern lives, this is pretty much the way we treat everyone. What is reaffirming is that the same way blades of grass grow between cracks in sidewalks, the need for real human connection to community will always surface in spite of the social void we have created. Another question to ponder? What are the most common new trends in our society?

When I probe my mind for answers to this question, I come up with 3 major things. The Internet, Cafes and Yoga Classes. The internet has obvious economic aspects, but also one of the newest trends we call social networking and community building. Cafes are hubs for people to get jacked up on artificial adrenaline called caffeine, but there is also something else going on. They are meeting places for people to share ideas, to socialize, to brainstorm and create projects together. More community building.

Now let’s look at the trend of Yoga classes. Here is what we really need to address as we journey along the path of teaching yoga. Are we really addressing this process that I outlined above?

How successful are we at developing harmonious relationships with one’s own body/mind as step one then strengthening that relationship with Nature and Community?

In our quest to take on the guise of perfect yogis with blank faces, upright posture and an air of seriousness we may miss one of the healthiest things in our yoga classes. Human connection.

I found the emphasis on guilt and political manipulation a lot to swallow when my parents occasionally brought me to a Catholic Church as a kid. But I did light up every time we shook each other’s hands and “offered each other a sign of peace.”

That is why still to this day, we start every yoga class by acknowledging the people beside us, to get to know their names and even to offer a hug (it’s a West Coast thing). People seemed shocked by this at first, but once the dam breaks it is hard to get class started. I often comment that the yoga practice can’t compete with this experience, but we will try. But it’s true. After years of watching people become very close friends from our classes and retreats, I can tell you that it is no joke. The yoga asana is just a bonus.

Too often we walk or drive to a yoga practice, show up, do yoga, and go back to our residences. It is a great experience, but let’s go even further and really acknowledge the yearning we all have to really feel connected to Nature and Community.

Let’s explore more strategies in this course that bring our yoga of relationship to life; relationships with our minds and bodies and the world around us.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…”
John Donne

for more information on our teacher training june 12-21 and sept 12-21, 2009 click here

Well, it is official, I am forty. Hard to believe because if you talk to people who are much older, a lot of the more vibrant ones tell me, “it’s strange because I really don’t feel a day over 25.”

I feel that for sure. I know at this point through the skills I have developed in the filed of mind body training, I feel like the 40 year Eoin has more athletic prowess than the 25 year old Eoin. I feel lighter, stronger, more agile, with more composure and wisdom.

The downside, of course, is my hairline seems to be slowly receding. That is going to be harsh, the no hair days that lurk in the future, but humans are pretty resilient, I hope I am too.

Aside from these physical changes, what else is happening in the evolution of my life path? One of the four essential functions of myth according to my hero, Joseph Campbell, is to help one progress along their stage of life and to feel at ease with that stage. What are the myths that help me be at ease with my mid-life journey?

I definitely feel more and more as I age an interest in politics. At the very hour of my birthday 12 a.m. last night, I found myself on the couch at a gorgeous ocean front rental property debating politics with two good friends. I wouldn’t have seen that coming 10 years ago. I remember turning 30 and getting an amazing blowjob in an outdoor shower, making blender drinks from papayas in my backyard in Hawaii.

I was very concerned about the world then, but more from an ideological, almost idealistic point of view. I believed in “positive energy” and that being the change you wanted to be in the world was paramount and engaging in politics only “lowered your frequency.”

Now I feel the essential side of politics. The way we need to be engaged in it to ensure that our love mission does not get abandoned along the way by the forces of selfishness.

Thinking back, such conversations are indicative of how with each passing year, the field of politics and economics becomes more and more pressing. It can deflate your heart, wrinkle your forehead and knot the fibers of your stiffening back, so it important to unplug. To pull back. To let life become simple again before reengaging with the world of “adult concerns.”

Luckily, I practiced immaturity, the essential skill of gracefully aging people by getting in the hot tub with 8 good friends and letting our inner teenagers out right after our political debates.

I think it is key to have both sides of our personality open; the politically engaged and the Dionysian.

The 20 year old Eoin checks in, “I am proud of you, 40 year old Eoin.”

“Party side alive…” “check”

“Athletic side alive…” “check”

“Sexuality still playing a big role…” “check”

“Still learning and growing…” “no doubt”

“Still having fun…” “that’s a big aye, aye, Captain”

“Nice one bro,” says the dread locked, free spirit dreaming of becoming a prof of the Philosophy of Love. “On top of that, you are sitting in a gorgeous place in the world that you own, with a woman who loves you, off to surf with your good buddies and sea lions, and run a thriving business that is all about helping people reach their maximum potential. We developed these ideas well over the years, didn’t we? These are all things I would have wanted for you. Glad to see that you are still following what is true in your heart.”

I can only hope that the sixty year old Eoin on the other side is just as excited to see how this journey of life unfolds.

I feel the importance of every moment. The need to leave a legacy; a Positive Force; a Bliss Army; an Earth Community of open-hearted, yet strong individuals who share a similar commitment to the world. I feel a sense of stewardship for the planet and especially the ocean. I look forward to one day soon taking a little wolf cub into the forest to show him the ways of the world and the supreme ecstasy of a life around the ocean.

The first half of life has been an unreal journey. Welcome, round two. I am humble and ready to embrace you. Letting go of worries and treading fearlessly.

Dreaming Big and Living Large,

Eoin

there is nothing that brings a truer and more unforced smile to our faces that watching kids or animals at play.

in honor of the carefree spirit that we need more of in a world flooded with bad news, i want to share an email that i just received about foxy, the yoga dog. some of you may remember spikey who loved yoga so much in the first dvd making a beach cameo during the shooting. we had to include spikey in the power yoga for happiness.

send in your favorite photos of happy yogis for happiness dvd participants. we’ve started a facebook page to post them on. share them and have a laugh. keep your heart light, kid and animal lovers.

“Hello Eoin,

It was great meeting you Sunday at the UNICEF fundraiser. My woman (Treena) and I met you and “yes” I was the “closet yogi”. Many thanks for your positive influence in my life! Your dvd’s actually helped me recuperate myself after a serious back injury a few years back. To this day, I only use your dvd’s for my yoga work-outs and have found them positively charged and a wonderful way to take care of my body.

We chatted about our dog, Foxy, who races out from his den whenever he hears my yoga mat and your dvd’s going on. Every time, he comes out does a downward dog on my mat then watches the yoga program. Crazy I know but true! Anyway, I’ve attached a pic for you to see for yourself.”

more photos on our facebook group please share

“Listen before acting”

There is an elegance in this simple statement. First of all, it recognizes the fundamental aspects of the way we interact with the world. Active and passive, giving and receiving, asserting and yielding. Effectively, Yin and Yang. Yin is the receptive and yielding and Yang is that active and asserting.

So often we are active in the world. Convincing others of the validity of our values, of trying to shape things so that they match our internal map. This is healthy, to a certain extent. Who doesn’t want to see more of what they like in the world? Anyone who has been around kids for a while knows that we learn to express our wants very early in life.

Have you ever been around a “me-centered” person? Everything revolves around them, their issues, their likes, their dislikes. It can be quite tiring after a while, or in a lot of cases, very quickly.

Since the ego is not asserting itself while listening, it is not a skill that we have many role models for in our world. But Listening is the process of receiving information. Of informing our body, mind and hearts. Instead of an outgoing stream, it is incoming. It is essential that we remind ourselves daily of the need to listen.

Think of the constriction you feel in your body/mind when people don’t listen to you or misunderstand you. Teeth grit, back tightens, viscera hardens. Contrast that with being really, genuinely understood. There is a sense of peace, flow and ease. What a great gift it is to be listened to.

The problem is that only a small of information we are exposed to even makes it past the filter our mind has called our belief system. Some psychologists say as little as ten percent of what we hear registers with us. It is like we have a gatekeeper filtering out information that doesn’t reinforce what we already believe.

In a world of action and asserting, it is important for all of us to develop this skill of true listening. Bhuddist mystic, Thich Nat Hahn states it this way: “Love is listening deeply.” Consider that. What is being said there? In eastern traditions, love is the comes by transcending the bounds of our ego-centered point of view and opening up to the concerns of others. That’s called listening.

How do we learn to listen? Listen with your body. When we are listening, there is ease in our body, even if we don’t agree with whatever we are listening to. Try paying attention to how we breathe. There is no unnecessary constriction.

Ultimately, meditation is the skill of deep listening. And by meditation, I don’t mean only the idea of sitting in silence in a room somewhere, but also getting quiet outside and feeling the vibrations of nature. There is a deep wisdom and a sense of connection waiting for us beyond the realms of wants and desires. Tap into it.

download eoin’s happy map here