Along the way I’ve actually been able to learn a thing or two in Korean.  It’s been super fun and inspiring.  Last night in fact, I spent the better part of four hours simply studying the Korean alphabet from an online language site.

Please note this last sentence my friends who think I’ve got this glamorous life traveling around the globe teaching yoga … I said, “I spent my evening studying the Korean alphabet!”  Glamorous, huh?!

So, it makes sense that today, while heading back from my daily lunchtime rendezvous with the woman who serves up garlic spinach at the deli, I was struck by the thought that it’s really a shame we Americans are not more well versed in languages other than English.  It was probably directly brought on because my deli lady had welcomed me today with, “anyang haseyo (hello in Korean) handsome.”

Sure, I’m probably guilty of flirting with her to get a little extra spinach … but I’m thinking, given that she’s never greeted me this way in the other 50 times I’ve come to her counter, that she had given some thought to this word.  “Handsome” is not the most common English word yet she was definitely being sweet and I’m thinking had put some thought into this. This was someone who wanted to make a connection and knew that language did just that.

What really stuck with me though, was that all I could say to her in response was “kamsamneda (thank you).”

Seriously, that’s all I had! I have spent more than six weeks in Korea, over the course of the past year and that’s basically all I had.

I suppose I could have told her to interlace her fingers behind her back which is the one phrase I’ve learned in every country I’ve taught … for shoulder stretching purposes … but you can imagine that would probably been a little misunderstood at the deli counter.

And then I couldn’t shake the thought.  Why is it we Americans are so adamant about the sovereignty of our native tongue!

I had had this thought before.  Often it happens in Europe where people can often speak upwards of five or six languages.  But it hit me again today when I realized that I’ve spent more time in Korea this year than at home and the lovely lady at the deli could out do me in the language department in a heartbeat.

Now, I know the arguments for why it’s easier to learn English as a second language.  It’s the international language … it’s the language of the internet.  Well, whatever the case … others have learned it and for the most part we haven’t reciprocated.

Yes, of course there are the exceptions … those few Americans who can spout off more than the George Bush level of Spanish.  But let’s be honest … they are pretty few and far between.

So what the heck is our problem and worse … what’s really behind the English only movement??

This is a topic that I feel really needs to be exposed for the idiocy it really is.  I mean, for goodness sake, “English Only” is like saying, “Limited Intelligence Only!”  God forbid we develop our brain to the level that we have the capacity to read a sign in another language.

Do I understand why people shout for English only? Of course.  But seriously, it’s not the language that they’re worried about.  It’s something much deeper … their freedom.

Do we really think those up in arms over the language are worried about offending Chaucer or Shakespeare?  I think not.  I’d actually venture to say that the vast majority of people who yell for English only could not tell you the difference between a participle and preposition.  The sanctity of the language is not what it’s about (and yes, I know I just ended the sentence with a proposition).

The worry is the culture.  The idea is that if our language has to share the stage with another language, then so too will other things, things much more significant like employment and health care.

This is of course a valid issue to be raised.  Providing for one’s family has always had to take into account the potential encroachment of others into our established level of freedom.

Now, are those fears possibly also overblown? Probably but that’s not my beef here.  I mention them only to say …  fight those battles honestly.  If you’re worried about your job being taken … there’s plenty of ways to wage that war that are both respectable and progressive.  But to simply say it’s about English just feels cheap and easy.

And … to the original point … it’s completely counterintuitive!

Have you ever heard of someone not getting a job because they spoke another language!!?? “I’m sorry sir, you fit every qualification except we can’t have someone with your mastery of communication … it will ruin our company.” Please.

Plus, every bit of scientific evidence points to the benefits of knowing another language.  There was a recent study pointing out that the symptoms of Alzheimers are reduced in those who speak multiple languages.

That’s not even to mention the spiritual benefits.  Yes, that right … gotta make it spiritual.

My best way to explain this was the night I was sitting at a dinner in Koppelen, Belgium with the family that was hosting me.  A family of six and me.  Six Belgians, one American … IN BELGIUM … and we spoke English … all of us the entire dinner.

At the end of the dinner one of the sons who had struggled the most to keep up with the all English conversation said to me, “thank you for coming to Belgium …  I learned so much tonight and I love practicing English.”

What’s spiritual about that?  Well, if you could have seen his face there was such a sweet appreciation for that which was different and for learning about someone else.  I couldn’t help but think,  if we would have relied on my language skills alone, there would have been basically zero connection between me and that family.  It would have been an evening that began as a family and a foreigner and ended up the same.  Rather, I ended up with a family that would probably take me in on a moments notice because we actually traversed some deep topics and genuinely got to know each other, human to human. That’s spiritual.

So, yes, I do understand that people put up walls in order to protect what they think is the space of their liberty.  But can we agree that language is not a cancer and falls far short of the insidious threat that is often hung on its mantle.  Can we just agree that because a few more inches of sign are taken up … or a few more moments of listening are required, our world will not come crashing down?

And that in fact, it’s quite the opposite.  Whether you see it as a good thing or not … we are all connected.  And an embrace of something you don’t know like another language or another culture can have magical effects on you and the people around you.  Just ask the deli lady in Seoul how big I smiled when she called me handsome! Magical!

To be honest, I’m not sure there was any part of the present facebook reality that he would have predicted. For instance, I can’t imagine he planned on providing a space  that would juxtapose my mom’s prayer requests with half naked Kristen Wiig impersonators.

But the biggest unplanned impact, in my opinion has been more subtle because it spotlights something more universal than even the urge to merge with other like-hearted souls … it’s the simple noting of the day we were born.

Yes, our birthday.  The day of the year when we get so self-possessed we expect everyone to pay more attention to us than is either realistic or likely.

My birthday this year was a big one.  The big 40.

I happen to be across the globe, teaching in Seoul, South Korea on my birthday.  Normally it would be a bummer to not be at home on the big day … but I love it over here, and I had a few celebrations back in the states before I left.  The biggest one was a party my friend Tim threw for me three whole weeks before the actual day.  I especially loved the people at the party who were genuinely offended that it wasn’t yet really my birthday.  I was like, there’s free booze … shut up.

The best part though, about being over here is that my birthday started a whole day before it did in the states.  That meant that I was celebrating and eating rice cake (a whole other blog) well before the onslaught of birthday wishes began.

Midway through the first day of the two-day international dateline largess, the facebook messages began to appear.  It was interesting to see who wrote from the states during this time because the way FB works is that your name doesn’t appear on the home page of birthdays until it’s that same calendar day.  Therefore, since it was still the day before … this meant these eager beavers were actually looking on the expanded list, essentially researching the celebrants rather than simply clicking on the reminder that comes up each day.

That’s basically a long-winded way of saying Thanks for the extra effort!

By the end of my birthday in Asia it was morning in New York and the early risers began their posting.

The momentum built as I slept … crescendo-ing as the clock traveled westerly around the globe.

By the time the US west coast got to the end of the 19^th of February, my FB wall was so sweetly full of blessings and wishes that I sat quietly in my little Seoul sanctuary of a bedroom and cried the happiest of cries.

And all this is thanks to Mark Zuckerberg.

I’m super sappy but I’m in no way a sap.  I know full well that the vast, vast majority of genuinely caring people that sent me birthday wishes would not have known it was my birthday … much less written to me had it not been for that little reminder on their FB homepage.

But in all honesty …  I don’t care.  The truth is our world has no shortage of divisions and obstacles.  We read all the time about how sites like Facebook are making us less social not more or how we’re getting less able to interact with each other in spite of “social networking.”

This new birthday paradigm … having a giant birthday hub … changes everything.  There’s undeniably more connection; it brings people closer together that might otherwise go years without connecting.  In fact, I’ll go so far to say that a quiet social revolution has occurred.  The facebook birthday reminder has changed the whole way we experience our birthday.

I’ll admit that I went to my computer all day long excited to read who had posted a note.  There was a feeling of anticipation that I didn’t ever have on my birthday.  BFB (before facebook) I was quite content hearing from my close friends and family.  But now, wow … so much fun seeing whose name would pop up on my feed.

I don’t care that it was a click and the typing of about 20 characters that came my way over and over.  It was real.  The quiet tears that welled up were about as organic as they come.  And in my book, solitary tears have a certain freedom that other tears envy.

So thank you Mark Zuckerberg for letting my friends and their friends and the friends of their friends know it was my birthday.  You’ve moved us toward how we’re truly supposed to feel on that one day.

The first ten or so times I saw it I thought, “Wow, the Japanese protesters really go all out!”

Then it morphed after a few years of it not being taken down, to, “Wow, these Japanese authorities are really permissive with their protesters.”

Then today, on seeing the sign for say, the 20^th time … I thought, “Wow, what if all this time they were actually saying, ‘Down with Narita Airport’ as in “We’re down with Narita Airport’ or ‘Get down with your bad self, Narita Airport.’”

Still not sure.

To review … the basic idea is to approach every moment/relationship/decision with an upward shift in attitude by pausing and finding a wider perspective.

Well, of course like most things spiritual, the universe has an amazing ability to respond to my clarity with, “oh yeah, try this!”

Picture it, Seoul 2011.  (Yes, I’m channeling Sophia Petrillo) Working on 3 hours of sleep following 22 hours of planes, trains and airport security (I felt like security deserved the third placement there since more time was spent de-shoeing, de-belting and laptop separating than in automobiles … the usual completion of that John Candy triad).

I walk into Jai Yoga Center bright and early for the beginning of Immersion III.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Immersion courses (I’m sort of assuming that three of the four people reading my blog are Anusara Yoga teachers) … Immersion III is when, after more (often lots more) than 60 hours of serious study, the students have to know the anatomy, bio-mechanics, philosophy, history and general everythingness of yoga … they also have to spout it back.  This way there’s some pretty tangible evidence that they’re close to ready to teach it.

Needless to say, doing one of these trainings in English is tough enough.  But doing one in Korean … whew! Crazy intense.

I had been super lucky up to this point with translators.  Tina, Jaya and Henna had all been amazing.  I cannot explain how incredible it is, what they do.  For them to take some of the ridiculously sophisticated philosophical concepts … ideas that have puzzled our species since the beginning of time (or at least the beginning of when time was noticed) … and for them to quickly process the meaning of what has been said, switch it in their head idiomatically and then articulate it clearly.  As I said before … Crazy intense!

So there I was.  Jetlagged yes … but ready to rock Immersion III.  And the first thing I find out upon walking into the studio is that my usual translator wasn’t available.

I was greeted by one of the students, who had been in Immersion I and II, yet up to that point had shown some recognition of English (This mainly occured when I would say something funny in class … which of course happens as infrequently in Korea as in every other culture I torture with my sense of humor … and you can tell the English speakers because they giggle either with me or at me  … slightly ahead of everyone else).  Yet, as she told me that she would be translating, I in no way knew she would be able to handle the enormity of full translation, especially when it wasn’t just English to Korean … it would also be a ton of the reverse in order for me to hear from the students at this advanced stage.

Well, it was all my jetlagged face could do to cover my panic.  We were about to embark on seven days, six hours of class per day …  with the hardest material … and a first time translator.

Not to put too fine a point on it … but I was freaking out … at least on the inside.

So, to land this proverbial plane of a blog (my favorite Hunter Jacksonism) … I certainly did not practice what I had just been blog-preaching a few days before.  The highest response … “to see the good” … would have been to see it from her perspective … her willingness to jump in, to have noticed that she was nervous and was looking to me for assurance and realize as was revealed fairly quickly … she just might be good at it.

Now, I would like to assume that I would have learned the overall lesson anyway, no matter how Hyo Jin had done (that’s her name by the way … she deserves the billing times 10).  But I probably wouldn’t have written a blog about it … and it certainly made learning the lesson easier.

And easy, it was!

To say she was good, really doesn’t do it justice.  These past few days, I’ve been absolutely blown away by how sensitive, intuitive and passionate her translation is.  I even noticed yesterday during the public workshop portion, with close to 70 people in the room (her first time in front of so many people), she was so in tune with me I forgot that anyone was translating … until I happened to notice she was even using the same hand gestures I was!

So … this blog is a giant, thank-you-shout-out to Hyo Jin and a note-to-self reflection for me, that Hyo Jin reminded me not only to practice what I preach but more importantly, a reminder that the universe is ripe with blessings, it’s just up to us to make that our default perspective.

His basic point is that following your deepest or fundamental principles will invariably lead you in the right direction and ultimately serve the goals you seek.

It’s not coincidental this stuck with me given that the system of yoga I teach … Anusara Yoga … is possibly best known for it’s five Universal Principles of Alignment.  These go along with the other Anusara hallmarks of community and shri and other life affirming tantric principles.

The first principle in the UPA’s holds a special place almost as a bridge or maybe even a canvas over which or (respectively) onto which, all the real world aspects like alignment and choice are held by the more esoteric aspirations of yogic ideals.

What that means is, the first principle of “Set the foundation and Open to Grace” is an opportunity to actualize a mindset of profound openness with strategies to live that openness in everyday life.

Needless to say (and yes it might just be my lack of coherent writing), it’s not the easiest concept to express.

A)   This is a good thing.  If it were easy, it probably wouldn’t be first principle.  Breadth is usually a characteristic of the profound and the potent.

B)   It’s a lifelong exploration to wrap minds and hearts around what it really means and could mean.

Thus bringing me to this post:

Today I had an amazing discussion with my Immersion III group in Seoul, Korea.

For those of you reading, unfamiliar with the Anusara TT program … peeps must take three (30-odd hours) segments of Immersion courses before taking a teacher training program.

The idea behind the immersion system is that teachers actually know what they are talking about before they get up to teach (a brilliant revelation, huh?).

In other words, these folks are not casual yogis.  They are serious students, who are whip smart and ridiculously dedicated!

And here we were.  On a freezing cold Seoul morning (NY does not get this cold!) … Staring at each other … waiting for someone to speak up on the question of: “what is the underlying principle in ‘set the foundation and open to grace?’”

Remember as well, that these students don’t have the advantage of numerous Anusara teachers.  Most of them have taken class from me, Amy Ippoliti, Barbra Noh and John Friend.

They don’t have a manual fully translated.  And all of their study has been through a translator.  And even though Tina, Jaya, Henna and now Hyo Jin are unbelievable … there is bound to be some stuff lost in translation.

Still … once the initial hesitation passed … a few started to volunteer some answers.

And this is what I heard:

They understood that life is simply better when we take the time to get grounded, when you steady yourself on things you know are solid.  They sweetly and clearly said that we have a choice in our attitude.  That we can identify with the cloaks we’ve built up or that have been piled upon us by others … or … we can choose to see the goodness within … a goodness that is with us at birth and still resides there.

They said that yes, it’s a tricky discussion sometimes because there is some faith involved in opening to something bigger and not everyone is comfortable with concepts of faith. But whether you want to call it breath, or values, or community, or love, or spirit, or grace or even God … when we open to it’s presence within and around us, we benefit.   And we benefit in the highest way.  No less than peace, hope and love magically begin to appear and flourish in our lives.

Not bad, huh?

Rock on Korea!!