Seen the big NYT Magazine article on Anusara yoga this weekend?
One of the main themes was whether American schools of yoga are "authentic" or not. This article focused on the founder of Anusara, John Friend, and how he trained with yoga masters like BKS Iyengar and then broke away to form his own "brand" of yoga, which has become extremely popular in America.
I think the writer did a fair job of explaining in a few words what Anusara classes emphasize that makes them distinct from other major American styles.
She also quoted John Friend in ways that make him seem spectacularly grandiose, and she consistently framed the story as one of yoga as a business--a very big business.
My experience with Friend is limited to a large workshop, which he taught as an advanced Anusara vinyasa flow, making his way around the 100+ students and giving individual adjustments aplenty along with his assistants. It was a great class, as are so many of the Anusara classes and workshops I attend, with teachers like Shalini Latour, Irena Miller, Marni Task, Ami Hirschstein, Betsey Downing, Geri Bleier, and Todd Norian. I highly recommend all of them, and I take their classes whenever I can.
Of course, I've also wound up in some classes with Anusara-trained or -inspired teachers who use the Anusara terms as shortcuts to say something that is never made clear, and the classes wind up feeling hollow and filled with jargon. That can happen with any style.
(I've come to think that really, there are much bigger differences among yoga teachers than among yoga styles. If you're looking for a teacher who teaches like your favorite yoga teacher does, then you need to look far and wide, because taking classes in the same tradition, school or style of yoga won't always get you there. There's a LOT of divergence within one style of yoga!)
But I digress. Generally, American media report upon 1) health claims and/or documented benefits of doing yoga and 2) the commercialization of yoga in America (unusual fusions of yoga and other activities, how masses of people have quit their jobs to become yoga teachers, how many people do yoga now, how some yoga teachers have become "brands" of their own, how some teachers have tried to copyright their yoga posture sequences, etc.).
I don't blame journalists for avoiding experiential stories. How do you put into words what the regular practice of yoga feels like or how it affects the rest of your life? As soon as you do, you sound like an infomercial for Yoga, Inc., and you know you haven't even done justice to what it actually is/does! It doesn't make for a neutral and unbiased story.
My point, which I am slowly coming around to, is this: Discussions of authenticity vs. commercialization are interesting. For yoga, for music (did my favorite band "sell out"?), for the feminist movement (remember "is it feminist to wear lipstick"?), for lots of things.
But eventually, we have to be our own Charlie Brown and just go for our own spindly Christmas tree, regardless of what metal and plastic offerings are around us, bright and shiny and winking their seductive lights.
Yes, we could buy the calfskin yoga mat bag or the diamond-encrusted OM pendant. (I'm not making those up.)
Or we can joke about those who do. Or bitch about how anyone could do that to yoga, make it so obviously and excessively about image or material possessions.
Either way, we each have to come back to the spindly Christmas tree of our own yoga practice. Sometimes it feels droopy and sad, sometimes it perks up and feels strong and green and full of life...particularly when we're surrounded by those who care.
Most of the time it just IS. And the doing of the practice allows us to feel how it IS.
WE are what make our yoga practice authentic. Whether we pay for a class, practice in the yard, wear fancy togs, or throw on a T-shirt. Whether we focus on re-aligning our spine, or flowing with the breath, or what the air feels like on our skin.
I'll admit it: I've once or twice gotten myself to the mat with an intention no higher than, "I need to do this so I'll look better in the mirror." Those have not been my most inspired practices. And if that had been my intention every day, my practice would have been empty; I probably wouldn't have stuck with it very long. It's essentially a way to pump up the ego, make it believe it is a freestanding unit of body/mind, separate from everything and everyone else. That intention, to improve the individual self, can wind up separating you from others. Luckily, the techniques of yoga are designed to get you to pay close enough attention that you realize that separation is an illusion, and your intentions change as a result of what you notice (not because you force yourself to change).
When my focus is some (small or large) part of the interconnectedness of all things, that is when the practice feels authentic. That is when my body sings with feeling as I move. That is when I end with a sense that everything will be okay; no, it already is okay, and I am a part of that. I can do the right thing, because I can see more clearly.
So wear your fanciest pants or leave your pajamas on...practice with someone from India or someone from America...enjoy the silence or play Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence"...just bring yourself and your highest intention today, and the practice will flow through you, and there will be no question that it is authentic.
27 July 2010
23 July 2010
You'll never know unless you...
ask.
When you practice today, let your intention be an inquiry into the state of things. There is so much we don't notice...so formulate a question about how things are in your body, or in your mind, or in your emotions, right now. Let that be your focus.
I've practiced with inquiries such as:
How do I feel when I encounter a new and difficult situation?
Where does my mind go when it gets bored?
What happens when I breathe deeper into my lower back?
How do I feel when I go about 70% into each posture, instead of 100%?
So ask the question today. And tell us how it goes!
When you practice today, let your intention be an inquiry into the state of things. There is so much we don't notice...so formulate a question about how things are in your body, or in your mind, or in your emotions, right now. Let that be your focus.
I've practiced with inquiries such as:
How do I feel when I encounter a new and difficult situation?
Where does my mind go when it gets bored?
What happens when I breathe deeper into my lower back?
How do I feel when I go about 70% into each posture, instead of 100%?
So ask the question today. And tell us how it goes!
19 July 2010
Levity. Lightness. Levitation.
Lately I have been playing with different methods of transportation in my practice. Hovering my foot above the ground before I lunge, jumping, floating by piking my legs up, floating by curling my knees in...and, as a by-product of all this, sometimes plopping down unexpectedly.
I'm doing this not because it's going to lead me any faster to awakening than regular stepping and walking will. I do it because it's fun, and because I couldn't do it for most of two recent pregnancies, it's especially fun again now!
And that's been my simple intention for the last few practices: let it be fun.
I have a tendency to turn everything into work. I have an infant and a toddler now. It is sometimes fun. It is also a lot of work. The planning for, acquisition of, preparation of, and cleanup of every meal and beverage, and the resulting bodily outputs, takes up most of the day. Which is fine if you can do it without a two-year-old getting angry that you're not entertaining him at the same time. The rest of the time is filled with admonitions about what to do and what not to do, plus some questions and comments to try to educationally convey what the heck is going on around us.
Clearly, the best way to turn a surly two-year-old into a cooperative one in any situation where something must be done is to make it FUN.
Yes, piggyback rides and horsing around on the floor is out-and-out fun. But how do I let the "work" time with them be fun, too? That's what I am exploring in my yoga practice lately. How do I let the ordinary, repetitive, mundane activities of the day be light?
Whether I am paying bills, strapping a bored and resistant little boy into a car seat, or sitting at a desk trying to meet a deadline: If I had never done this before, how would this moment feel? If I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity to do this, how would it feel to do it?
Sometimes we work therapeutically on the mat...sometimes gently...sometimes we're just there to have fun! Can that happen whether we are floating through the air, or resting in child (Balasana)? Trying a fancy new posture, or repeating an old standby?
I'm doing this not because it's going to lead me any faster to awakening than regular stepping and walking will. I do it because it's fun, and because I couldn't do it for most of two recent pregnancies, it's especially fun again now!
And that's been my simple intention for the last few practices: let it be fun.
I have a tendency to turn everything into work. I have an infant and a toddler now. It is sometimes fun. It is also a lot of work. The planning for, acquisition of, preparation of, and cleanup of every meal and beverage, and the resulting bodily outputs, takes up most of the day. Which is fine if you can do it without a two-year-old getting angry that you're not entertaining him at the same time. The rest of the time is filled with admonitions about what to do and what not to do, plus some questions and comments to try to educationally convey what the heck is going on around us.
Clearly, the best way to turn a surly two-year-old into a cooperative one in any situation where something must be done is to make it FUN.
Yes, piggyback rides and horsing around on the floor is out-and-out fun. But how do I let the "work" time with them be fun, too? That's what I am exploring in my yoga practice lately. How do I let the ordinary, repetitive, mundane activities of the day be light?
Whether I am paying bills, strapping a bored and resistant little boy into a car seat, or sitting at a desk trying to meet a deadline: If I had never done this before, how would this moment feel? If I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity to do this, how would it feel to do it?
Sometimes we work therapeutically on the mat...sometimes gently...sometimes we're just there to have fun! Can that happen whether we are floating through the air, or resting in child (Balasana)? Trying a fancy new posture, or repeating an old standby?
07 July 2010
Not sure how to say it...but I know it happens.
I used to scoff at heart metaphors. "Open your heart," I'd say. "What the **** does that mean?" Metaphors are supposed to explain something new by referring to something more familiar. So I'm supposed to know what my "heart" feels like in order to understand compassion and empathy for others? I can find my heart rate. Is that good enough?
I was pretty stuck in my mind. Still am. But I understand now what the metaphors are trying to convey, because I've felt a lot more there, literally, in the area of my heart. It's funny how certain emotions are felt as physical sensations pretty much all the way up along the central line of the body--some things we feel strongly in the gut, others in the heart area, some in the throat, others in the head. Deep emotions sometimes, but rarely, manifest in the arms and legs.
Yoga explains this by using the model of chakras. Now, I emphasize that this is a MODEL, a way of describing, not a concrete representation of reality, because I don't believe that chakras are "things" that we can find along the spine, as they are often pictured. Rather, the model of the chakras provides a useful way to talk about how certain emotional, physical, and psychological issues are so often bound up together in ourselves and in others.
And this is something I have felt in my own body, and heard from students about, too. A woman recently told me about her mother's death a decade ago. She said that whenever she wanted to hold back tears during that time, say, at work, she'd tighten her left hip flexor. That would bury the emotion so she could avoid expressing her grief at that moment.
Of course, that grief did not disappear--it became tension in the front of her hip that she then had to work out, physically and/or emotionally. She had the awareness to watch it happen and know what to do. Lots of our emotions get stored as physical tension when we bottle them up.
In my own case, I have noticed how when I am anxious or worried, my left lower back tightens. Even with little things--I can feel it tighten as I pour windshield wiper fluid into my car and get concerned about spilling it. (So I wonder how much is happening there when I'm worried about how my son's speech is developing!)
And almost all of us can feel our shoulders hunch--forward and up--when we brace ourselves for bad news, stressful events, cold wintry days, driving in poor visibility...all kinds of situations in which we try to protect ourselves from what's happening. We're closing ourselves off, defensively.
Western psychology doesn't yet have a well-developed way to deal with that interconnection of thought, emotion, and physical sensation. But yoga does. More importantly, yoga offers the practices that allow us to EXPLORE those connections on our own and notice them for ourselves.
So stop reading and do your practice. Today, focus on opening your heart area. Literally. Do this:
--Where you are right now, draw your shoulderblades toward your spine and toward your tailbone. As you do this, feel the top of your upper arm bone move securely into the shoulder socket and back towards the wall behind you.
--Notice how this makes you feel. Proud? Open to what happens next? Vulnerable? Something totally different?
--Now make sure you haven't overarched your lower back as you did this. If you feel your low back get tense or your tailbone jutting out behind you, then draw your lowest front ribs in toward your spine and lift your lowest back ribs up a little. Let your tailbone descend toward the floor as you lift your front hip points by engaging your lower abdomen. Can you maintain the open heart as you do this?
--Breathe fully into your torso. Collarbones and upper back; ribcage front, sides, and back; and navel and lower back. Notice which areas "give."
See if you can do this for the next 15 minutes where you are right now...at a desk, lying in bed, waiting in a line with your iPhone, whatever. If you lose some part of this alignment, re-establish it.
Then when you get to your mat, begin each movement with the steps outlined above. This will seat the arm bones properly in the shoulder and stretch the pectoralis muscles. It will strengthen the rhomboids, middle trapezius, latissimus, and serratus muscles. It will strengthen your transversus (deep) and rectus (superficial) abdominal muscles and teach them to engage lightly for good posture all the time. It will help maintain normal spinal curves instead of reinforcing the excessive thoracic curve ('widow's hump') that develops from hunching those shoulders forward and up....
And it may even open your heart.
I was pretty stuck in my mind. Still am. But I understand now what the metaphors are trying to convey, because I've felt a lot more there, literally, in the area of my heart. It's funny how certain emotions are felt as physical sensations pretty much all the way up along the central line of the body--some things we feel strongly in the gut, others in the heart area, some in the throat, others in the head. Deep emotions sometimes, but rarely, manifest in the arms and legs.
Yoga explains this by using the model of chakras. Now, I emphasize that this is a MODEL, a way of describing, not a concrete representation of reality, because I don't believe that chakras are "things" that we can find along the spine, as they are often pictured. Rather, the model of the chakras provides a useful way to talk about how certain emotional, physical, and psychological issues are so often bound up together in ourselves and in others.
And this is something I have felt in my own body, and heard from students about, too. A woman recently told me about her mother's death a decade ago. She said that whenever she wanted to hold back tears during that time, say, at work, she'd tighten her left hip flexor. That would bury the emotion so she could avoid expressing her grief at that moment.
Of course, that grief did not disappear--it became tension in the front of her hip that she then had to work out, physically and/or emotionally. She had the awareness to watch it happen and know what to do. Lots of our emotions get stored as physical tension when we bottle them up.
In my own case, I have noticed how when I am anxious or worried, my left lower back tightens. Even with little things--I can feel it tighten as I pour windshield wiper fluid into my car and get concerned about spilling it. (So I wonder how much is happening there when I'm worried about how my son's speech is developing!)
And almost all of us can feel our shoulders hunch--forward and up--when we brace ourselves for bad news, stressful events, cold wintry days, driving in poor visibility...all kinds of situations in which we try to protect ourselves from what's happening. We're closing ourselves off, defensively.
Western psychology doesn't yet have a well-developed way to deal with that interconnection of thought, emotion, and physical sensation. But yoga does. More importantly, yoga offers the practices that allow us to EXPLORE those connections on our own and notice them for ourselves.
So stop reading and do your practice. Today, focus on opening your heart area. Literally. Do this:
--Where you are right now, draw your shoulderblades toward your spine and toward your tailbone. As you do this, feel the top of your upper arm bone move securely into the shoulder socket and back towards the wall behind you.
--Notice how this makes you feel. Proud? Open to what happens next? Vulnerable? Something totally different?
--Now make sure you haven't overarched your lower back as you did this. If you feel your low back get tense or your tailbone jutting out behind you, then draw your lowest front ribs in toward your spine and lift your lowest back ribs up a little. Let your tailbone descend toward the floor as you lift your front hip points by engaging your lower abdomen. Can you maintain the open heart as you do this?
--Breathe fully into your torso. Collarbones and upper back; ribcage front, sides, and back; and navel and lower back. Notice which areas "give."
See if you can do this for the next 15 minutes where you are right now...at a desk, lying in bed, waiting in a line with your iPhone, whatever. If you lose some part of this alignment, re-establish it.
Then when you get to your mat, begin each movement with the steps outlined above. This will seat the arm bones properly in the shoulder and stretch the pectoralis muscles. It will strengthen the rhomboids, middle trapezius, latissimus, and serratus muscles. It will strengthen your transversus (deep) and rectus (superficial) abdominal muscles and teach them to engage lightly for good posture all the time. It will help maintain normal spinal curves instead of reinforcing the excessive thoracic curve ('widow's hump') that develops from hunching those shoulders forward and up....
And it may even open your heart.
29 June 2010
Happy In(ter)dependence Day!
"The whole trend of modern civilization is towards external freedom. Free expression of opinion, free association...and freedom to pursue a vocation according to one's merits are essentially needed for making life fruitful and happy."
"But external freedom, in the last analysis, is egocentric, and should not miss its spiritual counterpart in internal freedom. Inner freedom consists in the conquest of lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, and sloth. A happy blending of reason and love can alone bring about this freedom and give meaning to all forms of external freedom."
--Swami Avyaktananda
We celebrate each year how our founders fought for external freedoms. These freedoms, as the swami says, are crucial, and they have been defended and extended through the words and actions of many patriots since those first American ones we celebrate. We all benefit from these freedoms.
Inner freedom (moksha, in Sanskrit), on the other hand, each of us must establish on our own. And while effort and passionate discipline (tapas) are a big component of finding that freedom, so is surrender (ishvara pranidhana). Giving ourselves up to something larger than our own individual selves. God, if that is your parlance, or the universal consciousness, or just all living beings. Yogic texts leave it up to you to conceptualize that bigger thing (ishvara is the most abstract, generic term Sanskrit has for something divine and large, and that's the word used in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, even though there are hundreds of other Sanskrit words and names for the divine that could have been used).
But surrender is harder to do than fighting, especially inside. In your practice today, can you begin from an attitude of surrender? Give up. Then practice anyway.
"The ultimate attainment is already ours, but the experience of it comes to us only when we are in a state of complete surrender. In case, "surrender" means the surrender of everything--every effort, desire, thought of attainment....The person who can do this becomes a fountain of consciousness."
--Swami Chetanananda
Throughout your practice, when you encounter resistance--physical, mental, whatever--ask yourself: What am I holding onto here?
"But external freedom, in the last analysis, is egocentric, and should not miss its spiritual counterpart in internal freedom. Inner freedom consists in the conquest of lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, and sloth. A happy blending of reason and love can alone bring about this freedom and give meaning to all forms of external freedom."
--Swami Avyaktananda
We celebrate each year how our founders fought for external freedoms. These freedoms, as the swami says, are crucial, and they have been defended and extended through the words and actions of many patriots since those first American ones we celebrate. We all benefit from these freedoms.
Inner freedom (moksha, in Sanskrit), on the other hand, each of us must establish on our own. And while effort and passionate discipline (tapas) are a big component of finding that freedom, so is surrender (ishvara pranidhana). Giving ourselves up to something larger than our own individual selves. God, if that is your parlance, or the universal consciousness, or just all living beings. Yogic texts leave it up to you to conceptualize that bigger thing (ishvara is the most abstract, generic term Sanskrit has for something divine and large, and that's the word used in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, even though there are hundreds of other Sanskrit words and names for the divine that could have been used).
But surrender is harder to do than fighting, especially inside. In your practice today, can you begin from an attitude of surrender? Give up. Then practice anyway.
"The ultimate attainment is already ours, but the experience of it comes to us only when we are in a state of complete surrender. In case, "surrender" means the surrender of everything--every effort, desire, thought of attainment....The person who can do this becomes a fountain of consciousness."
--Swami Chetanananda
Throughout your practice, when you encounter resistance--physical, mental, whatever--ask yourself: What am I holding onto here?
23 June 2010
Zoning In
When I stay in a hotel, or otherwise have access to unfettered television, it sucks me in. My attention becomes focused on something very much NOT of the here and now. This is not to say that TV is bad; it is just to agree with the many people who have described what happens as "zoning out." This may be why lots of people say they use TV to relax. It allows you to forget about your own here-and-now for a while.
But to me it feels like anything but relaxing. A long bout of television watching leaves me feeling much like I've chewed some gum way past any flavor payoff, and my jaw aches from the mastication. Research backs this up--watching TV keeps your sympathetic nervous system active. That's the part responsible for fight-or-flight reactions. But don't we all have enough situations in which we're already responding that way?
My yoga practice, on the other hand, gives me so many tools for zoning IN. The breath is the key one. When I focus only and exclusively on this full, smooth ujjayi inhale...this complete, slow ujjayi exhale...and I let the movements be secondary to my breathing...that's when I can zone IN on what's happening right here and now.
And that's good practice for staying attentive to the here-and-now off my mat, too. Many people would say that the vigorous type of vinyasa yoga I practice on my mat isn't very relaxing. Yet it prepares me to relax in so many ways.
It prepares me to relax, let go, and stay with what's happening when things are difficult (in my fifth straight balancing pose on my right leg, which is starting to quiver and shake). It prepares me to relax when I lie back for savasana at the end of class. And it prepares me to relax when I have to confront someone about a situation in which I'm not comfortable.
To start your yoga practice today, experiment with your ujjayi breath. (If you don't know what that is, find an experienced yoga teacher to show you.)
-Sit comfortably.
-See what it is like to make the inhales longer than the exhales. Do this for about 10 breaths.
-Now reverse it: make the exhales longer. Do this for about 20 breaths.
-Now make the inhales and exhales equal. (Use a metronome if you have one, or else just mentally count.) Do this for the rest of your practice. (Easy to say, hard to do.)
If you don't usually emphasize equal breathing during your yoga practice, this can be quite an eye-opener. We often shorten the inhales whenever things get difficult, and we often let the breath get shallow and quick when things get vigorous. Smooth it out. Zone in. Stay with what is happening here and now. If a posture is too intense to zone in, then back out of it physically until you can really stay with it mentally.
Doing this, you are practicing samavrtti ujjayi pranayama (equal-parts victorious breath) to develop pratyahara (sensory withdrawal). We withdraw the senses temporarily from outside stimuli to focus on what's happening inside for a while. We don't turn them off...we just turn them inward. And like turning on a microscope to see what's happening in a boring old drop of water, we can be surprised by how much is really going on in there!
But to me it feels like anything but relaxing. A long bout of television watching leaves me feeling much like I've chewed some gum way past any flavor payoff, and my jaw aches from the mastication. Research backs this up--watching TV keeps your sympathetic nervous system active. That's the part responsible for fight-or-flight reactions. But don't we all have enough situations in which we're already responding that way?
My yoga practice, on the other hand, gives me so many tools for zoning IN. The breath is the key one. When I focus only and exclusively on this full, smooth ujjayi inhale...this complete, slow ujjayi exhale...and I let the movements be secondary to my breathing...that's when I can zone IN on what's happening right here and now.
And that's good practice for staying attentive to the here-and-now off my mat, too. Many people would say that the vigorous type of vinyasa yoga I practice on my mat isn't very relaxing. Yet it prepares me to relax in so many ways.
It prepares me to relax, let go, and stay with what's happening when things are difficult (in my fifth straight balancing pose on my right leg, which is starting to quiver and shake). It prepares me to relax when I lie back for savasana at the end of class. And it prepares me to relax when I have to confront someone about a situation in which I'm not comfortable.
To start your yoga practice today, experiment with your ujjayi breath. (If you don't know what that is, find an experienced yoga teacher to show you.)
-Sit comfortably.
-See what it is like to make the inhales longer than the exhales. Do this for about 10 breaths.
-Now reverse it: make the exhales longer. Do this for about 20 breaths.
-Now make the inhales and exhales equal. (Use a metronome if you have one, or else just mentally count.) Do this for the rest of your practice. (Easy to say, hard to do.)
If you don't usually emphasize equal breathing during your yoga practice, this can be quite an eye-opener. We often shorten the inhales whenever things get difficult, and we often let the breath get shallow and quick when things get vigorous. Smooth it out. Zone in. Stay with what is happening here and now. If a posture is too intense to zone in, then back out of it physically until you can really stay with it mentally.
Doing this, you are practicing samavrtti ujjayi pranayama (equal-parts victorious breath) to develop pratyahara (sensory withdrawal). We withdraw the senses temporarily from outside stimuli to focus on what's happening inside for a while. We don't turn them off...we just turn them inward. And like turning on a microscope to see what's happening in a boring old drop of water, we can be surprised by how much is really going on in there!
16 June 2010
Playing in the Mud
It's an oft-used metaphor in yoga: the lotus, symbol of beauty and perfection, rises from mud. Not from perfect mounds of colored mulch, nor from pretty clay pots, but from the stuff that sank to the bottom of the water and collected there. The muck.
This is what we are faced with when we explore the yogic and buddhist concept of awakening. From what does our blossoming awareness come? From the muck! From the drudgery of everyday life, from the conflict, the messiness of it all.
That's the trap AND the release. Samsara (the wheel of life) IS nirvana (awakening, freedom from that wheel's repetition), as buddhism says. A regular practice of yoga asana (postures) and pranayama (breath and energy techniques) shows us this, whether or not we even purposely delve into the other limbs of yoga or the philosophies that sprang up around them!
When we confront the tightness, the weirdness, the asymmetry, the tenderness of the body each day, we sometimes feel trapped in this body, with its limitations. Why am I stuck in a body that can't do lotus/won't balance/creaks when it moves/is too big to bind a twist/is too small to hold itself up on its hands/betrays me in so many ways?
If we stick with it and are both gentle (ahimsa!) and passionately, willingly disciplined (tapas!) with ourselves, we see that it is in those limitations, in those weaknesses, in those gaps we perceive in ourselves, that the illumination occurs. The learning, the awakening. Nothing has to change. It's already there in the muck.
It's true in our minds, too. When they swirl like eddies of dirty water, all we have to do is watch. The dirt might settle, the water become clear. Or it might not. Either way, when we observe, we have a chance to notice how FULL each breath, each repetitive thought, each restricted movement is. The lotus is already there, in the mud, even if we don't see the petals on the surface of the water.
Let's play in the mud. What are the muddiest, messiest parts of your yoga practice? Hip opening? Transitions (like jumping back or stepping forward)? Seated meditation?
Can you observe these points today and watch for the beauty, the light, even in the parts that feel the muckiest?
(Playlist suggestion: Leonard Cohen's "Anthem". He reminds us in his lyrics: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.")
This is what we are faced with when we explore the yogic and buddhist concept of awakening. From what does our blossoming awareness come? From the muck! From the drudgery of everyday life, from the conflict, the messiness of it all.
That's the trap AND the release. Samsara (the wheel of life) IS nirvana (awakening, freedom from that wheel's repetition), as buddhism says. A regular practice of yoga asana (postures) and pranayama (breath and energy techniques) shows us this, whether or not we even purposely delve into the other limbs of yoga or the philosophies that sprang up around them!
When we confront the tightness, the weirdness, the asymmetry, the tenderness of the body each day, we sometimes feel trapped in this body, with its limitations. Why am I stuck in a body that can't do lotus/won't balance/creaks when it moves/is too big to bind a twist/is too small to hold itself up on its hands/betrays me in so many ways?
If we stick with it and are both gentle (ahimsa!) and passionately, willingly disciplined (tapas!) with ourselves, we see that it is in those limitations, in those weaknesses, in those gaps we perceive in ourselves, that the illumination occurs. The learning, the awakening. Nothing has to change. It's already there in the muck.
It's true in our minds, too. When they swirl like eddies of dirty water, all we have to do is watch. The dirt might settle, the water become clear. Or it might not. Either way, when we observe, we have a chance to notice how FULL each breath, each repetitive thought, each restricted movement is. The lotus is already there, in the mud, even if we don't see the petals on the surface of the water.
Let's play in the mud. What are the muddiest, messiest parts of your yoga practice? Hip opening? Transitions (like jumping back or stepping forward)? Seated meditation?
Can you observe these points today and watch for the beauty, the light, even in the parts that feel the muckiest?
(Playlist suggestion: Leonard Cohen's "Anthem". He reminds us in his lyrics: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.")
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)