Like you, I have a story that I have used to create my life. Sometimes the story gets in the way, and I have to talk to it like a patient mother talks to an insistent child. Sometimes that works. Other times, I am the awkward mother or the frightened mother, or the very busy mother with important things to do, and I do not know how to approach this child. I might say that I don't have time, but I will also wonder how this story became so big and me so small standing next to it. Granted, there are those times when I understand the place of this story in my life, and together we hum along with great compassion for one another. Of course during these compassion-fests I think to myself, ah, now I am aware, now I have arrived, now I will be free from this story, and before long I find that I have grown small again, not unlike Alice growing and shrinking inside that house.
Grasping and rejecting. Their allures seem endless: This experience, but not that one. That pose, but not this one. So what's the secret? Put out the welcome mat. Embrace the story with its longing, its wounds, its suffering because according to Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield, this is how we grow our capacity for intimacy. We accept that "this too, this too" deserves our love. "This too, this too" deserves our blessing. "This, too, this too," is part of our journey.
Sadhguru, the sage of the Isha Foundation, which is dedicated to teaching the myriad health benefits of the yogic sciences, is more blunt. "Drop all of your nonsense," he says. We do not choose what comes into our minds and what stays there. If you haven't noticed, he says, we cannot control the mind. Rather, he suggests that we should think of our mind as the garbage bin; and, while we cannot live without a garbage bin, Sadhguru insists that we do not have to live inside of it either.
Maybe this is why the wise yogis who created the various asanas that form the physical limb of the practice thought as well to create the resting pose balasana. Child's pose. This is the pose we use in our practice to rest. In balasana, our bodies imitate the fetal position, and, thereby, return to the womb to be restored physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Kneeling on the floor, we fold forward and rest the torso on our thighs; taking the head to the floor, we release the breath, exhaling ahhhhhhh. This should be called deliverance. In balasana, we are taken out of ourselves and returned to ourselves all in the effort it takes to breathe in, breathe out. We get a glimpse of ourselves as part of the larger mystery, and here, in balasana, we discover that we can, indeed, let go. We understand, in fact, that this is what we are meant to do.
One night recently, my youngest felt sick to her stomach. She was convinced, and being convinced, afraid, that she was, ultimately, going to have to throw up. Thus began a vigil that I held with her. It consisted of her lying on the floor just inside the bathroom door with me close enough for her to lie across my lap so that I could stroke her along her back and the length of her long red hair. Looking down at her as she lay there, eyes closed, a sense of peace returning, I thought, huh, here is child's pose. It's late. I'm tired, but my child is ill. She needs me to hold her once again in this fetal position so that she can find deliverance either in resting or in getting sick. From this perspective, I drew strength or inspiration or both. Comforting her in child's pose, I, too, took comfort. I let go of the late hour and my fatigue, and I was present with her breathing in and out and in. I understood that this, too, was spiritual practice, and in this simple, intimate, unexpected practice, I was given an opportunity to wake up to a larger story.
If we can learn to care for the truth in front of us, Kornfield says, we can learn to participate in the creation of our story. Why, then, would we want to continue to grasp at our limited stories?
The Indian musician and composer Ravi Shankar died just before Christmas. I listened to and read many obituaries written and composed in his honor. This is the line dedicated to his legacy that I reread as a reminder to go beyond my limited story. After hearing Pandit Ravi Shankar perform at the Disney Hall in 2011 at the age of 91, Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed wrote of Shankar's gifted ability, "He opened ears and remade sensibilities." Tat sat, my dear Mr. Shankar. Tat sat.
Grasping and rejecting. Their allures seem endless: This experience, but not that one. That pose, but not this one. So what's the secret? Put out the welcome mat. Embrace the story with its longing, its wounds, its suffering because according to Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield, this is how we grow our capacity for intimacy. We accept that "this too, this too" deserves our love. "This too, this too" deserves our blessing. "This, too, this too," is part of our journey.
Sadhguru, the sage of the Isha Foundation, which is dedicated to teaching the myriad health benefits of the yogic sciences, is more blunt. "Drop all of your nonsense," he says. We do not choose what comes into our minds and what stays there. If you haven't noticed, he says, we cannot control the mind. Rather, he suggests that we should think of our mind as the garbage bin; and, while we cannot live without a garbage bin, Sadhguru insists that we do not have to live inside of it either.
Maybe this is why the wise yogis who created the various asanas that form the physical limb of the practice thought as well to create the resting pose balasana. Child's pose. This is the pose we use in our practice to rest. In balasana, our bodies imitate the fetal position, and, thereby, return to the womb to be restored physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Kneeling on the floor, we fold forward and rest the torso on our thighs; taking the head to the floor, we release the breath, exhaling ahhhhhhh. This should be called deliverance. In balasana, we are taken out of ourselves and returned to ourselves all in the effort it takes to breathe in, breathe out. We get a glimpse of ourselves as part of the larger mystery, and here, in balasana, we discover that we can, indeed, let go. We understand, in fact, that this is what we are meant to do.
One night recently, my youngest felt sick to her stomach. She was convinced, and being convinced, afraid, that she was, ultimately, going to have to throw up. Thus began a vigil that I held with her. It consisted of her lying on the floor just inside the bathroom door with me close enough for her to lie across my lap so that I could stroke her along her back and the length of her long red hair. Looking down at her as she lay there, eyes closed, a sense of peace returning, I thought, huh, here is child's pose. It's late. I'm tired, but my child is ill. She needs me to hold her once again in this fetal position so that she can find deliverance either in resting or in getting sick. From this perspective, I drew strength or inspiration or both. Comforting her in child's pose, I, too, took comfort. I let go of the late hour and my fatigue, and I was present with her breathing in and out and in. I understood that this, too, was spiritual practice, and in this simple, intimate, unexpected practice, I was given an opportunity to wake up to a larger story.
If we can learn to care for the truth in front of us, Kornfield says, we can learn to participate in the creation of our story. Why, then, would we want to continue to grasp at our limited stories?
The Indian musician and composer Ravi Shankar died just before Christmas. I listened to and read many obituaries written and composed in his honor. This is the line dedicated to his legacy that I reread as a reminder to go beyond my limited story. After hearing Pandit Ravi Shankar perform at the Disney Hall in 2011 at the age of 91, Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed wrote of Shankar's gifted ability, "He opened ears and remade sensibilities." Tat sat, my dear Mr. Shankar. Tat sat.
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