I am thinking of the peonies I bought at the market during the last days of spring--a couple of weeks ago now--their rich deep burgundy color defining for me, each time I passed them in their vase, something regal and majestic. But it wasn't simply the color that would force me to look at them again and again. It was the orchestrated way each bud chose to open. Swiftly at first, then a protracted unfolding, bending back on itself and opening so completely--like one's heart in urdhva dhanurasana (full wheel pose)--that I was thoroughly convinced of the natural order of things. In the end, we become a thing of beauty. We have nothing left to do and nowhere we wish to hide.
"Our being is silent," wrote the Trappist contemplative Thomas Merton. All the reason I need to feel a kinship with those flowers in the vase. Silent beings--every one of them--content in their stillness. Of course, Merton lived robustly before entering the monastery and finding his new freedom within its walls; so, he was compelled to add alongside that admission of our silent being a second truth. This one about our existence. Merton wrote, "Our existence is noisy."
In the closing sequence of the ashtanga practice there is a pose called karnapidasana (ear pressure pose). A practitioner enters this pose from halasana (plow pose). While lying on your back with your legs over your head and resting on the ground behind you, you bring your legs alongside your ears and squeeze, applying a gentle pressure to each ear with your thighs or your knees, depending on your flexibility. One of my friends, and a fellow ashtangi, jokes about wanting to stay in this pose to close out the noise of existence that seems to grow exponentially by the day. We laugh, but not entirely because it's funny. We laugh because it's true. And every day, like everyone else, we have to draw up new boundaries to better navigate the noise of our existence, so that we can learn how to enter more fully into the only moment there is: the present one.
Ironically, I am discovering more and more noise at the center of my yoga practice, a practice I took up with the idea that it would help me get more direct access to that only moment happening right now. This one. The one that finds me at the computer working on my practice. Like yoga, writing is part of my practice. It is a practice that demands my presence and my attention and whatever skills I have managed to craft and can bring to the project at hand. Lately, I have found myself making countless excuses for setting aside this part of my practice. Why? Because it demands that I approach it with a certain emptiness, a sense of adventure and play, and a hefty dose of trust. The trust that one line on the blank page will lead to another. Instead, I permit distraction, or as Shakespeare would say, I admit impediments. All in the name of yoga. Every day, there is another workshop that announces itself in my e-mail inbox. An opportunity for meditation, a chance to sit in the company of a Tibetan monk, a workshop on back bends, standing poses, twists, an important puja, yet another opportunity to attend an orientation session for the next teacher training, and the master teacher I promised myself not to miss is coming to town. Conflict reigns. My life begins to interfere with my yoga practice. Right? Either that or I have supplanted my initial desire to unearth my silent being and cultivate a quiet and masterful joy for a piece of the action in the current noisy existence that appears to have a vice-grip on the ancient art and practice of yoga.
Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita that yoga is skill in action. Krishna dispenses this counsel to Arjuna on the eve of a battle Arjuna does not wish to fight. Like the battle George Lucas created for his Jedi warriors in the Star Wars saga, Arjuna's is a battle between good and evil. So when Krishna speaks of yoga, he is not preparing Arjuna to execute a perfect virabhadrasana (warrior pose), except maybe metaphorically, during the heat of battle. When Krishna speaks of yoga, he is talking about the practices of renunciation, selfless service and meditation. Through these practices, Arjuna will make peace with his dharma; he will stop the war. The warrior will find his way home.
In his book, A Path with Heart, Jack Kornfield describes the purpose of a spiritual discipline as a means to stop the war, to let go of our battles so that we might ultimately come to rest in the present moment where we learn to open our hearts to things as they are. It sounds a bit like Krishna's dialog with Arjuna. When the war stops, writes Kornfield, "we can embrace our own personal griefs and sorrows, joys and triumphs. With greatness of heart we can open to the people around us, to our family, to our community, to the social problems of the world, to our collective history."
Greatness of heart. I didn't have to go to a workshop or a yoga class or a meditation session to see this. I stood still and watched some peonies unfold, opening their great big hearts like an act of gratitude for the season that brought them to life. And for that moment, I was a silent being content to be silent.
"Our being is silent," wrote the Trappist contemplative Thomas Merton. All the reason I need to feel a kinship with those flowers in the vase. Silent beings--every one of them--content in their stillness. Of course, Merton lived robustly before entering the monastery and finding his new freedom within its walls; so, he was compelled to add alongside that admission of our silent being a second truth. This one about our existence. Merton wrote, "Our existence is noisy."
In the closing sequence of the ashtanga practice there is a pose called karnapidasana (ear pressure pose). A practitioner enters this pose from halasana (plow pose). While lying on your back with your legs over your head and resting on the ground behind you, you bring your legs alongside your ears and squeeze, applying a gentle pressure to each ear with your thighs or your knees, depending on your flexibility. One of my friends, and a fellow ashtangi, jokes about wanting to stay in this pose to close out the noise of existence that seems to grow exponentially by the day. We laugh, but not entirely because it's funny. We laugh because it's true. And every day, like everyone else, we have to draw up new boundaries to better navigate the noise of our existence, so that we can learn how to enter more fully into the only moment there is: the present one.
Ironically, I am discovering more and more noise at the center of my yoga practice, a practice I took up with the idea that it would help me get more direct access to that only moment happening right now. This one. The one that finds me at the computer working on my practice. Like yoga, writing is part of my practice. It is a practice that demands my presence and my attention and whatever skills I have managed to craft and can bring to the project at hand. Lately, I have found myself making countless excuses for setting aside this part of my practice. Why? Because it demands that I approach it with a certain emptiness, a sense of adventure and play, and a hefty dose of trust. The trust that one line on the blank page will lead to another. Instead, I permit distraction, or as Shakespeare would say, I admit impediments. All in the name of yoga. Every day, there is another workshop that announces itself in my e-mail inbox. An opportunity for meditation, a chance to sit in the company of a Tibetan monk, a workshop on back bends, standing poses, twists, an important puja, yet another opportunity to attend an orientation session for the next teacher training, and the master teacher I promised myself not to miss is coming to town. Conflict reigns. My life begins to interfere with my yoga practice. Right? Either that or I have supplanted my initial desire to unearth my silent being and cultivate a quiet and masterful joy for a piece of the action in the current noisy existence that appears to have a vice-grip on the ancient art and practice of yoga.
Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita that yoga is skill in action. Krishna dispenses this counsel to Arjuna on the eve of a battle Arjuna does not wish to fight. Like the battle George Lucas created for his Jedi warriors in the Star Wars saga, Arjuna's is a battle between good and evil. So when Krishna speaks of yoga, he is not preparing Arjuna to execute a perfect virabhadrasana (warrior pose), except maybe metaphorically, during the heat of battle. When Krishna speaks of yoga, he is talking about the practices of renunciation, selfless service and meditation. Through these practices, Arjuna will make peace with his dharma; he will stop the war. The warrior will find his way home.
In his book, A Path with Heart, Jack Kornfield describes the purpose of a spiritual discipline as a means to stop the war, to let go of our battles so that we might ultimately come to rest in the present moment where we learn to open our hearts to things as they are. It sounds a bit like Krishna's dialog with Arjuna. When the war stops, writes Kornfield, "we can embrace our own personal griefs and sorrows, joys and triumphs. With greatness of heart we can open to the people around us, to our family, to our community, to the social problems of the world, to our collective history."
Greatness of heart. I didn't have to go to a workshop or a yoga class or a meditation session to see this. I stood still and watched some peonies unfold, opening their great big hearts like an act of gratitude for the season that brought them to life. And for that moment, I was a silent being content to be silent.
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