Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Nobody's goin' nowhere. . .

On July 3, I completed a teacher training intensive at the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, and just before Richard Freeman distributed our “diplomas,” he reminded us: “these signify nothing.”

While some might find that announcement a tad bit deflating, I enjoyed it. I love the frequent reminders that, in any given yoga pose, you don’t get raptured up or automatically enter samadhi when your body crosses some arbitrary “finish line.” Grabbing your toe in triangle pose (in an ashtanga class) is nice: it presents the opportunity to emphasize the internal rotation of the front leg, and create some more dynamic charge. Right now, though, I can’t do that without “selling out,” and compromising the alignment of my hips and from there, the real juice of my version of the pose. None of the poses have a “finish line.” In fact, reaching a point where I start feeling puffed up about achieving some more advanced detail takes me farther away from that meditative presence that constitutes actually doing yoga.

It has been such a pleasure, and a wonderful re-education, to practice in a studio with this ethos. It frees me to try things out with curiosity and a sense of adventure, not worrying that failed attempts will reflect on my intrinsic value as a person. It reminds me to maintain my presence in the very simplest poses, which are surprisingly rich and full of possibility.

It’s taken me so long to realize that just being present in any moment brings with it such a different quality than does my everyday, distracted state of mind. It’s as if any given moment has the potential to be experienced as sublime. I have the idea, but realizing that ability is another story, possibly to be realized many lifetimes hence, if I am very lucky! If I can just remember the idea more often, that will be interesting.

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