Meditation?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Outside Inside
What we see in front of us depends on where we choose to go and what crosses our path.
What we see reflected depends on what we bring to the picture (including how we look at things).
Inner courtyard at the Freer Gallery.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Photos
And Then What?
Though many of the yoga texts would get rid of the ego, I think we’d be pretty incohesive without one. How about seeking to have the ego in healthy balance with all aspects of the self.
The Sky Is Just As Big Wherever You Are
The sky was luminous and beautiful early this morning when I headed out to teach. The air was scrubbed clear by the cold front that passed through in the night, leaving behind fluffy clouds to highlight the luminousity of the sun rising.
As I enjoyed looking at the clouds and light in the sky on my walk to Union Station to catch the metro to go teach, I thought about seeing the sky in Arizona next week. When I am there, I always feel a keen delight when I look at the sky. Then I thought that the sky is just as lovely here. It is that things on the land are bigger and farther apart out west that make the sky seem bigger.
When life is easeful and we are feeling spacious, then the inner place of meditation can feel more luminous than when we are struggling through the day. But just as the sky is just as big wherever we are on the planet, the inner space of meditation is just as vast and luminous no matter what is going on in our lives. The more we remember that and the more we look, the more we will have the opportunity to be lit up from the inside.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Found Exhortation (and Tapas)
What does it mean to excel, to do well? I think there is no excelling in yoga, at least not the way we conventionally think of excelling in school or career or sports. But to practice in a way that is more than casual, there must be ardor–tapas.
Tapas is often translated as fire, and the texts are full of stories of outrageous physical exertions done to prove the tapas of the practitioners looking for boons from the gods.
There is a fiery aspect to tapas, but I question whether it must necessarily be burning from physical exertion, though that is a path that calls out to many.
The fire of tapas could be thought of as doing what it takes to manifest the will to know something deeply enough to be able to experience the fluency and grace and delight of expertise. It could be the ardor to show up in a disciplined and committed way for hours and days and years of practice, always still wanting deeper, fuller knowing.
Signs Around Town
This sign was for a dry cleaner. I gave up dry cleaning (for the good of the environment) years ago, and this doesn’t want me to go back to having clothes cleaned with and impregnated by solvents (“organic” or otherwise) and then returned to me wrapped in plastic that needs to go to a landfill.
I like very much, though, the idea that whatever our work, we try to embody this ideal offering.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
