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    Magic Carpet?

    ByElizabeth

    Do you ever stop to wonder about the ubiquitous, wildly patterned expanses of carpets at the big chain hotels?

    What might be the reasons for such carpets?
    1. The carpet designers all ingested some kind of substance that gave them visions?
    2. Patterns hide the dirt better than solids?
    3. The interior designer wanted to make sure that the hotel carpet could not possibly be like one you would have at home–thus giving some fantastical notion of the exotic?
    4. The hotel wanted to make sure that if your eyes glazed over during some conference that the swirling of the patterns could draw you into some entrancing meditative state that you would associate with visiting the hotel?

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    What a Good Murder Mystery Can Teach Us About Sadhana

    ByElizabeth

    Surely that’s what life was all about?  Opening doors and peering through them–perhaps even finding the rose gardens there… (Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho)

    The good murder mysteries — the ones that teach much about human nature and do not dwell graphically on gore and violence — can teach us much about the power of sadhana (yoga practice).  The best mysteries are ones in which the protagonist teaches us by his or her investigation into the mystery that with careful, steady discipline, the application of well-developed technique and study, consistent effort, and an openness to trust intuition tempered by discrimination, we can reveal to ourselves the truth of the matter.  The truth revealed is not just the identity, means, and motive of the murderer (mystery solved), but the knowledge of the extraordinariness of human being in all of its manifestations, both good and evil.

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    Samskara (and the awesome and the awful)

    ByElizabeth

    Those of you who have been attending my classes for the past couple of weeks already know that my overall theme for the fall session is cultivating a sense of wonder (abhuta). Feeling wonder is one aspect of the Anusara principle of “opening to grace.” It is seeing who we are and what we are within space and time with a sense of amazement at the limitations and the foibles, as well as the strengths and delights.

    This week I was thinking about abhuta in the context of samskara — the markings or grooves or scars in our being from how we have lived our lives (and perhaps past lives, if those were also lived by us — personally not sure about that). I had a dialogue earlier this week that resulted from over 110 years of combined history that was not optimal. Reflecting on the precipitating factors, though, and marveling at the web of history, environment, education, and action that combined to give rise to the conversation led me to a sense of wonder indeed. It is by cultivating the ability to step back and appreciate the wondrousness of the dance that we learn from a steady practice that, I think, can help make it possible to shift in how we behave and react to things.

    From a physical perspective, most of our challenges and difficulties are based on what we have done with and in our bodies over the course of our lives. We use the yoga alignment principles to create new grooves and to shift from the old repetitive patterns, so that we can not only alleviate pain and misalignment, but to expand the possibility of discovering ever more joy and wonder in and through our bodies and senses. Both the physical and meditation practices help us shift similar patterns (dissolve and transform samscaras and their impact), so that instead of deepening old grooves, we erase or dissolve them and create new life-enhancing ones.

    It may seem odd to marvel at our stuff, especially when it does not appear to be serving us, but keep in mind that both the awesome and the awful, being both all about awe, can give rise to a recognition of the great and exquisite mysteries of being.

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