I looked away from my colleague’s computer screen. Though I was still thinking about the topic at hand in the middle of a demanding day requiring much multitasking, there was still room. There was still room to stop and notice beauty in plain sight.
When I find myself wrestling with thought or emotion, it always helps to go look at art (when a walk in nature is not available). It the combination of walking and seeing that opens me and invites me to find more clarity and perspective.
What do you do for yourself (in addition to formal meditation and asana practice) when you need to get some perspective/deeper wisdom?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Last week, I used as a theme sukha — ease, comfort, happiness. I was inspired by Lorin Roche’s discussion of translating in his “version” of the Vijnana Bhairava, which he entitles “The Radiance Sutras.” In it he notes that “[e]ven more literally, sukha is (according to some etymologies) composed of su, good + kha, space. A good space.” At first blush, teaching about sukha might seem to be off-topic from my session theme of sequencing principles. The whole purpose, though, of seeking to understand, practice, and optimize our sequencing in time and space on and off the mat is to find just that. It is to be in a “good space,” to feel at ease, whether we are being challenged or delighted.
I found myself contemplating sukha yet further this week (it is a recurring practice and contemplation theme for me — I love Patanjali’s sutra “sthiram sukham asanam”), as I have been observing and helping the foster cats make mine their new home. When we are uprooted or out of alignment, we are not in a good space. It is a struggle to feel happy or at ease. When we find our rhythm again, then ease unfolds.
There is a set of principles that generally works for taking uprooted animals (or people) and helping them feel at home. Part of making them at home is their new person holding him/herself in a “good space” for the newcomers, which indeed helps them find their own, which is its own yoga.
The blessing of yoga for us, and why we take ourselves to challenging difficult places on the mat, is so that we can, by use of intelligent sequencing of practices, techniques, and mindsets, discover how to feel connected to our own spirit wherever we are in time and space — the essence of ease in this body and mind. The more we can do this for ourselves, the more we can do it for others.
As I walk around the neighborhood seeing all the pumpkins on stoops, like Proust with his madeleines, I remember the scent of roasting pumpkin seeds and the salty taste on my tongue, and I return to the place of my childhood. My mother wasn’t much for holidays, but she very much enjoyed arts and crafts projects. The jack-o-lantern, was something then that showed up when we were little kids. I don’t think there was ever a jack-o-lantern carved when we did not eat the seeds. Part of the project was cleaning the seeds, oiling a cookie sheet, spreading the seeds out on the sheet, salting them, and roasting them until golden, and then enjoying the seeds as a special salty treat. I think it unlikely she has decorated a pumpkin at home since I was in early elementary school, but if she were to do it now, in addition to roasting the pumpkin seeds, I am sure she would decorate the outside instead of cutting it into a jack-o-lantern, so that the pumpkin could also be used for soup or pie.
