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A Happy Life is an Engaged Life (and Sadhana)
I have spent most of my life practicing one thing or the other. What attracts me about practicing in the sense of complete absorption that it brings. For a time, the absorption can be enough. Ultimately, though, the absorption should bring joy. I do not really think that it matters what it is that one is practicing as long as steady engagement brings a sense of inner peace and bliss that enables one to be kinder and to offer service in some way. I have quit some things along the way either because the practice did not bring enough joy or fulfillment or the practice was detrimental to my nature.
I know yoga and meditation are the right for me at this point in my life because sadhana (practice) continues to brings me ever increasing delight. I do not think of practice as work (though sometimes I need to use some self-discipline to remind myself to practice), but as an invitation to greater depth and understanding of not only the practice, but myself.
I have friends for whom the right practice is not yoga, but something else — a visual art, music, law. It is not what one does, but how one does it, and whether it brings a sense of fullness to life, a satisfaction with the engagement in the doing, rather than in what the doing achieves.
Shadow and Light
How curious that the shadow makes the open shape of the wire look twisted.

Overheard on the Subway Back from Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training
“I realize that often I don’t listen,” said one young woman to her friend. “So I started winding a pipe cleaner around my finger.”
“A pipe cleaner?!” responded her friend.
“Yes. A pipe cleaner. When I realize I’m not paying attention I touch it, and that helps me listen.”
To myself, I thought, “well, if it works for her, although perhaps at some point she can just notice and would no longer need the pipe cleaner.”
And then the next morning, among the things I saw discarded on my walk–a rather fancy pipe cleaner.




