Signs Around Town
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A Day to Myself
Last week, when I said to a colleague, “see you Tuesday,” she replied, “where are you going?” It was as if simply to enjoy where I live or rest or quietly take care of house and garden was not within the range of possibility. Is it that I am somehow not worthy if I have not planned to do something I could talk about when I returned to the office? Or is it that pervasive societal sense that happiness lies only in finding new and more experience?I think that it is important to have episodic time away from doing. I used to get sick when I’d been running around non-stop with work and errands and exploration, etc. Now I try to take some quiet time at decent intervals. It does not need to be a full day. Just a couple of solid hours without engaging in a planned activity every couple of weeks makes all the difference in my mood, my health, and the quality of my work.
Beginner’s Mind
The other day I was doing a computer search on contact improv jams in the Bay Area to see if it was possible to fit one in during my upcoming vacation in San Francisco.
The website for one of the jams said for a class that preceded the weekly jam that beginners and advanced practitioners with a beginner’s mind were welcome. I loved that statement.
The idea of beginner’s mind is one that is mentioned often in the yoga world and was taught as an integral part of the principle of “opening to grace” in the Anusara system.
What I think is meant by practicing or bringing to the mat or to the dance a beginner’s mind is approaching each practice, every step, every pose, every aspect of alignment and technique with wonder, openness, and an ever-growing willingness to learn.
When we are new to a practice or a style, discovering our own capacity to express and experience the form is exciting, as is a growing mastery of body and mind in the language of the form.
Being advanced, though, is not just about physical or intellectual prowess. It is about developing a nuanced relationship between ourselves, the practices, and our fellow practitioners. Being freshly open to new insight and learning even from beginners helps us deepen our practice and experience ever greater enjoyment (bhoga).
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Signs Around Town (and Dharma)
We tend to think of giving our lives in terms of willingness to die, but is not any life lived in accordance with dharma a life dedicated to the service of what is greater, one in which we abandon gratification for aligning with a higher purpose?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
