Signs Around Town
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A Good Week for Sadhana
This morning, when I was reviewing in my head some of the meetings and other work matters upcoming this week, I thought, “what a good time to practice all the things I have been studying.”
It felt like progress to think that and then notice my first thought was not, “this week is going to be awful,” or even, “this week is going to be challenging,” instead of thinking the latter and reminding myself of the former.
And having a homemade popsicle after a long day certainly helps make this heat wave more enjoyable.
Lime, cucumber, mint popsicle (cucumber and mint from the garden)
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Wonder Here at Home
I have been pining for a great adventure that would crack open my heart and remind me of the exalted.
A look at the sky as I did errands in the middle of my work day reminded me that all we need to find that ecstatic sense of awe is to be open to it right where we are.
The sadhana is to stay filled with awe as we do our work and chores, no matter how prosaic or stressful. Easier said than done, but worth every bit of effort (tapas).
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Signs Around Town
If we just mouth words or put them on our walls, then they are little more than the happy platitudes all too prevalent in marketing yoga and just about everything else.
But if we use such words as reminders to grow and engage, then they are very much more.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Meditation
State of the Garden
One of the key teachings about yoga sadhana (practice) is that results best or sometimes only can possibly come with steady commitment for a long period of time.
The red maple in my front garden (really more of a giant tree box) was barely the height of the porch roof when I bought my house. Now, almost 25 years later, it is as tall as the house. And even more stunningly, blazingly, Kali-like red every fall.
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Found Exhortation (and Sadhana)
Have you done your practice (in Sanskrit–sadhana) today, whatever your practice may be?
If you don’t yet have a regular practice, what do you think it would take? I recommend starting small–allow it to be short and what you like to practice, rather than failing because you think it must be challenging or for a longer period of time than fits readily into your schedule.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Found Exhortation
A number of years ago I had a conversation with a cherished friend and co-worker who is no longer in this body. I was explaining to her the yoga practice of samtosha (contentment), which is one of the five niyamas that make up the second limb of the eight-limbed path of yoga set forth in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. My friend said it felt like a great revelation to think of contentment as a practice. She had thought of it as a state you were either lucky enough to have — or not.
Many states or characteristics or attitudes that we tend to think of as only being innate characteristics or good fortune can be cultivated.
Wearing an exhortation on a t-shirt might not necessarily be my style, but I do agree kindness is worthy of cultivation when it does not happen spontaneously.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Mantra
The texts on sadhana — yoga practice — say in simplified essence that mantra is the fulcrum between the unknowable universal and manifest particulars. What language we use and how we use it can either lead us towards skillfully navigating life informed by illuminated understanding or blundering through things with obscured vision (or, I add, somewhere in between, but which do you want to be your goal?). If you listen for your authentic voice, what words do you want to utter, which do you want to embody, which do you want to offer? The mantra is a tool (in the best sense of the word) to find a source for our own language (thought and spoken) that recognizes the common bond of dwelling together as neighbors (near or far) on this earth, in this universe.
New York City, June 13-14
