For those of you who don't know, I'm back in Mysore. I need practice and at this point in my life, Mysore is the place I need to do it. I'm also doing another teacher training with Vijay, the group is really great, we're having lots of fun and of course we get to spend more time with Vijay, whom we all adore!
I've been listening to some Michael Stone this morning and there were some points he made in his dharma talk which resonated with me. I've spoken before about the stories we tell ourselves in our practice and also in our daily lives, where we say we can't do something and use this and that reason not to do something...whether it be a posture, a chore at home, leaving your job, moving house, etc etc... We tend to speak before we think, but if we spend time analysing these stories or our reasons, then they generally pail into insignificance and what we are left with is no reason.
So my practice this time around is at 5:15am which seems to be a lovely time to practice. I go through my sequence hardly thinking, sometimes afterwards I even get home and can't remember getting up, going to the shala and doing it! The mind seems to be in the perfect state of ease at this hours. Practicing at 7:30 I had far more time for the mind to wake up fully and activate the sense organs. This is when the stories come... thinking about my practice, the postures I found hard, did I have enough energy today, when will I ever be able to jump through without touching the floor etc. These were then with me throughout my practice and what a surprise, I held onto them and had a shit practice. Stop the desire to create an over-arching
viewpoint as you will then fit your day into this viewpoint.
Little parts of these viewpoints begin to
breakdown through meditation; through concentration on them and analysis of them.
Someone once told me that I saw everything in black and white and I needed to find the 'grey areas'. It's always been a challenge for me! Sometimes I have it and sometimes I don't and it's a constant battle, (actually I am not going to call it a battle as I am trying to practice ahimsa and to battle with oneself is bad and acceptance of what is is better)! If you are too pure you become to aware of yourself and eveything's then about 'you'. You
can become too obsessed with your diet and become too obsessed with yourself.
That way of perceiving actually affects the what the food then does inside the body. The same goes for your practice. Then you spend the whole day thinking about self. The same goes for your practice. Be careful about ideas of
purity.
Postures do not have an end point, in a linear, materialistic kind of way. The body ages and so the practice is always going to change. The practice does not deepen through adding on more and more postures. Take what you know already and go deeper in them. Tune in to what you know already.
It's sometimes difficult not to have a dualistic viewpoint of practice and life. Like yoga is the stuff you do on the mat, or meditation is something you do when you sit. Do the practice right in the heart of your
work. I love this way of thinking and it is making me excited about getting back to a 'normal' life and 'regular' job!! (This may or may not happen and I completely accept that!) Do not have a dualistic view, or separate of the practice and your daily
life. You do not need to look outside, you already have everything you need!
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