I love what this article says about attachment. It's not just in yoga practice, but also in things that shows up in daily life. In regards to my yoga practice, I've been finding that there are certain poses that are difficult now. I get agitated over this, but I keep going. I acknowledge why I feel agitated and then it moves through me and I continue with the practice.
Since a big shift has happened in my life, I've been wanting to find more time for yoga practice and also "me practice." The "me practice" is not just yoga, but other mindfulness-based practices that I've picked up over the years in my various trainings. I want to embrace each moment when things come up for me, no matter how scary it may be. It's a way of being. It is what is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(From Yoga Journal Daily Insight)
As the Buddha said, impermanence is the nature of the human condition. This is a truth we know in our minds but tend to resist in our hearts. Change happens all around us, all the time, yet we long for the predictable, the consistent. We want the reassurance that comes from things remaining the same. Yoga philosophy offers an alternative to these tendencies. It is to embrace the powerful truth: the power of living in the unchanging, eternal present.
We can even look to our yoga mat to watch the attachment pattern play itself out. We often find ourselves attached to a never-ending process of "improvement" in our asanas. They do improve quickly at first—in the beginning, we are on a honeymoon of discovery; we grow by leaps and bounds in ability and understanding. After a couple of decades, however, our poses change much less. Oftentimes, we can no longer practice certain poses because of age or injury, yet we feel agitated because we assume that the poses of our youth should be the poses of our middle and old age.
What gives life its juice is the ability to mourn anything fully and simultaneously know it doesn't ultimately matter. In other words, we can live to the fullest when we recognize that our suffering is based not on the fact of impermanence but rather on our reaction to that impermanence.
After the Laundry, the Laundry |
 |
Polishing the Mirror |
No comments:
Post a Comment