Thoughts
This page is really just a collection of musings, thoughts and ideas based on my personal practice.
8th April 2008
I've been spending some time reflecting on the qualities that one tries to develop on the path of Yoga, and how as humans we often fall short of the ideals. How each of us, in our human experience, carries the sort of pain that our friend Vasco is sitting on in the picture below.
The sutras suggest that it is wholesome to turn these feelings around, but how can we do this? Sometimes it's not possible turn it around in the conventional sense - make it positive, to find the blessing. And really, why should we? I think that part of our Yogic path is to hold and embrace these feelings in all their fullness and beauty.
When we start out on our Yoga journey we feel bright, enengised and totally alive from our practice. It's easy to get attached to this, to always expect it. Sometimes, what we are left facing is an enormous hole, sadness, pain or un-resolved hurt. Rather then avoiding it or acting out on it, how beautiful to go with the idea of simply sitting on top of it...
"Dear Mr Curley, my heart is heavy with a great sadness. It feels like such an old, old sadness - so full and still and beautiful; so painful. I want to be with it. I want to stay here and become like it.
With love, Vasco
PS. It feels sort of 'well rounded' too"
From experience, when we sit with ourselves and allow these hurts to be here, now, as dark and ugly as they might at first seam, they do become part of us, as Vasco says to "become like it". When we welcome our pains into awareness, they are often birthed into light - it's not a conscious turning around of out feelings but a very active allowing of the shadow to have it's place too. One of my favorite writers and Yogic inspirations, Richard Miller explains that "What we resist persists, what we own we transcend"
So here's to sitting on your well rounded pain and seeing what happens.
July 2008
In Sanskrit, Pratipaksha Bhavana means to turn things around. In the Yoga Sutras Pantanjali suggests that "When negative thoughts and emotions disturb us, it is wholesome to contemplate their opposites"
This fried my head for some months! I used to be a big fan of the Positive thinking Movement until I realised that this is just one side of the coin. "but shouldn't we be practicing being neutral in our mind?" I thought, "Is this not the essential quality of awareness? Non- judgmental watching?"
I think that Patanjali is suggesting that we can balance out those negative perceptions, not to make them positive but to find and pair their opposites.
The pairing of opposites is part of Yoga Nidra practice. This is and extrodinary and powerful technique. By balancing our perceptions we come to a peaceful, centred and calm place. Very simple; the best things always are.
August 2008
I've just returned from spending some days practicing mindfulness with Thich Nhat Hanh
Thay (as his devotees call him) is a gifted teacher and a tender and sweet man. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and sopken highly of by the likes of the Deli Lama and the late Martin Luther King.
On retreat, he spent time describing how, through experience and perception (rightly or wrongly) we store Vriti's or mental formations in our unconscious mind. Our tendency as human beings is to always seek pleasure and to avoid pain. Over time negative impressions, emotions and feelings build in our unconscious and we naturally do everything that we can to avoid feeling them.
The gift of mindfulness, or awareness, is that we learn to be with our pains, not acting out or suppressing them. Just to invite them in as an old friend, to welcome them and get to know the. This process helps to ease their intensity, and helps us on the journey towards inner peace.
You could see this idea as turning straw into gold, or how the Lotus Flower blossoms from the mud beneath it. The light of compassionate awareness leads to trasnformation, or "The Lotus Of Compassion" as Thay would say.
Thanks Thay, I bow to you in an awkward "I'm not really a Buddhist and this is all a bit wierd" kind of a way...
