June 10, 2010 G-town, CO
10:10:04 hours, MDT
10:10:04 hours, MDT
…continued hiker’s journal…
fr. Meditations from the Mat
Day 136
You must learn to be still in midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
Indira Gandhi
“For most of us, the asana are a long walk back. I spent years on the mat thinking this was not so for me, because as an athlete I had had a very physical past. As my practice has deepened, though, I’ve become aware that I have had to start where everyone starts, with my relationship to God, my body, and to everything else. The fear that separates me from myself, from God, and from others had separated me from my body as well.
“I realized the truth of this when I finally got to the point where my practice was no longer about results. As long as I was practicing to get somewhere, I was not able to understand where I was. For me, the breakthrough came while I was teaching, and watching my students struggle with this on their mats. As I taught others to become still, my teachings began to seep into my own awareness. I began to see that my practice was just another goal-driven exercise, and not what it was meant to be―the exploration of stillness in action.
“The long walk back has been about experiencing where I am. It’s about remembering my feet in a posture where my focus is elsewhere, learning to delight in the how and when as opposed to the why. The asana are a road map to our true natures. In T.E. White’s children’s classic The Once and Future King, Merlin educates the young Arthur by turning him into one creature after another, so that he may better understand the various aspects of his own nature. This is the journey of the asana. We learn to be calm and still in action, vibrantly alive in stillness”
At times here in the Central foothills of the Rocky Mtns. I sense the God; that this meditation instructs us to, allow in to our awareness.
At times I sense the stillness in repose as well, while walking along the narrow-gauge tracks as has become my habit at daybreak nearly every morning w/ Ellie-Mae.
You must learn to be still in midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
Indira Gandhi
“For most of us, the asana are a long walk back. I spent years on the mat thinking this was not so for me, because as an athlete I had had a very physical past. As my practice has deepened, though, I’ve become aware that I have had to start where everyone starts, with my relationship to God, my body, and to everything else. The fear that separates me from myself, from God, and from others had separated me from my body as well.
“I realized the truth of this when I finally got to the point where my practice was no longer about results. As long as I was practicing to get somewhere, I was not able to understand where I was. For me, the breakthrough came while I was teaching, and watching my students struggle with this on their mats. As I taught others to become still, my teachings began to seep into my own awareness. I began to see that my practice was just another goal-driven exercise, and not what it was meant to be―the exploration of stillness in action.
“The long walk back has been about experiencing where I am. It’s about remembering my feet in a posture where my focus is elsewhere, learning to delight in the how and when as opposed to the why. The asana are a road map to our true natures. In T.E. White’s children’s classic The Once and Future King, Merlin educates the young Arthur by turning him into one creature after another, so that he may better understand the various aspects of his own nature. This is the journey of the asana. We learn to be calm and still in action, vibrantly alive in stillness”
At times here in the Central foothills of the Rocky Mtns. I sense the God; that this meditation instructs us to, allow in to our awareness.
At times I sense the stillness in repose as well, while walking along the narrow-gauge tracks as has become my habit at daybreak nearly every morning w/ Ellie-Mae.
At times I sense remembering my feet when my focus is elsewhere. I try every time to walk heel-to-toe along one rail or the other. This balancing exercise is not about results as the meditation speaks to but about increasing my body’s awareness internally to remember where my feet are in-the-moment while I look out through my eyes slightly ahead to maintain my gaze.
I notice all the distractions present and it is becoming less of the struggle to allow the distractions to just be. While allowing these myriad distractions to be, i.e. the flitting bird, the insect or Ellie’s body up in front crossing my peripheral vision; my awareness returns again to my feet, my arches and the knees.
It is a lot similar to the job of hod-carrier I held for nearly 18 yrs. Walking a 2x10 or 2x12 plank or an eight quarter x 12 plank while carrying a shovel or bucket of mud or piece of scaffolding or arm load of brick was similar to this meditation― in that I practiced the knowingness―the remembering where my feet were, notwithstanding the distractions registered by my brain. I sense the presence of God not in the customer-service areas of my experience nor in most AA meetings nor at many churches, but in this practice that Rolf and Katrina speak to.
The energy in the body is arriving and after Kyle’s death, it, in my experience has been a shorter way back to myself, considering the shaking-up of my external world since.
Asana practice helps me to remember the simple exercise of bending to the ground to pick something up. This simple physical maneuver helps me to remember that going fast; stooping quickly for the retrieval― is not remembering where my feet are. It is the desire to, the wanting to, stretch the hamstrings and lower back muscle-web and slowly bend and at times extend my belly button and breathe in and allow for the air to fill the lungs all the way down to the navel and then ‘feeling’ the back elongate and the spine stretch― that in my humble opinion brings me back to the God discussed in this meditation.
It is so much more that the intellectual exercise and verbal acclamation that people seem to give through in their ablutions to describe the God that they tell us all about. In my opinion again, I do believe it is asana practice that brings us back to our selfs. And this journeying back seems to be with God.
Whatever God is, that is!
Smile my friends the end is not near!
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