Category Archives: Yoga Practice

The Drishti: Looking Out & Looking In

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Drawing of man's headA friend of mine is struggling in her relationship with her boyfriend.  They’ve been together for quite some time, but he’s feeling stuck and wants to move on.  He tells her that he’s in love with her, but then tells her that he needs to move out, to find his own place.  She’s getting all sorts of mixed messages, and she can’t help but vacillate between wanting him to stay or demanding that he just moves on.  

Either way, she feels hostage to his moods and to his indecisiveness.  She says, “I can’t really move forward in my life until he makes a decision.”

While not all of us have been in a position like this, we can all empathize with her. We’ve all experienced the sense that our happiness, security, or well-being was in the hands of someone or something outside of ourselves.  The problem my friend is stuck with is that she’s in a perspective that leaves her powerless.  All the power is in his hands.  Each time she feels elated or crushed by his next intended move on the chess board of their life together, she has no say.

A Profound Meditation on the Self

The recognition that we always have a say, however, is what is the essence of the practice of drishti in Ashtanga Yoga.  Mostly, when teachers discuss drishti, they talk about it as a way to keep the mind focused in the present moment. They describe the various gazing points as tools to keep the mind anchored in the present moment, much like the bandhas or the sound  of the ujjayi breath.  But it’s my sense that the drishti is so much more profound than this.  It’s really a meditation on waking up to where we direct our attention and how it effects our relationship to the Self.

The Windows of the Soul

You know the saying, “The eyes are the windows to the soul”?  When we say this, we think about looking into another’s eyes, but when we practice drishti during or Ashtanga practice, we’re looking through our own eyes and deep into our own souls.  Drishti, in the context of Ashtanga Yoga, is a form of sense withdrawal (pratyahara).  While we gaze at the tip of nose (nasagrai drishti) or the hand (hastagrai drishti), we’re not simply looking at objects, but we’re noticing the gazer that is gazing at them.

While the Sanskrit word, drishti, means to gaze, the drashtaa is the seer, and the drishya is the object that is seen or known.  So, for example, if we’re gazing at the tip of the nose (nasagrai drishti), the nose is the drishya, the capacity to gaze is the drishti, and the one that gazes is the drashtaa. The significance of this triad known in Sanskrit as triputi is that when we’re practicing the drishti, it isn’t exclusively the nose we’re really looking at.  Rather, it’s the whole phenomenon of the self (drashtaa)  looking (drishti) at the nose (drishya).  And so the nose is really a profound meditation into the questions: Who it is that is looking at the nose?  In short, the drishti is not just a point of concentration that keeps us focused outward, but an inquiry into the relationship of the seer within (drashtaa) and to the objects that define it.

Choose Your Gaze Wisely

As I shared the practice of drishti with my friend, she began to see that his indecisiveness was simply a stimulus that evoked feelings of pain and uncertainty that have always been with her and that were independent of him.  In addition, she could see that she wasn’t simply at the whim of his uncertainty but that by continuing to gaze (drishti) at his uncertainty (drishya), she (drashtaa) was choosing to suffer.  The most significant revelation she discovered through this practice was that by continuing to direct her attention toward his doubt, she didn’t have to be with her own regret and insecurity, as well as her wisdom and depth.  By waiting for his decision, she didn’t have to make one, herself.

Once she woke up to her role in his vacillation, she could be at choice.  She could ask the questions: Did she want to continue to put energy into and empower his vacillation?  What wounds did she need to handle that predated their relationship?  And did she want to continue to wait for him to decide to stay or go, or could she find a different path?

The practice of drishti allowed her to see she could be conscious of and at choice in where she focused her attention.  By focusing entirely on being held captive to his capriciousness, it left her uncertain, scared, and even sleepless.  But if she redirected the awareness on the greater learning this experience evoked in her, then she could actually use it to grow.  In addition, she recognized that by focusing on the negative in him, she only experienced pain and negativity within herself.  So she chose to redirect the focus of their conversation from what his next move will be to how they could consciously collaborate in designing a new relationship with one another.  All of this recognition simply occurred because she was able to recognize that her gaze, her drishti, didn’t just have an object that it was attached to.  On the other end was her, a subject, a soul, and a spirit very much at choice in terms of where she wanted to direct her gaze.

To me, that’s the power of drishti. It’s not just something you do when you’re practicing asana.  If we consider all of life “the practice,” then we can start to wake up to where we’re focusing our attention.  Do we point it in directions that feed us and remind us of the rapture, wonder, and mystery that we are? Or do we point it at situations, people, and things that suck us dry and leave us with a sense of our impotence?  Mastering drishti is a life-long endeavor because it’s really the development of the capacity to wake up to both what we see, what it tells us about ourselves, and what choices we want to make, as a result.  And so next time you’re in downward dog, gazing in the direction of your navel, begin this profound inquiry by asking yourself, “Who is it that’s gazing?”

 

Ashtanga Yoga: The Tradition and The Dogma

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A few days ago, while a student was coming up from backbends, I noticed that she was breathless and grimacing.  I asked her what was up.  She said that her previous Ashtanga teacher encouraged her to move through the series of movements quickly.  She described how the rapid movement agitated her. Dropping into a backbend and coming back to standing is traditionally taught: exhale go down, inhale come up, and the movement is repeated three times with no pauses in between. As a teacher of this tradition, I was immediately stuck with a quandary.  Do I ask her to keep the traditional vinyasa count, thus, honoring the tradition but compromising her well-being, or do I offer her an alternative route?

This is a classic situation that comes up in practice, both as a student of the tradition and as a teacher.  Do I uphold the tradition or honor the well-being of my student?  I think it’s obvious that my students’ well-being has to come first over the tradition, but in honoring the tradition, it can become a very slippery slope between letting go completely and gripping with a quality of rigidity.  In many ways, as a teacher and practitioner in and from The West, the dance of honoring tradition and the individual, at the same time, can be a challenging one.  How do we not lose the essence of the tradition and, at the same time, fit the practice to the individual?

‘Correct Method’ / ‘Incorrect Method’

I, personally, have struggled with this question for quite some time, probably since the first day I showed up in Mysore in 1993 and discovered that in order to bind my legs in a lotus posture (padmasasna), I had to dislocate the meniscus.  Each time I believe I have struck the perfect balance, I find that I have either become too rigid in a particular situation or way too ‘wishy-washy.’  Admittedly, I err on the side of ‘wishy-washy.’  Something about my personal makeup hates imposing right and wrong on my students.  And so much of following the tradition is about right and wrong.  There’s a right way to do the sequence and there’s a wrong way.  Throughout the years of being a student of Pattabhi Jois’, I heard the words “correct method” and “incorrect method.”

Yoga That Transcends Duality

And somehow, in my mind, a good and powerful system of yoga should and must transcend all duality.  Yoga is, after all, about the union of those opposing forces, masculine and feminine, right and wrong, evil and righteous.  In the language of The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, we’re balancing and harmonizing the solar and lunar energies within the left and right tubes or nadis of the subtle body that feed the energy vortexes, called chakras, in order to evoke or stimulate the sushumna, the central channel within the subtle body of the spinal column.  This is an energetic code for the experience of the transcendental experience that occurs when masculine and feminine, right and wrong, good and bad have been harmonized.  It’s a way of saying that a deeper, wider, and more profound reality exists beyond the bounds of duality.  In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says that posture should be “steady and comfortable.” (2:46) “It results with relaxation of effort and the meeting with the infinite.”

Fighting through a posture just because the tradition demands us to do it in a particular way takes us further and further away from the essence of yoga.  And I think that this is where, as teachers and practitioners of any system that comes from a different culture–whether it is yoga or Zen— we need to maintain a critical eye.  It doesn’t behoove us or our students to fall into the trap of saying, “because that’s just the way it is.”  It’s simply the way it is as determined by the elite within the system that we’re in, whether it is the charismatic teacher or the agreement of the masses within the system.

Drawing the Line: Tradition vs. Individual Needs

But here’s where the dance gets interesting.  Where do we draw the line between honoring the system our teacher shares with us and yet remain flexible enough to honor our individuality?  I remember having this same conversation with an Orthodox Jew over a meal many years ago.  I asked her why she followed all 613 commandments with such stringency.  Her deadpan response was: “What am I going to do, follow 400 and then drop the other 213?  That’s a slippery slope.  Who am I decide?  That’s in Ha Shem’s [trans. The Name, which is code for God] hands.”     If we were to follow the Ashtanga tradition with the same stringency, then  men could only have sex during the nighttime. Not only that, if “the breath is felt to be moving through the surya nadi [the right nostril], then that is to be regarded as the daytime, and during that period, copulation and the like are not to occur.” (p. 10, Yoga Mala, P. Jois)

Yoga Practice As a Metaphor

The problem, as I see it, is that we’re facing the issue of a literal reading, as opposed to a metaphorical reading of “the practice.” Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, says that myth and the ritual that accompanies it: “ denotes something transcendent…so that you always feel accord with the universal being.”  Myth uses metaphor to denote one kind of object or idea but used in place of another to suggest a likeness. When we fall into the trap of reading myth or ritual and its accompanying symbols literally, we miss the deeper, wider, and higher spiritual implications that they have the potential to put us in touch with.  All ritual–including the practice of Ashtanga Yoga with its precise vinyasas, victorious breathing (ujayi), internal locks (bandhas), and gazing points (dristis)—are pointing to an inner experience, to fields of consciousness that reflect our inner most being.  However, in the practice of Ashtanga, we often mistake the literal for the metaphorical; the form for the formless; the act for the way of being that that act is pointing to.

When I reflect on almost twenty years of practice, it seems to me that there have been periods of time when I’ve gotten stuck in the literal. I have, at times, been lured by the trajectory of progressing from the primary series, to intermediate, and then, eventually to the advanced series. Early on as a neophyte practitioner, I’d even hoped that as I advanced along the series, somehow life would take on a new shine, that samadhi was right around the corner.  But this approach led to nothing more than physical feats that contortionists from Cirque du Soleil do much better than I ever could.

The Trap of Focusing on ‘Correct Method’ and ‘Incorrect Method’

Really, what I discovered was that “correct method” and “incorrect method” really missed the point and only calcified and petrified aspects of my psyche that needed the light of consciousness.  After all, as a young man of nineteen years old, I came to the practice with the hopes of being more connected to something greater, to overcome feelings of smallness, fear, and grief.  But as I progressed along the path laid out for me, instead of becoming more spacious, more connected, my orientation became focused on doing it “correctly.”  I got stuck in a myopic vision of the path of yoga being about attainment of some image of perfection.  In essence, my practice became another place where I had to struggle.

Oh, and what a mistake that was because it lead me away from the essence of the practice.  I mistook the tools at my disposal–like the postures (asanas) or the internal locks (bandhas)–as the path.  In other words, instead of using these points of focus as metaphors that pointed to more profound states of consciousness, I read them literally and used them to be “good,” so that my teachers and the community of yogis would recognize and like me. In addition, my practice, at times, became purely physical.

What Mula Bandha Can Show Us

If, for example, I performed the root lock (mula bandha) throughout the practice, I told myself that I would be able to jump back and jump through with greater ease. Indeed, the engagement of the core muscles does increase strength and agility.  But that literal reading kept that act of yoga simply a bodily feat.  Mula bandha, can also be read metaphorically.  Its magic isn’t just in the physical mastery of it.  Its magic also lies in where it points consciousness. Given that it is at the base of the body, it points us in the direction of the earth, the part of us that is earth element.  Engaging mula bandha might remind the yogi to be connected to the earth no matter how contorted life becomes.  In addition, mula bandha might encourage us that while consciousness has a propensity to disconnect, that the path of the yogi is to stay in form, to use the body as a tool to experience both inner and outer fields of consciousness.  Mula bandha itself might be a meditation into the root of our being, who we are at the most base level: the part of us that is simply a tube eating, digesting, and defecating.

The essence of what I am saying is that as teachers and practitioners of this method, when we get too literal with the practice, we miss the deeper inquiry that the practice offers us.  If it becomes about progressing along the series, doing it “correctly”, only doing it the way it’s done in Mysore, etc. then the depth and breadth that is the promise of yoga might never be tasted or known.  Honestly, having been down that road, I can say with certainty, there is no pot of gold at the end of the primary, intermediate or advanced series, nor is there any great boon from doing it “correctly” or even “traditionally.”

Why Do You Practice?

I like what Cambell says about what we’re after in life.  “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” (Campbell, J, The Power of Myth, 1998, episode 2, chapter 4, PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video) Some may dispute this, but I, personally, sense that the essence of practice is to access this aliveness.  Nobody and no system has a better clue about how to do that than we, personally.  It helps to try out lots of different tools and stick to the systems and teachers that offer them, but in the end, each of us has to become the final arbiter.  We have to have the courage to ask ourselves, does this resonate?  Is it bringing me closer to truth?  Is it deepening my consciousness?  And if the answer is, “no,” and it doesn’t jibe with the tradition or the teacher, we have to be courageous enough to stand on our own and to continue to seek and discover an access points that do.

A Call To Action…

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Since the New Year I’ve been thinking a lot about intention and motivation and what it takes for us to truly make our lives happen.  In the days leading up to the first of the year there’s a lot of energy around making changes and shifting gears in order to have a better year than the one before.  We spend time crafting new years rituals and intention circles with great hope that this will be the year that all things desired are made manifest.   I suppose this is quite natural.  We see a new beginning and in this, the possibility and potential of living the life we have always wanted. It seems simple enough, right?  Say you’re going to do something and do it.  So why, then, is it so hard for us to stick to these very things that we know will make us live happier, healthier, and more balanced lives?

I began to think of my own life and what motivates me. Don’t get me wrong, I often break commitments to myself and I let myself down all the time.  But my most obvious commitment, and the one that I just can’t shake (and I have tried) is the one I have to my yoga practice.  As you know, this practice is not for the faint of heart.  It’s demanding of body, mind, and spirit and can sometimes be the very thing I most resent.  Although my relationship to it has changed over the years, my commitment has been unwavering.  Even as I write this I can feel my heart and belly resonate with a feeling of rightness. It is a profound sense of knowing that I can’t explain with my intellect. It is this feeling that I can feel, right now, percolating from deep within, that gets me onto my mat each morning.  For me, it’s my passionate, heartfelt, longing to know myself authentically and my experience of how my practice supports this longing that pulls me out of bed, especially on those days when it feels like I have nothing left.  This doesn’t mean that it’s easy or that I’m always enthusiastic.  But it is the sacred promise I made to myself and the fact that breaking that promise leaves me feeling dull and dis-connected that literally fuels me from the inside and keeps me on track in those times when everything else in me could care less.

In Yoga this deep resolve is known in Sanskrit as Sankalpa and it is a very powerful method of directing our lives in a positive, affirming way.  Sankalpa can be translated as a willful determination to become something or to do something with your life.  It’s an intense passionate desire that is felt with the entire mind, body, and soul.  It is not something that can easily be forgotten but rather, something that lives so deep inside your cells that it remembers you. All is takes is a quiet moment with ourselves so we can clear our minds and connect to our deepest truths.

Many of us make intellectual resolves all year round that often get lost and rarely lead us toward lasting change.  This is because these resolves are not planted deeply enough within us.  They have not entered into the subconscious mind and have not been backed up with deeply ingrained willpower and fierce commitment.  Like with anything in life, effort and right action are necessary for our desires to be made possible. Yoga is a path of action and Sankalpa calls forth action. If we are clear about what we want and we approach it with strong feeling and commitment, we will begin to feel the mind become more structured and our lives become an expression of what our heart’s most deeply desire.

 

Sthira Sukham Asanam

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As a committed practitioner of the Ashtanga system of yoga for almost 20 years, I have certainly experienced my fair share of physical pain and injury.  Over time I have come to understand that my injuries have allowed me to find depth and strength in my body and in myself. Ultimately this physical pain brought me into a more intimate understanding of who I am and how to best support myself, on and off the mat,

In my early days of Ashtanga, my practice revealed a weakness in my lower back that persisted for many years. Sometimes it would be a dull ache and other times the pain was so excruciating that I could barely walk, never mind practice asana.  What a devastating feeling this was as now my whole life centered around yoga practice.  I felt like my body was betraying me and that the practice couldn’t support me.

Despite the pain I continued to practice, ignoring the body’s signals hoping that I could move through this weakness and” get on” with things.  My ego mind was saying one thing and my body was screaming another. I saw my back pain, and ultimately my body, as an obstacle in the way of my path.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali offers us the opportunity to look at all symptoms, all physical pain, as areas of weakness that need attention and one-pointed perseverance to understand and ultimately overcome.  Here, he is reminding us to go into our pain or discomfort and to use it as an access point to better know the self. Patanjali invites us to meet all that arises, not as an obstacle, but as a messenger that alerts us to a new discovery about ourselves and names persistent practice as the means to getting there.

Patanjali describes asana as “steady, comfortable, and relaxed” and states that the yogi should be able to hold the body in posture for a long period of time without feeling instability.  This is the ultimate goal of asana practice but it doesn’t happen overnight and few of us get there without meeting some challenges along the way.  We inevitably will run into those parts of ourselves, physical, mental, or emotional, that are weak, compromised, or asleep.  Finding stability, comfort, and ease in posture takes time, commitment, and perseverance.  It requires us to accept exactly where we are before we slowly, through consistent and persistent practice, open to a deeper potential. If we push through injury or painful sensation we are acting violently towards ourselves, causing further damage to the physical structure and further disturbance to the mind.  This is not Yoga.

For me, in the beginning, my physical pain did become an obstacle in the sense that it got “in the way” of practice as I knew it.  I could no longer go on auto-pilot and just perform asana.  I had to be willing to find new ways to connect to my body that supported my particular areas of weakness.  Some mornings I did the traditional practice with full vinyasa and deep back bending, while other mornings I was lucky to make it through a modified version of the sun salutations. I found this initially, very difficult, mostly for my ego and due to my belief of how things were supposed to be.   Over time I came to I realize that my practice had deepened and transformed and had become more focused and fulfilling.  And slowly, my pain subsided, and my back got stronger. My pain and physical limitation forced me to take a very deep look at my practice, my body and my approach to both.   Ultimately I was led to a deep understanding of how to best meet myself, in practice and in life.

When we are willing to listen to the body’s signals physical pain and injury can help teach us how to most intelligently approach our bodies, our practice, and our lives.

If Yoga is, in its essence, the awakening to the inner reality of our being, than everything we encounter along our path is a messenger that brings us back to a deeper understanding of who we are. So stay interested and curious.   Be willing to face all you encounter.  Modify as necessary but never stop practicing.

As Gurujii always said:. “ Slowly, slowly…Do your practice…and all is coming.”

Practicing All Eight Limbs…At the Same Time

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Ashtanga Yoga is not an Indian form of calisthenics or gymnastics.  It is an eight-limbed path. The word Ashtanga comes from a text dating somewhere between the 4th and 1st centuries, B.C.E., called The Yoga Sutras.  The Sutras–as they are affectionately known by yogis– are arguably the most important ‘how-to’ compilation of terse statements about yoga for yogis.  The word Ashtanga  means eight limbs (ashto- eight; anga- limb).  Ashtanga yogis don’t just practice the second two limbs of this eight limbed path, asana and pranayama. They practice all of them…at the same time.  They practice the first two limbs, yamas and niyamas, which are basically ‘do’s and don’ts.’  They’re the yogis version of the Ten Commandments.  The fifth limb, pratyahara, is translated as ‘the withdrawal of the senses.’  The last three limbs, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi, are gradations of the various levels of absorption or concentration that can occur when we practice.

The tradition my co-teacher, Devorah Sacks, and I come from has a unique spin on this eight-limbed path.  As students of the renowned yoga master from Mysore, India, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, we’ve been taught that all we need to do is to work on asana and pranayama, and the rest of the limbs naturally and spontaneously will follow.  But that’s not to say we are to ignore the other six-limbs.  Rather, the other limbs are to be considered benchmarks that give us direct feedback on the quality of intention we bring to our practice.

Getting Fit and Chilling Out

As a long-term teacher of Ashtanga Yoga, I’ve come to recognize that most people don’t come to practice in order to have a deeper connection with the yamas and niyamas. They come either to get fit or to ‘chill out.’ This is usually the first aspiration that shows up on the mat. If the new student is persistent and continues to practice through the initial phase of soreness, stiffness, and the difficulty of waking up in the early morning to get on her mat, she will more often than not begin to wonder about the philosophical aspects of the practice.

I cannot say for certain what it is about practicing breath and posture that elicits this curiosity, but I do know for certain that at least 80% of the students I have taught make it past the initial stage of just wanting to get strong and flexible. That initial aspiration doesn’t go away altogether. It just becomes obvious that the goal of yoga is much wider and broader than originally perceived.

How the Eight Limbs Work Together

Within the yoga that Jois taught, the eight limbs do not follow a linear sequence. In other words, we’re not taught to master the first limb before moving on to the next limbs. 1 In this tradition, the first two limbs, yamas and niyamas spontaneously arise out of the steady and continuous practice of asana and pranayama. Jois used to say that when the body and mind were cleansed of impurities, that following these rules was easy, natural, and obvious. And when the mind and body were gummed up with negativity and illness, to follow yamas and niyamas put the yogi at odds with herself and only created more tension.

And according to Jois, the last four limbs—which are, essentially, deeper levels of introspection, attention, and meditation—cannot be practiced. They arise spontaneously from the steady practice of the first four limbs. In other words, meditation cannot be practiced, according to this tradition. It just naturally grows from the continuous practice of breath work, posture, and the observance of certain morals and mores.

Focus on Asana and Pranayama And All Is Coming

Here’s the bottom line: essentially, Jois is saying is that all we need to do is to just practice asana and pranayama and the rest of the limbs follow spontaneously and naturally.  By the way, his teacher, Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is really the grandfather of modern yoga, said the same thing. So this isn’t idiosyncratic to Jois’ tradition. This is what all Krishnamacharya’s well-known students, including B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Indra Devi, A.G. Mohan, and Srivatsa Ramaswami, basically teach and taught.

Meditation Happens

If you look at this closely, it’s a pretty far-out idea.  The tradition is saying that you cannot do meditation. Meditation cannot be done. Meditation just comes. It’s like that William Blake quote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is – infinite.”  So, as yogis, it is our job to cleanse the doors of perception through the continuous, steady practice of asana and pranayama. In fact, that is all we really have the power to do anything about. And so at the heart of the practice of yoga, we’re just cleansing and clearing away what’s in the way. Once cleared, the goal of yoga naturally and spontaneously occurs.

What’s the Point of the Other Six Limbs?

So why even mention the eight limbs if all we can really do are asana and pranayama? The limbs are signposts along the journey. They’re there to let you know about the quality of your aspiration and intention in your asana and pranayama practices. In other words, if you take away the other six limbs, and all you had were the asana and pranayama, it wouldn’t be altogether clear where the journey of yoga were taking us. But given the fact that introspection, attention, and meditation “should” naturally arise along the path of yoga, if they’re not, it’s a good indicator that there is something askew with the way we’re approaching our practices. Likewise, if the yamas and niyamas become more obscure to us and more difficult to practice along the path, then that, too, is an indicator that our practice is not, in fact, supporting our transformation.

Notes:

  1. I don’t doubt, however, that historically, there were schools of yoga in which that was how the practice was taught.  Neophytes probably needed to prove themselves before the deeper, more introspective practices were taught. ↩

Who’s Practicing?

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I often ask myself this question as I’m on my mat, sweating, sometimes dragging myself through my yoga practice.  I wish I could say that I rush to my mat each morning with vigor and enthusiasm, eager to ‘meet’ myself and all that practice forces me to face.  To be honest, sometimes I would rather do almost anything else other than show up for practice yet, there I find myself, rolling out my mat, and practicing.   In fact, it is precisely those mornings that I’m full up with angst or negativity that I know will end up being the deepest and most healing.

By asking myself the question, “who’s practicing”, I have the opportunity to get some space, out of the way of myself, and of the many grapplings of my ego mind.  The inquiry invites me to step away from the present thought or emotion that is taking over the moment and to step back into a space of vast, openness that is untouched by the chaos of my mind.  It reminds me of the ground of well-being that is always present, no matter what.

The mind moves towards whatever thoughts, feelings or emotions are present.  It’s conditioned to do so.  If we stay overly identified with our mind-stuff, the lens we view the world through gets too narrow and tainted by all of the vrittis (movements).   If we can remember, in the midst of the chaos, to step out of the way of whatever has a hold over us, the lens gets wider and perspective shifts.  The noise of our minds gets quieter (and eventually less interesting) and the boundless, spacious, purity of the background shines through, giving us a glimpse of Who we truly are.

My mind easily gets twisted up with anger, tiredness, laziness, grief, anxiety, you name it, I’ve got it.   If I stayed identified with any one of these emotions I may not even get out of bed in the morning let alone attempt my yoga practice.  So, each day, with every practice, I inquire, “who’s practicing?” and, slowly, slowly the feeling of spaciousness widens and the radiance brightens.  And the feeling of grace lingers just a little longer.

When I remember to pause and inquire into the nature of this “I” that is involved in all of the doing, I meet the unchanging, welcoming, perfection that has always been here and that will forever be.