In yoga practice you can do this by dividing your
experience into incremental breaths and taking care of only that which arises in
one breath cycle and no more. In this way almost any difficulty becomes
manageable. Rather than focusing on how much further you wish you could go, or
comparing your meager efforts with those of someone who is more adept, you can
choose to focus on what you are accomplishing in each breath. Maybe today you
open your hip five millimeters farther, or you manage to sit comfortably in
meditation for the first time. As you investigate the tightness around your hip
you discover ways to release it; as you sit for five more minutes you discover
that those "urgent" matters were really not so urgent. It is only through these
tiny, slow, and progressive openings that deep, profound change occurs. It is
your choice to take pleasure in these small awakenings or to disregard your efforts as insignificant in the face
of how much further you have to go. You can choose to have a sense of humor
about your dilemma or fester in negativity. Whom would you like to garden
with?
When we make practice a joyful time, it is also
much more likely that we are growing more
deeply within our spiritual life. When we get hooked into striving toward where
we think we should be and how far we ought to be able to go, in truth we are
somewhere else all the time. We are in our fantasy, our ideas, our concepts, and
our judgments. There's not much room in there to perceive and appreciate what's
actually happening. Even when we feel pain, even when we face great difficulty,
we can take refuge in our practice. There will inevitably be times when progress
is slow, when injury or illness or life circumstances limit our ability to do
the outward forms. But this doesn't limit our ability to plumb the depths of our
inner life.
Each day as you step onto your mat, make a
decision to enjoy just where you are right now. Take a few moments, too, to
contemplate how fortunate you are to be practicing this wonderful art. A casual
glance at the morning paper is proof enough of the vast suffering, poverty,
violence, and homelessness that is the lot of so many human beings. If you are
standing on a yoga mat and have the time to practice even fifteen minutes, you
are a fortunate person. If you have a yoga teacher, you have an invaluable gift
and life tool available to very few people. In the spirit of this gratefulness,
let your practice begin.
Copyright © 2000 Donna
Farhi