Practicing What We Know
This amazing space is designed for us to share – and to learn. We invite you take only what works for you, what resonates within you as truth. Leave the rest. It may work for you another day, or it may only be someone else's truth for that moment.
Practicing What We Know: this is what we truly discover on our mats, through our practice; we uncover what we already know within. The more we practice this way, approaching the mat with a willing heart and an open mind, the more we awaken – and the easier it becomes to transfer the lessons we learn on the mat into our everyday lives.
Here are some ideas about Resistance and Acceptance to explore in June:
WEEK 1
Suffering = Pain x Resistance
Note that when pain is met by resistance (tension and judgment), it is multiplied, and the resistance turns the experience of pain into suffering. Bringing mindful awareness (non-reactive observation) to the experience of pain or discomfort allows us to take a more conscious approach to the experience, to examine it and move through it.
WEEK 2
Lean into the pain
Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron, writes about the human tendency to avoid pain and pursue pleasure, reminding us that this often takes us in directions that are contrary to our intentions. She recommends that we practice leaning into the pain, softening into the full experience, making a conscious choice to stop avoiding it.
WEEK 3
Paradoxical Unity
Resistance vs Allowing – Are they really just two sides of the same coin? Two ends of a continuum? So that we are always at some point on the continuum – vacillating between resistance and surrender?
The Continuum of Letting Go
Resistance ---------------------------- Allowing
WEEK 4
Spiritual Purification = Pain x Equanimity
Surrender, Letting Go, Allowing..... we call it so many things in yoga. Contrary to what we might think, it doesn't mean collapsing or giving up, but bringing a mindful awareness to the current experience, examining pre-conceived notions, releasing judgments and expectations, making space for what might be, welcoming. When we learn to release the tension and judgments that exacerbate our physical pain, we can take that same knowledge and apply it to our emotions; learning to greet emotions and experiences with a sense of equanimity.
Aparigraha
The Yama/Niyama that best seems to suit this topic is Aparigraha, usually translated as non-grasping or non-attachment. It's about letting go - choosing not to hold onto old hurts, or old stories, or old clothes.
I hope you'll share your ideas, class plans, poems, quotes, personal experiences about this topic.
I was prepping for Spirituality 104 tonight at Conscious Mile and this was in our assigned reading:
ReplyDelete"Concentration of thought is NOT AN EFFORT TO COMPEL, BUT THE DESIRE TO PERMIT the stream of Creative Energy to take definite form."
What an amazing distinction. What would happen in our practice if we stopped putting a effort toward compelling and outcome, and replaced it with the desire to permit whatever come next?
Thoughts?
in physics we learn that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. it is natural to resit pain. be can stretch beyond the limits of physics :-) !
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind that the pragmatically, most people practice yoga because it improves their life on some level, yoga is very much a contradiction to physical principles (i.e. physics). On the surface level, we learn to "defy gravity" as we fly in inversions and arm balances, or we contort the body in ways people don't think should be possible. On a deeper level, we are trying to overcome many physical instincts (action leading to reaction). We aim to be non-reactive and in turn act more mindfully, becoming less animal and more divine will paradoxically maintaining the dichotomy in perfect balance by becoming more human in the process. Take that, physics!
ReplyDeleteMaybe disassociating from fear and pain (resistance) is a 'natural' reaction to discomfort (fear, pain), but that resistance cheats us of the present moment. So, maybe we really learn life's lessons only when fear has us cornered, everything falls apart, and we run out of options for escape.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may, I'm glad that I have my yoga to practice these skills, to change reaction to response, resistance to allowing, disassociation to mindful awareness. I think the practice makes us more present in the experiencing of our own lives.