“Practice all day every day.”
Mary Taylor
As the new year dawns and I’m increasingly aware of how much time I’ve frittered away resisting what’s before me, I feel a sense of urgency. Who knows how much time I or any of us have left?
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Insights Oversights Hindsights
A Note on Happiness...
Lydia Peacock
Typically we pursue happiness as if it were something we’ll find; the rare jewel of true joy that eludes us time and again. There are moments we feel happy, but so quickly they’re gone—the fleeting sense of satisfaction dips back down into an abyss of dullness and we trudge on. We may wonder at others who seem to have a corner on happiness, privately fearing that we’re one of the unlucky ones destined only to search for happiness in vain, yet search we do; through relationships and work, drugs and entertainment, or the “serious” practices we call yoga. Then one day while looking, having pulled the corners of our soul apart as if searching for lost keys in the folds of the couch, we start to smile. Then something happens that makes us see through the silliness of our endeavors to find happiness and we realize we’ve been looking in all the wrong places. Due to luck or our stubborn perseverance, we have a flash of insight into the fact that true happiness exists beneath the surface of mind, sensation, and emotion. Pure lasting happiness has little to do with the superficial theories and objects we tie it to, but instead it is simply there beneath it all, patiently waiting to be freed from the restraints our confusion, resistances, theories, and doubts. We smile because we see that it is not happiness, but the content of our mind and the things of the world that are fleeting. For that split second, we tap into the limitless reservoir of intrinsic happiness that is always there as part of the true nature of being human. If only we could see it. And then usually the insight fades and we start looking for who we already are and what we already have as part of us once more.
Through our yoga practices we learn to watch the content of our embodied experience, alongside the content of our mind and our emotional states as they constantly come and go in a wave pattern. We learn to observe the ever-present states of stability, chaos, happiness, confusion, and so on that all seem so real but then fade into the background. Over time, as we make these observations within the safe space of practice, on our yoga mat or sitting cushion, the ability to be present with things as they are arise and seeps out into other corners of our life. We learn to soften into the fear of not knowing for certain what’s next, releasing our white-knuckled grip on the desire for someone or something to make us happy. Leaping out of the known into the unknown our fear of the unfolding of life, which has kept us falsely stable—though separate—over the years can begin to dissolve and we see pathways out of suffering toward lasting happiness, joy, and compassion.
Roberto Colasso in his remarkable book, Ka, imagined the Buddha asking himself the question, “Are you afraid of your own happiness?” Which is a question worth asking ourselves as well. Is it fear, that blinds us and keeps us trapped on the wheel of Samsara, frantically searching for something we already have? And if it is fear that’s imprisoning us, what is it that sustains the fear? These are important questions to ask again and again if we are to find a path out of suffering.
As the Buddha said, “Feeding the story of suffering makes you suffer.” Not feeding the story of suffering is no guarantee you will be happy, but it is a certain path out of suffering. Breathing into life, we start where we are.
Here we are together, right now….and that’s a good start!
How COVID Changed My Practice
Mary Taylor
These days we’re hearing from many students too that their practice has been impacted in unexpected ways by the pandemic. Some, not so driven, others more so. Some longing for Mysore community, others feeling less connected and moving away from practice. Many finding new expressions of practice (chanting, farming or social activism, to name a few) that seem more relevant to their body or the times.
Read MoreMeditations on Meditation
Mary Taylor
One of the things I like about meditation practice, is that you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to be doing, or whether you’re even doing it or not. Eventually, you may realize that whatever arises, in terms of self-torture, is totally dependent on a certain frame of reference. It’s like it’s a game that the mind has created: a language game, in which you’ve decided that meditation is supposed to be bright. Then as you sit there, other things arise besides brightness, and so you decide that your meditation is no good based on just the axioms of that game—that meditation equals brightness. And then you think, “Well, I’m not going to play that game anymore.” Then a minute later you decide, “Oh, meditation is actually darkness!” Then what arises isn’t darkness, and you’ve failed again. Every trip that the mind makes, every vṛtti, is a little story, and is totally dependent on context.
Read MoreThe Yoga of Dogs
Mary Taylor
This past year has been a doozie. Which is putting it nicely. As we move into 2021 in contrast to what any of us imagined a year ago when the virus was first discovered, much of the world is still in lockdown and things in some ways seem to be getting more tenuous. Yet, there is more to the story than that. The pandemic emerged in a splintered world, surfacing amid some of history’s worst social and political turmoil that reflected longstanding, widespread inequality and disregard for others which fueled anger, deceit, mistrust, and fear. The pace of life and work for many had become so imbalanced that there seemed to be not enough time to do more than feverishly tread water to keep afloat. So when the pandemic hit, it became vividly clear that though we might have had the impulse to just get back to “normal” as fast as possible, going back to the way things were was neither possible nor desirable.
Read MoreThe Space Between
Mary Taylor
This past year has been a doozie. Which is putting it nicely. As we move into 2021 in contrast to what any of us imagined a year ago when the virus was first discovered, much of the world is still in lockdown and things in some ways seem to be getting more tenuous. Yet, there is more to the story than that. The pandemic emerged in a splintered world, surfacing amid some of history’s worst social and political turmoil that reflected longstanding, widespread inequality and disregard for others which fueled anger, deceit, mistrust, and fear. The pace of life and work for many had become so imbalanced that there seemed to be not enough time to do more than feverishly tread water to keep afloat. So when the pandemic hit, it became vividly clear that though we might have had the impulse to just get back to “normal” as fast as possible, going back to the way things were was neither possible nor desirable.
Read MoreLockdown Lessons
Mary Taylor
If you think you’ve been in lockdown for an inordinately long time, it’s not your citta vṛttis gone wild, it’s pramāna; correct perception. On-again-off-again, the world has been ordered to stay in place for almost a year! Like good yogis, we’ve watched waves of changing emotion and mind states come and go. There’s been relief for the stillness, gratitude for the space and time to reflect, empathy for those suffering, all punctuated by our individual brand—sometimes neurotic, always sacred—of dealing with the endless unknown; agitation, anxiety, numbness, fear, confusion, boredom, depression and so on. Our freedom of movement has been tampered with for so long that sometimes it feels like a tangle of reluctant roots are sprouting out of our feet to penetrate the earth in a scheme to keep us immobilized forever. When will the subjugation from this lockdown ever end? But it could be worse.
Read MoreNap Time's Over!
Mary Taylor
An unprecedented series of global calamities—the year 2020—has sounded the alarm alerting us to the fact that the world as we’ve known it is broken on so many levels and it must be repaired. Like it or not, it’s time to wake up. Wake up to the challenge of facing seismic shifts in the ground beneath us that are causing the crumbling of old ways. How can we ease out of our long-standing sleep and meet these times fully, with grace and compassion, rather than flailing about with resistance like a disoriented child in search of their mother’s embrace?
Read MoreHow on earth do you start a community, anyway?
Mary Taylor
“You’ve got to start a community,” was the advice I got from an eager student in the early 90’s. It hit me like a ton of bricks! Over the years Richard had gradually moved from teaching in living rooms and basements with three or four students, to renting a space at the massage school, until eventually we got our own studio space and naming it the Yoga Workshop. The best part of our own space was that Richard finally had the luxury of not having to squeeze into a car packed with bolsters, blocks and straps as he drove around town. We also had a dedicated sign-in notebook to keep track of who came to class, if they had a phone for emergency calls and whether or not they could afford to pay. We’d press typed a master for the schedule and would hang posters around town in places we’d frequent like Hannah’s Restaurant or Crystal Market. We felt pretty organized, but then my heart sank, how could we have been so careless as to forget to start a community?
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