How can you have your meat if you don’t eat any pudding?

Posted by einajs in Writing, Yoga on 12 7th, 2009 | 3 responses>

I was so stoked to have something to post that I left most of the good bits off of this post, making it pseudo-controversial and sparking some good comments and conversation. It’s hard to keep all my rants in alphabetical order. This one, for instance, was under “H” for “toy”.

Pudding

At some point in my Amtrakian train of thought on this matter I had what I thought was a very helpful insight: The purpose of cultivating diversity in physical practice is not to increase physical competence, but emotional consistency. Rather than letting that pose, the Sherlock Holmes to your Dr. Moriarty, dictate a host of reluctance and dire prognoses, you learn not to let it mess with you. When that becomes possible, a whole other host of resistance can also fall away. Shoot, I was trying not to use the word “resistance” because in many cases resistance has a very clear and purposeful message for us, and I’ve met many in the spiritual community who simply love to make hay out of “resistance”, being basically a red flag to a bull. But there it is: what you resist persists: it is very tiring to have to hold yourself up above the mud of life and hope that you don’t fall in. A misalignment, you could say. If there is a range of human experience, clenching ourselves shut against its onslaught can only lead to exhaustion and eventually grief as reality sharpens itself against us.

So the knuckle-chewingly deep hip opener may not have a radical physical shift for you for a while. What is within your purview is your approach to said hip opener; that is, rather than scowling at it and having the inner dialogue run something like, “So, knuckle-chewingly deep hip opener, WE MEET AGAIN!” with some ominous spaghetti-western bells and harmonica in the background as it twirls its six-shooters, you have the autonomy to treat it like a workshop of heart: a chance to do your work without getting all tied up in its dramatic narrative, and see how your chosen method of physical practice will see you through this [even this!].

It’s often high-lighted by the energetic difference between a practitioner in simple Vrksasana [Tree Pose], chillin’ like a villain, and a sweaty mud-wrasslin’ practitioner grappling with Visvamitrasana. True, the latter is more challenging, no question…but what happens to the quality of your skin when you undertake it, to your eyes, to the way the air feels on your upper arms? Why do we discard certain poses as being “too easy” and then unload all our self-torment on the ostensibly more challenging ones…what if they were one and the same in their essence, and our work was to find that consistency of vision? To me, that’s where the discipline is: it’s a commitment to find joy everywhere [or to "look for the good" as John says].

Meat

I got a chance to follow up with LTS&F and they were appreciative of the neurons that sacrificed themselves for these posts, but still not quite buying my particular brand of nonsense. Look, they said. So I just eat pizza whenever I want? In my case, that is a *lot* of pizza. I’m not sure you understand what a pizza-lover I am.

mmm...greens...

Which I thought was endearing, and useful, as it pinpointed something I think we all feel at some point or another on our path: The idea that these practices and disciplines might come naturally or easily to so-and-so, since they are ALREADY good people, but I like pizza so much I have to put myself in leg irons and worry down the steamed greens…you DON’T KNOW how venal and obsessed with pizza I am in the darkness of my soul. If I had my druthers I’d be like that guy in Se7en, only with pizza. So I have to work extra hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. What’s weird about this is that everybody I’ve talked to thinks that sure, life is easy for *that person* as their heart is as pure as the driven, so veganism or early-morning practice or long seated meditations are natural to them. But FOR ME I have to MAKE myself participate in those kinds of actions to purify myself of what I know is an endless craving for…stuff. [Sidebar: I'm not sure if LTS&F actually feels this way but that's what our conversation made me think of.]

What if you scratched the surface of the other person’s motivations and saw a heart that was as sweetly fragile as yours? And if you could make them treat themselves more graciously by letting them know it was going to be OK anyway, even if they didn’t sit for a million hours, even if they couldn’t put their leg behind their head, even if they ate pizza, would you do it? Would you give them permission to love themselves more?

LTS&F is monstrously strong and certainly one of the most diligent students I’ve seen. Their commitment is not in question. I do wonder,

And yes, mmm...pizza.

however, if we could turn up the pure delight of the practice, what would that look like? Could you look around the studio and see not one heart that was there so they could “have a good sweaty core workout” to go home with a “clear conscience”? Not one single face that was shadowed by “This is good for me, so I guess I’d better put up with it” or worse, “I’m so bad at this [weak/tight/cynical] I’m going to have to work EXTRA HARD to make sure they see that I belong here”. Awwwww. I know, I just know that is still in our gestalt as a community and it makes me misty because we are so hard on ourselves. It is certainly in my heart, although less and less as I relax and find motivations for practice that are purely joyful. So I guess this post-sequel is an encouragement to find consistency of heart in practice, rather than physical diversity for its own sake. Hope that clears it up a little bit. I am NOT advocating a pizza-only diet