mOmentOm yOga. . . steady, cOmfy, happy, yOga. . .

Sometimes after a vigorous yoga class, you may encounter some aches and pains from overstrained muscles. When I started my yoga practice, this is a weekly reoccurance. . . which lasted a week each time! In such times, you will ask yourself why you practice. The truth is, whether you practice or not, you are open to pain. In fact, whether you are physically healthy or not, you experience pain of some kind or other, for long or short periods. We practice not to free ourselves from pain but to teach ourselves to live with pain without suffering. We do not rid ourselves from pain, that's impossible -- instead, we free ourselves from reacting to it in unskillful ways which may be more harmful to us that the pain itself.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

-- Cheri Huber

Yoga is a path that allows its followers to learn how to come to terms with the conditions of their existance without feeling that any pain is something of a personal calamity or tragedy. This sounds straightforward and many have found that even a few beginners classes are already miraculous in changing their perspective of how they view their bodies and its various phenomena, painful or otherwise. However, to establish ourselves in the practice of yoga means that we practise through all kinds of life circumstances, sticking to the path even when we feel generally disheartened or stress-laden with the demands of our daily lives. This is not mindless adherence but mindful action. It is when the going gets tough that the tough gets yoga because practising through pain and happiness firmly places us in the still centre of each experience -- where we encounter a timeless steadiness, an "OK-ness", that is the true essence of life beneath all the turbulance on its surface. We accept the present and LIVE in each minute fully, neither turning away nor grasping. Isn't this what freedom really is?

It is important to remind ourselves that we are not on this path of practising yoga to achieve some joy in the future. It is the path itself that is joyful. The path firmly places you on the substance under your feet. Here is grit, here is dirt, here are flowers, here is shit, this is it, your life is here, soak it all in. Yoga sensitises your soles and you feel for first time, for all your running about, life has happened and you realise you are standing in it. The people on the path are not merely striving towards some reward in the future. They are interested in living in a better way right now. Sinking their teeth into life, tasting everything. So it is important to practice, not because practising will lead us to a better state of affairs but practising IS the better state of affairs.

The path is under your feet.

-- Zen saying.

There's only us,
There's only this.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.

No other road,
No other way,
No day but today.

-- Affirmation from Jonathan Larson's musical Rent