Not much new on the travel front this week, so we may have to look elsewhere for distraction. Or possibly closer, right under our noses, since that’s where most distractions hide anyway. Richard’s travels this week took him mostly in and out the front door at home, which was mostly exciting for the dog. He did make an occasional trip to the studio to teach class, and Sunday he kicked off a series of Studio Talks on the topic of obstacles–those distractions, states of mind, philosophical stances and events that get in the way of true yoga. (Check back in a couple of days to download an audio file of this talk).
Several audience members, myself included, were relieved to realize part way through the lecture that experiencing obstacles is one aspect of the ongoing study of yoga that’s actually pretty easy to do–and do to well. Finally a part of the practice that comes naturally! Rather than just dropping into the breath and the feelings and sensations that are constantly arising, it’s so simple to allow the mind to navigate into the thicket of thought, abstraction, emotion, ego and attachment/repulsion that sets up road blocks to letting go into the nature of reality.
Listening to Sunday’s talk was a reminder that all obstacles are grounded in ignorance or avidya. This ignorance is an inability to actually grock our own true nature as part of the whole—an inability to understand that we are not separate from pure consciousness. When we misperceive ourselves (or anything else) as separate, from everything else, we confuse the permanent with the impermanent and are caught in avidya. This ignorance is an obstacle to yoga because it causes us to lose sight of the fact that even though we do often experience ourselves as separate—with our own body, our own mind, our own emotions, etc.—nothing is actually separate from the whole of existence.
The lecture reminded us that this “you’re separate, but you’re not” concept is a slippery one to keep hold of, but that even a quick glimpse of understanding the idea can be quite delightful. And the way to have that insight is simply to practice. Dropping back mindfully into the sore knee, inflated ego, distracted mind or whatever it is that’s arising here in the present moment is the practice of familiarizing ourselves with our own true nature.
And if thinking about all this makes you feel a little queasy, Richard has assured us that that’s good sign.
On a more practical note, Sunday was also the first official snowfall here in Boulder. We had a whopping 1/20th of an inch of snow. In fitting with the classic weather pattern here in Colorado, the high today is going to be 71, so most of the snow will have melted soon. None the less, it’s at intense weather-moments like these that here at the Yoga Workshop, we’re particularly grateful for the facilities at the studio which include our state of the art, climate controlled waiting area.
