To quote the insightful 20th Century philosopher, Rosanne Rosannadana, “It’s always something.” An axiom which is often misconstrued (even by Rosanne herself) to mean that since there’s always a problem, why do anything? “Never mind.”
However many argue that Rosannadana’s intended meaning was that life presents us with unlimited opportunity to observe, assess, take the bull by the horns, and dive into whatever it is that’s arising right in front of our very noses, rather than diving into (grasping or pushing away) the illusions of mind that are often so much more comfortable to focus our attention on.
It takes a certain quality of mind, unmani, to accomplish the slippery task of sitting with what is. Rather than superimposing meaning, definition, conclusion onto our experiences and even onto thoughts, we cultivate a feeling of calm abiding, learning to be there with our thoughts rather than indulging them. As anyone who’s taken one of Richard’s teacher intensives will remember, dropping into this state of unmani or open mind, of not knowing, letting go of preconceptions is the challenge of the first week of the intensive, and we’ve been focusing on that since last Sunday when the ’08 Intensive began.
Like elephants with trunks relaxed along the floor in front of us, we’ve been sitting, gazing along the line of the trunk with soft eyes. Together we’ve been practicing, chanting, consoling our hamstrings, finding our legs in the standing postures and contemplating the connection of the psoas to the soles of the feet and out through the crown of the head. More importantly we’ve had a few laughs with flashes of insight into the workings of our own egos and our own minds. The yoga seems to be working.
We’re looking forward to a month together as we welcome students from all over the world into our compulsively relaxed Boulder community.
More updates on life here in Boulder as well as some reports from Richard’s travel this spring to Europe will follow. Once we’ve had a moment to relax a little from the surge of ground-work required to get the Intensive. In in the mean time…why not listen to one of Richard’s talks recorded some time back?
