Intensive as in “Intense”

by mary

If you’ve participated in a training with Richard, you know the drill. Before-hand there’s the anticipation and worry: maybe this time he’ll require us to hover in adho mukha padmasana or have us listen to lectures while sitting in yogadandasana. This leads to confusion after the first asana class: what was he was trying to get through our thick heads? It seems like we spent an inordinate amount of time in ekam and did no third series postures at all. Then there’s the relief of chanting

together that falls apart at the tongue twister that he patiently repeats again and again, until we luck out and whatever it was we were mispronouncing slips through and we move on. And finally there’s the day’s philosophy lecture that you’re sure you understand completely until you try to explain it to someone later in the day.
This time, for six days 40 of us worked together in an attempt to have a direct experience of the very slippery content of Sri Sankaracharaya’s text the Aprokshanubhuti. We approached the ideas early each day in an asana class. After lunch we grappled with the concepts via sitting meditation, then chanting and the lectures. It’s hard sometimes to determine whether the snake in the grass is indeed a snake or a rope. Noticing this tendency of mind, we realized how easy it is to overlay concepts, beliefs or preconceptions, and confuse virtually everything for something else. That’s where the asana practice helped because when you weren’t sure on an inhale whether it’s your leg or your arm you’ve just slung behind your head, there’s an opportunity to directly experience the notions Shankaracharya expounded upon in the text.

 

By the end of the week, many participants felt confusingly clear (which is always a good sign), having had at least a hint of the direct experience of a direct experience. This, in and of itself can be confusing—thinking you’ve comprehended something rather profound, and then thinking maybe you’ve comprehended nothing whatsoever at all.

We did get some tangible secret tips on anatomy that helped to sort some of those confusions out. Like the little known fact that your psoas are actually the sinus of the sitting bone nostrils, and the palate is the pelvic floor of the upper skull. That explains a lot, and we left remembering it’s always right there if you just let yourself go back into the immediate feelings, sensations and thoughts that are arising.

 

As the week wore on, lectures became increasingly animated…..

So that all in all the Intensive did provide a direct experience of reality.

On the local front, Snarf’s is gone! You might remember it—the upscale sandwich shop that used a beaten up delivery car with flat tires as a sign. It was the main landmark for our studio. You can still find us if you use a divining rod to find the Spruce Pool, but the building right across from our front door (which to many of us for years represented an important part of our alter ego) is no longer with us.

A couple of weeks ago over the course of about 45 minutes, the whole building was scraped off the face of the earth. For now we’re delighted to have our own private parking lot, but that won’t last too long as the new and improved development trend on Pearl Street marches one building closer.

We’ve always had an affinity for Snarf’s because in some way it represented the dark side of what we’re all about. For starters, given that “snarfing it down” is probably the least conscious approach to eating, the name itself has served as a reminder to those walking into the yoga studio that we’ll try to refrain from snarfing down the yoga. The owner (who we almost convinced to take yoga a couple of times), never comprehended the vegetarian crowd, so didn’t manage only had one thing on the menu catering specifically to our needs. No worries though, Snarf’s has moved just around the corner and still sells water.