24 boys and girls gathered in Zendo. Perhaps about 150 gathered for the dharma talk.
Gratitude for this day and every day … the running theme to hear the inner voice, to trust and to not fear setbacks. May we each find our dharma and live an authentic life aligned with what resonates most.
LOVE this place. Beautiful.
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly-
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-clothes on my forehead,
and then led me out into the air light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift – not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-toned lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
– – Billy Collins
…A meditating yogi has to keep the mind
in a state of ekagrata (one pointed).
It would require that the yogi reduces distractions considerably.
The distractions of the external world are attempted to be
eliminated by deliberate observance of the yamaniyamas.The distractions of the body are reduced by judicious selection
and practice of asanas with vinyasas.
Then the distractions of one’s own mind are dealt
with by eliminating the mind cobwebs by Pranayama.Then one is ready for meditation.
– Ramaswami Srivatsa
10 years ago, if I read the above, I would have been ??? tilting my head, what is he talking about? Isn’t yoga about all these poses? I would be miffed.
Today, it’s clear. It’s progress when you can understand the above when before, you couldn’t.
We do make progress with effort and education. So grateful that an authentic guru/teacher like Ramaswami Srivatsa is still teaching.
Still reviewing the 20+ hours with him from a man whose mastery of hours are infinitely more, steeped in deep practice while living the regular well adjusted life.
It’s about what he calls “judicious selection and practice”
that I’d like to engage in more and more.
There’s a well defined intention behind each pose – knowing how each pose affects the emotions, nervous system as well as the direct physical benefits.
If one is caught up in how meditation is superior and the physical portion of yoga is not the real yoga, blah, blah – talk, then it’s not a whole practice.
It takes all the above.