Weekly I participate in a Teacher Assisted Self-Practice of Ashtanga Yoga at Bodhi Tree Studio. Liz Chamberlain is the Teacher. I wrote to her this reflection of a recent session:
Liz,
I have continued to think about what you said in regard to the pose Supta Kurmasana – Sleeping Tortoise Posture – “You have to get out of the way of yourself.” I responded with, “That is my whole life!” You followed that with, “What you want is already there.” I am not quoting you exactly, but that is how I am remembering it.
I have been reading Yoga Anatomy by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews and found this today:
A balance of both will and surrender is needed in order to honor the true nature of the breath and the spine in yoga practice. Without this perspective, the deeper intrinsic support within the system is forever overshadowed by a futile attempt to reproduce through effort what nature has already placed at the core of the body. (p.44)
It seems that this “futile attempt to reproduce through effort” is the very thing that we seek to shed in the yoga practice and in life. That which comes from the very core of our Being has a freedom and an ease about it. But I have this ‘addiction’ to effort to protect the ego structures I have put in place. Every practice is a kind of shedding of this ego structure and a movement away from effort toward what is already naturally there.
“You already are what you seek.”
Why do I make so hard what has already been placed at my disposal in the core of my Being? While I may never find the answer to this question, the joy of the practice is the discovery of the freedom – as slow as it may be – that has already been given.
Grateful for you to be with me in this journey,
Paul
Journey to BE Still 