Its becoming easier each day to settle into this ever changing version of me. its so authentic. As my hair whitens, and my body changes, and my perspective shifts, it feels so sweet to watch and live this transition from crone to elder. Its like a natural pull toward the divine. Life is teaching me to let go and I didn’t even have to do any program or buy any expensive products, lol.
There are eight limbs of yoga and not one of them mentions body size or ability. This thought popped into my head as I watch even the aging “wellness” crowd espouse and hang on to some beauty/body/ability ideal.
Its …poignant. But what I really want to say is it seems tiring. Like a hamster on a wheel. Get off, little buddy, and go nestle with your friends in the cotton balls. Have some sunflower seeds and take turns nibbling the mites off each other. Live! I promise, we are all heading to the very same place.
The Buddha said (my paraphrase) that it is best to remember that we are all of the nature to get sick, grow old, and die. And grow old if we are lucky. There are no guarantees. He continued… everyone we know and love, and everything that is important to us is also of this same nature. You can’t hang onto any of it. The only thing that we “own” is the result of our actions. (Karma). He then went on for 40 some odd years and kept teaching the same thing over and over and over – what causes suffering and how to end it. There was also a wheel in there (The Dharma), but I will leave that for another time.
As for Yogic wisdom, Patanjali laid out the paradigm of the 8 limbs, or spokes on the wheel of life as a “steering practice”. And the practices for the body, asana which is translated as seat or posture, is about preparing the body to support the other limbs or practices. You learn how to breathe, and to concentrate, and work with the body so it can support these other practices, such as meditation. You use the internal disciplines to purify your life, and the external to purify your relationships with other beings so you can support the other practices. All to simply remember you are already perfect and a part of everything, which is Samadhi, and which, like the others, supports all the other practices.
Because in that remembering, there is no need for anything else to satisfy, to achieve, to strive for. Its already yours. But when we are lost, ie not remembering, we act in ways that are harmful and perpetuate suffering for ourselves and others. Because, as the Buddha so succinctly put it – the cause for ALL suffering is that clawing for the next thing that will satisfy, that constant craving.
As I purify and simplify my own life, and practice remembering who I really am, the worrisome details really do just fall away, like mist evaporating from the grass on a spring morning. I have to say, this is a self reinforcing practice, like the absolute opposite of addiction. If addiction is the constant clawing for something then this practice is the constant rotating of the wheel to steer my actions towards letting go. Of everything. Since none of it is ours, anyway.
