“The practice of asana invite us to embody all of life’s greatest and most enduring qualities, including courage, willpower, self-awareness, concentrations, surrender or letting go, the pursuit of excellence, the empowerment that comes from overcoming resistance (both internal and external) and skillful action.”

-Rod Stryker, The Four Desires (Loc 244)

Day 301 – Pema Chodran opens up my reading today.  Such wise words.  Rolf opening selections embrace the very heart of each reading; today no less, quoting:  “Often we get carried away.  Without judging, without buying into our likes and dislikes, we can always encourage ourselves to just be here again and again and again.”  Yes! Just be here again and again and again.

I definitely felt my desire to continue my early morning practice unceasingly and again and again and again.  As I rolled up from a short shavasana onto my blanket to do an even shorter meditation, I thought: “I could do this at lunch time!”  I feel light and calm and I lose that almost instantly in the grips of everyday.  Yoga feels so magickal at times.  How does one live this off the mat, too?  How does one retain the calmness and peace that resides?  How do we access this all the time?  How do I teach this to others?  How do I embody it?

Today, Rolf describes how we learn from experience and how we believe that we can be free.  He explains that in our action to recreate joy and mindfulness, that “the action we must take contains a paradox.”  Not only must we “acknowledge powerlessness as our essential conditions…at the same time, we must acknowledge our absolute responsiblity for our actions.”

As such, Rolf calls it a “sea not of our making.”  He adds that “our meditation practice teaches us to bear witness to who we are and who we might become.”  Pema Chodran reminds us that the ability to examine our minds is always there and that it is never too late.