The Path To Bodhichitta

You start where you are, the practice will meet you there.

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Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Hello Old Nemesis!

I craved a class this evening. There was only one teensy 'problem'. Gary doesn't teach on Tuesday evenings. The advanced hatha class is led by Jenny, a tiny double-jointed woman whom I had never met but heard enough of to stay away from the class. Until today.

"Oh it's Jenny, is it?" The Healer looked a little concerned. "She likes teaching inversions."

I almost turned the car around.

"Just sit at the back and don't do it if you don't feel like it," she said reassuringly.

The class was packed. To my great relief there was one last spot at the very back. Jenny led us through a standing sequence which was challenging enough on its own without my ego berating me for choosing a class in which I had to sit out a few asanas. Then just when I was getting comfortable and starting to enjoy the pace, Jenny folds her mat into two and smiles, "Ok, we do headstand."

Now, I have not been part of a proper yoga class for close to a year. And since I call the shots during my home practice, I have avoided inversions for as long as...well, a year.

Jenny soared into a headstand and descended just as gracefully. The other students began pulling their mats towards the wall. I hesitated. Then I heard that little voice. Try, it said, that's the only way you'll really know.

So I arranged my limbs and proceeded to go upside down. And suddenly...there I was...upside down. It was one of the rare moments when this asana was almost effortless. Don't get attached, I told myself, just enjoy. And so I savoured the feeling of being in a pose that has long been a nemesis. I knew that I could very well come crashing down the next time and I would have to stop myself from getting attached to that too.

That got me thinking about a current work-related quandry. There will be days when I will soar and stay up there, and there will be days when I just can't get up there. So all I have to do is to honour either experience, detach myself from it and approach the next with openess.

Sounds perfect on paper. :)

Monday, June 29, 2009

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles...



After a whole year of thinking and talking about it to anyone who would listen, I have finally decided to bite the bullet and take the first step.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Steer By Starlight

To The Thinker,

This is for you. It is the favourite poem of an African guide that I found in my current bedtime read - Steering By Starlight. I wanted to have this poem framed and gifted to you - and I will - but for now, hold these words in your heart until you have them in your hands.


Live while you are alive...
Learn to be what you are in the seed of your spirit
Learn to free yourself from all things that have molded you
And which limit your secret and undiscovered road...
Never forget that love
Requires that you be
The greatest person you are capable of being,
Self-generating and strong and gentle -
Your own hero and star...
Be grateful for life as you live it,
And may a wonderful light
Always guide you along the unfolding road.

My Halcyon Weekend

It was one of those weekends. When even the most ordinary of events sparkled with magic dust. The magic of pure unadultered joy that only happens when the external and internal self fold into each other until you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

My halcyon weekend gave me a new breath of life.

This weekend I returned to myself.