When can you practise yoga?
I heard this story recently from Ajahn Brahm (angmo guy who ordained as a monk in Thailand): there was a monastery in Thailand and they were renovating their premises. However, the abbot will have all renovation work stop at the hour of meditation and the monks will proceed with their sitting meditation amidst the rubble. Some visitor came and asked the abbot when will the work be finished, he said then that it is already finished. The visitor looked at the mess and the debris, then said in disbelief to the abbot: “How can you say that it is finished? There is junk everywhere and there is no roof!” The abbot then said: “What’s done is finished.”
When will you have time to do yoga? When you finally finish that project that has been hanging over your head for months at work? When you finally finish that email you were trying to send out since the morning? When you finally have a feeling that you have achieved something out of your workday? Then you will never do yoga. Nor will you have time for any other activity that might daily bring you joy and peace.
Come the hour when you have to leave your work place for yoga class, you got to tell yourself, what’s done is finished. Come, and practise, amidst your life’s renovation works and find some peace within the rubble of the work-in-progress that we call our daily living. As Ajahn Brahm says: “The only way to find peace is in the middle of imperfection.” We need to let go of work that is in progress for a while so that we can take a break, find some peaceful centre AND THEN RETURN to our work. This is the principle of Aparigraha in yoga: non-grasping. Holding on to things and being free are two mutually exclusive states. So learning how to let go is learning how to be able to live in a free way. Only then can we do our life’s work with ease – without burnout and fatigue, with enthusiasm and vigour. Then only can we truly practice yoga.
When will you have time to do yoga? When you finally finish that project that has been hanging over your head for months at work? When you finally finish that email you were trying to send out since the morning? When you finally have a feeling that you have achieved something out of your workday? Then you will never do yoga. Nor will you have time for any other activity that might daily bring you joy and peace.
Come the hour when you have to leave your work place for yoga class, you got to tell yourself, what’s done is finished. Come, and practise, amidst your life’s renovation works and find some peace within the rubble of the work-in-progress that we call our daily living. As Ajahn Brahm says: “The only way to find peace is in the middle of imperfection.” We need to let go of work that is in progress for a while so that we can take a break, find some peaceful centre AND THEN RETURN to our work. This is the principle of Aparigraha in yoga: non-grasping. Holding on to things and being free are two mutually exclusive states. So learning how to let go is learning how to be able to live in a free way. Only then can we do our life’s work with ease – without burnout and fatigue, with enthusiasm and vigour. Then only can we truly practice yoga.
