Time: 8:15am
What: 25 minutes asana / 20 minutes seated practice
Focus: First Foundation / Exercises 9 - 10 (Sati-)
Practiced asana with Richard Freeman this morning. On dvd... (ha ha). Noticed a heaviness (sleepiness?) in stepping forward. Judgment. Moments of holding breath. 5 Surya A, 3 Surya B, and then (sans technology) closed with a couple Yin postures. Teaching a Yin class on Thursday night. Practiced exercise 9 in savasana. Decomposition of the body in corpse pose - how fitting! Started by visualizing a sick bed, aging, losing sense organs... Moved onto embalming, viewing, funeral... Cremation... Cardboard box... Body burning in stages... Ashes tossed into the dirt... bugs, worms, grass, roots, life. Had a thought: Would you embalm a body that is being cremated? The internet says maybe. Sounds pretty toxic to me!
Seated practice... Working with exercise 10. Begin with simple breath awareness, aware of the body sitting. Felt nice to not be visualizing but instead watching what arises. Happiness feels bubbly, giddy. Wonder if I confuse calm with joy? Perhaps they're interchangeable? Have all week to explore the subtleties. Noticed that deep breath after thinking is ingrained... Hello, habit energy. Do I hold my breath while totally lost in thought? Huh... TBD.
1 comment:
I totally appreciate your interest in exploration (re: the subtlties of joy and calm etc) so I'm not going to comment specifically on that here (wouldn't want to spoil your fun!).
Just to say, yes, there are so many subtle layers of experience to taste and savor. What might distinguish joy, rapture, happiness, ease and calm? How or what do they have in common, if anything?
metta,
frankjude
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