No matter where you go, there you are....

Awhile ago I fessed up to having joined a gym. I said that it allowed me to compartmentalize "exercise" and "yoga". Turns out...I had no idea what I was talking about. Yoga is so much a part of my life...inner and outer...that I can't compartmentalize it. It's everywhere.

When I'm lifting weights or doing other sorts of strength building work, I'm listening to my body (yoga-speak for feeling what's really happening rather than what I wish was happening, or simply ignoring what's happening), I'm following my breath, I'm noticing my mind and how it participates. So why is this not yoga?

I like having an indoor space to do cardio work. I will confess, I'm delicate. I don't like walking outside when it's too hot or too humid. (I spent the first 35 years of my life in temperate Southern California...what can I say.) So now I can be nice to my heart and lungs without collapsing in an irritable puddle of sweat afterwards. In fact I prefer to leave sweaty workouts to those flowers that thrive in the hot house climate. Dewy is about as far as I want to go.

After my workout, I put some peaceful music on my iPod and take a leisurely stroll around the indoor track. There's this one song that has the lyric..."breath connects us all". I meditate on that while I walk and breathe with everyone else in the gym.

Yeah...so I just added a different sort of yoga practice to my life. It's all good.

Smiling

Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is a wonderful moment.

" 'Breathing in, I calm my body.' This line is like drinking a glass of ice water-you feel the cold, the freshness, permeate your body. When I breathe in and recite this line, I actually feel the breathing calming my body, calming my mind.

" 'Breathing out, I smile.' You know the effect of a smile. A smile can relax hundreds of muscles in your face, and relax your nervous system. A smile makes you master of yourself. That is why the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas are always smiling. When you smile, you realize the wonder of the smile.

" 'Dwelling in the present moment.' While I sit here, I don't think of somewhere else, of the future or the past. I sit here, and I know where I am. This is very important. We tend be alive in the future, not now. We say, 'Wait until I finish school and get my Ph.D. degree, and then I will be really alive.' When we have it, and it's not easy to get, we say to ourselves, 'I have to wait until I have a job in order to be really alive.' And then after the job, a car. After the car, a house. We are not capable of being alive in the present moment. We tend to postpone being alive to the future, the distant future, we don't know when. Now is not the moment to be alive. We may never be alive at all in our entire life. Therefore the technique, if we have to speak of a technique, is to be in the present moment, to be aware that we are here and now, and the only moment to be alive is the present moment.

" 'I know this is a wonderful moment.' This is the only moment that is real. To be here and now, and enjoy the present moment is our most wonderful task. 'Calming, Smiling, Present moment, Wonderful moment.' I hope you will try it."

Thich Nhat Hanh from "Being Peace"

This morning as I sat in meditation, I realized that my facial posture was one of such seriousness. It wasn't scrunched up or tense, in fact it was pretty relaxed. But I felt this "attitude" of "this is serious stuff". And then I smiled. Not a grin...just a little smile. And everything got softer and more peaceful.

Practice

The way of experience begins with a breath
such as the breath you are breathing now.
Awakening into the luminous reality
may dawn in the momentary throb
between any two breaths.
The breath flows in and just before it turns
to flow out,
there is a flash of pure joy -
life is renewed.
Awaken into that.

-- The Radiance Sutras

translated by Lorin Roche