29 June 2006

Alive to Aleve and Back Again

So at the end of Bikram on Tuesday I felt enlightened, expansive, and earthy. Alive. Wednesday morning I felt stiff, old and crippled. Ah, the human condition.

Thank goodness Aleve was able help me not experience the stiffness born of Bikram. A soak in the hot tub this AM finally did away with the last remaining aches and pains so I could go back and do it again this evening. And I managed the Mr. T Asana quite well. I was happy.

My ego was unhappy however because my normal teacher Brian was not in attendance to witness my excellent Mr. T. Some sub that I immediately decided I didn't like was in attendance. Funny that. To dislike someone simply because they aren't what I was used to, expecting or desiring.

Desiring things to be other than they are seems to be the main source of all suffering; Source, see every book ever written on Buddhism. As Shunryu Suzuki quotes Dogen in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: "A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it." Shunryu goes on to say: "All we want to do is to know things as they are."

At the end of today's class, instead of feeling intensely alive, I felt intensely impermanent. I imagined my self having died, saw my corpse dissolving into dust, and at the last my cochlear implant dropped from my pale white skull. The implant I haven't even gotten yet.

So Tuesday one with everything and alive. Thursday one with everything but impermanent.

Things as they are.

Namaste!


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