Listening to my Body again

Friday, June 26th

It is our first morning at the Garrison Institute, the first morning of our meditation retreat.

I am looking out the window onto a small strip of the Hudson river framed by massive oaks and maples. Green everywhere. Morning fog still hangs in the branches. It's going to be a hot day today. We are on the third floor of the building, it's an old Capuchin monastery, a grand old stone structure built in the 1930s, with tall ceilings, bone white walls, and dark wood everywhere except for the blond parquet floors. The vegetarian food last night was delicious.

Last night we also had our first opening teaching with Mingyur Rinpoche. More than before it struck me how funny he is. What a sense of humor!

This morning we had a choice between an hour of meditation practice and an hour of unsupervised yoga... from 7:00am to 8:00am
I took a short bath in the lovely hot tub and then went to yoga.

When I did my postures, I couldn't fail to notice how much stiffer I am. No regular practice since last winter, clearly, and I noticed how I wanted to stretch to reach my old marks, and then I thought: No, I want to listen to my body, I want to find the point that feels absolutely delicious, the point where my body says: this is where you are right now, right at this moment in your life, and this is perfect. And then I thought: I should do this practice as if I have never done yoga before, as if there is no past. Oh, of course: no past!! Isn't that how we would live, when we have left all of the old baggage behind? Without a past?

Reaching for a standard instead of listening to my body. To reach for an outside standard by comparing myself to another person or following an instruction is one thing, and I have been letting go of that for a long while now, but today I noticed that the standard and measurement I put up for myself from within my own body, from my own memory... is yet another matter, and just as destructive.

So I think I want to do this yoga practice now as if I had just been born and I am exploring and experiencing this body for the very first time.