May he be happy, peaceful, liberated...

May Goodness Happen For All

I just finished reading Vipassana Meditation: Healing the Healer and The Experience of Impermanence by Dr. Paul R. Fleischman. The booklet published by the Vipassana Research Institute is a good Sunday morning read after sitting. 

In the first essay, the writer connects the practice with healing and the healer, often wounded but bears noble suffering. In the second article, he shares a more poetic discourse on anicca.  The style in which it was written brings a glow to the Vipassana experience. 

Click here for an excerpted article on Healing the Healer.

Click here for an excerpted article on The Experience of Impermanence.

Sharing this clip...Sabka mangal hoye re chanted by SN Goenka on Metta

It's a lovely, sunny Sunday. Have a beautiful one.

Vipassana

I am finally home after my 10-day Vipassana Meditation Course as taught by S.N. Goenka.

This was a long time coming since I first learned about it, drawn to it through a documentary we watched almost exactly 3 years ago. I wanted to take the course then but the seed needed more fertile ground. As with the gifts that have been presenting themselves these days in impeccable timing, this came right before I begin on a new road, and specifically at this particular point in my yoga practice and teaching.

The ten days were a profound experience, learning this deeply effective meditation technique.  The work was intense from within. We sat in stillness, hour upon hour, with all these sensations arising and passing - gross and subtle as we swept or scanned part by part. We worked diligently, persistently. We tried to remain vigilant. Day after each long laborious day. The words are still so clear in my head.

In those days of complete surrender to purely meditation, I did not practice Ashtanga (asana). Tomorrow, I will begin again. I feel my practice will change from this.

From the Vipassana, I was able to draw parallels to strengthen the foundations of my Ashtanga yoga practice.

For now, I will only write phrases of insights from memory.

Wisdom in Breath as the link.

Experience of using the body as the framework.

Awareness of sensation. 

No Raga (Attachment) and Dvesha (Aversion). No me, no mine, no I.

Equanimity. Yogas citta Vritti nirodha.

Sthira. Ease. Enlightenment. Awareness. Sensation. Equanimity.

Do your practice. Work Continuously.

Grateful for the lineage.

Metta and Yoga off the mat.

Bhavatu Sabba Manggalam. Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu.


Incidentally, I am home on the day of Diwali in India. May the light shine within and upon us all.


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I am re-reading Michael Stone's Freeing the Body Freeing the Mind. Writings on the Connections between Yoga and Buddhism.

 "Yoga and Buddhadharma offer a profound blueprint for reorienting ourselves toward that which really matters. At the heart of what matters is the reality that everyone aspires to achieve happiness and avoid suffering. Happiness derives not from wealth or progress but from inner peace, one that each of us must create by cultivating the most profound human qualities, such as empathy, humility, and compassion, and by eliminating destructive thoughts and emotions such as anger and hatred..." 

      ~ Michael Stone

Day 18 (Nov 23)

We watched the documentary "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" It's remarkable how much the journey inward can make a difference. Today, my journey inward during my practice was fruitful. I was centered, serious but playful, light, smiling inside. The intensity rings through these mild "sensations" in my body but I acknowledge the millimeters of spaces being freed within me, opening me a little more, releasing quietly. In this life, I may have hurried too much and the slowness of my learning and unlearning is sometimes the only lesson I need.

Today, we focused on adjustments for Janusirsasana A and Marichyasana A and we're starting our sessions on leading restorative classes.

I pray for vibrant confidence.