Things are as they are
Travelling India is a reminder that practice is everywhere.
This country’s contrasts give this privileged boy endless chances to notice.
If you resist, India wins.
If you experience, everyone wins.
‘Observe the reality as it is. As it is, not as you wish it to be.’ - S.N.Goenka
Walking around, unknown fumes fill my lungs. Tuk tuk horns blare. I’m disturbed yet beside me people nap. They’ve found peace in the chaos.
A romanticised local phrase. Absorbing India’s landscape something is felt. A breaking of conventional attraction reframing the understanding of beauty. Things don’t need to appear in a certain way for beauty to exist. They can be as they are.
I explored this in a 40-day equanimity sadhana whilst traversing India. The mantra repeated each day: ‘things are as they are’.
A 40-day sadhana is a consecutive day yogic practice. It builds habits with the goals of boosting or recalibrating parts of behaviour. Find my other 40-day sadhana reflections on love & kindness and rest.
Beyond the Physical
A goal from this sadhana was improving core strength, especially in bird-dog pose. The mental, energetic, and spiritual aspects became far more present over the 40 days.
I’m beginning to understand that the success of a sadhana goes beyond physical performance. Or this was my excuse for still having a weak bird-dog after 40 days.
Eyes Open
‘Practice is everywhere’
Charok Lama, teachings on the Middle Way at Root Institute for Wisdom & Culture.
All volunteers at Sadhana Forest participate in Seva. The sanskrit word for ‘selfless service’, this consisted of 5-7 hours of volunteering a day. The all-in experience challenged my grasping to ‘me time’.
The agitation I had for little time to practice on my yoga mat. Ironically disconnecting to the experience of being in a ‘sadhana’ forest. A community preaching that practice is in every moment.
‘When I think negatively about not doing my practice it actually becomes destructive to my practice.’
Aviram, Co-Founder - Sadhana Forest.
Practice goes beyond the mat. Am I applying the teachings if I see things for how they are on a rubber rectangle and then act like a dick after?
A short time in community bursting open my individualistic mindset.
Teachers
Can I be present with everyone I meet?
Can I let go of preference and offer warmth to everyone, even people I disagree with?
Early in the sadhana, I faced a difficult situation. In its heights, my friend Adam offered a different perspective - to see the trigger as a teacher. A chance to say ‘thank you’ for the opportunity to practice.
I still have work to do.
Around the same time, I was reading Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh — the Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and peace activist. Profound for his humanitarian work and nonviolent protests during the Vietnam War.
This poem of his is a reminder to help us see ourselves in each other.
Note: this poem has a trigger warning to sexual assault
Please Call Me By My True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh - Being Peace
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
Resources that helped me on the 40 days:
Sadhana Forest
An alternate living, vegan, substance-free community in South India.Being Peace - Thich Nhat Hanh
Shambhala Productions - Venerable Thubten
Four free downloadable meditations on equanimity. I spent a week with each meditation.
1. Equanimity
2. Seeing All Sentient Beings As Having Been Your Parents
3. The Kindness of Others
4. Equalising Self and OthersCharok Lama - The Middle Way
A free YouTube series on his teachings at Root Institute for Wisdom & Culture.
‘We see things not as they are, but as we are.’ - Anaïs Nin
