Building our Practices on What Endures and From a Balanced and Firm Foundation

Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,

This week in class we are considering building our practices on what endures and from a balanced and firm foundation.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

-George Bernard Shaw

Often we try to build relationships on what is pleasing to us, particularly on physical attraction. But if there is anything sure about physical attraction, it is that it has to change. We cannot build on it; its very nature is to come and go.

Physical attraction is a sensation - here one minute and gone the next. Love is a relationship. It is pleasant to be with someone who is physically attractive, but how long can you enjoy an aquiline nose? How long can you thrill to the timbre of a voice when it doesn't say what you like? It's very much like eating: no matter how much you are attracted to chocolate pie, there is a limit to how much of it you can enjoy. Beyond that limit, if somebody merely mentions chocolate, your stomach stages a revolt.

If you want to build a relationship, build it on what endures. To build on a firm foundation, we have to stop asking, "What do I like?" and ask only, "What can I give?" Then there is joy in everything, because there is joy in the relationship itself - in ups and downs, through the pleasant and the unpleasant, in sickness and in health.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to practice some of the postures that you are least fond of. Sandwich them in between postures you are fond of. Challenge yourself to build your practice on what endures and from a balanced and firm foundation. Discover for yourself if this work translates into your relationships off of the mat.

Blessings,

paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com

Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003