I am currently in a yoga teacher training and one of my homework assignments is to create a dharma talk about what I learned this past weekend or something that resonated with me at the Southeast yoga conference. Maybe one day I will go more in depth about what I hope I can get out of this training and what I hope to become one day. I know that our lives are never what we plan or expect, but I have some big dreams and I hope to fulfill those dreams. So maybe in another post I will do that. I used to write on here, but I don’t anymore. So hopefully I can start writing again. Mind you, these are simply thoughts. This is no formal writing blog. It’s for me. And maybe for you too!
To begin, what’s a dharma? We haven’t really talked a lot about dharma yet in the teacher training, but I’ll tell you all that I know. In the sanskrit language, the root word mean “to keep, hold, maintain.” We don’t really have a good translation for this word is the western languages. Other translations that people have come up with relate to law, order, duty, model, and quality. This word holds importance in many religions such as hinduism and buddhism. With this being said, we know it’s a key concept in religions, and it signifies behaviors that align with the order that makes life possible. It’s like a right way of living so to speak. Keep in mind that the yoga practice is in no way a religion. Many people brought the yoga practice into their religion because they felt that it helped them cope and live up their dharmas. Side note: Yoga has been around longer than buddhism and hinduism.
This past weekend, we talked a lot about how our yoga practice is not an escape. If our yoga practice was an escape, we could compare this to drugs or alcohol. What happens when you are high on drugs or drunk? You aren’t fully conscious of your body, your actions, and your feelings. It’s literally an escape from your body and mind because you aren’t firmly aware of what’s going on. So why do so many people say, “Oh I love yoga so much. It’s like my escape!” I don’t know what kind of practice you have, but in a yoga class, we aren’t running around in la la land. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We are very aware. We practice our breath to bring the mind and the body on the same page. As we experience each shape or posture, we can relate all of the experiences of these shapes and postures to our lives. Some poses really hurt. Some poses bring a lot of emotion. Some connections from one pose to the other or some flows bring up a lot of feelings. We practice so that we can understand ourselves better. We practice to understand the world and our surroundings better. We may have these light bulb moments that come to our minds during our practice. And these light bulb moments of understanding can be applied off of our mat and into ourselves and out into the world.
So a life of detachment is the life where we have a stressful day, and we binge eat and drink a whole lot of wine, yet, we don’t really care. Maybe we feel it later with our bodies when we feel like crap, but our mind and our body is obviously not on the same page if we are living like this. This is called the escape. The life of detachment. The life where you have no awareness of your mind and your body. On the contrary, practicing yoga with non-attachment is to understand that we practice the postures to simply give us these experiences. We aren’t attached to the poses. We say, fuck it if we can’t get into a pose. Getting into a physical posture doesn't really provide us with any real self fulfillment. We don’t cling to asanas if we have a non-attached practice. Be aware of the differences between detachment and non-attachment.
To wrap this all up, our awareness is at a pretty high level when we practice yoga. Yes I know that it’s nice to come into a yoga class after a long day of work with quietness, soft movement, and stillness. It’s soothing. It seems like an escape, but it’s not at all. You’re working towards a better you. You are learning to become conscious of all of these things. If you are practicing yoga with the intentions to improve the outcome of your physical appearance, then you aren’t practicing yoga. You’re doing movement like any other fitness class. That’s not what yoga was meant for. No disrespect to those only doing yoga for the physical purposes, but I encourage you to look at yoga as much more. It helps us with our daily lives. Let it help you. Don’t restrict your practice by making it only about the physical. Yoga is a lifestyle. It’s a way to live. I encourage you to practice with awareness. Practicing with non attachment to the physical practice.
