Latest / Sutra Squad / Ep. 16 - Sutras 1.13-14 on the Nature of Practice
Transcript
- Seth Barron: Set your attention, acknowledge distraction will happen. Notice when you're distracted and choose to go back. That's the practice. That's the magic. Hello and welcome to the Suture Squad podcast. Hello. If you're watching us on YouTube, know, Sally made an amazingly funny face. And if you're just listening to the sound of our voice, we're very glad you're here. My name is Seth and it's such a privilege to be here with the superstar Sutra Squad, Sally Moore. Hello. And Sarah Page Hall. Hello. And we have such a rich topic to talk about today. ⁓ We are taking some time to really explore the Yoga Sutra in depth. And ⁓ well, we're not gonna get to every verse. We're gonna try to go deeper than just some of the greatest hits. so this week, well, last week, we talked about the formula for achieving the restraint of yoga, the ⁓ nirodha of the chitta vritti. So. try to stitch this together a little bit. We're looking at the first chapter, the Samadhi Pada, which is a chapter on liberation. Actually, this chapter on like bliss and excuse me, did you want to ask me how I felt today? I know. didn't ask you how you felt. I'm curious too. I just got right in. I skipped our check in. right, Sally, how do you feel right now? You know, delighted. And it's not what I would have said half an hour ago. So delighted. Amazing. Sarah Page, how do you feel? First word was joyous, and then the second one is just deeply, deeply grateful. What they don't see is that we talk for an hour before we get on about everything else, and that totally resets my entire everything. So I am deeply, deeply grateful and very joyous. Yeah, I would say I really am feeling a lot of contentment. Like I don't wanna be anywhere else. I don't wanna do anything else right now. Like I couldn't be more ⁓ humbled and honored and truly contented that like this is what we get to do. We've made this choice. We've chosen to make this investment of time and energy and attention. ⁓ And ⁓ it feels like a deeply yogic practice. And... ⁓ And I just, like, there's a, like I just wanna abide in this space. I'm really grateful that we carve it out with each other. And we're really grateful that if you listen, if you're hearing the sound of our voices, like you're carving out some space. And we hope it's, we hope to earn your time and attention. Okay. Thank you. And, and, and may you have friends and collaborators as gracious and generous as Sally and Sarah Page, who keep me honest. Together. Together. Okay, so we're talking about the Samadhi Pada. Samadhi is the eighth limb of yoga and fascinatingly, it's the title of the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra. think of it as like Master Patanjali is sort of like painting the story of like where we're going to go in this chapter. And in the second verse, the first verse is the Kalta now, Atha Yoga Nushasanam. Now is yoga. The second verse is the definition of yoga. is when we bring the swirl of our mind to stillness. Yoga is the restraint of the unrelenting thought, or when we cease to identify with our thoughts. And then in the third verse, so that the truest expression of ourself shines forth. And then about 10 verses later in the 12th verse, Master Patanjali like gives more, like takes us to the next level. And he says, Abhyasa Vairagya Biham Tannirodha. That the means by which we achieve the restraint is practice, abhyasa, and detachment, vairagya. That these are two sides of the same coin. And this week we're gonna talk about practice, abhyasa. And we're gonna look at two verses, 113 and 114. because they give, again, more depth. Like we just sort of keep going, we keep peeling back or we keep allowing the petals of the lotus to flower. And ⁓ we get to sort of start to see what's inside. And so what we're gonna talk about this week is the nature of practice as it's defined in the Sutras and then how we try to figure out how to live that. So I'm gonna chant. It's another short and very powerful sutra in Sanskrit. It's Tatra Sthitao Yatno Abhyasa. Tatra Sthitao Yatno Abhyasa. And I will invite you to just take a moment and notice how you're sitting. Maybe sit up a little taller. Ooh, I'm gonna do that. And maybe feel your feet on the floor. If you're doing other things, be aware of your physical surroundings and safety, of course. And if it's possible, you can bring your hands together in front of your heart. And join me in the practice of taking a breath and then chanting the sacred syllable of Om. Breathe in. Breathe out. for om, inhale. chanting Yoga Sutra 113. Atrast hitau yatnobhyasa Tatras ti taw yat nob yasa Tatra, sti, tau, yatno, bhyasa. So individually, these four words, tatra, sti, tau, yatna, and abhyasa, there's a little bit of Sanskrit grammar there that you drop the A after the O in yatno, so it's yatno, bhyasa. Tatra is like there, ⁓ sti, tau is an interesting word. ⁓ It contains the same root, s-t-h-a, s-t-h-a. And a reminder, when transliterated, it looks like it might say s-t-h-a, but like it's not a th sound like my name like Seth. The h's in Sanskrit are pronounced and aspirated, so it's s-t-h-i-t-h-o. And that root s-t-h-a is ⁓ to stand. to be firmly, like to be grounded down. ⁓ And it shows up in a bunch of different, in a bunch of different words that we use a lot in asana practice, like ervasthasana, right? Extended mountain is how it's usually translated. Ervas up, upward. So ervasthasana, like upward standing pose. ⁓ It shows up in ⁓ mantra that are very commonly chanted, like in the Jiva Mukti lineage, it's very, I've heard it once said it's the Jiva Mukti national anthem, Lokha Samastha Sukhino Bahavantu, and there are Samastha, like in that case it's ⁓ like standing together. And so there's the sense, okay, so there we stand and then Yatna, effort or vigilance, into Abhyasa practice. And so you could put that all together and translate it any number of ways. I like from Edwin Bryant, who is a modern master and an instructor and professor at Rutgers among his many, many accreditations. these, practice is the effort to be fixed in concentrating the mind. Then I'm going to quickly just give a definition for the next verse. 1.14. And I'll just say the Sanskrit once through. From the same translation, practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion over a prolonged period of time. So it's the effort to practice this idea of like, what is practice? Right, and we throw this word around a lot. ⁓ Sometimes in useful ways and sometimes in like, well, in ways that we'll, like let's really explore and get curious about. Because we don't talk about, I don't believe like yoga is, you know, the cliched, like the yoga teacher cliche is like, it's not a perfect, it's a practice. ⁓ And it's not a perfect, it's a practice. Like it's just a practice, it's just a practice. Yes, I say that all the time. Is that what you said? ⁓ Right, yeah, it's not a perfect, it's a practice. It's a little bit foreign to our Western sensibilities where like if you think about how so many of us are instructed in school to like learn something and then be complete and go on to learn the next thing, right? And so it's like, okay, you learn history. You learn the facts of these things that happened and on you go to the next. This is different. This is like getting curious about the practice of learning, not about what you learn. And I think in so many ways that's like an applicable metaphor to yoga in that whether or not you can do an asana, whether or not you can do a handstand is part of, but is not the practice. The practice is showing up on your mat, on your cushion, and in your life. Right, like the practice in this case, or in this definition of what it means to practice. It's to have a steadfast effort in that concentration, and it's to sustain that effort, firmly established, uninterruptedly, with devotion, over a prolonged period of time. So, whether it's one or both of those verses, ⁓ Sarpej, maybe if you want to go first, because I know you've got one that you want to talk about that I intentionally did not reference because I knew you wanted to be able to speak to it yourself. I've got a couple of things. Sarpej called it. I did. Tag. It's mine. Well, I did want to reference two things from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchitananda, old school. I love one of the things in Sutra 114. He says, practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to, attended to for a long time without break and in all earnestness. All of the other translations tend to have the same words, adjectives and all the things, but I loved when he said attended to, because when you attend to something, it takes on a much more gentle, reverent meaning and then he says earnestness. And then when you go to, ⁓ good old Iyengar, light on the yoga sutras of Patanjali by Iyengar. I love what he says here, and because you touched on it a little bit, Seth, and I'm so glad. ⁓ Practice is more than asana. Yoga is more than asana. And it really matters. And what he says, ⁓ in order to free the mind from fluctuations and oscillations, and to reach a state of steadiness, the practitioner is advised to practice intensely all of the yogic principles. And here, all of the yogic principles from Yama to Dhyana, all of them, the eight limbs. And I used to beat myself up a whole lot more. And I love that he said this the last time we went through this, however many months ago. I was like, I need to get on my mat more. I need to do this. I'm such a failure. I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm not on my mat. But you know what I am doing? I'm practicing meditation. I'm practicing pratyahara. I'm practicing, you know, tons and tons of other, not tons, but other elements of the yogic principles. Do I need to get my mat more? Yes. Yes, I do. It's part of it. And though, I'm doing a lot of other things also. that are yoga. Yeah, this is where the hashtag is actually accurate. It's all yoga. It's all yoga. I know. yoga. Sally, how about you? Were there translations of these verses that you found really interesting or provocative? Always. So just on 1.13. practice is established through deliberate intention. And it's this deliberate intention that kept playing. wait, let's just pause. Practice is established through deliberate intention. And that's from Robin Vazquez of Unravel the Thread. what he said a little deeper in his commentary was, another option is to see yoga as a way to create balance in your life so that you can show up to your life with enthusiasm. kindness and compassion. And that's the whole thing about the various practices of yoga. It's more than asana. It's more than breath. It's more than self study. It's everything. And then where I really took a deep dive was in the 1.114 and is firmly rooted over a long time of continuous wholehearted and sincere action. also from Ruben Vazquez, and I really was like deliberate intention and sincere action. He goes on to say that, remember that anything you practice will become firmly established, even what you practice unconsciously. Also remember that nothing meaningful happens overnight. Acting from your heart and with love will in itself provide sustenance for the journey. Consistent practice has the capacity to transform you. And then there was one more, if I can just hog the space. going, yeah. Also 114, a Bhyasa is nurtured by a sustained and steady rhythm and a dedicated heart. And that's from the Secret Power of Yoga from Nichola Joy Devi. And I'm just gonna share, she, went on to say, repetition is not enough for true practice. Our practice may be steady as a drumbeat, yet fully embrace the spirit of the activity. A deepening must take place. A metrodome beats at a steady rhythm, but the heart of the musician that imbues the music with spirit and life, keeping the enthusiasm alive is key. And I was reading this and I suddenly was brought to think of my nephew. I have a beautiful nephew who's a freshman in college now and his way of being is quite reserved. He's very talented. He's very thoughtful. You have very deep conversations with them, but he's quiet. So it's not the first one in the room to speak up. And I went. he has been playing the saxophone. think, I don't know how old you are, third grade or fourth grade, and he played the clarinet and then he switched to saxophone. And I knew he was good at it, but I went to his graduation and the senior band, there was a handful of them playing. He was playing the sax, people were playing different. And I was just taken aback. I was staring at this person I know as thoughtful and quiet and reserved. He was jamming. His energy, he imbued the entire graduation with spirit. He cheered his bandmates on, but by the way he moved, like it was, I can't explain the experience. I immediately texted him the next day and said, may you always live like you play. Because I could not, he took this He just made this, and I don't think it's just because I'm his auntie. I think the entire experience and anyone who could hear was elevated by his devotion and dedicated heart to the music. I hope he never stops playing. And that's yoga. stops playing. That's his yoga. sounds like some yoga to me. Yeah, heck yeah. Yeah. And how beautiful that you call it, call it yippie, skippy call. But how beautiful that he has you to see that and to bring it forward. Really? How many, how many kids, adults, how many of us need that person to like cheer us on in the corner? Well, and remember like when you were like that old and like you had an adult who you really felt like saw you. I have no, I actually thinks he, thinks I'm a little bit cool for an older lady. I think he thinks I'm okay. But most important is he thinks he fricking rocks. Can I say fricking Sam? You can say whatever you want. You can say worse. Thank you for letting me kind of go on about that. Cause I was just like, it's Well, I think there's so much that there's so much to unpack in there, right? Like First of all, what a lucky kid that he found something that he loves to practice. Because if you talk to any great musician, the New York joke is, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice, practice. Practice, practice, practice. that was what I was thinking is he wasn't practicing for that moment. He's just practicing. No, but he was just, that's like, we'll get to that part. We'll get to that part next time because that's the detachment. Like he was just practicing because his heart is called to it and he loves it. Right? Like kids don't typically, well, like sometimes kids are, let's say most kids don't pursue music of their own volition unless they really love it. And I've always, there's something amazing about that for kids and that it teaches them the value of practice. Of practice, that you might not wanna sit down at the piano, but if you want, but the practice is doing it anyway. Right, and I don't always want to get on my yoga mat, but I know that it will always, I will always feel better. I have never, like, you know, it's like, I've never regretted a single class I've taken. Whether or not I loved it or I hated it, there's been a couple. I have to say, the only ones that I regret is when I eat too close to the practice. Yeah, but you're not regretting the practice. You're aware of like, what it takes for you to get to like be on your mat and at your best. I've never left a yoga practice and said, I wish I didn't go to yoga today. Yeah, exactly. Never. I even even if it's not my quote unquote, my best, it still felt really good to be in practice. You know, it's crazy when they hear you talking about this. What if it just came to me? What if never regretting a moment in your life? Because you're always in the practice like I'm going to tell you something. I don't regret anything in my life. And I mean, I can say that I'm 64. and I can look back at it. And there's a certain amount of wisdom because if I didn't have that thing happened, then this wouldn't be now. And yeah, was it hard when I went through it? And it was tapas, it was friction, but I'm here and I like where I am right now. I'm happy where I am. And it's taken me a long time. Well, in these practices, I know for me, even when I find myself slipping into some old habit, Because it is true, while we practice, I've practiced some bad habits. And it's this yoga, this study, allows me to get back in the moment pretty quick when I used to not have the tools, I guess, or, you know. Well, you're practicing something else, right? Yep. Like, because, you know, habit is just another word for, you could say, like, I was gonna say mindless practice, and I don't mean to sound so judgmental about that, because habit can be very useful. There are good habits. There are good habits. Well, let's challenge ourselves around good or bad. Well, I'm just thinking of this as like really silly, but my dentist canceled my dental appointment the other day, and I really look forward to getting my teeth cleaned. Twice a year, very on schedule. And I was thinking like, I've had a talent, I've had a practice of flossing for a long, time. stay with me. But when I met this new dentist, they actually taught me to floss in a more productive way. So I always had the practice of flossing, but it wasn't the best practice. There was more to learn. And it's helped my tooth health. that's why I don't know if that was a ridiculous example. mean, I how long? never knew that you had like a dental fixation. This is ⁓ a mindless practice. was dental flossing in a way that I was checking a box. Now I dental floss with intention. That's what I'm trying to get. I love that. I love you, like something I like to say too. So like, this is so good. Yoga is among many things. It's a practice of placing your attention with a clarity of intention. Well, and I love, think we talked about this briefly before, but I teach yoga nidra weekly. And in yoga nidra, we always say the sankopa, our intention, our heart's desire, our deepest intention for our life. And what this made me think about this year is this week, with this Sutra is it's important to get clear with the Sankhopa or the intention for your life, for your living. And that was one thing I really thought about the more intentional like is what I'm choosing in line with what's most important to me. And it can change over time. Because also it's like, am I still practicing something that was most important when I was 20? It changes and I think that that's the top is that's the friction is leaning into that sandpapery ⁓ I'm shifting I'm changing my practice is going to change because now this is where my mind is and all of this and now I need to practice this and this suited me very well and thank you. But now we're moving into this and what I was gonna say when you were talking about mindlessly I mean how many times do I get to the grocery store and I'm like how did I ever get here. Driving is an interesting example, right? Like we have a habit, like I don't drive every day. So when I do drive actually, it's kind of, it's a little bit special and I pay a little bit more attention because I don't drive every day and so I really wanna make sure that when I drive, I'm driving very intentionally. ⁓ But I'm still not thinking about like, how much I'm pressing my foot on the gas and how exactly everything I'm doing. I know how to drive and so I drive. But that's why driving isn't yoga in this way. Theoretically on the mat and the reason it's such a beautiful laboratory for these practices, right? Because asana is just one of the eight limbs of yoga. It's just one. of the many, many, many, many yogic practices that we can engage with. And it's a very valuable one. And I love asana practice. I love teaching asana. I love getting on a mat and moving my body. I'm, you know, big fan. And one of the reasons I love it is because it lets me like, practice where I put my attention and use my body as like, ⁓ I think of it sometimes as like a laboratory. Right? It's like, it's like, it's like, I'm just conducting experiments. And like, you know, noticing if I can put my full attention into every pose, or am I just like doing this to get to the next thing? And that goes to ego, doesn't it? Oh, oh my God. Right? It's like, well, you know, one of the two examples that are so easy because they're so they're so common in most modern asana practice. In Sanskrit, it's Ardha Uttanasana, halfway lift, and Chaturanga Dandasana. You very, very often see students like sort of like, like the halfway, halfway lift. You see this a lot, the halfway, halfway lift. It's like they're kind of like they're kind of still hunched over in the mid back and like their shoulders are just sort of drooped. They're not engaged. And you can tell they're just doing it to do the next thing. And then they're getting to chaturanga and they're getting through it as fast as possible. Because we have it as like, we should be going from like what we're trying to get to is like back to down dog. And so they're just trying to like get ahead and like get to it, right? And something I love to do is invite students is to like take every pose as a full expression of a pose. Can you find and sometimes even slow down in a class where it feels like we need a little space is like slow down and like, if you've never done this and you're an Austin instructor, have students hold halfway lift for five breaths. Have them hold it for five breaths and like watch how they'll, watch them squirm. I'm not saying that to be cruel. I'm saying it to be like as a practice, as a way to invite people into the practice of like, no, like full attention. Can you both feel your tailbone reaching to the back of the room and the crown of your head reaching to the front of the room? Can you feel that at the same time? Can you generate that in your body? You know, can you hold Chaturanga for five breaths? It's really hard. A really nicely integrated Chaturanga where your shoulders are. about the same level as your elbows, not that far below if they are, and where your legs are fully engaged and your hips are in line with your heels and the crown of your head, and you feel the tailbone reaching for your heels and pulling your thighs in into the hip joints to really make sure that you're activating this pose from the pelvic floor with Mula Bandha applied. But that's the pose. Yeah. That's the pose. But you so often see students who are just like, they think it's just the thing you're doing on the way to the next thing. And what if there was like, what if there was nowhere to go? What if all you're doing is this pose right now? And so, and so like, what if we took that into our life and said, we are going to, we're to be steadfast in our effort of practice. And, and, and to be clear, I think we should maybe have a moment and talk about the difference between practice and practices. To me, practice is like a mindset. Practice is like a big intention, which is just, which is, and there's a beautiful like, ⁓ like expression of sthira and sukkha in the idea of practice. Sthira, the steadfastness, like just to be in the practice, to be in practice, to see your whole life as practice. Everything you're doing is a moment of practice. And then like the sukkha is that it's practice. It's not perfect. You don't have to get it right. You can drop some of the significance as my teacher Bethany has said before about Asana, right? Just like drop the significance of the pose. It's a way of saying like, don't let it have to be good or bad or anything. It's just a pose. It's just, no. It is one of the practices is to take the pose and fully embody the pose and receive the pose. That's like the difference between practice as a mindset and practices with which we engage that are aligned to that mindset. What I wanted to add, Sally, was something you talked about, sthira. When you say tatra sthita is also part of sthira. No, abhiyasa. So it makes total sense where you were going with this. And so as soon as you said it, went, ⁓ Sit down. Anyway, okay. So I was gonna add one thing that I thought kind of brings us all together from Inside the Yoga Sutras by Reverend Jagannath Kuru. And in part of his commentary, he said, daily life is a stage upon which vrittis perform their dance. Therefore our lives, every act should reflect a clear and steady focused of mind. We won't make satisfied progress if we practice control of the mind for an hour a day and then let it restlessly wander during the other 23. Our lifestyle and environment should support our goals. That is why we need to live fully in the moment and to develop attentive focus to whatever task is at hand. That is also yoga practice. You know, again, I'm quoting Bethany a bunch tonight, but one of my favorites of hers too is, ⁓ there is no in here out there. Now, she said this in the context of teacher training, and I think it, and I agree, and I think it applies to teachers, practitioners, to all of us. That like, if you have this vision of who you wanna be as a yoga teacher, and it's separate from who you think you are everywhere else in your life, I don't know if you're gonna get where you think you wanna go. I'm not sure. I mean, you can tell me, please reach out. But what I've found is that when I find those moments of what feels like division is that there's something I'm either afraid of or unwilling to integrate or haven't yet found the path of integration to yet. Like said, I'm not willing to hold it with me ⁓ and accept it. It's that integration, right? Because I think once again, that's practice and practices, because I also am noticing in the same book by Reverend Carrera, it's a good idea to include practices that help make the body stronger and more relaxed, meditation and or prayer to help steady the mind and at least a little study to keep inspired and on track. That's nice. You know, so those are It's all yoga. Those are practices of a practice. seeing your life as the practice. There is no in here out there. If you think you're going to show up and be this enlightened being as a yoga instructor and then walk out of the studio and be a jerk to the guy who's going to make you a cup of coffee. Disintegration. Good luck. Well, something that, like, yeah, go ahead. Something that Nishala Joy Devi said that I really like, ⁓ from the secret power of yoga, the rhythm of a devoted practice sustained and steady when you no longer have to ask, should I sit for meditation today? You just do it. There is no need to make excuses or look for a reason to take the day off. I mean, and those are the things that takes practice. You know, the meditation is one of the practices. but it takes practice to just integrate it into our lives as a matter of just part of our day. And for its own sake, not for the sake of the outcome. And we'll talk more about this in our next episode because that's that's the Vairagya, the detachment. I think there's something really important about talking about practice too, as like, again, this mindset of practice with which we engage individual practices at any given time for any given reason. but that it's steadfast and it's effort. And it's not easy all the time, but it requires effort. Placing your attention with intention requires effort and a constant willingness to come back, begin again and reset and start again and reset and start again. Over and over. mean, there's a lot of meditation methodology. that teaches us that the practice is in the return. Because if you think about the dance is, okay, I sit down to meditate, I choose an object of my attention, a mantra, my breath, a guided meditation, there's a voice in my ear, take your pick. Inevitably your mind wanders and you get distracted. You hear something in the distance and think, ⁓ you know. Is that a bird? I wonder how the birds are. What are the birds doing right now? Huh. What bird would I be if I was a bird? I do not have that thought because I have a bit of a thing about I don't like birds. I don't. really don't. I have like a weird thing about it. I like I find them creepy and scary. Sweet little birds. ⁓ I like them. ⁓ Yeah, I don't know. I find them a little scary. ⁓ But even there, then I got scared of the birds and then I'm thinking about my fear of birds and my, I'm like, I'm a little uncomfortable because I don't know, I've had bad bird experiences and I'm thinking of some scar of birds. And then all of a sudden, I realize, okay, wait, I was sitting down to meditate and I'm in a fight with New York City pigeons in my mind. That's not where I wanted my attention. I sat down to chant mantra. I sat down to follow my breath. And that's now this is the magical moment, the return. The beginning again to set your attention, acknowledge distraction will happen. Notice when you're distracted and choose to go back. That's the practice. That's the magic. And so it doesn't mean that like the practice like to you don't sit down and say, will I will now achieve somebody. I will achieve enlightenment. I mean, if you know how to do that, like call us, come on the podcast, teach us all. Most of us are going to do that dance. I sit down. OK, I'm going to focus on my breath and then my mind flies off somewhere teleports. to my childhood or to my fears of the future, to Paris or to Bangkok or any number of places. And then I noticed that my mind is off in Bangkok, but I'm sitting here right now, it's near, mean, my body's in New York City and I'm trying to be where I am. And that's part of my intention. So now I gotta just like, but again, and it used to think of like, and it's also totally normal and natural to like, Get frustrated with yourself. Let all kinds of feelings arise. Tell yourself all kinds of stories about it. And even there too, just like, can you just watch that? That's ego. is to just, well, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's not me saying something bad. I'm just saying that's ego. It's, it's... Ego is a practice, by the way. Like, let's get into this for a second. Ego is a practice. Shall we? Yeah. Ego is a practice of like... There's a, like Seth is a practice. This construction of what and who I call Seth. That's a practice, that's habit. of telling myself Seth is this, Seth is this, Seth is like, I'm this, I'm not that, I'm this, I'm not that, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this. And that's, no, granted, like I've had 47 years of habit to get to the expression of this Seth that I'm practicing. and some of it challenging, some of it joyous, some of it beautiful, some of it messy. Definitely all of it imperfect. All of this. Right. Right. But I think I found that the more I've like just approached the practice of Seth with more curiosity, the more I've been able to find new space and a different ease in the practice of Seth. Absolutely. I just feel like these two sutras, it just keeps coming back to intention. What is your intention? And when we fly off and I don't know what happened to you pigeons in New York. We just knew it the floss and the pigeons. We have flossing and pigeons. But you know what mean? Like this is all yoga. That's what I love about it. And there's nothing wrong with it. That's the part. I think what's happened for me is I get distracted when I forget what my intention is when I become robotic in the choices of my day. I have this amazing opportunity to go see a friend student in a play this weekend. And it was in a town, the next one over. And first I had all these stories, what I should do. And I usually do this and I organize for this. And I don't know if I want to go along like all the swirl of why I shouldn't go. The shoulds were jumping in there. And then I just thought, just go. Just get the directions, go, call the place, ask if you need tickets. But what really got me there was saying to myself, What is my intention? Who do I want to be in the world? And I want to be a person who is courageous and goes by herself to things and experiences watching people that I love doing courageous things and be open to. And it was a brilliant afternoon. And I am so grateful that we were studying this sutra because my mind was going nuts telling me what I should be doing. But my heart was like, no, this is in line with my intention I'm doing. And it was fantastic. So one of the things that I've started doing and I've never enjoyed it ever, but for some reason, well, when Seth and I went to India leading a retreat, Seth got these really nice journals with a really nice pen. I never journal. I don't like it. I'm dyslexic. So it's always in my brain, but I have a lot going on in my brain right now. We all do. We all do. And I find it very difficult, this practice of journaling, I've just always thought it was kind of hooey until I had stuff going on in my brain and I needed definitely to, no offense to the journalists out there, and I needed to like- No, it was the hooey. I just love the one. Okay. Your pigeons, your floss, and I'm hooey. That just tickled me. So anyway, but I sat down and I had some thoughts. And all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was five pages in. And I remember thinking, I'll never probably reread this. This is just, I need to get this out. I just don't, like I live alone and I'm fine with that. I have cats, but they're not gonna be helpful. So I was just sort of like, need to just get this out. And I did. I thought to myself, Why have I always resisted this when it's really just, you know, what is the story that I've told myself for so many years? Like I need prompts or I need, it needs to look a certain way. Now I will say having a really groovy pen and journal makes it easier. And though I just have started writing down like when things are in my brain, you know. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I need to really sit down and go, okay. Okay. Now I get it. All right. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I just needed to kind of get it like that. You know what I mean? And it was, it's practice. Well, I have to say, I have journaled off and on in my life and I realized a year or so ago, I had all these journals and actually, I don't think I was just downloading from my mind, I was recording evidence from everyone who had wronged me. so I had journals full of my ex-husband and my ex-ex. And I was like, wow, I hold on these as proof. And I had this amazing experience not that long ago. I threw them all away. I'm so smart. I'll leave this evidence. And now I see it more as just a download. free up, download. And if I want to revisit them, great. And if I don't, it felt so good to throw them away. That's a great way to it. I had gone about it in the wrong way though. This was record keeping for proof versus- Document, document, document. Yeah. And like I said, once again, even with these sutras, maybe it was time for me to review my strategy of journaling. And maybe at that point, I was in court systems battling divorces. Maybe it felt like what I needed to do at that time. But I'm so grateful that I saw this review, your resolve every month or so and revise as you progress. Once again, It's what you were talking about being 20. You're not who you were when you divorced your husband. It's over. I'm a big believer in burning stuff, I mean, you know, like in a sink or whatever. just like threw it all in the recycling and I thought if somebody comes across it they want to read it, go for it. My poor cats have watched me burn everything. if I say I light it on fire in the sink and out it goes. But I think it goes back to Sally, what you were talking about earlier when it's like who you were back then is just not unimportant because it's made you who you are and that is important. But it's done. She's gone. She's not gone. She's still there. But she's not running the boat. She's not driving the car anymore. And somehow that version of me thought she needed proof for her feelings. Like, I don't feel like I proof for my feelings. Who knows? What's interesting is now to notice like now what you practice, where your intention is. And like there's, again, we'll talk about this a lot more next week, there's a letting go. Right, and this is where these two practices, ⁓ but like how these ideas are really actually, just the two sides of the coin. That the practice, for the sake of practice, steadfast, fixed, and uninterrupted, over a long period of time. We didn't get into the quick fix culture that we live in and how hard it is to cultivate practice in a world where we're told like, take a pill and fix it. Just do this one thing, hack your life. this five, like, look at how much of content, whatever feed through which you consume content, how much of it is like this one simple thing, the five habits that'll change are this, right? Like it's all as if somehow you can just like do it. But like yoga is actually the real, like the antidote to all of that because again, look at these teachings, because they're telling us that the means by which we achieve yoga is practice and detachment and that practice is steadfast and it's not. fixed like it's right and wrong. It's not fixed like it's... ⁓ like static. It's fixed as in the mindset of life as practice. I kind of think it's a little bit of one of those things. Like once you start, you just kind of can't stop. When you see it, you can never unsee it. you know it, you can't unknow it. And when you start to... Zoom out and zoom out and zoom out on your practice. Right, starts for most of us. Certainly for me, I think for the both of you too. Like it started on a yoga mat. And then maybe, I don't know, for me it was like one of the first big like moments was like about six months later when I was referencing a mantra we were chanting in class in a totally non-yoga, air quotes I'm making, air quotes, context. And I started like challenging myself to apply the teaching to my life. And all of a sudden I was like, wait, what's going on here? Like in this case, it was the Guru mantra and I was actually thinking about my ex-husband. And I think it was a big step in my... ongoing ever lifelong healing journey, but to be able to just open some new space for compassion around him by acknowledging that whether I liked it or not, or was what I wanted or not, he was a guru in my life. Right? Now, that's not a capital G guru as spiritual master. He was not that to me. But in the mantra, it's Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. There's a Guru of creation, a Guru that sustains us, and a Guru of transformation. The three murti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. And then the second line, Guru Sakshat Param Brahma Tasma Shri Guru Vey Namaha. The way Reema always translates this that I love. my teacher, Rima Rabath, Aksha is eyes. And so Sakshat is like to be seen. So there's a guru, sometimes it's translated as there's a guru nearby, or is there a guru that we see? And then Param Brahma, like into infinite beyond the guru's, everywhere, there's a guru everywhere, into infinite gurus. And then what it really got to me. And where I really started thinking of like, this was like a big moment of like starting to see my life as practice was I asked myself, because the last line of the verse is, tasma sri gurave namaha, I humble myself before the teachings of my guru. Or like the ⁓ other lineages translate that as I offer my humble obeisances at the lotus feet of my guru. And so I thought to myself, like, what would it mean to humble myself? before my guru. And I started taking it on as like small experiments in humility, like in getting my ego, getting that habit of Seth. Like one is starting to get curious about how and where it's operating and where could I then say, okay, thank you and step aside. What else is there? I love, I love when we start to see these things like this. Like, can I bring my grandson up just for a second? Yeah, yeah. And then I wanna just, cause what you just said. such a tenacious, but I want to see Bodhi. Where's the Bodhi? So it's not Bodhi. It's Hanky. Hank is 13 months old and he's learning how to walk. And it's so cute. And he is so practicing. I don't even know if he knows exactly what he's practicing, but he knows this comes next. And I just thought I've been watching him over the last month. go from standing up in the middle of the room, taking two steps, maybe taking 10 steps. It's so sweet. And it was so interesting because I was listening to a podcast last weekend and it was talking about we are one of the, are we called mammals? I don't know what we're called. Our species is one of the slowest to learn to walk. It takes us, he said probably till you're about three, till you can actually walk. He was talking about hunters and gatherers. So why is it that we think we don't need to practice? I thought we were going to get a Bodhi sighting. I was excited to see the Bodhisattva. can hear him. I think he just got back. I can hear him running in. No, but Hanky, Hank is a little teacher right now because it's going to take him a minute. Yeah, but he's not fighting it. He's not fighting it. But where do we learn? Most of us, luckily, in Who Can Walk, went through an extensive period. We weren't born a horse or whoever it is that just jumps up and runs. So those of us who are lucky enough to be able to walk, practiced for a long time. Can I, I have to jump in because you just said this and I'm thank you because this is the perfect segue. Sachit Nanda says the first qualification for the practice is that it should be done for a long time. Unfortunately, we just want the result immediately. If I ask you to repeat a mantra and I tell you that this will help you to become more peaceful and realize beautiful things within you and you go back home and you repeat it for three days and then call me and say, I repeated it for three days, but nothing happened. Maybe it's not the suitable mantra for me. Can you give me a different one? And then he says, Patanjali says for a long time, he doesn't say how long. Just a long time. Not how long, not three days and it's done and now you're enlightened. And by the way, like a lifetime, if not many lifetimes. And you can take that as literally or figuratively as you want, right? Like whether or not you believe in the literal reincarnation of lifetimes and multiple lifetimes, but like I've lived a couple of lives. I've lived a couple of lives in this expression, right? And I'm not done. And what's so exciting is like when you start to really see your life as practice, your whole life, your whole life, to me there's both like this beautiful humility that arises. Like sometimes I just, I like to say like, don't, I try, I spent a long time very invested in trying to be right. And that's something, that's a new practice for me that has arisen over these last 10 years of deep yogic practice is that that's a really big indicator, like a big red flashing light now. Because now I can see that that's my ego in operation. I don't actually, like what arises for me now is like, ⁓ how fascinating. I know that I don't actually care about being right. want something, like there's something under, like what's underneath that? And the practice is the curiosity to be like, wow, wow, I used to really care about being right about that. Huh. But what do I want now? Why do I care so much about being right? What is that doing for me? What am I really seeking? What do I really want? ⁓ I wanna be, sometimes that's like, I wanna feel heard, seen. I want someone to attune, like co-regulate with me. That's what I want. And that right there is actually a practice of like co-regulating back to myself. Like what do I want? Where am I standing right now? What do I want? ⁓ I wish we could all be more like Hank. Right? Just happy to stand up in the middle of the room. Look at me. It's always the ta-da, whoa. then goals. I've said this and I will stand by the statement that it is an auspicious birth of great fortuity to come into this world as Sally's grandchild. I might need to record that so I could play that for my older grandson once in a while. Tell him to call me. Yeah. I'll take some practice. And I have a practice of fiercely loving people who I fiercely love. And so sometimes I also have a tendency to be a little bit defensive on their behalf. That's a practice. Right. Like that's a little bit. I'm not a little bit. I will go to war. Yeah, exactly. OK, so we are in the and like and look. You know, we're here. Like the whole reason you're hearing the sound of our voice, if you are so generous, is to have decided to spend some time with us. Like this is our practice. This is a business. We were in this study together in a different context. We found this really beautiful relationship with each other. And we just said like, I just want to be in practice together. And the podcast, like the recording of it and the doing of it and now the publishing of it, ⁓ is literally just like our practice of being in practice of study and holding ourselves accountable so that there's a fixness, right? There's something fixed about that that like we made a commitment to practice and we could have gone down a whole nother hour. ⁓ We could have a whole many, many hours and we will about the power of positive association. Because something that will arise and it can get really weird and it can be very challenging is when you start that mindset shift of your life as practice. And then you start noticing like, where am I supported in my practice? attunes to my practice? Whether or not it's their practice who supports and cheers on my practice. ⁓ And sometimes the answers to those questions can be uncomfortable. Because we start to realize, like, wait a minute, that person who I thought was this, was this, now from where I stand, feels different. Something feels different. But then the opposite is, okay, I have this intention of being in practice, right? All three of us have a shared lineage of one method of yoga, but we also felt like we wanted something more beyond the bounds of that lineage, which to be clear is a beautiful lineage and has wonderful things to offer the world. And this is in no way to speak disparagingly of that lineage whatsoever. It was that, I teach it proudly. We wanted to keep making space for that to unfold. And we all felt an unfolding in a direction that was like aligned toward this study of these verses of this text. as much as this podcast is a seva, is a service to be of service to the world and hopefully inspire anyone who is generous enough to listen, to their own practices, it's also our practice. And it's our way of being in practice and being in association with people who support, validate, cheer, love, celebrate our practice and us in it. Messy, imperfect, fumbling, stumbling, forgetting to do check-ins, laughing about silly flubs we make along the way, all of it, that shared intention of just like practice. as a mindset of our lives, steadfast, fixed, and with no quick fixes expected or even sought, that this big practice, the point is the practice, is not to get it right, is not to fix anything, solve anything, but it's just to be in practice. And I so love being in this practice with the two of you, and if any... one ever hears this and finds any inspiration to their own practices, then this is worth every nanosecond of time that we have devoted to it. I really believe that so passionately. Okay, we gotta wrap up this practice, we could talk about this all night. Let's do a quick round of inquiry inspired by this conversation on practice. Sarah Page, what is a point of stimulus for inquiry? Where do you leave your practice on the mat and why? Why don't you look at it and where do you not integrate it into your everyday life? Beautiful. And why? Sally. I'm all about creating a sankopa for life. So it's like, what is my heart's deepest desire? What is my intention now? What lights me up? What excites me? Are my practices and habits supporting my growth and meeting me exactly where I am? So good. Yeah, I would just offer like, ⁓ ⁓ What's possible if you just take on your whole life as practice? Like what would be possible for you if you just saw it as practice? Waking up this morning is practice. Getting ready for work is practice. Taking my dog out is practice. Getting on a podcast to talk about ancient wisdom and how we live it today is practice. Getting on my yoga mat is practice. What if it's all just practice? Okay, so now, and we also offer a teaching tip. everybody, if you're hearing this, you're a teacher. Whether you give formal asana instruction or not, you're a teacher, welcome. ⁓ And so we offer a teaching tip. Sarah Page, what's one teaching tip from this conversation? ⁓ Practice transitions. Practice the transitions. ⁓ Don't just go through them to get to something else. Practice the transitions, the halfway lifts, the chaturangas. Take the time. I always say there's no wasted movement. There's no wasted pose. There's no wasted asana. So ⁓ give some love to that. that pose that you just tend to like go through too quickly. Super good. Sally. I'm going to offer ground down the four corners of your feet so you can just begin where you are in the moment. And then in the posture, allow your relationship with your body to deepen, allow the wisdom from within to guide you. Really practice deliberate intention throughout the practice, throughout your life and let your heart be known. I think I'm just gonna offer, I'm gonna offer two things. I love that two-syrup page. I often say, what if every pose is equally important and not important at all? Drop the significance, right? Every pose is equally important and not important at all. So there's nowhere to go but where you are. There's no pose to take but the one you're doing. And could every breath be a full expression? And if you stay in a pose for more than a breath, could it be a deeper expression? And if you notice that you're yearning for something next, can you just take a look at the yearning and let that be part of your practice too? Without having to change anything, just to look at the yearning and be like, wow, interesting. Oh, hmm, where do I wanna go? What's that? No judgment. Yeah, no judgment. Just the practice is observation. I think of myself, sometimes I think, I've given this, I think I've said this on another episode, but like, think of myself as like a cartoon anthropologist observing my own mind. There's like a little Seth hiding behind the bushes in a pith helmet. he's like looking between the reeds and making notes in his little book of just like, the natives today seem restless. They seem scared of birds today. Did they floss? And like, it's really fun to like give yourself whatever, by the way, like, give yourself a fun little like, like as a way to drop some of that significance, like that cartoon Seth is in the pith helmet, you know, like peeking through the bushes like to observe the natives. Like, and I know that has all kinds of weird icky colonial kind of like context to it's just a light. It's like, that's all it is, is just like a little bit of levity for myself. to try to take myself less seriously. And to just like be in the practice too, like be easy in the steadfastness. It's all practice, just let it, just, just take, just, know, let it, see what happens. Okay, you know, I will say it and we'll say it we'll say it again. Like this practice is just, is a true practice of the heart for us. ⁓ If you have been so generous as to give us some of your precious time and attention, we thank you dearly. Please consider ⁓ giving us a rating, a review, leave a comment if there's something that inspires you, and subscribe on the platform of your choice so we show up in your feed. It's about once a week that we release this content. And ⁓ if you found benefit from it, consider sharing it with somebody who maybe could find benefit as well. And who knows where this will take us? But I'm so glad that it's taken me to you Sally and you Sarah Page because you make the practice of my life so uniquely rich and delicious. And I just... It's just a great joy to be in this practice together. Absolutely. Ditto. Ditto. And thank you, every single one of you, for taking some time to listen for the Sutra Squad. That's it for this week. We'll see you or hear you or talk to you again very soon. Good night. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.