Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Thank God for Boredom
The novelty will wear off. That is, the tyranny of the novelty of the yoga asana will and should exhaust itself. Then the grim slog to the yoga studio will become the most terrific aspect of the practice.

The days to treasure are the days of seemingly overwhelming inertia--- the days when you have to manually lift one leg at a time in order to climb the stairs to the studio, only to unroll the same old mat in an empty, drafty room to practice the same sequence of poses you've been doing for years. Gah!

The inertia is a sign of something --- of what? Usually when the twitchy boredom arises, when my mind demands novelty and spectacle, grand inspiration and technicolor stimulation, the quietness that arises during practice is deeper, richer, more resonant ... utterly boring and mundane and brilliant.

To paraphrase the rishi Leonard Cohen, when you give up the idea of creating your own masterpiece, the real masterpiece arises.