What's the most enduring nugget of advice you remember getting from a teacher?
One of the most lasting pieces of counsel from the teacher who influenced me most, Erich Schiffmann, highlighted a route around the pitfalls of getting lost in the wilderness of yoga's complexities. Getting tripped up by confusing — and sometimes irreconcilable and unintelligible — interpretations and translations of ancient wisdom is easy. Everyone, mostly, means well with all their transmissions of truth, but it messes with your head.
It's not just a fly in the ointment for those new to yoga, or worse, a newly minted yoga teacher struggling with how to share it with others. It's a hippopotamus in the yoga stew.
Erich being Erich, he offered a counterpose to getting mired down by complexity. He suggested that we begin by simply reflecting on the big picture of what yoga is. Once you get clearer on that, the details and complexities begin to make more sense. You rob them of their power to mess with your head.
The "wellness business" can't help but nudge us toward embracing the idea that someone else cracked the code so we don't have to. All that's asked of us is to transplant their beliefs, trusting their own experience more than our own. But as anyone whose spent time studying yoga or contemplative practices learns, there are an awful lot of choices to sort through. Do we have to "reset our chakras," or do we delve into a study of each layer of being? Maybe we just breathe more consciously, or pump up our endorphins, or sit in stillness more often? Land on a good mantra? Or eat more roughage and stay off our devices?
It depends. On you.
My vote, more and more, is in favor of simplicity. When we're struggling with anything or anyone, it's tempting to go on a witch hunt for antagonists. Or grasp at someone else's promised shortcut to our equanimity. But which shortcut?
Crack the code for yourself.
Maybe you tread across any terrain, any darkness, and simply stop. Kneel down by the creek. Your hands comb over the cool moss on the ground and you do nothing else other than feel and hear and see. Take it all in.
Set aside everyone else's translations, and zoom out to take in the full sensory picture of the sacred territory of the moment you find yourself in. You might just ratify your own courage.
Thanks for staying kind. And please keep confirming your own wisdom and courage.
