The Meaning of Tathagata

Tathagata is a powerful word in Buddhism. It is the word the historical Buddha used to refer both to himself and to the Buddhas who came before him. As I search, I often feel like a child running after a strong, striding figure. At times I am exhausted and I tarry on the path, loosing site of what I am running after. At other times, I feel very close. Does Tathagata wait for me? The answer is no, but he is also never very far away.

Goodbye sucks

Tonight is my last group yoga class, at least for a while. I am both very sad and a bit relieved. I need a break, particularly with some of the things going on in my life right now. I have taught for seven years more or less without cessation and I'm tired. It is never easy for me to stand in front of a room full of people. I am basically a shy, introverted person who has to try really, really hard to command a room the way you must when teaching. But I worry that I am abandoning the students. Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions about my importance in the grand scheme of peoples' lives. I simply like being part of peoples' lives. I have inserted myself there and now am walking away. I know that the students will move on and find another teacher or teachers. But I still worry. Who will they find? Will she/he/they lead them down a good road? It is tempting to call them "my" students but they never belonged to me, or anyone else for that matter. That they floated into my classroom and my life is simply my good fortune. But I never had any claim on them, nor them on me. We have to accept that people pass in and out of our lives and treasure the time we were able to spend with them. And then we have to let them go. Of course, letting go is what I have tried to teach the students all along but it seems to be me who didn't learn the lesson well enough. Life is impermanent and thus so are relationships. This is what the Buddha taught. Of course, I wouldn't mind if one of the aforementioned students who don't belong to me was to find me on Facebook or shoot me an email sometime.

Bovine Scatology

We are all of us, at one time or another, full of crap. I have a friend who sometimes says "I call bullsh*t" whenever he hears someone wading through their own crap. I like this expression because it makes him sound like a referee of life as in "I'm calling a foul", only funnier. Just as we are all intermittently full of crap, we all want to believe that we are never, ever so--that we are all truly authentic individuals who never needs to sell a load of scat to our fellow human beings. I think we would all be better for the act of calling our own bullsh*t from time to time. Here, I'll start. The subtitle of this blog is "Don't call me cute". While it is legitimately annoying to be referred to as an adjective better suited to puppies and toddlers in one's third (nearly) decade of life, this has never stopped me from utilizing my aforementioned and much maligned preciousness to get out of trouble. For instance: said with big innocent eyes, "I don't know, sir, I am just sure that I sent that paperwork for Defensive Driving in" or with mock concern, "No, I would never tell an irate customer at the bank drive through to go screw himself" (I used slightly more colorful language, actually, but you get the general idea). Actually, I did and I never sent that paperwork, either. But I was more than happy to let the cuteness that accompanies extremely small stature work to my advantage. So there, I have on many occassions been utterly full of it.

In all seriousness (did I really just say that?) there is much to be learned from the gap between the person we project ourselves to be and the person we really are. By confronting our own myriad little acts of dishonesty, we can learn to reconcile who we are with who we want to be. Some of us have farther to go to close this gap than others but the first step is turning around to stare at that dark expanse. It can even be amusing to confront your own absurdity, as long as you don't take yourself too seriously.

Bakasana or Bookasana?

Here I am looking ridiculous at the library. I was told to "do something funny". This is all I could come up with.

Yoga is more than the body

I made a great big, stupid mistake during last Wednesday's yoga class and I have been worrying about it ever since. Christa always says that we yoga teachers are "three miles wide and one inch deep" and of course she's right. There is so much to know that we never feel that we know enough. The subject is so deep, so complex, so HUGE that we never quite get our arms around it. It's like the first time you try to grasp, I mean really comprehend, the size of the universe--both grand and terrifying. And of course I am by and large an autodidact when it comes to yoga. I have taught myself most of what little I know. And that only makes me feel more inadequate, frankly.

Whenever I start to feel this way I have to remind myself that the asanas are a tool and nothing more, just as our bodies are a means to an end. For me that end is enlightenment, the eventual escape from the cycle of suffering that is rebirth (if the planet survives that long). But I think we all have to define the ultimate for ourselves. It is easy in yoga to get lost in the body and forget that this fleshy shell--while extraordinary in many ways--really means very little. The asanas help to make us more comfortable in these bodies, prepare us for meditation, and teach us about ourselves. They are important. But they are not everything. Yoga is so much more.