The Ashtanga yoga practice in the tradition of guru Sri K. Pattabhi Jois is a six-day a week repetition. You learn a set series of postures and do them every day in the same way; the reiteration of the movements allows the practitioner to still the fluctuations of the mind and observe things as they really are—or at least proceed through the practice with a minimum of distraction and fussing about.
It’s easy enough, especially when one’s regular practice is done solo, to fall into patterns of behavior that do little to advance one’s development, physically, mentally, or spiritually. These are the ruts known in Sanskrit as samskaras—those habitual ways of being which are the inevitable result of our minds’ tendency to recognize patterns in things and apply them to make our way in the world. There’s nothing inherently bad about samskaras; we simply want to be aware of when we’re perceiving and acting habitually and in so doing, resist the tendency to sleepwalk through our lives.
One of the traditional roles of the yoga guru has been to shake students out of their mental and physical complacency; the teacher challenges students to try something new or do something old in a new way; this wakes students up and requires them to notice what they hadn’t been noticing—to exercise what, in the Buddhist tradition, is referred to as “mindfulness.”
Of course, as a student, this sucks.
The last thing you want to do is change something you’re used to, to forsake a trick you’ve developed to make the practice easier, to have it pointed out that the way you’re doing it could be improved upon with a little work on your behalf.
Prudent practitioners, therefore, will studiously avoid taking classes that might encourage them to examine their practices in a new light; others, like me, who don’t know what’s good for them, will seek out a teacher—at least for a month or two.
It’s easy enough, especially when one’s regular practice is done solo, to fall into patterns of behavior that do little to advance one’s development, physically, mentally, or spiritually. These are the ruts known in Sanskrit as samskaras—those habitual ways of being which are the inevitable result of our minds’ tendency to recognize patterns in things and apply them to make our way in the world. There’s nothing inherently bad about samskaras; we simply want to be aware of when we’re perceiving and acting habitually and in so doing, resist the tendency to sleepwalk through our lives.
One of the traditional roles of the yoga guru has been to shake students out of their mental and physical complacency; the teacher challenges students to try something new or do something old in a new way; this wakes students up and requires them to notice what they hadn’t been noticing—to exercise what, in the Buddhist tradition, is referred to as “mindfulness.”
Of course, as a student, this sucks.
The last thing you want to do is change something you’re used to, to forsake a trick you’ve developed to make the practice easier, to have it pointed out that the way you’re doing it could be improved upon with a little work on your behalf.
Prudent practitioners, therefore, will studiously avoid taking classes that might encourage them to examine their practices in a new light; others, like me, who don’t know what’s good for them, will seek out a teacher—at least for a month or two.
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