I just wanted to touch base with you all after not seeing you for our regular Sunday discussion. I missed not having our get-together. On the other hand, I truly enjoyed participating in the lovely and informative workshop taught by Brian Hogencamp. I thought I would share a few thoughts from the workshop and weave those into our discussion.
First, I will share the concept of parinama, which means transformation. I should speak for myself, but I would venture to guess that most of us intend to leave practice or class "changed" or "transformed." If I’m the same old me after practice or class, what's the point? I want to leave class or practice more intelligent, wiser, or calmer or, or, or...
As a simple analogy, I have had a little pinch in my shoulder lately. I mentioned this to Brian. He looked at my arms in Dog Pose and made a simple suggestion/adjustment. It felt very foreign. Strange even. But it felt better on my shoulder. I had been doing the pose the same way for a long time and had not "re-examined" my arms in the pose. Same old. Day and day out. Now, there is an opportunity for transformation. It feels strange or confusing in my muscular system but here is the opportunity for change. Opportunity for transformation. An opportunity for parinama!
Importantly, though, we have to be open to change, even eager for it. Resistance to change is simply an unfortunate expression of ego. We have to humble ourselves to the idea that something needs to change. Another way to say this is that by accepting that we don’t know, we have opened ourselves up the possibility to learn.
So how does this connect with our study of philosophy? Aren't we wrestling with new concepts? Trying to comprehend new ideas? But is this transformative? I would say absolutely! I would say that as we wrestle with the sutras we are transforming our minds...shaping ourselves into more intelligent and wise human beings. And perhaps, we are recognizing that these philosophical texts can't be understood with our current mind but must be understood with a new mind. In some ways, we have to let go of the way we were doing and embrace new ways of doing and thinking and being. So similar to "re-examining" our arms in Dog Pose.
Again, I just want to say I missed you all last Sunday, but look forward to seeing you next Sunday, May 1.
As a reminder, the recording from our last discussion is still posted and details on next Sunday's topic can be found on the philosophy page HERE.
