Practice and All is Coming
“Practice and all is coming” is a line that I heard quite often in the beginning of my yoga journey, particularly during Ashtanga classes. The teachers would remind us that discipline and trust in the practice will help us untie the knots that have been created in our body, heart, and psyche. It doesn’t matter that your practice isn’t perfect because perfection was never the goal. Instead, it is through the practice that we cultivate patience, understanding, compassion, loving-kindness, and freedom. The Ashtanga series aren’t easy. They are designed to be challenging and repetitive to test and expand our capacity for endurance, stamina, and motivation, especially in the face of despair or boredom.
It’s such a rich concept to take in.
Innocently, I used to interpret “all” as everything that I ever wanted in my life — joy, healing, and integration. But over time, I have come to realize that “all” meant not just the pleasant, but also the unpleasant.
As we continue to practice, we become aware of our rigid thoughts and behavioral patterns. We are asked to let them go, break away from them even, in order to move to the next “stage.” Sometimes, during the practice, what come up are the realizations that life is hard, that sometimes we think we are unworthy of our own dreams, that maybe our hard work will come to naught. Sometimes, it’s the grief that arises, the anger that we shoved under the bed, (and/) or the resentment towards the ones we love. And other times, what comes up is.. well, nothing. Most of the time, we practice because we think we’re working towards a goal but really, our practice is an ongoing journey that teaches us deep listening and understanding.
By practice, it is not only the physical asanas, but also the sitting meditations, the journaling, the rituals that we use to inject more self-care and recovery in our days. These are the intentional acts that allow us to process what we think, feel, and experience in the present moment.
“All is coming” is simplified truth. Every single day, everything meets us where we are. The question is, do we?
When we become more mindful in our daily life, we begin to touch everything more deeply — we can recognize the joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears, the love and the grief. They are present simultaneously and inextricably in every single being on this planet. The more we practice, the more we will know them in ourselves and see them in others as well. Then we see that “all” is very inclusive.. and that labels and identities — us versus them, me versus you — are forms of ignorance that separate us from life itself. When we choose to enter into life, we consent to the ups and downs of the journey, the lessons, the losses, and the gains.
Some days, or seasons, we forget that we chose this life and we feel overwhelmed and start to despair. In those moments, retreating to meet ourselves again in a safe and quiet space can be just what we need to re-center. It is okay to stop and slow down. It is part of the journey.
We experience it all. Here. Let’s learn to welcome it with mindfulness so we won’t be swept away by our attachments and begin to enjoy life more inclusively.
I WILL SAY THAT I WANT IT ALL
If you ask me how much do I want,
I’ll tell you that I want it all.
This morning, you and I
and all men
are flowing into the marvelous stream
of oneness.
Small pieces of imagination as we are,
we have come a long way to find ourselves.
And for ourselves, in the dark,
the illusion of emancipation.
This morning, my brother is back
from his long adventure.
He kneels before the altar,
his eyes full of tears.
His soul is longing for a shore to set anchor at
(a yearning I once had).
Let him kneel there and weep.
Let him cry his heart out.
Let him have his refuge there for a thousand years,
enough to dry all his tears.
One night, I will come
and set fire to the shelter,
the small cottage on the hill.
My fire will destroy everything
and remove his only life raft after a shipwreck.
In the utmost anguish of his soul,
the shell will break.
The light of the burning hut will witness
his glorious deliverance.
I will wait for him beside the burning cottage.
Tears will run down my cheeks.
I will be there to contemplate his new being.
And as I hold his hand in mine and ask
him how much he wants,
he will smile and say that he wants it all —
just as I did.