Day 75 of 90: Modo Yoga, BOA

Day 75 of 90: Modo Yoga, BOA September 23, 2013

Day 75 of 90 straight days of hot yoga at Modo Yoga and I found myself in Grants class.  Grant brought up as practice started to follow the breath and allow the movement. No matter how you cut it, the simpler things appear, the harder we make them.  Another thing Grant brought up was to simply notice the sensations, the body in the practice.  Over the past 75 days the same mantra has come forward, breathe, allow, and observe.  Or simply we can call it BOA, breath, observe, allow.

I am always amazed by the power of breath, you can’t hold it that long until the breath wants in or out.  The breath is like water, it flows.  It flows into the sensations and washes over them, it flows into resistance and relaxes it, it flows into the practice, into life, into everything. Observe it now. Observe the breath, your own breath. Right now.  Don’t try to breath, or will the breath, just observe it. To me observing is like being in a state of AWE. Your breath is AWE-some.

Today’s practice on the mat was just that a practice. Everyday on the mat is a practice, in any spiritual practice we practice to simplify. To release the complexities of philosophizing about love, compassion, kindness, strength, and peace. And to simply live it.  To experience it.  Life is an experience. That is why in Zen they remind us, “take out the laundry and do wash before enlightenment, after enlightenment take out the laundry and do wash.”  We are already love, peace, compassion, and inner strength these qualities have gone no where, but the clouds of thoughts try convince us, that we are not the observer, but the the thoughts themselves. So everyday we set out to rest here, and as we rest, we recognize that there is noise in our head, it is just that, noise in our head.  And noise outside of us, it is just that, noise.  So everyday in our practice we forgive ourselves and others for trespassing, just like the OUR FATHER suggests.

What is trespassing? For myself on my mat when I beat myself up that is trespassing against who I am. If I judge another, condemn, put down, punish, use my words to hurt rather than uplift another soul then I am trespassing against myself and the other.  So I must forgive.  And know that it is okay, that I believed the noise was true, and it wasn’t.

So today practice BOA- Breath-Observe-Allow. On to day 76…Namaste

  David Matthew Brown- Yogi, Dad, Speaker


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