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Home practice. Decided to do standing and then segue right into the intermediate poses. Wanted to have a look at them without going through all of primary first.

It was interesting. I know that I tend to gain momentum through primary: by the time I get to the intermediate poses, I am very warm and also tired. And my mind has usually been kind of lulled. Then I hit the intermediate poses and tend to barrel right through. I don’t watch the clock at the shala, but I do know that I am coming up to the end of practice, and that I need to keep things moving. As I move at that quick primary-induced pace through the poses of second series, I am definitely running on momentum, which functions as a kind of drug. I’m exhausted, I’m steaming along — that can carry me right through the scary poses.

While reading this morning, I came across this line from Godfrey Devereux: “Do we tend to push and bludgeon our way through life?” Well, I’m not sure about what “we” do, but I do know “I” tend to do some bludgeoning. So I decided to do the intermediate poses “cold,” without the momentum of primary.

It worked out well enough. A totally different experience. I had to revise my expectations, being less warmed-up, but it was a great opportunity to experience each pose a bit more sensitively. All in all, it was an experience rather like when I was first learning primary: a short practice, a bunch of poses that have tons of information to reveal, all adding up to an experience that is somewhat discontinuous (discovering a detail here, a revelation there). Basically, an experience with no coherent boundaries. Primary as a whole, because I’ve done it so many times, has well-defined boundaries. Intermediate is an open field.

When the stains from old habits are exhausted, the original light appears, blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters. Vast and spacious, like sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color, this field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity without edge or seam.

- Hongzhi

There’s a part of me that rebels against not knowing what I’m doing. Simultaneously, there is a part of me that adores new experiences — the chance to find new things, to have surprises. Already, it would seem, I am attached to doing my practice “well,” to knowing what I’m doing, to not being too terribly surprised. Okay, time to pull that rug out from under me!