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Lots of timed paryankasana this morning. On a block, as pictured in this link, and over the rack. No, not Ashtanga, but let me say this: Holy crap! That is some serious pose for a tight shouldered/upper backed gal like me.

There has been progress, certainly, because I can now breathe in backbends, and I actually like the way they feel. And for a fleeting moment this morning, I thought, “Backbends are no more alien to me than any other poses I’ve learned.” This is a huge step, because apparently I did have the notion that backbends were foreign to me, that they were not “natural.” Funny how we construct and integrate these sorts of beliefs.

And a quick note on meditating more and less deeply during different parts of the practice. In terms of automaticity (which can engender flow states), I find that primary lends itself to that kind of consciousness. It’s like the famous Dogen quote in my last post: “To know the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.” Intermediate poses, on the other hand, are a place where I don’t know my self. So the practice, in that case, is to meditate on the self until I can lose the self. I don’t feel impatient, truth be told, but I do have occasional glimpses of what it might be like, one day, to lose my self in backbends. And I look forward to it very much.

Flexibility and strength limitations/idiosyncrasies are not random, but cultivated.

Premise: Karma comprises habits of the mind/consciousness that we bring with us (and that direct us) into new incarnations.

The physical things that we confront in practice are a kind of karma — habits of physicality, highly individualized — that we’ve constructed over this lifetime. And ongoingly. (And possibly previously, but no matter).

How we deal with these perceived limitations, these idiosyncrasies, may be left over karma from previous incarnations. Or just this lifetime, if that makes anyone feel better. Equanimity, frustration, anger, greed.

To persist, to be(come) conscious of the forces that created and sustained (and may still) the idiosyncrasies, to undo them, to free one’s self from the habits of mind and body. To free one’s self from karma.

To know the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

– Dogen