Thursday, May 26, 2005

How does yoga work?

So, the more Zen and enlightened among my colleagues joined me for yoga today. Bending yourself in weird and unusual positions, concentrating on your breathing, and relaxing are all good, albeit challenging, but at some point Avanashi asked us to "think of a prayer for yourself - an affirmation all your own."
(Avanashi has one of those deep female voices that seem common among drama teachers - one that automatically makes you relax.).

So I'm standing there, trying to think of something to pray for. Not being a religious person, I don't have much experience with prayer. In fact, my only real memory of praying was when I was a kid.
(At some point I found out that there was supposed to be a big man in the sky who could do anything, and so I prayed every night to God for a motorbike. After two weeks I didn't get one, and my Dad thought the whole thing was hilarious, so I gave up.)

Anyway, so yeah, trying to think of something to pray for:

Money? nah - don't really want much...
Fame? nah - rather be anonymous...
Google-fu? nah...Surely indexing all these blogs will make google's results suck?
Becoming more productive? nah - I work enough.
Happiness? nah - I'm happy enough.

Time was running out - we would soon be having to wrap our legs over our shoulders or something, and I seriously couldn't think of a single thing I wanted to change about me or my life.

If only I could've come up with something the Buddha would be proud of:

"Becoming a kind and enlightened human who helps people feel better"

But no - I spent all the praying time trying to think of something I wanted to pray for.

I suppose there are worse things :^)

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