Waking up.
A couple of nights yonder a friend of mine, named Jordan, who I will call Sam, asked me the following question: “What bad habits do you have?” I could answer no other thing than “the excuses I make to keep from doing yoga and meditation.” I thought about those mistakes: too tired, too weak, too worked-out, too little time, too little focus, just don’t want to, too hot, need to shower, who cares, etc. But the single most useful excuse for not doing yoga occurred the morning after the aforementioned question.
I set my intention to wake up at 7:30am to do yoga and meditate the next day. Having articulated my bad habit the night before, I simply thought that all I had to do was wake up earlier than usual and do yoga and meditate and that would be that. So, 7:30 came, and what did I do? I got up, walked across my room, hit the sleep button, and promptly woke up at 11:45. I don’t sleep until 11:45–ever. I didn’t need that much sleep. Waking up at 11:45 created the problem that I would not have had had I woken up at 7:45, 8:56, 9:39 or 10:55: I could no longer do yoga or meditate. I had to go to work, and only had enough time to eat and shower.
While teaching my class that afternoon, I mentioned to one of the students in my class my yoga/meditation problem. He said that he knew what I meant: IT IS SO HARD TO GET UP SOMETIMES! In batting around some thoughts, he and I came to the following conclusion: the reason I was not able to get up was because from the moment when the alarm went off, to the moment I went back to sleep, I had not ONE moment of focused awareness. I asked my student, “What if before getting out of the bed, I simply set the intention to become aware, to focus on my breath just as I would in meditation, sit or lay down in this manner before I get up off my bed? I was curious to see what would happen if I connected to my awareness immediately upon waking. Would I remember my intention to practice yoga and meditate, and consequently get down to it?
This morning, it worked. It was so fantastically odd to have the thought “remember awareness!” as the first thing that I engaged upon waking. I got up and yoga’d and meditate’d and did it all very roughly and had a difficult day (that’s the way it is some days-joy!). However, I am very happy that as I reflect upon my day that such simple discoveries can have a profound and meaningful impact.
Thank you for letting me share this; I hope it benefits someone else who might have the same challenge!
Oh by the way, I want to credit Ethan Nichtern for his book One City, A Declaration of Interdependence and his class on Pema Chodron’s book entitled When Things Fall Apart (which I also read); Sakyong Mipham for his book, Turning the Mind Into an Ally; and Thich Nhat Hahn for his book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. These were the books that Patrick Groneman recommended to me when I become interested in the language and ideas of Buddhism. Nothing beats the natural experience of daily self-reflection, but it is amazing what comes of opening one’s experience to the ideas contained in these books. I only just met you, wheeeee!