Breakfast of Champions · 15 October 2007
The other day I called the great ashtanga tagline—do your practice and all is coming—a magical solvent for the removing of bullshit.
Someone came around and said no, it is just a koan. Because really: practice and what is coming?
Your baggage. All of it. To the surface.
Your relationships – some of them. To an end.
What is "all"? Quitting your job; weird pilgrimages; injuries nobody understands? Kapotasana?
I figure the line is a kind of dismissal, from the master who walks away in response to questions that are more about the showboating of the asker than the meaning of the inquiry. An old-timer told me once that SKPJ’s not-knowing of English has provided a crucial layer of insulation from all the stuff that western students would project onto him and would demand of him. I can imagine. Everyone wants a piece of him or of the heir. Everyone wants to claim a relationship that is reciprocated. Intimate, even.
Do your practice and all is coming is such a good non-answer to so many questions. You don’t even have to understand what has been asked, really. It also offers seven convenient reinterpretations: put the stress on a different word for each day of the week.
Maybe that is koan-like. Yeah kids: take that one home and meditate on it.
In any case, I like the line very much. And I actually do use it as a way to consider what it is that SKPJ meant by any of this, all of these years. The professor who finally left all the talk in the university and gave the best of his energy to this thing that only makes sense in silence: I won’t pretend that story doesn’t resonate with me in a large way.
I suppose that, product of capitalist society that I am, I’ve turned the old refrain into a bit of a slogan.
Ashtanga Yoga. Do your practice and all is coming.
Ashtanga Yoga. Do your practice and all is coming.
Ashtanga Yoga. Do you practice and all is coming.
Ashtanga Yoga. Shut up and salute.
Ashtanga Yoga. Shut up.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: astanga yoga
, having a body
, power of suggestion
, spirituality
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very good post. flag this one for the book.
Posted by: R · Oct 15, 05:44 AM · #
I like the saying, too. It reduces the practice to its essence and nothing else really needs to be said. We could just write the same post every day, over and over, “Do your practice and all is coming.”
Posted by: gartenfische · Oct 15, 07:59 AM · #
sometimes i just need the last line.
very nice.
Posted by: cranky housefrau · Oct 15, 10:24 AM · #
this saying brings me to my mat most days… as it says to me that the benefits of the practice are simply Having Done It – no more, no less.
by the way – are you submitting to ICA this year?
Posted by: sally · Oct 15, 12:36 PM · #
Wait. Isn’t there anyone who finds the phrase vapid, dismissive, maddening?
Funny.
ICA unlikely, it’s looking.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 15, 01:36 PM · #
I like shut up and salute, and shut up.
:)
cj x
Posted by: CJ · Oct 15, 06:32 PM · #
PAAIC, practice and all is coming. I am surprised that I haven’t heard yet that this was the watchword used by the ancients back before the flood when the 2nd series was carved into dried mango rinds and strays from the Warrior Caste would leave after dhanurasana and sneak out back to race their elephants in the bush.
PAAIN. Practice and all is Nothing. This is my version and its the best understanding I can summon. What? Am I to beleive that ashtanga vinyasa dates deeper than 7 or 8 decades? That as some teachers actually beleive it runs back somewhere in time to the Aryan invasions? Guys in turbans doing liftups and jump-backs on the dusty plains of the Indus subcontinent? If so I have an old mat blanket that I haven’t had the opportunity to wash in weeks that I think is the shroud of Turin and bidding begins at 2 billion Euros. Patt. was no doubt creatively inspired to string together in a flowing line these 5 series. Probably did it with his teacher’s aid and supervision. But PAAIC? I hope thats not what he is remembered for. Its meaning lies in whatever one wishes to project onto it. Its a quantum world afterall. Heisenberg would suggest you change the meaning the second you activate the question.
For me its PA…A…I…N. Figuratively and all too often, literally. love to all, tristan
Posted by: tristan · Oct 16, 12:27 AM · #
How could it be a koan? Or maddening, even? SKPJ obviously gets asked the same questions over and over. He probably got tired of giving out patient explanations the second or third time he was asked whatever it was that led to this statement.
I always just assume his meaning was something like: “Have faith in what you’re doing. You don’t need to see the end in order to continue on your way.”
Posted by: Carl · Oct 16, 03:07 AM · #
Carl,
I heard that “PAAIC” just tested stronger than “10 class cards expire in one year” at the mysore focus groups.
Posted by: cody · Oct 16, 03:17 AM · #
Cody, that’s some powerful mojo. But will PAAIC earn +10 Floating Jumpback Points for one’s Shalas ‘n’ Gurus character? My character’s mission keeps him in the company of some yogis from the Clan of the Three, as well as some well-tested members of the Second Ring. It’d be nice to know that at least that much is coming.
Posted by: Carl · Oct 16, 04:33 AM · #
Oh is THAT what we’re doing here? I think you mean S ‘n’ S though Carl— Shalas and Sages.
God knows I’ve been busy enough goldfarming for y’all, churning out this blog content the past 10 months so you people can buy some virtual backbends off me and I can pay my damn shala fees in RL.
And thus pursue RL immortality: Navasana handstands. If you’re not in the market for backbends, I’ve got a few million extra breaths in ut pluthihi (we do not say “mojo” on my blog) to the highest bidder here.
As for the sages of yore, of course they were all over the navasana handstands, and also charming snakes in between those 108 pre-practice vinyasas. And you know they went pod-racing, I mean three-legged-racing, up Chamundi Hill every night before dinner.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 16, 04:56 AM · #
Oh, and Cody, what are you doing testmarketing PAAIC? I think we’ve established it’s an anti-gratificational call to arms. Gita style.
I’m sure we can come up with some promises of instant gratification for that spot you’re working up to broadcast during the World Series.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 16, 05:11 AM · #
Ha! My big time TV days are long in the past! I did a nice movie spot recently, but no WS for me!
From a marketing standpoint, Ashtanga is a tough sell. It has a great brand image but it’s target consumer is also least likely to be able to afford daily practice fees. Furthermore, the practice theoretically weans one off of the teacher/shala, which only hastens the natural attrition rate. I’m pretty sure that running an Ashtanga shala must be an endeavor of love, not profit.
Posted by: cody · Oct 16, 08:31 AM · #
Especially in places where the rents are high Cody!! And being a yoga teacher is more like being a social worker than having a career. (Not that social workers don’t have “careers”, but you know what I’m saying. I’m talking about profit.)
Posted by: boodiba · Oct 16, 07:54 PM · #
I know Charles is lurking out there in the ether. So I’m calling you out Ringo. Time for some running commentary up and down the spectrum of thought from apana to prana or as James Brown would say,“get funky, get down, get back-up-again!”.
Thinking on it last evening following practice PAAIC morphed into PANIC. Practice and Nothing is Coming. I like this most of all. No candy for the children just moment to moment reality. No promises made, no frickin Sky god drooling over the proceedings, no meaning to be snatched from the jaws of sweat,blood and torn sinew. Afterall Eido Roshi,famed crazy man zen teacher out of NYC has said that truly what happens when students finally realize that there is nothing to hold onto and no yellow brick road, no 4 stars for good behavior, no black belt for supreme accomplishment or 3 picture deal at Paramount for ‘passing the audition’, that finally what sets in is Panic in the face of self-immolation. Like slipping off the final edge and plummeting eternally into an abyss so black that it is colorless,tasteless,void of sound,touch,thought,oscillation and any thingness.
I think PANIC best defines the indefinable.
greetings this morn from the far side, Tristan
Posted by: tristan · Oct 17, 01:10 AM · #
Aaaaah, I was waiting for you to hit on PANIC. (Maybe particularly for third series, which seems to be all about welcoming torment and embracing death.)
And has a kind of backhanded appeal that might at least be incorporated into the MMORPG version of ashtanga.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 17, 02:31 PM · #
PANIC for all practices. Nothing special about Ashtanga. But once you’re past the abyss
Posted by: karen · Oct 17, 09:00 PM · #
“Once you’re past the abyss” ... what?
Did you trans-substantiate in the middle of writing a blog comment?
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 17, 10:04 PM · #
Seemed like a nice time to be done with that thought. I’d only have gotten myself into trouble if I’d gone on.
Posted by: karen · Oct 18, 03:53 AM · #
Hi (OVO) Regarding this statement, Kino had some observations. She was asked in another city, when she was saying that during your practice you should be “thinking your body,” as a dancer, remembering what has to happen to the tailbone, the stomach, the chest, etc. Someone asked her, “Is is necessary to think, since Guruji said, ‘practice and all is coming.’ – wouldn’t that mean that you don’t have to think?” She feels that SKPJ’s statement does not mean that you stop thinking. You have to pay attention to the body, what it is doing, and what it should be doing during practice. The same thought would occur to me to ask, since I’ve heard Sharath say to people before he assists them in Urdvha Danurasana, “too much thought.” Maybe he means you need to relax – find the balance between effort and ease.
Cheers,
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · Oct 18, 11:46 AM · #