Wholistic Fitness

When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality.
– Sogyal Rinpoche

***
Photo of Student Bryan Hantman of Cantonsville, MD a long-time Online Student currently taking studies with Teacher Haku, was instructed by me recently to “drop and give me your best Padmasana; cold and without warm up.” Because he is trained to follow his breath, and not his ego, Bryan, a newly certified Yoga Teacher, could safely do a Half-Lotus, which is absolutely perfect.

Why did i Assign him this exercise?

Because there is no “warm up” in the Bardo. We must allWays be prepared for the moment of Death Entry.

Although some of our postures – emotional, mental and physical postures – might look splendid while we are “warmed up” in the flow of daily life or during a hot, sweaty asana practice, when we hit the ice cold Bardo Entry, things might be quite different.

Imagine going ice skating on a frozen pond. You are happy and cheerful, skating with your buddies and have a nice hot toddy in your belly. You are laughing as you skate and life is great. Suddenly, the ice breaks. The shock of cold water and the sensation of plummeting beneath the icy surface. The weight of your ice skates and winter clothing pulls you under the ice shelf. Sudden realization of the dire situation. Thrashing futilely. An opaque luminescent shaft of Light streams through the hole you created as you fell. Eerie. Soundless. The freezing water clamps around your inflamed lungs…if you breathe, you die…

What would your Practice be at such a moment?

Chances are likely, no matter how “tough” or “rich” or “smart” or “good at yoga” you usually think you are, you would probably be grasping…clinging like crazy for your precious life to continue, right?

Well, an Enlightened Master might smile at such a Death Entry Moment (we all will have one, you know). Such a Master of Life, would likely run his or her Mantra and think inwardly, “Wow! This is interesting! Oh Shiva! What a hilarious Way to leave the Stage! Classic! Okay, Bardo…Here “i” come!!! WEEEEE!!!!” And the Master would immediately do what He or She has been doing every early morning of their day since beginning their Spiritual Training. They would meditate. They would focus upon whatever Their Teacher blessed them with to use as their Sacred Meditation; be it a Mantra, an Image, or something else.

Quite a difference, eh? That example comes from my Direct Experience. Because of my former ‘profession’ as a sponsored extreme athlete, i have had the Blessings of several intense Bardo Entry knockings…

Another Bardo Entry story:
When the assassin’s bullet punctured Gandhi’s body, do you know what people around the Great Yogin heard?
“RAM!!!!!!”
That’s right. As the bullet penetrated into the Great Saint’s organs, He instantly uttered His sacred mantra, “Ram”…which is a Hindi name for “God”. That is how intimately Connected Gandhi was to His mantra; His tether to God.

We all know the Bardo Entry of another Great Yogi whose Birthday is just around the corner. This yogi’s name was Jesus Christ. We all know about the High Intensity Suffering that He underwent. Yet, regardless of the unthinkable torture upon his physical body, His Atman (inner soul) was unstained and pure from all of His spiritual training. He entered the Bardo upon the flying astral carpet of Compassion; “Father, forgive them…for they know not of what they do…”

Pretty impressive Bardo Entry stories, eh?

The other day, i was mountain biking, hit some ice, went down HARD. Do you know what this feeble mountain yogi said upon my impact? “OOOOOF!”
not my mantra.
not forgiveness for being such a poor mountain biker..
not an image of Padmasambhava,
not even landing with a Conscious Exhale.

just, “OOOOOF!”

OOOOOF.
i coulda died on OOOOOF as my Bardo Entry mantra…wow, that’ll sure turn the disembodied heads of the Deities up in Nirvana, eh? I can hear The Deities now..
“Hey Shiva, did you hear something from the Earth Plane, just now?”
“Uh, yeah..i think it was that crazy ass mountain yogi fool; Ilg.”
Brahma interjects, “Yeah, it was Ilg, awlright….he just entered the Bardo.”
“Really!? Wow!” exclaimed Vishnu, “We have been Training him for that moment for 12,438 lifetimes! What was his Bardo Entry Consciousness Filament this time through?”
“OOOOOF,” said Shiva somewhat dejectedly.
“OOOOOF?” replied Brahma and Vishnu, looking quizzically at each other.
“Yep, ‘OOOOOF,'” answered Shiva disappointedly, “it seems We cannot Teach that kid anything.”
“Oh well, at least he tried pretty hard this Time Around. And, records indicate that he was able to help a couple of other Human Beings along his most recent Way. Hmmmm, how shall i Incarnate that poor mofo now? He likes sports, how about if i have him experience World Wide Fame and Fortune as a Sport Specific Athlete?”

Shiva and Vishnu, exclaimed in harmony, “WOW!!! You are gonna send ilg to HELL?!…cool! this oughta be great!”

***

my point is;
even after two pretty strong decades of consistent meditation work,
when it comes to maintaining High Consciousness during a shock of intensity…
I have Work to do.

I bow to Gandhi.

Okay, one more Bardo Entry story then i will let you get back to whatever it is your normal Consciousness has you doing…

This is a story about the venerable Zen Teacher, DT Suzuki. Once, when He was pretty aged, the elder Master went swimming with some of his Students in a creek for his birthday. While swimming, His clothes snagged a submerged branch and trapped him under the water. After being rescued from certain drowning by His Students, Suzuki was visibly pissed off at himself. When asked why he was so angry at himself, the Master replied somewhat like this,
“While I was drowning, I realized how Attached i was to breathing…how much I still take breathing for granted. I must Practice harder.”

Classic! I love that line; “While I was drowning, I realized how Attached i was to breathing…”


– Yesterday; Ananda Time Trialing in subfreezing temps up Mt. Elden…she put the “Movie Star” hurt on some Weekend Warriors big time by finishing the brutal route in nearly hour!” – As Student Ash says in DL; “Spiritual talk without action is zero.”

It is important – i TAF “vital” – to test our emotional, mental, and physical postures in the cold, naked, raw moment. That is why i had Ananda do a 6-mile, 3,000′ subfreezing mountain bike uphill Time Trial yesterday to the top of Mt. Elden. We were both hypothermic by the time we got our frozen asses back to the H(om)e Temple. Yet, we used the entire workout as a form of Bardo Training.

Similarly, in my younger years, i did so many extreme sports; free soloing, winter mountaineering, extreme skiing, etc. to test my emotive, mental Bardo tendencies under high intensity pressure (losing my life). My Teachers told me that it is only when the physical body is endangered that our genuine Spiritual Practices can be truly explored. Everything else is distant in terms of training the spirit. Without the body being endangered, the ego constructs still run the show.

Such training, though painful and intense, keeps the WF Warrior humble, awake, and ever so APPRECIATIVE of our precious, albeit quick, time spent in this incarnation.

Now, i did not make Student Hantman go free solo a 5.10 rock climb or solo Mt. Robson in winter. I did not even make him do a sub-freezing Uphill Time Trial like Ananda.

What i did do, however, was to have him wake up early, and in the cold air, drop his raw joint beds into his best Padmasana (full lotus), a pose he can most likely do quite well when “warmed up.” His experience was enough to draw the Metaphor: Most of us are only about half as accomplished as we may think we are.

May your Workouts today be focused like a laser on that which is weak, negative, and lazy. Forget what you are all-Ready
go(o)d at…that doesn’t count toward the notion of Wholistic Fitness� or your Bardo Entry.

In this Steep and Direct Path of Transformation, we focus our inner and outer efforts on all those countless patterns and tendencies that we cleverly attempt to run away from. Screw that ignorance, Oh Noble Warrior! Sever it with the Strength and Swiftness of Manjushree’s Sword of Wisdom!
{“Isolate your Weakenesses, Target your Discomforts..” Coach walking his talk early in the preDawn; engaging the WF Non-Dominant Hand Assignment� while brushing teeth. He is also opening his hips and ungluing his rib cage while wearing YogaToes� and engaging Uddiyana. “The UnAwakened complain that they do not ‘have the time to workout,’ Shit…some of my most brutal workouts and fascinating breakthroughs in Self Healing and Insight have come from my simple yet steadfast Awareness to the most mundane of daily activities. In any moment we only have two questions to ask ourself; Am i grasping or am i concentrating? When i concentrate, i truly find that my Highest Workout is – inDeed – Everywhere.”}

Isolate your Weaknesses,
Target your Discomforts,
Draw Inner Aim upon that which Annoys you,
Embrace that which Challenges you,
and BREATHE INTO any and all Difficulties and Stressful Relationships…
for that,
my friends along the Path,
is what
genuine
YOGA…
union of It All

– Wholistic Fitness� –

is
all
about.

If you must ‘hate’ something in this life,
ilg says,
let it be your weaknesses, your negative tendencies, and your predictability in aversion.

very well, then…

that
is
all…

Dharma Blessings,

coach ilg