Wholistic Fitness

More than twenty-five hundred years ago, a man who had been searching for the truth for many, many lifetimes came to a quiet place in northern India and sat down under a tree. He continued to sit under the tree, with immense resolve, and vowed not to get up until he had found the truth.

At dusk, it is said, he conquered all the dark forces of delusion; and early the next morning, as the planet Venus broke in the dawn sky, the man was rewarded for his age-long patience, discipline, and flawless concentration by achieving the final goal of human existence: enlightenment.

At that sacred moment, the earth itself shuddered, as if �drunk with bliss,� and, as the scriptures tell us: �No one anywhere was angry, ill or sad; no one did evil, none was proud; the world became quite quiet, as though it had reached full perfection.�
This man became known as Buddha.

– Sogyal Rinpoche

*** BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FIRST AND ONLY WESTERN FITNESS TRIBE THAT HAS INTEGRATED MEDITATION INTO ITS PATH OF FITNESS SINCE 1982…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PERHAPS THE ONLY FITNESS TRIBE REMAINING ON TURTLE ISLAND WHOSE STUDENTS HAVE THE YOU-KNOW-WHAT TO WAKE UP EARLY AND DO THAT ONE, MOST NOBLE THING THAT A HUMAN BEING CAN DO…

JUST
BE
STILL
AND
KNOW

WF Students Sitting Each Day Around Turtle Island So That All Beings May Benefit:
From Clockwise Top:
coach ilg (Arizona), former Formal Online Student Go-Ten (New York), Online Student SassoSan (New Jersey), Sunrider Warrior Brandon Freese (Pennsylvania), Online Student Leeson (Colorado). {click on the photos to enlarge}

Bottom Photo: Shakyamuni Buddha “The Awakened One” still commands with His Symbolic Presence the Buddha Garden in the backyard of the WF Temple H(om)e. In my opinion, “Yogi Shaky” was one of the World’s Most Gnarly Tough Spiritual Athletes ever born to Grace our Planet with Their Strength of Inner Integrity and Engaged Practice (Yogi Jesus was the other one and Milarepa, the astounding Tibetan Yogi holds my third spot on the Podium of the Human Race).

Think about it for a second longer
before you yourself start gettin’ all fidgety about sitting here and reading this entry before
rushing off to clamber about with all the other GRASPERS of the RAT RACE just to pay the mortgage
or whatever else you so desperately work for each day…

Think about what this mountain/desert/forest yogi did all those centuries ago:
put yourself in his sandals:
one day, just say,
“Fuck all this shit…
i am just gonna
SIT DOWN in my best meditation posture,
and NOT FLINCH
my body,
my breath,
or
my MIND
until ENLIGHTENMENT!”
..holy sacred cow!!!
if i woulda been around back then (actually, i was; so were you…more on that later)…
and if i woulda been a bettin’ man..
when ol’ Shaky took His asana upon Ma Earth, i woulda chuckled sarcastically, looked around for my bro’s and say,
“Yeah, right…as if…
Ol’ Shaky thinks HE is gonna not get up until Enlightenment! HA!
i’ll bet my last stick of Nag Champa he ain’t gonna do it! any takers?”
dat’s right, my friends.
i would have been a Doubter…based upon how damned hard and painful it is for me to sit my own lard ass down each morning…fold my legs beneath me..and just SIT!!!!!!!

Yet,
here was a very simple man,
a devoted yogi,
who actually had the Will and the GUTS to
do it…
wow…
How TOUGH is THAT!??!?!
That
is YOGA,
THAT
is Personal Fitness…
my Friends Along The Noble Path…

The Outer World
and particularly the other
so-called “PERSONAL FITNESS” systems just go on and on about lifting this, and running like this, and doing yoga postures like this, and we are just so great because we…blah, blah, blah, blah!!!!!!!
{Insert Nausea Here}
It’s all about Entertaining Egos…

Yet in this humble Temple of Wholistic Fitness�
we have had our Students SITTING STILL
keeping in GENUINE TOUCH
with how the ANCIENTS PRACTICED:

Back at the start of the eighties, i began to fashion a genuine Path of Personal Fitness that was based upon The Way Of The Ancient Masters and their Practices:

For instance:
We look to a man known as Siddhartha Gautama…just a man who happened by his Karma to be born into unimaginable wealth and comfort:
here was a former Prince who had ALL the Outer World had to give…and He gave it ALL UP to study Yoga, then even GAVE THAT UP…and just
one day
chose to
SIT
and
BE STILL
until
He Realized Himself and the Worlds Within and Without…

maybe hearing this feeble little entry from a feeble little mountain yogi beneath a Sacred Peak
might
just…
maybe
give you some YOU KNOW WHAT
to live your OWN PATH
your OWN LIFE
your OWN WAY…
bravely.

that,
my Noble Warriors,
is all.

om mani padme hung,

coach ilg

ps; are YOU sitting still?
send me a photo of you in your most elegant meditation posture.
i love human beings most when they are sitting still; not talking, no doing. just being.
a human being sitting still
is to me,
a Lighthouse
on the Shores of Enlightenment