Wholistic Fitness

“Why do we Sit Still in Wholistic Fitness training?…

…in order to remove the darkness of conditioned egoic layers.”
– coach ilg in siddhasana
Meditation is one of the Five Noble Disciplines of Wholistic Fitness, since 1982

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If you are sitting, and your mind is not wholly in tune with your body—if you are, for instance, anxious or preoccupied with something—your body will experience physical discomfort, and difficulties will arise more easily. Whereas if your mind is in a calm, inspired state, it will influence your whole posture, and you can sit much more naturally and effortlessly. So it is very important to unite the posture of your body and the confidence that arises from your realization of the nature of your mind.
– Sogyal Rinpoche

Actual Student Exchange between Coach and an intermediate online student:

Student:
i am having great difficulty in my Practice.

Coach:
that is a Great Blessing. use it.

Student:
i don’t understand.

Coach:
this Path is not present in your life to make your life easier, because you are living
a dream. what this Path provides is a way of slicing through what you think is real. what you think is ‘real’ is really just your conditioned egoic layers superimposed upon the Gunas. you have too many ‘ideals’ in your head about what you think my presence and this Path ‘should’ provide for you. i will tell you this right now; i am not going to ‘provide’ you anything. if i am doing my Sacred Duty, then i am more like a professional onion peeler; i will peel away your layers of superimposition and help you jettison your ideals.

Student:
are you saying that i should not be involved in doing good things or sustaining a strong structure to my Practices that you assign me?

Coach:
Of course not!

Student:
But doing good in the world “Serving the Being in front of you,” as you say, and training consistently like you no matter what are ‘ideals’!

Coach:
no. listen closely. your mind is moving too fast. those things are not ‘ideals’…they are just what Warriors – what WF Students – do. Pine trees drop needles, grow, fall over, and decay. ilg does this. you do what you do. no Attachment to result. you Serve the Being in front of you, sure. that’s Appropriate Action; WF Lifestyle Principle Number 3. after you Serve, you flow to the next action. in doing that, you are learning WF Lifestyle Principle Number 4; Practice. in WF, our Practice is everywhere. however, here is what we often do due to our ignorance and spiritual laziness = we Serve the Being in front of us, or we manage to do our Early Morning Ritual or our workout or win a race…then we Attach Ego Layer to it thinking, “Wow, i am really doing a good Service,” or “Wow, look at me! I am really doing great in my Practice!” right there in that moment, another Layer of Illusion, of superimposition is created. that is why i have you sitting Zazen; so you learn to witness your mind. it is the only way to curb the enthusiasm of the self-congratulating ego. i can Teach this to you not just because i have spent 30 years sitting, rather, i can Teach you this because i fail so miserably at this process! how does the saying go? “We Teach best what we need to learn most.”…well, that’s your feeble Coach. i had to create an entire Path, an entire Sangha, and attain the Grace of a pantheon of Deities and Masters just to help me overcome my egoic ideals!

Student:
wow. so what i am hearing is that i need to just focus on “doing the do” as you say, and then flow through my life, focusing on witnessing where my ego whats to grab?

Coach:
you are Learning Again, Grasshopper!

Student:
thank you…i am excited to work on this. i believe i can make some progress with this Teaching.

Coach:
remove the excitement; it is deteri-mental. work on equanimity.
slay belief. belief is even worse than excitement.

Student:
it is? why?

Coach:
i don’t want you to believe anything i say or write or perform.
i want you witness it.
run it through the mill of your own Direct Experience.
belief is by definition, a limit.
a wise Teacher should never impose limits upon a Spiritual Warrior…
Buddha tossed out limits by tossing out belief…He simply got to the point
where He no longer believed in any of the current training modalities
so He just Sat down and vowed not to get up until Enlightenment.

chew on that one for a while and ask yourself;
“How brave do i want to be this lifetime?”

Student:
i love you…there is only one Coach Ilg!

Coach:
ilg loves Thee, too! and there is only ONE of us, ain’t that just a miracle!?!

May your Practice be strong and sincere and…SIT!

head bowed,
coach ilg