Wholistic Fitness

the crux within the Realm of us Humans is that we get to consciously choose each m(om)ent of our lives…will we concentrate on what is Highest for our Souls or will we grasp at the many fictions which run amok in our minds?

as i continue to be inspired by your support of WF,
you help feeble ilg Higher. photo yesterday by Ananda.
(the beard ain’t coming off until Flag gets another “real” snowfall…
or after i podium in my age at the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon next month,
which ever comes first…if neither pans out? i might be in for a loooong summer!)

(this is the second of my Warriorship Training Series, the first Teaching appeared in DL on 12/30/08; Appreciating The Journey)

What is the sound of a Buddha meditating in a winter forest?

Total oneness.

The crux of Wholistic Fitness Warriorship is this: all we must do is continuously create a little spaciousness from the whirring world we’ve got in our heads to be Here Now. That’s our Practice. There is tantamount fierceness required to behold the ongoing intensity and ability to be right With What Is, instead of our typical “Gee, I sure wish this was what this was,” attitude. Through the trainings of WF, we cultivate an enviable ability and agility of mind to say to ourselves, “No, I will NOT spin off here, I WILL stay right Here Now and accept this very circum-stance as my Practice.”

As i Taught you, “There are only, ever, two questions in any moment; am i grasping or am i concentrating.” (ilg, 2005)

Moment by m(om)ent our Practice is a choice; moment by m(om)ent our Practice is like an instant before a fork in the trail…we could go this way, or….we could go that way. It’s all-ways a choice, isn’t it? What we are most often choosing between is a decision to embellish a fiction in our mind and what really is. And, what really is is, really, usually filled with repetition, fatigue, and uncertainty. This is why i have trained you in your beginning years of WF in Zazen. The entire spiritual journey – the shit we have to put up with to Rise Higher in our life – is easily albeit microcosmically captured in just a few minutes of sitting Zazen (refer to pages 114-121 in TOTAL BODY TRANSFORMATION).

What we learn from the strength of sitting still and working with our chaotic minds and feeble body is two fold; first, we learn discomfort, and then, as a sort of training effect from learning discomfort, we learn our excruciatingly deep addiction to it’s opposite; comfort. Our addiction to comfort is at odds as we begin to learn how to sit with pain. The inner terrain we meet is required curriculum for re-learning how not to spin off. i say ‘re-learning’ because, as children, we already have Buddha Nature, however, our Buddha Nature gets inculcated out of us, like oil from a sesame seed, as our egoic shell hardens and we become “somebody going somewhere.” Through Zazen, however, we re-learn to stay with it. We re-learn conviction, perseverance, and nobility…all those traits that you and i both had in order to learn how to take a nipple, to walk, talk, and harmonize within the conditions of society. Through Zazen, we re-learn that there really is no place to go except for Here Now.

Thus, the pain of sitting Zazen is especially valuable.

Our WF Training is designed categorically different than other style of personal training that have passed our humble Temple in popularity, wealth, and width*. WF is in-gineered to enable us to live sacredly within the Outer World, come what may. However, the only people that live sacredly – contentedly – within the hustle and bustles of the Outer World are those who have learned not to dream or entertain their lives. Instead, such High Beings have learned how to be with what’s right Here Now…no matter what: Good, bad, hot, cold, illness, injury, wealth, poverty…it simply does not make any difference because these Beings have put Spirit first. It seems ironic to write it this way, however it is true; people who are grounded in spirit, have found the Key toward Enlightenment!

The mark of a seasoned WF Student is groundedness. We sense it in people when we meet a grounded Warrior, don’t we. He or she seems to us to be as well-rooted as one of these giant ponderosa pines which surround the WF Temple H(om)e. I reckon that’s why Buddha chose a Tree Being to sit beneath as He vowed not to get up unless He became Enlightened. Perhaps He sensed He would need the rooted wisdom and strength and flexibility of a Tree Being near Him as He began what would become the meditation to set the Highest Standard of all.

Back to groundedness. If we can just do that one Noble Act, you and i would be Enlightened in no time. What is that One Noble Act? Accept things just as they are. The job is simple, not easy. It takes courage and ongoing Awareness and tremendous guts…more guts than even Prefontaine.

Groundedness is nothing but Buddha Nature; it’s nothing except exactly what you are, right now; hearing cars, baby crying, pain in your legs or lungs, reading these words and the posture with which you read them, ski racing for 42ks at a heart rate of 181…that’s the Buddha sitting still among the pain, the doubt, the uncertainty. It’s ungraspable which reminds me of the Diamond Sutra quote i related to my HP Yoga Class last night,

“The mind of the past is ungraspable.
The mind of the future is ungrapsable.
The mind of the present is ungraspable.”

Real spirituality is just being with all of It.

As students of WF, we have to work unbelievably hard. Yet, that does not mean chronic straining and burdensome heaves of struggle. What it does mean is that our Choices are hard at first; there is all-ways a desire toward comfort that calls so seductively for our attention. If we Practice hard however, and most importantly, Trust our Teacher(s), we find ourselves more willing to make those hard choices more consistently over time.

And that, my Noble Friend Along The Path, is where the Fun – the Highest Fun in the Whole UniVerse- begins!

and now,
for your M(om)ent of Zen, brought to you by Dewachen Rinpoche and her Amma; Ananda…footage taken today by ilg:

head bowed,

your feeble coach

opening photos by ilg; “Shakky” anchoring the astral territory just southwest of the WF Temple H(om)e.

quote photo; ilg archives.

* i don’t care about that too much. i care about depth of my students, not how many. Jesus and Buddha; two of our plane(t)s Highest Teachers, ended up only having a handful of disciples. MahaYogi Jesus had His Seven Disciples and, as you may recall, even a few of them denied Yogi JC as their Teacher when the shit hit the fan. In the last few months before His Enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree, Siddhattha Gotama only had only three hardcore followers that still had faith in His Path, a Path which – like WF – was greatly misunderstood by the masses, since it was based on Wholeness instead of Specialization. Of course, AFTER His Enlightenment, His glowing presence, radiant nature, and absolutely mind-blowing Dharma Teachings suddenly became the rage!