Ernie

Reading from Wednesday, February 10, 2016 yoga class

From an article on the Yoga International website entitled "You Gotta Slow Down to be Present" by Donna Farhi

"When we slow down we make a place for silence and solitude in our lives.  There need be nothing complicated about either of these practices; they are a natural component of any day lived at a human pace.  One of my more recent spiritual teachers is a man called Ernie, who probably has never read a spiritual book or sat on a meditation cushion in his life.  'All you crazy people,' he tells me, 'rushing around doing big things.  All you need is a little space out in nature.  Heals most things, I reckon.'  A day with Ernie is a day spent with a master; he doesn't say much, but when he does it is always an incisive observation.  Sitting on the grass having lunch with Ernie, you notice an air of stillness around him--he's just so pleased to be alive (now almost seventy), taking in the day, listening to the birds, enjoying the fresh clean air. 'My, that sun does feel good,' he say.  And neither is Ernie a couch potato; he can walk over a property and assess the most urgent tasks: this gate needs resetting, those thistles need cutting. 'I'd remove that barbed wire if I were you,' he tells me.  And then without any fanfare, Ernie shows up with his tools, sun hat, socks, and sandals and accomplishes, at a remarkably slow pace, more than most of us could do in a week.

Most of us could learn more from spending a day with Ernie than a month in India sitting in a cave.  In yoga practice we set up Ernie-like conditions in a more deliberate way, but there need nothing contrived about making room for more quiet inward time.  By not talking so much, we automatically create more silent spaces in between things.  By not doing so much, we create natural pauses to reflect.  By not spreading ourselves thin doing things that aren't that important, we open up time for the things that are.

The degree to which you do not believe you have time to spend even ten minutes sitting quietly is the degree to which you desperately need to spend ten minutes sitting quietly. 

When we find ourselves hurrying or pressing others out of the way, we might ask ourselves exactly where we are going in such a rush.  What are we running away from, and what are we running toward?  Pause for a moment.  Sit down and relax.  Smell the air.  Look around you.  Take a deep breath in and out.  This state of mind called yoga can't be found anywhere else but here.  The moment opens itself for you.  Will you step in?"