Patience is both a requirement and an outcome of yoga practice. Once you've reached your “wall”
patience and perseverance become necessary. To cultivate patience, practice without attachment or
time-tables. The body & mind transform gradually through yoga practice. Trying to rush the process
is a recipe for disappointment & injury.
The repetition exhibited in the yoga practice is not accidental. Practice the entire sequence exactly as
prescribed. Don’t leave out the postures you don’t enjoy or those that seem too easy. Do not
imagine that you could construct a more logical or fitting sequence. By doing so you lose the essence
of the tool. You may come to appreciate that the simple postures are not easy nor are the complex
ones hard. It is simply a matter of readiness.
Respect your practice as it manifests. Everyday is different, and every practice unique. Let your
practice flow, and accept it as it unfolds.
To illustrate, you would not plant a tomato seed in April, and return in August to reap illustration, you
would not plant a tomato seed in April, and return in August to reap the fruit. The fledgling plant
requires water, fertilizing, and protection from insects, all of which you provide with effort. But then
you must step back, and let the plant develop on its own. You provide with effort. But then you must
step back, and let the plant develop on its own.
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"Many births, many deaths;
I am serene in this cycle,
- there is no end to it."
From the Shodoka (The Path to Enlightenment)
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"I beg you . . . . to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books
written in a foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be
given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live
everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you
will gradually without ever knowing it, live your way into the answers."
Rilke
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