Just is.

Yesterday, after a Mysore style yoga session with my dear friend and yogi, we both laid in Savasana (Corpse Pose) for a long time. Longer than my normal, post-modern version where I tend to check yoga off my to do list and go about my day in a quick, often mindless pace, hoping to maintain a sense of purpose by my many activities.

This time was different, perhaps due to the length of savasana; as I lay there, I heard the birds chirping, felt the wind, cascading silently over the room from the ceiling fan, listened to the hum of the local industry. And, in the midst of this state of meditation I realized that everything around me just IS. The birds were doing their thing, people were heading to work, the fan was doing its job.

They just is.

Okay, so a tangent note here: I loathe bad grammar. I have yelled at the Sara Lee truck on occasion with it’s double negative slogan, “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee” so the irony of my meditative thought of ‘just is’ struck me almost as soon as it arrived to my soul. (However…)

In this state of ‘just is-ness’ I recognized my strive and almost stuck-on-the-wheel hamster desire to be more, do more, see more. I recognized in this moment that the Earth in her glory, God in His glory, and the world in its glory just is. This just is-ness is something that definitely needs more attention, more practice, more daily recognition in my life. I do not have to strive to make the birds sing, flowers bloom and the fan whir. All around me truly is collaborating to a just is-ness.

I feel that for once, I truly resonate with Thich Naht Hanh, and his book, Miracle of Mindfulness.

“In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.”

“If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were
a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future -and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”

“Everyday we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

On and on, the book Miracle of Mindfulness continues to remind us to be present…now.

Savasana is said to be the hardest pose in all of yoga, which consists of theoretically upwards of 1,000 poses (excluding variations). Hardest because you lie, still, on the ground in a state between wakefulness and falling asleep. Hardest because you do nothing. Hardest because you just did yoga and feel like returning to the world off your mat.

You just is.