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Does It Ever Get Easier?— by Connie Habash
The sweat trickles down my temples, past my ears. I'm in Parsvakonasana, the side angle pose, breathing steadily and wondering when the teacher will tell us to come out. I wait, somewhat patiently. I know this is well within my ability to continue to hold this. But it takes so much work! After all these years of practice, doesn't it ever get easier? When will I be able to hold these poses effortlessly? And for that matter, when will everything in my life finally just come together?
Sound familiar? I think we all have these thoughts, maybe more often than not. Waiting and hoping for that day when everything will be easy. The ship has come in, the party is on, and we can simply kick back and relax.
HA! Life has other ideas, doesn't it? It seems that something else is always around the corner - a new challenge, a different environment, more responsibility. From deep within an awareness of a habit or way of thinking that no longer serves up bubbles up, and we have to deal with that. Or an old issue that we thought he had licked sneaks out from under the bed and wakes us. When is it all going to be done, and I can then be happy?
The truth is that life always brings us what helps us to grow. And growing is not always a pleasure. Just like in yoga, it requires us to stretch, to reach, and to become stronger within. We're never "done" - at least, not until this life ends. Who knows what happens after that!
Part of what creates our frustration and suffering through the challenges of life is the belief that someday we'll be done, and we won't have to do all this work anymore. Retirement - for the soul, perhaps. We'll have had enough therapy, we'll have done all the yoga poses in every book, and we'll have all the money and love we ever needed. Then life will be effortless and happy - or so we imagine.
I'm back on my yoga mat in Parsvakonasana. I continue to sweat. What if I could do this without sweating? What if I could hold this pose for 10 minutes, no problem? What then? We all know what happens when something is easy - we get bored. We fall asleep to ourselves, space out, and the mind starts its little trip somewhere far off from the yoga mat. That's when the real challenge begins.
Even the most advanced yoga practitioners still sweat. There's no yogi in the world that I know of, that wouldn't be able to find some pose that if they held it long enough, would bring up some challenge. What creates the transformation, though, is all in the mind. I could be in Parsvakonasana, dripping perspiration, legs trembling, and I could have a peaceful mind. I could fully accept that this is difficult. I could completely embrace that it's unpleasant in this moment, and tiring. Just a few moments ago it felt great, and now it's not. The problem isn't in how my experience changed - the problem that keeps me from feeling the ease and joy that I'd like to, is that I somehow expect it NOT to change. I get frustrated when it does. I want it to be interesting and challenging, but not too challenging. In fact, not very challenging. I want it to be easy, and it's not. And when it's easy - if I were in child's pose for 10 minutes - then I get frustrated because it's "not doing anything." Yeah, sure. Just take a look at what it's doing to your mind.
I realize that the great yogis are still sweating - because that's what bodies do. But their minds are totally embracing that. They are reveling in whatever arises. The pleasure and the pain. They push nothing away, and open to whatever life brings. They walk forward on their path, regardless of whether things flow effortlessly or they have a steep climb. It gets easier when we appreciate however it is.
It also becomes easier when we don't have attachment to whether things are enjoyable or unpleasant. We can practice walking into every situation with an even mind, neither holding onto pleasant experiences, nor pushing away the unpleasant, and wishing they were other than they are. Patanjali called this vairagya - non-attachment, one of the keys to yoga practice. In actuality, it doesn't become easier in the sense of what we tend to think of easy - no effort - but in the sense that we aren't any longer putting up resistance to what is. We simply work with it. When we stop the internal fight about what we're experiencing - whether we enjoy it or not - then an inner peace arises that makes any situation more possible to deal with.
I still have those poses that push all my buttons. And I know that I have the ability to find a sense of ease within me, somehow, if I let go of the likes and dislikes, the dualities of easy and difficult, fun or frustrating. Life is what it is, in every moment. This pose is what it is, right here and now. In Parsvakonasana, as I continue to remain there, I can smile inward at myself - at the struggle happening in my mind, and the burn in my thigh. I can stay in the pose, I can come out. Either way, I see the little dance that my thoughts do, and step back from them. It becomes easier when I stop trying to make it so.
Copyright 2002 by Constance L. Habash