Here's how I feel about this--same ref I used yesterday--from another Shambhala Sun issue--okay I'm going to digress about Shambhala Sun for a minute.
I used to eschew reading this magazine. I really looked down my nose at it. All these trendy "buddhists" ...there were a bunch of them at Dartmouth and I really didn't like them. They seemed to be using their buddhism as a way to set themselves apart and look down on others. It became just another token of elitism. And elitism, while at the same time I just slather after it, really ticks me off.
The magazine seemed like it was just another fashion prop--also heavily Tibetan (and most Rinzai zen buddhists sort of secretly look down on the Tibetans, a reflection I think of the class system here in America, which I would love to go into but not right this second--I remember my few weeks at Tail of the Tiger 21 years ago--all those 40 something women arriving with their Louis Vuitton luggage for retreat. Gag me. (But, to be fair to the place, I also remember sitting in their meditation hall by the orange lacquered columns after hiking a few miles over the hills in the snow from Milarepa, and smelling the incense and warming my frozen toes and thinking, that maybe there was a chance for some peace here.)
But then I turned 40 and something has changed.
I copped to myself. And I copped to my buddhism. I decided it was okay to show it. I began to understand the importance of the Sangha, something I'd never given enough value to before. The Sun is imperfect, but there's a lot of wisdom in its glossy pages, and it connects me to the larger sangha. I really can't do it alone. Which is why Hokukuan being on hiatus with no word from Seido really concerns me. Somehow, being down in my basement doing my morning practice by myself was okay when I knew the sangha was still going on. I would think about them--"now they're doing this, they're bowing, they're chanting" and I would feel connected, even though I couldn't get there physically. But now, I'm just down there by myself, and I gotta tell you, I feel like Robinson Crusoe.
Oh, well.
But back to yoga and grasping and commercialization. That's so funny that the Wii gives you bonus poses! Don't you kind of wish there really was something like that? Maybe that way I could finally get into the side crow--which absolutely terrifies me. I'm convinced I will break both my wrists and get a skull fracture. I've been trying to do it for a year...anyways. I think the commercialization of yoga is a good thing, because yoga is very sneaky, and people will change for the better if they start doing it even if they are doing it for the wrong reasons. I have watched this happen with two of the yoga teachers at the gym I used to go to, who you know, taught aerobics and then got yogafit certification under duress from the management. After two years they were unrecognizable. Hairy armpits, jewels in their bellies, even a little newsletter! Look at how trendy "going green" is becoming...that can only be for the good. And who am I to say what is right? Who am I to say this path is better than that one? I can't presume...I'm just happy more people are coming on board--because that means there are more yoga classes available--even in benighted Little Dixie.
Anything to get one out of a burning house.
Okay--that's my 1/2 hour. I have to go ride my bike to my shrink, now.
Namaste.
