How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Practicing this past month has been a bit of a battle.  As I moved toward a much-anticipated vacation week, I seemed to lose all traction on my center, becoming increasingly distracted, scattered and clumsy.  Making coffee one morning, I burnt my arm severely enough to need a doctor.  A few days later I smashed my head on my desk while bending down to pick up a piece of paper.  A night later, I crashed my knee on the wooden platform frame getting into bed.  Aahhh,  the ever-graceful yogini.  It would have been tempting to blame these incidents on others (and using the limits of my creativity I probably could have found a way to do so), but fortunately, instead, my practice helped me see these incidents as illustrations of how very adept we are at bringing suffering on our very own selves.

Luckily, my husband and I had planned a very peaceful, simple vacation, heading up to Vermont for a week on our own.  His own samsara had led him to this moment with an extremely painful lower back, lodged out of alignment by too much work and stress and inattention.  So off we headed with my arm bandaged and with painful lumps on both my head and knee.  He was padded up with lumbar support and had indulged himself (or probably me) with his once-a-year ibuprofen.  Good times!

I’d say it took pretty much all week (as well as a few additional doctor visits) for us to recover.  We treated ourselves to some bodywork, we meditated, he napped, I did some yoga.  We made almost daily visits to the local food coop looking for healing foods and potions, and most of all we paid attention; to ourselves, our surroundings, the people we met.  We slowed down.  I followed my breath.  He silently chanted his mantra. We kept our adventure-seeking to a minimum, and mostly succeeded in not inflicting any additional damage  (spider bites here, a grill in flames there).

Being away, pausing, I felt like I came home to my practice.

Now that we are physically home, I’m certainly in a much better place, and working on some changes so that I don’t get quite so overwrought and vacation-desperate anytime soon.  Although it was not exactly the super-active outdoorsy week that I had envisioned, it was exactly what we both needed. Practice is like that.  If you are willing to listen, it will give you what you need.  It didn’t so much matter where we were or even the specific nature of our practice.  What mattered was creating space, paying attention, being present.

Wishing you a peaceful practice,

Susan

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

~ Dalai Lama