Thursday, November 9, 2017

NadiPrana Experiences


Here is a short piece that I wrote about my experiences during a retreat in 2014.  I found it in an old file tucked away in a folder that I rarely access.  Although in the meantime, I have done three more such retreats, one in 2015 and another one in June 2016 and a 6-week retreat in June & July this year, I still feel that my observations could be helpful to others.  These types of insights don’t come with a shelf life. They are always fresh and new.  Which is why I am sharing the piece here. 

In general, I hope that this kind of retreats can be offered to more people and more often, in the future.  So far, my teacher has not felt very keen on doing so.  He is a rather private person.  He likes to work one on one with a few students that he has known for years, rather than jumping into the ‘fray’ of commercialized yoga.  However, the results that everyone observes in themselves who does work with him, and the positive shifts and changes they experience in their lives would warrant that he play a little more active and public role.  At least that’s what some others and I are thinking. 

In Buddhist yoga, nothing is forced, everything manifests out of your own being, provided the intention is there and motivation enough to put in a little effort to live a fully embodied life rather than a life narrowly defined through ‘heady’ concepts.


I attended the 7-day NadiPrana Buddhist yoga retreat this time with no ulterior motive, like in the pursuit of a particular goal.  I just wanted to be quiet; I needed to relax. Hence, I enjoyed the first four retreat days like a vacation from all of my everyday concerns.  This felt sooo good! It felt like coming home and settling in myself; letting go of all the accumulated stress from the hectic time in the monsoon months that same year when I had been setting up my new clinic. In short, for four days I felt like a happy go lucky child free of all cares.

Day 5 came, and the mood pendulum shifted in the opposite direction.  It brought up deep resistance. As a result, I felt like not wanting to continue with doing more postures.  Likewise, I didn’t want to focus during the silent meditation sessions between postures. While sitting upright, my body started to hurt all over, and I therefore decided that I had felt enough into and of my life and didn’t want to feel anything any more:  No energy movements, no emotions no nothing!  Enough of this spiritual gobbledygook!

However, on closer scrutiny, I could easily discern that this wish to suppress the free flow of sensations and feelings released by NadiPrana was clearly a rather aggressive and self-destructive form of self-denial.

I was simply resisting the next step that had opened up before me as a result of the first four days of practicing, which had allowed me to go deeper into the subtle, internal energy movements at the basis of it all. These subtle life giving energy movements indeed permeated my entire bodymind continuum.  Therefore, what I had labeled as ‘unpleasant’ or even ‘pain’ was in truth the deep-seated resistance against feeling the energy and bliss waves that naturally permeate the body when we connect to its fluidity and ever flowing presence. I felt so much more and in such greater detail than I had ever felt before; and actually when I paid attention, my whole being was vibrating with energy. 

In short, what happened on day 5 was that I became aware of how much I am resisting my own bliss; resist feeling the bliss inherent in the free flow of energies through the body – and this bliss is actually accessible to all of us, every moment.  May be we are resisting it because we are afraid that our narrow minded views regarding ourselves and our world would simply disappear in this sea of energy, leaving us bereft of the concepts that make up what we belief is our precious ‘self’; whereas there is so much more to it, and so much more enjoyable, too.

Thus I had two very important realizations:
1.     I had read many times before, both in modern books on meditation or in ancient dharma texts that all of existence is the projection of one’s own mind. I have always accepted this statement as a working hypothesis, or as a basic ‘theory of everything’; yet I had also never actually ‘tasted’ this truth, or felt it deeply from inside out.  For the first time during the meditation sessions in this retreat, I realized that this view is not merely a theory about reality but reality itself – a palpable presence free of rigid separation; or an inseparable free flowing sense of being that can likewise easily accept and work with the boundaries of our ordinary existence as part of the flow.
2.     Whenever I had done this kind of slow movement exercises before in previous retreats or on my own, my attention had been mostly preoccupied with either maintaining the posture, or feeling pain here or there because of the stress created by holding the posture, or energies rushing through.  I had been lost in these events, totally absorbed by them. But during this retreat for a couple of moments, I felt this amazing connection of body and mind when the posture holds itself, and I felt stable and weightless at the same time; totally grounded in ‘earthiness’, yet lighter than a feather. I have had this experience in previous NadiPrana retreats only fleetingly but never this intense, and never for longer than a few moments.  Usually, the sense of the total balance of feeling grounded in myself had vanished as quickly as it had arisen.   This time there was a sense of abiding in it and with it, some form of calm abiding.  It persisted; it could be explored and relished.

Post retreat, I am noticing that my capacity to hold my breath has deepened, my fear for heights has considerably reduced. I also discovered how strong the tendency is In me to put myself down and deny my capabilities.  The events on day 5 and 6 brought to my attention how much and how often I am stopping myself or shutting myself down when I am just starting to experience some of the most amazing feelings and realizations that I have ever had, or presently have. 

By noticing this tendency, it naturally vanishes.  I can enjoy being alive a whole lot more.  Considering how short our human lives really are, enjoying the moment as it arises and disappears is a precious gift.  I don’t underestimate its value any longer.

I thank my teacher Choyin Dorje for his constant guidance.

Dr. Shikha

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