You Are What You Think…

Here’s a wonderful story that my yogi friend shared with all of us in our facebook community. I think its a reminder to all of us of what yoga is about as well as what life is about. Enjoy and tell me what you think!

This is taken as is from what my friend wrote :

Lately I got a forward email from my sister.
It’s a column in Thai magazine written about the story of Ajahn* Chah’s** disciple named Ajahn Prom.
And here’s the story goes.
Few years ago, Ajahn Prom was building a new temple in Perth, Australia. A lot of money was spent to acquire a land at the most peaceful location that he had very little money left to complete the construction work.
Therefore, he needed to do some part of the work by himself, including building a\the temple’s wall. He was dedicated to build the finest and most beautiful wall and tried hard to make it a master piece. The work progressed slowly yet he eventually finished his job.
Then, His eyes scanned through the big beautiful hand-made wall. He felt so the proud of his delicate job till he found out that there were “the two ugly bricks” that did not align well with the rest of the wall. This made him so unhappy. He wanted to destroy the wall and started all the work over but the master did not allow him to do so. Ever since then, every times he passed that wall, he always saw “the two ugly bricks”. One day he needed to walk a group of people around temple to show them all the area. When they stopped close to the wall, every body was so impressed with such a delicate hand-made wall.
Ajahn Prom thought they were kidding. So he asked them back “Have not you seen the two ugly brick on that wall?” “Yes” they replied but I saw 9,998 well-aligned bricks at the same time and just two bricks that were not placed properly, so “what was the matter?” “The wall still look so beautiful, isn’t it?” Ajahn Prom scanned through it again, up, down, right and left….and finally he replied them “YES”.
This was the first time in three months that he saw the true beauty of that wall. “When our mind opens, we see real self” Now a day, he could not even find where “The two ugly bricks” on that wall were.
In our yoga practice as well, sometimes, we tend to see only “Two ugly bricks” a.ka. our bad alignments. Oh!! my hips were twisted, my knees were not align well… blah blah blah…
Instead of feel happy with our practice, we only feel unsatisfied with ourselves. We tend to see only “What our weakness is…” and do not try that to correct it. The Worst is, sometimes we (a.ka. me…knotty) even try to use it as an excuse not to practice some of the hard postures. For example, I can not do arm balance posture because I had so weak arm…I will never be ever strong enough to do that posture in my life. Finally, I feel unhappy with my practice.
C’mon guys, the truth is, no body’s perfect, that’s why we need to practice yoga. Even the most perfect posture performed by the best guru…”I am quite sure that we can find something wrong with his alignment if we want to do it! Honestly, I used to see the picture of swami vishnudevananda, the great yoga guru and thought that…his alignment is not good…how notti I am….:P
Nevertheless, the aimed of the practice is to bring back balance to your mind and your body,
to balance strength and flexibility and to balance all emotion….and the most important thing is that “We should feel happy with ourselves”. What I try to say, in case you get confused, is “We all have two bricks inside” but do not let it becomes a “Distraction” in your practice and do not use it as an excuse not to try any posture. Try to use it to realign your mind and body and appreciate the thing we had. Not only in the small space in yoga mat, even in our relationships, friends, wife, husband and family, try not to two see only two ugly bricks inside them. So many people break up or loose their best friends just because of two ugly bricks. Do not let it distract you. There are so many things inside them that they are lot far better than that those two ugly bricks.
Finally, what I would like to say is “The art of living life is not to find the perfection in everything but to see the beauty in imperfection as the way that it is” Beauty belong to the eyes of beholder…so make sure you are the right beholder of your self:D
Namaste,
KNOTY
26/2/09
Singapore
Ajahn* means “teacher” in THAI language.
** Ajahn Chah (1918-1992) is a highly revered and influential Thai Buddhist monk.

Sometimes after a long time of practicing yoga, people may get caught up with the “physical” part of yoga. They get agitated when they cannot do a certain pose or when they see others can do but they cannot… they get hung up on getting the perfect pose or they get obsessed with a certain pose that they miss the whole “picture”.

I get lost sometimes too. It’s hard not to when you are practicing in a community when people tends to look and judge. But at the end of the day, it’s how you think that really matters.

We cannot control many things in our world. Things are beyond our control. We cannot stop rain, we cannot stop the bad things from happening and we cannot stop what other people think ( <– very important — so no point getting upset at what others think or say! )
But the good news is that we can control is our mind!

That is the only thing in the world that we can truly control.

If you choose to focus on the “ugly” part of things, then you are making yourself unhappy and probably those around you too!

However, if you choose to concentrate on the “beauty” the big picture, then you will be much happier and people around you will feel the joy too! I know it’s true and the feeling is so much more constructive and these positive energy will bring out the best in you and others too.

You are what you think…

Namaste!

PS. I am thinking how to climb Mt Ophir this weekend! Woo hoo!