Life is suffering. Hmm

Well the Buddha himself said something to the effect of, 'life is suffering'. That was very kind of him to point that out wasn't it, as if we didn't know.

We begin life with a very traumatic arrival through the birth canal, I mean even the easiest birth must involve a little anxiety right? Most of us arrive by travelling down the birth canal and some of us come through the abdomen via ceaserian. Either way we have been lying in amniotic fluid for nine months or so. But arrive we do into this world pure and simple, and then the fun begins.

all of the stages of growth are programmed into the hardwiring, suckling, moving our limbs, to crawling and walking, speech and communication etc, towards the dreaded puberty and the awakening into the world of hormones, then even more fun begins.

We are confronted with adulthood and beyond with no real maps and unless we are lucky to have a nice set of beliefs handed to us in the form of religious indoctrination or something similar we have to try and make sense of the world, mostly if not totally through our experiences. Aggh!

Even those of us that have been used to religious, political or other sets of beliefs may sooner or later start to question such things because our experience may not match the ideals.

As we grow we may be lied to constantly, all for our own good though. Our feelings tell us something and we ask our elders etc and are told our reality is not important, 'of course I love you darling, in spite of the fact that I shout at you more or less constantly and may sometimes hit you!' Hmmmmmm.

So here we begin with the denial of feelings over dominant thought patterns passed on to us through our elders etc.

Read Alice Miller. 'For you're own good'.

Through yoga Asana and pranayama we are put back into our body, this is the first step. We become acquainted again with feelings, past and present. We may not like it, so we read the books written by those who went before us. We do if we have any sense at least, otherwise we may be cajoled into spending another £'s on another workshop or course to make us into a better person.

F--- That !!!

Get real, sit down and breathe in and out through your nose for 10mins, or half an hour or more. The maps are already printed all you have to do is find them. All of these workshops and retreats are made by people that are giving you second hand information because you are too lazy or too tired to do it yourself.

'It's life captain but not as we know it' Spock.

Ommmmmmmmmmmzzzzzzzzzzz