What is the story being told?
What is the story you are hearing?
What are the stories not being told?
What are the stories you are not hearing?
Is it truth masquerading as art?
Or is it art masquerading as truth?
Do you seek understanding for itself?
Or are you afraid of ambiguity?
Are you seeking to know?
Or are you running from the unknown?
What are the questions being asked?
What are the questions you are hearing?
What are the questions not being asked?
What are the questions you are not hearing?
Are you questioning what you fear?
Are you questioning what you accept?
(Thoughts and reactions during the sixth of seven 10 minute guided meditations in yoga teacher training 2017-03-12 (tantek.com/2017/072/t1/ytt-pranayama-bhandas-philosophy), written down in the five minutes immediately after the meditation.)
#100DoPP d52: 43/200h (21%+) YTT done!
Learned & practiced Pranayama, Bhandas, more leading, meditations (specifically meditations from chakras).
The chakras meditations in particular were the last thing we did today (Sunday), during which I had a bit of a “Doctor Strange” skeptic moment …
“I don’t believe in fairy tales about chakras, or energy, or the power of belief.” https://youtu.be/Lt-U_t2pUHI?t=55s (time index 55s)
… both when we started learning about chakras, and during the seven 10 minute guided meditations on each in particular.
As a scientist, I treat all such systems as mysticism, more stories and art than reality.
I tried to keep an open mind in two ways:
1. The benefits of meditation (as have been scientifically studied)
2. To learn and appreciate such mystic systems/beliefs as aspects of a culture (anthropology), rather than reality or models of the natural world to be subjected to critical inquiry (science)
After each 10 minute guided meditation, we took five minutes to journal our notes on each experience. I had a different reaction to each one.
But by the fifth in particular I had a feeling of having had enough, of such mysticism, mythology, that they were unnecessary, that I could not relate to them, and just wanted to reject it all.
During the sixth meditation, I was able to turn that emotional reaction of rejection into a more directed confrontation of questions and challenges.
Our teacher had been asking us to share our thoughts and reactions, and I said this one meditation in particular had made me think of many questions. I asked if I should share them. He invited me to do so. So I read them out loud: tantek.com/2017/072/t2/stories-truth-art-questions.
Previous YTT posts:
* tantek.com/2017/071/t1/surprise-ytt-class-pizza-rose-friends
* tantek.com/2017/064/t3/ytt-led-sun-salutations
* tantek.com/2017/064/t1/enjoying-yoga-vinyasa-flow-learning
* tantek.com/2017/063/t1/ytt-inspiring-teachers-students
* tantek.com/2017/061/t1/yoga-asked-demonstrate-headstand
* tantek.com/2017/059/t2/ytt-sf-challenges
* tantek.com/2017/058/t1/yoga-teacher-training-anticipating
t