The Mind As A Story-Making Factory

Dear Yogis,

How is lock-down treating you? Are you OK? Are you frustrated? Have you experienced loss? Are you experiencing uncertainty? We’ve been at this for over three months now and it’s worth being gentle with your idea of being you and how you’re handling life with Coronavirus! The practice of yoga and mindfulness brings you closer to thoughts, feelings, and mind-habits and encourages you to observe your experience. This is what yoga wants to gift to you, not the flawless Triangle Pose or picture-perfect touching of toes! Observing is how we move towards non-attachment and freeing the mind.

The Abbot of Amaravati, Ajahn Amaro, talks of the mind as a ‘story-making factory’. This factory might waste time, cause misunderstandings, unnecessarily spoil the peace, make unjust demands, even keep us in the wrong job or relationship. You mind is like 24hour news that doesn’t check its facts and embellishes the story. This leads to unexamined beliefs. The story-making factory of the mind goes off on an associative chain, gets lost in an extensive side-track and causes chaos all by itself. This is how the mind isn’t always on your side.

Ajahan Amaro tells this story: The Buddha, once meditating under a tree, was interrupted by Dandapani, the monk who liked debate for sport. He confronted the Buddha and tried to provoke him to prove his unbeatable cleverness. The Buddha simply said he practiced ‘non-contention’. The debating monk had to stride off, frustrated.

Later the Buddha recounted the story. He said that it’s only when you remove the causes of mental proliferation do you end the quality of conflict. If the mind gets attached to the stories it creates, remove the story! We can stop contending with others… and with ourselves.

Training

On free mornings I listen to Scott Johnson, founder of Stillpoint Yoga in London Bridge and Brixton, who chants and pontificates on Instagram, scottjohnsonlife. This morning he talked about the element of yoga which is about devotion and if you practice with that sense of devotion and of the bigger picture, you receive more benefit from the practice. He said: ‘We are connecting with yoga and chanting to something ancient, incomprehensible and greater than ourselves. And there is a wonder about that gift; experiencing it, navigating it, experiencing the shift in ourselves. We stand on the shoulders of countless unknown previous generations that we will never know. What do we do while we are here: the way we step, the way we receive, using what has gone on before, to move forward?

As a result of listening to Scott Johnson’s chanting this morning and his musings about devotion, I signed up for practice tomorrow, Saturday, at 7.30am!  I'm joining a Stillpoint Led Primary Series class with Wendy Haigh. Join Me! Stillpoint and Scott Johnson are most definitely worth having in your life.

Zoom Classes

Every year, at some brief point, my yoga studio becomes a Bikram sweatbox. This year I’m pretty glad to be suffering the swelter alone while I watch you practice yoga in your own places, maybe in your garden, or with doors and windows open and in the cool comfort of your home. It’s nice. Book an evening class here: goodtimesyoga.co.uk/book-online. The Class Pass and Pay-What-You-Like are on goodtimesyoga.co.uk/livestream-yoga-price-options. Let me know if you would prefer my bank details. No problem. Classes are a fiver or £12 for the week or a donation of your choice or, if you fancy private classes, £30.

Yoga in the news

The Independent has: Yoga studio installs individual plastic bubbles so people can exercise in large groups. “A yoga studio in Toronto, Canada has installed 50 plastic domes so that people can do classes together while maintaining social distancing.”

The DC Post has: Yoga Class for Black Lives Matter at National Museum of African American History. “There is no quick solution to the complex problems we face, however, we can collectively join in a peaceful yoga session to tune in to the present moment and listen to our inner voice, the one guiding us to, ‘be the change we wish to seek in the world’.”