Meritorious Diwali

Hello Yogis!

Happy Diwali! May light triumph over darkness and good over evil! On Monday, underneath fireworks and bangs and cracks outside, Savasana was quite… interesting. I love that Idea of light overcoming darkness and illuminating light within ourselves.

Wasting no time, by Wednesday that light was already illuminating something I have misunderstood all my life! I was brought up with the idea of merit: making merit, accumulating merit and performing meritorious deeds – even transferring merit to departed loved ones who need our help to be reborn into a better life. Well! I always pictured this as some sort of bank account that you build up and up by performing good deeds. You get something back from this bank account – you get a better next life!

At the London Buddhist Vihara on Wednesday, a monk expanded on the theory of merit and corrected my limited understanding. It isn’t for the sake of a higher rebirth! It’s for the sake of protection and happiness now. Merit means happiness now, he said.

It works like this: you practice good deeds, for example generosity, in order to become better at generosity. In exactly the same way that you might train as a runner to become a healthier runner, you perform meritorious actions to make meritorious actions more frequent, more natural and more unstinting in your life. As a result, the merit you build up is your protective force which improves inner-well-being. Merit equals protective force. Merit equals well-being. Merit equals happiness.

Lightbulb!  

Classes

Come to class! This morning has the Friday 8.30am Ashtanga class which starts with meditation. It isn’t too late to book. If it’s Ashtanga you’re looking for, I have a Wednesday 7.00pm class as well. I noticed that Triyoga in Ealing doesn’t offer this style any more. You can book Ashtanga and Stretchy classes here.

Yoga In The News

The Guardian has: Slimmed down Boris Becker reportedly teaching yoga in prison. ‘Becker is also said to be instructing other prisoners in a “special type of yoga and meditation”, the source told the paper. “As a sportsman, he knows only too well the highs and lows of victories and defeats. He is sharing his life experience with his fellow prisoners.”’

The Guardian has: Why yoga at home is simple, fun and rewarding.’ A whopping 91% of yoga students and 86% of teachers continued their classes from home, more than double the number who had ever tried an online class before’. ‘For the great majority of hatha yoga’s… a combination of personal instruction and solitary practice at home was typical. You would go to your guru for a new piece of instruction, then return home and practise diligently until you were ready for the next lesson. The group yoga class, where a room full of people all perform the same set of postures simultaneously, is largely a 20th-century invention’.