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Becoming the Mountain
‘Tadasana’: or mountain pose, is the essence of all asanas. It is what is left of your practice if you strip everything else away. Every asana is rooted in Tadasana. Whether standing in mountain pose, or flipping it upside down into a handstand, or sitting on the floor with your legs extended in a full seated forward bend, you are deploying the essentials of Tadasana: a feeling of deep grounding, stillness, inner strength, and the ability to stand tall on your own two feet and face yourself. With this stillness and strength, your mind quiets, and you feel like you can weather any storm, whether on your mat or out in the world. Here is a great passage from one of my all-time favorite books by Pema Chödrön on being the mountain. ”Well-being of body is like a mountain. A lot happens on a mountain. It hails, and the winds come up, and it rains and snows. The sun gets very hot, clouds cross over, animals shit and piss on the mountain, and so do people. People leave their trash, and other people clean it up. Many things come and go on this mountain, but it just sits there. When we’ve seen ourselves completely, there’s a stillness of body that is like a mountain. We no longer get jumpy and have to scratch our noses, pull our ears, punch somebody, go running from the room, or drink ourselves into oblivion. A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn’t mean we don’t run and jump and dance about. It means there’s no compulsiveness. We don’t overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm.”
— Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart Enjoy ❤️
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