Samskaras (Getting Back Into The Groove)

Samskaras are grooves in the mind, body, and heart that are created by habitual repetitive action. In tantra, samskaras can be either limiting or beneficent.

This past weekend, my travel via the myriad buses and trains was easeful and without incident. No late arrivals, which also allowed me to get back into the groove of practicing asana. Friday I did a nice long hour and a half practice at Shinsaibashi, experimenting with some more advanced variations of poses I haven’t done in awhile, and my body gratefully stepped up to the challenge. Afterwards, my heart was soaring! I then walked to Namba-jinja for a nice little bit of meditation.

Saturday I listened to a new Paul teleconference on the Shanti mantra and the first sutra of the Shiva Sutras. I haven’t had any time to listen to or study any of this work since I arrived here. My mind and heart appreciated this dip into these exalted tantric teachings. I even made a new entry into my meditation journal, another luxury I had laid aside for a bit.

Sunday I did a short asana practice, because I spent a fair amount of time after my morning class with Aki and Tim, to iron out the details of the apartment I want to rent. When I returned home that night, Tim informed me that it looked good, and the rental company had agreed to my request for a November 6th move-in date. Sunday was also the last time my friend Leanne would be flying in via Air Canada, whom she works for, since they are discontinuing the Osaka run. It was lovely to have her presence in class again. Sometimes, there are grooves that shift or even dissolve on their own without any say on our part. Things naturally fall away, and this is just a process of life. Usually though, it is so something else can arise in its place that will serve us better. Leanne told me that she has spent the last two weekends saying good-bye and bestowing gifts upon the owners of establishments she has frequented over her many many years of coming here. Maybe for her it is a wonderful practice of saying good-bye.

Teaching has also begun to create some tiny grooves. As Tim and I were having a late lunch after our meeting with Aki, he commented that I seemed to be nailing the things I had taught in the previous week. I was very grateful for this feedback. I hope to keep building on each week, adding to my vocabulary, and interweaving the pieces together into new shapes and forms to stimulate the students. On this front, Kaeko, my “script supervisor”, said she would be delighted to continue translating the more complex things I wish to offer each week. I am humbled by her graciousness and support.

While many of my practices had to be put on a brief hiatus during these first two weeks here, the one constant has been my meditation practice. In that space of - to quote Paul - “frictionless flow”, there is an awareness that is slowly opening, like the eye of some great boundless being, and the view I am being gifted with has begun to bring life’s patterns into a slightly clearer focus (sputa in sanskrit). I observed this increased clarity in one other revitalized practice; that of studying the kanji. Friday morning I went over about 50 of them, and found I retained a pretty accurate recall of this small batch.

This weekend was a good reminder to keep revisiting the structures of knowledge I have built thus far in all of the arenas of my study and practice, to maintain and add to these matrices, and thus progressively widen the view I receive via mind, body and, most importantly, heart.