Yamas, niyamas, Li Po and hangovers
It’s Monday in Vancouver and it’s raining: pretty much par for the course. Sunday was raining too though, and that was nice — mainly because a party on Saturday night stretched into Sunday and rain was my excuse to spend the day detoxing in my pyjamas.
When hungover, I almost always vow to stop putting myself through such hell, and to consider, just consider at one point in any given evening, to stop and — hey, what an idea — have a glass of water. Or to — hey, better still — go home before 4:30am. Sadly, the vow rarely works. Does it for anyone?
Today is a dear friend’s birthday and in considering what to send her (yes, it will be late but we both expect this) I remembered a beautiful book she gave me last year: poems by Li Po. If you don’t know this gorgeous man, you must. And more so if you have a love for the wine. Here is one of my favourites:
A Vindication
If heaven loved not wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on earth.
Since heaven and earth love wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture found in wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.
Thank you, Li Po. I vow now only to remember that line — “both the sage and the wise were drinkers” — and to use it often. Preferably while drinking.
Here’s the other part of today. I’ve begun getting a daily inspiration email from the Yoga Journal, because, I am a yoga student and a yoga teacher — as well as interested in seeing examples of eNewsletters from a variety of sources for my every day work. We are all filled with contrary impulses. Everyone knows that. Anyway my eNewsletter reminded me about yamas, niyamas and Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutra. Together the yamas and niyamas represent principles that help one make her way along the yogic or any other path — and today’s eNewsletter spoke about the most difficult for me: aparigraha. In essence, it’s greedlessness, or stopping yourself from being jealous of just about everyone else because they have better lives than you. It’s bloody difficult. Try it. Talk to your friend with the cottage on an island or the one who’s there on the internet walking down the street chatting with Ben Harper, or the mother of a beautiful new wee boy who sleeps all the time and smells like cookie dough. Go ahead, I dare you. Then go home to your un-vaccuumed house and step in the cat barf on the stairs and go to pay your gas bill while trying to avoid looking at the astonishingly negative balance on your bank account. Some days are easier than others and of course, of course, there are a million and five things I am indeed furiously grateful for. But it’s still a challenge to resist caving in to the belief that I’m doing everything wrong while everyone else has figured everything out right.
From the newsletter:
Aparigraha leads naturally to one of the niyamas: santosha, or “contentment,” being satisfied with the resources at hand and not desiring more. Ultimately, Frawley says, “Yoga is about transcending the desire for external things, which is the cause of suffering, and finding peace and happiness within.”
Still a worthwhile aim.
