Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Silence of Mouth and Mind

A vow of silence.  That's why.

Despite my enduring practice of yoga I've been wracked with craving, aversion, and ignorance.  Yoga does well to temper these three--ok, maybe not the third--but not extinguish them.  As followers of my blog know, I've been through some tough times lately, so tough in fact that I had to disappear. For a while I changed my name to Houston Veecher.  As Houston I led a traveling life, including a spell working on a sport fishing boat off the coast of Panama.  Don't let anybody kid you, Panama is where it's at when it comes to billfishing...and these little fried delicacies called crujientes de mono that are stuffed with roast capuchin monkey tail. 

The point is Panama is where I discovered vipassana.  While on an unintended detour I stumbled across Sanacion Integral, a detox retreat for body and mind.  After Buddha guided my errant footsteps there, Tamara (more about her later) guided my steps on a tour.  On retreat you cleanse your body through fasting, yoga and, what I came to enjoy most, a daily urine pH test.  Meanwhile you cleanse your mind thru silence.  During the standard 10-day retreat you don't talk, except perhaps a few words with an instructor.  I was intrigued.

I was also in luck.  Tamara informed me they were looking for a replacement yoga instructor after Kenny suffered a double groin pull demonstrating reverse firefly to Carolina Martinelli Linares.  So Tamara and I worked a deal whereby I would teach the yoga and stretching classes after experiencing the 10-day retreat course.  I asked Tamara if she would be one of my instructors.  As a first lesson I got silence in reply.  There was, however, a hint of a smile lodged in that silence.  So I searched her for craving and aversion.  I'll tell you what I found....later.

-D

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