Practice is Precious : Ranju Roy

A friend of mine once said that during a yoga class, the teacher said “You're doing your postures as if you don't care!” On the one hand, the teacher made a good point: take care! However my friend decided not to return to this teacher, as the teacher's tone was not helpful and put him off.

I've been considering the nature of taking care of one's practice, of the teachings, of the dharma. To take care is to allow something to grow and flourish. It is to provide the right soil, water and nutrients to a plant. When we are given practices and teachings by our teachers, the best way of honouring the teacher is to plant the practice and teachings well into our lives - to take care. I remember long ago Paul used this metaphor - he said that the practice he was giving me was like a cutting from the “tree” that he had grown - it was up to me to grow my own “tree” from the cutting - and pass on cuttings to others. How they grow may be different in different settings. The “tree” doesn't belong to anybody - we are merely guardians for awhile, we pass on what we can.

In the Yoga Sutras, a metaphor is used of a lump of clay, a wheel and a potter. There is raw material; there is a tool, there is an intelligence which fashions the raw material. Who or what is the teacher? One way of considering this is that the raw material is us - the student with all our undeveloped “stuff” and potential. The wheel is the practice, but it's also the teacher and the teachings. The potter is our innate intelligence - it is that which will help us - and the teacher is there to develop and manifest that innate intelligence. The function of the external teacher is to bring us to our internal teacher.

But the practice and teachings we have received are no good unless they are applied to the goal of yoga: freedom. For me, freedom is a sense of space opening - it is the development of sukha, good space. Where there is restriction, tightness, fear - that is a development of duhkha - restricted space.

A teacher is there to facilitate our growth and our experience of freedom. But a teacher is also there to keep us in check, to challenge us, not to support our neuroses. Sometimes this may be experienced as anything but sukha. It strikes me that the key here is sraddha, faith. Do we have faith in our teacher? If we do, even challenges and provocation from our teacher can be perceived as helpful, because they are helping us move towards open space and empowerment. If we do not have faith, our teacher's actions can be perceived as bringing duhkha, of disempowering.

Faith in the external teacher brings us to the internal teacher. Practice strengthens our faith and resolution. Therefore, we should take care of our practice and consider very carefully our relationship with our teacher. Is it helpful? Is there faith? Are we moving towards freedom? Practice is precious; let the turning of the potter's wheel (the practice and the external teacher) bring us to our own innate wisdom; the vast impersonal spaciousness called cit, our internal teacher.

Ranju Roy
April 2005