Real But Not True

The goal of our yoga practice is to remain present and alert to the moment to moment experience we are having. This is much easier said than done!

The human mind is most often caught up in examining the past to try to create a predictable future. But for anyone who has lived a life, we know all to well that life will inevitably throw us a curve ball, pull the rug out from under us or take us on a side quest we could never have dreamed possible.

We can't rely on the stories our mind tells us. Have you ever experienced a moment when your mind has created a terrible scenario? Maybe your child is late and you are certain they've been involved in a terrible accident. Or perhaps you made a mistake on your tax return and while you're waiting for it to be fixed you start to imagine the police coming to charge you with tax evasion or worse a trip to gaol!

I love the teaching by Buddhist teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche that reminds us to consider our thoughts as REAL BUT NOT TRUE. When we let our mind get carried away in this type of worst-case-scenario thinking, we experience the very real feelings these thoughts generate.You see our body doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination.

You may simply be picturing yourself in the paddy wagon on your way to gaol but your body thinks it's really happening.  You're so scared that your heart starts racing, you start sweating and your breathing speeds up and gets shallow.

This is just one example of how our thinking might cause us harm. “When we are suffering, we are believing something that is not true,” writes Tara Brach, one of my favourite mediation teachers. That's why practicing becoming present is so very important.  It enables us to have a tool that short circuits the loop of unconscious and habitual thinking that causes us to suffer.

Each time you practice yoga and mediation, you are strengthening the habit of presence which blesses our lives with more and more beauty, truth and love.