The Practice of Seeing Everything as a Teaching

[An excerpt from our newsletter]

I have been reminded on the practice of seeing everything as a teaching and every being as a teacher, especially with the weekly Chair Yoga at a local Seniors community. It is designed to be super gentle and inwardly-focused, that now they call it a "Do-what-you-can practice". Sooo cute!  I personally really enjoy working and being with older folks, so I appreciate connections like this a lot.

Anyway, there's this person who makes the effort to Yoga most of the weeks, but she has a few impairments that affect her hearing, mobility, and information processing. Her eyes'd look spacey and she'd be with her own pace. Sometimes she'd just sit for a long while, or leave early. However, she surprises me every time we get to chat afterward. The first time was after 2-3 weeks, she told me that she realized this was discipline, that when she showed up and did something and I did something else, it's totally OK. And her eyes were sparkly. She looked directly into my eyes.  This to me is really profound. How long would it take for a Yoga practitioner to realize that Yoga is about practicing commitment and discipline, that it's not a performance, and that it should be accessible and personal? How did she get that in such period of time?

Another week, she told me "I feel soft inside. That's new" . I took it as a reminder that this is a practice of going within and being present with what is.

Last week, she told me that when we worked with the hips, she almost wanted to cry. She seemed to feel the emotions that stayed in the hip space getting released. She being so in tune with the subtle shifts impresses me so much. I'm so proud of her and find that it's so humbling to receive teachings and reminders from this being, who appears quite different than what we would think an avid Yoga practitioner would look like. Isn't it far out? 

There's this perspective that we can adopt to shift our existing point of view: seeing "Seniors" as "Elders". They have so much experiences and insights to share and if we give them the space to do so, we can tap into a continuation of collective teachings and wisdom.