The Reflection Principle

Sometimes when we see too much truth about ourselves suddenly mirrored in front of us by the teacher or the teachings, it is simply too difficult to face, too terrifying to recognize, too painful to accept as the reality about ourselves. We deny and reject it, in an absurd and desperate attempt to defend ourselves fromourselves,from the truth of who we really are. And when there are things too powerful or too difficult to accept about ourselves, we project them onto the world around us, usually onto those who help us and love us the most—our teacher, the teachings, our parent, or our closest friend.
- Sogyal Rinpoche

Each month i have students quit.

Oh the rationalizations come easy as their feet pad away from the Humble Temple Doors
- the same ones which they nearly pounded down with enthusiasm for spiritually-potent fitness training just a short while earlier.

As i bow to these Awakening Ones,
i know in my heart that the WF path has transformed who they once thought they were,
how they worked out,
and
most of all;
how they work within.

What can a Teacher do
besides listen
to their footfalls...
ilg gives so much
tries so hard...
yet,
it is the fatigue of waving go(o)d-bye
which hurts more than the economic woes
of trying to do what ilg does
in this Kali Yuga...


the student and teacher,
the devotee and her path,
the river and the ocean,
devotion and knowledge,
actions and thoughts...
all are interrelated.

just as the student must surrender to the silence of the Teacher,
so too,
must the Teacher surrender everything to his students.
everything.

until the "I-ness" dissolves,
there is much work to do.
barbells to be lifted,
miles to sweat,
poses to absorbed into the breath,
aching backs and legs in meditation overcome,
food intake to be mastered,
purity of loving speech and Appropriate Action to attain...

Samadhi is not a matter for hurry.

yet most who come to me for study of wholeness
want things fast.

too fast for transformation to be genuine.

so,
here ilg sits,
sighing.

no time for self-pity;
no time to wonder what it will take to
attain a Higher Level of Teaching for
Students so they don't Take Leave so easily...

here is what it is time for ilg to do:
go Teach another killer beautiful PROP WORKOUT
with my local HP Yoga sangha,
then, clamber into Bala with my clan
and off to the bike races in Durango...
the first time as a family warrior...
funny,
ilg feels more
like a
wearior...than a warrior.

likes and dislikes
exist in my state of awareness,
yet
they have no lasting effect
or
so
ilg
prays.


i'll do my best to update during the weekend,
however,
ilg is a rookie at this Family Warrior stuff,
and since it's taking three times as longer to
do everything to prepare to leave,
i might not be able to update DL until Tuesday.

so,
most Precious and Treasured Warriors of Wholeness,
please know without your support,
the WF Path will become but a ripple dissolving
instead of expanding...

i have an opening for a new Online Student in June.
please apply here;

WF Training Application

no Initiation Fee if you state on the Application
you read about this Opening here...


until we meet again:

"Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid."
- John*



Dare yourself to be brave in your workouts and your work-withins
this weekend...your humble will certainly be doing his best
to be at least a passable example of a yogi for thee...

Om Mani Padme Hung,

your feeble teacher



* (perhaps the most advanced and devoted of Yogi Jesus's students)

ilg's TOP FIVE ENDURANCE BOOKS

click on both pics to enlarge

from today's interview with Coach Ilg on
"The Outdoor Journey" blog

***

For the first time in my life,
i find myself fighting to find the (inner) Fire to compete in
endurance sports.

fatigue from New Daddyhood at age 46 is a prime reason.

okay.

the only reason.

to train for hallmark events such as the Tour de Ski high altitude nordic ultra marathon, or the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon requires the one thing that a Conscious Parent does not have a ton of; selfish time.

especially if the parents, like Joy and i, choose to raise our children without babysitters and/or do not have elders to help.

so, when it comes to getting in Cardio Workouts; the default Discipline is Running.



that is go(o)d.
because, running is, within the WF Path, considered the "Most Noble" of all Cardio Disciplines. This is due to her purity. Her nakedness. There is nothing like the spiritual high combined with the amplitude of grounding upon our tissues
which comes from our feet consistently and intensely "fucking" Mother Earth...which is using the famous "F-Word" in its original and classic sense.

in fact, due to intense compaction upon the body which running transfers into our connective tissue, most teachers of 'yoga' tend to shy far, far away from intense and consistent running. many even go so far as to counsel their yoga students NOT to run because, "it will ruin your yoga." such ignorance of what "asana" truly means stems from our current spiritual dark age (kali yuga). one must choose one's teachers of yoga very wholistically, in my opinion.

so, when WF Devotee John "Hakado Ru" Kuhlman, founder of
"The Outdoor Journey" blog
asked me for my Top Five Endurance Books,
you'll see that most of them revolve around running.

There is nothing that rips your body up
while strengthening the mental and stamina fibers as running.
every other Cardio Discipline has some form of extracurricular 'entertainment' for the ego;
swimmers have the water element and buoyancy,
skiers have glide,
cyclists get to have their bodyweight supported plus mechanical momentum and speed,
even the Second Most Noble Cardio Sport; Snowshoeing
is not as pure as running due to the imposition of the webs and a far less concussive factor.

So, as New Daddy ilg fights fatigue like i did this morning
while strapping on a pair of YakTrax to my running shoes
before steaming up the zero-degree temperature for my hour long run along
frozen forest roads,
may you find inspiration and the will to carry on the go(o)d fight
as you
maintain your steadfast consistency in the endurance arts...
one of the Five Noble Disciplines of Wholistic Fitness (aka; NavanYoga in Sanscrit).

click here for the list:
ilg's TOP FIVE ENDURANCE BOOK picks on Hak's blog

head bowed,
wholistic heart open,

your loving mountain yogi

*
second photo of coach in Vasisthasana by James Q Martin;
(photo by www.JamesQMartin.com)

NOTE: this is the final "Full Story" that iDLr's will receive until next holiday season...
don't be an unwhole athlete or an imbalanced spiritual seeker;
subscribe to DL today...and for about $12/month you'll get the full, juicy DharmaTeaching each and every release...quit settling for chickenscraps;
you deserve better.

subscribe to DL,
support the WF Path,
and
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only for DL Subscribers, plus discounts and much more!

c'mon...WARRIOR UP!!!!

Daddy Dharma; First Year Teachings From A Mountain Yogi

this morning in the paper i read the obituary of a local 3 month-old, a beautiful little girl, who died in her sleep on September 11, the same day Dewachen was born one year ago. as a yogi trained in Death and Dying Meditations, those black-and-white words and image still made my heartspace shudder. seemed like only yesterday when Ananda and i would sleep right next to our own baby girl of 3 months; alert to any quiver in her sounds of sleep. what is a yogi to do with such potent Teachings from the Bardo which is all-Ways one undone breath away? well, first and foremost is compassion for all Beings and secondly; gratefulness for our own Blessings.

raising, consciously, a child is truly for the birds.
specifically, Penguins.
the wise yogi parent would do well to use their Meditation sessions to reMember (with) their Penguin incarnation,
which was one of our final evolutionary tests for unconditional child caring between both parents.
if, for some reason a new parent cannot seem to create the time for Meditation (which is why it is so vital to begin
a granite-sound Meditation Practice looooong before having a child), then...

DO NOT MISS THE ENTIRE TEACHING ON TODAY'S DIRECT LINES!




***

photos;
#1 - the 'Can Do Clan' a few days after moving into our new h(om)e beneath the Sacred Peak; "Three Chi Manor." The placement of the Dharma Banners was my second priority in moving. the first one being, of course, the establishment of the Zendo. a WF h(om)e prioritizes spiritual feng-shui first and foremost. all the other 'stuff' of moving can then be performed with the Mantra amplified via spiritual foundation. photo by Jerry Kilpatrick.

#2 - "Sit, and slide...sit, and slide..." New Daddy Warrior Ilg during one of a seemingly endless number of trips that Dewa loves to make up and down our new staircase at Three Chi Manor. notice that for biomechanical integrity of my child's shoulder joint, i only occasionally lift Her upper arms past horizontal. Photo by Connie Ilg.

The World's Fittest...WHAT?

i've been called
"The World's Greatest this-or-that" for some years now,
however,
never,
not once,
not in a trillion jillion bibillion years did i
EVER think i would EVER be called:

See Today's DIRECT LINES; Subscription Format...


Only for those Warriors Who Choose To Sweat Consciously...