When you are strong and healthy,You never think of sickness coming,But it descends with sudden force, like a stroke of lightning.
When involved in worldly things, You never think of death's approach; Quick it comes like thunder, crashing round your head.MILAREPA
"As we advance into the Journey of WF, the realization sooner or later must be attained; i did not create this Path for
just living longer or winning trophies or being "happy" here and there during our lives.
i created this Path as a Bardo Training! To confront the daily monotony and the day to day confrontations of our ego wishing to be comfortable is the Practice Grounds for Rising Above our predictable tendency to be scared stiff of death and our unWillingness to follow the Ancient Master's Pathways through death and into Enlightenment.
To me, genuine Personal Fitness is synonymous with Spiritual Fitness and to be fit spiritually means having a body that is radiantly powerful in ALL her dimensions and thus creates the springboard into spiritual fitness which is a million times more difficult than merely attaining a world class physical fitness. That is kindygarten compared to overcoming death! Yet, rare is the Personal Trainer or even the Teacher of Yoga that coaches his or her students into the Bardo Training preparations! Why push death away when you can TRAIN for it?"
- Coach Ilg
***
Photos:
1) free soloing a 5.8 route to test my meditation - mental control - in southern Utah last year. i can't Teach true meditation without willing to test my own Practice of it! And truly, no matter what the 'experts' might say, your meditation ain't shit unless you are Dancing your Mental Control with Death or high risk to the physical body. Everything else about training the waves of the fluctuating mind is just pretend. in this Path, we don't pretend. we do the DO!
2) on ice in the San Juans. leading an ice climb, especially on Colorado ice, is almost always a Bardo Training exercise; must be prepared to, "die on the lead." Thus, ice climbing is superb at extracting the common man from his addiction to 'worldly things.'
3) entering the Bardo Realm of Death Valley during the Furnance Creek 508, while setting a new course record.
We don't just TALK body/mind/spirit in WF;
we have friggin' been LIVING IT in world class ways since 1982!
Keep it real
Keep it grounded,
Keep it steady and firm in the Practice of WF!
