Okay, I have my bookmarks in several yoga and related-topic books...for some reason or another I have abandoned them. One went missing -- Deepak Chopra's "Creating Health." I was almost done (I was on chapter eight) With each chapter I kept telling myself, "Okay, NOW, he's 'gonna get to his point." Okay, Okay, I'm waiting for the chapter where he talks up the virtues of being vegan or vegetarian -- I keep waiting for this chapter, and in each chapter he keeps telling me that in the next chapter he is really going to give it to us -- you know, the whole "Creating Health Thing" --- well, maybe I left the book on a park bench, or at the car wash or it fell out of my yoga bag, or the post-yoga bag (since I do Hot Yoga -- and I don't have to tell you, YOU NEED another bag after that) -- well somewhere in there the book mysteriously disappeared -- it's been over a month -- as I like to say, at the end of a relationship or meal, "I'm done!" So go ahead read this book if you like being teased through 8 chapters -- but I am sure (well, now not so sure), but he is so darn successful -- that I would think another of his titles must be worthy! I am thinking about the title that escapes me at this moment, but it's about Life After Death (and it may even be titled, "Life After Death" -- now THAT interests me. So has anyone out there read THAT one? If so please let me know -- does he tease you all the way through? Is it worth the time investment? Okay, enough picking on Deepak -- NEXT we have my other bookmark -- currently waiting on the pages of, "Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life" -- this title spoke to me, after all this blog is an attempt to spring off the mat, connect to that place we get to in the yoga room -- here, on the Internet??? Okay, crazy, but that need to discuss and connect the alchemy that happens in the yoga room to the rest of our lives is Judith Lasater's general direction when writing this book. Currently my lonely bookmark is parked on page 89. Why wasn't I crazy about this book? The book translates selections from Pantanjali's Yoga Sutra and THAT I did appreciate. And the writer goes on to illustrate these yoga principles from her own life. The first few anecdotes are somewhat charming. She is a mom and lives, you can imagine, from how she frames things, in a nice home with typical problems, relating to her kids -- I don't know, maybe it's just me, maybe this is an AWESOME book. But I can't finish it. Banal is the word that comes to mind. OKAY book number three -- I REALLY wanted to love this book, I wanted this one to CHANGE MY LIFE. It's by none other then, Thich Nhat Hanh -- a gentle soul, a wise soul. And it was recommended by one of my favorite Forest Yoga Teachers at a weekend workshop. It's called simply,"Anger" -- well it does have a tag-line: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames. So I thought this one will help -- this one will really give me perspective. Currently my bookmark in dozing off on page 83. No, not a banal book in the least -- it's packed with wisdom, insight, meaning, and, yes, as promised (listen up Deepak) ways to overcome anger. The way he writes reminds me of the way Bob the painter would teach us how to paint trees -- oh, so gentle, so kind, his text almost whispers -- problem is:NO ONE in my LIFE whispers! This book would only be helpful if myself and the entire east coast were magically transported to Hanh's retreat center and we were forced to eat out of little bowls and take vows of silence and talk to each other only at discreet moments and in the following manner, "Know that as I sat by the river listening to the water flowing, as I listened to my breath, know that I have done a great deal to make you suffer, know that I suffer too, darling I am not my best right now, let us have a session tomorrow under the blossoms, etc, etc." NO ONE I KNOW SPEAKS LIKE THAT -- maybe we should (no, on second thought I would die of BOREDOM)...I am just not there. In defense of Hanh -- I did incorporate some of his ideas and found that it kept me from saying the f-bomb during an argument. I will give Hanh another go: next chapter is entitled: With Compassion You Don't Make Mistakes -- During those last two dashes I read something great: Nothing can heal anger except compassion (p.83 ) Then, 2 pages later Hahn tells me to embrace my anger -- I like that. Okay, so I've just changed my mind -- I am going to suffer through the stilted dialogue and listen for the lesson, get past the soapy language. It's funny in both these books it's not the life lessons I object to, it's the semi-fictional characters that both Judith and Hanh use in their anecdotes: the children that pepper seemingly the entire book in Judith's case, and this inane couple that speak in, "Darling, I was this, and know that I suffer that..." -- it's the lack of art in their dramatic writing that leaves me -- well that leaves my bookmarks frozen in their pages.
www.DeepakChopra.com
www.judithlasater.com
Thich Nhat Hanh's retreat center -- maybe we can all go!
www.plumvillage.org/
