STANDING SIDE BENDI love to do yoga with a mirror. Some people don’t
like it, but I find the mirror is a marvelous tool that
allows me to balance and center myself. If the
mirror disturbs me, that is a sign that I might need
to focus my practice on recognizing the degree to
which I am still involved with my ego.
If you are judgmental, if you take an egocen-
tric view of yourself—and by “egocentric” I don’t
mean arrogant, but just very self-conscious—
then the mirror will be a distraction.
We tend to be critical when we’re comparing
ourselves to others: “She’s so skinny. Why can’t
I look like her?” or “Look at him. He’s doing it
wrong.” But yoga starts with your relationship with
yourself. We’re there on our mats to cultivate a
single-pointed concentration. So the mirror
doesn’t distract me. And, practically speaking, I
find it easier to do balancing poses when I look
into a mirror and gaze into my own eyes. It gives
me something to focus on.
There may be a lot of people who practice
yoga with a mirror for the purpose of admiring
themselves. But that’s the opposite of what a
spiritual practice is.
As a Zen Buddhist priest, I have found that ulti-
mately the signpost of maturity in any practice is
humility and selflessness. The more you do it, the
more completely disinterested you are in yourself.