and light on your canvas. It is through the ability to do this that you
can also avoid pain and heal diseases whether they are at mental, emo
tional, or physical stages of manifestation. Since pain is an unavoidable
part of asana practice, it must now be addressed in its own right.
Pain: Find Comfort Even in Discomfort
Many people focus on the past or the future to avoid experiencing the
present, often because the present is painful or difficult to endure. In
yoga class, many students think that they must simply "grit their teeth
and bear it" until the teacher tells them they can come out of the asana.
This is seeing yoga as calisthenics and is the wrong attitude. The pain
is there as a teacher, because life is filled with pain. In the struggle
alone, there is knowledge. Only when there is pain will you see the
light. Pain is your guru. As we experience pleasures happily, we must
;tlso learn not to lose our happiness when pain comes. As we see good
in pleasure, we should learn to see good in pain. Learn to find comfort
even in discomfort. We must not try to run from the pain but to move
through and beyond it. This is the cultivation of tenacity and perse
verance, which is a spiritual attitude toward yoga. This is also the spir
itual attitude toward life.
Just as the ethical codes of yoga purify our actions in the world,
1 he asanas and pranayama purify our inner world. We use these prac-
1 ices to help us learn to bear and overcome the inevitable pains and af-
11 ictions of life. Let me give you an example. To detect diabetes, one
lakes a test to see how well sugar is tolerated in the body. Similarly the
practices of yoga show us how much pain the body can bear and how
IIllich affliction the mind can tolerate. Since pain is inevitable, asana is
;I laboratory in which we discover how to tolerate the pain that cannot
Ill' avoided and how to transform the pain that can. While we do not
.It! ivdy seck out pain, we do not run from the inevitable pain that is
pari of all growth and change. The asanas help us to develop greater