260 A JOURNEY INTO YIN YOGA
We are coming to the end of our journey together. When you reflect on all
that we’ve explored, it has been a full immersion into the wonderful world of
yin yoga. As you can now clearly see, the subject of yin yoga is immensely
deep. Thousands of years ago, it was the first physical yoga. It provided the
support for yogis on the path of liberation and awakening. This was a liberation
from unnecessary misery and suffering. This was an awakening to the Tao
that is infinite and indestructible. Through the various practices of yoga and
Taoism, the inner forces of chi were summoned, harnessed, and channeled for
the practitioner to reach the pinnacle of human experience. Whether you are
passionate about the mystical or the scientific or perhaps both, it’s undeniable
that the practice of yin yoga is magnificent. And this is because human life is
sacred and magnificent. Yin yoga and the philosophy of Taoism are merely
a way of allowing this magnificence to flourish.
Human life is a wild ride with all the gain and loss, health and sickness,
sweetness and challenge that we all face. Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes it is,
and we find ourselves in a great flow where everything seems to click along
the way we would like it to. Other times, it’s a different story. We struggle to
put our best foot forward as we face challenges on all fronts: our relationships,
health, career, and finances. As the Tao teaches, everything is impermanent.
While writing this book, I faced an intense lesson on impermanence.
Halfway through the writing process on a Sunday morning, I popped open
my laptop to begin a writing session. I clicked to open the document. After
several seconds had passed and the file had loaded, I was aghast that almost
100 pages were missing. Basically, everything that I had written during an
entire month was gone in an instant. Everything that I had sacrificed to write
during that month flooded through my mind. I thought about all the hours
that I had stepped away from my family, my yoga practice, and my downtime
to work on the book.
Despite autosave and visiting the Apple Store and the Microsoft Store, no
expert could retrieve the lost pages. They were gone, and I was distraught. I
was so upset that I was going to walk away from this book altogether. Luckily,
my wife talked some sense into me and steered me back onto the path after
I was dangerously close to jumping off the cliff. As famed basketball coach
John Wooden said, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future”
(Wooden, 2016). I was fortunate to have a loving wife and a compassionate
editor to ensure that my future involved completing this book. Had it not
been for them, you and I might not have gotten to share this journey together.
So, this is the way life is and we can all relate to what it feels like to lose
something. Of course, losing a loved one is way more shattering than losing
a physical object or 100 pages of a book. But this is the ticket we purchased
for the ride of human incarnation. Our yin yoga practice brings us back
to the center of who we are. It brings us back to wisdom, steadiness, and
knowingness.