Imagine, as John Lennon so bravely and naively suggested, less attachment to being right. Imagine everyone in the world becoming a little softer. Imagine releasing our constant grasping for better, for more. The Buddha said, "Life is suffering." I have heard this phrase translated as "Life is disappointment," and that seems to ring more true for me. I don't suffer on a daily basis, I think few of us do. But we experience constant small disappointments that subtly and continuously harden us. The next time you're too late for a movie or can't get into a restaurant, become very aware of the aggression and hardness of your disappointment.

 

And in that moment is a great opportunity to practice softness. Softness means being willing to be uncertain, releasing the part of your being that has to control things. Soften the natural human quality of greed and grasping because it is not serving you and is diminishing your creative response to life. Notice all that is already here. 

 

You begin a yoga practice and dedicate yourself to softness, to the evolving capacity of human beings to understand each other and to be kind. You engage some fierceness in your practice, but only to keep your heart soft and open when it wants to harden. You practice for all beings, for the beauty of this planet, for love and for life.

~ Denise