Listening to the Bell at Yoga Moves

One of the most profoundly moving ‘tools’ used on the meditation retreat that Chris and I attended while in France over the break was the use of ‘bells of mindfulness’. No matter where one was, if a bell sounded, everyone would pause in a relaxed way for the duration of the bell (mid chew, mid sentence, mid thought, mid action if possible) and take the time as a call to mindfulness/heartfulness by enjoying the feeling of one’s own breath, smiling and simply letting go… To practice this throughout each day of the retreat with like-minded others (almost five hundred people on Christmas Day, over six hundred on New Year’s Eve) was a wonderful, heartening and liberating experience…

For those who already attend the meditation classes at the studio, this will be a familiar practice. For those who attend the yoga/Feldenkrais classes/private lessons, during many of those classes you will now occasionally hear the sound of a bell. It may sound while we are doing administrative tasks, organising our equipment or even during the classes. In these moments, you are invited to pause and/or allow others to pause and remember to be in the present moment, breathing and alive to the wholesome in oneself and the world around you. The conscious gathering of these moments builds a powerful energy called mindfulness and as far as I know… we all experience times in our day, in life when it feels like the balance is out – the stressors feel like they are too much to bear well and it takes an strong act of will to disengage from the ‘negative’ (even if only momentarily in order to regroup or ‘ground’ oneself) and then choose how to move forwards. Building a continuum of mindful moments throughout our day strengthens this energy of mindfulness in us which in turn strengthens our capacity to be happy…

Enjoy,

Sara