Gratitude in Imperfection
There are moments when I find myself wishing that in my next life, I might be gifted a body that is not so riddled with health issues. I was caught in the grip of just such a thought the other day, sitting quietly on my mat, waiting for yoga class to begin.
The peaceful atmosphere was suddenly broken by a new attendee. He sat down noisily at the front of the room and immediately made a phone call, announcing to whoever was on the other end that he had, in fact, made it to yoga. The restless, slightly chaotic energy he brought with him made it quite clear: this was likely his very first time in such class.
When our teacher arrived and guided us into the most basic warm-up stretches, the man’s struggle became intensely vocal. He grunted at the simplest of movements. Every stretch seemed to cause him tremendous discomfort, and he continued to make pain-filled sounds as he valiantly tried to follow the instructions.
Sitting nearby, I didn't know how the rest of the class felt, but my own mind became a pendulum. On one end of the swing was a profound empathy for his obvious physical pain; on the other was a very human frustration over my inability to sink into the tranquil, moving meditation I had come for.
Yet, as we moved past the halfway point of the class, I noticed a subtle shift. The heavy grunting softened. He had settled down, finding a way to simply do what he could and surrendering to the limitations of his body in that exact moment.
When the session ended, our teacher walked up to him to introduce herself. I overheard him explaining that he had undergone multiple surgeries and was desperately trying to piece his health back together.
Hearing those words, a wave of realization washed over me. All my previous internal conflict evaporated, replaced instantly by a tremendous, grounding gratitude for my own physical form. Yes, my body has its flaws. Yes, it wrestles with its own health issues. But it still allows me to show up. It still carries me to these sessions, moving through the postures.
It was a beautiful, humbling reminder of the Buddha’s timeless truth: whatever has the nature to grow ill, will grow ill, and I am not exempt.
Sometimes, our most profound teachers don't sit at the front of the room in perfect lotus pose. Sometimes, they arrive noisily, struggling through the simplest of stretches, arriving just in time to remind us to be thankful for the fragile yet resilient bodies that we do have today.
*Above picture is a conitnuous single line drawing depicting our connectedness with the labrinyth of roots, big trunk, and connected humans from its branches and a bird that is free to fly.
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