“Take it Light” . . . In practice and in life
A good friend of mine, who also happens to be a yoga teacher, would often say when he bid farewell, “take it light”. It wasn’t the standard “take it easy”, “take care” or “see ya later” but rather a very uncommon goodbye that also doubles as a profound instruction for practice and life. I’d never heard this expression before he uttered it to me for the first time seven years ago. However, I certainly have reflected on it a lot since then. When he first told me to “take it light”, I wondered if he says this to everyone or just to me? (I still don’t know the answer to this question). I also remember thinking, “maybe I do need to take it light”. This insight to lighten up came as an epiphany of sorts. Like a flash of lightning in the dark of night. I was pretty stressed out and over committed at the time and my daily yoga practice seemed like serious business. After all, I was suffering and yoga promised to put me on the “fast track to enlightenment” (or so I thought). Suddenly I realized the seemingly obvious: spiritual practice and life needs to be approached with humor and lightness. “Take it light” seems to be an essential instruction.
The Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once counseled his students, “what we are doing here is so important it would be best not to take it too seriously.” I’ve heard my own yoga teacher Tim Miller convey the same message by saying: “yoga is all about enlightenment, which means that we all need to lighten up.” It’s as if our own seriousness, our own sense of trying to accomplish something or become something, becomes an obstacle on our path. It pulls us back and weighs us down.
Once I bought into the “take it light” advice, I got hit with the koan or riddle that accompanied it: “How does one actually do this? How does one go about lightening up?”. I believe each of us needs to solve this koan for ourselves. And in some way our entire spiritual journey depends on it. We each need to realize the value of this advice as it pertains to us and then live it with a much warmth and gentleness as we can. Doing so will bring more delight into one’s practice and joy into one’s life. It’s the key to reuniting with our basic goodness, our true nature. The Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron speaks of lightening up as the antidote for our tendency to make such a big deal about everything. She says, “by taking that attitude (of lightness) toward one’s practice and one’s life, by taking that more gentle and appreciative attitude toward oneself and others, the sense of burden that all of us carry around begins to decrease.”
Clearly taking it light seems to require a certain view, a bigger picture perspective, and, for most of us, a daily practice that helps us sustain this view…. this open, spacious quality of our minds. Taking it light asks a lot of us. It asks us to lessen our self-absorption (ego-clinging); cultivate equanimity, be who we are, get comfortable with uncertainty, practice patience, make peace with the present moment, stop our striving, overcome our feelings of not being okay, “abandon our hope and fear”, etc., etc.. It requires that we wake up and see the truth and humor of it all. And then when we don’t see the truth and humor, when we get caught up with the seriousness of life, we can give that some space and lightness and let it go.
So don’t worry, be happy. Until next time, take care and take it light!
