Yoga and the Art of Walking the Tightrope of Life

Scene from the Big Apple Circus' 2024 show Hometown Playground. Such fun!

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Earlier this month, my husband and I had the absolute pleasure of attending a performance of the Big Apple Circus. It was truly a delightful experience, and made this grownup here feel like a kid again.

Among the many acts that made us ooh and ahh was the above tight-rope walker. Reliving this memory now makes me realize that life itself is really like walking a tight-rope. Perhaps there are some lessons for us here. Like the tight-rope walker, when we’re attempting a difficult task there is a real balance between applying too much energy and not applying enough. And the tightrope walker really has to stay in the present moment and let go of as many distractions as possible in order to be successful. This is what we’re training ourselves to get good at when we practice yoga.

I mentioned back in October that I had done a 10-day online meditation course on Equanimity with Buddhist meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “Equanimity” this way: mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation [as in] she accepted both the good and the bad with equanimity. 

In Lesson 1 of the course, Sharon’s inspirational message was: 

“We can genuinely be engaged with life without being consumed by it.” 

For sure, that is a real balancing act. How can we remain engaged with life especially during those times when we want to run away from it completely? 

Sharon teaches:

“Equanimity is engaging with life with perspective and wisdom.”

In other words, to avoid being consumed by the challenges we face requires stepping back a bit in order to gain perspective. And Sharon says “we can cultivate enough spacious attention around our feelings so that wisdom can naturally arise.” So as tight-rope walkers in life, there is a balance between concentrating fully on the task/challenge at hand while simultaneously cocooning it with moments of space. As an example, as I’m writing this, I find that I’ll have moments where the thoughts are coming quickly followed by moments where I have to step back and pause for a bit. In creating a bit of space around the current task of writing this blog, the perspective and wisdom can rise from deep within and out onto the page. 

Sharon shared:

“Equanimity’s strength derives from a combination of understanding and trust in the cycles and tides of our life’s experiences.” 

First, we have to remember that there are indeed cycles and tides to the life experience. Life isn’t always linear. Sometimes it’s circular, sometimes parabolic. Sometimes life speeds along exponentially – both in the direction we want it to at times and at others not. And sometimes life comes to a complete standstill. Remembering that life hums along at different rhythms and seasonal vicissitudes can help us to build trust. And as our trust in the process of life grows, so too do our states of inner equanimity and balance.

Truth be told, on the night we went to the Big Apple Circus, the tight-rope walker actually fell off (safely) at least once. But he treated it as a natural occurrence in the life of a tight-rope walker and just got up and kept going. If memory serves me correctly, he was trying to do a headstand on the rope – imagine that yogis! – when he fell off. But he treated his “failure” so nonchalantly that no one in the audience really cared. In at least trying to execute this difficult feat, he really succeeded in my mind. Perhaps he’s been successful on other nights, but that night it wasn’t meant to be. So, he just proceeded on calmly. That to me is an example of truly trusting the process of life, not being consumed by success or failure, and engaging with life with perspective and wisdom. The audience in the end was no less entertained and applauded him loudly. 

Lastly, Sharon shared in this lesson:

“The art of crossing the flood (of life’s challenges) is accomplished one moment at a time and fueled by our ability to continually begin again.” 

As we finish one year and enter into a new one, it is so important that we remember that our job as yogis is to continually begin again. Yes, we face great uncertainty and challenges – both personally and globally – in 2025, but it behooves us to remember to take each challenge just one moment at a time. If we can remember that we do have a great innate capacity for beginning again, over and over again, then our confidence in our ability to remain balanced amid the challenges ahead will only grow and grow.

Thank you for being a reader of my blogs in 2024. Best of luck to you in 2025!

May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you find the balance between applying too much energy and not enough, ...
May you cultivate mental calmness as you tight-rope walk through your challenges ahead,
May your sincere efforts in 2025 somehow benefit both you and All Beings Everywhere. 

Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun

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Some beautiful birds I encountered at the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary in India Shores, FL last week. Witnessing Nature like this keeps me in balance.

My best attempt at flying. I have a thing or two to learn from the birds.