tāḍāsana – part one

Exposed on the Cliffs of the Heart

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look how tiny down there,
look: the last village of words and, higher,
(but how tiny) still one last
farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground
under your hands. Even here, though,
something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge
an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.
But the one who knows? Ah, he began to know
and is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the heart.
While, with their full awareness,
many sure-footed mountain animals pass
or linger. And the great sheltered bird flies, slowly
circling, around the park’s pure denial.—but
without a shelter, here on the cliffs of the heart …

- Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

The āsana

Phonetic pronunciation: tah-dah-suh-nuh[1]

• tāḍā = mountain
• āsana = pose

Tāḍāsana is the basic standing pose that forms the foundation for most other standing poses in the practice of yoga. And, it is the pose that presents us with the most natural opportunities for practice as we go through our days: standing conversation with our friends and colleagues; taking a moment in mountain pose to look out a window at work or at home; using the line at the grocery store as a time for practice; stepping outside to breathe in the sunshine while striking “the pose.” By creating an intention to practice this pose as often as possible during the day, we create a mindfulness that then flows into our other interactions with the world and begins to reveal insights about ourselves. Swami Radha said about the Mountain pose, “You can find everything you need to know about yourself through this one pose.”[2]

“In this pose, the body is as steady and as still as a mountain. The weight is distributed evenly on the feet and the arms are at the sides. The spine is lengthened and the back of the neck straight.”[3] Find a place on the horizon to set your gaze, and breathe. You are the mountain, you are the cliff, you are strong as you stand still and listen for what is waiting to bloom.

Additional Instructions

1. Stand with your feet slightly apart (hip distance) and parallel to each other.
2. Feel the four corners of each of your feet anchored into the ground. Lift your toes and try to spread them out, creating space between them. Try not to grip the floor with them.
3. Feel the thigh muscles contract and lift the kneecaps toward your hips.
4. When you are feeling power in your feet and legs, the muscles of the pelvic floor will automatically, without effort, draw inward and upward in your body, inducing mula-bandha.
5. Feel a lifting in the sides of the chest and in the breastbone.
6. Feel a lifting and broadening across the chest and collarbone.
7. Let the shoulders drop away from your ears as you feel your spine lengthening inside your body.
8. Let the head rest on top of the spine, with the chin neither tilting up nor tucked down too much toward the throat.
9. Relax the jaw and forehead.
10. Let your arms hang by your sides as if there were lead weights in your fingertips.
11. As you breathe in and out through your nostrils, feel energy circulating throughout your body. Feel both a softness and an inner strength.[4]

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[1] Pronunciation and translation provided by http://www.yogablossom.com/.
[2] The Inner Life of Asanas, by Swami Lalitananda, (Timeless Books, 2007), p. 119.
[3] Hatha Yoga, The Hidden Language, by Swami Sivananda Radha (Timeless Books, 2007), p. 57.
[4] Items 2-11 of Additional Instructions: Yoga Zone Introduction to Yoga, by Alan Finger with Al Bingham (Three Rivers Press, 2000), p.86.