Pasture hiking

And the radical practice of self-acceptance

“From yin is born yang, from yang yin, and you recognise the sage by the fact that he lets himself be wafted gently by the current between the two poles,” wrote Carrère. Ever since reading Yoga a few years ago, I have often pondered, and indeed practiced, pasture hiking. I don’t mean in the literal sense. ‘Pasture hiking’ is what the author calls his own attitude to yoga and meditation. In contrast to high mountaineering of seasoned yogis past and present, Carrère finds his centre in — the middle ground. Considering his psychological make up and the natural tendency to live in the emotional fast lane, accepting anything in the middle becomes radical. It is also a very yogic thing to do. Holding the tension of extreme opposites must be hard. It is much easier to run than to walk steadily on the ground and accept things as they are — let alone enjoy them. The practice here becomes that of radical acceptance of ordinariness “without being encumbered by any exceptional status whatsoever.” Montaigne would applaud.