reflections on practice, movement and mindful living
From the heart, for the heart
by Maray Sutti Picq
Why do we suffer?
Today we speak constantly about wellness. About healing. Balance. Peace of mind. But long before the modern wellness industry existed, the philosophical traditions of India were already asking a much deeper question:
Why do human beings suffer?
And perhaps what is most fascinating is that not all traditions answered in the same way. Some said suffering arises from ignorance.
Others from attachment.
Others from identification with the movements of the mind.
Others from the illusion of separation itself. But before exploring these differences, perhaps we should begin somewhere simpler: What do we actually mean by suffering? …
the movements of the spine
The spine was never designed to stay still all day. And yet,
modern life asks exactly that from us.
We sit for hours.
We look down at screens.
We repeat the same gestures again and again.
Little by little,
movement becomes smaller.
Not all at once. Quietly. The body adapts to what we repeat.
This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the human body:
it is constantly listening…
Why Are Back Arches Beneficial?
Most of modern life happens in flexion. We sit. We drive. We look down at screens.
Over time, the body slowly organizes itself around this movement. The chest narrows.
The shoulders move forward.
The thoracic spine loses mobility.
Breathing often becomes more shallow and restricted. Back arches invite the body into the opposite movement:
extension. But anatomically,
a healthy backarch is not really about forcing the spine backward.
It is about learning how to distribute movement through the whole body…
On Illusion and Seeing Clearly
There is a moment, sometimes,
when you look at the horizon
and everything feels like it is moving.
The sun slides across the sky.
The light shifts.
The landscape changes color.
And from where you are,
it seems obvious:
the sun is moving.
But it is not.
It is the Earth, quietly turning,
carrying you with it…
Green Mountains
I am used to seeing mountains in white
Snow covering everything.
Sharp lines.
Cold light.
Stillness.
And then, one day,
I saw them in green.
Soft.
Alive.
Almost unfamiliar.
The same mountains.
But something had changed…
Before the World Wakes
There is a moment in the morning
A quiet hour,
before the light fully arrives,
before the world begins to move.
The room is still dark.
Maybe a candle is lit.
Maybe only the first traces of blue
are entering through the window.
Everything feels softer.
Slower.
More intimate.
And then,
you begin to practice…
Naming what arises
There is a moment, in meditation,
when something appears.
A thought.
A memory.
A sensation in the body.
And almost without noticing,
we follow it.
We build a story.
We try to change it,
or make it disappear.
But there is another way.
A softer way…
By nature, there is no difference between us
Something we all share
before we even begin to explain who we are.
Before the name.
Before the story.
Before everything we have learned to call “me”.
We breathe.
We feel.
We move through life
touched by the same invisible currents.
Joy.
Fear.
Love.
Loss.
Different forms,
same movement.
And yet,
we spend so much time
focusing on what separates us…
Make THINGS EASIER
There is a moment in practice when we realize something surprising. The posture was never only difficult because of the posture itself.Sometimes it was difficult because of everything we were adding around it.
The anticipation.
The fear of failure.
The unnecessary force.
The constant internal commentary.
The idea that we should already be somewhere else.
And slowly, through practice, we begin to notice that effort and tension are not always the same thing. A posture may still require effort. Life may still require effort.
But tension is often the layer we unconsciously add on top…