dharana & dhyana & pranayama-but ultimately, ahimsa

samskaras: "The samskaras are built up by continued action of the thought-waves, and they, in their turn, create new thought-waves, the process works both ways. Expose the mind to constant thoughts of anger and resentment, and you will find that these anger-waves build-up anger-sanskaras, which will predispose you to find occasions for anger throughout your daily life. A man with well developed anger-samskaras is said to have 'a bad temper.' The sum total of our samskaras is, in fact, our character at any given moment." ~yoga sutras (as read in Gates's book, "Meditations from the Mat:)
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So I copied that down at 10 a.m. That was all I had time to do before reporting for church.
Where I proceeded to work myself (internally) into a lather. Our church tends to do that to me. I just want a quiet place to come and worship. I don't care about the socializing. I don't care about the big, huge project we are about to undertake. I just want to come to contemplate and be challenged and led.
The big, huge project was the subject of much of our worship time today, which upset me and left me feeling quite nauseated. I hated to sit there with the poster boards up with information about the project and how successful we are being about it. It's the second Sunday in Advent, for pete's sake! I could barely see the Advent wreath because of the thermometer on the poster board that showed how we exceeded our project goals!
And so I stewed. And I thought about leaving before communion (1st Sunday of the month, you know). But that would have been hard. We sit in the second row. And my husband would have wondered. And others. I would have had to explain. And I didn't want to talk about it. I was too mad.
And then I remembered this quote.
Then the pastor unexpectedly asked me to assist with communion. And as I repeated "the body of Christ, broken for you," 90 times...once for each participant...my anger began to subside. And compassion and calm began to wash in.