…so often, too often, maybe every class and every day, we think we will be “real” yogis (growups, people, mommies and daddies, artists, writers…) when…. We compare ourselves, we improve ourselves, we grasp for the perfect expression of urdva baddha trikonasana (yes, I made that one up). What if all it’s really about, all it really takes is…
June 23, 2009
The Dude Abides, The Writer Comes & Goes…
To abide is to remain, to witness, to sustain and to look upon with kind regard. To abide is one definition of meditation: to remain with one’s own mind in a state of kind regard. To abide is a gift, a discipline and a way of love. & I have the most loving readers in the blogosphere!
February 21, 2009
YSP: “Or the mind can also find peace by contemplating the luminous light, arising from the heart which is the source of true serenity.” tr, Stiles
The Sanskrit name for the heart chakra is “Anahata,” translating as “unstruck.”
The first time I let this sink in, I could feel my world slightly shifting to take in the implications and the truth. The heart chakra designates more than a literal or even metaphorical heart, it refers to a “region” and a process of [...]
February 13, 2009
Yoga Sutra Conversations I.35: “By regular inquiry into the role of the senses we can reduce mental distortions.”
What is the relationship between our senses and our minds? Whether this is a bottom up or top down system differentiates millenia of philosophers. One thing is for sure, though, the more we take in, the more we must digest, and the excess becomes mental fat. The “vrttis” – vacillations – aren’t of themselves mental [...]
February 7, 2009
Yoga Sutra Conversations I.34: “The practice of breathing exercises involving extended exhalation might be helpful.” ~T.K.V. Desikachar, tr.
I recently dowloaded and listened to a meditation course that was recorded during a retreat with the Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron, and I’m taking it again. She is endlessly kind and unflinchingly firm, difficult qualities to simultaneously embody. When I meditate, I’m also deeply aware that I’m trying to embody qualities that don’t always go [...]
February 4, 2009
Yoga Phrases that Befuddle & Bewilder
Poll time! What’s your pet peeve yoga-ism? Some phrase you’ve heard in yoga class that makes you go “Huh? Are you Kidding?” And of course they aren’t – that’s the funniest part
Have you been asked to “Bloom your sitting bones” and thought you’d rather Bloomin bloom bloom, if you only knew what it [...]
February 3, 2009
Yoga Sutra Conversations I.33: “By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward happiness, compassion toward suffering, delight toward virtue, and equanimity toward vice, thoughts become purified, and the obstacles to self-knowledge are lessened.”
“This week’s sutra ought to be emblazoned in all public places.” ~Dharmayoga
“I’ve been given the power to delegate and so I do. I delegate: reading the newspaper to my boyfriend, big bosoms to some of my girlfriends, eating sugar to my kids, enjoying hunting to the hunters and giving the kids a cat [...]
January 23, 2009
Yoga Sutra Conversations 1:32 “In order to prevent these obstacles from arising, you should habituate yourself to meditation upon a single principle.”
Excerpt… click title for full post
…as we ponder and navigate the meaning of non-attachment, of how not to muddy the river after the distractions have precipitated during a given days’ practice, steadiness is a virtue. Given that all objects arise from the same source, it doesn’t ultimately matter which you choose. What matters is the steadiness and clarity of your focus upon it.
