If you are at all curious how you can target or develop your home practice to balance your energy and remain steady through the whirl of life experiences and emotions, check out my Yoga & Mindfulness Workshop at Capitol Hill on Saturday morning, April 9th. We’ll be examining the 5 root causing of suffering according the Yoga Sutras, developing the Buddhist technique of Mindful Awareness to view our sufferings with neutrality and compassion and looking at the system of Ayurveda to assess which asana, pranayama and meditation techniques help us keep our cool when things get heated, which ones help us spark the fires of inspiration and energy when feeling low and how to prevent bouncing back and forth between the two.
More info at www.8limbsyoga.com
YOGA & MINDFULNESS FOR EMOTIONAL BALANCE
Capitol Hill
Saturday, April 9, 2011
10:00 – 12:30pm
$35/$45
March 30, 2011
March 21, 2011
Transformation
Sutra II.43
“ The perfection of the body and sense organs is due to tapas, the intensity of spiritual practice which eliminates impurities and leads to transformation.”
The yogic path is one of maintaining a clear and true connection to one’s spirit and inner potential. This process begins by perfecting both body and sense organs, which serve as the temple and gateways for the spirit to exist and interact in this world. The body is first and foremost a demarcation between internal and external environments. When it is weak, compromised or clouded with impurities it is unable to protect itself from mild, moderate or extreme threats. When it is clear and strong it becomes a firm boundary, or refuge, that strives to cultivate the potential within.
The sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin are the gateways that link the inner and outer worlds together. When they are impure or clogged with memories of the past or expectations of the future we end up with a distorted perception of reality. This distortion alters how we envision the future, behave in the moment and contribute to the re-creation of the world. When the sense organs are purified, we can see, hear, speak, touch and smell clearly. Rather then getting caught in our opinion of these experiences, we give ourselves pure experience.
Tapas is the heat, the fire, the intensity of spiritual practice that we apply to our body and sense organs to spark the process of purification, healing and transformation. Tapas occurs by concentrating our attention within the experience of each moment and delaying our reactive impulses long enough to experience reality rather then experiencing our concept of reality. One way we can practice this is by labeling each of our experiences according to it's most elemental nature. For example, rather then yelling at the guy who just cut us off in the car, we simply recognize the experience of "anger" or "fear" and let the impulse to react in a flurry of words pass on by. Likewise, rather then letting ourselves get irritated at a loud, inappropriate conversation happening near us, we simply recognize it as "sound" and move on. This doesn't mean that we stop taking action and become passive participants in our life, it simply means that we give ourselves the space to experience discomfort without becoming that discomfort. Then we can take action from a stable place based in the reality of the moment.
This is the crux of transformation. This is where we begin to choose the quality of our existence, regardless of the quality of our conditions. This is how we purify our body and sense organs, transform ourselves out of habitual patterns and past behaviors and realize a true and deep expression of our inner most self.
“ The perfection of the body and sense organs is due to tapas, the intensity of spiritual practice which eliminates impurities and leads to transformation.”
The yogic path is one of maintaining a clear and true connection to one’s spirit and inner potential. This process begins by perfecting both body and sense organs, which serve as the temple and gateways for the spirit to exist and interact in this world. The body is first and foremost a demarcation between internal and external environments. When it is weak, compromised or clouded with impurities it is unable to protect itself from mild, moderate or extreme threats. When it is clear and strong it becomes a firm boundary, or refuge, that strives to cultivate the potential within.
The sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin are the gateways that link the inner and outer worlds together. When they are impure or clogged with memories of the past or expectations of the future we end up with a distorted perception of reality. This distortion alters how we envision the future, behave in the moment and contribute to the re-creation of the world. When the sense organs are purified, we can see, hear, speak, touch and smell clearly. Rather then getting caught in our opinion of these experiences, we give ourselves pure experience.
Tapas is the heat, the fire, the intensity of spiritual practice that we apply to our body and sense organs to spark the process of purification, healing and transformation. Tapas occurs by concentrating our attention within the experience of each moment and delaying our reactive impulses long enough to experience reality rather then experiencing our concept of reality. One way we can practice this is by labeling each of our experiences according to it's most elemental nature. For example, rather then yelling at the guy who just cut us off in the car, we simply recognize the experience of "anger" or "fear" and let the impulse to react in a flurry of words pass on by. Likewise, rather then letting ourselves get irritated at a loud, inappropriate conversation happening near us, we simply recognize it as "sound" and move on. This doesn't mean that we stop taking action and become passive participants in our life, it simply means that we give ourselves the space to experience discomfort without becoming that discomfort. Then we can take action from a stable place based in the reality of the moment.
This is the crux of transformation. This is where we begin to choose the quality of our existence, regardless of the quality of our conditions. This is how we purify our body and sense organs, transform ourselves out of habitual patterns and past behaviors and realize a true and deep expression of our inner most self.
March 12, 2011
Santosha
Sutra II.42
"Owing to the development of contentment there comes an unexcelled attainment of happiness."
This particular sutra is part of a string of verses that explain the niyamas or the personal disciplines, which we undertake to maintain a clear, true connection to our spirit. This verse itself is pretty straightforward: where there is contentment, there is unexcelled happiness, which is fairly obvious since the definition of contentment is 'a state of happiness'. It does, however, raise a question of how we can create/discover/make space for santosha when it doesn't already exist within us.
If we have a pattern of dissatisfaction in some area of our life we cannot change that pattern by pretending to be satisfied, but we can begin to change the pattern in the way that we regard our experience of dissatisfaction. A very simple approach is to
1) First recognize that dissatisfaction, like everything else, is impermanent. Knowing that it is momentary and will not last forever allows us to
2) Give it room to exist. When we allow ourselves to experience life as it is, we stop fighting, suppressing and denying reality. This cuts out a large part of our struggle and lessens a significant portion of our dissatisfaction.
Over time, these two actions give us permission to relax, to allow ourselves to have an uncomfortable experience (which is a large part of life!) and to learn to trust that everything is and will be ok. We are ok - even when things aren't how we wish they were. If we practice this enough, we even start to feel contentment with discontentment and that, I believe, is the attainment of unexcelled happiness!
"Owing to the development of contentment there comes an unexcelled attainment of happiness."
This particular sutra is part of a string of verses that explain the niyamas or the personal disciplines, which we undertake to maintain a clear, true connection to our spirit. This verse itself is pretty straightforward: where there is contentment, there is unexcelled happiness, which is fairly obvious since the definition of contentment is 'a state of happiness'. It does, however, raise a question of how we can create/discover/make space for santosha when it doesn't already exist within us.
If we have a pattern of dissatisfaction in some area of our life we cannot change that pattern by pretending to be satisfied, but we can begin to change the pattern in the way that we regard our experience of dissatisfaction. A very simple approach is to
1) First recognize that dissatisfaction, like everything else, is impermanent. Knowing that it is momentary and will not last forever allows us to
2) Give it room to exist. When we allow ourselves to experience life as it is, we stop fighting, suppressing and denying reality. This cuts out a large part of our struggle and lessens a significant portion of our dissatisfaction.
Over time, these two actions give us permission to relax, to allow ourselves to have an uncomfortable experience (which is a large part of life!) and to learn to trust that everything is and will be ok. We are ok - even when things aren't how we wish they were. If we practice this enough, we even start to feel contentment with discontentment and that, I believe, is the attainment of unexcelled happiness!
March 10, 2011
Coming Soon...
As many of you know, I have spent my last 3 years as a Yoga Instructor who incorporates the ancient philosophy of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali into our opening meditation and asana practices. The idea originally started as a way for me to keep up with my own exploration of the Sutras at a time when I could no longer make it to my teacher's class for weekly study. At the start of this endeavor, I felt a little bit under-qualified and totally uncertain about where it would go and how it would manage to get there, but after 3 years of simply showing up each week and trying to make another esoteric verse relevant and palatable to our modern, urban lives, I feel like I've found a rhythm of clarity, healthy and well-being that carries over from week to week.
I know that many of you have discovered a greater depth through this exploration and that the meaning of your practice has also changed as we've progressed along this path together. I also know that as the weather gets nicer and nicer, it becomes more and more difficult to make it to class each week. So I've decided to start blogging about the weekly Sutra Lesson so that you can stay in touch and in tune even when you can't get to class.
I will pick things up right where there are with a discussion on Santosha, or contentment, beginning with Sutra II.42 and then move forward from there. I encourage you to post your thoughts, questions or responses to these blogs, so that we can start an open dialogue and further expand our practices. Even if you don't consider yourself a yogi, I know you all have an opinion, so please share it with the rest of us!
I know that many of you have discovered a greater depth through this exploration and that the meaning of your practice has also changed as we've progressed along this path together. I also know that as the weather gets nicer and nicer, it becomes more and more difficult to make it to class each week. So I've decided to start blogging about the weekly Sutra Lesson so that you can stay in touch and in tune even when you can't get to class.
I will pick things up right where there are with a discussion on Santosha, or contentment, beginning with Sutra II.42 and then move forward from there. I encourage you to post your thoughts, questions or responses to these blogs, so that we can start an open dialogue and further expand our practices. Even if you don't consider yourself a yogi, I know you all have an opinion, so please share it with the rest of us!
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