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sight, vision and yoga

Present in the yoga cosmologies is an  understanding that the world, the physical world with which we interact every day, is an illusion –  “Maya”.  What is  not an illusion is the love that is the creator who goes by many names. The illusion is ever changing but the loving awareness behind it stays constant and the same.  That loving awareness is within us and around us – omniscient, omnipotent, and everlasting.  The Sankhya philosophy maps out the non-spatial terrain between our sensory interactions with the illusion and our experience of that omniscient loving awareness. Our senses interact with Maya – and that is the field we must work with on our journey. Our sense of sight relates uniquely and powerfully to the experience of the illusion.  Through sight, we see a world full of enemies or friends, flowers or concrete. As with all the other senses, the yogic approach is to purify the sense of sightn so we can have direct vision through the eyes of loving awareness.  As our yoga practices blossom we don’t make ourselves think something positive about the world around us so we see it out there – we actually begin to naturally see differently.

We can consider two components of seeing and vision: the physical eyes (and all the associated physical organs), and the spiritual eye – which only opens as a result of spiritual conditions.  The physical eye sees the world of lack and separation – the illusion.  The spiritual eye sees the truth – loving awareness.  The seeing mechanisms of the physical eyes have a way of blocking the vision of the spiritual eye.   By consciously directing the use of our physical eyes, we unblock the visions of the spiritual eye. The means of preparing for this are our standard yogic tools of discipline (training the eye to focus), renunciation (turning our focus away from disturbing visions) and elevation (cultivating the desire to see in a more uplifted way, and seeking association with others who sincerely are seeing in that way). 

One fundamental practice is to monitor carefully what we allow in our visual field.  The yogi cultivates discernment and turns the gaze away from that which is not conducive to their path.  It’s not about ignoring the challenges before us, but but we don’t allow our sight to become absorbed in it. Think of the last explosive movie you saw…it’s easy to get pulled in. There are paths which work specifically with gazing on death or destruction but personally I don’t work with them, and I don’t recommend them – not because they are wrong, but because I believe that it requires extraordinarily skillful means to navigate that kind of practice effectively. It’s not something to be over confident or over trusting about.  It tends to plump the ego. There are many other simpler approaches.   

We work to choose what to invest our sight in. I think the best example of the challenge of gazing at the destructive was the television reporting after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center.  I lived in New York City – and all our televisions went out – and were out – for days.  Most of us there saw the event as it unfolded in the material world around us.  The internet was not yet a primary source of information.  So, we went about doing what we needed to do.  Meanwhile in the suburbs and towns across the United States of America – the public was tuning in to a 24/7 hour a day show of the repeat of the film of the towers going down.  Many felt compelled to watch to be in the know about what was going to happen next.  I must say, my friends who watched that loop on repeat had a much harder time dealing with the trauma than most of the people I knew who lived in the city at that time.  That image of destruction looping before their eyes was burned into their consciousness – together with the accompanying fear.  Watching doom on a long term basis can create some inner conditions that are difficult to deal with and heal from.  So, yes, we must pay attention to the illusion, but elements of it which keep us fixed in undesirable states of mind we consume only enough to have the information that we need to manage our lives.  In this case a yogic choice may have been to check in from time to time for updates rather than really tuning for a long period of time.

In general the act of gazing magnifies what you absorb through the eyes.  Surround yourself with simplicity, beauty, upliftment, and check any tendency to rubber neck when the horrific or compelling crosses your path.  This isn’t a prescription for walking away from a tragedy where one might be helpful, but it is a prescription for discernment. While doing the work of helping if called to do so, the yogin focuses on the potential to be helpful and not the apparent tragedy.

A question we can ask ourselves regarding right sight is “Do I want my life force (or my time)  to be spent looking at this?” Intention and conscious decision making are fundamental to success in yoga.  Know that what you absorb will, in some way effect the mind.

The potency of the ability to direct our gaze becomes illumined as we train on our yoga mats and meditation cushions.  The directed gaze becomes a propellant for the movement of the life force, or prana, traveling in the yogi’s sushumna nadi (a central pranic channel which travels along the spine).  The gaze “pulls” the life force. An uplifted gaze will pull the prana upward.  This is cleansing and uplifting.

The directed gaze in an asana is called “Drishti”. Drishti means sight or vision.  In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika 1.37 we meet this beautiful description of the practice of Siddhasana or Adept’s pose. 

“Press the perineum with the heel of one foot, place the other foot on top of  genitals.  Having done this, rest the chin on the chest.  Remaining still and steady, with the sense controlled, gaze steadily into the eyebrow center; it breaks open the door to liberation.” P 102,   Swami Muktibodhananda tr. Translation by the Bihar school

Drishti is a practice where the Hatha yogin rests a soft gaze on a specific point while performing, moving into or out of their asana.  Opinions vary as to where to rest your gaze.  Some general principles to keep in mind are that you should select a gaze where the back of the neck is long and the heart lifted.  A well-chosen and executed Drishti is not just about the eyes, it’s about the whole body.  As your sense of Sthira and Suhka (steadiness and joy in a posture) develops in your practice, the whole body will be energized and uplifted by the gaze.  The body looks towards the divine. So, yes, generally it will be an uplifted gaze.  For specific instructions on drishti in various yoga postures see Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar.

This uplifted gaze also is born in the mind of the yogi.  As we shall see when we get to the mind in our exploration of the building blocks of Sankhya Philosophy, the mind influences the senses and the senses influence the mind. And uplifted mind uplifts the gaze and an uplifted gaze uplifts the mind.

Another very potent yoga practice related to the sense of sight is tratak.  Tratak is a meditative, deeper more focused form of Drishti.  Taking a classic meditative posture, the yogin gazes, without blinking, at a candle lit at eye level until tears come and the eyes are flushed out.  Then, the yogin closes the eyes and gazes at the third eye center between the eyes and slightly back.  An inner vision will manifest of the flame, a blue dot, a deity.   The key to the practice is the steady gaze and not giving in to the temptation to close the eyes. Give the practice a specific length of time, say, 20 minutes.

 The practice of tratak is woven deeply into the experience of the third eye and the power of manifestation through the Manipura Chakra (the Solar Plexus Chakra). I don’t really recommend trying to manifest a specific desire, but rather to understand that  the truest desires of the heart – which we often are unaware of –  will manifest organically as we develop the skillful means of yoga: concentration, awareness, letting go, balancing, contemplating the Ageless wisdom, and cultivating joy, to name a few.

/*This concludes our exploration of the senses as the ground floor of the map of the Sankhya philosophy – the direct experience of the world around us and how we can work with them effectively to enhance our yoga asana practice. For the next post we will begin the elements.  All of the blogposts are accompanied by a separate newsletter I send out via mailchimp.  There is no marketing or advertising or charge (I promise)– it’s a just to share some deeper details with motivated students.  This month’s newsletter will touch on Yantras, and a closing statement on the senses.  If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter please subscribe below.  I don’t sell your info, I promise.  You can see this month’s newsletter at https://mailchi.mp/05b51002ed24/sankhya-the-senses-sight*/

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Through the portal from Taste to Smell: Discernment and the Smell of the Earth

Once in the early 2,000’s a friend and I were strolling and shopping and dining in Greenwich Village when we came upon a small store – just a nook really,  filled with shiny clear rectangular  glass bottles stacked on wooden shelves.  A slender handsome hipster  with an untucked navy blue  shirt and somehow stylishly elegant slightly faded jeans manned the counter. 

The bottles and their rectangular labels  were identical except for the unique word on each label: Rain, Dirt, Beach, Grass, Dog among the hundreds. 

In response to our outburst of giggles he offered sample smells.

A gentle whiff of “dirt”;and I was transported out of the concrete canyon and back to a time before vanity when I was a simple child doing what kids like to do.  Play in the dirt.

Tobacco – was my 1960s father and warm leaves drying in the sununveiling a thought of slaves picking leaves in the hot, hot sun and wondering if the fragrance for them was unpleasant.   Grass in a bottle was a little too much for both of us, but we both loved tobacco which was mysterious and somehow informative.

 Smell emerges in the first trimester of a babies development, the smell of placenta and mother creating a subtle earthy unbreakable bond. 

Smell evokes memories – our minds travel far into our histories and possible futures in the presence of them.

The Sankhya philosophy as commonly mapped on a chart lines up, as a bottom line foundation, the senses.  Our connection to the physical realm moves directly through the five sense faculaties and the elements.  This will become more meaningful as we move beyond the dense material realm.

Smell is associated with the subtle element earth – the root chakra, the mooladhara chakra – the focal point of the yogi’s shift of attention from the material realm upward from the realms of hunger and fear into more exalted states of consciousness…into awareness, understanding and wisdom. Smell evokes an understanding of ourselves in time, life and death, and anchors us in the physical.

In that essential awakening into that experience of life and death we meet the kaladanada…the yogi’s alchemical transformation from death to immortality.  Yes, they actually mean that.  Hatha Yoga was a practice of alchemy – a system based on primordial wisdom encoded in the sound of Om.  Smell and it’s essential nature is a portal into the ancients through the root chakra, like an uplifting song moves us upward, so does an uplifting fragrance.

Of course for asana yogis, in the days that we still did this…wafting incense – burning of the earth, the smell of smoke offered up to the heavens – an invitation for ascended beings physical and non-physical to bless us with our wisdom. 

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An Intro and a Segue from Touching to Hearing; CAN YOU HEAR ME? TURNING TOWARDS THE SOUND OF OUR OWN HEARTS

For those of you first joining us, we have been looking at our yoga practices from the perspective of the classical teachings found in the yoga philosophy and related  texts.  We’ve been using the classical teachings as maps to explore in our asana practice.  The segment we are working on now is a segment on the Indian philosophy of Sankhya. The map of the philosophy is shown below.  It is a map of the cosmos from a particular perspective.  We are journeying from the densest most physical aspects of our being to the most ethereal aspects of the cosmos.  Technically, Sankhya and Yoga are completely separated disciplines. Philosophy, science, art are evolving permutations of interwoven understanding. All philosophies, sciences and arts touch one another, influence one another evolve one another. There is likely more than one map of Sankhya floating around the universe or the internet and ideas – like philosophy – end to cross-pollinate.  Most yoga teachers learn about Sankhya philosophy in teacher training and I believe it’s worth exploring the subtle influence that it may have exerted in the understandings of yoga that have emerged.  This post is  not intended as a definitive answer to the question of what the Sankhya philosophy is, but  rather how we can use an understanding of the philosophy to deepen our lived understanding of ourselves and our yoga practices.

/*Patanjali advises in Yoga Sutra 2.46:

*स्थिरसुखमासनम् ॥४६॥

sthira-sukham-āsanam ||46||

The posture should be stable and easeful. */

We began our exploration of Sankhya and the senses with the sense of touch.  We’ll be moving into an exploration of the sense of  hearing, but first there are a few additional notes on working with the sense of touch as it relates to our asana practice. 

As we develop our practices and deepen our awareness of touch – subtle deep unconscious patterns of tension will surface in our practice.  There are two  facets of working with that tension: first, to release those deep stress patterns and second, to move our bodies (on and off the mat) in ways that minimize the creation and holding of those stress patterns.  When practicing asana it is important not to pile new tension patterns on top of the more deeply held ones in our eagerness to make a posture happen.

The primary way that a new tension pattern is created is to skip a level of your practice.  To push through to a new level of posture before you have released the tension patterns which were revealed in a lighter expression of the posture.  This results in a strain in the body’s tissue as opposing forces are exerted on a joint, muscle, or a specific pattern in the fascial tissue. 

/*Forcing a yoga posture to happen is not the same as transcending pain and pleasure.*/

To stay in ease is to stay in union (yoga).  To force, grip or struggle is to create separation – dis-ease.  Anti-yoga.  To stay in ease doesn’t mean you don’t work hard, stay focused and open to the idea that you might be able to accomplish something beyond your own expectations. Consider this: a certain amount of ease is necessary for any kind of success.

And then there is prana…

As we begin to develop discernment through the sense of physical touch in our practice, we will develop a sensitivity that allows us to detect sensory experiences which originate in prana.   Prana is a subtle substance –  an energy. Like sound it travels and has a felt presence.  Like sound it manifests in a spectrum where different beings can perceive different levels of it.  We know that different species perceive sensory information very differently.  That would be true of perceiving prana as well.  Some of us can feel it acutely, some of us can’t feel it at all. 

And finally, sound is prana.  Sound in various subtle degrees travels through the body in pranic circuits. This is why it reveals and heals. When we touch the ground with our hands and feet the channels are charged with the heartbeat of the earth.

As we begin to  develop this feeling/touch/sensory discernment we discover that some of what we perceive as physical pain are  actually blockages or fragilities which on the level of prana.

The clarity of the pranic channels (which we can feel through our sense of touch) is directly related to our capacity to hear and to hear on a subtle level (and to see and to smell and to taste, etc).  This is the connection between touch and hearing in the yoga practice

/*Notice in the modified Sankhya Chart below the position of the sense on the map*/

CAN YOU HEAR ME? TURNING TOWARDS THE SOUND OF OUR OWN HEARTS

The Sankhya philosophy provides one possible map of the terrain of the mind body spirit connection.  The journey can unfold as a trip where we elevate from tuning in only to our dense physical senses to opening to consciousness awareness in different degrees.  This would commonly be called a journey towards enlightenment.  The journey can also unfold as a kind of embodiment – where  – like shamen we experience an inspired state of consciousness and then bring the inspiration down, to  embody and manifest that experience in the physical world.  One of the most “known” experiences of this process of bringing spirit into physical reality is the manifestation of deep healing by various saints and mystics.  Probably the most well-known is Jesus – whose miraculous healings of lepers and raising of the dead are probably heard of by most people, even if they don’t believe in it.  If you dig enough there are tales of other such healings by saints in all traditions.  A more secular example of bringing spirit into the physical  occurs with inspired innovations i.e. the light bulb or the personal computer.  Sometimes innovation is planned and sought after but often it’s inspired. 

The senses are the interface of consciousness with the manifested world on the Sankhya map.  We touch the world, we hear the world, we see the world and so on. The yogi seeks to manage and clear the senses so that they do not interfere with our exploration of elevated states of consciousness.  Yoga seeks to do what some people turn to substances to do. Drugs can numb the chatter of the mind, drugs can ignite an expanded state of consciousness. But with yoga, these states are attained through personal mastery, awareness and skill (i.e. mastering and clearing the senses). It removes the dependency that substances require.  Yogis are independent.

Mastery of sound is an essential practice in hatha yoga. The yogin becomes unified with the ancient wisdom that permeates the deep silence connected with through practice.  Then, the yogin aspires to staying harmoniously anchored in that “vibration” as they move through the world. This vibration  is depicted by the ubiquitous symbol Om.  Asana practice is both the ground of that harmonic synchrony and the training for sustained experience of that harmonic synchrony.  There are a variety of practices used to cultivate this experience.   In a very straightforward everyday way on the mat we can begin to condition ourselves to excel in these practices.  The training goes something like this:

  1.  External sounds capture our attention on the mat. Some are quite annoying – talking,  sirens, construction, airplanes, and other machinery.  The yogin trains themselves to turn their attention from the external noise and into the inner landscape. There they meet another layer of sound –
  2. Internal Chatter. Much of the chatter of our minds originates in experiences and beliefs rooted in the past with  no place in the present.  With mindful attention the yogi becomes aware of their absorption in this inner chatter and they train themselves to turn inward to a still deeper level of sound –
  3. Subtle Sounds – The yogin hear many subtle sounds within as their pranic channels are cleared through consistent practice – Bells, whistles, drums and humming.  In time, willingness to turn away from these distracting subtle sounds reveals yet a deeper subtler sound –
  4. Nadam – Most likely this is the subtlest sound that a human can hear.  It is steady, constant, ever present – like white noise but more ethereal.  Tuning our attention away from more overt inner and outer noises to this perpetual background hum within and without, and allowing ourselves to relax into it begins a process of deep healing and awakening.   But even then…the yogin turns their attention away from it, and towards something deeper –
  5. The Anahata Nadam.  The anahata nadam is the sound that is complete silence without vibration – the “unstruck” sound.  Here the yogin relaxes into the deep silence and in stepwise fashion becomes absorbed in expanding stages of continuity. 

We practice this way on the mat, and asana facilitates this process.  In later stages conscious meditative seats (asanas) like virasana and padmasana support the process of allowing ourselves to be absorbed in silence without falling asleep or going unconscious.

In practicing asana how can we support this process in personal practice or when leading a class?  The playlist.  The playlist is most beneficial at early stages of this process.  When the chatter of the mind is overwhelming and distracting on the mat that is when you want the playlist.  It is also really helpful in situations of deep unconsciousness where you or those you are leading just can’t stay present – which is a result of trauma.  It either wakes you up or calms you down.  The goal is the experience of yoga – this inner absorptive yoking.  It’s important to be aware that familiar music or verbal music will have associated mental imagery and memories and feelings that will be ignited and it’s likely to draw the attention outward rather than inward.  Sometimes this is needed.  But just be aware that a rousing playlist of familiar or exciting song might operate in a way that is inconsistent with your goal. 

When you create your playlists consider creating a musical experience which propels the journey towards yoga and not to somewhere else.  Like a soundtrack to a movie you are building up to something:   an experience of yogic absorption for yourself or the student. 

Indian classical music is designed to take you to this point, so it’s very useful. But if you use it too early in the process it can be too potent and cause a different kind of distraction.

Consider as well that when we take in music it can nourish us; pure sounds are deeply nourishing.  Note that doesn’t always mean soft or new agey.  A pure note is a perfect note.  Some music that we love has those pure notes, and you will develope an ear for the perfect note as your practice unfolds.  Allowing yourself to be nourished by deep clear sound is deeply healing as well as enlightening, and this can lead to all kinds of magnificence if approached with an open mind and heart. 

The anahata nadam – that deepest level of sound resides in your spiritual heart.  That’s where the note of silence lives.  So when you touch it for the first time as a yogi you will feel and hear the spiritual heart. 

Working with sound in asanas is accessible to all  and an abundant and beautiful experience. 

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sankhya

संख्या

The next map of yoga we will explore here  is the Sankhya Philosophy, which maps the terrain from the unified field of awareness to our experience as individuals evolving into knowing ourselves and our place in the infinite universe .  We can use it as a guide when we traverse the landscape of the material realm seeking evolution, liberation and peace.  We can also use it as a guide as we carve out a pathway for the rivers of pure consciousness to irrigate the material world that we inhabit.  Translating into ideas of enumeration and rational decision making it appears to be a highly analytical discipline disconnected from our day to day experience on the mat.  But that is far from true.  Right discipline in practice creates a crucible for personal actualization. It paves the way from a life lead astray by every passing influence to alive of personal sovereignty – aligned with the will of the infinite, limitless omnipotent loving intelligence that goes by many names.

For an image of the map please see this website Sankhya.

The journey of begins with awareness of our senses – direct experience of our awareness touching the physical world via the physical body and ascends through the individual mind, the collective mind, the wisdom mind through the experience of pure duality (me and you) and then in some maps to a unified field of consciousness beyond that duality.  We will take the map beyond duality  to the unified field. 

The heart of healing exists in the unified field. The heart of yoga (which is a dualistic discipline) is  experienced in communion with the unified field. 

/*Whereas the koshas or sheaths (the five dimensions of you) are really about the individual, the Sankhya philosophy is about reorienting ourselves into our  unique place as an individual within the cosmos.  .  The practice of yoga asana leads us directly towards, aligns us with and supports us in staying steadfastly and joyfully engaged in this  ever changing process of reorientation. /

The practice  we will be exploring is using asana to bring awareness to the senses, our actions, the general qualities of nature, the individual mind, the cosmic mind, our sense of separation and yoga or unification.

As we explore these maps we gain the ability to attain mastery in asana, meditation and life. 

How can we start to consider this?  It helps to explore a new sense of our physicality.  Some approaches to yoga work with transcending the physical body, but to really understand ourselves as living as physical bodies from a yoga perspective – we start with physical awareness.  When we start our yoga practice we are entombed in conditioning about our physical bodies- that the body is shameful or exalted or it drives us or it pulls us down.  The flavors of conditioning about the body are infinite.  Open Vogue, or Grey’s Anatomy or unpack your experience of gym class in the second grade. Conditioning is subtle – Habits are generated in our unconscious.

What we do want to do is to open our field of awareness as we practice. Just by giving up preferences and practicing observation we will come to know our conditioning and we may choose to leave it behind.  What thought arises as we tumble out of tree posture – or come down with a thud out of headstand.  We will break down some of these explorations in asana as we walk through the map in the coming months – but for now you can get ready, just by beginning to notice what arises on and off the mat in a very general sense.

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Designing an Integrated Practice using the Map of the Five Koshas

*note – there are links to previous posts about the koshas below for your reference*

Moving towards the experience of yoga will always involve a bringing together, a yoking together, an integration. After journeying through an anatomical map like the koshas, there is benefit from integrating the information into our practice. Such integration brings individuality to our practice –  no two people integrate ideas into their practice the same way. Consciously integrating the koshas into your practice will create your own beautiful personal yoga mosaic  –an array of harmonious proportions uniquely adapted  for your life.

The classic teachings of yoga – taken holistically – are an invitation to develop skillful means. To learn through practice to rein together the forces acting within and without –  to become artful and harmonious co-creators. A sustainable  and integrated practice is built on working with our practices in harmonious proportions. The advantage of a sustainable practice is longevity – it stays with us our whole lives. In classical yoga practice this is ideal as it provides an enhanced relationship to our bodies and lives through times of change. The golden ratio establishes harmony and ease. It’s about  a state of interrelationship  which -like architecture -brings strength and stability.  In sutra 2.46 of his Yoga Sutra, Patanjali calls this the stable joyful seat. (tr. The seat should be stable and joyful).

What does this have to do with the koshas? A practice designed to address each of the koshas will create a stable practice in which all dimensions of ourselves become integrated.

To do this, we can construct a chart of the practices we want to explore that will develop each of the koshas. These are practices to bring the other parts of yourself into your practice is deliberate way.

Then select practices for each kosha that you would like to develop at a given time. Then, decide how much of each is appropriate to start out with and adjust it based on your needs at a given time – maintaining the presence of all five. Examples – when I was teaching yoga full time  asana was 1.5 hours a day and everything else was 5-10 minutes a day – or once a week or month. Now, my life needs less physicality and more inner peace. I meditate 45 minutes and my asana practice is sometimes only 20 minutes. You know that the practice is out of balance by your experience of the koshas. So, if I try to do 1.5 hours a day of asana right now – my mind chatter increases dramatically. If I tried to do an hour of meditation in my teaching days, I would fall asleep. Now, meditating awakens me. It’s important to note that it also needs to be in proportion to your lifestyle.  When I worked in corporate America, I also needed very intense asana.

You will know you are succeeding in creating a harmonious balance if your practice is sustainable (meaning – you are able to fulfill the personal commitment you have made over time) – and you will experience the wondrous personal transformation that is the promise of yoga – and that will occur not only on your mat but also in your relationships, your work, your creativity your passion. 

Introduction to the Five Sheaths

The AnamayaKosha

The PranamayaKosha

The ManomayaKosha

The JnanamayaKosha

The AnandamayaKosha

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Time, Mastery, Vinyasa

Vinyasa, sometimes integrated with the idea of “flow” in yoga is rooted in  yogic mysticism.  It is fruitful to contemplate this time with a beginner’s mind as our practice deepens in time.  On the physical level, momentary awareness, intentional placement, the nature of transitioning and the unfolding of a sequence are effective tools to open into altered states of consciousness.  To contemplate the mystic roots of this practice reveals much about the nature of reality itself and how to engage it consciously.

In sutra 3:52 Patanjali advises that by meditating on the present moments in a sequence we come to know the nature of choice and results (discernment).

It sounds obvious and mundane, but in the revelation – it is anything but.  The yogi actually sees how they created this moment.  This provides understanding which facilitates the ability to create with intention.  We seldom arrive in a situation for the reasons we think we arrived there. 

The first time I experienced this, I was notified that I received an award.  Because I was a hot shot right?  No.  What was revealed to me during practice was that the moment of being honored was created by a dozen times when I had honored others and acted with sincere humility.  It was potent and unforgettable because I had longed for that acknowledgement for a long time,  and I am not very humble at all.  It revealed to me the potency of a small decision made with heart, and planted a seed for me to want to live a different kind of life.

So what is the physical body technique for this?  Vinyasa can be complicated, but the alpha and omega of it the rhythm of the breath in practice.  Yep.  Rhythm functions like a ticking clock.  It holds us in the present moment. Being fully in a present moment is the doorway to observing time from a different perspective. Music can be exhilarating by it’s very nature, but cultivating the presence of rhythm and lyrics consciously in our playlist choices can support opening into the full experience of asana practice and vinyasa in particular.

As home practitioners– this can be  one of the hardest facets of group practice to replicate at home.  So for this, I don’t try to replicate it.  I endeavor to work with the techniques in a different way.  Home practice allows us to explore a posture in deeper way related to positioning etc.  Once we’ve made progress with learning a sequence or a posture, benefit is obtained by spending time integrating the breath with the movement.  This kind of breathing is not like exercise breathing.  It requires a constant steady equilibrium of inhale 2 3 4, exhale 2 3 4.  Where the substance of the inhale and exhale are consistent throughout the breath.

Students have often asked about other kinds of breathing that they were told were “better” for one reason or another.  This isn’t about good or bad – it is just one specific technique used to develop one specific element of practice.  If you want to explore this deeper dimensions of yoga, I invite you to work this way with your breath.

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The Center of Gravity

In the Asian bodywork schools they identify the center of our being as the hara. We might think of it as a center of gravity, thev but the hard includes within it our presence. Being Present to our gravity, what relates us to the earth is why we are here. If, when we sit into our center of gravity there is ease and agility we are moving into the place where alignment can happen. If sitting into our center of gravity causes pain we are moving away from the place of alignment. It is that simple. We must discern uncomfortable growth from pain. This capacity arises through attention. Presence. This is the essence of asana. Sthira, sukham asanam. The posture, the seat should be stable and easeful. No struggle. When you sink into it you are uplifted. If this is not the case, change your stance. Move into a place where alignment happens. Look at your feet, connected to the earth, and change something, just a little. Explore the feet the earth what do you notice? What would you change?

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Methods of Asana and Mindfulness

When we embark on a spiritual practice it’s not unusual to open into some romantic and fantastical teachings.  They are very attractive and inspiring.  Also there are also important truths contained in those fanciful teachings.  The more mundane teachings often obscure the vast potential we engage when we embark on our spiritual journeys.  Occasionally, we find a teacher who can deliver an ordinary teaching in a way that communicates the vast potential of yoga pan extraordinary and delightful way.

One such teacher who I encountered was  Lama Marut.  In a meditation workshop he lead us through a weaving path of teachings, delightful, rich, fanciful, funny, very inspiring and just a tad cynical.  Subsequently, in the Q&A that followed, he offered this in a jovial and mildly mocking tone:  “First, just try to watch your breath for 10 breaths without getting distracted.  When you can do that, then worry about the rest of it.”  [I paraphrase!] And then we “sat” to try to watch 10 breaths together.

I’d been meditating for years, but what a teaching!  I discovered that I was far away from focusing for ten consistent breaths.  I could count them, sure but I could count breaths  while I constructed a to do list in my mind.  Within ten breaths my mind turned hundreds of times.  To rest my attention wholly in the breath for ten small breaths was beyond the scope of mindfulness I had acquired at that time. It’s a technique which we can refine and develop and, if we choose, deepen.    We begin by observing the relationship between our attention and the breath.

We can consider this in our asana practice. 

Where are we for each breath?  Drowning in the sound of our breath may help us to stay in a posture without pain, can catapult us into transcendent states and great bliss, but the opportunity to develop the kinesthetic sense of the body is lost.  Concentration on the minutiae of the body develops an intellectual construction which can obscure subtle dimensions of the lived experience of a posture. 

Our call to attention today is to wake up and be present to our body, our breath, our emotions, the room and the turnings of our minds as we take a posture, and to cultivate our capacity to hold all that in our attention as we move through our asana practice.  In a middle ground way – if we allow ourselves to ease openly into intimacy with the moment – presence to  the breath and the body opens the portal to the purer state of underlying awareness. When that happens, we are all in the posture.  Perhaps you have experienced this.  The expansion of attention effects our experience.  As we focus on our breath while attending to the whole of our bodies, our minds, our impact on others and  our place in the universe  we come to know who were are, why we are here and who we can be. 

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About the Body: Being Present

Our bodies are fields of vibration.  It’s obvious right? Even though it feels woo.  My teeth are denser than my muscles…that means that they are at a lower vibration.  They are more solid. 

An exercise we can use to experience this directly is to focus internally from the densest to the subtle-est. Bones and muscles,  tendons and ligaments, internal organs and the fascial tissue that weaves it all together, and then the boundary of the skin, then feeling the air on the skin.  You can experiment with this yourself. Don’t hesitate to use your imagination to connect with the various parts of the body. 

This simple exercise is priceless in terms of becoming aware of our bodies in time and space.  Often we aren’t in our bodies! We are thinking about past and future…using the imaginal mind to unfurl stories and memories which exist only in our minds.  – when we open our eyes they aren’t here any more, or they don’t exist yet. 

If you’ve ever attended a Vipassana meditation retreat you may have done a simpler more diffuse body scan to begin your meditation practice.

Bringing our attention, focus and awareness back into our bodies is an essential part of the transformation power of yoga.  As we learn to be present to the body in this spacious non-judgmental way, the emotional wounds the body carries can be healed.  The power of this cannot be overestimated.  Carrying a body full of memory interferes with our capacity to fill our present moments with newness- the fullness of our love our creativity. 

Was this useful for you?  I hope so.  If it was I encourage your to sign up for my newsletter.  Once a week or so …its yoga information and inspiration based.  No sales, but I do share songs I love that might be fun additions to you practice.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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About the Body: Being Present

Our bodies are fields of vibration. It’s obvious right? Even though it feels woo. My teeth are denser than my muscles…that means that they are at a lower vibration. They are more solid. An exercise we can use to experience this directly is to focus internally from the densest to the subtle-est. Bones and muscles, tendons and ligaments, internal organs and the fascial tissue that weaves it all together, and then the boundary of the skin, then feeling the air on the skin.

You can experiment with this yourself. Don’t hesitate to use your imagination to connect with the various parts of the body. This simple exercise is priceless in terms of becoming aware of our bodies in time and space. Often we aren’t in our bodies! We are thinking about past and future…using the imaginal mind to unfurl stories and memories which exist only in our minds. – when we open our eyes they aren’t here any more, or they don’t exist yet.

If you’ve ever attended a Vipassana meditation retreat you may have done a simpler more diffuse body scan to begin your meditation practice. Bringing our attention, focus and awareness back into our bodies is an essential part of the transformation power of yoga.

As we learn to be present to the body in this spacious non-judgmental way, the emotional wounds the body carries can be healed. The power of this cannot be overestimated. Carrying a body full of memory interferes with our capacity to fill our present moments with newness- the fullness of our love & creativity.

Was this useful for you? I hope so. If it was, I encourage your to sign up for my newsletter. Once a week or so …its yoga information and inspiration based. No sales, but I do share songs I love that might be fun additions to your practice.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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