Sadhana: practice for day five
If you’re going to commit to a yoga practice, one that is “cultivated skillfully and continuously for a long time,” as Sutra 1.14 specifies, then there’s a question you have to answer. If your body isn’t ready for arm balance, headstand and shoulder stand every day, what do you do while waiting for it to […]
Four ways the Brahma Viharas can keep you clear
I want to have a lucid old age, but the odds aren’t looking good. Start with a family strain of dementia, add growing up in the toxic-chemicals-friendly 1950s, then stir in a rear-end collision that smacked my forehead into the windshield when I was 10, and really, all bets are off. I’d like to believe […]
Withdraw your eyes, quiet your mind: Five-Minute Yoga Challenge
As a species, we humans are always on the lookout. Sight dominates all of our other senses and is largely responsible for the way we perceive the world – that aggregate of impressions which we tellingly call our “point of view. As long as we’re gathering visual information, our brains are busy. So it stands […]
Smack in the middle of the mandala – it’s a good place to sit
A Tibetan mandala – “the cosmic blueprint of the celestial palace of Yamantaka, Conqueror of Death”One of the happiest parts of this fall for me has been resuming my sitting practice after the disruptions of the summer. It’s not a long practice, but since the beginning of September, it’s been daily, and that makes me happy. […]
Summer Sadhana: the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Summer Sadhana starts on Monday, June 21, and just like last year, I’m wondering if I’m ready. “Sadhana,” apart from being the name of a 60’s and 70’s Bollywood star with an iconic hairstyle, is a Sanskrit word which translates as, “a means to get something done.” (Which presumably explains why it’s also the name […]
How do you work with the yamas and niyamas?
On Tuesday afternoon I spent an hour in a coffee shop near the studio with a teacher trainee, talking about the first two of yoga’s eight limbs, the restrictions (yamas) and the observances (niyamas). The yamas are the great vow of yoga, non-violence, truth, non-stealing, Brahmacarya, which is often translated as celibacy, and non-grasping, or […]