Greetings Yogis, Greetings Yogis,What is your go-to yogic teaching “off the mat”?A few come to mind—patience, acceptance, or the simple act of giving of oneself. These sound beautiful in theory, yet they often stretch us the most when life presents real challenges. Yoga, at its heart, is not something we do but something we live into. The postures and […]
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna offers this timeless wisdom, describing right action in yoga:“You have a right to your actions, but never to the fruits of action.” (2.47) This teaching invites us to act with care and clarity, but without attachment to outcomes. Whether we teach a class, do the dishes, or contend with a difficult relationship, […]
On one level, yoga practice may seem cursory or extra. We may even gasp at an advanced posture and overlook its deeper intent–how it influences organ systems or directs the inner breath. We may overlook the greater arch of yoga practice. Yogic techniques optimize forces implicit to our life-experience, and can be practiced wherever you […]
The student once asked “why we do yoga?” My teacher, Baba Hari Dass, responded: “At first we do yoga to improve our life. Then we do our life to improve our yoga.” The practices can make us more graceful physically and emotionally, and more in step with life. And still, we may have habits that don’t […]
I’d recently heard that….” Most are more interested in the cure than the cause.” Which struck me as a noteworthy wisdom. This idea certainly comes up in conversations around health and medicine but also pertains to personal relationships. Ever by-pass your role in a particular dynamic and fast forward to trying to change the “other”? […]
Devotion can be a charged notion, particularly if one has some unpleasant religious association with it. The yoga of devotion tells the story a little differently. In my view, it is not so much a question of “if” one has faith and devotion, but rather, faith and devotion towards “what?” Institutions? Science? The phone? Family? […]
I’ve been at this yoga project for a while, the river of yoga practice has ebbed and flowed its way over 34 years of life-terrain, touching gain, loss, heartache, moments of insight, flesh & blood, and clear stillness; meandering towards a greater ocean, somewhere on the other side of present mountains. The practice evolves with […]
Back in the early 90’s, when I first went to yoga classes, the practice was closely associated with “discipline.” People talked about “discipline” the same way we talk about “inclusion” or “trauma sensitivity” now. Long before prevalent teacher training, the yoga of discipline was in the air of practice. Discipline is an essential aspect of […]
Here’s a fun question…. What is your go-to yogic teachings “off the mat”? A few come to mind: “patience”, “acceptance”–that’s a big one–or “giving of oneself”, all of which read nice on paper and can be much more difficult to put into practice. Genuine yoga practice is something we live into rather than something to “do.” […]
Perhaps you’ve heard Patañjali’s quintessential definition of yoga? I captures the essence of yoga. It’s quite simple, and simultaneously vast; two signature features of wisdom. “Yoga is the stilling of all thought.” This definition probably conjures more questions than answers and invites us to reconsider our mental space…. what are thoughts anyway? Patañjali goes on to […]