Yoga Related Blog Posts
Yoga Related Tips
The essence of Hatha Yoga is symbolized in the word Hatha.
‘Ha’ means sun and ‘Tha’ means moon in Sanskrit. You bring two opposite qualities to bear on each posture: relaxation (Tha) and effort (Ha). Noticing how you do this as you do a posture is all you need to ‘know’. Believe it or not, it is just that simple.
The body will tend to either relax or effort itself naturally. For example, when you are doing a forward bend your knee caps can tend to relax and your face can tend to tighten. Your task is to notice what you tend to do naturally, and do the opposite. That probably sounds bizarre and un-natural, eh? Think of this process as no different than when the sage desires not to desire. Desiring not to desire is going against what comes naturally, i.e., the original desire.
So, in the example above, doing the opposite of what comes naturally means ‘tighten’ your knee caps and ‘relax’ your face. Relax what involuntarily tenses and tense (put effort into) what involuntarily relaxes (goes lazy). The graceful ability to be more passive in action, and more active in passivity helps you maintain overall equilibrium throughout life.
Naturally, there are potential problems with this approach, all of which stem from going to extremes! Watch your emotions,… a gentle and gradual approach plays a fundamental role in this process. This is something you return daily to face for the rest of your life. There is no hurry, but do seize the moment… it is all you truly have.
Are you sometimes tempted to skip your yoga…
(or what ever your daily ‘rut’ is) and just get on with it – the day? This is a by-path most of us have. In fact, though, ‘ruts‘ such as this are how we can outflank life. This may sound odd at first, until you consider life a low level war of sorts. In war, the reason a superior general wins battle after battle is that he is able to outflank his opponent. Ironically though, his first opponent is his own desire. Thus, to win a battle, a commander must first drop the desire to ‘just get on with it‘, and in patience be as be as careful at the end as at the beginning. We are our own worst enemy in life. This same principle applies to all of life really, e.g., investing in the stock market, raising children, diet…
A Simple Secret To Success In Yoga
Every day do at least ONE posture, like Utthita Trikonasana (extended three angle posture). See posture #3 , on page 13. This ‘less is more’ approach can, in the long run, lead to what you truly want out of life, both in yoga and in general.
I’ve suggested this to people having a problem keeping up a daily yoga routine. Doing just one posture takes only a minute or two; nothing could be easier! Yet, curiously, I’ve never known anyone capable of doing this. This may be due to our generally ‘all or nothing’ approach to life. The irony is that doing just one a day consistently is a way of letting our wheels move only along old ruts. It is a step along the ‘middle way’, the ‘golden mean’.
The fact is that we are just so driven by our ‘more is better’ biology that returning to ‘less’ is almost impossible for us to put into practice. The Tao Te Ching points to this clearly in, My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.
This is a very sobering dilemma indeed.
#1 Tip… Bar None
Think of this tip as the ‘magic tip’.
There is no true or ‘right’ way to do any of these activities. There is no ‘right’ form to learn. Moreover, there are no masters ? no one who can teach you the core. Teacher simply teach the particular form they follow. Whatever form you learn functions like a path, a trail, a road. And just like walking down any trail, you are present ? awake in each moment ? or you are drifting away, either in thought or desire.
Simply put, being personally watchful and deeply aware is where the magic begins. All else is nothing but aesthetic illusion. In other words, one’s aesthetic preference for one form over another simply reflects one’s needs and inclinations in the mixed bag of one’s emotional makeup, cultural conditioning and circumstance. Aesthetic preferences are by-paths in the sense that we tend to put a lot of credence in ‘truth’ of the form which distracts us from the watching our step on the trail.
Of course, I suspect that it is our tribal instincts which drive us to make much ado about nothing ( form). Still, I feel it is healthy to know what is going on; there is a better change we’ll act wisely, or so I think… 
Much Ado about Chi, Prana, Compassion, Love, Spirit, … You Name It.
We hype up every facet of human endeavor, maybe more so today than ever. Mmmm? Anyway, the first verse of the Tao Te Ching, the disclaimer if you will, states: “The way that can be spoken of, Is not the constant way; The name that can be named, Is not the constant name”. I’ve found it very helpful to switch “way” with any and all other words that come to mind, and particularly those loaded with color. Using such words as a launching pad for curiosity, brings us closer to knowing the nameless; such knowing is more subtle than all the words and the thinking we use them for.
Talent Hoodwinks Us
Innate talent misleads us. Folks with athletic talent will do the Yoga and Tai Chi visibly better than those with less talent. Does that make them ‘spiritually superior’? Of course not. They are naturally better at those skills, just as a typist might be at typing, a dish washer at washing dishes, or a Sage at hoodwinking. ‘Superior’ ability in mundane activities, like dishwashing, doesn’t grab headlines for the same reason people don’t pick up pebbles and mount them in wedding rings. The rare, non mundane, stones are what we treasure. Is this not simply our hierarchal instinct expressing itself? We are dazzled by what ever appears to be ‘extra-special’ just like fish that lunge for a shinny lure.
We all have talent in some area of life. But, how about in all the other areas of our lives? In those private places where our lesser talent lies lurks self knowing’s weakest link. Of course, that is not the view we want to see. We equate talent with the ‘superior man’. That’s where hype enters into life.
The external world you see is a blend of its innate nature and a reflection of your innate nature, e.g., what you need to see. Not only can you not believe what you hear… you can’t believe what you see or think either. Thus, the Taoist view: To know yet to think that one does not know is best… .
Making Mistakes
The process of making mistakes and correcting them corresponds to the Taoist view:”If you would have a thing shrink, You must first stretch it;… Another way to look at it: We first need to make ‘arduous mountains out of superficial mole hills’ before we can ‘make those mountains into effortless mole hills’.
I regard ‘mistakes’ as jewels of consciousness. When I fail to sense the moment to moment continuum of my ‘mistakes’, I’m on auto pilot. A continuous awareness of ‘mistakes’, has two aspect to it: (1) you are awake, and (2) ‘mistakes’ loose their ‘potencies’ and become an enriching part of your life.
Mistake and correct are two sides of the same coin ( yin and yang to put it another way). The point here is that whether a thing is ‘up’ or ‘down’, ‘left’ or ‘right’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is irrelevant; the way runs deeper than such duality. ‘Turning back’ to this root, you eventually return to that ‘shadowy’ place where mistake and correct merge into one ‘mysterious sameness’.
Of course, mistakes will feel very relevant socially, i.e., some will say, “you’re wrong”, just as you say others “wrong”. Jesus put it so well, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”. Yep, ‘what goes around comes around’. That is the nature of tribal politics. And that is why if takes a while to own your own life. Your social-tribal instinct will fight you all the way on that one.
We All Want to Do it the ‘Right’ Way.
But, how far shall we take that? ‘Right’ encompasses two issues – awareness and tradition.
‘Right awareness’ (mindfulness, attentiveness, concentration) is crucial to all living things. It is about being alert – alive to the moment. If a deer loses that moment, a lion may have him for dinner. If a driver loses that moment, he may go straight… off the cliff. Unlike everything else in life, I have yet to overdo moment to moment awareness.
‘Right’ as defined by tradition is another story. Nevertheless, tradition plays a crucial role in guiding us where to apply awareness, at least initially. Tradition also brings with it social / political dimensions which can be taken obsessively too far. Here attention is narrowly focused on the form and away from the process. In the end, it is not about the form, but about the care you give to your moment to moment.
Yoga, Tai Chi or Honkyoku serve to exemplify both issues. Both pass on an age old tradition of ‘right form’ and also aim for ‘right awareness’ and a returning to the ‘eternal moment’. Even so, life flows moment to moment from birth to death, while these ‘forms’ are like islands of learned discipline. You can’t live your moment to moment life as a learned discipline, and you can’t spend you entire waking hours only doing these forms with the notion that you’ll remain in the ‘eternal moment’ – an unnatural and nonsensical notion on many levels.
Moment to moment awareness – watching – is all that really matters. To the extent that learning a discipline will open the door to that aim is useful. But, beware of the by-paths which obfuscate that aim. A good example of the social / political, i.e., tribal, tendency in all human activity is Christianity. Christ had a fairly simple straight forward message which aimed at ‘right awareness’ in one way or another. Why then are there myriad Christian sects (and Buddhist one’s as well) each believing that their form is the best, if not the true, form. Yes, we do cling desperately to the form, and in doing so loose our chance to be aware of an underlying ‘mysterious sameness‘.
The Real Problem Lies Not in Knowing What to Do, But the Doing.
If you are honest with yourself in the moment, you will see that your ‘faint heart’ is your weak link more than anything else. It you can suspend all the rationalize excuses you make and just take it step by step, no matter how small the steps are, you will be master of your journey. We tend to postpone our moment until that ‘tomorrow’ where we hope to get it together.
A case in point: I’ve often suggested to folks wanting to do yoga but didn’t want to plunge in, that they simply do ONE POSTURE a day and let it evolve naturally. I can’t remember anyone ever being able to do this. We tend to be very ‘all or nothing’ in our approach to life; we either rush headlong or piddle our moments away.