yoga

Flow Triggers

The Rise of Superman: 17 Flow Triggers is an interesting review of essential ‘flow triggers’ as the author Steven Kotler calls them in his book The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. Anyone comfortable with the Zen(1) point of view will recognize them right off. Steven rephrases them in a religiously […]

Feeding the Worry Gene

Have you noticed how there is something always ‘wrong’. No matter how good things are, something will soon go awry. All this is obvious, I suppose. That is what makes the News, news. What is less obvious is how the perception and experience of good fortune and misfortune are complimentary, as chapter 58 puts it, […]

Breathe Into It

Words are the smoke; emotion is the fire. You can understand a volcano with words metaphorically, symbolically, abstractly, but you cannot know it through words. You can only know it emotionally, by essentially becoming it—a living breathing volcano. Is that actually possible? Rationally, of course not; experientially, I feel it is. This is where profound […]

Upping the Anti

Have you noticed the ever-present urge to continue ‘upping the anti’? Not only that, but isn’t the sky often the limit? We can’t help but aim for the next step up, and when we reach it, that level becomes our new bottom line. Most of us are content for a little while, but then we […]

Necessity, the Mother

I’ve thought that necessity was the mother of invention ever since I can remember. I’d add to that, necessity is the mother of all action. Paradoxically, I also believed throughout most of my life in free will: the power to freely act to change the course of events. Why did it take so long to […]

Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

Is there any real difference between a generalist ‘jack of all trades’ and a master? After all, isn’t a ‘jack of all trades’ simply a master generalist? I’ve been doing several activities for many years now: yoga (50 years), tai chi (40 years), shakuhachi sui Zen (35 years), gardening (30 years) — plus, I have […]

Sobering up!

Up until my early forties, I was drunk on thought fortified with the certainty of belief. Fortunately for me, I found a way to help detoxify myself, but it is still a moment-by-moment affair. Recovering alcoholics continue to say, “I’m an alcoholic”, even as they stay on the straight and narrow moment-to-moment, day to day, […]

He Who Conquers Self

The details of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths vary somewhat depending on the source. I recently dug up the source for the version that I long ago found to be most useful. Why useful? Because it was the most succinct I’d seen. Nevertheless, I had a minor problem with how the Third Noble Truth was stated, […]

The Nutty Things We Do

While pulling myself into an odd yoga shape this morning, I thought, this is nuts! No normal animal on the planet would do this. In fact, no other animal does most of the things our species does. Working, resting, and engaging in the basic biological functions is all that we have in common with other […]

The Spirit of Yoga

I’m updating a book on yoga I wrote in 1979. The main change I am making is in the introductory section, Principles. I feel it worthy of posting on Centertao. (photo: working title and draft cover) Yoga is a process, not a destination. So many folks think of yoga as something you need flexibility for. […]

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