Mindfulness Yoga: Hatha-Yoga and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Part One

For the vast majority of practitioners and non-practitioners alike, Yoga has become reduced to, and synonymous with, the postures and movements of hatha-yoga. Yet for most of its history, meditation has been an essential aspect of "authentic" yoga practice. Much of the “work” of meditation involves how we experience the body; particularly our reactivity to experience. And when practicing postures, we learn to deal with the mind’s commentary, its leaning toward the future or the past, grasping after the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant -- exactly what we do in meditation!

The word yoga comes from the root yuj, meaning to “yoke or to harness,” and has come to signify both spiritual endeavor, especially the disciplining of the mind and the senses, and the state of integration. As such, yoga is the generic name for the various Indian philosophies and practices Georg Feurstein calls “the psychospiritual technology specific to the great civilization of India,”[i] the purpose of which is to liberate the practitioner from the existential human situation of duhkha, variously translated as suffering, stress, and dissatisfaction. Given this context, Buddhism is a bona fide child of the Yoga Tradition completely yogic in purpose, intent and methodology. The four noble truths and eightfold path offer a complete and coherent model of yogic theory and practice. Like all authentic yoga, it is moksha-shastra, a liberation teaching designed to free us from duhkha.

      

     Hatha-yoga refers to the relatively recent form of yogic practice utilizing the familiar postures (asanas) as well as breathing practices (pranayama). This form of yoga practice has its roots in the tantric movement that influenced both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. While the asanas of hatha-yoga are what most westerners are familiar with as "yoga," such postures were developed rather late in the history of the yoga tradition. In fact, the contemporary practices of yoga-asana pretty much date back to little over 100 years!

       Many Buddhist meditators have been drawn to hatha-yoga for the ease and strength it can bring to the body, while many hatha-yogis have turned to Buddhist meditation for the deepening of awareness, insight and equanimity it can cultivate. While this ‘complementary’ approach has much to offer, a deeper, more integrated, comprehensive approach is possible

In an early discourse, the Buddha is asked if it is possible, by traveling, to know, see, or to reach the end of the world, where one does not suffer. He responds that it is not possible to reach such a place of peace by traveling, “However, I say that without having reached the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering. It is, friend, in just this fathom-high body endowed with perception and mind that I make known the world, its arising and cessation, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.”[ii]  The Buddha could not have more clearly stated that it is with the exploration of our bodily experience, where we so often find discomfort, pain, and suffering, that we can also find peace and liberation.

The proper and natural posture of the body in sitting meditation is called asana, defined by the second-century Indian sage Patanjali in the Yoga-Sutra, the foundational text of classical yoga, as that posture which is both “stable and easeful,”[iii] accompanied by “the relaxation of effort and the revealing of the body and the infinite universe as indivisible.”[iv] When this state is attained, “one is no longer disturbed by the play of opposites.”[v] Whenever this state of embodied integration manifests -- whether one is sitting, walking, cutting carrots or changing diapers -- there is yoga.

While the Buddha taught a variety of practices, perhaps it’s his emphasis on mindfulness that has had the greatest impact. The Pali word ‘sati’ (Sanskrit. smriti), most often translated as mindfulness, is related to the word for remembering. To ‘re-member’ is to ‘re-collect,’ to bring together all the seemingly disparate aspects of our experience into an integrated whole. In this way, remembering is synonymous with the definition of Yoga. Whenever we see our mind wandering from the intimate, immediate, spontaneous and obvious experience at hand, we remember to come back -- to just this, right here, right now, using the breath as the yoke.

In both the Anapanasati-Sutta (Awareness of Breathing), and the Satipatthana Sutta (The Foundation of Mindfulness), the Buddha instructs in observing the breath, gradually extending our awareness to include the whole body. He says the practitioner should be aware of the movements and positions of the body, while standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, while bending over, or stretching one’s limbs and notes that nothing is excluded from mindfulness, including such activities as eating, drinking, dressing, urinating, and defecating. No aspect of our lived experience lies outside of practice. This is not practice as preparation, but practice as vocation.

The applicability of this teaching for practicing hatha-yoga should be obvious. When we combine awareness of breathing with asana practice, we can observe how movement and posture affects the breath and how the breath affects the body. We become aware of habitual patterns of reactivity. For instance, do you hold your breath when reaching out with your arms into a deep stretch? Do you unnecessarily tense muscles not involved with the movement you are making? Do you compare one side of the body with the other? When engaged in repetitive movements, does your mind wander? In maintaining a posture, can you see the constant changing phenomena, or do you concretize the experience, reifying the changing phenomena into a static entity that you then either grasp after or resist, depending on whether you find it pleasant or unpleasant?

Following the four foundations of mindfulness, the practice of postures becomes much more than merely preparatory to meditation. With the four foundations, asana practice becomes a fully integrated mindfulness practice, in essence no different than sitting or walking meditation. Asana practice need not be conceptualized as a complement or preliminary to sitting. It’s simply another way to practice mindfulness. This is the practice of mindfulness yoga. The priority here is the cultivation of mindfulness with asana as the vehicle for such cultivation. The practice of mindfulness, the Buddha assures us, “gives rise to understanding and liberation of the mind.”

The four foundations of mindfulness include body, feelings, mind and dharmas. Each foundation includes a variety of objects, meditations, and contemplations. When practicing asana, we can choose to devote our practice to any one of these, or work through them sequentially.

---

[i] The Yoga Tradition: It’s History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice by Georg Feuerstein (Hohm Press: Prescott, AZ, 1998) p. 7

[ii] The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Wisdom Publications: Somerville, MA, 2000) p. 157 - 158

[iii] The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: A New Translation and Commentary by Georg Feuerstein (Inner Traditions: Rochester, NY, 1989) Book 2; Sutra 46

[iv] The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: A New Translation with Commentary by Chip Hartranft (Shambhala: Boston, MA, 2003) Book 2; Sutra 47

[v] ibid., Book 2; Sutra 48

Problems!

It’s a bit ironic for practitioners of a form of “spirituality” that emphasizes how life is stressful (it is the first noble truth after all) to sit around offering a litany of problems they face in practice! Why should practice be any different from the rest of life? Problems are inevitable! In fact, they should be seen as inevitable! The problems you will face on this path are precisely the means that will help you progress along the path! Facing these difficulties in meditation will give us practice in confronting problems in the rest of our lives. In time, you will see that the uncomfortable ‘stepping stones’ of the path are precious jewels! The most important aspect of practice is viriya (P; virya S) or persistence. Never give up and you can never fail!

The first noble truth tells us that life is stressful and meditation, being a microcosm of life, will present us with the same challenges we’ll find elsewhere in life. In fact, along with the difficulties we face in life that will arise while sitting, the very practice of sitting will bring its own special challenges. So, not only should we expect problems, we should welcome them!

Only the complete acceptance of discomfort, pain and stress lead to its amelioration. And to accept duhkha takes courage -- the determination to look at difficulty head-on, without averting our gaze. Courage is not fearlessness. In fact, fear is an essential component of courage. You cannot be courageous unless you can feel your fear completely. If you are able to stand your ground rather than averting your gaze or taking flight, that is courage. As Richard Petty, the greatest NASCAR driver of all time said: You’d have to be crazy not to be afraid to climb into a race car and take to the track with 40 other drivers going 240 miles an hour bumper to bumper! These men and women took the fear they had with them as they climbed into their chariots and drove with passion and courage.

If you think about it, the posture of meditation itself is the posture of courage: in determining to sit in stillness, we are declaring our willingness to look bravely at whatever our mind churns up without taking whatever our usual exit strategy might be. If you reflect for a moment, you’ll have to agree that the experiences that have most contributed to your personal development have been the trials you’ve faced and moved through. In retrospect, we understand this. In prospect, we fall into fear that they will overwhelm us, and yet often it is the fear and anxiety that is worse than the actual experience. As Mark Twain said, “I have known many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Think of practice difficulties as simply aspects of experience that require attention. Many times, there really is nothing to do and nothing to solve – only something to watch, embrace, and learn from.

There are many difficulties that arise in meditation that are not really any different than those that arise in other aspects of our life. But, there are also some difficulties that may be specific to practice. Pain, for most of us, is one of these challenges. Almost everyone has to learn to deal with the discomfort of sitting: backaches, knee pain, feet that go to sleep. Some of these discomforts do lessen over time, but others never go away. One of my favorite sayings of Suzuki Roshi is something he said to his students on long retreat: “The problems that you have now you will always have.”  

So, when you begin to experience pain in practice, first see what you can do to eliminate it. There is enough pain in life without you adding more of it with your practice. But when you find that there are certain discomforts that cannot be removed by changing external circumstances, mindfulness can show us that they can be mitigated by practice.

First, we can learn to see the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is an unpleasant sensation. Suffering is a mental and emotional reaction to pain. It may or may not be associated with the sensation of pain. It is possible to suffer without pain and equally possible to feel pain without suffering.

Suffering arises when we resist pain. We may feel a sense of unfairness, our fear of the pain may lead to panic. Resistance to pain arises because of the often unstated (and unconscious) belief that pain shouldn’t happen to us. Such belief is a major cause of suffering, conditioning anger, fear, anxiety and discouragement.

One way to work with the suffering of pain is to re-align ourselves with reality. Believing that pain shouldn’t happen to us is delusional. With sufficient practice, witnessing of the pain will lessen suffering and sometimes even lessen the pain, because our resistance is often what keeps the pain ‘locked in place.’

Allow the pain to become the object of mindfulness. Relax any tension or muscular contraction surrounding the painful sensation. Practice with ‘curious disinterest.’ Disinterest simply means you are not attached to any particular outcome or agenda. If you are paying attention as a strategy to lessen pain, that grasping for a particular outcome actually works against you.

Now, in the early stages of practice, it is absolutely unrealistic to expect that this ‘observational meditation’ will be easy or clearly beneficial. However, with time and experience, even the most severe kinds of pain can be ameliorated. Take your time; when you feel you’ve reached your capacity and begin to lose focus, do anything else – like changing your position, or scratching that persistent itch – to alleviate the discomfort, but do so mindfully.

Other problems specific to meditation are ‘strange’ phenomena that may arise. Sensations of floating, expansion and contraction that may be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral may arise. You may feel like your spinning like a top, or fidgeting uncontrollably. You may become distracted by images arising internally if your eyes are closed and strange patterns on the floor (like faces morphing into weird shapes) if your eyes are open.  When any such experience happens, treat it like anything else that arises: observe and reflect upon your reaction to it. Drop aversion and grasping and it will fade away soon enough. Just don’t make a big deal out of it.

The most tenacious problem while meditating is difficulty concentrating. This is particularly upsetting since concentration is such a necessary skill for any form of meditation. Remember that each time you catch the mind wandering and gently bring it back to the breath, you are concentrating and refining mindfulness.

If lethargy, sleepiness or fatigue is a problem, you may need to eat more moderately before practice or get more sleep. But keep in mind that just the typical fluctuations of daily life will impact your level and capacity for concentration. Various counting and labeling techniques, as well as mantra, and visual gazing strategies are available.

Doubt and discouragement often comes up when we are dissatisfied with what we may perceive as our “lack of success” in meditation. We may feel like giving up completely. First, if you find this happening, remind yourself that the absolutely only way to fail at meditation is not to do it! If you take your seat, then no matter what is happening while sitting, you are doing it! The struggles and so-called “failures” are all part of the process.

Second, look at the sense of discouragement itself as an object of mindfulness. See where it comes from; how it arises and what it feels like. Watch its coming and going, its wavering degrees of intensity. Discouragement is no different than any other mental formation: it is impermanent!

Sometimes the greatest problem in meditation practice is just sitting down. Regardless of how you feel about meditation at a particular moment, just do it anyway! You do not have to like it! Just do it – no argument, no excuses, no negotiations. As Jack Kornfield advises: “Just get your ass on the cushion.” Make that your absolute bottom line (no pun intended). Don’t even begin to think of how long you’re going to sit or what you’re going to do: just get your butt on the cushion.

If you can commit to this, you’ll find that generally, once you’re on the cushion, any aversive feelings you had to meditating evaporate after a few moments. Once you settle down, you can even begin to investigate what the aversion was all about. You may find some subtle fear was under it all that you can now observe with courage!

Big Sky Mind

There is no place to seek the mind;

It is like the footprints of the birds in the sky.

--- Zenrin

Most meditation practices offer quite specific instructions as to what object to focus on and what to do regarding the chosen object of meditation. The Buddha himself offered over 40 objects of meditation, including the breath, various aspects of the physical body, sensations, mental experience, including emotion and thoughts, as well as “objects of mind,” where the yogi is instructed to analyze experience into categories that constitute core aspects of the Buddha’s teaching such as the Five Hindrances (craving, aversion, dullness, restlessness, and confusion), or the Seven Factors of Awakening (mindfulness, inquiry, energy, joy, ease, concentration, and equanimity). These classifications are not in themselves the objects of meditation, but are points of reference to be applied during practice to whatever experiences arise.

But in the last analysis, the meditative state lies beyond any such practices. Meditation is ultimately not something we do, but rather a state that arises when all doing is done with! As I once heard Swami Satchidananda say, “meditation is an accident, and yoga practices make us accident prone.” But all traditions also speak of “methodless methods” that are meant to drop us directly into that meditative state variously called “bare attention,” “silent illumination,” “just sitting,” “mahamudra,” or simply “choiceless awareness.” Such “practices” encourage sitting as awareness itself, not picking or choosing what to focus on, but maintaining an evenness of attention on whatever arises in the space of awareness. Tilopa, in his “Song of Mahamudra” writes:

The clouds that wander through the sky

Have no roots, no home; nor do the distinctive

Thoughts floating through the mind.

Once this is seen,

Discrimination stops…

Rest at ease your body.

Giving not, nor taking,

Put your mind at rest.

Mahamudra is like a mind that clings to nothing.

Thus practicing, in time you will reach Buddhahood.

Students of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra might be reminded of what he has to say about asana: “It is a posture that is stable and easeful, accompanied by the relaxation of effort and the arising of coalescence, revealing the body and the infinite universe as indivisible. Then one is no longer disturbed by the play of opposites.” (The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, II: 46 – 48).

But this is easier said than done. Not for nothing is the mind likened to a drunken monkey! It is all too easy to become caught in an ever-proliferating chain of thought. Even when trying to focus on one object, such as your breath or a mantra, a thought can arise, which leads to another, and another, and yet still more thoughts until fifteen minutes later, when the meditation period is over, we wake up from some four-star daydream or sexual fantasy or a fretful worrying over our unpaid bills! 

There is a distinct, but subtle difference between being aware of a thought and thinking a thought, and it’s primarily one of “feeling-tone” which is a term referring to the felt sense (physically and energetically) of experience. A thought you are aware of with bare attention – with neither grasping nor aversion – feels light; there is a felt sense of distance between the thought and the awareness of the thought. With no reactivity to feed it, it arises like a bubble, awareness merely reflecting it, without it giving rise to another thought, it eventually “pops” or “self liberates.” When we are caught by thinking, it feels much heavier and substantial. It has a compulsive quality that pulls you in and takes control of consciousness. Its very nature is obsessive, leading you into ever deepening entanglement with its story making.

Choiceless awareness requires mindfulness, which is a mode or perception that is all accepting, non-reactive, neither clinging nor resisting. It expresses our willingness to be with our lived experience as it actually is in that moment, and not as we would like it to be. There is no seeking after another state of being; no distracting ourselves from whatever is our present situation. In order to cultivate mindfulness, it is best not to expect anything, avoid straining and rushing, accept everything that arises and hold onto nothing, avoiding rumination and comparing, and above all, be gentle!

Choiceless awareness rests on our ability to concentrate and reflect. This relates to Patanjali’s imperative to be stable and relaxed. The following meditation is in three parts that can each be practiced as independent ‘stand-alone’ practices or combined in a graduated path towards choiceless awareness. Mountain Meditation cultivates stability and is particularly helpful in dealing with anxiety, restlessness and dullness. Lake Meditation cultivates the quality of reflectivity that lessens the reactivity of comparing and judging mind. And finally Big Sky Mind opens us to the freedom of choiceless awareness.

Mountain Meditation:

Create a comfortable, stable, supported seated posture. If sitting on the floor, make sure you have enough height under your buttocks so that your knees rest on the floor. If that is not possible, then bring the floor up to your knees with pillows or blocks so that your legs are fully supported.

Sit upright, and close your eyes. Let your breath flow naturally, making no attempt to manipulate it, rest your attention on the rising and falling of your belly or chest (wherever you most feel the movement of your breath).

Next, visualize or imagine a majestically tall mountain. Contemplate for a few minutes how solid and stable the mountain is, throughout all the changing seasons and in all kinds of weather. At times the mountain may be clouded over, its peak completely in fog, sometimes the mountain is assaulted with thunder, lightening, heavy rains. Sometimes it rises into a clear blue sky, or a sky with just a few white puffy clouds. At times it is covered in snow, at times with lush foliage, and at other times it is barren. And yet, throughout it all, there is something that seems to remain stable, solid, not affected by the changing weather or seasons. It is this stable quality of “mountainness” that nourishes our concentration and ability to sit through all the varying experiences that arise while practicing.

So, now draw the image of the mountain down into your body and feel your posture of meditation to be like a mountain. Breathing in, see yourself as a mountain; breathing out, feeling stable. Some thoughts and emotions are like thunderous storms, others like a sunny day, your mind can be clouded over or clear and bright, but through it all, you can still sit solid like a mountain.

Lake Meditation:

Towards the peak of some mountains in the Himalayas, there are crystal-clear, turquoise-hued lakes called “sky lakes” because they are so reflective they reflect perfectly the sky above. Protected by the higher peaks and trees, the surface of such a lake is smooth and calm. The water is translucent, allowing you to see into its depths and it is as reflective as a mirror, so you can see your face and the sky above reflected in its surface. What you notice about the reflection is that the water reflects only what is there, neither editing out nor adding in anything. It reflects the dark, ominous storm clouds as well as the fluffy white clouds equally. When birds fly overhead, it reflects them without a trace left on the surface once they are gone from the sky.

Mind, or citta, when the waves or vritti are calmed, has this dual quality of the lake to be translucent and reflective. Once stabilized, we can turn our attention to the mind. Thoughts, feelings and emotions may arise from the depths of our mind, and we can simply reflect what arises without adding anything extra by way of judging, or comparing, nor editing out anything through aversion or denial. Free of grasping and pushing away, we can simply reflect. In this way, destructive or unwholesome patterns can be seen so that their power over us is lessened. Attachments are loosened. Breathing in, see yourself as the water of the Sky Lake; breathing out, reflecting.

Big Sky Mind:

After awhile, you may wish to turn your attention from the surface of the lake, towards the sky itself. This is what the Korean Zen teacher Chinul called “tracing the radiance.” You note that the sky is boundless, limitless. It contains everything that arises without stain. Even the horizon is only an apparent perceptual/conceptual boundary that can never be reached. Even on the cloudiest day, you know that above the clouds the sky is luminous, all pervading, limitless and free.

Awareness is said to share in these qualities of limitlessness, luminosity and stainlessness. It is present always, seemingly behind, between and beyond all the ever-changing phenomena. If you have ever heard yourself say “I’m confused,” then obviously awareness was also present or how would you have known?!  However, be careful not to take this experience as anything more than metaphorically. "Big Sky Mind" is not some transcendent realm separate from the mind and mental activity; they arise interdependently. This is an understanding forgotten even by many contemporary buddhists who take awareness as some kind of "true nature" which is more a Vedantin idea. The buddha criticized the notion of "pure awareness" by pointing out that awareness is always aware of something! Our problem is we tend to only identify with the confusion and overlook the clarity of the awareness of the confusion!

As mind experiences the selfless nature of phenomena, it moves towards freedom. We break through into the realization of what the Buddha called “not-self.” With the realization of not-self, the conceit of “I,” or what Patanjali called ‘asmita,’ is eliminated and this is nirvana here and now. 

Yoga Ph.D.

Carol Horton’s Yoga Ph.D.: Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body is one of those books (and delightfully there are ever more of them being published*) that I’d love to see every student in every Yoga Teacher Training read and take its message to heart. I believe it’s that important a contribution to what may perhaps be the most important question facing the very growth and existence of Yoga. Though Horton wrote it to find answers to her questions regarding the origins of yoga, how it “works,” and why it’s become so popular, the koan facing all practitioners, and in particular teachers of yoga, that she offers is whether the paradoxes embodied in contemporary yoga will remain generative or will its very popularity and commercialization usurp it of its vitality?

What paradoxes? In Horton’s words: Contemporary yoga “is a modern invention with ancient roots, a fitness fad with spiritual sustenance, a $6 billion ‘industry’ with non-material values;” a weird synthesis “of the utterly pedestrian and magically transformative.” And while Horton generally seems to have a better opinion of contemporary mainstream yoga and it’s paradoxes than I do, her own conclusion seems paradoxical as well. She ends with hope that postmodern yoga will indeed remain generative, with each successive generation of practitioners and teachers planting and nurturing new seeds. As she clearly summarizes, the history of yoga shows that it has always changed to meet the demands of the times, while somehow retaining something of its ancient roots. I am reminded of Georg Feurstein’s calling yoga “a living fossil,” in this regard. And I agree that's a good thing.

Yet, she also admits elsewhere that she guesses “the already pronounced tendency to turn yoga into yet another means of commodifying the body” will continue because “the commercial potential of idealized images of the ‘yoga body’ has simply become too good to pass up.” Sadly, this commercialized pull undermines the tremendous potential of yoga practice and theory to create the transformative self-integration possible. And that's a bad thing. Yes folks, it ain't "all good" in yoga or in life!

Chapter Six, “Self-Commodification, Teacher Worship, & Spirituality Lite” is worth the price of the book and should indeed be mandatory reading for yoga teacher trainees. In a “culture” that tends to hide it’s critical thinking potential in the mud, this chapter clearly presents the major blind-spots that tend toward undermining yoga’s real potential and offers the antidote: critical thinking.

For me, it’s come to the point where I hesitate to tell people I teach yoga because of what “yoga” has come to represent in contemporary culture. While Horton asks why American yoga culture seems to be growing ever more shallowly commercial, morphing from “intimate, organic, and essentially counter-cultural to corporate, ‘branded,’ and aggressively mainstream” while at the same time there is something about it that differentiates it from other fitness regimens and self-help programs, I question if there is anything different in the way most people approach and practice it. One of the more popular yoga studios here in Tucson, for instance, is popular and as successful as it is because it offers one-hour "workouts" with maybe some one-word "theme" that can loosely be considered "spiritual." 

In Chapter Seven, “Yoga, Modernity, and the Body,” in a section sub-titled “But Why Does It Work?” Horton parses out for herself the reasons, and then hypothesizes why yoga “works” and summarizes: “I believe yoga works so well for me for the same basic reason it does for so many others: it gives me a connection to my body that I wouldn’t otherwise have” with its “combination of physical postures, mental focus, and breath regulation” providing that connection “in an exceptionally accessible way.”

As she also explains, the postural emphasis in contemporary hatha-yoga is rooted in the worldwide physical culture of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and was conceived as education through and not merely of the body and, as Mark Singleton shows in his revelatory Yoga Body, was intended for the cultivation of mind, body and spirit. In my experience, if I bring mental focus and breath regulation to my weight-lifting, it is every bit as much yoga as practicing Surya Namaskara. The same is true of gardening or any other activity. When that understanding is lost, the practice of “doing yoga” arises and becomes no different than how many of my fellow weight-lifters approach their lifting.

Horton knows this too, and admits that such transformative, self-integration is not unique to yoga practice. What her book so eloquently argues is that for contemporary yoga to avoid losing its soul altogether, it must learn to integrate the life of the mind with the wisdom of the body. If her book is read by enough people, then perhaps the conversation and self-questioning it could provoke might just help save post-modern yoga’s “soul.” Curmudgeon that I can often be, I won’t be holding my breath.

* among them: Mark Singleton, Yoga Body; Carol Horton & Roseanne Harvey (eds), 21^st Century Yoga; Matthew Remski, Threads of Yoga

"Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi" A Review

It's a sign of yoga's popularity and its assimilation into the popular imagination, that a whole new genre of "yoga memoir" has developed over the last few years.  Brian Leaf's contribution, Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi is one of the more enjoyable of the lot.

As Stephen Cope blurbs about Leaf's book, Brian Leaf "writes in an utterly winning voice -- by turns as neurotic as Woody Allen, as irreverent as Huck Finn, and as serious as Jack Kerouac." The self-effacing neurotic humor is perhaps my favorite aspect of this memoir, so that Leaf's taking himself down a bit (or as the Brits might say, 'taking the piss out' on himself) keeps the whole narrative from becoming a self-righteous, heroic pean to 'self.'

Leaf comes from the Kripalu tradition, though he's explored other forms of practice from Iyengar to Astanga, and so he stresses the more meditative, mindful self-exploration of that tradition. On the whole, it is a tradition that I have much affinity for. My only two criticisms, and really they are quite minor, are his falling at times into what I take for new-agey 'woo.' However, it never approaches the brain-dead status of so much contemporary yoga that is permeated with the inanities of The Secret or the kind of pontifications of Deepak Chopra. The other minor misgiving is Leaf's attempt to squeeze in more than the weight of this book can fully handle.

Here, what I am referring to is what amounts to an attempt to work in his interest and practice of Ayurveda. It is clear it is a major part of his practice and he even graduated from my alma mater, The New England Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine, but that subject is so vast that what he can manage to work into his tale comes across as more an 'add-on' than as intrinsic to his practice as I am sure it truly is.

But again, these quibbles are just that; quibbles. I found Leaf's tale funny, and insightful, and his gentle, friendly voice serves as a real friend along the path. Check it out!

Is Yoga A Religion?

Is Yoga a Religion?

The following is an essay I wrote for my old Karuna Blog, back in 2006 and which then appeared in the Asian journal, Namaskar, and later on the Ashville Yoga Center blog. I've never posted it here, however, and am prompted to do so in response to the question again popping up in reaction to a group of parents in Encinitas suing the School system for teaching yoga in school!  If you are not familiar with this story, you can read about it at It's All Yoga, Baby.

When people ask if yoga is a religion, it first makes sense to ask them what they mean by “religion.” If what they mean is a creed of beliefs and dogma that must be adhered to, according to an established institution – most usually hierarchical and authoritarian – then the short answer is “No.” But if we take a deeper look into the original meaning of the word “religion,” we find that its root is in the Latin word religio which means “to tie or bind back”. It was a word used in horticulture, used to refer to the binding and pruning of branches in order to create a stronger and more aesthetic tree of shrub. 

In this sense, we find a similarity with the original meaning of the word “yoga,” which comes from the root yuj, which means to “yoke or to harness.” The English word yoke is actually derived from the Sanskrit, and both connotations of that word apply to the word yoga. It can mean “union,” or “to join together,” and it can also mean “to harness” or “to restrain,” and so by extension it has come to signify spiritual endeavor, especially the disciplining of the mind and the senses. Free of its institutional forms and meanings, the similar meaning of these two words point to the essentially religious purpose of all yoga practice. 

Yoga, as such, is the generic name for the various Indian philosophies and practices (disciplines), the purpose of which is to liberate the practitioner from the existential human situation described as duhkha. This is the experience of discontent, dissatisfaction and unease that we feel in subtle and not so subtle ways. Duhkha is often translated as “suffering,” but it was a word used to describe an axle that was not centered in its wheel. It is this sense of being “uncentered” or “imbalanced” in our way of life that is meant by duhkha. Yoga is what Georg Feurstein calls “the psychospiritual technology specific to the great civilization of India.” 

Now, out of this greater Yoga Tradition emerged what we may call the three major Yogic religious-cultural complexes of India: Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. So, in the give-and-take that is a natural process of history, the teachings of Yoga became suffused with concepts that are shared with these three religious cultures. Yet none of these cultures are “religions” in the way defined in my opening paragraph. That is to say, none of them require adherence to a set creed. Indeed, there are many – even contradictory teachings – that are to be found in any of these three “religions.” Also, none of them are centralized under a totalistic institutional authority.

Perhaps the main sticking point for many practitioners in contemporary non-Indian cultures in accepting Yoga practice are the teachings of karma and reincarnation or rebirth and the many deities that are spoken about. Well, there are Yoga masters throughout history who have rejected these ideas and the notion of deities in Yoga are more akin to the idea of angels or even more abstractly as similar to Jungian archetypes of the collective unconscious. 

Basically, all forms of Yoga agree that we as humans have not even begun to tap our fullest potential. All forms of Yoga assert that we are mistaken in identifying ourselves with our body, thoughts and emotions, and posit that we are something much more – boundless, limitless and unconditionally free. Yoga doesn’t expect us nor want us to just accept this idea on faith, but challenges us to test the hypothesis for ourselves by experimenting through asana, meditation, pranayama and other yogic technologies. In this sense, Yoga is a kind of science, where the practitioner is both laboratory and researcher. Rather than accept anything on faith, we are free to allow our personal experience and realization to shape our understanding. 

For this reason, Yoga can and in fact has been practiced by people with widely varying philosophies and beliefs. One can practice from the perspective of a believer in God who wishes to devote her life to honoring and surrendering to God, or as an atheistic humanist intent on maximizing his fullest human potential of compassion, joy, and peace. Some believe in a personal God, while others believe in a more impersonal Ultimate Reality, and others have no interest in such metaphysical speculation. Yoga is simply and primarily a tool for exploring the depths of human nature, of diving deep into the mysteries of the mind and of the body.

Whether you identify yourself as a religious or spiritual person, as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, an atheist, agnostic or whatever, Yoga can aid all persons in becoming a more peaceful, calm, loving, compassionate, authentic person. The practices of Yoga help to balance the nervous system, support the immune system, strengthen the skeletal and muscular system and help calm the mind. More than that, who can find fault with the yogic recommendations to live a virtuous life dedicating oneself to nonharming, truthfulness, compassion, tolerance, generosity and freedom from greed, anger and ignorance?

Ultimately, through the consistent and dedicated practice of true Yoga – which is essentially meditative – whoever takes up the practice of Yoga will find themselves less conditioned and reactive in their life, and freer and more creative in their response to all their experiences and relationships. And that is the greatest gift of a Yoga practice – liberation from our conditioned patterns of thinking and behavior – freedom!

Naikan: The Cultivation of Gratitude for Everyday Gifts

Grounded in Gratitude

This past weekend, our sangha had their quarterly "Day of Mindfulness," a day-long 'urban retreat' that includes various forms of meditation including asana, deep relaxation, sitting and walking. Additionally, we often center our Days of Mindfulness around particular "themes" like "Touching the Earth" and this past weekend: "72 Labors: Cultivating Gratitude and Appreciation for the Everyday Gifts We Receive."

So I thought I'd share the core practice for this, coming from the contemporary Pure Land Buddhist tradition by sharing this article I wrote for Yoga Journal several years ago.

Thanks!

Count your blessings and you'll find that even an uneventful or "bad" day is filled with precious gifts.

By Frank Jude Boccio

At the grocery store, a friend was bowled over by the simplest act of kindness: A stranger let her step ahead of him in the checkout line. It was such a little thing, and yet it swelled her heart with happiness. What she experienced, she ultimately realized, was more than just gratitude for a chance to check out faster —it was an affirmation of her connection to a stranger and, therefore, to all beings.

On the surface, gratitude appears to arise from a sense that you're indebted to another person for taking care of you in some way, but looking deeper, you'll see that the feeling is actually a heightened awareness of your connection to everything else. Gratitude flows when you break out of the small, self-centered point of view —with its ferocious expectations and demands —and appreciate that through the labors and intentions and even the simple existence of an inconceivably large number of people, weather patterns, chemical reactions, and the like, you have been given the miracle of your life, with all the goodness in it today.

It is easy, as Roger L'Estrange, the 17th-century author and pamphleteer, said, to "mistake the gratuitous blessings of heaven for the fruits of our own industry." The truth is, you are supported in countless ways through each moment of your life. You awaken on schedule when your alarm clock beeps &,dash; thanks to the engineers, designers, assembly workers, salespeople, and others who brought you the clock; by the power-company workers who manage your electricity supply; and many others. Your morning yoga practice is the gift of generations of yogis who observed the truth and shared what they knew; of your local teacher and of her teacher; of the authors of books or videos you use to practice; of your body (for which you could thank your parents, the food that helps you maintain your good health, doctors, healers, and the "you" who cares for that body every day) — the list goes on.

When you awaken to the truth of this incredible interconnectedness, you are spontaneously filled with joy and appreciation. It is for this reason that one of the most transformative practices you can engage in is the cultivation of gratitude. Patanjali wrote that santosha (contentment, or appreciation for what you have) leads to unexcelled joy, while other yogic texts say that this sense of appreciation is the "supreme joy" that naturally leads to the realization of the Absolute. Thankfully, gratitude can be cultivated. It simply takes practice.

Love the Gifts You Get

If you're like most people, you notice what goes wrong more often than what goes right. Human beings seem hard-wired to notice how reality fails to meet some idea of how they think things should be. How many times a day do you sink into disappointment, frustration, or sadness because others haven't met your expectations? If you limit your attention to how life lets you down, you blind yourself to the myriad gifts you receive all the time.

You may, for example, have ideas about the "ideal" holiday visit with your family: where it will take place, who will be there, how everyone will act, what you'll eat, what kinds of presents you'll exchange. But the visit surely won't match that ideal. And that's when you're likely to act like a child who has his heart set upon a certain toy for Christmas: As he unwraps one present after another, not finding that one toy, he grows ever more upset and disappointed. Utterly dejected, the presents he has received lie unattended.

You can end this frustrating situation by mindfully shifting your attention. Begin by paying attention to the reality of what is rather than the desires you cling to. For the fact of the matter is, regardless of how dissimilar your holiday gathering (or any other moment in life) might be from what you had imagined, there is much to be grateful for.

Consider the effort it took for your family members to get together; the vehicles that brought you all to the same spot —and all the people who constructed and helped maintain them; the house where you've gathered; the trees whose limbs burn in the fireplace. Your food, whether vegetable or animal, was once a living thing and is now providing you with nourishment. And that food did not just magically appear. Before it was cooked, it required the energy of the sun, the minerals of the earth, the rain, the work of farmers, processors, truckers, and retailers —plus the cooks in your family —to bring it to your table.

It is, as the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, the gift of the whole universe. When you stop and really look, you see that you are supported continuously in literally countless ways. This is the highest wisdom of yoga, the truth of interbeing, of no separation.

To begin to pay attention to how fully and completely you are supported, you have to break out of your constricted cage of Self. Once you have a more balanced view of reality, you are less preoccupied with what's not meeting your expectations, and more present to what is given. You grow more appreciative of what you have, and seeing how dependent you are on others, you grow in generosity, wishing in some small way to repay at least a part of your debt.

Thanks, Mom!

To begin cultivating gratitude, it helps to be aware of some of the most pernicious obstacles to doing so; often it is these very roadblocks that provide the opportunities for practice. One of the most obvious obstacles is the failure to notice what you have —a roof over your head, a family with which to share the holidays. As Joni Mitchell sang, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." So, the first thing you need to do is to start paying attention to what you have!

And here's where expectations can prove to be an obstacle. You expect your alarm clock and your car to work, your loved ones to be there for you. Once you come to expect something, you tend not to pay it attention. You take it for granted. Use your expectations as reminders to cultivate gratitude.

Another big obstacle, and therefore another opportunity to cultivate gratitude, is the trap of feeling entitled. Gratitude may not spontaneously arise when the garbage man takes away your trash, since he's "just doing his job." But the fact is, regardless of his motivation, you are benefiting from his efforts and can meet them with an expression of gratitude.

One formal practice for cultivating gratitude, developed in Japan by a practitioner of Pure Land Buddhism, is known as Naikan, which means "looking inside." It's a structured method of self-reflection that encourages an objective survey of yourself and your relationship to the world.

At its most profound, Naikan is practiced on retreat with trained counselors. From dawn until night, every day for a week, you sit and reflect on your mother —what you received from her, what you gave to her, and what troubles you caused her. You generally spend about two hours reflecting on your life from birth to age six, and then for each three-year period after that, meeting with a counselor after each session, until your whole life has been examined in relation to your mother. You then move on to your father, siblings, lovers, friends, and others. In such a situation, you are free to honestly look at how you have lived your life.

Naikan can also be done as a daily practice. The rewards will become immediately evident in the blossoming of a natural, deeply felt sense of gratitude and appreciation for your life and for all the gifts you receive daily —gifts that you realize were always there but that went unnoticed and therefore unappreciated.

The practice of Naikan can lead you to the realization that you are rich indeed, and that you are not only not alone but are truly supported by the universe! You may even come to see the truth in the exhortation of the 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart: "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'thank you,' that would suffice."

Just Say Thanks

Set aside 30 minutes, preferably at the end of the day, to try this Naikan practice.

Sitting comfortably, with eyes closed, take a few moments to bring attention to your breath, mantra, or any other technique that you normally use to center yourself. When you feel settled, ask yourself this series of questions:

What have I received today?

Be specific and reflect on as many things as you can recall. It can be something as simple as your partner's smile, the sound of a bird singing at dawn, the driver who let you merge into the crowded freeway. Remember, the motivation or attitude of those who gave you something is not the issue. Maybe you were offered lunch because you showed up at lunchtime, not because your friend made a personal effort to make you lunch. The fact is, you were fed, and you can feel gratitude for that. The mere fact that you benefited from someone's actions is all that is needed to cultivate gratitude.

Notice which of these things you did not appreciate as they happened. Can you recall what was taking your attention when one of these acts of grace occurred? Were you stuck in problem-solving mode, thinking of your to-do list, or making judgments?

We often live as if the world owes us. As you reflect on what you have been given today, you will likely see that, if anything, you owe the world an insurmountable debt. This insight is more than merely humbling; you may find yourself feeling a deeper sense of gratitude and a natural desire to be generous in serving others.

What have I given today?

Go through the day's events in the same way, but this time notice what you have given to others. Be as specific and concrete as possible. As above, your motivation is irrelevant. What did you actually do? It may have been as simple as feeding your cats, washing the breakfast dishes, or sending a friend a birthday card. You may find that without great fanfare you contribute to the well-being of many people and animals —you make a positive difference to the planet.

What difficulties and troubles did I cause today?

Again, be specific. Don't overlook the seemingly insignificant. Your list may include things like "I backed up traffic while looking for a place to park" or "I chased the cats off the lounge chair so I could sit there." This question is often the hardest, but its importance cannot be overstated. It may bring up feelings of remorse, but its primary purpose is to provide a more realistic view of your life.

In general, we are all too aware of how others cause us inconvenience or difficulty, but rarely do we notice when we are the source of inconvenience. And if we do, we usually brush it aside as an accident, not that big a deal, or simply something we didn't mean to do. We cut ourselves a huge length of slack! But seeing how you cause others difficulty can deflate your ego while reminding you again of the grace by which you live.

These questions provide the framework for reflecting on all your relationships, including those with family, friends, co-workers, partners, pets, and even objects. You can reflect on the events of one day, a specific person over the course of your relationship, or a holiday visit with family.

Remember, what makes this a meditative practice is that you are not analyzing your motivations or intentions; you are not interpreting or judging. You are simply shifting your attention from self-centered thinking to seeing things as they are, and as all yoga traditions point out, in seeing, there is wisdom and liberation.