Beyond Asana Blog

Every Spring for several years now, one of the trees in our front yard becomes home to a family of Turtle Doves.
 
Every morning, without fail these days, I watch from the window as the adult birds fly down from the tree to find food for their hatchlings, and then fly back up to deliver it to them. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth they go, so resolutely fulfilling their responsibility as parents to feed and nurture their babies.
 
To me, this is a great lesson about the power of dharma.
 
Dharma is a Sanskrit word that means sacred duty or righteous action. It is the principle that each of us, and everything in nature, has specific and essential roles to play in upholding and cont...

I recently got a message from a new mother asking for advice about doing yoga with her baby and how to make brief and often interrupted practice sessions spiritually meaningful and physically useful.
 
Having been there myself, I have some tips that are specific to her situation. You can read those on the web version of this post if you’re interested. 
 
But there’s a broader response to her question that I think is important and applicable for all practitioners, because as we continue down the road of yoga, there will undoubtedly be times when - for whatever reason - we aren’t able to do our usual practices. 
 
What then? How can you adapt yoga to your current circumstances so that you can sta...

Have you heard about Great Pacific Patch - that enormous “island” of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean?
 
As sad and alarming as it may be, there is also something amazing about it. It is teaming with life. Scientists recently found that there were huge concentrations of organisms living amongst the plastic debris. Some hypothesize that there are as many of these organisms living there as there are pieces of garbage.
 
I thought about this as I walked through our neighborhood a few days ago. For all of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that singularly vibrant time of year when nature is working overtime as the tender green shoots burst forth from trees and plants, the first flowers bloo...

I know Supta Virasana may not be everyone’s idea of a heroic pose, but it is to me. Over the years, practicing it has become like spending time with a dear, old friend - someone I trust enough to be fully vulnerable and open.
 
The process begins the moment my props are set up. Getting into Supta Virasana can’t be rushed. I kneel on the mat to adjust my shins, ankles, and feet, and carefully sit back between my heels.
 
With my pelvis heavy and well-grounded, I lie back gingerly, staying quiet and attentive to place myself well. There’s a lot to consider. I’m mindful to lengthen, not shorten, my lower back; to keep my thighbones down, rather than lift them up and uproot my foundation; to resi...

You climb the mountain to be able to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other.
---Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
 
Isn’t this a wonderful image to describe the vantage point we gain in yoga?
 
We ascend to a more expansive vista within our minds. There, we can observe ourselves and the contours of our lives with the freedom afforded by a broader vision and a healthy bit of detachment. 
 
Meditation isn’t necessarily about quieting your mind; it’s about developing a new relationship with your mind. That’s what the view from the mountaintop is, a perspective that’s bigger than what our minds might tend to tell us. 
 
The first step is becoming self-aware...

Some teachers will tell you that yoga is not a path toward a goal, but that it is simply about being present to what is. 
 
I partially agree with this. Certainly, yoga is a way of being with ourselves, a practice of inner attention, a way of seeing and responding to ‘what is’ with a stance of compassion and unconditional self-acceptance. But it’s not only that. 
 
Yoga is also a process of becoming. It is a path we travel. Yoga sets us on a clear trajectory of inner evolution that leads to greater freedom, deeper purpose, and expanded consciousness in every part of our lives.

Yoga has always had a goal. And that goal is awakening to the fullness of your inner being and, from that experience, ...

Isn’t it fascinating to consider the paradoxical nature of asana as a practice of spiritual well-being? Through the body, in the body, and using the body, we seek something beyond the body.
 
I recently received an email from a new student who wrote:
 
I am looking forward to classes that can remind me what it is all about...
 
Have you ever gotten so caught up in the what of your yoga practice that you lost sight of the why? I sure have. 
 
I remember once demonstrating a deep backbend in front of hundreds of people at an Anusara Yoga workshop. In that captivating atmosphere of being applauded by my peers, there’s no question I was mistaking outer achievement for inner attainment.
 
The thrill of ...

A few days before my Yoga for Turbulent Times workshop last Saturday, a participant sent me an email that read:
 
I am finding it hard to give myself permission to be joyful or happy in these times. My purpose is to radiate positivity and contentment in myself and others. This is challenging, to say the least, in these days of war, unrest, and climate calamity.
 
It reminded me of a recent New Yorker cartoon where a doctor is examining a patient and concludes: “Here’s your problem – it looks like you’re paying attention to what’s going on.”
 
I get it. It can be hard, even guilt inducing, to give yourself permission to be happy when you look around at a world so filled with suffering, destructi...

What’s your idea of happiness? Is it collapsing on the couch with some Netflix-and-chill at the end of a long week? The pleasure of enjoying your favorite morning beverage? The peace you experience after a good meditation? All of the above? None of the above? 

Happiness is a tricky concept because it is so subjective and it is often used as a general, overarching term to describe a whole range of pleasurable feelings we might experience. 

The yoga tradition describes three different types of happiness. These three types are based on the gunas, the three primal qualities of matter that constitute the material world.

Tamas is the principle of inertia and heaviness. Tamasic happiness i...

In indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our Being – mind, body, emotion, and Spirit.

—Greg Cajete, as quoted in Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
 
The indigenous view on the holistic nature of knowledge very much resonates with the yogic notion of knowledge. 

Jnana, the Sanskrit word for knowledge, isn’t only about understanding something intellectually, it’s about knowing it through your own direct experience. Therefore, it involves more than just the mind. Knowledge in yoga is a cognitive experience that involves your whole being - body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

In the yoga tradition, there are many models of th...