So what do we mean by Daily Life Practice? Well when we do our meditation in our regular schedule and we experience the benefits of these regular sessions, we may ask ourselves how to continue growing and developing in this way when we are in everyday situations that challenge our composure and good vibes. We may spend many hours in calmness and very happy with our achievement and ability to do this. Of course this is a good place to be in and I’d life runs smoothly then our peace can be maintained quite happily. But is this the way our life is and also it may be good to ask ourselves is meditation just about being calm and peaceful. I think if you ponder on this you may feel that becoming peaceful is only a part of the benefits but not the totality of it. We remain calm and peaceful when the root causes that can trigger our restlessness are eradicated from our consciousness. Ok, if we are not thinking of a particular situation that has previously upset us, then for the moment we can be peaceful. What happens though when something happens in our life, maybe just a thought or an encounter with someone who we take a particular dislike to, then our peace can be disturbed and so here we go again back on the treadmill of frustration and disturbance. All our composure can be lost just like that in an instant.
We could say that our meditation is quieting, our meditation is purifying, our meditation is revealing and it can be all of these and much more. And if we use of medittion sessions as a firm of contemplation then what do we do with the insights that can be revealed to us at these times? If for instance a particular point of view is clarified, if a solution occurs to us in relation to a particular problem, in other if some insight arises during our meditation, Fi we take notice and act on it or do we simply notice it but carry on with our ‘wrong attitude or understanding’ as before? Daily life practice is the ability to live our truth even though it may involve some unvomfortableness in order to effect this. If we do not live our life in this way then conflicting minds are present within us and we become ever more disjointed and alienated from our intuition and sence of following the Heart.
If we experience these conflicting minds then we need to look and measur whether our daily life reflects our meditative experience. In other words we need to ‘walk the talk’.
Category Archives: Yoga Articles
All about yoga
Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga is becoming more and more popular with each coming year. Is this a new yoga or similar in any way to traditional Hatha Yoga. Something new and different has the elements of attracting new interest but are new methods really new or just rediscoveries of tried an tested systems from ages past? Well I particularly like Yin Yoga and for the following reason, that it concentrates on allowing the body to find it’s own natural range of movement without the extra emphasis on reaching that little bit further that can take one into the realm of strain. This is very important because what I have found is that although it may feel and look more pleasing to the eye to exhibit a ‘flat back’ say in Paschimottanasana, forward bend, does it have to be that way. In fact when we go forward in this pose if we do so with a flat back then we target the lower back muscles which may strain if we push too hard. But if we go forward in a more yielding way and with a more rounded back then the whole of the back comes into play and as we experience the pose becoming more free, we can then lengthen into a more ‘flat back’ position which by then becomes more a movement involving the whole body and a safer method of practice. In fact older pictures of yogis doing this posture do in fact exhibit a more rounded back whilst showing these postures.In fact if we take on a softer approach to our practice than we may find that the way we naturally tend to move into postures can often be safer than learned and drilled ways of practice. What I’m saying is that as yoga has moved and fashioned itself into the modern era, the shape of the postures has also taken on a new appearance. Yin yoga in many ways allows this ‘See how it feels for you’ sense to be active within us and a less rigid approach to our yoga.Yoga Guru in Cork City, Ireland 4th – 6th November 2011
What a journey from Manchester to Cork via car, train, boat, coach and foot. Now if your not serious about having to be somewhere, to do a job then forget this line of travel. But me, I am serious and it’s just another away day in the life of………..Out group was 11 people, 2 of them male including myself. I explained the idea behind yogAsana to the group and we worked for 2 hours through the more passive aspects of the practice that lead to a beautiful stillness as a preliminary to a short meditation on the breath.
If someone is not used to staying in postures with relaxation for any length of time, then it can seem a little daunting. But this is very good training for learning to sit still in a formal meditation session. Things happen. We feel sensations, hear sounds and intruding thoughts arise and we wish all this would cease, and we wish none of these things were happening, and it would be so nice to just sit in stillness and peace if even just for a little while. Well our ears are open, our sense of touch is still there and our mind is still present so why should these functions automatically cease just because we have decided to sit for a meditation session. If we can turn this around and remain focused on our chosen object of concentration, then there is really nothing to get annoyed or upset about. It’s because we think that we must have these conditions present and when we notice that things are not quite like we would like, we feel agitated and restless during out meditation period. So how do we deal with these distractions during our practice? Well, I can ask you, “How do you deal with those same distractions when holding a posture in stillness for say 3 -5 minutes in a yogAsana class?” And my answer is to handle the distractions in a very similar way. They are not the object of your practice but only become so when we give then that power to take over our concentration. Just ignore the distractions and keep your mind on the stillness. It’s this continual coming back to the stillness that eventually trains the mind to stay at ease even tin the heat of heavy distractions.
It’s a matter of doing it again and again and again. Does that seem repetitive and where have we come across this same idea before? We need to habituate the mind to the task at hand, and this can only come about with repeated application. That’s the punch line.
So what about Yoga Guru in Cork, Ireland? This weekend is an opportunity to habituate the body and mind in a particular direction for a sustained period of time. If you can find the time, then it’s this kind of input that can propel us from our everyday level of understanding to that of insight, to that of another way at looking at our relative reality and drawing us ever closer to an awareness of how things really are as opposed to the way things appear to be. Never ever stop………………….
Why meditate?
This is very often a question I’m asked and often people who have been practicing yoga for many years do not really understand the potentiality and real purpose of meditation. Well meditation can mean very different things to different people because the very fact that we consider or ponder a course of action is still meditation. But in the yogic sense it means to turn the mind towards those things that lead to liberation or freedom rather than those things that lead to greater entanglement, miss-understanding and eventually lead us to sorrow. So when we look at it in this light then we can see that to turn our attention towards those things that liberate the mind, we need to know what those things are. Those topics are usually the backbone of any traditional religion and can be grouped into 3 categories of :
1. Wisdom
2. Morality
3. Concentration
This may seem very formal but if we break it all down it makes sense because without these 3 categories, which again can be sub-divided into more headings then we start to uncover a way of behaviour that can guide us along in a specific direction. This then is what we call a path and hopefully the path we follow will lead us away from miss-understanding and towards a correct view of the way things really are.
In other words meditation is a science of the Mind. That is what meditation is. But not a cold interpretation of what Mind maybe but a true experience of what the Mind truly is. If we continually identity with those things or mental imaginings that are not truly ourselves then we will be continually disappointed and seek solace from outside ourselves in different ways. When true solace and refuge lie within our own hearts. We just have to realise it.
So why meditate? Because if we don’t consider and ponder our point of view, our way of acting and understanding the world and ourselves then how can we truly know fact from fiction and are we really satisfied with someone else’s understanding of how life is? We need to become a rock and to be a rock we need the foundation of understanding that comes from our own experience and knowledge tried and tested in the furnace of everyday living. And that’s why we meditate.
How to develop a daily practice
Now that’s something to think about. We all come across this statement and if we are to progress in our yoga practice it really is the only way to come on with any real purpose. If we have the interest in progressing our yoga then we really have to look at HOW TO DEVELOP A DAILY PRACTICE. With anything in life there’s no difference. Remember we become more skillful at anything we undertake if we do it regularly. Remember in the previous article S.E.N.C.L where C stands for CONSISTENCY. Well consistency is another way of spelling Daily Practice. Maybe we have a couple of hours a day for this, which is ideal. But many people have lifestyles that are very varied with other activities and not to forget, making a living, that this ideal 2 hours may be down to 20 of 40 minutes. But it’s good to sit down and access how much time we can devote to developing our yoga practice and having come to some conclusion of this then design a program that makes good use of your allotted time slot. I personally prefer first thing in the morning just after I’ve gotten out of bed and after the cleansing necessities like brushing my teeth etc……..
Try to do postures that flex the body in the 5 directions forwards, sideways, backwards, twisting and inversion. There are a host of postures to select from and I will make some charts for future reference if you need some guidance with this. It really is up to you how you structure your practice but choose postures you enjoy so in that way you’ll look forward to your daily routine. Also remember that it is important to begin your practice in a gentle way and allow the momentum to build as you warm up to the task.
So good luck with your daily Sadhana and I’ll catch up with you again soon.
How to become more flexible
Trying to increase our flexibility is one of the reasons why people come along to my yoga classes and want to join with the many people who take up the practice of yoga. There are many ways to do this and one of those ways is by learning these five principles employed through yoga practice. These are: S.E.N.C.R.
1. Stillness
2. Endurance
3. None-Strain
4. Consistency
5. Relaxation
Well this all sounds well and good but how does this work and how can we put these principles into practice for ourselves? To explain more fully I would like to take each of these principles in turn.
Stillness
When we take a posture and hold it without moving we allow the muscles of the body to relax and release their tension. This is important as in itself this gives a greater feeling of freedom and prevents the overworking of these muscles as we try to move more deeply into postures. As we maintain this stillness a feeling of well-being is experienced which is pleasurable and encourages us to want to experience more of this.
Endurance
This is the ability to maintain a certain intensity of effort during out practice. But we must understand that this effort develops increasingly with repetition. As we develop and continue to practice regularly out ability to do so increases over time. We do not really need to force this as it comes along with doing something on a frequent basis.
None-Strain
Wee really need to understand this. If we push too strongly then of course we can make great headway quickly but in the course of practicing in this manner we can incur injury which will not only slow down out progress but also may be troublesome during the course of our life.
Consistency
Is the key to overall success in all thing we undertake in life. We may not make fast progress but if our effort is steady and continuous then progress is certain. Even in the face of difficulties we need to show consistency and a steady application to our task. Of course it is good if we can practice on a daily basis but even if we can only manage with a regularity of say three or four times a week, this will surely bear fruit providing we continue and apply ourselves.
Relaxation
And remember behind all of this is our ability to relax and exhibit a softness in our approach. This is very important because even if we practice like we are just fitting it in between other activities out energy will be curtailed and will not flow properly. Anxiety causes constriction of out energy channels and strangles our experience of freedom.
Happy practice and keep on keeping on…….
Hello world!
Welcome to my blog. This is my first post. Now let’s start creating some Good Karma………!