First practice without a shirt this morning and the clocks go forward ( or is it back) this weekend. With the warmer weather here at last and feeling a little blogged out I figure I'll take a break from the blogosphere for the summer and.... I don't know, practice some yoga.
Pictures are of the state of play of some postures I'd started working on before it got too cold, thought I'd do a before and after summer practice thing and see how they come along. Mostly though I want to work on my Pranayama my Meditation and read some Heidegger. Oh and chant the Gita maybe
*And try to figure out why I continue to do this insular practice in a world of suffering.
TRY THIS: Going through your whole practice with your focus on the a spot between your upper lip and where the air enters your nostril's. This doesn't have to affect your drishti practice, gaze where you want but keep your attention on the breath as it crosses this spot.
Practice will probably be pretty much as in the previous post, Ashtanga Primary, Intermediate and Advanced Series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday then Vinyasa krama the rest of the week.
I still have to finish a review of an Iyengar DVD ( twenty hours left to go) Yoga Journal ( see previous post) and will continue to post Ramaswami's newsletters each month as well as the odd tweet over on the left of the blog.
Have a wonderful Spring/Summer
See you in the fall.
* Actually am a little... distracted by this, the Buddhists have a practiced response but the Yogi's?
Hmmmm, perhaps Karma yoga ( yoga of action, can be interpreted/applied as service to others). Our hatha practice is supposed to reduce Rajas allowing us perhaps to be selfless in our service to/support of others, without seeking gratitude or appreciation. Links the internal with the external nicely.
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19 comments:
Have a great summer Grimmly, thanks for keeping up the great blog for so long, i've really enjoyed reading the last year/2 years, you deserve a break, as my teacher says to create some space, thanks a mil, Niall.
Enjoy your break, go deep, and report back. We'll be waiting.
Hope you catch a big one! Not sure what that means exactly in this case, but I'm sure you will when you do.
Enjoy the practice!
Dear Grimmly
Enjoy the break and practice.
Cheers
Arturo
Thanks guys.
kiss
See you when you're back!
Totally understand, but I must say I shall miss your posts. I think it was because of you that I got interesting in this yoga blog thing, the fact that you have a background in philosophy without the bullshit, feet on the ground. Your insights always provide an angle, food for thought. How about the occasional thought on Heideggero or the Gita? Also am curious, what is the buddhist response to suffering. Have a special class tonight, where I think I am expected to offer positve words and encouragement to the nervous, stressed, grieving people....what to say, what to say, for me solace is found in the gita, but not of such a practical nature...well, enjoy the blog holiday. お疲れ様
Think that's the most brief yet sweetest comment I've ever received here Bindi, thank you and boodie and エスタ too.
I've actually thought about a blog on Heidegger and Yoga, would like to write on it sometime when it's clearer in my own head. Never really wanted to blog philosophy, this one was always meant to a be simple, light, practice blog, a picture and/or video a few lines, job done. Been running off at the keyboard lately and not sure how I feel about that. But thank you エスタ
I don't know, there is a buddhist response isn't there although I'm not really up on it and resorting to Karma feels insulting. But we have meta ( loving kindness and tonglen practice (from the tibetan buddhist tradition) and of course the tradition of service to the Sangha as well as outside community, which of course these days is a world community (these days?). But for yogi's? I don't know, perhaps it's similar to the Buddhist response, there is that influence in Patanjali, no? This is one of the things I want to explore over the next couple of months.
Perhaps it doesn't matter, a sincere human response is probably enough to be going on with, good old fashion empathy, care and support and looking at the world reaction you don't need to be a yogi for that.
Our practice, the hatha aspect, asana and pranyama seem to help calm the mind and emotion both of which go haywire at times like this which isn't perhaps helpful. And of course finding peace, if only for 90 minutes is a boon in itself. I don't know, just thinking out loud here but perhaps calmer, mentally/emotionally and a little restored in ourselves enables us to be a little more supportive...
From Majorca (Spain) I will miss your posts.
Enjoy your way (Dao).
But, may be this blog would be your karma yoga?
I don't know how anyone takes breaks from blogging! I think my head would explode if I tried!
Thanks Jmitch, a blog as karma yoga, interesting thought. The sister blog perhaps and this one sometimes I hope.
Thanks Boodie, curious thing is that as soon as you decide to quit for a bit ten post ideas pop into your head.
I never do coherent, organized posts lime many. I'm just stream of consciousness & so could post 10x a day! I've tried to give it up before. The longest I ever lasted was two weeks, but that was like 5 years ago.
"like" many
Your karma yoga but also could be your dharma.
Your practice has been a great inspiration (and motivation) for me.
Somewhere in the Bhagavad Gita says:
"Is better to follow badly your own dharma, than follow the dharma of another one"
I love the translation of my fellow-countryman Juan Mascaró. (penguin books)
Thanks jmitch, you've done it again. Your last comment in karma got me thinking, did you see i added a couple of lines at the end of the post. I like this too, blogging about the practice as Dharma however poorly done. i feel a little guilty though, often get mail telling me that reading mine and others blogs in the morning helps motivate them to get on the mat. I often do the same.
Might end up only taking a month or two off rather than the whole summer.
Just ordered your countryman's version of the Gita, I like the layout, different than mine. I've started working on chanting it so split up into verses like that is useful
Juan Mascaro was a very interesting man. He traslated The Gita, The Dhammapada and some Upanishads from Sanscrit or Pali into English, but thos was not his mother tongue. (all in Penguin) He had interviews at the BBC television with The Beatles or letters with Tagore, George Harrison and many others.
He was very poetic, for instance he traslates "yoga" as "silence" witch, for me, is the more concise traslation of "Yoga citta vritti nirodhah" Isn'it?
Is a world to explore!
Light, Love and Live!
Jmitch, Ramaswami posted this yesterday on facebook
'The initial goal of a Yoga is to transform one's mind (chitta) into a predominantly Satwic state (buddhi satwa). The ultimate goal of a Yoga would be to make the mind (chitta) transcend all the three gunas, called nirodha avasta (state of peaceful stillness) or saamya avasta ( state of absolute equilibrium of the three gunas).'
There's that stillness.
I'm guessing this might be a taster of his upcoming newsletter which usually comes out 1st of the month, I'll be posting it here.
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