M. was practicing with me yesterday, she was in her fifth Sury down dog and suddenly burst out laughing, I was still in samastithi and she said my practice was like "
watching paint dry".
I just mentioned the above to a friend, expecting her support but all she had to say was.....
"LOL, ya, reminds me of that clip of you and Oscar, I was just mainly watching Oscar...... you're like part of the wall/furniture".
This was a Video following my first
workshop in Leon, my friend Oscar , he's practicing a speedy Vinyasa Krama, my slightly more sedate Krishnamacharya Primary on the right ( I wish we had asked one of Oscar's Ashtanga students to practice along side us), kicks off a bit six minutes in but don't know anybody who's watched it that long.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) there was a problem with the camera and we only have this twenty minutes of the practice from the middle, would love to do a complete Half Krishnamacharya Primary video someday.
"...You're like part of the wall/furniture".Nicest thing anyone has ever said about my practice.
I remember Richard Freeman saying on his intensive workshop that I attended in London a few years back, that his dream was to have the slowest Primary series ever, I challenge you to a
practice off Richard..... I have this image of us both in old style tracksuits waving our arms up and down doing callisthenics, pacing back and forth, jumping up and down then taking off the tracksuits and standing in samastithi for half an hour, looking at each other out the corner of our eye.
Or maybe something like the opening of the Philosopher's football match (
shameless link to the Woman's World cup on at the moment).
Perhaps Chuck Miller is up for it too, I heard he taught a week workshop/intensive and the first three days were on samstithi, my kind of guy, looking forward to him coming to Osaka this Autumn.
I regret the Banksy, it might be boring to watch but this approach to practice doesn't feel in the least bit dull, looking at the video above I'm wondering what my rush was.
In my sitting recently I've been giving my practice a
Chan meditation tweak referred to as
Silent Illumination intended as another name for shamata - vipashyana. I'm finding it a remarkable practice. It's related to the Japanese zen practice of Shikantaza that Dogen focussed on with his Soto sect of Zen.
Zen is 'Chan' in Chinese and supposedly derives from the Sanskrit Dhyana
Master Sheng Yen explains the meaning of the term in this way:
This “just sitting” in Chinese is zhiguan dazuo. Literally, this means “just mind sitting.” Some of you are familiar with the Japanese transliteration, shikantaza. It has the flavour of “Just mind your own business.” What business? The business of minding yourself just sitting. At least, you should be clear that you're sitting. “Mind yourself just sitting” entails knowing that your body is sitting there. This does not mean minding a particular part of your body or getting involved in a particular sensation. Instead, your whole body, your whole being is sitting thereNotice the
"This does not mean minding a particular part of your body or getting involved in a particular sensation. Instead, your whole body, your whole being is sitting there".We often have that tendency to get wrapped up in the mechanics of practice, nothing wrong with that occasionally but maybe not all the time, do the exploration in a second evening 'workshop' approach to practice perhaps or just pick one or two asana each practice session to focus on, the rest of the time just practice.
I've tended to focus on the breath in my practice, slowing and refining it but following this approach I've started to allow it to take care of itself a little more and taken the '
just minding yourself sitting' approach into my asana practice, '
just mind yourself standing' in Samastithi, just
mind yourself in kapotasana or paschimottanasana or janu sirsasana......
See the extended section in bold from this retreat talk found in the excellent
Method of no Method by Chan master Sheng Yen
Extract :Sillent Illumination practice extract from method of no methodEvening Talk: Approach to Silent Illumination
SILENT ILLUMINATION is another name for shamata - vipashyana, the meditative practice of stilling the mind and developing insight into its true nature. This practice originated in Indian Buddhism as early as the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. Traditionally, shamata¬vipashyana was practiced sequentially. A practitioner progressed from shamata (stilling the mind) to vipashyana (insight, or illumination). The first stage was to practice shamata to achieve sarnadhi and then to practice vipashyana to achieve levels of insight. By contrast, in Chan Buddhism, which emphasizes the sudden approach to real¬ization, shamata and vipashyana are practiced simultaneously.
RELAXING MIND AND BODY
To enter the practice you need to do just two things: relax your body and relax your mind. First, make sure that all parts of your body are completely relaxed and at ease. Next, relax your attitude and your mood; make sure that your mental attitude, the tone of your approach, and your mood are also at ease. This relaxation is the foundation for success in practicing Silent Illumination. Now I would like all of you to try to relax your body and mind. I will guide you as we relax parts of our body together.
Begin with a comfortable sitting posture. Let's start with your head. Please make sure that each part of this region is relaxed. Relax your face; now relax your eyes. Are they relaxed? Proceed downward to relax your cheeks, down to your neck and your shoulders. Are they relaxed? Continue down your arms and then the hands. Make sure that they are relaxed. Follow with the chest, and now the back, which should be upright yet relaxed. Please make sure that the muscles of your abdomen are relaxed; this is very important.
Once these exercises are completed, there should be three points making contact with your cushion and mat- your buttocks and your two knees. Only these three points should feel your weight and ground you to the floor as your whole body relaxes from head to toe. The rest of your body should also be completely relaxed.
After doing these exercises, if you still feel that you are not sufficiently relaxed, please do it again by yourself. From the top, relax part by part, all the way down to your feet. Mentally sweep down your body, part by part, and relax each region; do this as often as you need in order to feel relaxed.
ENTERING THE PRACTICE OF SILENT ILLUMINATION
Once you have relaxed your body, notice that your bodily weight has settled downward. Proceed to simply being aware of yourself sitting there and put your total awareness on your body sitting there. If you are relaxed and you have focused your awareness on yourself just sitting there, you have already entered the practice of Silent Illumination! However, this is just the beginning.
If you cannot relax your eyes by maintaining them slightly open, you may close them. If you keep your eyes open, do not look at anything; just keep them slightly open, gazing down at about a 45-degree angle. If your eyes are tense, your head region will become tense; if your eyes are relaxed, you will find that your head region is also relaxed.
If you have wandering or discursive thoughts, you may open your eyes slightly. If you find yourself becoming drowsy, it is a sign that you are not relaxed. If you are completely relaxed and are aware of your body just sitting there, then you won't be drowsy. Drowsiness results when you are not using your method properly, either not being relaxed or not putting your mind on just sitting. It may be you have already given up on your method. Or you may be sitting but not practicing, just resting. This form of resting while sitting may lead to laziness and idleness.
JUST SITTING
If you are clear that you are relaxed or prompting yourself to relax, that itself is a method. This process will expand into becoming clear and aware that you are just sitting there. This is not merely check¬ing the parts of your body; it is also awareness through sensing the presence of your body sitting there. This is the meaning of "just sit¬ting." In just sitting, you keep your awareness on the total sensation of your body sitting there. Stay with the totality of that awareness; do not become caught up in any particulars. Being aware of the particulars of the body is practicing mindfulness, but we are not practicing mindfulness; we are practicing Silent Illumination. Remember also that you are not practicing mindfulness of breath. Breath is certainly a sensation, but it is merely a part of your total body sensation. You are practicing being aware of the whole body just sitting there with all its different sensations as a totality. Do not become caught up in these various sensations. Just maintain the totality of the sensations of your body just sitting. It is impossible to be aware of every part of the body sitting there. Just be aware of those parts that impinge on your senses. You do not need to be aware of the parts of the body that you cannot sense, such as internal organs. Just take the parts of the body as a whole. The key is to constantly maintain this knowing and awareness of the totality of your body.
For the first two days of the retreat, it will be natural if most of your bodily awareness is discomfort, but do not add any thoughts, feelings, or attitudes on top of that. There may be particular parts of the body experiencing pain or even pleasure, but do not localize or focus on those parts. Keep them in the context of the whole body sitting there. Just acknowledge that there is pain or comfort at this moment, and maintain a simple knowing and recognition of that in your total-body sensation. Tension in certain areas of the body can cause the whole body to become unsettled or agitated. If this happens, please return to the relaxation method. Just mentally sweep your body part by part until you are relaxed, at ease, and stable. When you have done this,EXTENDING PRACTICE TO LIFE HABITS
You can also integrate these principles into all your activities. Just as when you sit in meditation you just sit, when you sleep, be aware of the totality of your whole being going to sleep. When walking, you just walk. When you eat, you are right there just eating. Plunge your whole life into what you are doing at that very moment and live that way. So we train ourselves to engage our whole being in what we are doing. Whether sitting or eating, you are not engaged in discursive, wandering, or deluded thoughts. All of you-environment, body, and mind-is right there. Whatever you do, whatever the task at hand, your whole life is there at that moment.
Some people may interpret plunging your whole being into the practice or into the task at hand as a very tense approach. This is incorrect. By putting your whole being into whatever you are doing, you are also being relieved from doing anything else at that mo¬ment. Therefore, when you are doing that one thing, that is all you have to care about, and you can do it in a very relaxed manner and attitude. In this light, you will better understand the meaning of engaging your whole being in the present task.
This is the relaxed and reposed attitude to practice.
Ashtanga Parampara.a couple of new interviews on Lu's Ashtanga Parampara platform
I've mentioned in the past how I tend to cut myAshtanga series in two, sometimes even in three so as to give myself time to practice more slowly and include pranayama and a sit. Ramaswami quoting Krishnamacharya says that pranayama should be twice as long as out asana practice and our meditation practice twice as long as our pranayama.
Mark Robberds mentions he tends to do the same, splitting a series into two or three especially when traveling for workshops or when the surf's up.
"What is your practice now, Mark? Would you please describe your practice week. Why do you think students need to continue learning additional asanas? What is the purpose of advanced postures?"Mark: "Today my practice was Primary and tomorrow it will be too. I fit my practice into whatever is happening in my life. I travel so much and when I’m teaching workshops it can be up to seven hours a day. During my last trip to Mysore in January and February of this year I was doing all of Advanced A and the first twenty postures of Advanced B. It was really intense. But it’s not something that I can, or even want to maintain while I’m teaching and traveling, and often I’m also surfing everyday, and so it’s just too much for me to fit it all in.
I’ve been experimenting over the last few years with the best way to make my practice really work for my life. Nowadays, my practice is something like this; I sit for about 10-15 minutes (I guess you’d call that a mindfulness, or a meditation practice), then I do 5-10 minutes of pranayama (simple rhythms like nadi shodhana or samavritti), then I’ll do a few of what I call the “everyday essentials” - hip and shoulder openers. Then I’ll go through the series that I’m working on for the day. If I have time then I do the whole series - one day 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th and back to Primary. But, often I don’t have enough time, so what I like to do now is divide each series. So I might do half Primary one day and the second half the next. Then half Intermediate the next day and the next half the day after and so on. Sometimes I’ll even divide it into thirds. So then it can take me two weeks to rotate my way through my entire four series of practice. This really works well for me. But this is fluid...not at all a hard and fast rule - and I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone because every individual has to find their own way....."
http://www.ashtangaparampara.org/mark-robberds.htmlI particularly enjoyed the previous interview with
Paul Gold"What are a few key points that you know now, as a long term practitioner, compared to after 2-3 years of practice?""One of the key points, having practiced for close to twenty years, is that I’ve had the opportunity to directly experience a lot of things on my mat. When I was just starting practice or, even after 2-3 years, I had to rely on the experience of others to answer many of my questions and to address my concerns.
There’s a level of confidence that develops after many years. I like to call it “seasoning”. It is the result of practicing day after day, month after month, year after year. It cannot be faked, reached by any shortcut or purchased at any teacher training, intensive or immersion.
Now when I experience difficulties on my mat, I can draw on past experience to help me whether it’s pain, injury (luckily, I’ve only very few in all this time), the challenge of figuring out a new asana, or managing the fatigue and boredom that can periodically arise from continuous practice over a long time. The honeymoon phase of practice doesn't last for too long. So, my past experience saves me a lot of mental and emotional energy.
When I was a less experienced practitioner, I worried a lot about the sensations I was feeling. I had no idea whether the intensity was normal or ok. It was a pretty big preoccupation. I was really afraid that I was going to screw up my knees. Now, I am much more comfortable with the sensations I experience. I don't worry when I feel more intense sensations.
As another example, when I was a new practitioner, there were many asanas that I was convinced I would never be able to do. Binding in marichyasana d is a perfect case in point. For me, when it finally happened, I experienced something that had once been impossible become possible and then even comfortable. It blew my mind. Since that time, whenever I have difficulty in another asana, I draw on the experience of all the asanas that I can now do that once seemed impossible. It's a long list that includes kapotasna, karandavasna, eka pada bakasana a, viranchyasana b and viparitta shalabasana.
Where fatigue and boredom are concerned, there have been times on a Friday after practice that the thought of getting back on my mat Sunday morning made me want to scream. Now, in the past, I've skipped practice to sleep in or to go eat brunch. On the days that I skipped, however, I almost always regretted it because practice held the possibility of breakthroughs and self-discovery. There was an element of adventure with practice. I didn't know what would happen when I got on my mat whereas I knew exactly what sleeping in or eating brunch was all about. When I didn't practice, there would be no breakthroughs, no self-discovery and no blowing my mind. When I thought I was too tired or sore to practice, I would take a hot shower, get on my mat and tell myself to just breathe and do what I could with no pressure to perform. So many times I surprised myself by what I was able to do. Over time, with seasoning, I was able to internalize that practicing made me feel way better than not practicing which gave me the motivation to get on my mat.
If I had any advice to give to people just starting practice or who’ve been practicing a short time, it’d be the following:
1. Focus on your own practice, don't be concerned about what others are doing and measure your progress from where you’ve started not from some preconceived idea of where you feel you ought to be.
2. Stay aware of how yoga practice is affecting other areas of your life off the mat such as your sleep, temperament, digestion, and courage. There are so many ways that practice benefits us if we pay attention.
3. Find a reason to practice and to keep getting on your mat (see item 2 above) that is outside of progress in yoga asanas. This will enable you to persevere when things get tough and/or frustrating".
