Via Tricycle: Five Yoga Practices for Surviving Inauguration Day

As a yoga teacher I often see an influx of students around the New Year. Many students are honoring fresh resolutions and commitments to return to the body, hoping to heal, nourish, or strengthen it in some way.

In times of significant change or transition—such as a new year or a presidential inauguration—decisions to support the body can be very useful. What many practitioners may be pleased to discover is how the body can support them in return. The five yoga postures and practices described below remind us what it’s like to experience groundedness and balance in the body. And, if we practice these postures regularly, they may also help instill more equanimity and tranquility in the mind.



Mountain pose (Tadasana)
In mountain pose we stand as upright as possible. When we align the joints and actively engage the leg and core muscles to support the standing body, we can experience our innate stability.

To stand in mountain pose, separate the feet six to eight inches apart. Contract the muscles in the front of the thighs and draw the abdominal muscles in. Reach the arms down along the sides the body. Lift the chest forward and up and pull the shoulders back. Raise the chin so that it is parallel to the ground. As you breathe, rest your gaze—strong, but soft—on an unmoving point in front of you.

Mountain pose can help us discover balance and poise by teaching us to reach in opposite directions. We root down into the ground through the feet while simultaneously lifting up through the top of the head. If you close the eyes when you’re in mountain pose, you may notice how muscles in the toes, feet, and ankles make micro-movements to steady the body. This can be a useful reminder that no matter what kind of change is going on around us, the body intuitively knows how to steady itself.

Tree pose (Vrksasana)
Tree pose is a one-footed standing posture that encourages us to practice focus and balance while remaining as grounded as possible.

Begin by standing with both feet flat on the floor. Separate the feet six to eight inches apart. Raise the right knee, which will lift the right foot several inches off the ground. Turn the knee out to the side and press the sole of the foot against the inner calf, aligning the arch of the foot with the calf muscle. For additional support, you can also place the ball of the foot on the ground and press the heel of the foot into the ankle of the standing leg. Press the hands together at the center of the chest. Rest your gaze on an unmoving point in front of you. To maintain your balance, pay close attention to the breath moving in and out of the body.

Practitioners sometimes lose their balance in tree pose or find themselves wobbling despite their best efforts to remain grounded. Embrace this; it’s in the nature of trees to sway and shift.

Illustration by Megan Dailey

Corpse Pose (Savasana)
While corpse pose is typically done at the end of a yoga practice, resting in this posture at any time can teach the body how to relax and release muscle tension. It can also restore breathing to a natural, passive state, which may settle an anxious mind.

To practice corpse pose, lie on your back on a comfortable surface, such as a yoga mat or a soft carpet. Extend the arms out alongside the body. If you feel tension in the lower back, roll up a towel or blanket and place it underneath the knees. Move the arms slightly away from the body and open the palms up to the ceiling. Let the feet gently fall out to the sides.

Close the eyes. Bring your attention to your toes. Silently suggest to yourself, “toes, relax.” Then continue up the body, gradually suggesting relaxation to different muscle groups, providing extra attention and care to areas where you feel tension. When you arrive at the top of the head, let go of all suggestions. Let the breath be natural. Rest.

Some people daydream or fall asleep in corpse pose. Others may find it very difficult to rest, so they twitch and fuss about. Like all postures, corpse pose is meant to be practiced, not perfected. Offer yourself time and patience. It may take a while for the body to unwind and settle into a calm, peaceful state.

Illustration by Megan Dailey

Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana)
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a classic yoga text, describes nadi shodhana as a type of pranayama (breathing practice) that activates and harmonizes the right and left energy channels in the body. This practice is said to balance the flow of energy (prana) as well as stabilize and deepen the breath as it moves through the right and left nostrils.

To begin this practice, sit upright in a comfortable way. Raise your right hand. Curl the index and middle fingers in toward the palm. Bring the hand to the face. Close the right nostril off by gently pressing the thumb against the nose. Release. Then use the ring finger to close off the left nostril. Release.

Keep the hand near the nose and release both nostrils. Take a long, deep breath in. At the peak of the inhale, press the thumb against the right nostril. Exhale through the left nostril, slowly and steadily, over three counts. Then slowly inhale through the left nostril over three counts. At the peak of the inhale, close off the left nostril and release the right nostril. Exhale through the right nostril over three counts. Then, slowly inhale through the right nostril for three counts. At the end of the inhale, close off the right nostril and release the left. Exhale through the left nostril over three counts. This cycle is one round of nadi shodhana. Try completing five complete rounds. If you become lightheaded or feel like you are straining or forcing the breath, stop to rest.

Yoga philosophy associates the right energetic channel with the sun and masculine energy. The left energetic channel is associated with the moon and feminine energy. By bringing balance to the right and left energy channels, we activate the central energy channel, which is said to bring greater balance to the body and help cultivate higher levels of awareness and compassion.

Illustration by Megan Dailey

Chanting (Kirtan)
When I first started practicing yoga, I was fortunate enough to be part of a community that practiced kirtan, or call-and-response recitation of mantras. I found chanting to be both meditative and uplifting. Sometimes the melody was slow and our voices were inbued with longing. Other times I found myself clapping, swaying with the beat, and even dancing.

Chanting with others—especially mantras, prayers, or uplifting words—can be a powerful antidote to feelings of powerlessness or fear. If other people aren’t within reach, I’ve found that singing or even humming to oneself can also offer a subtle yet transformative sense of peace. Try lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu (“May all beings everywhere be happy and free”) or Om. 

Thank you for subscribing to Tricycle! As a nonprofit, we depend on readers like you to keep Buddhist teachings and practices widely available.

Lauren Krauze is a writer and teacher living in New York City.
Megan Dailey is an illustrator living in Berkeley, California.

 

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Via Daily Dharma / Necessary Anger

Anger toward social injustice will remain until the goal is achieved. It has to remain.

Of course. That anger is directed toward the social injustice itself, along with the struggle to correct it, so the anger should be maintained until the goal is achieved. It is necessary in order to stop social injustice and wrong destructive actions.

—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "The (Justifiably) Angry Marxist"

Via Tricycle: Now What Do We Do?

Buddhist history to consider on Inauguration Day

By Kurt Spellmeyer

Jan 20, 2017

The word inauguration reaches back to the Roman Republic. There the prophecies of augurs—state oracles—guided decisions of great consequence. In our modern-day republic, the word has come to mean nothing more than the swearing in of another president. But this inauguration takes us closer to the word’s archaic roots: like the ancient Romans who watched birds in flight, straining to detect a signal from the gods, millions of Americans are waiting for the future to reveal its shape. What should we expect?

This world is burning, the Buddha declared in the Adittapariyaya Sutta: “Bhikkhus, all is burning. . . . Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion.”

The Buddha himself had seen the “fire” up close. Near the end of his long career, the Shakya Republic, his native land, fell to the army of a neighboring state, whose leader then deliberately set out to exterminate the losers. Nine centuries later, in 403 CE, when the Chinese pilgrim-monk Faxian arrived at the Shakyas’ capital, he found only “desolation,” splendid neighborhoods reduced to dusty mounds, wolves and lions prowling alleyways.

The Buddha’s kinsmen were the victims of a genocide, yet he persisted in the work he’d taken on since the time of his enlightenment, instructing anyone who asked for his help. His message remained the same as well: “Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.”  

What the Buddha didn’t say, however, might be as important as what he did. He never predicted the coming of a day when hatred would disappear from human affairs. Instead, he assumed the very opposite. 

By contrast, we Americans have long believed existence is perfectible—a straight line from savagery to utopia. That’s one reason this election came as such a shock to so many of us. When the Flower Ornament Sutra describes greed, anger, and delusion as “beginningless,” it also implies these will never end. Surely this is true. 

Arriving in China in 838, the Japanese monk Ennin expected to begin practicing with the leading teachers. Instead, he found a country in advanced decay, unable to recover from a civil war that had killed, according to some estimates, two out of every three people. And now, the sangha was under siege, thousands of monks and nuns defrocked, buildings aflame, statues melted down or deliberately defaced.  

The instigator of all this was Emperor Wuzong, a fearful, power-hungry narcissist whose attacks on foreigners and their ideas helped to end China’s brightest period. Urged on by the Confucian elite and Daoist fanatics, Wuzong ransacked temple treasuries to pay for costly wars at China’s borders.

And yet, if we flash forward just half a century, everything looks different. The greatest masters of the Tang dynasty—Zhaozhou, Dongshan, Yangshan, Linji—lived through the terror and began to recreate the dharma in ways the world had never seen. One of Zen’s most vibrant periods followed heartbreaking destruction. 

How was this achievement possible?  Why didn’t these great masters fall into despair?   

A clue can be found in the anthology of koans or Zen stories known as the Blue Cliff Record.  Case 29 relates this exchange between Daizui and a monk:

[The] monk asked Daizui, “When the great kalpa fire arrives and the whole universe will be destroyed, will THIS also be destroyed or not?”  Daizui said, “Destroyed!”

Zen teaching holds that when the kalpa fire comes to incinerate the universe at the end of the present world age, absolutely everything will be destroyed. Naturally, we’d like to think that something will persist, but no—the teaching is that everything must go. 

There’s a caveat, however: everything comes back again in a different form. Nothing stays the same, but THIS returns, indestructibly. And THIS is where we have to plant our feet, no matter how close the fire draws. When we ask, “What should we do now?” the answer is always, “Start again.”'

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Kurt Spellmeyer is a Zen priest and directs the Cold Mountain Sangha in New Jersey. He teaches English at Rutgers University and is the author of Buddha at the Apocalypse: Awakening from a Culture of Destruction.

 

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Via Being Liberal / FB: Hope

 

 

“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

~Early Christian philosopher St Augustine

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Speaking Truth

Truth telling is a rigorous spiritual practice.

—Lama Surya Das, "Surya Says"

Via Lion's Roar / How to Do Metta

Kuan Yin, bodhisattva of compassion. Photo by Liza Matthews.

Jack Kornfield on beginning this time-honored, heart-opening practice.

In our culture, people find it difficult to direct loving-kindness to themselves. We may feel that we are unworthy, or that it’s egotistical, or that we shouldn’t be happy when other people are suffering. So rather than start loving-kindness practice with ourselves, which is traditional, I find it more helpful to start with those we most naturally love and care about. One of the beautiful principles of compassion and loving-kindness practices is that we start where it works, where it’s easiest. We open our heart in the most natural way, then direct our loving-kindness little by little to the areas where it’s more difficult.

First, sit comfortably and at ease, with your eyes closed. Sense yourself seated here in this mystery of human life. Take your seat halfway between heaven and Earth, as the Buddha did, then bring a kind attention to yourself. Feel your body seated and your breath breathing naturally.

Think of someone you care about and love a lot. Then let natural phrases of good wishes for them come into your mind and heart. Some of the traditional ones are, “May you be safe and protected,” “May you be healthy and strong,” and “May you be truly happy.”

Then picture a second person you care about and express the same good wishes and intentions toward them.

Next, imagine that these two people whom you love are offering you their loving-kindness. Picture how they look at you with concern and love as they say, “May you too be safe and protected. May you be healthy and strong. May you be truly happy.”

Take in their good wishes. Now turn them toward yourself. Sometimes people place their hand on their heart or their body as they repeat the phrases: “May I be safe and protected. May I be healthy and strong. May I be truly happy.”

With the same care let your eyes open, look around the room, and offer your loving-kindness to everyone around you. Feel how great it is to spread the field of loving-kindness.

Now think of yourself as a beacon, spreading the light of loving-kindness like a lighthouse around your city, around the country, around the world, even to distant planets. Think, “May all beings far and near, all beings young and old, beings in every direction, be held in great loving-kindness. May they be safe and protected. May they be healthy and strong. May they be truly happy.”

The Buddha said that the awakened heart of loving-kindness and freedom is our birthright as human beings. “If these things were not possible,” he said, “I would not teach them. But because they are possible for you, I offer these teachings of the dharma of awakening.”

About Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Center and one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He is a former Buddhist monk, a clinical psychologist, and a husband and father.

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Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Why Wisdom?

Dignity without wisdom can be easily corrupted by pride. Generosity without wisdom can be corrupted by self-flattery. Without wisdom, you cannot be a perfect person—meaning that you cannot be free from complicated mind. Without this freedom, your good qualities always risk being corrupted.

—Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, "Keys to Happiness"

I would say you and I are using words; we are using speaking and listening as a vehicle for us to meet, and through which we are meeting. Where we are capable of meeting is in the intuitive heart/mind - a way of knowing one another that isn’t through our immediate, analytic, intellectual process. But yet, these are word concepts that are spinning out, and you’re picking them up, and you’re taking the concepts, and fitting them with your concepts, and deciding they work.

You’re judging and you’re using your intellect to decide whether I’m off the wall, or I’m here, or am I like us or am I them, or what am I? Whatever happened to Ram Dass? And when I say I share truth with the Beloved, it’s a place where we know how limited the words are, so we dance with the words with our minds, while also sinking into a place of just shared presence.

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Preventing Moral Atrophy

This is the moment to return to whichever practice reinforces our moral clarity, so that we do not wake up one day to find it eroded beyond recognition.

—Sofia Ali-Khan, "A Time for Discernment"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Two Ways:

One can cross the mountains on foot, as did Siddhartha, or you can hop a ride on the great dharma vehicle that he subsequently launched. Trusting in ourselves, we are headed for the mountains and probable failure. Trusting in Buddha, we just might find ourselves gliding effortlessly into the field of merit that he has so graciously spread out to receive us.

—David Brazier, "The ‘Inner Logic’ of Other Power"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / In Honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day...

There’s nothing about birth or social status that makes a person good or bad. People are good or bad solely in terms of their actions, and so that’s how they should be judged—not by the color of their skin.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "What the Buddha Taught Us About Race"

NYCGMC Tonewall meets The Golden Girls

Via Eckhart Tolle

✣...A New Species is arising on the Planet. It is arising now, and You are it...... ✣ 

Eckhart Tolle

Via Ram Dass

Truth is one of the vehicles for deepening spiritual awareness through another human being, and if there is a license for that in the relationship, in any relationship – with guru, with friend, with lover, with whatever it is – it is an absolutely optimum way of coming into a liquid spiritual relationship with another person.

But it’s very, very delicate because people feel very vulnerable. They have parts of their mind that are cut off, that the idea that’s been socialized is, “If I show this part of me, I would not be acceptable.” And the ability to risk that, finally you learn how to have your truth available.