This year has been one of extremes for me, I got happily married yet my father died, I earned a new family yet my sister stopped talking to me. All of these provided big challenges and yet also opportunities to practice off the mat, they took me to where I am today and along the road I learned:
1.-When a family member dies there IS something we can do to help him or her: Having someone close to you die is disorienting and painful, yet, in the midst of my pain last April, I asked Eddie Stern if there was a way we can help those that have departed. He told me “Yes, absolutely I will write it down for you“. When I inquired after class he had written in a piece of paper “Tibetan Book of the Death”, “Om Namah Shivaya”.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=earyog08-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0553370901&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
His instructions were to read the book within the first 46 days and to recite the mantra.
I read the whole book of the Tibetan Book of the Death to my father, out loud, and I know it worked because a bee hit me on the head. Mostly telling the departed to search for the light will help them. It is up to you weather you believe or not, all I can say is that knowing I could somewhat help made the whole process more intimate, real, and perhaps helped take the edge off things.
2.– Preparing for my own death is important, it can happen at any moment. Having a sudden death in the family makes everything more real, more present, it lets the chill of departing come around and sit down for tea.
It is said that the last thought in our minds when we pass will determine our next life, so, that last moment is important. The Gita has a section on “how to die” which left me thinking, and I turned into a post which was called “How to die, four simple tips“.
3.-I like to collect sutras or short sentences from teachers I come across on the journey, lines that I can remember and that help me along the road, things like “yoga is a breathing practice” which Kimberly Flynn taught me, or “We meditate to clear up our old samskaras and be happy” which the Vipassana teachers taught me. Here are five more that come from Ashtanga teachers.
4.- I can learn intellectually all I want about dropping back, but in the end it comes down to just doing it. And doing it is something I have not quite managed to do yet. However, I probably know so much about dropping back right now that I could lecture for hours on it, starting with foundations, bandhas, opening, and so on and on and on. In the end, “do your practice” is what it all comes down to. And by the way here are the 9 things I gathered throughout 2010 on backbends.
5.- Sitting down in silence with myself can be a challenge of Arjuna’s battlefield proportions. I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a Vipassana meditation retreat again this year. It was just a three day course this time, but it worked out to be exactly what I needed to reconnect with the cushion and recommit to daily meditation practice. The thing that dawned on me this time around was the part where we just sit with the sensations on the body, without intellectualizing. I had heard it before, but this time I got it, I actually was able to sit with the body and scanning for sensations throughout it. I am completely sold on the efficiency of this technique.
6.- My book was published. OK only one copy of it, I don’t know if you knew but “book2print” allows you to print your own blog as a book. Seeing the printed copy helped me organize new ideas, come up with posts, and overall see the progress in my writing and understanding of yoga.
7.- Being “satvic” means sometimes being rajasic or tamasic. Being a yogi is all about being satvic, or balanced, in the middle, right? nope! it turns out if we are “trying” to be in a state of balance all the time then by the very nature of the trying we are already in an extreme or in “rajasic” mode where we are forcing things through. Allowing our natural state to manifest is sometimes the most balanced thing we can do, like that old day when I ate marshmallows and they were not the good kind. Here is a great cartoon illustrating this.
8.- Most ashtanga yogis out there seem to have started second series only AFTER they dropped back from standing. This was a surprise to me as I thought that everyone would need the extra help I get from those early poses of the intermediate series for opening the back. But the poll I run in October proved me wrong.
9.- When a yogi can suspend the breath for about 1.5 hours there is very little in this world that is not possible for her. I read lots of books about yoga throughout 2010, one of the most remarkable ones is Path of Fire and Light
by Swami Rama. It was cool to see how he just goes all out and tells everything about pranayama like no other book out there. Here are 5 very curious things I learned while reading.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=earyog08-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0195395344&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr10.- Our beloved Ashtanga series-es of poses, all six of them, may or may not have come to us the way in which we thought. Reading Yoga Body
was an eye opener. Mark Singleton is a scholar that studied and worked on it for a very long time, he went over government and military records, he looked at all yoga literature of the early 1900, and his conclusions lead us to believe there may not have been a Yoga Korunta book, (the book where we all tend to think is what Krishnamacharya used to teach yoga to Pattabhi Jois and then in turn he taught all the people who are teaching us these days). Singleton’s book produced controversy in the world of yoga, and I found the topic fascinating, here is my review.
Here are the 12 yoga things I learned in 2009.
So, what are some of the yoga things you learned throughout this year?
ClaudiaYoga 