Yoga and your Mindstuff
I like the term “mind stuff” because it paints a picture of what is usually going on in your noodle- a bunch of goop. You think about picking up your library book, taking the garbage out tonight, how you like that person’s red shirt and want one and then realize you forgot to call your mom back and then remember that OH YEAH I’m in the middle of a yoga class here. I’m holding a pose. I’ve been holding my breath. I’ve even had this occur while teaching. This is what the mind does, unruly thing that it can be.
The path of yoga is truly a way of noticing this process and then starting to gain some control over the chittavritti- or the monkey mind. I love this term too. I see my mind in my mind’s eye (AH!) jumping from tree to tree, howling and grabbing bananas and at a tourist’s backpack, out of control, undisciplined and free. In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali states that this is the whole purpose of yoga- disciplining the undisciplined mind and gaining control over your crazy monkey.
This is your monkey mind. Pretty cute, eh? Hard not to pay attention to, but don’t forget that monkeys throw poop.
This sounds great! Sign me up.
Now what? I mean, I have job searches to conduct, paintings to finish, classes to teach and a WEDDING coming up in just 2 weeks and 1 day.
Ever feel yourself start to berate yourself about your yoga practice? Not practicing enough, or doing well enough, or not flexible or strong enough? Its not enough, never enough. That is your monkey. Sure, we need discipline and I could do with more of it myself, especially with those truffles my mom bought for wedding favors and I keep eating them at night when I get my sweet tooth? That’s not so good. Anyway. There goes my monkey.
Okay. *deep breath*
I harass myself about my practice a lot. It never feels right to me: too quick, too gentle, too harsh, not enough meditation, not enough pranayama and so on and so forth. Recently it occurred to me that this isn’t about my practice, this is about ME. This difficulty in just residing with what is right here, right now, is coming right from that pesky little monkey. I think it often becomes the feel that asana, or the poses, need to be practiced more and better because asana is the most concrete of the yoga path and the easiest limb for the western yogi to understand.
There are 8 limbs in the path of yoga and you can think of them like a starfish, each limbs is an important entity to the whole. Asana, or practice of the poses, is only one limb of yoga, only 1/8th of the path. All 8 of the limbs include:
- Yamas- are the attitudes towards others and the world, practices a yogi should have such as non-violence, truthfulness and not stealing.
- Niyamas- are the ways the yogi treats oneself, for example practicing cleanliness, inner contentment, study of the self, awareness of a greater power.
- Asanas- physical poses are the way to relax the body of the mind and to find a harmonious union of the mind, body and spirit. It also aids the body in becoming strong to live a healthy and long life and have the ability to hold a meditation seat without pain.
- Pranayama- means breath (prana) control (yama) and involves the practice of breathing exercises to cleanse the nervous system and increase vitality and energy.
- Prathyahara- is withdrawal of the senses. The senses tend to lead us and offer stimulating and wonderful snacks for the monkey mind. Withdrawing means turning inward and releasing awareness of the outer world, but still being very conscious and present.
- Dharana- is concentration. This is training the mind to focus, for example focusing on a mantra or on the breath.
- Dhyana- is meditation, a state of constant awareness of the mind. This helps a person to let go of illusions and be fully present and aware of projections and cloudiness that our monkey mind can bring to life. It helps with clarity and overall health!
- Samadhi- is enlightenment. This is the easy one. Ha. Just kidding. Gotcha. This is the ultimate goal of the yogic path- a feeling of being one and complete with the universe. Ahh, sounds nice doesn’t it?
What strikes me about the 8 fold path is that many of them refer to meditation. Pratyahara, Dharana and Dhyana are all practiced within the meditative state. And, asana and pranayama are really for preparation for the meditative state while Samadhi is a wonderful result of that focused practice. Again, the poses are just one part of all of this, as important as the others but complementary and not the be all end-all in the yogic life.
So yoga is about making some sense of that goopy messy mind stuff so that instead of some confusing mess, we can make a wonderful soup with our outward practices (yamas and niyamas), our practices towards integrating mind and body (asana, pranyama and meditation). All the limbs contribute to the aspects of a whole person- the mind, body and spirit.
Mmm lentil and roasted pepper soup. This looks like a great recipe; click on the picture to read it!
What do you think?
- How do you practice the 8 limbs of yoga?
- Do you feel that Western yoga tends to be more focused on the asana limb?
- How does practicing asana assist you in your meditation practice?
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