WOW

WORKSHOPS

WEEKEND OFFERINGS

Kitchen where Swami Kripalu's food was prepared

So come out of the kitchen, out of your weekend chores and get some rest and rejuvenation with a yoga workshop

SATURDAY APRIL 23

COMMUNITY POTLUCK & KIRTAN

530PM

Bring a covered dish to share (or not) and your family and friends and, as you see fit, call in spirit with Devi, through chanting, drumming and dancing or just tapping your foot

SUNDAY MAY 8

RESTORATIVE WORKSHOP

3-5PM

$20 in advance, $25 at the door

During this class you will melt into soothing, well-supported poses that bring the body, mind and spirit into greater balance.

SATURDAY MAY 14

and

SATURDAY MAY 28 

MASTER CLASS WITH PETER RIZZO

1030AM-One-ish PM

by donation or $30  

Peter returns because he can and we love to have him teach us

SATURDAY MAY 21

ARM BALANCING MADE POSSIBLE

INTRODUCING JUSTIN WOLFER

1030AM

$20 advance or $25 at door

(more to come)

SUNDAY JUNE 19

SUMMER SOLSTICE BENEFIT

7PM

Bennington Battle Monument

(rain-go to studio.  not sure - call) 

$20 suggested donation (proceeds go to VAE Summer Camp for children)

Open to everyone.  Energize your entire body and soul by joining us in practicing 108 sun salutations.  Invoke and celebrate the energy of the sun through this moving meditation  

Why 108?  The ancient Vedic scriptures view 108 as the number of the wholeness of existence.  108 connects sun moon and earth:  the average distance between the sun and moon to earth is 108 times their respective diameters.  There are 108 beads in the Buddhist and Hindu prayer strands and 54 (half) in the Christian rosary.

It is common practice for people to gather at the solstice and equinox using the moving meditation of Surya Namaskar as an expression of Peace and Unity. 

Is Meditation Useful?

"The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment." -Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying[71]

     Last night, sitting quietly with a meditation group at The Yoga Place,  I wondered why I bother to do this thing at all.  Sitting quietly on a cushion, observing my breath, my thoughts, for 20 minutes or so with 7 or 8 others who were doing the same!  And yet, I continued to sit and to focus on my breathing.  Although my mind was somewhat active, it was simultaneously very quiet.  I was enjoying the stillness of sitting quietly observing my breathing.  After 20 minutes or so, I read a passage from meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh.

     It was a passage on working with anger.  He mentioned how often people, when angry, are counseled to 'beat up their pillow' or 'chop wood' or 'take a walk', hoping for the anger to subside.  He points out that these strategies may work.  But.  They do not address the root of anger.  Nhat Hanh points out that these responses actually cause the individual to continue to rehearse and re-experience the anger.  Thus one becomes expert at anger and not so expert at "not-anger" or peace (or you might say equanimity or "keeping your cool").

            So how to root out anger?  How, practically, might we do this?  This points to the route of meditative awareness.  In this strategy, one simply observes quietly what is going on inside and outside, whilst allowing it to be present.  Much like with an unruly child, it doesn't help to get excited with the child - that will only exacerbate the anger.  Staying calm, loving them even though their behavior is disturbing and waiting until they can begin to calm themselves is more effective.  Teaching them how to self-regulate in this fashion is what works.

    What I realized last night is that meditating is the practice of peace.  During meditation, we set aside our habitual ways of seeing and knowing, of believing, and we simply observe what is happening in our body, our mind and our spirit.  In this simple practice, we are advised to suspend judging or criticizing our experience or ourselves.  Instead we are instructed to just listen or observe whatever is coming up for us in any given moment.

      Meditation masters offer us various tools for accomplishing this kind of rational self-observation.  Concentration meditation encourages one to focus on the actual sensations of breathing, either at the belly which tends to rise and fall as the breath moves in and out or at the nostrils where it is often easy to feel the breath coming and going, cool and warm.  Some suggest focusing on a mantra or on a candle flame.  The essence is NOT to drain the mind of thought or CLEAR the mind (oh impossible task!) but to observe what comes up as one focuses on the breath, breathe with it, let it arise and then notice that eventually it passes away.

           Mindfulness meditation is an invitation to simply observe whatever you are observing, breath with it, allow it to arise and pass away - it might be a sound you notice, then a thought, then a physical sensation, a smell.  Your job is to stay present for each breath, to keep your mind where your feet are and not drift off into fantasy, daydreaming, etc.  Which of course you will find yourself doing.  When you do notice that your mind has drifted, the instruction is to simply and courteously return your attention to the present moment.

      We all become expert at our view of the world and we love to love our own view.   "My way" in the playground is not so dangerous. "My way" in the workplace or the home can be terribly destructive.  Meditation helps us to cultivate communion with our true nature, with our confidence and our ability to love ourselves and the world around us.  Sitting quietly and breathing, not trying to "fix" ourselves or anyone else, we begin to experience peace.  We begin to have confidence that peace works very well.

MEDITATION IS FREE.  COME JOIN US AT THE YOGA PLACE,  EVERY MONDAY AT 6:15PM.  For information call Jane Schaeffer at 802.447-0393.