May 3, 2013 in buddhism, dharma
Yet another venerable American spiritual community is reeling with evidence of the sexual misconduct of its beloved teacher, perpetrated over decades, with many many victims and a culture of silence that is finally being challenged. This is getting really old! This time it’s hitting close to home for me, and as I begin to write this post, my heart is [...]
March 4, 2013 in art, buddhism, dharma, social action, theory
“Sadly, at a time when so much sophisticated cultural criticism by hip intellectuals from diverse locations extols a vision of cultural hybridity, border crossing, subjectivity constructed out of plurality, the vast majority of folks in this society still believe in a notion of identity that is rooted in a sense of essential traits and characteristics that are fixed and static.” [...]
February 22, 2013 in art, buddhism, dharma, meditation, theory
[An essay from my PhD exam process exploring a hypothetical parallel between practice-insight and rehearsal-performance.] Contemplative practice, framed by the various religions, is almost always represented as a Path — the changing of subjective experience from one state or understanding to another more wholesome one — that leads to a definite fruition. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, with its seven “mansions” [...]
February 22, 2013 in art, buddhism, dharma, theory
Thus have I heard. Once an Artist was living in Vulture Cap Lofts, alongside a great community of craftspeople, aesthetes, deep listeners, critics, and granting organizations. She entered the samadhi known as All That Is Made Is Beautiful, and radiated a profound aesthetic satisfaction that inspired everyone [to be] present. Inspired, the theorist Audio-Visio-Kinesthesis exclaimed to her friend and student, [...]
January 24, 2013 in yoga
I’m excited to be taking on 2 new classes in February, at Piedmont Yoga Studio, which is under new ownership and revival. I’ll be teaching Wed and Fri evenings 5:30-7pm, starting 2/13. (The Fri class will start 2/22.) Both classes will be, like my MWF morning classes at Yoga Tree Telegraph, mindfulness-based vinyasa. Breath, attention, alignment, flow. Sweet & simple, [...]
January 24, 2013 in buddhism, dharma, social action, yoga
I’ve never been to the Yoga Journal Conference, but came closer than ever this past weekend. Some friends told me that they were planning a protest of the conference because YJ was – for the third year in a row – going ahead with having the conference at the Hyatt Regency in SF, despite an ongoing boycott of Hyatt by [...]
December 26, 2012 in buddhism, dharma, yoga
It’s resolution-making season, for some of us known more yogically as intention-setting. My generation seems to love setting intentions, coaching ourselves toward success, and positive thinking in general. I think the meme of positive thinking (that started in the 70s as “affirmations” and flowered in the 00s as Cafe Gratitude and the Law of Attraction) saturates my Facebook feed more than [...]
October 24, 2012 in bhakti, dharma, yoga
This Sunday we’ll begin our fall Sweat+Study series, returning to one of the most profound and visionary texts in the yoga tradition: The Bhagavad Gita. And in less than two weeks we’ll end a seemingly endless campaign season, returning to what I wish was one of the most profound and visionary activities in our democratic tradition: the Voting Booth. So [...]
October 17, 2012 in dharma, yoga
In our conversation Tuesday night at the Yoga Garden Teacher Training, where I was giving a slam-bam “3000 years of yoga history in 90 minutes” lecture, Michelle Myhre, the director of Advanced Studies there asked a very good (and historically puzzling) question. Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra (YS) is descended in part from Buddhism and Sankhya philosophy, both of which are not theistic [...]
September 24, 2012 in art, dharma, meditation, yoga
Our senses are so much a part of who we are that it’s nearly impossible to think of ourselves without them. We have sense organs, called “doors” in Buddhism because they admit information, or “sense-objects” — the “guests” in the Rumi poem, “This body is a guest house”. In the Buddhist tradition, thought and emotion — all the “formations” of [...]