So we’re going to guess you have all been appraised of the latest media blitz on yoga in America – ‘yoga moguls‘! it’s all posers! commoditization and Star Wars Yoga! Well if you’re curious at all how we got from point A to point Brandname then you may be interested in reading Stefanie Syman’s book covering those points and literally the space in between, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America. Ms. Syman was kind enough to answer some reader questions on the book, and now we’re bestowed the great pleasure of giving away two copies! Fun!
WIN: The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America by Stefanie Syman (published June 22, 2010). We’re giving away 2 copies! Thanks to the publisher for providing.
HOW TO ENTER: Since we’re on the subtle body subject, let’s talk meditation! DO YOU have a meditation practice? If yes, how, when, where? Do you have a mantra? Use visualization? Tell us your tricks and tips. If the answer is no, feel free to belly up your excuses! Aw come on, we won’t judge. Maybe you can share the one thing you do where you lose yourself in that action…is it’s brushing your teeth, making your kids’ lunches, playing the guitar, focusing on your breath? ahem… etc. Everything goes in the comments. Two winners will be chosen at random early next week. Looking forward to the responses! Good luck!
UPDATE: WINNERS! Many thanks to everyone who entered and offered their own thoughts on meditation. This may have been the most inspiring giveaway yet! We hope you got a chance to read everyone else’s comments. Thank you all for sharing!
And the winners are (via random.org)…
#56 Rebecca Peters and #34 Christa Avampato
Congrats! Please email your mailing address to yogadork@gmail.com
Earlier…
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I have recently started seated meditation. I can’t do it for very long but hopefully I’ll get better in time.
I meditate in motion. When I swim, I count each lap, with every stroke I repeat the number of the lap, and when I lose it and begin to do different mathematical calculations, I know to go back to the simple one. one. one. one. As I begin to tire, the most amazing thing happens: solutions to writing problems, life issues, whatever’s been on my mind begin to float up towards me from the depths of the swimming pool.
Now. If only I could get to the damn pool.
hello! my meditation practice has defiintely shfited over the years. i started off with more of a classical yoga view of my meditation, and was always hoping for that future event of transcendence to happen. Paramahansa YOgananda was my inspiration there.
since then, i’ve moved rapidly towards embracing the more tantric side of things. all i can do is remember to breathe in each moment, bring myself back to God in that moment. going to my mat/cushion to practice helps too
This would be me: “If the answer is no, feel free to belly up your excuses! Aw come on, we won’t judge. ”
I do want to have a meditation exercise, but my excuse is I don’t have the time! Nevertheless, I do lose myself from time to time, usually while I’m on my way to work. It’s almost an hour’s ride after all.
I also lose myself when I’m looking at photographs. I am a photography enthusiast and I like looking at pretty images. I would browse through photoblogs and photo galleries until the wee hours.
But I do enjoy lying flat on the mat with my legs apart and arms wide open, feeling the deep breath flowing through and rejuvenating my body and almost surrendering to its escape when I exhale. In 10 minutes, it seems like a new day.
The best tip I’ve come across after years of struggling with meditation is one I found in a magazine about three years ago. The magazine’s editor (who used to a YJ editor and still freelances for them) had issues with long meditations sessions and a meditation teacher took her by the shoulders, looked her straight in eyes and said,” Just do 42 breathes and call it good.”
Works for me.
I have such good intentions for meditating. I find time to sit only once a week, if that. This weekend I’ll be changing my sleep-wake schedule to accommodate a 6 AM yoga practice challenge I’m doing, so I hope to kick-start my meditation then too!
My meditation practice is a bit sporadic, and I know I need to do it more consistently. I like mantras and visualizations, and some of the most powerful meditations I’ve experienced have been those led by a teacher. Maybe if I invested in a CD or two I’d be a little bit better about sticking to it… hmmm…
I really *try* to meditate. When I do succeed, I try not to try too hard. I sit comfortably, maybe a dowelling under my sitbones, and I just try to breathe naturally and softly, without tensing my belly too much. If I have too much monkey brain when this is happening, then the good ole square works (4 or 5 counts: inhale, hold at the top, exhale, hold at the bottom) until I am calm enough to return to natural breathing.
If I am really worked up? Kapalabhati breaths. Or that one where you suck in your belly a lot on the exhale and hold.
My best time to sit in meditation is directly after a physical practice. At least 15 minutes of asanas, 3 minutes of savasana, and a transition directly into meditation. I’ve started incorporating at least 5 minutes of meditation into the classes I teach as well, always at the end (instead of at the beginning, as I was taught).
I’ve also found that doing the breast stroke at the pool is a beautiful moving meditation, either by following my breath or the ripples I push in front of me. Seated meditation takes work, whereas moving meditations come more naturally for me.
I’ve begun a Kundalini meditation practice, which typically involve either a particular mudra, mantra, or combination of both. One of things I love about Kundalini meditations is that you can actually request a 40 day meditation through Golden Bridge Yoga for ANYTHING you might be dealing with (fear, change, illness, relationships, etc), and they will send you back a specific meditation to practice — it’s been very powerful in my experience so far! More info at: http://www.goldenbridgeyoga.com/uploads/pdf/MeditationRequest.pdf
I was taught visualization for the first time when I was 12 years-old by my swim coach. He had us all lie on the floor before practice, after dryland exercises, and he talked us through a swim race where we imagined and felt ourselves swimming to win.
I love the power of meditation and visualization, my full potential resonates throughout my entire body and aura. I’m also afraid of it so I don’t often leave time for myself to practice.
As much as I love myself, my biggest fear is the unknown and the energy of life and the universe is the biggest unknown there is.
Now that I’ve voiced that thought, I’m sure I’ll practice meditation more often starting with Yoga Nidra.
I meditate everyday about 15-20 minutes. I do laya mantra which repeating ” ek ong kar sat nam Siri wahe guru” in a particular rhythm. During this I visualize a spiral starting at the bottom of my spine going up and exiting through my head. This visualization helps me sit really straight and makes me feel really uplifted. After that I do mala meditation repeating mantra “har har wahe guru”. I have these beautiful mala and I read somewhere that mala should be worn only when you finish 40 days meditation with it, then it will help you with
. Just to clarify 40 days means 40 continuous days, if you skip you have to start from the beginning.
anything you need. That’s good enough motivation for me
It was hard for me also to get into daily meditation practice but then I realized that having no time can’t be my excuse. Meditation is not relaxation it is actually hard work I do it for my own sanity to stay focused in this crazy world. 11 minutes a day is nothing to pay for that. How many 11 minutes we waste while watching TV or browsing Internet or just doing nothing?
I wish I could say I have a meditation practice. I hvae been dealing with so many issues this past year – health, finances, relationships – I find the fact I make it to the mat everyday amazing. It has saved my sanity, strengthened my body and started me down a path I would have never envisioned a year ago. I know one day I will have a “proper” meditation practice, but for me, right now, the mat is enough.
Sitting (or standing) for the sole purpose of meditation is a very different experience than “making my whole day a meditation” or “my life is my meditation.” They also yield different results (and I would say have different purposes entirely). I agree that both are valid and valuable, but one does NOT equal the other. In many–but not all, so please don’t think I mean you in particular–people who adopt the latter approach have no experience in the former.
Most yoga students I know/have met do not meditate. I will admit that it is a struggle for me, and I “lose” more often than I “win.” Like most people, I have a hard time just sitting and turning my mind inwards. I get fidgety. It is uncomfortable to be fidgety and have my mind resisting. I don’t try as often as I “should.” I don’t like it, I want to move, etc. etc. etc.
But when I DO get in “butt to mat pose,” something changes. It changes in a way that is 100% not like going through daily life with awareness, or trying to live yoga philosophy 24/7. Sure, sometimes I get the “nothing happens” feeling. But a separate, intentional, meditation is an invaluable experience (IMLHO) and so I keep engaging it. I feel sorry, in a compassionate way, for those who don’t.
Am I too late? Who knows.
I find meditation soooo hard. There was a moment in Nepal once, when I thought I had it, but I never really got it again. Then there’s “ahem….” but that’s a different story….
Having just spent a week at Feathered Pipe ranch in Montana with Baxter Bell, I found that I have really deepened my meditation practice. One of the exercises he gave was using a mantra by Thict Nhat Hanh…on inhale, “i feel my body”, on exhale “i smile”. For whatever reason, this really works for me!
I recently got on and then fell back off the cushion. My practice: out of bed, pee, sit on cushion with affirmation in mind. Set timer for ten minutes. Squirm for ten minutes.
Get up when timer dings, relieved I did what I said I would.
But when I give myself the weekend off, it’s hard to get back on the cushion come Monday!
Thanks for the chance to confess my meditation lapses. It may just help me get back on the cushion!
Do a few positions a day and relax. Inhale and exhale.
I do have a regular meditation practice, but it took years of on and off practice to actually get something consistent in place. I think undertaking a 40 day mantra chanting practice helped me, because at least for a few minutes a day I had to sit and chant. Once on my seat it was easier to stay for a few more minutes of meditation.
I always have a much more enjoyable day when I start it with meditation!
I’d love to get a vipassana practice going, but right now trying to solidify my ashtanga practice. However – that’s definitely a type of meditation for me, as is any time I am stressed and use my ujjayi breath to calm down.
i meditate in the bath tub! i also love alternate nostril breathing.
I have a practice of meditation that is living. I have been initiated or activated or attuned or baptized or bestowed or blessed with a mantra, how ever it is that mantras happen, it happened to me. I use it sometimes. It’s a prayer for peace.
Recently I noticed that the place I loose myself is at live music shows. I also became aware of the fact that it is when I loose myself that I find myself the most. Recently, at The Cat Empire, I literally felt myself settle down into my body. It was strange and exciting to drop in like that while at the same time being so aware of it happening. It got me to thinking “how long have I been disconnected?…”
I’d like to register my vote for OvO to get a copy of the book and Jen too. In reading OvO’s post I had to enter a state of meditation to get through it. The writing is excellent, the ideas challenging and voice brilliant and humble, plus a follow-up reference post. Jen, raw honesty, lovely!
I just “learned” the basics of meditation at my intensive teaching training I just completed. I have yet to sit at home but I really need to start! I find labelling works… in breath, out breath, thinking, etc.
I meditate for 10-20 minutes every morning. It gives me time to set my intention, goals and focus for the day. I also take the time to do inventory of my emotions, thoughts, feelings and my body. Depending on how I feel I may use a mantra to help deepen my intention or focus. Afterwards I take another 10-30 minutes for my yoga practice. Shower up and drink some tea and I am off the face the day. If I am short on time I tend to sit for a brief moment and then go into a moving meditation of yoga practice. I carry this practice throughout my day – living yoga. I also feel that dance is a form of moving meditation for me.
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