Y100: Vinyasa To Practice Moving Meditation With Ujayi Breath And The Bandhas (locks)
A few years ago I went to a Vipassana meditation retreat. There was minimal food. No talking. No yoga. Only Vipassana (“insight meditation”) - 10 hours a day for 10 days.
I have always loved seated meditation. It was my first mindfulness practice and it has been the one I come back to the most. It helps me center, gain perspective, clear my mind and refocus. This retreat heightened and solidified these aspects of my practice.
It also challenged me. It brought awareness to unconscious aspects of my mind and body. Why did my attention drift so often at specific points in the practice - like the body scan of my stomach? This happened the first 5 days in a row. What was I unwilling to address? Could I make space for that? Also... With nothing else to distract me, why was I now thinking so much about meal times?
By the middle of the week I had two realizations... One: If I meditated near the door I could get to dinner early and get one of the rare dinner mints before they ran out. Two: as much as I love seated meditation, I realized yoga is my primary meditation practice. I needed to move my body. (Too many dinner mints?)
Fortunate for me, I had a private room at this retreat and I could 'sneak in some yoga' between meditations. After doing this Day 6 was my most engaged, embodied and mindful day of practice yet. The rest of the week flew by.
Since then I have viewed my practice as a 'moving meditation.' An opportunity to practice all the things I practice in seated meditation. To find stillness within movement. To land in each posture as it's own seat ('asana') for meditation.
This was what drew me to the practice to begin with, and what I reconnected with on my retreat. Today in your practice I'll offer ways to find your own version of this experience. In the breath. In the subtle energetic anatomy (bandhas). As well as in many familiar postures.
THANK YOU for helping this podcast grow to reach it’s first 100 episodes. I'm grateful we've reached 30,000+ listens all over the world. It's an honor to get to share these practices that have changed my life.
In next week’s episode we’ll shift gears and start to close out 2019. We'll go from the tapas (strong practice) of today to the saucha (contentment) of deep rest.
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