MorningMysore

yogash: yoga (is)
chitta: (of) mind-field
vritti: fluctuations, modifications, operations, activities
nirodhah: control, dissolution, cessation, suspension

yogash chitta vritti nirodhah:

yoga is the control (cessation, suspension) of the fluctuation of the mind

According to Patanjali, this sutra defines yoga. According to Patanjali, the mind consists of three parts: manas (the recording faculty which receives the impressions gathered by the senses from the outside world,) buddhi (the discriminative faculty which classifies these impressions and reacts to them - the intelligence) and ahmakara (the ego-sense which claims these impressions for its own and stores them up as individual knowledge.)

Although nirodhah is literally translated as ‘control’ or ‘restraint’ in sanskrit, it sometimes doesn’t make sense in terms of yoga - if we are controlling the mind, then there must be some entity that’s controlling the mind… So I like what Gregory Maehle says about this - instead of control, it should be the suspending or calming and ceasing of the mind.

Question: why control/suspend/cease the fluctuations of the mind?

Some answers: to be more clear, to be present, negating past and future expecations
to give yourself the opportunity to respond vs react
to be present, to be content
practice no control, having no mind, don’t think of the mind
like the wild-horse carriage - you need to train your mind to go in the right direction (hope I got this right..)

I like how Gregorey Maehle puts it:
“The way to realize consciousness is through a passive suspending, calming and ceasing of mind-waves, which is possible only through insight, wisdom, intelligence and knowledge.”

So how do we do this??

We have restarted the sutra discussions on moondays from 6:30-7:30am at YiY. We thought it would be nice to keep notes of the discussions so that those who can’t participate physically may still participate or even have an option to find out more about a particular sutra. We are going to try the format of having each sutra be a sub-category of the sutra discussion so that we can add comments per sutra vs. per discussion. The intention is that in the future if someone wanted to find out about a particular sutra, they could just go to that sutra or we can add comments on a particular sutra at any time. Hope this format works for all.

Samadhi Pada, Sutra 1:
atha yoganushasanum: (now, at this moment, begins the instruction of yoga following a past tradition)

Atha: (meaning now)
yoga: (of yoga)
anu: within or following a tradition (passed on from previous teachers)
shasanum: instruction, discipline, teaching

Discussion here was what yoga means and there was some discussion on the various schools of thoughts - the dualistic one (where there are two seperate realities (nature - prakrti and consciousness - purusha) and then non-dualistic one (where there is one underlying reality and yoga is the merging or uniting with this reality.)

Several people have expressed interest to my earlier post about the Zen Center Kannondo having moved, so I thought I’d post this announcement about their open house:

Neighborhood Open House

The Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center
at 1972 Rock Street
will be hosting an Open House on
Saturday, December 2
From 12:00 - 3:00 PM

You are cordially invited to meet the members of the center,
visit the beautiful new meditation hall, or ask
any questions you might have about Buddhism,
the Center’s activities, or Zen practice in daily life.

Please stop by for refreshments and conversation

We look forward to seeing you

Cheers,

Philippe

As most of you know Anne Finstad is visiting Mountain View this week.

Adarsh and Heleen are on holiday so she will be teaching a morning class with me this Tuesday November 28.

As a reminder, here is how the week shapes up with teachers:

Tuesday 11/28: Philippe + Anne
Wednesday 11/29: Philippe + Dave
Thursday 11/30: Beata + Dave
Friday 12/1: Philippe (led class as usual)
Sunday 12/3: Philippe + Dave
Monday 12/4: Moonday (Sutra Study Group [updated] 6:30-7:30am)

Cheers,

Philippe

Hi all,
I just got a DVD of Tim Miller leading the primary series back in the late 80s. I am happy to lend it to anyone who wants to watch it. Tim Miller was the first American to be certified by AYRI and was one of the early American students of Guruji.

Some fun and entertaining things about this led primary series DVD:
1) The students in the class are “real people”. This means that: (a) you get to see Tim walk around and give adjustments, which I found informative to watch/learn from (b) some of the students mug self-aware extremely tired expressions halfway through the series including one guy who keeps grinning into the video camera as you see him cheat on postures (I found this personally inspiring)
2) Tim gives quick demos of each posture and makes some interesting points about getting into some of them - quit informative
3) Everyone is wearing late 80s exercise clothes including leopard pattern leotards - this is entertaining in its own right (note: Michael Jackson soundtrack not included with video)

Anyhow, if anyone wants to borrow it, let me know and I will bring it in.
Elad