One way of thinking of the Meridians of Chinese Medicine is that they are, generally speaking, channels of communication within the organism along which subtle informational signals are transmitted.
Everyday Sublime: Shedding Light on Yin Yoga and Meditation
Yin Yoga and meditation are refinements of awareness. The purpose of this podcast is to illuminate the theory and practice of Yin Yoga, Chinese Medicine, and meditation as three interwoven tools for apprehending the Everyday Sublime. As Stephen Batchelor says, "the mystical does not transcend the world, but saturates it."
Emerging From Hibernation
Back from the Yin phase of Winter Hibernation, I’m excited to tell you about what’s in store for Season 2 of Everyday Sublime. I have a couple of quick updates about the Summers School of Yin Yoga, and a line-up of superstar interviews for 2018. We’re off to a great start this year, and I’m looking forward to connecting again.
Winter is the Most Yin Time of Year
In 2018, the Summers School of Yin Yoga will be unrolling a unique way study Yin Yoga with a modular curriculum, as well as a way to earn a 200hr or 300hr certification in Yin Yoga, if you’re interested. Each of the core modules of the school will include an online component (taken prior to attending the session) and a live four-day immersion. This will allow us to start at a much higher level when we come together live, and will provide a much richer learning experience overall.
Chinese Medicine: What Is Qi?
Qi is “perceived functionally, by what it does,” is critical to remember. Entities in Chinese Medicine are almost unanimously “perceived functionally,” that is, defined by what they do. We’ll see this affirmed again and again when we look at the meridian system. Meridians are defined by what they do, functionally – the organ system – organs are defined by what they do, functionally – and the Vital Substances of the body – which again are defined by what they do, functionally for the whole organism.
Chinese Medicine: Mastering the Relationship
A point that many authors and practitioners of Chinese Medicine often reiterate is that as qualities of change, Yin and Yang are in a constant process of controlling and balancing one another. A static, unchanging balance is never achieved. What is observed and assisted, however — both by the skilled yoga practitioner and practitioner of Chinese Medicine — is a smooth process of balancing
Chinese Medicine: The Flow of Yin and Yang
By observing Yin and Yang dynamics both in the macrocosm and within the microcosm, the overarching intention was always one of promoting harmony. When honored, observed and respected, Yin and Yang describe processes of change that can be fluid, harmonious and balanced. Of course, if neglected or disregarded, the ceaseless process of change between Yin and Yang can break down and no longer be a smooth, harmonizing process of balance, but rather turn into a disruptive, chaotic, and jarring dynamic of imbalance.
Chinese Medicine: Taoist Origins
Taoists observed how the play of cycles in Nature would manifest in parallel within their internal experience. Understanding and attuning to the world outside facilitated an ability to bring the internal microcosm into harmony with its world, and vice versa, where greater understanding of the microcosm – especially through meditative insight – supported this harmonization with the external environment or macrocosm.
Chinese Medicine: A Holistic Paradigm
A holistic approach to medicine will formulate a diagnosis of a patient’s condition by taking into consideration the complex dynamic of everything going on internally with that patient, as well as external influences of interpersonal relationship, work, and climate. Whereas a more conventional approach to medicine will try to identify a singular causative factor that generates illness and which needs to be eliminated or suppressed.
The Jazz Session: Ode to Aaron Goldberg
I find Aaron’s trios are the settings where his personality and voice shine brightest. In my interview Aaron, he talked about the depth of connection that forms between jazz musicians when they’ve played together for years and years and years, and it’s that level of connection and interpersonal knowing that facilitates the kind of expression and improvisation that is so charged and captivating. It’s that depth of familiarity which facilitates the sublime.
Yin Meditation: A Creative And Functional Approach To Meditation
In a Yin approach to meditation, you encounter the raw materials of your life: sensations of the body, perceptions, ideas, thoughts, views, and opinions. And in coming to know these elements more directly, you can shape and make of them what you will. How you act, think, speak, work, and rest are all of one process that you examine and develop in the workshop of your meditation practice. You are both the artist and the creative subject.
Yin Meditation: How To Fail At Meditation
What I’m about to suggest as a way of working with sleepiness will likely cause you to question my sanity. But, for me, and many that I’ve spoken to and worked with, allowing sleepiness to be, i.e. letting it go on, is the most effective strategy for working with it. And, in the context of this lesson, by doing so, you might find yourself inadvertently entering deep states of stillness by specifically not fighting sleepiness.
Yin Meditation: Relaxing Within the Hindrances
In contrast to more active and Yang ways of working with the hindrances, I’ve found it incredibly fruitful to adopt a more Yin approach. Rather than deploying any prescribed technique or strategy for dealing with them, I’ve found that bringing a relaxed, receptive, tolerant, and curious energy towards the hindrances is a really good first step. These qualities reframe the energy that my mind tends to have in approaching each hindrance. I’m not so much in attack mode any longer. I’m a bit softer and friendlier, encouraging a broader exploration of their energy.
Yin Meditation: Absorption Au Naturel
In this Yin approach to meditation that I’m describing, when you dial back any effort to try and control your mind, you’re giving your mind space to explore things that it finds naturally engaging. For example, while relaxing and being receptive to your experience in meditation, you might find that you start to think about about a dynamic at work, or an unfinished project at home, or a disagreement with someone, or a holiday you’d like to take. In allowing your mind to get absorbed into these kinds of themes and topics, certain qualities of focus and calm – often listed in meditation texts – do start to come together.
Yin Meditation: Exploring Stillness
The peace in the heart of these still states provides a balm to stress and anxiety. There is a profound relief and well-being that often accompanies these states. And frequently, when you experience them, there is a blooming of faith that something significant and important is developing in your meditation practice. And one of the truly wonderful aspects of a Yin approach to meditation is that internal stillness happens rather frequently on its own.
Yin Meditation: Staying Still in Meditation
By committing to a fixed time, you will inevitably go through phases of calm, agitation, boredom, restlessness; periods of wondering when it will end, and possibly periods of time of not wanting it to end. And in sitting through all these experiences — riding these internal waves — you will start to get to know your inner world better.
Yin Meditation: The Art of Releasing Conflict in Meditation
When your mind is given permission to be receptive to the total spectrum of experience and to relax within that process — and to not try and push unpleasant things away — one of the things that relaxes is the resistance to conflict. I’m sure you’ve heard the old aphorism: “That which you resist, persists?” Well, it’s true in meditation, too. If you resist conflict, it tends to just push back and kick its heels in deeper. But if you are receptive and allowing of it, the conflict tends to shift and move, change and flow; it comes and goes more fluidly.
Yin Meditation: Playing Your Mental Edge
The general “mental posture” within a Yin approach to meditation is for your mind to be receptive and open to the full range of your inner experience. But with such an open-ended approach, it’s not uncommon for challenging emotions and themes to arise within your practice. I suggest handling these strong mental/emotional energies in the same manner that you might negotiate strong sensation in the body during a Yin Yoga posture.
Yin Meditation: Relaxing the Mind
In a Yin approach to meditation, the main emphasis is to develop a relaxed and receptive attitude towards the experiences you have while meditating — you’re not trying to control or overly manage those experiences; you’re developing gentleness and tolerance to yourself and the variety of experiences you have while meditating. To this point, my teacher, Jason Siff, sometimes defines meditation as this: “Meditation is what happens when you act upon the intention to meditate.” In other words, whatever happens while you attempt to meditate is the meditation.
Yin vs. Yang Meditation
When we look at different mental qualities, Yin qualities of mind tend to include traits like receptivity, allowance, yielding, tolerance, quiescence, reflection, passivity, or non-manipulation. Yang qualities of mind tend to involve traits like doing, manipulating, directing, improving, achieving, controlling, or becoming. From a Chinese perspective, both Yin and Yang qualities are essential. And the value in better understanding the relationship between Yin and Yang qualities is to promote balance and harmony between them.
What is Meditation?
Simply put, meditation is mental training, and a way to know yourself better. Meditation develops certain qualities of your mind. For thousands of years, this mental training was practiced within spiritual and religious communities, often requiring a fair amount of faith, belief, and superstition on behalf of the student. But now, there is a renaissance underway, ushering in new ways of practicing and thinking about meditation.