On November 19 we’ll kick off the 2009 All People Yoga Center Book Club from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at AYPC, where participants can get acquainted as group before beginning our journey through the 2009 selection, The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living, by Stephen Cope. The book shares real life stories of people discovering life long patterns, using yoga to improve the quality of their life. The APYC Book Club is open to anyone who wishes to participate.
Information about the APYC Book Club
At our first session, participants will receive a handout with questions for each week to encourage personal reflection and response on our Book Club Blog. Each week there will be a suggested number of pages to read. During week one, we’ll reflect on the ways we suffer and long for a place of stillness and peace. Our second and final gathering will be January 7, 2010 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. when we’ll share as a group and participate in a Kripalu practice led by Danielle Brain. The cost of the APYC Book Club is $30 (or two classes from your set) plus the cost of the book. The Wisdom of Yoga may be purchased in the APYC lobby for $17 plus tax.
Looks like fun!
ReplyDeleteWeek 1 ~ Thursday November 19th through Wednesday November 25th
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment:
Introduction, Prologue & Chapters 1-3 ~ pages xiii-51
Group Sharing:
Write about your reaction to Jake's experience with meditation on pages 21-23.
Try meditating for five minutes and share your personal experience.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy meeting everyone this evening and sharing. I'm looking forward to blogging about The Wisdom of Yoga
ReplyDeleteVery nice to meet everyone. Someone brought up this puzzling business of the "Ego Ideal" and the "Ideal Ego," so I thought I would blog about that - also it seems very important to Cope, it serves as some sort of central organizing principle for the book. On top of all this, it takes place in the unconscious, so it is by nature mysterious and opaque.
ReplyDeleteHe seems more positive about the Ego Ideal, which involves a quest to find something outside ourselves (a person or a place or even an object) to make ourselves feel whole and complete. Is seems intrinsically linked to self-development and maturity. While we can pursue mistaken or misguided things, this striving itself can be harnessed, through discipline and meditation, to aid the pursuit of freedom and enlightenment.
The account of Ideal Ego seems quite negative by comparison, he equates it with delusion, narcissism and perhaps a refusal to grow up - Peter Pan, maybe. The Ideal Ego comes across an an obstacle to happiness, a problem to be overcome. The aim of yoga and meditation seems to be to dissolve the Ideal Ego so that Ego Ideal can be channeled into supporting self-realization. Obviously, there is more that could be said, but that is my thumbnail sketch at this point. Thanks.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone! I played around with some of the features of the blog today and removed a couple of my own comments which were really only tests. I also changed the time zone of our blog, so the time printed at the bottom of each comment should now be accurate. Now back to reading The Wisdom of Yoga...
ReplyDeleteDona said...
ReplyDeleteI still have figured out how to "select profile", so I typed in "Dona said". I'm curious to discover if this blog knows who I am by my email adress. Mark, thank you for the sharing on Ego Ideal and Ideal Ego. Your comments seem much to the point that Cope presents.
In regards to Jakes experience...I laughed out loud as I read his reactions as they were so similar to mine when I began meditation and I could really relate to his feelings. I have longer periods of time now when I experience stillness and space...however, I still relate to Jake much of the time.
Dona,
ReplyDeleteAt the bottom of the 'POST A COMMENT' box you will see 'Comment as:' with a drop down box. Click on the arrows and select 'Name/URL' and put your first name in the 'Name' box and leave the 'URL' box blank. Then click the 'Continue' buttom. Let me know if this is not clear. Thank you!
Week 2 ~ Thursday November 26th through Wednesday December 2nd
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment: Chapters 4-5 ~ pages 55-86
Group Sharing: Maggie shares a very personal experience with Stephen on pages 76-79 and then asks, "Do you think I'm OK?" What is your reaction to her question?
Week 3 ~ Thursday December 3rd through Wednesday December 9th
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment: Chapter 6 ~ pages 89-108
Group Sharing: Review Pain and Suffering pages 105-108. Can you remember a time when you allowed yourself to fully feel difficult emotions? Do you agree with Susan's comment, "Pain that is not resisted begins to soften... No matter how painful it is, it's a relief to just feel it."?
The experiences people have with difficult emotions can largely vary - some people seem to be better equipped to deal with them better than others, whether by choice, through experiences or through a more internal method of sorting through it. I feel that for some people it may be too traumatic to "just feel" those emotions, it doesn't mean that they can't experience them, but that the "side effects" make life more painful and can be debilitating for some. (in the sense that it doesn't soften for them for a very long time, if ever) There is an entire industry built upon "resisting" and "softening" emotions through medication! Finding the balance between "just feeling" the emotions and getting caught up in it is something everyone has to find for themselves. I do feel that letting yourself feel emotions can be helpful in the same way doctors will purge certain wounds - it drains out the negative things that are making you feel unwell. It hurts, but once it's finished, you recover and feel better for it.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I can agree with the comment about it being a relief to feel it to a certain extent. In my personal experience I find that as I go deeper into my studies difficult emotions (or very strong emotions) have become closer to passing storms - they just happen now and then, and I can either wallow in the mud from it, or acknowledge that it has to rain sometimes in order for the grass to be green and the flowers to bloom. Resisting the emotions would leave me like a desert where nothing can flourish without a struggle, but there is a very clear line for me between resisting the emotions and not letting myself get flooded by it.
Week 4 ~ Thursday December 10th through Wednesday December 16th
ReplyDeleteReading Assingment: Chapters 7-8 ~ pages 109-140
Group Sharing: Write about your experience this week or write about any objections or frustrations you had with the ideas presented this week.
I found it fascinating to explore the link between my own behaviors and craving/aversion/delusion! Suddenly so many things are made clear.
ReplyDeleteThis content reminds me very much of Byron Katie's book, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life.
In any painful situation, she encourages you to write out your complaint, then test it against four questions: 1) Is it true? 2) Can you absolutely know it's true? 3) How do you feel/react when you have that thought? 4) Who would you be without that thought? Finally, you create as many turnarounds (opposite statements) as possible and test them against the same 4 questions… which often allows you to see that you may have a role in the very problem you are disturbed about. This places you at the center of the change and helps you see things in a larger context.
Cope's discussion about craving /aversion/ delusion also reminds me of an interview I heard recently on American Public Media on how to develop executive order in the brain (the ability to have impulses that you don't act on.) The researcher discusses how this can be developed through sports, dance and other activities. http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/learning-doing-being/transcript.shtml
The link to the interview I mentioned is:
ReplyDeletehttp://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/learning-doing-being/transcript.shtml
One more time with a link shortener:
ReplyDeletehttp://bit.ly/8e7Fvi
I am going back to the beginning with my first entry. Meditation practice and what I experienced:
ReplyDeleteAs I sat on my ottoman in a darkened room with a flickering candle for light I closed my eyes and focused on my breath ready for my meditation. As I started my deep breathing I thought about breath and peace, breath and peace. Immediately my mind wondered. I brought my focus back to breath. After a few moments of the back and forth I began to notice a pattern in my wondering. I went to thoughts of health, my new hives and the fact I had no idea where they were coming from, what is going on in my body. STOP! Back to breath and I stayed there for a longer length of time. But here came the chatter once again so I decided to stay with this thought process and change my focus of meditation to health and breath. A healing breath that radiated throughout my body attaching what brought on these hives. Breathing in healthy vitality and exhaling any impurities. Inhaling peaceful, calm, stillness. Exhaling worries. I continued to focus on healthy breathing and I stayed in the moment. I stayed with my breath. I felt light, clam and focused by the end of my meditation. I surrendered to what my mind wanted but stayed with my breath.
Week 5 ~ Thursday December 17th through Wednesday December 23rd
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment: Chapters 9-12 ~ pages 143-224
Kate decides to try a period of silence and uses the power of restraint. What was your reaction to Kate's self-imposed period of silence?
Jake does a walking meditation and "practices the opposite" pages 178-181. Can you think of a situation where it might be helpful to "practice the opposite?"
Maggie records her powerful experience of asana pages 191-192. Is there an experience of asana that you would like to share?
Susan begins a more intimate experience of her breath on page 224. "When we begin to discover, explore, and identify with the breathing body, a shift happens." Have you had any experiences of a "shift" when you have focused on the breath?
Helene says:
ReplyDeleteI am also going back to earlier reading and comments.
I had a similar type of puppy mind when I tried to meditate-- it seemed to get even worse the more I tried to meditate.
I really liked the Chanting though-- I like the vibrations I feel in my thumbs through the heart when chanting.
The whispering was okay.
I thought I would not like the silent chanting-- but I liked it and continued on with it for a couple of minutes past what the suggested time frame was. I was not even aware of time.
I like Jes' metaphor of a desert with the emotions being like rain. When the desert is arid, without the emotions of rain it can't handle the infrequent storm-- flooding can change the landscape catastrophically. But when a plain is used to some occasional rain, the land can absorb it without disaster.
ReplyDeleteThis metaphor is helpful for me in thinking about the best way to be present to and with my feelings of pain and loss.
Thank you Crystal for the reference to Byron Katie's approach-- I am amazed at how effective even the simplist of questions can be.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first post, so, we'll do just this sentence to see if it works.
ReplyDeleteOk -- first, words can hardly express how much I appreciate this book. It has opened new understandings for me, even though I have not participated in the discussion so far.
ReplyDeleteAt first, it took some effort to understand concepts, and I could only sip this book -- took me days to get past the ideal ego and the ego ideal. I still don't have a good sense of these concepts, but I do understand the notion of getting lost searching for the perfect bird, when there is beauty all around you.
But then, I read about the Noble Failure -- and the Hungry Ghosts -- and saw the depth of insight that Cope and other yogis have developed over thousands of years. We struggle with pain -- and suffering. But these practices can allow us to face our pain -- which is not optional -- without suffering -- which is optional.
How alone each of is as we dwell in ego and become embroiled in our thoughts and emotions. How freeing to realize our thoughts are not us -- but simply another sensory input. We are not mind or our thoughts -- good to know -- yet I rarely disengage from the thoughts to stop the world. Still, I do find that I look for the Witness when drama develops in my relationships.
ONe of the questions Ann asks is about Maggie's experience in the asanas and whether we have an experience to share. I find that breathwork and asanas make my senses expand and energy flows in and out through my body -- in through the crown of the head and out the hands, and I feel waves of bliss wash over me and through me. It is as though I've turned a corner in my brain and am "seeing" with different senses. The room glows, and I can see energy, in different colors, rolling in waves. And, there is incredible peace and joy wafting through me.
The problem is not in that moment, but in taking those moments into the world when I get off the mat. I have often thought that these experiences are wonderful, but they are almost selfish, because they are not shared. Thney evaporate when I leave the mat. This book -- and other encounters with this Way of being -- help me to understand that a daily practice is essential to allow that peace to spill over into my "real-world" life.
Weeks 6 & 7 ~ Thursday December 24th through Wednesday January 6th
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment: Chapters 13-15 ~ pages 227-274
On pages 264-267 Stephen Cope wrestles with the rejection of his manuscript on the yoga sutras. He has been working on this project for two years. Do you think this book flowed out of that rejection?
I really loved the section on practicing the opposite and the idea that we can change negative mind states through practice. The same wisdom is given in the sacred text of the Bible where we are instructed to:
ReplyDelete1) be transformed the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2);
2) pray for our enemies (Mathew 5:44) -- very much like the metta meditation of the Buddist tradition described by Cope;
3) reduce negative mind states by giving juice to their opposites—very much like Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.”
During our holiday break I used the metta meditation Cope described to be more patient with family members whose values differ radically from my own, which can provoke me to bitterness. It’s easy to espouse patience on the mat when we are feeling so good. Not so easy beyond the mat, eh? This truly works.
I also practiced the opposite by doing something I would almost never do when I am outnumbered: I spoke out in support of our President when someone made a racist comment about him. My heart was pounding in the moments afterward. The reaction was severe enough that I couldn’t help but think my outspokenness may have violated another more basic principle: ahimsa—peace. Even so, I felt tremendous peace within and better about myself for not sitting in silence, passively approving the direction of the discourse.
Once again, the concept of practicing the opposite overlaps with Byron Katie’s book, Loving What Is. In fact, I’m finding so much common ground between Katie’s work, the yoga sutras, and other sacred texts that I’m inclined to think her books are largely based on these principles.
So many thoughts in these sharing have brought new depth to "Wisdom of Yoga". Jes, whenever I tempted to stuff an emotion I remember the dessert and flooding.
ReplyDeleteCrystal, I also enjoy Byron Katie's WORK and appreciate the analogies to Wisdom of Yoga.
Beth, I can identify with the WORK of taking our yoga experience "Off the Mat." and I appreciate your summary of "facing our pain, which is not optional to suffering which is optional."
Each person's description of your discoveries and use of meditation helps me also. Meg, you inspire me to allow my monkey mind to guide my meditation as I stay with the breath. Helene, I want to feel the vibrations of my heart in my thumbs. :-)
Ooops I see my monkey mind wrote one of my favorite words, dessert, instead of desert. Hmmm
ReplyDeleteSome other wisdom to consider:
ReplyDeleteWe are made in the image of God, so we have a spiritual awareness and a desire to be with or like God.
-Ecclesiastes 3: God has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
-Genesis 3 “For God knows that when you eat of it you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for attaining wisdom as God, she took some and ate it.
-Exodus 3: God said to Moses, “I AM the ONE who IS (the BEING one)”.
This is why accomplishment and the material world do not have the ability to fully satisfy. We long for meaning and purpose of life, and struggle with mortality, transcience, insignificance.
-Ecclesiastes 3, 4 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him… I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind… Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
-Isaiah 55 Seek the Lord since he may be found; call on him since he is near… The Lord says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts… so is my word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace…”
(continued)
ReplyDeleteWe are not insignificant to God, who desires a relationship with each one of us. True satisfaction can only be accomplished by actually BEING with God, who desires to BE with us and transform us.
-Ecclesiastes 12 Revere God and walk in his ways, for this is the entire essence of man.
-Jeremiah 29 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
-Ecclesiastes 2 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This is from the hand of God, for without him, who can find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness.
-Psalm 27 One thing I ask of the Lord: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling.
-Luke 10 As Jesus came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
-2Corinthians 3, 5 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit… Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling… It is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
-Romans 8 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Group sharing from week 3. Just a quick note to say I agree with Susan’s comment “pain that is not resisted begins to soften…” I believe that if you acknowledge your pain and learn to work through it the pain will soften, fall to the side, decrease in size. This process may take sometime through guidance, therapy, etc.. but the pain will lessen in its enormity. By resisting pain, you stay stuck, still experiencing some pain b/c you are not living your truth.
ReplyDelete