In this blog series, we will explore the difficult tendencies of the mind as taught and described by various traditions of meditation. The Buddhist meditative tradition teaches that there are five hinderances of the mind. These are mental factors or states that exist and arise in the mind. These qualities prevent the practitioner from making progress in meditation.
The five hinderances, as taught in Establishing Mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta)* are: 1) sensory desire, 2) hostility or ill-will, 3) dullness or lethargy, 4) agitation or worry, 5) doubt. It is the practice of mindfulness that allows us to recognize these qualities in the mind. The practitioner recognizes when they are present and when they are not present. Through practice, if and when these qualities are abandoned, the practitioner knows they will not arise in the mind again. The practice of mindfulness consists of sitting in contemplation and establishing mindfulness. There are four phases: mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind and qualities. Within the explanation of the last section, qualities, is the explanation of the five hinderances. It is taught that if one is able to live in recognition that there are these qualities, one can be aware as they come and go without holding onto them. Source: * Satipatthana Sutta, M I 60 - Sayings of the Buddha, Rupert Gethin, pp. 147-148.
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Through our research and practice, we have found confusion regarding the names and positions of two seated postures: Swastikasana and Siddhasana. Swastikasana is left untranslated as "Swastika", or understood as Auspicious, Good Luck or Twisted Cross Pose. Siddhasana is called the Siddha's or Adept's Pose, or Success in Meditation. Up until the 1970s or even later, Swastikasana was typically a seated, cross-legged position with the feet intertwined between the legs. This instruction is given by teachers of the Ghosh lineage such as Buddha Bose and Gouri Shankar Mukerji. It's also found in texts of hathayoga that predate the twentieth century. The Hathapradipika instructs Swastikasana as follows: "Placing the soles of both feet well between the knees and thighs [and] sitting up with the body straight: they call that the auspicious pose*" HP 1.19 (See *below for note and credit on translation). However, Bikram Choudhury in his list of "84", mistakes Siddhasana for Swastikasana. He teaches it as the position pictured at the top of this blog: balancing, resting on one heel, using the fingers to close off the senses. However, this is much closer to what Gouri Shankar Mukerji teaches as Siddhasana. In 84 Yoga Asanas, Gouri Shankar Mukerji instructs Siddhasana as follows: "Sit on one heel, blocking the anus. Hold this heel in place with the other heel. Inhale. Now close all apertures on your face with your fingers. The right thumb on the right ear and the left thumb on the left ear, right forefinger on the right eye and the left forefinger on the left eye, left middle finger on the left nostril and the right middle finger on the right nostril, right ring and small fingers on the mouth (halfway) and the left ring and small fingers on the other side of the mouth. Thus all openings on your face are blocked with your ten fingers" (p. 59). Given this history, there is great confusion over the name of the posture at the top of the page. While some call it "Good Luck", we suggest it should not be called that given the fact there is a posture consistently performed as Swastikasana, Good Luck, that is different in shape. The straight-leg version pictured above is a new posture if we look at yoga's history beyond the last few decades. For this reason, we would suggest it should take on a new name. * This translation is from Hathapradipika.online which is the work of Dr James Mallinson, Dr Jason Birch, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hanneder and Dr Mitsuyo Demoto-Hahn. They are working on Light on Hatha Yoga: A critical edition and translation of the Hathapradipika, the most important premodern text on physical yoga.
We are ever grateful for their work and look forward to the final publication. There seems to be an endless focus on the arms in yoga postures. This comes in the form of discussing which finger position or grip is the most effective, whether or not the elbows are straight, or what the shoulders should look like.
This is usually not useful. Unless we are talking about an arm pose like Crow or Plank, it will not help us to focus on the hands, elbows or shoulders. Here is why... The majority of postures are about the spine. The arms do not move the spine. The muscles that move the spine are the muscles that move the spine: abdominal and back muscles. So if we are trying to move the spine, it won't help us to focus on the arms. TWO COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS There are two common misunderstandings at play here. The first is that the spine can change length. It can change shape, but this is not the same as the spine itself actually growing longer. The spine is a fixed length. There are vertebrae and discs that make up the spine. The spine itself cannot lengthen. One side of the spine can lengthen, but it does so by the other side of the spine shortening. This is what we do in backward and forward bends. In a backward bend the front of the body does get longer, but that's because the back gets shorter. If we want to change the position of the spine, we have to do so one side (front, back, left, right) at a time. The second misunderstanding is confusing shoulder elevation for spine length. In the picture above, the spine is no longer than with the arms down by the side. It is only that the shoulders are elevated, or to say it another way, the shoulders are shrugged up by the ears. This is trapezius engagement. With the arms overhead and the trapezius engaged, it may look like the spine is longer, but in fact it is an optical illusion. It is just the arms and the shoulders that have moved. Often, it is said that reaching with the arms will help bend the spine. But reaching with the arms moves the shoulders. Some shoulder muscles, namely the trapezius and the rhomboids, do attach to the spine. But they get their stability from the spine in order to move the shoulder blades. These are not muscles that change the shape of the spinal column. To put it simply, the spinal muscles move the spine. The arms, shoulders and hands do not. In spinal postures, do not worry about lengthening your spine or using your arms. Try to put your focus on the muscles that move the spine. Join us for the Strong Woman Reba Rakshit book club! Since March is Women's History Month, we thought this would be the perfect time to read Reba's story together. Then at the end of the month we will discuss the book and topics related to women in yoga. Join us March 30th for a free, online book discussion. You can register below.
Strong Woman Reba Rakshit is a biography of a yogi and circus star set in the 1950s. She was a student of Bishnu Charan Ghosh and a woman who dared to dream. She had immense courage and steely determination. She was a stuntmaster who worked shoulder to shoulder with men to give her country its first ‘strong woman’. Over the month, we will pose questions and points for reflection. If you choose to read the book, feel free to share your thoughts and send us your questions. On social media, tag or mention Ghosh Yoga and use hashtags #ghoshyoga and #strongwomanreba If you don't have a copy, they are available now. Book discussion RSVP: forms.gle/ufwRs1uqiFHXLrmm7 Do you struggle with Half Moon Sidebend? Are you deep, but not sure if you're doing it correctly? Or do you struggle to bend your spine sideways at all? We have a solution: do Side Plank. Here is why... External Obliques & Side Plank Side Plank is a posture that engages the sides of the abdomen. These muscles are named the external obliques. If we are balancing on our left arm, the left external oblique will be engaged. On the right arm, it's the opposite. The external obliques are muscles that connect from lower ribs on the sides of the body, to the top of the pelvis or iliac crest. Essentially, this muscle pulls the ribs down toward the pelvis on the sides of the body. When it is engaged, our spine bends sideways. This is exactly the movement of Half Moon Sidebend. You may notice that in Side Plank, the spine is "straight". But in the case of Side Plank, the external oblique are what prevent our ribs on the side of the body from moving away from our pelvis. Without this engagement, our side body would "dip" or "hang" down toward the floor. And if we were to engage this muscle more in Side Plank, we would in fact start to bend to the side, essentially doing Half Moon while arm balancing. Half Moon Sidebend Many of us struggle to effectively engage this muscle in Half Moon Sidebend. The reason is that we place too much focus on the arms, or rely on gravity to pull us over to the side. Neither of these approaches will help, and they will only draw us further from the engagement we want to bend the spine to the side. Try practicing Side Plank before you do Half Moon Sidebend. See if you can focus on the side of your abdomen and gain awareness of this muscle. Then stand up and do Half Moon Sidebend. Notice the strength and engagement required to functionally bend your spine to the side. It feels like pulling your right or left ribs down toward your pelvis while relaxing the opposite side of your abdomen. Half Moon Sidebend is not a passive movement. Find the awareness in your abdomen and notice how both your strength and depth will improve. Happy practicing! Thanks to Prabha Khaitan Foundation, Glenburn Penthouse and My Kolkata for hosting the book launch of Strong Woman Reba Rakshit. The full event was covered here: https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/people/reba-rakshit-was-a-star-yet-history-forgot-about-her-ida-jo-pajunen/cid/1997409 Enjoy! We recently took the new book Strong Woman Reba Rakshit to places and people connected with Reba's life in North Kolkata. Of course, we brought a copy of the book to Ghosh's College! This is where Reba learned yoga and practiced for much of her career. In 2023, Ghosh's College celebrated 100 years! What an iconic piece of North Kolkata's history. We also traveled to Peary Charan Girls' School, which is just down the road from Ghosh's College. This was where Reba studied as a young girl. It is one of the oldest schools for girls in India, and still in operation today. It is also thanks to the current Principal of Peary Charan, for finding the old school records of Reba and her sister in the registrar. We were excited to learn that the school has now named one of the groups of students after Reba! We gave a few extra copies of the book to be stored in the school library. We also visited Das Gupta booksellers, a personal favorite shop. Over the years, this bookstore has helped us tremendously by finding books for research or pointing us in the right direction. We are ever grateful for the human connections and had a blast bringing Reba's story (at least in book form) back to her home. This asana is the same in shape as what many people call Spider. However, this posture is more accurately named as Crocodile because "Makara" means crocodile. The posture is named after Makar, the mythological sea-creature ridden by Ganga Ma, the goddess of the Ganges River. On the list of what is known as "the 84", the name has been written incorrectly in English. The reason for this is mistranslation but it brings up the difficulty of transliteration. So, what is transliteration?! TRANSLITERATION Transliteration refers to the process of translating from one alphabet to another. In English, we use the symbols you are reading now. But in another alphabet, a totally different set of symbols is used. Sanskrit, the language asanas are most often written in, uses Devanagari. Because these symbols are unrecognizable to a non-Devanagari reader, a process of transliteration takes place. This means that we approximate the sounds of one alphabet using the characters of another alphabet. Let's take the simple example of Corpse Pose. In English this is written as Shavasana or śavāsana. However in Devanagari this would be written as शवासन. In another language and script, Bangla for example, it would be written as শবাসন. While the symbols look different script to script, the words are essentially the same. This brings us to the asana pictured above. What is it called? SPIDER & CROCODILE If the asana were to be "Spider Pose" it would have to named as Markaka. However, the posture is named मकर which is Makara, or Crocodile. The posture is therefore written as मकरासन, or Makarasana. This name also has historical significance in the Ghosh lineage. For example, Gouri Shankar Mukerji names it as Crocodile in his 1962 manual. On the list of 84, the transliteration is written correctly as Makarasana. However, the English is then written as Spider. This is incorrect. It's a very understandable mistake as the words are similar and even more importantly, very few people (including us!!) understand Sanskrit to a deep degree. It also begs the question, does it matter? We are of the opinion that names are only valuable if they communicate information clearly. If someone understands what you mean, it does not matter what words you use. However, it is also useful to be accurate. If we are simply mistaken in our knowledge, we can correct this and be more precise. It's not useful to repeat something that is incorrect. It is pretty clear that this posture should be named Crocodile. Source for Images: https://www.learnsanskrit.cc/
The List of 84 Asanas, via Bikram Choudhury, Esak Garcia, Tony Sanchez and many others... Mukerji, GS. 84 Yoga Asanas. Here are a few images from DAV Festival Mumbai! DAV United Festival is a two-day spectacle, which invites students, teachers, parents and alumni from schools, colleges, universities, and communities in Navi Mumbai for a fusion of arts and entertainment. Ida promoted Strong Woman Reba Rakshit by discussing spirituality for youth, alongside author Manisha Melwani. A highlight was leading the audience through a few rounds of Even Count breathing! What better for managing anxiety and calming the mind?! We would like to thank all the teachers at the event and the fantastic organizers. They hosted us so warmly and made us feel so welcome. We hope to visit again! Here are a few photos from press events for Strong Woman Reba Rakshit!
We had a great time in Delhi, exploring book shops and cafes. Alongside book signings, Ida recorded several interviews about the themes in the book and the process of research and writing. Stay tuned for these. The book has also been in the press! Read the clips here: Telegraph India: https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/of-courage-and-conviction-lifes-a-circus-for-her/cid/1993918 Scroll.In: https://scroll.in/article/1061792/the-true-story-of-a-circus-beauty-queen-who-lifted-an-elephant-on-her-chest The book will be available from Ghosh Yoga within the week. Details to come... |
AUTHORSScott & Ida are Yoga Acharyas (Masters of Yoga). They are scholars as well as practitioners of yogic postures, breath control and meditation. They are the head teachers of Ghosh Yoga.
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