Omaha Yoga Path Post
Fresh Air Story on Yoga
There was a recent story in the New York Times about the risks of yoga, but this interview of the author William J. Board seems to clear up some of the sensationalism that arose around the Times article. Will Board is a science research writer and life time yoga practitioner who has done his homework on this subject of modern yoga. Also this Fresh Air interviews allows the science researcher to enumerate some of the many benefits derived from the modern practice of yoga. It is worth the listen.
How to invite the bell
At the end of every yoga class, we invite the sound of the bell. As we lie down in Savasana (corpse pose) we practice stillness, the hardest of all poses. Our breath becomes the focus to bring us back to the present moment. Over and over we smile to the wandering mind, but gentlely and persistently return to sensation of our breath. Then at the end of this pose and the end of our practice, the bell is invited with the intent of
I listen, I listen!
May the sound of the bell call me back
To my true home.
This video explains this practice so beautifully. Please enjoy:
the Nine Obstacles
Recently in class we have come across the sutra “The 5th obstacle is laziness.” Some students have been asking what & how many obstacles are there? There are nine:
Illness
Apathy
Doubt
Carelessness
Laziness
Craving
Mistaken view of the world left uncorrected
Failing to reach specific levels
Not being firmly established in effort
Readings from the Mat
A brand new Book Club Group is starting at the Yoga Path, to be held on Tuesday Nights 7:30 starting January 24 through February 7 You do not have to be a current student of the Path or practicing yoga. You just need to read a book. The book we be studying is Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun by Sister Dang Nghiem, a Vietnamese Buddhist nun.
“This extraordinary story takes the reader from Saigon, to the California coast, to a monastery in the southwest France. Huong Huynh was born 
to a Vietnamese mother and a U.S. soldier in the midst of war. She dedicated her life to healing and transforming the suffering of other people, first as a medical doctor and then as a nun. Ordained by Zen Master Thich Chat Hanh, who gave her the name —Dang Nghiem—(adornment with nondiscrimination), she finally experienced her own healing. With humor, insight, and an irrepressible sense of joy, Sister Dang Nghiem’s story offers clarity and guidance for anyone who has dealt with suffering and loss.
About the Author
Sister Dang Nghiem was born in central Vietnam in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. Her mother was Vietnamese; her father was a U.S. soldier. Raised in Vietnam by her grandmother, she came to the United States in 1985, earned two college degrees, graduated from a prestigious medical school, and began working as a doctor. As a nun, she has integrated Western and Eastern medical traditions and has learned the healing power of mindful awareness and nondiscrimination.” Parallax Press
We will share for three nights to learn about the transformative teaching of this story.
Cost is $30 which includes the book. To register email info@omahayogapath.net or call 402-905-2295. Space is limited so reserve your place. Share this flyer with a friend.
After the Tango
Just a thank you for all who supported the Hike to Help Refugees Winter Solstice party. We raised close to $900.00 this year which will go a long way to helping those in need. However, our tango skill needs a great of work. Thank heaven it’s not Tango to Help Refugees.
November Yoga Path News
Enclosed is the first monthly Yoga Path news. The bottom left button will allow you to expand to a readable size. Let us know what you think.
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Practicing in Your Space
KEEPING QUIET by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to 12/and we will all keep still For once on the face of the earth,/lets not speak in any language,/lets step for one second,/and not move our arms so much
It would be an exotic moment/,without rush, without engines,/we would all be together/in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea/would not harm whales/and the man gathering salt/would look at his hurt hands
Those who prepare green wars, /wars with gas, wars with fires,/victories with no survivors,/would put on clean clothes & walk about with their brothers,/In the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused/ with total inactivity Life is what it is about;/I want no truck with death.
If we werent so single-minded//about keeping our lives moving/and for once could do nothing/perhaps a huge silence/might interrupt this sadness/of never understanding ourselves/and of threatening ourselves with death/perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead/and later proves to be alive
Suzanne’s Pranayama Class
During the Late Summer Intensive in August, we had guest teacher, Suzanne Swang, teach a pranayama class on yogic breathing. For all those who attended (as well as for those who didn’t) below is an outline of what she had us do in class. Practice of just a few minutes of one or two of these exercises would be very beneficial. Enjoy:
Thanks again for the opportunity to teach at your beautiful center. It is such a peaceful space & l love seeing you all!
Here is the outline of the pranayamas that I taught:
Standing Breath of Joy– conducting the orchestra (with or without the jump)
Agni Sara – pulling the stomach inwards and upwards (with or without the stomach pumping)
Sun Breaths – sweeping the arms out to the sides and up overhead (with or without the toe raise)
Ujjayi & Dirga – ocean sounding breath and 3-part breath
Kapalabati – breath of fire (stomach pumping)
Counting the breath with the metronome
Nadi Shodahana – alternate nostril breathing
Have a great class today – wish I could come,
Joyfully, Suzanne
George Orwell’s Tea
Those of us who come to the Yoga Path, have come to appreciate the tea ceremony at the end of our classes. It is an integral part of the practice. Yet it’s very difficult in America, the land of coffee, to find a decent cup of tea out in the world. One of my students recently shared this story from Orwell with me. It captures much of what I think goes into a good cup of tea. If there are an isolated tea drinkers out there in this coffee waste land, write in. You’re not alone.
A Nice Cup of Tea
by George Orwell
Saturday Essay, Evening Standard, 12 January 1946
If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilisation in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays – it is economical, and one can drink it without milk – but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities – that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britannia-ware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realised on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea-lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes – a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup – that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold – before one has well started on it.
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject.
The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
Lastly, tea – unless one is drinking it in the Russian style – should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt.
Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connection with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilised the whole business has become.
There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet.
It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one’s ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.