Is your asana practice supporting your meditation practice?
In a meditation session I recently taught I was surprised to notice that more than half the participants were either leaning against the wall or against a back jack (floor chair). Understandably, there are usually one or two people in a group who will use the wall to support themselves due to chronic back/hip injuries or vulnerabilities, but never before have I witnessed a session where more than half the room was in need of the wall!
I noticed my reaction with interest – and that’s why I wrote this piece. Instead of just firmly instructing everyone to sit without the wall, I was deeply moved to compassionately inquire…why did so many of them need the wall or the floor chair? Wasn’t their asana practice supporting their seated meditation practice?
Yoga citta vrtti nirodhah – yoga is the ceasing of the fluctuations of the mind
Today, in much of the modern world, “yoga” is considered to be a 60-90 minute community class where an instructor teaches participants physical yoga postures, often linked with breath. These classes as we know can be of various different natures and themes: hot, sweaty, athletic, dynamic, fun, easy, sweet, boring, lots of movement, no movement, loud music, no music, super strict, super gentle and loving, or all of the above (and so much more).
We “do” yoga in studios, in gyms, in parks, in the air on swings and slacklines, in the water on paddleboards, with hand weights, with exercise balls, with goats, with cats, with gloves and socks on or off, and with yoga clothes on…or off! In the modern day era of yoga we have created so many fun and interesting ways to practice yoga. Practice our yoga postures (asanas) that is! But, as many of us discover, ‘yoga’ is much more than these physical yoga postures.
In the Yoga Sutras, Sage Patanjali outlines yoga as “the ceasing of the fluctuations of the mind”. In order to do this Patanjali outlines a detailed step-by-step process (the eight limbs of yoga). His eight limbs of yoga consist of yamas, niyamas, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.
The first four limbs of yoga are the foundation for the last four limbs of yoga
The five Yamas and five Niyamas are our moral disciplines and observances (such as non-violence, truthfulness, greedlessness, purity, contentment and right effort). Asana is our body’s posture (seat) and Pranayama is the control (retention) of pranic energy, via the breath. These first four limbs (or one could consider them steps) create and sustain the foundation for the latter four limbs of sense withdrawal, concentration, meditation and absorption (pratyhara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi).
Therefore the question we need to ask ourselves is: Are our asana and pranayama practices (at home or in the community classes) instilling in us the physical and mental strength and fortitude needed if we are to engage in the hard work and discipline our meditation practice requires of us? Or put another way, are our asana and pranayama practices preparing us and supporting us in the way they ought to if we are to progress on the yogic path?
Asana is a Sanskrit word meaning “to sit” or “to sit down.” In the Yoga Sutras the word “asana” is only mentioned once: “posture should be steady and comfortable” (2.46 sthira sukkham asanam), and referred to three times “such posture shall be attained by the relaxation of effort and by absorption of the infinite” (2.47 prayatna saithilyananta samapattibhyam), “from this (mastering posture), one is not afflicted by the dualities of opposites” (2.48 tato dvandvanabhighatah) and “when that (asana) is attained, pranayamah, breath control, follows…this consists of the regulation of the incoming and outgoing breaths” (2.49 tasmin sati svasa prasvasayor gati-vicchedah pranayamah).
As Edwin F. Bryant states in his translation and commentary of the Yoga Sutras:
“Patanjali has relatively little to say about asana, leaving us with only three sutras on the topic, consisting of a total of eight words, or, put differently, considerably less than one percent of the text occupies itself with asana.”