Asana Postures are not Meditation
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before May 30, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Many persons feel that going to a yoga class means sitting in postures, stretching in postures and doing some deep diaphragm breathing. There are even organizations which certify persons and issue diplomas stating that asana experts who graduated are qualified to teach yoga.
However if you are really serious about yoga, take the time and place to read Patanjali who defines yoga as having eight parts to it of which asana postures are the third procedure in the listing of eight facets.
As for meditation, there is no one word of the eight procedures which is meditation but Patanjali gave meditation as another word which is samyama which he said was the three highest facets of meditation as one sequential event.
If you sit to do meditation (samyama) then you should not be doing postures but should use one of the postures which is easy for you. When one does asana stretches, sits and stands, that is 3rd part of yoga. Do not mix that with meditation. When you are meditating then sit in an easy posture and meditate. When you are doing breathing exercises then do that and then when you complete that, then do meditation as a separate practice.
There are exceptions such as some pranayama practices which include meditation. These are mostly concerned with tracking and directing subtle energy (prana) but even then one should at some point break off from the breath method and just do meditation (samyama).
My main point here is to state that asana (posture) is not yoga but it is a part of an eight segment yoga process. Asana postures are not meditation but one should assume one easy posture to stabilize the body while doing meditation.
devaPriya Yogini 3 years ago
Over the years people tell me that asana, reading, chanting, walking, visualizations etc.. are the 'way' 'they' meditate...and are sometimes resistant to being told that what they are doing is not meditation. Tools to be able to make meditation possible/more attainable, but not meditating. I explained the 8 limbs as well as melatonin and stuff to a chaplain the other day who's a so called meditation teacher and who uses only guided visualizations when he's teaching others what meditation is. He wasn't particularly happy with my explanation and Sutra references...and called me narrow minded when it comes to meditation since i claim it should be activity-less. lol. Well, not to mention he also tells people that flesh eating will not impact their spiritual practices/advancements. Made sure to remind me that even the dalai lama eats meat too...
Brightest blessings and peaceful meditations.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
This person is obviously a clown. He is not interested in the original definition of yoga or meditation. His purpose is to use the word meditation to capture those in the Christian faith who are running away from just prayer and singing hymns and feel that they want to do something else. The only way he can capture them and keep them affiliated with Christianity is to somehow redefine meditation which is not native to America or to Christianity.
What he is saying though has some truth to it when we leave aside our position and go over into his perspective because in the bible flesh eating is not discouraged and in fact in the Old Testament, prophets like Moses offered the roasted flesh of a calf to the Christian deity, whom their text said accepted it and thought it has a good smell.
Christianity is more for speaking to God rather than listening to God and therefore silence is not required because you are supposed to be making some noise in prayer telling God what you want, what your troubles and requesting his grace and relief. In that sense, the chaplain is right on, as people would say.
His position about the Dalai Lama is correct. It was also correct even for Buddha who supposedly died because of eating pork offered to him by a woman-friend.
But it is of no use to argue with this person. The best thing is to leave such persons to do what they are doing. Instead you may speak to others who are ready to move on to a higher practice.
There is one thing you can do though which is to stress that in Christianity there is a book called the bible which gives the guidelines and rules to be followed and if Christians break these rules that does not mean that the rules are not there. For instance you can cite to him that the majority of Christians today take divorces even though Christ was against it in the New Testament, even though it was permitted in the Old Testament by the law-giver, Moses. Christ said that once married people should never divorce and yet, churches allow that. So they break their own rules and the same thing happens in the Eastern religions.
So in the same way, you can explain there are deviations in the Eastern religions even though the books stress certain things. Of course you have to be careful because you will not find a stipulation about not eating flesh in Buddha’s words to his disciples. That topic did not come up. And the other thing is that the Patanjali system is a different system to the one Buddha introduced. It is a different method because even though Buddha did yoga and mastered both asana postures and pranayama breathe infusion and checking, still he did not insist that his disciples should do these austerities.
In the circle of his disciples, there were three seniors who were the guys who were doing yoga austerities with Buddha at first but these three did not continue the gruesome austerities after Buddha gained enlightenment and then convinced them that he would teach them what we know now as the Middle Way.
The junior disciples heard about the austerities but they did not practice these to the extreme which Buddha did. Perhaps they could not anyway, because of not having that much will power. I feel that Buddha was pragmatic and taught his disciples what they could do rather than what he did which they could not achieve.
I am not the Buddha, nor will I be a buddha and still the little that I did in austerities thus far in this life, cannot all be followed by others, because of the degree of determination it would require and the cutting insight one has to have to complete such deep introspect. So yes, Patanjali’s system is precise and specific but there are other meanings and definitions which are applied to yoga and meditation and now in the West we are getting so many meanings that these words have almost lost their original content.
It is sad that the Dalai Lama is eating flesh, if he is still doing that. By now he should have left that aside because he is no longer in such an isolated cold place like Tibet where vegetables hardly grow because of the very long winters and extreme cold. It was necessary in the old days for survival if one lived in that climate. Remember there were no trucks hauling food which was brought into airports from the temperate climates. There was nothing to eat except animals in the winter time. So like that regardless of their view, they could not be vegetarians in the old days but now there is no reason for any ascetic to continue eating flesh and therefore this behavior of the Dalai Lama’s (if His Holiness still indulges), is something that we should take note of about the power of these sordid habits, where even a person of that standing continues with this when there is no necessity for it any more.
The chaplain is correct though in saying that flesh eating will not hamper the aspirations of the Christians. That is true because they are not aspiring to go to the same destination as the yogis. Their destination, the heaven which they aspire for is one in which one will have a resurrected material body and one will sit at a table in the presence of God or in the presence of Jesus and the angels and one will have the best flesh meals ever. So for that, I agree that there is no restriction about eating flesh.
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The real problem with flesh eating is twofold:
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What we must do to kill the animal?
The subtle senses which the subtle body either will have or already has which inspires the need for eating flesh.
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How low will we go?
Will one accept a tiger’s body in the next life just to eat flesh?
Where will the desire for it stop?
Why do we not eat human flesh?
Why did we draw any line about it?
In heaven will we be eating flesh with God, Jesus and the angels?
What senses do we want in the subtle body, those of a cow which cannot under any circumstance cause it to eat flesh or those of a hyena which cannot under any circumstance desire vegetables and fruit?
devaPriya Yogini 3 years ago
He's a clown for certain since he seems to be interested in button pushing and creating debates which he likes to call "dances" with me. He's jewish and his mindset is very similar to that of the Christians he is trying to influence and bring on as 'clients' for his version of spiritual development. Claims he's in direct contact with Jesus, Kwan Yin among other as he calls them, ascended masters and they hang around him all the time. Ok.
I read your response recently to someone about the Buddha being a unique being, advanced and with a powerful will to do what he did...but if HE did it, coming from where he did (ego, materialism, sense gratification) why does he not go ahead and insist on teaching his students his way and not some middle way. I understand he was different and that our individual karmas effect how we can manage austerities, but it seems like it's the realization of those big time higher truths that burns away old ignorances and propensities, revealing to the person a whole new set of options for living.
My statements/questions about this seem juvenile but are persistent within me.
Where has this middle way really gotten Buddhists or anyone? I read recently that just before China took Tibet, the DL had his people who were already longtime poor and suffering, send him all their gold so that a throne of gold could be made for him..and they were convinced that this would help save the country.)
If a teacher sets mid or low expectations, that's what he'll get from his students and that result remains unchanged for the most part no matter how long the teacher allows the students to get the drift....they will stay comfortably on the middle road (lulling themselves into feeling like they are great when they are still causing harms). But maybe if the teacher sets high expectations he will have no students? Unity church, where i teach and I love the principles, dropped the vegetarian principle its founder Myrtle Fillmore had established, after she died.
It's such a balance to keep. Had she been more adamant and insistent maybe the church wouldn't have formed, but she didn't, she was gentle and reasonably patient and now we have a church...but full of meat eaters with some metaphysical inclinations. I love it and the people, but i know im there to bring back the message of right diet. Slowly even my senior minister a self described carnivore when i first got there, is leaving behind meat as are others in the church, but they needed someone to come remind them and show them in their faces that this was one of the forming principles and that it is inexcusable to ignore this.
Many people and animals and forests continue to pay a high price because so few make it off the middle road to the high road. But if the teacher had the proper will himself, wouldn't he/she be able to more greatly influence and inspire people to a higher life? Why don't the humans who achieve enlightenment and who become a teacher insist upon the high path of discipline and commitment for the good and advancement of humanity? Because they would have few students? But if they don't stress it and then have many students (admirers) who are 'allowed' to only go part way, then advancement is either idle or at a snail’s pace? Do they want to fundamentally change the human tendency and suggestibility toward selfish behavior or does the man/institution just want admirers who send money and energy in the form of attention to keep their institution solvent? Because I don't see the point of the middle road unless it quickly is leading you from the lower road to the high road. I don't understand the patience of enlightened teachers I guess, but maybe they don't have a choice in a way.
Even as specific as the yamas and niyamas make things, plenty of so called yogis justify their meat indulgence and say that just because Ahimsa means non-violence, that doesn't mean that one can't eat meat. They need something to say it explicitly otherwise they will interpret it to their own convenience and the middle road remains popular and easy. Just like the commandment though shall not kill. Christians basically redefine this to mean only humans but then there are exceptions there too. It seems like if the Buddha’s students didn't want to do what he did to the extreme he did, then the phenomenal shift within him failed to properly inspire the will of his students, to this day.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
The answer to your questions is wrapped in your own statement which is:
I don't understand the patience of enlightened teachers I guess, but maybe they don't have a choice in a way.
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It is not as simple as it appears to be. A soul who has spent trillions of births in many lower species of life cannot all of a sudden give up the propensities which it developed along the way of evolution. It must carry these and shed these gradually over millions of years.
Buddha did not think that he could get anyone to follow what he did. He was convinced to teach by the Brahma deity and in their discussion it was explained that only a few humans would get the dust removed from their eyes.
To understand the non-middle way, read about Acharya Mun at the link below on our site. If a Buddhist can do what he did, then surely that person would attain liberation.
Most of these divine beings achieve the introduction of some moral principles and that is the most they are usually able to do to influence humanity.
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One other thing is that the biblical commandment of Thou shall not kill did apply to human beings only because if you read it within the context of the Old Testament you will see that the deity was accepting the sacrifice of animals even after that commandment was given to Moses. Therefore in the Judaic tradition it actually means Thou shall not murder other human beings.
When Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac, the deity stopped Moses but the deity did nothing when Abraham sacrificed animals.
You underestimate the power of material nature and you have no idea about the strength of evolution and so you feel it is easy to make people stick to these principles. In time however I am confident that as your meditation gets deeper you will penetrate this.
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Click on this Link:
MahaYogin Acharya Mun: Biography by MiBeloved
