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Was Buddha a Yogi?
lobster
Veteran
From another thread:
in modern world, the understanding of Yoga has just come down to step 3 asanas or bodily postures, unfortunately missing the whole picture of what is meant by Yoga in Hinduism completely.
In some quarters, Hatha yoga is considered similar to some aspects of Buddhist Tantra. Today some teachings of Tantra are based in physical practices, pranayama, body asana etc. Meditation is considered raja yoga, royal or mind yoga.
Historically it is thought Shakyamuni learned asceticism, yogic mind control and anorexia (Holy starvation).
http://www.vedanet.com/2012/06/yoga-and-buddhism-similarities-and-differences/
Is I doing it right Mr Cushion?
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^LOL that picture cracks me up.
I couldn't say WHO is a yogi. It seems to entirely depend who you ask. I know people who go to yoga class a few weeks a year and consider themselves yogis. It seems to be anyone from someone who merely kind of practices yoga, to meditation masters to yoga asana masters, to those who can bend the rules the rest of us think are written in stone (supernatural) and so on. I think Buddha probably fits the definition in several ways, depending who you ask.
We do yoga asanas with my teacher once in a while, and it amazes me that he can do yoga poses in his robes. I can't even stand to wear a sweatshirt because of how it flops over my head. I don't think I could manage sun salutations in robes.
Yoga is really so much more than postures!
Consider this: the average person takes about 28,800 breaths a day. Buddhist or not, people tend to agree that taking a few deep breaths can calm you down. Breath meditation is after all pretty effective when it comes that, right?
Breath is life and one of the benefits of the pranayama is conditioning our bodies to breathe in a better more efficient way.
I have been exploring yogic practices as a part of my twice-daily routine for almost two years now. That includes pranayamas much similar to tummo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo) performed by Tibetans, namely breath retention, holding mulabandha as well as uddiyana bandha (and other details).
Also, kechari mudra, yoni mudra kumbhaka, all kinds spontaneous automatic yoga (google) happening throughout the day.
Prana (Tibetan inner fire or qi in Taoism) is a real thing, we can sense how it flows throughout our bodies and having more of it has been nothing short of a life changing experience. Meditation got better, clarity got better, sex life (tantric sex anyone?) got better, energy levels got better, endurance got better, concentration got better, work got better, relationships got better, generally speaking there are many things that got better after I started doing yoga. It feels amazing.
I think every meditator (buddhist, Sufi, Christian etc.) would benefit greatly by including yoga routine before their meditation.
We tend to get hung up on concepts a lot, debate about the differences between particular traditions and digging into "advanced ideas". I think often it's just unnecessary hair splitting and doesn't bring about any real change when it comes to the most fundamental thing, ending suffering that is.
I don't know if Buddha was a yogi, I suppose you could say that though. Yoga feels very natural, like running or having sex and buddha certainly has figured out a thing or two about breathing.
www.aypsite.org is a website and a support forum worth checking out if you feel like learning more about these things. It was created by an anonymous life-long practitioner, who combined some of the most effective practices from different yogic traditions. Very technical (guy used to work as an engineer after all), well-written and down to earth step-by-step, open source introduction to yogic practices, including breathing techniques, different bandhas, mudras, shatkarmas, etc. (some of them never disclosed to general, "not initiated" public before).
The system is safe in a sense that it promotes self-pacing approach, the community is very supportive and has some very knowledgeable advanced practitioners (some of them were also initiated by recognized teachers from well-established yogic traditions in case you find that particularly important), so it's really hard to go wrong if you ask questions and listen to answers.
As energy practices can bring about some pretty intensive and scary experiences, and overloads are generally unpleasant it's good to have somebody who got you back.
Also, http://kripalu.org/article/819/ it's a well-written description of the benefits of pranayama I found just now.
Wish you all the best.
Thanks for the information, @pommesetoranges
I think people would get more out of yoga if they delved into it a bit, I think the whole history and everything around it is just fascinating. I can't imagine just popping in dvds and not understanding what was behind it.
Just for workout purposes, I do the P90X programs, and this morning my workout was the yoga for P90X3, and I always get a laugh because at the start, the workout leader said "yoga is a 5000 year old practice, and you're going to get all the benefits in this 30 minute workout." LOL. It's a good workout, though!
The past many months, I got finally into a routine of being able to get up, get the kids to school, do yoga and meditate, and then do my studying before lunch (when the youngest comes home). Today is his last day of school, and so he will be here every morning. For me to get in everything I've been doing the past 8 months, I will have to get up at 5am, to allow for the time to get it done before he wakes up. We'll see what happens. He enjoys doing yoga and meditation with me, but at 5 years old, his attention span is kind of short, and he mostly just finds it fun to crawl under me.
Well, there can be no doubt he was smarter than the average bear.
William Broad, a writer for the NY Times, published a book about the history of yoga a year or two ago. Yoga isn't what you think it is, he said in an article he wrote for the Times. It's about stimulating the sexual energies in preparation for tantric practices. He says this is the reason so many yogis and yoga studios back in the 60's were so scandal-prone. Some forms of yoga are about raising the Kundalini energy for mystical experiences and "cosmic consciousness".
This really isn't stuff people should be messing with casually. But here in the West, we're used to just jumping into things blindly, and trying the next new fad, without doing any research.
Mostly though, that's not the way Yoga is either promoted or taught.
Depends on the kind of yoga. He must be referring to Kundalini Yoga.
Initially, Kundalini Yoga was reserved for the élite teachers. It was like the uppermost level in Yoga teaching ladder, and as such, it was supposed to be taught only to the most advanced teachers.
Yogi Bhajan brought it to the West in the late sixties and decided to teach it also among the unitiated.
True. And that was his point, and the reason he wrote the book. The facts of how it acted on the body's system were never explained to the students, so they weren't aware that it was the yoga that might be causing them to have sexual feelings. And the early Hindu gurus who came to the West in the 60's took advantage of that.
Initially, Kundalini Yoga was reserved for the élite teachers. It was like the uppermost level in Yoga teaching ladder, and as such, it was supposed to be taught only to the most advanced teachers.
Yogi Bhajan brought it to the West in the late sixties and decided to teach it also among the unitiated.
That's what I was thinking--Kundalini yoga. But Broad says it's an issue with other forms of yoga, as well. Certain asanas stimulate the sexual energies, and those are found in other forms of yoga, besides Kundalini. Kriya yoga, for example.
For me yogi means mastery of the mind without too much studying. So you don't realize emptiness intellectually and instead you just meditate a lot.
No, you misunderstand. The way Yoga is taught in the West (and I'm thinking the UK,Italy, France) no such effects are felt.
It's very often the case that at the end of Yoga classes, students would engage in a question /answer session with the tutor.
In all the times I took Yoga classes, I never once heard any fellow participants asking about raised or heightened sexual feelings.
It was never alluded to or suggested by the tutor either.
Was Yogi a Buddha?
If it were the case that general yoga heightened sexual feelings, my husband would be thrilled! It actually makes me fall asleep sooner...
There is by no means a scandal everywhere you look, even if there is a potential. At best, in a lot of cases, it's purely hypothetical.
Well, the sequences in Kundalini Yoga are called Kriyas, so I'm not sure if ultimately Kriya yoga is Kundalini Yoga. Kundalini yoga has become extremely popular in the West the past couple of years thanks to teachers like Maya Fiennes and Ana Brett.
I, for one, have added Kundalini Yoga to my otherwise traditional routine because I find it is extremely invigorating and energizing. But from there to being an unchained, insatiable nymphomaniac, there's a long way...
Other than that, I agree with @Jeffrey that the reference to the Buddha as a yogi was more in the connotation described in his comment.
I find it unfortunate that the vast majority of yoga studios (the word 'studio' instead of 'centre' or whatever else should already give a hint as to what the focus is) emphasize attaining perfect postures and balancing chakras, when it is apparent that there is much much more to it.
The way many people I know practice yoga is more like a spiritually-tinged stretching competition ("Ohh I can't do that pose yet!" "I can almost do this one!" "I did hot yoga every day for 30 days!") than a practice aiming at being spiritually enriching.
For me, that path has ego traps strewn all over. That's why I stick to Buddhist meditation... ego traps are there, and they're more subtle, but at least they're not taught as the end-all-be-all of practice.
YMMV.
I can attest that his visits to me when I've been trying to sleep in the wild have resulted in a single minded attention seldom matched on a Zafu.
Actually, that's the way many people misunderstand yoga.
You are always reminded that yoga is not a dexterity competition, that you have to be gentle to your body, and that you have to focus on your own progress, not squint aside to peep if your neighbour is stretching farther than you are.
And remember many people are attracted to yoga for the multiple benefits to your health, independently of the spiritual underpinning. It's not necessarily a spiritual pursuit.
Though I have met many people who were initially attracted to yoga as a wholesome workout, only to gradually introduce ever healthier changes into their lifestyle, first dietwise, then to the spiritual realm. As usual, it's a very personal path.
Chakra work is interesting, I'm undecided about how much of it I believe, but it's interesting nonetheless. It's odd to me that so many of those more deep and advanced practices are so...surfacey in yoga classes and so on. When I told my yoga teacher in the college class I took that I missed class due to strep throat, she said my throat chakra was unbalanced and that as a result, I should wear a blue turtleneck and sing a lot. Yeah, not so sure on that. Pretty sure singing would have made the horrific strep I had worse, not better, and I don't think a turtleneck would have helped at all, since I find them extremely constraining, LOL.
I can't take yoga classes. Here, they are very limited anyhow but the times I have gone, they are so full of that ego-based practice you mentioned @Invincible_summer. I was shocked to see how critical some people are, verbally even, of others who are not as far along. It was very snooty. One of the ladies that is in our sangha is a private/individual yoga instructor, and she helps me out if I run into issues with something. Otherwise, I practice at home and I quote enjoy it. I did get together with a group of people at the buttcrack of dawn to do 108 sun salutations on spring equinox, and that was really a neat experience. But overall, I practice at home.
Nobody told me . . . oh wait they did.
Before I became a yoga teacher, I attended a class with a friend. He demonstrated some advanced Maha Bandha circulating around his internal organs, I went into a full lotus headstand. Our fellow 'yogis' were suitably wowed.
Were we advanced yogis?
Pretentious wankers more like [lobster hangs head in shame] . . .
Learning to not compete with others, ourself, Shiva, Buddha or Iyengar the disjointed, is when one starts to practice yoga . . . push a little less but relax in the effort. Enjoy.
Same with meditation. Sit but don't make a meal of it, everyone knows how to chill . . .
http://www.thebuddhagarden.com/blog/shiva-hindu-god-destruction/
As usual, the fact that some people misuse yoga as yet one more ego tool, does not put the blame on yoga.
It is like saying that Buddhism or Christianity are bad because we come across bad Buddhists or Christians every day...
Yes, that's precisely my point.
And that's where I feel it turns into an ego-driven exercise.
I don't think anyone was saying otherwise.