Sramana Yoga

Just Thinking
Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images. They are like an illusion—not really all that solid. They are, as we say, just thinking.

Stay in the Present
The key instruction is to stay in the present. Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.

The Teachings on Transformation
The teachings on transformation suggest that we use our emotional pain as a stepping-stone to opening our heart to others. Without experiencing suffering for ourselves, we only have an abstract idea of what others are going through. So when we feel the tug of craving, the burn of anger, the checked-out quality of ignorance, instead of resenting these emotions, we can appreciate them for giving us insight into the experience of others. They can help us develop empathy with all humanity. Thus, the three objects and poisons are transformed into seeds of virtue.

Yoga with Live Celtic Harp Music starting May 6th
(4 sessions every Monday)

Intention Yoga Ceremony With Live Celtic Harp Music
Wednesday, January 31st at 18.30
@ Casa Mossa, Genova

Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest — thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated. — Beau Taplin

NEW 75min YOGA CLASS
Every Wednesday at 6:30PM @ Casa MOSSA an artist residence in the Albaro district, Via Luigi Pirandello, 16/5, 16145 Genova, Italia (https://mossa.social)

Preregistration requested under [email protected]

Yoga session offered for a donation to Casa MOSSA, a venue that supports up-and-coming artists and enriches Genoa’s cultural landscape.
Donation suggested: €10 per class

Change
Despite our lifetime of experience with change, something within us never stops insisting on stability. Any change, even a change for the better, can feel a little unnerving because it seems to expose our underlying uncertainty about life. We’d rather think we have firm ground to stand on than see clearly that everything is always in transition. We’d rather deny the reality of continual change than accept the way things are.

"Krishnamacharya said that one’s yoga practice should change with the seasons, both with the seasons of the year and the seasons of one’s life. It’s not appropriate to practice the same way in winter as one does in summer. In the springtime of our life we are young, filled with energy and enthusiasm, and our practice should reflect that kind of energy. The summer is a time of the ripening of our practice, and finds us at our physical peak in terms of our asana practice. With the coming of the autumn of our life the natural evolution of our practice is for it to become more introspective—to devote more time to pranayama, mantra, devotional practices, meditation and philosophical study—and to begin to back off a little on the intensity of our asana practice. As the winter of our life begins—that’s me right now—our practice becomes even more introspective. It is important to continue to do enough asana to remain healthy and reasonably supple, but it is unrealistic to think we can practice the same way at 65 as we did at 35. Even though I have a few more aches and pains now, am a bit thicker in the middle, and don’t have quite the strength or flexibility I used to, I still love the practice and continue to do the first and second series regularly. On some days I do my special “Ashtanga for Senoirs” practice, which contains parts of first and second series, done with fewer vinyasas in the space of an hour or so. The one great gift of the aging practice in regards to asana practice is this: the longer you practice, the better the quality of attention that you bring to the practice. Isn’t this what it’s all about anyway?"
Tim Miller

Never Stopping for an Instant
Contemplating impermanence is the perfect way into the bardo teachings, and the teachings on death altogether. This is because, compared to those more difficult topics, continual change is easy to see and understand. The seasons change, the days change, the hours of the day change. We ourselves change all along, and we experience many changes from moment to moment. This happens all around us and within us, twenty-four seven, never stopping for an instant.

Our True Nature
The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It’s who we are right now, and that’s what we can make friends with and celebrate.