The Art of Vinyasa: Awakening Body and Mind through the Practice of Ashtanga Yoga

We may have a moment of insight, but then the mind leaps back into “understanding” (its job), the ego function perks up to identify with the insight (its function), and we latch on to the story line; this process reinforces the saṁskāra.

Feeling the pouring of the apāna into the prāṇa and the prāṇa into the apāna is contemplative, subtle, and wonderful. This is prāṇāyāma practice; the whole thing is right there.

In the Yoga Sūtra, the kleśas are identified as the causes of suffering, all of them arising from the first, which is avidyā, or ignorance.

Apāna gives a visceral sense of impermanence and interconnectedness to forms projected into the sense fields opened by the inhaling prāṇa pattern. When we ignore this grounding, stabilizing aspect of apāna in backbends, a sense of an asymmetrical, manic “hyperprāṇa” arises in which it is difficult to focus the mind, and an underlying sense of a

to actually practice svādhyāya rather than the often much more comfortable acts of rationalization, denial, and self-delusion, we must always practice satyam—we need to remain unflinchingly honest and truthful with ourselves.

In Aṣṭāṅga Vinyāsa yoga, four underlying threads are always at play, harmonizing relationships through vinyāsa to bring balance, depth, and integrity. These threads, or “internal forms,” are breath, bandha (bonding), mudrā (sealing), and dṛṣṭi (gazing)

It is particularly important in terms of satyam to keep questioning ourselves and our motives.

The buoyancy of the heart is so bright and distinct that the chin comes adoringly down as if to crown the heart. 4.

A spatial context for structures is called their anatomical position, described when the body is facing front, arms by the sides, palms forward. Structures closer to the head are superior, those closer to the feet are inferior. Anterior structures are positioned more toward the front plane of the body, and posterior structures are those toward the