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Buddhist practice and yoga practice have never been separate for me. The main point of both is the same: be present. In yoga, it’s about union: working to integrate different aspects of the body and mind. When you’re meditating deeply, the same thing is happening.
I first came up to Shambhala Mountain two summers ago for Stupa Day. I had been studying Vipassana meditation for a number of years. The Vipassana sanga was pretty buttoned down. Shambhala was different. Folks were serving margaritas and dressed up like Dakinis. It was spicy.
I grew up in San Diego and lived in Mexico for a while so I appreciate the passion of Mexican folk art. I see a lot of similarities in Tibetan Buddhism. We invite in the hard things, the loud things, negative emotions, work with the fire. I immediately felt at home.
I moved here the next summer. This place has been a yoga and meditation venue for a while but it was primarily outside programs until last year. The staff needed their own programs, including yoga.
I was raised in a family of dancers. My mom is a professional dancer, so is my sister. Our whole family knows bodyspeak. Teaching came naturally. I held my first yoga classes on the roof of my college in California. I would teach in the evening while the sun was setting. It was awesome.
Before coming here, I taught a lot of yoga classes for dancers. That’s a different population. They understand their bodies better, but they are trying to do everything formally and superficially. The goal is strike a pose and look really good, instead of dropping down and going inside. The cult of the body is much mellower here.
I’ve studied a number of yoga styles, but I’m not affiliated with one. I’m not coming in with an agenda. In the regular world, I use meditation techniques, but I don’t place that much emphasis on them because people usually aren’t familiar with meditaiton; I have to start from scratch. Here, it’s amazing. I say, ‘We’ll start sitting’ and people do. Yesterday’s class was incredible. The entire class was moving together. It was like one body. Everybody was so focused. It was because we all started by sitting and focusing on the breath.
Buddhist practice and yoga practice have never been separate for me. The main point of both is the same: be present. In yoga, it’s about union: working to integrate different aspects of the body and mind. When you’re meditating deeply, the same thing is happening. A huge meditative breakthrough for me when I was able to watch a small sensation in my body errupt into an emotion. In yoga, I can be doing something extremely passive and then with an exhale I feel an opening and then get flooded with a memory or an emotion. Things are so much deeper than we assume.
The only people who are skeptical about yoga are folks who have lived here on the land who aren’t good to their bodies. That’s the only time I’ve gotten skeptical comments. It’s unfortunate. If they came to class, they’d see. We’re not just trying to develop our physiques and wear our little yoga outfits. People don’t pay attention to their bodies until something really hurts. And they serve us so well! It’s good to be grateful. Then we treat them with more respect.
It’s so facinating to watch people. Some people cannot relax. I had a woman here who took my class. She would work hard during the class until it was time for Shavassana. Then she would leave. In yoga studios, I was often told that Shavanassana is the most important posture. We’re practicing dying. Because it is really going to happen. It is not a light thing.
In the other hand, we can get lethargic. I don’t know how you could be a sitting practitioner without some physical exercise. It’s healthy for us. We’re alive right now.
We don’t serve the world when we’re not taking care of ourselves. We don’t serve the world if we don’t eat the right food. On the other hand, you don’t have to be a Nazi about it. I could go without coffee, but I love it, so I drink my cup of coffee every morning.
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