Asteya- not stealing, generosity

Giving instead of taking
Abundance rather than lacking

Asteya is related to the common feeling of lack.  I am not good enough, I have not done enough, I don't have enough.  Can we instead cultivate a feeling of abundance?  We can ask ourselves, "How is this feeling of lack getting in the way of appreciating what I do have?"

Let your low/mid back be wide and soft.  Isometrically draw your legs up into your pelvis.  Don't steal from your back body to have a bigger pose in your front body; keep your back full.

"Be content with what you have.
Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
The whole world belongs to you."
- Tao Te Ching #44 (Stephen Mitchell translation)

Satya- truthfullness

"Can you feel truth as a physical reaction to the energy that is present, long before the mind has captured the words?  Tears may fall spontaneously as your heart unfolds, ready to receive.  With energy and words that dim truth, do you experience a tightening in the body that releases a wash of fear and anxiety?  The heart rests when it is in Satya." - Nischala Joy Devi, The Secret Power of Yoga,  p.184

Notice how you exaggerate, embellish, or even just change the truth slightly when you speak.  The Buddha said enlightenment is freedom from residues.  We can think of residue as what is left behind when our speech is not truthful.  We worry about what we said, we wonder if our speech caused harm, we wonder if our lie will come back to bite us.  If we say what we believe to be true and keep it at that, we are cultivating harmony in our life.

"Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?" -Sufi saying

"Most people will not remember what you said or what you did.  But they will remember how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

Notice the truthfulness of your own thoughts.  Do you self-denigrate or self-aggrandize?  Do you follow story lines that are not true, therefore creating problems for yourself and others?

Ahimsa- compassion toward all beings

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
Then you can care for all things.
- Tao te Ching #13

Treat yourself as you would treat a friend
Notice your internal dialogue. Do you say things about yourself you would never say about a friend?

Treat the world as if it is living and breathing. Treat the world with a knowledge of interconnection; harming something else harms you.

Yamas and Niyamas

10 ethical precepts that allow us to be at peace w ourselves, our families, and our communities

Are we moving toward greater kindness, patience, or tolerance toward others?

Are we able to remain calm and centered, even when others around us become agitated or angry?

How we speak, how we treat others, and how we live are [more] subjective qualities and attributes we need to learn to recognize in ourselves as a testament to our own progress and as gauges of authenticity in our potential teachers.

Am I becoming the kind of person I would like to have as a friend?

From Yoga Mind, Body, and Spirit by Donna Farhi

8th Limb of Yoga- Samadhi
(enlightenment, absorbtion, liberation, steady mind)

"As a tethered bird grows tired of flying
About in vain to find a place of rest
And settles down at last on its own perch,
So the mind, tired of wandering about
Hither and thither, settles down at last
In the Self, dear one, to which it is bound."
- Chandogya Upanishad, Eknath Easwaran translation

Ideally everything we do, every yoga pose, comes from a settled place.

There is a part of us that's always settled.

All of the yoga practices create a sense of settling and it builds over time.

Liberation is freedom from residues. -Buddha

Samadhi is complete absorption; it is knowing that we are part of the great ocean of consciousness and feeling no separateness from it.

It is a steady mind.  A person with a steady mind is quiet inside.

In our yoga poses we establish steadiness first in our foundation- that part of us which is touching the ground.  Root down through your heels, press out through the base of your index fingers and thumbs.

7th Limb of Yoga- Dhyana
(meditation)

"The main tool is the practice of meditation.  It trains you to stay, it trains you to be gentle with yourself, it stabilizes your mind so that it can stay more and more, and it also gives you a method to work with the discursive thoughts, with the momentum that takes you away from the present.  So it's a simple instruction and learning how to do it with gentleness, spaciousness, light touch, and all of this, is what you train in" Pema Chodron, Getting Unstuck audio cds

"The tendency to struggle with ourselves is so strong" Pema Chodron

We come back to the breath with gentleness and warmth.  The breath becomes a support for what we are doing.

In meditation we are spending more and more time absorbed in the ocean of consciousness.  We slip into it effortlessly.

It can be difficult to know when absorption is happening, or has happened.  Two clues are your breath has become quieter, and time passes quickly.

6th Limb of Yoga- Dharana
(contemplation, concentration)

The final three limbs of yoga are not practices, but progressive states of consciousness.  In dharana, we spend some small amount of time absorbed in what we are doing.  We are briefly touching into the vast ocean of consciousness and experiencing absorption.  And then we return to the breath.  Over and back, over and back.

We each are like drops of water in the great ocean.  We struggle in life because we forget we are the vast ocean; we think we are separate- we think we are small.  In dharana, we are absorbed, however briefly, in the vast ocean.

An advanced yoga student is one who can stay with the breath.