BYC Newsletter #33

Dear Yoga students and those interested in Yoga,

Last year I started the Blackstone Yoga Center as a way I could share my practice and the fruit it has given me. Now, some many months later, having meet many beautiful people, I'm fine tuning what I can do to better suit my own practice and what I feel are my strengths as a yoga teacher. Hatha yoga, the physical postures, is not my strength, mainly because at the age of 70 my body is giving me signals that it wants to go in a different direction, like sitting.

Back pain and vertigo that the postures sometimes aggravate allow me to practice only a simple routine, but that is not so bad because most people who come here want a simple routine. But, doing just a simple routine is not the practice I want to share. Why share the bread and leave out the meat, so to speak. The meat of yoga is meditation and the purification of the mind so that it becomes a willing tool for everyday life instead of a noisy bag of troubles.

The practice of meditation is the only practice that can heal the mind and restore its natural peace; everything else just treats the symptoms. The meditation that I practice is a combination of methods that come from yoga and Buddhism. There are many meditation techniques and humans have been practicingmeditation and improving it for 2500 years.

My Wednesday night classes will be one-third easy yoga routine, one-third meditation, and one-third deep relaxation. The goal is to help you plant a little yoga and meditation in your life so you can nourish it through a daily practice that can be done sitting still or on the go. Meditation does not remove you from the world; it just makes you more effective and happy in the world.

The transforming power of meditation is very real and documented both by science and personal experience. Its ability to reduce stress is well known; but its ability to take us to a transformative spiritual experience of our essential being is not so well understood by mainstream America. But meditation is like a good mother; she only gives you what you need.

I will also not require a fee for yoga classes, but will accept donations, which go into the purchase of supplies and books that can be borrowed.

I am at a place in my life where I don’t need to be a teacher, nor am I bothered if only one person shows up for class. Whether it is one person or 15 in a class, or no one, it really doesn’t matter. I am still here regardless every Wednesday at 7:30.

Thank you,
Ed
Om Peace
4/18/07
contact me