"It was the first day in June and the sheep shearing season culminated the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all health and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open and every stalk was swollen with racing current of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town." Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd
Before I describe sKu-mNyé (pronounced Koom Nyay) or simply Tibetan Yoga, let me relate an incident.
Another lifetime ago I was living in a remote house in the exquisitely beautiful Marshwood Vale of Dorset. The countryside remains untouched by our century and it is a place where you could easily experience the time of the Romans or Thomas Hardy just by being present on the land. Also it is the most heavily haunted part of Britain. Our house and garden stood isolated in amongst the rolling hills, a perfect location for practicing Meditation and Yoga in the garden.
I would go riding every day and my friend Jo told me that people in the villages were talking about me, discussing my religion. I happen to be an Ordained Buddhist but apparently the local arguments revolved around and ignorance of Buddhism, so some pretty weird and inaccurate opinions were arising but also some villagers were arguing as to whether I was a Buddhist or Muslim. I laughed about this.
One gloriously sunny June day I was meditating in my wild flower paddock, I was alone except for my Jack Russell Terrier named Tangle who wanted to catch and kill rabbits but he never disrespected my meditation time with actions of such an impermanent nature so he remained still. After a while I decided to practice some Tibetan Yoga, so I took my clothes off. Yes, it was warm and sunny, I was on my own except for Tangle who did not mind and a requirement of this solitary practice is no clothes. I will explain why later.
I practiced a few exercises (with names relating to lions, vultures, tigers, eagles and garudas), meditating between the sets and when I was enjoying one of my favourite exercises named Stalking Tiger which involves standing on all fours, buttocks higher than the shoulders and the pelvis rotates clockwise in a circle horizontally while the nose rotates in a circle horizontally in the opposite direction. Never accuse me of not having a sense of humour! I began to sense that I was being observed. You know the feeling?
My paddock was surrounded by 1000 year old hedgerows so I did not think it was possible to be seen, except I was mistaken. There was a small gap in the hedge and I saw the face of one of my neighbours who lived a few fields away and today he was walking his gun dogs. He was dressed from a BBC Costume Department in plus fours and he sported the most enormous handlebar moustache. He was watching me. I stopped mid rotation to stare back at him and at this point without embarrassment he shouted, "well, I can see you are not a Muslim." Go Figure. I understand his observation of me had solved the argument about my religion. Only in England, folks, only in England.
I have practiced Tibetan Yoga, with a lot of humour, for eighteen years ever since I was taught the practice by my Buddhist Teachers, Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen who are the lineage holders of a Tibetan Yogic lineage called the Aro Tér. This is a rare and unique strand of non-monastic Buddhism within the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The lineage emanates from Yeshé Tsogyel, the femail Tantric Buddha and consort of Padmasambhava, through Aro Lingma, a visionaly genius of the early 20th Century.
Although I have enjoyed and taught many movement practices all my life, Tibetan Yoga carries all the components of a fully inclusive exercise system with a meditation practice. It employs a number of varied exercises requiring strength, balance, coordination, flexibility that all develop into various levels of aerobic activity. It is a cardiovascular exercise system and encourages bone density, joint mobility and overall strength and flexibility.
"lose yourself" Eminem
Now for the interesting part. The Meditation practice concentrates on physical sensation resulting in opening and invigorating the senses. This is achieved by not wearing any clothes, employing a distinctive use of the eyes, the hands, and disorienting moving postures (as described previously with stalking tiger). I jokingly said earlier that it requires a sense of humour to practice it, but interestingly with regular practice, experience of the senses becomes enlivened and increasingly vivid and people become livelier, happier, less depressed as their world becomes more potent. The routine of alternating exercise with meditation allows the benefits of interval training, so weight loss occurs and fitness develops rapidly. One of the initial and welcome side effects of practicing is an increased sex drive as well as an increase of awareness of sensations. Simply put, better Sex!
Tibetan Yoga also ameliorates mental conditions such as depression, because it is entirely concerned with physical sensation rather than any form of mental re-programming. If you like exercise and want to meditate and stop paying for a gym membership, this is the system for you and it is so much fun.
Over the years while living in New York I have taught Tibetan Yoga to hundreds of people all of whom loved and welcomed it into their daily exercise and meditation practice. With frequent practice, the beneficial results are fast. By the way, in the teaching environment we wear clothes! but this is a solitary practice to engaged in at home on your own. I once taught it to a group of teenagers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. They loved the experience and apart from fitness and weight loss issues, the practice improved their concentration at school.
I also once had the pleasure of being invited to teach Tibetan Yoga to a group of ladies all taking part in a 45 day total body detox to remove heavy metals and parasites, repair gut function and restore the body's tone and vitality. I taught as well as taking part in the detox. Apparently it had been proven that people who exercised and meditated experienced faster results in the detox than those who did not. We were all medically tested quite thoroughly before and after to prove the efficacy of the detox remedies. When I went to my Doctor after the 45 days, she asked me what I had been doing as my blood work and the rest was that of a 12 year old. My allergies disappeared and those annoying peri-menopausal symptoms calmed down. I also lost 25 lbs in 45 days. Through teaching Tibetan Yoga under these intensive time constraints - four times a week for six weeks - we all lost weight and I learned so much about the efficacy of the exercises as a result of this study. As the yoga practice relies on accumulating many repetitions, we achieved this, thus losing weight very quickly and easily. For more information check out www.bioraynaturaldetox.com and if you want the Tibetan Yoga book written by my teacher, it is "Moving Being" by Khandro Déchen and check out www.arobuddhism.org
This portion of the blog was written in my new home town of Wellingborough, in England, in a lovely coffee shop names Bewitched with the help of many cups of cappuccino Excellent. I am still plugged into my rappers with Jay Z and Akon joining Lil Wayne and Eminem. For classes and workshops in the practice, email me!
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