Alley oop!

Clearly, being a yoga teacher has its share of occupational hazards, even in the Hamptons, where Mary Dunn, head teacher at the Iyengar Instiutute of New York, is helping someone get up into ardha vrksasana.

Flying Yogis

The Beaver knew the way to world peace!

What is tapas?

This is the human's teacher, on the left. She is the embodiment of tapas. Not the small Spanish snack, but rather the fierce energy of spiritual discipline.

The Human's Dream

The Human had a dream in which she asked her yoga teacher: "What would you think about me doing martial arts?"

"It would suit you," her teacher said.

"What about yoga?"

"No."

What next, yoga mats?

Dog-loving yupsters won't have to share their Evian with Fido now that Pup Cups have arrrived.

Thoughts from the F Train

This morning I was thinking about how often my yoga teacher tells us that the mind is rajastic, and the body is tamasic. What she is referring to are 2 of the 3 Gunas of Ayurveda: rajas (activity) tamas (inertia or gross) and sattva (essence or subtle).

When she says this to us, she is clearly trying to get us to still our minds and perk up our bodies--lift the kneecaps, firm the elbows, etc. etc. When she says this it seems as if this rajasic mind/tamasic body problem is universal, part of the human condition. We are all couch potatos whose minds are chattering like monkeys.

But as I was sitting there on the subway, it occured to me that there are some people with the opposite problem. People who are physically active but their minds are mired in sludge.

Do the initials GWB mean anything to you?

Licking or meditating?