Contemplative Couch Potatoes

I've practised Anusara yoga for about 5 years, 2-3 times/week. For various reasons, I didn't do any exercise to speak of for the last couple of months. Yesterday I decided it was time to get back into it and I did a fairly gentle routine of around 45 minutes. About half an hour later, I did my 45 minutes of noting sensations, Mahasi-style.

Forget about whack-a-mole, my whole body was like a seething mass of sensations that I could only try to dwell mindfully in, noting the general currents of energies, throbbing, etc. for around 45 minutes. During this morning's sit, there seemed to be a residual effect, as the usual throbbing had an auditory quality to it for the first time, like the humming of a generator. I realize that no sensations are to be taken as more significant than any others, but there clearly seemed to be a relationship between the resumption of my yoga practise and the eruption of energies that I was noting.

This got me to thinking about the relationship between physical exercise and meditation. There seems to be consensus in this forum that persistent, skillful noting leads to physio-energetic phenomena and openings. The Goenka tradition, which I am most familiar with, seems to regard physical exercise as a distraction at best. While many yoga traditions have a contemplative side, the reverse doesn't seem to be as prevalent. Can yoga or other forms of physical exercise be another tool in a contemplative yogi's toolkit and, if wielded skillfully, contribute to a yogi's progress down the path?

I think so. I'm a big fan of mindful weightlifting mixed with breathing practice. You can get wicked intense kundalini movement coming up from the bottom of a squat. Also, you get a couple or three hundred lbs across your back and you WILL pay attention.

"Can yoga or other forms of physical exercise be another tool in a contemplative yogi's toolkit and, if wielded skillfully, contribute to a yogi's progress down the path? "

Yes, I think so. The way I have come to understand this is that perception untrained in jhana of one kind or another typically moves around the body in response to the arising and passing of pleasant, neutral and unpleasant sensations. During stretching and moving the places where various forms of perception tends to ordinarily stabilize to an extent, places like between the brows or in the chest is broken up to some extent and it follows the paths opened up by the stressing of a wider range of the bodies tissues.

When a sweeping or noting practice is employed within a body that has not been exercised and stretched, the perceptions are typically more like steady pockets of pleasant and unpleasant sensations within an otherwise neutral field of sensation within the body. When a session of stretching and exercise is undertaken and this is followed by a sweeping or noting practice the perceptions are typically more like waves and pulses of vibrations and energy circulating throughout the field of sensation within the body.

When perception is trained in jhanic concentration the field of sensation is variously steadied and stabilized either in a given area or throughout the entire body and as perception steadies sensation becomes increasingly pleasant and perception becomes increasingly refined.

Anyone have a suggestion for what would be a good yoga or other stretching routine for potato meditators to start out with? Maybe a link to a website (or name of a book). Especially geared toward energy unblocking, and also cross-legged sitting posture limberness? Thanks for any suggestions!!

Hip openers. Can't stress this enough. You might also check out these guys:
www.integralinstitute.org/

Lots of body based stuff there.

Wow, that's close to home! For more than a year I've been seeing how somehow I habitually close my left hip. At a retreat last year it became obvious how that messes with my left knee, and how the whole problem could be relieved by relaxing the hip, which without steady awareness goes back to being tight and closed. This is something I've done all my life, I realized, but just becoming a more obvious problem with aging. Figured it was time to look into getting more interventive, but never heard of hip openers. Great, I'll look into that.

Amazing how the body and awareness or lack of it interrelate. Once during an A&P type of episode this Summer awareness to the hip, and energy going through it, instantaneously dissolved the problem -- like magic, and that stuck for a few days. Now with my current more compressed mind state, it's quite back. Another time, at a retreat maybe, I got a glimpse of how my defensive self-image is behind the hip holding, but that insight hasn't been available to me since. Pretty amazing, the mind-body thing.

Thanks again.

"Anyone have a suggestion for what would be a good yoga or other stretching routine for potato meditators to start out with? Maybe a link to a website (or name of a book). Especially geared toward energy unblocking, and also cross-legged sitting posture limberness? Thanks for any suggestions!!"

Check out www.anusara.com , there may be a teacher near you. I really enjoy the emphasis of this school of yoga on alignment and mindfulness.

"I think so. I'm a big fan of mindful weightlifting mixed with breathing practice. You can get wicked intense kundalini movement coming up from the bottom of a squat. Also, you get a couple or three hundred lbs across your back and you WILL pay attention.
"

LOL. If I squatted with 300 lbs on my shoulders, I would immediately experience cessation... of my KNEES.

BTW, I read somewhere that Ken Wilber is into weight lifting...

"LOL. If I squatted with 300 lbs on my shoulders, I would immediately experience cessation... of my KNEES.

BTW, I read somewhere that Ken Wilber is into weight lifting..."

Yeah, it was a gradual buildup. Don't start with that.
Weightlifting is how I got through hard, protracted dark nights before I found this place. Seems like it does an amazing job working out those dukkha "involuntary asanas" that you can run across.