Cultivating Friendliness

Yoga Sutra 3.24: Inner Strength manifests from the cultivation of friendliness

This sutra is one that illuminates itself when I read it. Friendliness is typically thought of as a manner in which we interact and greet people, and this is a wonderful practice.

What about also cultivating friendliness towards ourselves, and concerted friendliness in our approach to daily tasks and even objects? How about friendliness towards our own thoughts and emotions?

Spend one minute and approach everything with friendliness, absent of judgement. Then try one hour and perhaps one whole day. Where could it lead?

Here is a meditation to help reflect on friendliness.

1. Find a comfortable position.

2. Take some deep breaths, allowing thoughts and emotions to be present, yet beginning to settle down with your awareness on breath.

3. Bring to mind the word "friendliness."

4. What images, memories, people or ideas come up along with the word? If friendliness had a physical shape, what would it look like, feel like, sound like, smell like? What is its energy? Observe.

5. Now breathe in the energy of friendliness, and let it embody you. Notice what you feel in your body, mind, spirit.

6. Spend as much time as you wish exploring the concept and your connection to friendliness. When you are ready to release your meditation, become aware of breath and body and gently move back into your day.

Cultivate friendliness through samyama (simultaneous concentration, meditation, and deep absorption on a subject).

#meditation #friendliness #yogasutras

You Have Prepared for This

This week has been a steady reminder of taking our yoga and meditation off our mats and into daily life. You are more prepared than you might believe.

One translation (SwamiJ) of Yoga Sutra 1.1 is:

Now, after having done prior preparations through life and other practices, the study of Yoga begins.

Your yoga begins in every moment. It begins when you remember to pause and take a deep breath to recenter. It begins when you catch your mind wandering into a story and make the choice to acknowledge and redirect. It begins when you hold all the good in your brain at the same time as the negative stuff, to see the big picture of a multitude of pieces at one time.

It begins when you remember to practice self-care and replenish yourself. Now is the time to continue or even increase your meditations and yoga to support yourself, your family, your community. I am working on online content and will keep you updated on how to access it.

Please, please, please also explore different ways to support your local yoga studios.

These past weeks in Massachusetts have been a challenge and a whirlwind of rapid shifts. But what I also see is a remarkable practice of the yamas (codes of self-regulation in how we interact with the world and other people, Yoga Sutra 2.30). Individuals, small businesses, corporations, and governments are choosing to put the community needs first in words and in action.

#yogasutras #youareprepared #alwaysbeprepared #onlineyoga #yamas