Insight Yoga

Acclaimed yoga and meditation teacher Sarah Powers is known and loved for her unique approach—Insight Yoga—which combines traditional yoga with the meridians of Chinese medicine, as well as Buddhist meditation. Using Yin (passive) and Yang (dynamic) poses, she demonstrates a series of different yoga sequences that bring benefit to organs, muscles, joints, and tendons—as well as the mind. She also provides a foundational explanation of traditional Chinese medicine theory and mindfulness meditation instruction. Sarah Powers brings us on an inspiring journey inward, and shows the path for cultivating a lasting relationship with yoga that cultivates and strengthens our physical well-being and our mental and emotional clarity.

An “accessible look at the ways we can access the hidden adventures within our dreams and stretch our imaginations into the realm of enlightenment” through lucid dreaming and dream yoga (San Francisco Book Review) Some of the greatest of life’s adventures can happen while you’re sound asleep. That’s the promise of lucid dreaming, which is the ability to alter your own dream reality any way you like simply by being aware of the fact that you’re dreaming while you’re in the midst of a dream. There is a range of techniques anyone can learn to become a lucid dreamer—and this book provides all the instruction you need to get started. But B. Alan Wallace also shows how to take the experience of lucid dreaming beyond entertainment to use it to heighten creativity, to solve problems, and to increase self-knowledge. He then goes a step further: moving on to the methods of Tibetan Buddhist dream yoga for using your lucid dreams to attain the profoundest kind of insight.

Yoga Beyond Belief offers a unique vision of contemporary yoga. It integrates scientific and practical approaches providing a much-needed integrative perspective that complements existing yoga books for all levels and styles of yoga students. Serving up a collection of valuable insights gleaned from a lifetime of exploration, practice, study, and teaching by one of America’s pioneering and leading teachers of yoga, the book assists readers in making sense of the many discordant claims and teaching techniques that currently exist in the yoga world, freeing readers to pursue their own individual paths of yoga and personal practice. This is an essential text and reference for all yoga practitioners. The book first sets a context for an open-minded and evolutionary approach to yoga practice, and then explains the core principles of the many branches of yoga. A clear foundation is given for how the physical practices of yoga work to produce remarkable results of health and well being. The chapter Injury, Pain, and Healing shows how to prevent injuries and how to heal injuries should they occur. The reader is given a wealth of sophisticated of tools, insights, and anecdotes gleaned from a lifetime of practice and teaching to develop, hone, and tune his or her personal yoga approach. This book makes yoga come alive for the reader. The book concludes by going beyond the physical aspects to the heart of yoga. It illuminates and gives insight into the discovery of non-dogmatic forms and evolutionary approaches to meditation and spirituality. It presents a clear argument showing the pitfalls of regimented systems and how to make everything in daily life part of yoga practice and spiritual development. Ganga White gives us his unique and creative perspectives on a time-tested discipline for a healthy and vital life. Entertaining and thoroughly readable, this book offers a coherent explication of yoga, its philosophy and practice. White’s integrative views will inspire beginners and accomplished yogis to trust their inner wisdom and creatively reassess their practice. He is a great storyteller and gives us his personal and creative perspective, breathing fresh air into an ancient discipline. Yoga Beyond Belief offers an original, integrative approach to body, mind, and spirit that is practical, inspiring, and full of valuable insights to enliven and inform anyone’s yoga practice.

Whether you have no background in meditation or yoga or have been practicing for years, Mindfulness Yoga is for you. This groundbreaking book introduces an entirely new form of yoga, Mindfulness Yoga, which seamlessly integrates the Buddha's teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness with traditional asana yoga practice. Mindfulness Yoga emphasizes the spiritual side of yoga practice, an aspect often overlooked in a culture that tends to fixate solely on the physical benefits of yoga. Unlike any other Buddhism-meets-yoga book, Mindfulness Yoga presents the two disciplines as a single practice that brings health to the body and liberates the mind and spirit, awakening compassion and fostering equanimity and joy. Mindfulness Yoga will appeal to the many people who have an interest in yoga, Buddhism, and meditation, but who may not have been able to find a teacher who could bring these practices together in a meaningful, practical way. In the first part of the book, author Frank Jude Boccio offers a superb and lively introduction to the Buddha's teachings and locates them within the larger context of the Indian spiritual traditions. Then, in the second half of the book, Boccio offers three complete Mindfulness Yoga sequences, including over 100 pictures, with detailed guidance for body, breath, and mind. Special lay-flat binding makes this book even more useful as a practice aid.

BEAUTIFULLY written and designed, Brightening Our Inner Skies: Yin and Yoga practically and provocatively explores yoga, self-transformation and social responsibility. Both a meditation on the role of yoga practice in the world and a Yin yoga manual with over 140 photographs of poses as well as suggested sequences, this book takes the practice of yoga and self to profound levels through stories, images and well-researched debates. It provides the principles and practicalities of Yin, highlighting how it acts as a bridge to a meditation practice and can allow the practitioner to experience the energy channels of Traditional Chinese Medicine (with a helpful chart of meridians, health issues and emotions). Each pose has its own spread with photos and information on how to get into the pose, modifications, alternatives and relevant anatomy and meridians. Photos include close-ups and are taken from various angles (side, above, face on). The role of props is discussed, with suggestions for their use. Sequencing is covered in depth, with a separate coverage of meridian-related sequences. A Further Reading list helps the reader to explore Yoga; Anatomy and meridians; Meditation and Buddhism; and general related topics further. Designed as a book to practise from, it opens flat, with the narrative in short sections and evocative photos of nature bringing in a breathing space of mind and eye. Useful and inspirational to newcomers to yoga as well as experienced teachers, Brightening Our Inner Skies draws together decades of practice, teaching experience with thousands of students and a deep desire to help the practitioner change themselves and change the world, one posture, one practice at a time. Students and teachers have said it is that rare thing: a yoga book that's a page turner!

The book takes an integrated approach to pain rehabilitation and combines pain science, rehabilitation and yoga with evidence-based approaches from respected contributors. They demonstrate how to integrate the concepts, philosophies and practices of yoga and pain science in working with people in pain. An essential and often overlooked part of pain rehabilitation is listening to, working with, learning from, and validating the person in pain's lived experience. The book expounds on the movement to a more patient-valued, partnership-based biopsychosocial-spiritual model of healthcare where the patient is an active and empowered participant, as opposed to a model where the healthcare provider is 'fixing' the passive patient. It also explains how practitioners can address the entire human being in pain, and how to include the person as an expert for more effective and self-empowered care.

Build an integrated, deeply personal practice to cultivate transformation, self-trust, and awakening with insights and techniques from beloved teacher Sarah Powers. More than just physical poses on a mat, yoga can be a profound path of self-realization. Lit from Within encourages readers to pursue yoga in its fullness, examining conscious and unconscious habits, connecting to our inner landscapes, and freeing us to relate to ourselves and our world with a sacred outlook. Sarah Powers helps readers relate to five levels of our human experience--physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and interpersonal. Each section offers an opportunity for self-inquiry and practices to fuel our growth, including yin yoga, meditation, emotional intelligence exercises like creating connection with an inner critic, and interpersonal dynamics drawn from the Internal Family Systems approach. Learning to recognize, reflect on, and at times re-direct these different levels of experience adds a vital dimension to the practice. The book draws on Sarah's many years of practice and teaching, influenced by the rich tapestries of yin yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, and psychology. In these challenging times, Lit from Within offers a path to health, wholeness, and connection--from the inside out.

Inspired by his time spent with wise sages in Asia in the 1930s, Paul Brunton (1898-1981) wrote The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (and its companion volume The Wisdom of the Overself) at the request of these remarkable teachers, who recognized that he had a significant role to play in the transmission of Hindu Vedanta and Buddhism to the West. Brunton's books are a profound re-creation of the teachings of those two philosophical schools of thought, informed by the insights of deep meditation. Clearly written without the specialized vocabulary found in those traditions, the books speak directly to the contemporary spiritual seeker. The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga is a step-by-step guide to actually experiencing the spiritual truth that reality is formed within our consciousness rather than outside us in the world of material things. Brunton's expert analysis of perception, grounded in science, is designed to awaken us to our sacred foundation and to transform our personality into a mirror of that reality. Brunton prepares us for this journey by describing the attitudes, mental disciplines, and character traits that are beneficial for success in this quest. This new edition has been updated to incorporate the author's final revisions and includes an introduction by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation. Contents Foreword by The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation 1.Beyond Yoga 2.The Ultimate Path 3.The Religious and Mystic Grades 4.The Hidden Philosophy of India 5.The Philosophical Discipline 6.The Worship of Words 7.The Search After Truth 8.The Revelation of Relativity 9.From Thing to Thought 10. The Secret of Space and Time 11. The Magic of the Mind 12. The Downfall of Materialism Epilogue: The Philosophic Life Appendix 1: Some Misconceptions Cleared Up Appendix 2: Additional Resources from The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Compiled by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation Editors