LA Yoga - Southern California's Free Bimonthly Magazine. Los Angeles, California.

Cover photo: Adam Latham
angeladam.com

March/April 2006
Volume 5/Number 2
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FEATURE
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Special Section: Where Yoga & Buddhism Meet
In our texts
In our practice
In America.

In America:
Growing our own Practice.
By John Casey

Wherever Buddhism has migrated into new cultures, it has done so through a marriage between the “guest” tradition and the mindset and modes of thought of its “host” culture. The current migration of various forms of Buddhism into America is no different. While it may be true that during the initial phase of this process, new Buddhist members of the host culture may be dependent upon foreign-born teachers for instruction and leadership, this dependence gradually becomes reduced. Over time as our homegrown practitioners attain illuminating experiences of their own, they are able to adapt their expression of the dharma in a manner that better communicates to their contemporaries.

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The Yoga Sutra
Neither Hindu nor Buddhist, these texts are crucial to both practices :
By Brian K. Smith (Venerable Sumati Marut)

Yoga is not the sole possession of a single religion or any one philosophical school. For all of its four thousand year history in India, yoga has always transcended the boundaries of sectarianism. It was practiced by and was an integral part of the worldviews of the many and various strands of both Hinduism and Buddhism. A form of yoga was also traditionally practiced in China by the Taoists, and currently yoga forms a part of the spiritual practice of many Christians, Jews, Muslims and others.

3 Teachers talk about Buddhism and Yoga
and how these practices intersect in their teaching today.

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Cyndi Lee:
“I was a modern dancer in the East Village for many years and through the downtown performance scene I met a lot of other artists and performers. In particular, Philip Glass was a good friend of mine. Phil is a super generous, loving and fun person and I was inspired by his kindness and thought, “I'll have what he's having!” He introduced me to his Buddhist teacher, Gehlek Rimpoche, who has been my root guru since about 1990.

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Lama Surya Das:

“Meditation is a spiritual practice, a yoga. Patanjali called meditation Raja Yoga, the supreme practice or the King of Practices. The word ‘yoga’ means union, or reunion, with the natural state, our true nature, our higher Buddha-self - the ultimate sacred energy source. It is the skillful means of reconnecting the material with the spiritual, the seen with the unseen, and helping us to realize non-duality, onefulness.

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Shinzen Young:
(as told to his student, Rick Colella)

“If you look upon yoga from the perspective of the Yoga Sutras, then what is ordinarily taught in a yoga class is only two of the eight limbs - asana and pranayama. Yama and niyama, the ethical basis of yoga and the virtuous spiritual customs of India, are rarely mentioned. Pratyahara, the restraint of the senses is sometimes given some mention in the last five minutes of class.

EA	AYURVEDA Q&A: By Dr. Jay Apte Ayurveda has been practiced in the U.S. only about 25 years, yet it is the 5000 year old Indian system of medicine and yoga's sister science. Readers are invited to submit questions for "Ayurveda Q & A" to ayurveda@layogamagazine.com