From Big Think:

One aspect of modern life which I think Buddhism speaks to is the fact that we’re not very aware of the fact that we are all interconnected.  What we do in one country affects other countries.  In fact, it affects stuff going on on the other side of the globe: what we eat, you know, what kind of factory emissions we have and so forth, what cars we drive. 

Everything affects everything else.  So this was actually a teaching that Buddha gave way back when.  He explained that we exist in a web of kindness, as he put it.  Which means that everything we have comes from everybody else.  

So what Buddha encouraged us to do was actually to meditate on this, in other words, reflect on it and understand, everything we have comes from others, therefore, everyone is kind to us.  We are interlinked with everybody and therefore, they are helping us.  They are benefitting us, we are benefitting from everybody. And by its very nature, what that contemplation does is it allows us to develop a universal appreciation, finally, of all living things because animals are involved with us as well.  All living things.  A global, so to speak, consciousness or bigger than that really, a universal consciousness. 

Check out the rest — here.

From Sharath Jois conference January 8, 2012:

The Baghavad Gītā is a very big, is a beautiful book. It says – eighteen chapters – it all says about yoga practice. How one should learn yoga through paramparā. Paramparā is learning through a lineage. Like how Krishnamacharya learned from Ramamohan Brahmachari, Pattabhi Jois learned from Krishnamacharya. You know it’s a lineage, its not like a cell phone booth you open here (pointing outside). Every street has a cell phone booth. A correct Sādhaka (practitioner), Sādhana (practice) is very important to transmit from a teacher to his students. For a teacher to transmit the knowledge to his students, first he has to learn it for many years. He has to experience it within him[self]. Then only it is possible to transfer the correct method to his students.

Now days you get so many videos on You-tube, it is very difficult to make out which is circus, which is yoga, which is what. All crazy yogas. All different stupid yogas. For everything they join yoga. Nakid Yoga! What is this nonsense? Kookoo yoga. Hot Yoga. What is Hot Yoga? Hoot Yoga, Heat Yoga, Bang Yoga, all these crazy yogas, for everything they join yoga. But it is our duty, being a practitioner of yoga. Some of you are also teaching. It is very important to keep the purity. If we don’t keep the purity within us, in another ten years, fifteen years, yoga will have a different meaning. Yoga is described in many different ways:

Check out more of his words — here.

I always feel a pang when I hear a shala is closing; distance is no matter, so the closing of a Jois studio makes me sad for the students.

My very first Ashtanga class was at Yoga Path in Irvine, California–across from where I worked. I blundered into the Ashtanga class by accident; the Iyengar class was full. I had flirted with yoga off and on for a few years. Suddenly I found myself in a class unlike anything I’d been in before. I was totally lost. I couldn’t do any of it. I didn’t understand the Sanskrit. I was in love.

After that, I went to Ashtanga classes exclusively, and never looked back. A short while later, I bought a special annual membership to save money. It was the most I’d ever spent on such a thing.

The next time I went to class, I found the door locked and the lights off. A sign on the door informed me that Yoga Path was closed, had filed bankruptcy, and suggested I go to 24 Hour Fitness.

I was crushed, and panicked. I had just begun to feel some hope: A way out of constant pain. Even that this practice might offer me a higher study, a philosophy.

A quick search revealed that a YogaWorks close to home offered an “Ashtanga Prep.” So it was that I met Shayna Liebbe, who all by herself, with limited time and resources but unlimited energy, gave me my first sense of what the word “shala” means, and why it’s so important.

I thought I’d take a minute and reflect on what I miss in a shala, or school, for Ashtanga, now that Steve and I are practicing at home.

Number one, I miss the directed study. After my first class, Shayna handed me a little packet of information. It had all the poses (both in diagram and listed in Sanskrit with translations), the opening and closing prayer (and translation), the role of breath, what the bandhas are, whatdrishti does, and so on. I left with homework. Shayna, in other words, was a teacher–she used to make us recite the yamas during navasana and do backbends to the niyamas.

Small, focused workshops, weekend intensives, Sanskrit and diet classes—Ashtanga shalas have these. All supervised by an experienced teacher. One experienced teacher. And connected to the daily practice.

Most of all, I miss Tim. That 100-mile trip sometimes seems more like a million. I wish I were one of those lucky folks who can roll out their rugs in Tim Miller’s Ashtanga Yoga Center every morning, those that use their practice to contribute to Tim’s ongoing research.

Research. I miss growing and learning with an enthusiastic teacher, who knows my practice, and will adjust according to the progress of my learning, or even how things seem that day—the adaptable teacher.

Of course, there’s also the community (Diana Christinsen, whose shala I called home for two years, uses a Buddhist term: sangha). There’s something really comforting about practicing next to someone you see every day, yet have barely spoken to, but still find solace in the shared experience of the practice.

So I hope the Ashtangis that found a home at Jois find a new home soon…the home that is a shala, and its teacher.

Via the Confluence Countdown

I’ve had the chance to go to Jois Yoga in Greenwich a few times for a meeting they put on every month called “Chat and Chai.” We first heard that all the teachers in the Shala were heading out to India in early October. At the last “chat and chai,” Aliyah let the group know that Jois was closing. While there were tears and it may be sad that an ashtanga based yoga shala is closing, this is where we incorporate aparigraha into our lives.

Good luck to Aliyah, Kathy and all the great people at Jois. I was excited to read that Jois’ program will continue @ the University of Virginia. To all the young yogis out there who want to create a life around yoga….Jois Foundation is working on incorporating yoga into education. Whether it be public school yoga classes or university led lectures, with the help of Jois Foundation there will be many ways of bringing yoga to the world.

Most importanly, thanks to our buddy Quinn, for introducing us to Kathy, Aliyah and the great work Jois Foundation is cultivating.

Is this prediction from 1954 the foreshadowing of online education?