~James Thurber

In the go-go world of modern life, a lot of people think breakfast has to be fast — a doughnut on the way out the door with a cup of coffee in the car. But the very word breakfast has a spiritual meaning.

To eat breakfast is, literally, to break one’s fast — to resume eating after having an empty stomach. Never mind that the “fast” has been enforced by sleep. Just as deliberate fasting during the waking hours can be means for spiritual renewal, so can the de facto fasting we do at night.

In Zen monasteries, monks receive their meals with a chant reminding them of five things:

1) To be grateful of the meal, no matter how simple;

2) To appreciate the effort of all, both seen and unseen, who labored to put the food on the table;

3) To reflect on their own actions, and whether those actions make them deserving of the meal;

4) To regard the food as medicine to sustain their health and ward off illness;

5) To accept the meal as a means of attaining enlightenment.

When breaking the previous nights fast, we can start our day off the same way as those monks in the monastery: By putting our minds on the plane of gratitude before filling our empty stomachs.

In this way, breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day.

Via Zen 24/7 by Philip Toshio Sudo

Check out more pictures — here.

Via Reddit and Imgur

~Edgar Cayce

Last week, Eric Niller, wrote an interesting piece about yoga and “Why Yoga is Still Dominated by Women Despite the Medical Benefits to some sexes.”

Some excerpts.

“What happens is, a guy who doesn’t know about it, he associates it with things like Pilates or aerobics, and they think of it as a chick workout,” said Hummell, who has been doing yoga for the past three years and now teaches Bikram yoga, a particularly strenuous form of the practice, in Bethesda.

“Hummell and many other yoga practitioners extol its many benefits beyond a pleasant post-class buzz. Several studies have linked a regimen of yoga classes to a reduction in lower back pain and improved back function. Other studies suggest that practicing yoga lowers heart rate and blood pressure; helps relieve anxiety, depression and insomnia; and improves overall physical fitness, strength and flexibility.”

Among those who reject the idea that yoga is just for women is Danny Poole, a Denver teacher and trainer who uses yoga to help athletes; in 2009, his students included about a dozen members of the Denver Broncos. Poole came to the practice reluctantly himself. A basketball player at Grand Valley State University in Michigan four decades ago, he was dragged into a yoga class by his girlfriend. “All I knew is that there were hippies doing it, and I was intimidated because I didn’t know what it was,” Poole said. “Then I got hooked on it because I never felt so good.”

“Athletes with big muscles take a regular yoga class and it kicks their butt,” Poole said. “They tend not to come back.” But Poole said that those who stuck with the yoga program remained injury-free during the football season, which turned the doubters into converts.

To read the full article, click — here. 

~Unknown