Richard Freeman: My primary practice is ashtanga yoga, that includes yoga asana and pranayama breath practice, and then I practice with mantra and chants. I practice probably two to three hours a day, and as part of that I do sitting meditation for about ten to fifteen minutes. I do buddhist retreats throughout the year. Sometimes I teach yoga asana practice at the retreats while a buddhist co-presenter teaches meditation.
So I am probably weighted on the side of the hatha yoga tradition, with a sprinkling of the buddhadharma to
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| Richard Freeman |
Richard Freeman: People who simply do sitting meditation can develop a kind of a crust around themselves, in which they avoid temptation, avoid feeling, and avoid the grounded-ness of the body. on the other hand, while hatha yoga practice is extremely helpful, it runs the danger of people not practicing it mindfully. So body and mind practices are kind of an antidote for each other. Historically, this has been expressed as the joining of raja yoga, which would be considered contemplative practice, and hatha yoga, which is primarily energy work. When the two come together there’s success in practice.
Richard Freeman: What is the difference between the body and the mind, ultimately? One of the axioms of yoga is that the mind, or chitta, and the internal breath of energy, prana, are really two ends of the same stick. So all of our sensations, feelings, and thought forms actually correspond to fluctuations of our prana - See more at:
Richard Freeman: Today in the West we are being overwhelmed by the variety of lineages and practices we can choose from. Most of these are imported practices, which means we don’t have particular obligations in terms of our family or culture to favor one over the other. We are in the position to look at all of them and ask, What does it all mean? Can we legitimately borrow from one and then borrow from another? Can we synthesize them? At what point is that appropriate? That makes it very challenging for practitioners, yet I think it’s a fantastic opportunity to really get to the bottom of the practice. On the other hand, we always run the risk of becoming watered-down eclectics, using the fact that there are alternative practices to avoid going deeply into any one of them. If a practice is legitimate, at a certain point it’s going to make us face things as they are. We’re going to have to face the fact of impermanence and death, and that’s very difficult. Often people will bail out at that moment and jump to a different tradition. Then they’ll stay with that one until the same crisis arises, and they’ll jump to a different school. that’s why we need a lot of communication with a good teacher, so that they can check whether we’re avoiding something or actually facing reality. We should never just assume that what we’re doing is the right thing. –
Richard Freeman: We see everything from utterly materialistic yoga practice, in which people are looking purely to enhance the beauty of their body, all the way across the spectrum to yoga practice as a form of inquiry into reality. it’s my perception that the big fad of yoga is probably weighted a little bit toward the materialistic side, where people are simply looking for some kind of pleasure that works. But i’m also sympathetic to that type of practice. I think people find that unless they follow the practice to its end, it doesn’t really work as a permanent source of pleasure. So at least people are getting a good start and going to the right source. Then they have an opportunity to discover what the practice is really about. I’m optimistic about the overall state of affairs in the yoga world
Richard Freeman: On a very practical level, Buddhist communities are well-organized to conduct sitting retreats. In the more traditional yoga lineages, one learns the meditation and then goes off and practices in retreat, but not often with a large group of people. What the Buddhist communities do so well is conduct practical meditation sessions in a way that’s very inclusive. The simplicity of the mindfulness-awareness approach is that it doesn’t require a theological commitment. It doesn’t require a secret mantra; it just puts you face-to-face with your breath and your mind, allowing people to get started right away with the meditation practice. I think that’s wonderful. So here in boulder, which is a great Buddhist center, I try to take full advantage of the local resources, and I encourage all my yoga students to meditate.
Richard Freeman: I think one of the advantages of “importing” hatha yoga into the Buddhist community is that the current state of yoga asana technology arising out of india is very good. It’s just a very wonderful practice. I know the tibetan system usually requires years of sitting practice before students are allowed to study the tantric yoga practices. A lot of those practices are not taught to large numbers of people, whereas millions of people practice hatha yoga.
If they’re shopping around for hatha yoga, I think Buddhists should look outside of the buddhist community for the latest updates, the most efficient information about how to do it. Conversely, the non-buddhist community—i don’t want to use the word “hindu” because that’s too confusing a label—should look to the buddhist community to see how to present the essence of the Vedanta in a very non-sectarian, compassionate way.
Richard Freeman: I don’t think there’s going to be a single synthesis arising in which all of the yoga schools and all of the buddhist schools understand their essential interpenetration and become one big, monolithic, happy family. But I have a feeling that communication is really opening up, and that people are no longer afraid to consider other traditions, to consider that maybe other schools have a least a couple of good points to make. This more open attitude is going to generate a lot more practice and insight, because in the past people have not wanted to even look at a book from another tradition. But the world is getting smaller as we communicate more and more, and we may find that what we think are fundamental differences aren’t that solid and important. I think there’s going to be a lot of life coming out of this exchange.
