Wakeful Body 2021-Module 2: The Art of Vajra Vinyasa

Wakeful Body 2021-Module 2: The Art of Vajra Vinyasa

· April 27, 2021

While we might think of a mortal coil, great masters of the past have taught that the body is the temple, a profound source of yogic wisdom. As the Hevajra Tantra, says “Great wisdom lives in the body”. This wisdom does not arise from our ideas and opinions about the body. It arises from the power of the body to draw us into the present moment, the domain of wakefulness and ease.

Join Lama Willa for a six-week online course enlivened with Buddhist textual sources and guided practice. Together we will explore the wakeful body as a domain of pilgrimage through the physical, energetic, and cognizant dimensions of experience.

This course, the second of three modules that will be offered in 2021 will explore the practice of Vajra Vinyasa yoga, a hybrid of Tibetan and Vinyasa yoga. Through this modality, we will explore how the body in motion can awaken us, and how the body is capable of bringing innate wisdom to fruition.

Participants will have an opportunity to

  • Develop a daily Vajra Vinayasa practice
  • Learn the key points of sadhana, asana, and prana (body practice, posture, and energy)
  • Learn how to awaken the subtle body, a layer of embodiment that is under the surface of our physical form
  • Learn the art of pranayama, yogic breathing
  • Discover the power of prana, the body’s subtle energy
  • Receive a weekly inspirational quote from Buddhist textual sources for personal contemplation
  • Learn meditation practices that integrate with yoga
  • Develop independence and confidence in embodied contemplative practice

This course is appropriate for all levels of practice. Those with limited mobility will receive instruction on how to adapt postures and movements to their capabilities.

Additional Materials

WEEK TWO


Playlist Artists

  • Wah!
  • John de Kadt
  • Alex Theory (Earth Album)
  • Daphne Tse
  • Benjy Wertheimer
  • The Nataraja album compiled by Shiva Rea

Happy listening!
Warm wishes, Willa


WEEK THREE


Quote of the Week

O friend, understand: the body is like the ocean, rich with hidden treasures.

Open your inmost chamber and light its lamp.

Within the body is gardens, rare flowers, peacocks, the inner music; within the body is a lake of bliss, on it, the white soul-swans take their joy.

— Mirabai


PRACTICE of the week (Week 3):

Mother-Channel Breathing

Close your eyes and imagine your body is made of energy and light, like a vivid hologram.

Now drop down into the core of your body.

Don’t just witness the core. Float down into your core with your consciousness so that you are inside your energy-light body.

There, extending from the crown of your head to the base of your spine is a column of light. As you enter the column of light, you encounter an open, endless sky right in the core of your body.

Now, connect to the feeling of your breath.

Breathing through your nostrils, gradually deepen your inhales and exhales.

As you inhale, breathe into the sky-like mother channel in the core of your body.

As you exhale, release the light and space of the mother channel on your out-breath so that it mixes with the space all around you.

Long, slow, deep, gentle inhales. Long slow, deep, gentle exhales. Continue for about five minutes.

Then rest with your eyes open, heart open, mind open.


WEEK FIVE


G.R.O.U.N.D.

[earth body]

Ground [in the physical body]:

Allow attention to be drawn to the body’s natural earthiness and groundedness.

Relax [what is tightly wound]

Notice where tension exists and release. Use the breath.

[energy body]

Open [the senses, mind, and body]

Open the ears, nose, eyes, mouth, eyes, heart, and mind.

Unfetter [the shadow]

What residue of feeling underlies your surface experience. Befriend.

[sky body]

Nurture [Awareness]

Allow your attention to relax completely and let your mind expand outwards infinitely. Be effortless.

[body of integration]

Dissolve [the illusion of separateness]

Let the separation between mind and body, mind and prana, self and world dissolve.

Not Enrolled
This course is currently closed

Resource Includes

  • 1 Lesson