If you’re a subscriber or a yoga student of mine, you will know by now that I don’t see the studio as just a place to exercise and stretch. I feel strongly that teaching yoga means teaching all eight limbs of yoga, the Asana practice (the postures) being just the third of those eight facets of living a yoga lifestyle. While I understand that each yogi comes to the practice with their own unique goals and desires attached, I strive to teach a class that encompasses the mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic aspects of yoga as well as the physical, making a class at Common an all-encompassing experience.
Recently, I have had several students ask me for more information about a range of topics, like mindfulness, Chakras, deities, and meditation. In the past I have answered each student individually, directing them to the resources which would benefit their specific queries. It never dawned on me until just this week that an annotated bibliography would be a great way to share some of the texts that have been important to me in my personal wellness journey. So, without further ado, I give you my top five reads for all yogis:
The Wakeful Body by Lama Willa Blythe Baker
My first experience with Lama Willa was on a residential retreat. My yogi job that week was a simple one that was also nerve-wracking; I was responsible for keeping Lama Willa’s water pitcher full of fresh cold water and making sure her water and cup were always ready at the front of the meditation hall, with a linen napkin draped over them. I was to do this before the call to meditate several times per day. The retreat manager had shown me the shelf in the storage closet off the main kitchen where the “special” crystal water glasses were kept, the ones for honored teachers, and was emphatic that I make sure to use only the best for Lama Willa each day. Lama Willa’s hydration was my sole responsibility for the entire retreat. Since then, I have attended many Dharma talks with her and have come to know her voice so well I could pick it out of a crowd with ease. I consider her to be one of the main influencers of my personal practice.
Lama Willa published The Wakeful Body last year, and I traveled out to Natural Dharma to practice with her and hear her read from her book. I bought my copy in advance, and had her sign it for me. It is an excellent book for beginner meditators, full of clear and concise directions for accessing and working with the wisdom of the body through meditation. The book is step-by-step with wonderful insights and some core practices, many of which I have experienced with her in person and still base my own practices on today. If you are looking to become more grounded, heal from trauma or anxiety, or want to increase mindfulness, this would be a great resource as you develop your meditation practice.
Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens
This book found me at exactly the right time. I had recently experienced several frustrating confrontations with others in my personal life. Those experiences combined with the constant heartbreaking injustices occurring in our capitalistic, patriarchal society left me feeling angry, outraged, and helpless. What had started as disappointment had soured to a simmering rage that I was carrying around in my heart. I was confrontational and confused and hurt. I was browsing through a local bookstore with friends when the cover of Love and Rage caught my eye. I bought it that day and devoured it shortly after, during a week-long camping and hiking trip in the finger lakes in New York. I stayed up late at night in my tent, shivering and highlighting passages by lantern-light. I found Lama Owens’ ideas so compelling that I rewrote many of my notes into a journal as I sat around the campfire, and sent photos of my favorite lines to loved ones.
This summer I had the privilege of attending a retreat led by Lama Owens, where we explored how to accept and channel rage and trauma as powerful energy and heal from injustices in our lives. Lama Owens is not, in my experience anyway, a conventional teacher. I have to admit I was “clutching my pearls” a bit when he swore repeatedly in the meditation hall, admitted to using plant medicine, placed a large black crystal skull on his altar, discussed his belief in ghosts and zombies, and candidly described himself as a “fat, gay, black man.” But by the closing night of the retreat, when he led us through a puja ceremony complete with a bonfire and offerings of alcohol and meat, I was entranced and enthralled by his energy.
This book taught me about the seven homecomings, an addition to my conventional understanding of taking refuge in the three jewels. Lama Owens writes about how to meditate with your ancestors to heal generational trauma and this book gives lots of opportunity for practice, with instructions to help you with breathwork, visualizations and even offers reflection questions for contemplation or journaling. If you are open-minded, a rebel, willing to do your own shadow work, or looking to liberate yourself from rage through your mindfulness practice, this book is an excellent read.
The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh
There is not a single thing this man has written that is not excellent and powerful. Just grab anything with his name on it and you know it will change the way you see things forever. Thich Nhat Hanh was a revered Buddhist monk from Plum Village in Vietnam who is widely known and widely published. Thich passed away last winter (many of you may remember seeing his photo and the orange and yellow flowers on the altar in the studio during that time). Through my Sangha group at Natural Dharma I was able to live stream much of his memorial services and even join in some of the rituals, prayers and chanting via Zoom; Buddhist centers from around the world joined together virtually for several days after his passing to celebrate and memorialize his life. He was truly one of the greatest Buddhist teachers to have lived.
In The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching Thich gives a comprehensive overview of the basics of Buddhism and the Dharma. He does a beautiful job of explaining concepts like the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and other key Buddhist teachings using stories, metaphors, and analogies to help you better understand. His way of explaining difficult or complicated ideas using simple language and a sense of humor makes the Dharma accessible to any reader. My copy of this book is dog-eared, pages folded, annotations covering the margins and sticky notes galore. If you only own one book about Buddhism this may be the one.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
If you haven’t seen this book all over the internet in the past couple of years, I don’t know where you’ve been. Honestly, it was so popular that I almost didn’t want to read it, and I put it off for some time. In short, this book basically uses science to explain all of the things that Buddhism has been saying for centuries. If you’re a skeptic who needs convincing in order to buy in, this could be your book. This book is written by a doctor who has researched the effects of emotional trauma on the physical body, and how the mind and body are inextricably linked, even when the emotions that are causing the physical reactions are unacknowledged, forgotten or locked deep down in the brain.
This book is basically the scientific reasoning for why we should practice yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and shadow work. It explores treatments for trauma and trauma-related illness and purports that trauma can, indeed,be healed. While I tend to enjoy reading more poetic texts, even if they are nonfiction, and this book is quite scientific with medical terminology galore, it also has lots of stories, case studies, and anecdotes that help keep you interested in the information. It gives example after example of how the brain’s neuroplasticity makes deep inner healing possible and even gives suggestions for how to accomplish that task. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a beach read, but I do think it is incredibly important to understand the science behind the Dharma, especially if you are one who instinctively shies away from religion or spirituality.
The Mind and the Way by Ajahn Sumedho
This is a true story. It was January and I was in a bikini and harem pants walking down the main drag on South Beach in Miami. It was the middle of the Art Deco festival. There were drag queens and sports cars and loud music and bodybuilders lifting weights on the beach in neon green thongs. As a matter of fact, there was very little clothing on most of the bodies around me. I was drinking matē out of my matē gourd, as one does in South Beach. And out of the crowd, suddenly coming directly towards me was this little old man in orange monk’s robes, his bald head shining in the sun. He was carrying a stack of books and he stopped right in front of me, handed me a book, and said “You look like the kind of person who would appreciate this book.” I was totally taken off guard but I took the book and said thank you and he was gone just as fast as he appeared, back into the crowded street.
When I tell you this book blew my mind. I took months to read it, slowly and thoughtfully digesting each word, underlining passages and taking notes in the margins (I do this to a lot of my books, as you can probably tell by now). I’d read a couple of chapters and then put it down for a few days, so I could give myself time to contemplate what I had read before I moved on. The Mind and the Way is an in-depth look at the tenets of Buddhism, mindfulness, breathwork, meditation, and the basic human condition. There is a LOT to learn in this book, and at times I even remember feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the information and new ideas that I had to process while reading. I recommend reading it over once as a beginner and then, maybe a few years down the line, reading it again with a deeper knowledge; it will be like reading two different books!
This is by no stretch of the imagination an exhaustive list; there are so many resources out there! If you walk into BAM in Concord, you’ll find books about yoga, meditation and Chakras on the sale pile for five bucks (no telling what kind of misinformation you’ll find in them but, hey)! Yoga books exist in the sports and fitness section, and Buddhist books in the world religions aisle. There’s beautiful poetry to help guide your way and inform your practice; try Rumi! Different texts are going to hit different at various points in your journey; something you think is dry as a fart might be the next person’s path to enlightenment, who knows? I think the main point is never stop learning! Read and practice and ask questions and take notes and read and practice again. You were not put on this planet to go to work and pay bills and do dishes (okay we gotta do that stuff too I get it); you are made of stardust and soul, and it’s your duty and pleasure to learn and experience as much as you possibly can in this lifetime of yours. Go and get your wisdom.
Comments