Ok, it’s really not that hard to grock.

shot them with my panoramic camera, looks much better if you click to view the full size.

people have commented to me lately that during the past (almost) three months that i’ve been in mysore, i’ve barely written about ashtanga yoga. in many ways, i haven’t had much to say about it. something i really don’t think is all that strange, even though i make a living teaching. i’ve been doing this ashtanga practice for nine years now, and it’s really just become a part of my life, something i couldn’t really separate out. i used to read, think and talk about it all the time. lately however, i feel like it has woven itself so much into the fabric of my life that there is little left to say about it.

but … as i get ready to go home (two more weeks) one thing that i have been thinking about is the mysore system, and the faith that i have in it. people love to complain that guruji and sharath move people through the series slowly, that they are “held-back” here, things like that. if people want to become contortionists or just work on flexibility, then they really should be searching out a teacher in china and not in india. speaking strictly in terms of keeping and maintaining good health, the primary series (even just up to navasana) is probably enough for most people.

there is a reason that we follow a traditional series here, and much of that involves getting away from the ego. the ashtanga series are old, they aren’t anything i thought of, nor even anything guruji came up with. when i practice (or teach) the ashtanga series, there is an element is stepping away from my ego. of saying that the ashtanga series is correct and i don’t need to come in and modify it myself. part of the reason is that the poses, breaths and vinyasas are all linked together in a scientific which doesn’t really work when modified. more so, i feel like the benefits (especially those to the mind) come from not questioning the system and just trusting that it works. of allowing myself to just follow someone else’s system and not have to create my own thing.

asanas are just one aspect (out of 8) of the ashtanga system and are taught first to prepare our bodies and minds for the other aspects. when we come to mysore, we give control over the practice to the guru and allow ourselves to do just the poses he (well with his family) says. for many people (like me) i often feel that my body is ready to do more poses, but i think it’s something deeper they are looking for here. it’s not just grabbing ankles in backbend or binding marchiasana-d, they seem to really want smooth breath and consistency in the vinyasa. if people can’t keep the length of their inhale the same as their exhale, if they need to stop and take breaks during the practice, they are probably doing too much. this often comes as a big surprise for people, especially those who are physically strong or flexible to begin with.

there is this notion that someone who is naturally flexible is naturally “good” at yoga, but i’m not sure anything could be further from the truth. in many ways people who are naturally flexible have a harder time with the practice. stiff people need to have total body awareness when practicing in order to keep from getting hurt, but many naturally flexible can just throw their bodies into poses and let the mind wander. there’s more asana to be found in a broad backbend with concentration then there is when the ankles are grabbed, the legs are straight and the mind is thinking.

this teaching method, especially the aspect of having people do shorter series than they are used to at home helps bring the focus back to breathing and concentrating.

i read this over, there are elements of it that sound really strict and conservative. i should say that always room for doing a special series for yoga therapy or even for fun but that’s not the point of this post. what’s important is that if you’re trying to achieve benefits like mental-clarity (benefits similar to what you’d get from long-term meditation) then following the system strictly is important.

also it’s really important to note that the ashtanga system is just one system that works, and there very likely are other systems which work too. if you have another system that works for you, then great, follow it instead. one belief common across many spiritual traditions is that there are multiple paths and many will bring you happiness, but what generally doesn’t work is following lots of paths simultaneously. look around, find something that works for you and stick with it.

i’ve started selling some of my work through the website imagekind. you can pick out your own frame, matte, all that stuff … and you get to support my very expensive film, camera, travel habit in the process. ohh and none of it is very expensive. i’ve only made medium size photographs available, high-quality signed large-format prints are available from me only.

i added some new sections to this site. now if you open www.luke.org directly, you’ll get a site that gives more information on me and highlights some of my photography.

the main addition is a short biography, which honestly i have mixed feelings about. part of me still thinks the whole blog thing is strange, like i can’t quite understand why people i don’t know like to read about me. that being said, i read a lot of other blogs and know what complete strangers did on their holidays. in some ways adding random bits or photographs is easy, but writing about my life or what i’m thinking ends up making me feel shy. it’s one thing to sit and talk with friends about stuff, but it seems much different to just throw things out there for everyone to read and for google to archive forever.

well … i guess that’s it. if you want to know more about me, click on over to the about section. might want to hurry tho, i may decide i’m too shy and just take it down.

i took these pictures in and around kerala a few weeks ago. for the most part, it rained while we were there and whenever it would stop i would run out and shoot a bunch. i shot them with my panoramic camera, they look much better if you click to view the full size. the yellow color comes from using slide positive film and (intentionally) processing it in chemicals for negatives.

the first one, which i called “god’s flowers” is my favorite. it is of a field of maragolids i stopped to see on the way home. in india, the marigold is very important flower in india as it is used in worship. it is normal to see them strung into garlands and for sale all over, but this was the first time i saw them being grown. on the drive home from kerala, i saw field after field of flowers, some of which completely filled my vision.

ohh in other news, i lost my cannon ixy digital point-and-shoto camera somewhere around mysore (i think at the bottom of chamundi hill). i know it’s a long shot, but if anyone is reading this in mysore and finds a cannon camera, likely in a small brown thai-style zipper, it is probably mine. thanks.

this really shouldn’t shock anyone

ever since my parents left, i’ve had a steady stream of visitors helping to keep this rambling three bedroom place from feeling lonely. first elle came back from thailand for five days and brought with her a whole suitcase of thai food. she came in at around 1am and i was too out of it to eat then, but as soon as practice was over the next morning i raced home to eat longan, mangosteen, papaya salad, sticky rice and all sorts of other stuff she brought in her suitcase.

p’bpu came this past weekend to stay for a week. the weather has been really since so she and i have been doing lots of walking, some eating indian food and of course plenty of cooking thai food. i’m not sure why i didn’t start cooking sooner, i guess i just have gotten out of the habit of cooking after living in bangkok for so long but i’m reminded how much i like it. plus with all this free time on my hands, i really don’t have much excuse to keep complaining about being bored with indian food.

ohh, bpu had this rather scary thing to say about her trip in from bangalore.

soon after the cab picked me up in bangalore, it stopped. we barely got out of the city when traffic on both sides of the road stopped. the driver didn’t speak much english and was really only able to say “accident”. people started to follow the cars, just standing and staring, but nobody was able to tell me what was going on. eventually the taxi i was in, managed to cut through traffic, close enough to become the second car in line from where traffic stopped. i think getting so close was even worse than being far back, if only we had been a little earlier we could of avoided the whole mess. being so close also let me see the reason traffic was stopped, people had brought stones, trees and ropes to the road blocking any form of traffic in either direction. the whole thing was really scary, made even more so by the people who joined the road block my lying across the stones and trees.

after half and hour, the police finally showed up and made everyone drag the trees and rocks off the road, finally we were able to go. through the whole mess, i kept thinking of news reports from afghanistan and how the taliban use things like this to block the road before attacking.

two weeks ago, i went with mom, earl, sherry and elle to bylakuppe which is a tibetan settlement near mysore. even though india has a population of 1,129,866,154 in a space 1/3 the size of the USA, the government still has found room to donated to help the tiban people maintain their culture. bylakuppe, near mysore, is a settlement which includes a series of temples, private residences, shops and guest houses. when i first came to mysore it was possible for anyone to just show up and visit, but the indian government has since declared it a restricted tourist zone which meant that this time we had to get permission from the local police before going. anyone wanting to stay overnight needs to get permission from the main office in delhi.

not including the thai buddhist community which i am surrounded with during most of the year, this is the second buddhist community that i’ve visited during the past year, both of which are maintained by people in exile from communist governments. thich nanh hanh’s formed his sangha in plum village france when he was exiled from vietnam (he recently has been allowed to return to vietnam to teach) and the tibetian people have formed many settlements around india (and the world) ever since the chinese invaded their land. while both communities share similar roots, they seem to have gone in very different directions. thich nhat hanh and the dalai lama have been recognized as the two most well-known buddhist monks in the world and both have traveled and taught all over the world. much of buddhism’s current popularity in the west can be attributed to them.

umm …. so, most of that information can be found on the web. where i wanted to go with this post is that i think i’m slowly getting over my fear of monks. well maybe it’s less of a fear and more a feeling of intimidation. it almost seems silly to say that i’m afraid of someone who has about six possessions and is committed to a life of non-violence and being truthful, but for some reason i’ve felt this way for a while.

i think part of the intimidation comes from my own issues, mostly wondering why i’m not a monk. i could always become one, but i realize it’s not my karma this life around. whatever karma i built up in the last life, it doesn’t seem to be pushing me to become a monk in this life. i’ve often heard people complain that they met guruji so late in his life, that the shala is always packed and that (especially now) they get no attention from guruji. in many ways, it’s a similar issue. it’s my karma in this life that brought me to guruji. even though i met him late in his life and that he probably doesn’t remember me, i still need to be thankful that i met him and found his teachings. it’s really the same issue with monks, instead of being intidimated by them i should find a way to be thankful that i get to study their teachings.

when i meet monks, especially ones my age, i wonder why they are able to give up so much and focus on their practice 100% of the time. monks abstain completely from sex and from entertainment and i really wonder how someone my age can do that. i wonder what past-life karma lets them dedicate their lives to practice this time around.

the buddha worked to form communities of monks and nuns close to lay-communities and taught that the two communities need to support each other. he taught that the monastics need to set a spiritual example for the lay-community and that they lay-community needed to provide financial support to the monastics. the more time i spend with monastics, the less i feel intimidated by them. i have a feeling that it’s something i’m going to need to work on for a while.

i shot the photograph above using my panoramic camera and fujichrome 400 slide film which i cross processed. the original image was over-exposed so lowered the light levels in photoshop some. it looks much better bigger, click on it.

yesterday was guruji’s 92nd birthday and about 200 people came to celebrate at the shala. in typical indian fashion, nobody was really sure when then party started. a group of us a the shala had been told to come at 11, others had been told around 11:30 and one friend was even told to come at noon. we went around 10:50 figuring it would be crowded and were the first ones there. we were also told that things “will start at 11:30, so come back in 15 minutes” …

when we finally did go in, the room seemed to fill in behind us really quickly. there were lots of yoga students, a full film crew and many local indians who came to pay respects. guruji seemed happy, but also really tired and skinny. there were a pooja, dance and music performances from yoga students and then an opportunity to pay respects to guruji. after that, we all went downstairs to eat and guruji probably went to bed. pictures are below …

last year the shala asked people to stop using photographs of guruji without permission, but my understanding is that it was mainly to limit commercial use of the photographs. blogs, being a news outlet, are exempted … i think?

ohh sherry left last night and brought 13 rolls of film back to bangkok to be processed for me. i should start posting by end of this week.

in the spirit of hot-or-not and other such rate-me sites, the saatchi gallery started a rate-my-artwork site called showdown. each week artists submit work to be rated, and eventually pieces go head-to-head, with the final winner being offered for sale at the saatchi gallery. voting lasts for 7 days, and you can rate any piece 1-10.

i submitted my piece “not a flower, not an arm” … if you like it, go vote for it. actually in the spirit of things, if you don’t like it i guess you could give it a low rating. if you really like it, email all your friends and tell them to give it a high rating. if you really hate it, i guess you should probably tell everyone you know to give it a low rating.

if you just don’t care, then check back soon … i’m working on some more india posts.

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