Your Buddha Nature

"In a large temple, north of Thailand's ancient capital, Sukotai, there once stood an enormous and ancient clay Buddha. Though not the most handsome or refined work of Thai Buddhist art, it had been cared for over a period of five hundred years and become revered for its sheer longevity. Violent storms, changes of government, and invading armies had come and gone, but the Buddha endured.
At one point, however, the monks who tended the temple noticed that the statue had begun to crack and would soon be in need of repair and repainting. After a stretch of particularly hot dry weather, one of the cracks became so wide that a curious monk took his flashlight and peered inside. What shone back at him was a flash of brilliant gold! Inside this plain old statue, the temple residents discovered one of the largest and most luminous gold images of Buddha ever created in Southeast Asia. Now uncovered, the golden Buddha draws throngs of devoted pilgrims from all over Thailand.
The monks believe that this shining work of art had been covered in plaster and clay to protect it during times of conflict and unrest. In much the same way, each of us has encountered threatening situations that lead us to cover our innate nobility. Just as the people of Sukotai had forgotten about the golden Buddha, we too have forgotten our essential nature. Much of the time we operate from the protective layer. The primary aim of Buddhist psychology is to help us see beneath this armoring and bring out our original goodness, called our Buddha nature" -Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart

Restorative Yoga with Ariel

How do we relax? In New York City, after a day of trains and stress and break-ups. After a day of laughter, lunches and running for the bus, how do we find the poetry within ourselves? Restorative yoga is a "relax and renew" yoga. On Sunday evenings Ariel asks us to focus on our breath entering and exiting the body. She asks us to put ourselves first for an hour and a half and put our attention on the fact that we are alive. Each one of us has a precious human life. When do we manufacture anxiety? Why do we manufacture pain? There is a quote by the Dalai Lama in my room at home that says: Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to have woken up, i am alive, i have a precious human life, i am not going to waste it, i am going to use all of my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can." In order to do this we must sit. We must practice. We must practice loving ourselves. But, most of all, we must do something we have never learned to do. Something that seems to come so naturally yet we don't do it often enough. We must open our mouths and our hearts, we must open our minds, we must breathe.