Sunday, December 11, 2011

Yoga perspective from 'Buddha' documentary

I'm watching a documentary called "The Buddha" narrated by Richard Gere and there is this discussion of yoga:
Although yoga appears to focus on controlling the body, it is in fact an ancient spiritual discipline, a form of meditation, harnessing the energies of the body to tame the mind. Some yogis learn to sit without breathing for hours, breathing more and more slowly until they seem to be barely breathing at all.
From here the narrative says that the Buddha was like a super-yogi, reaching the most rarified states but these are escapes from the problem of suffering, not a permanent solution. At a very superficial level, I suspect this has to do with the dualistic nature of these practices, as opposed to the Buddhist insight of non-duality. I guess the question is whether yoga as we know it today maintains a dualistic approach or has incorporated the nondual ideals of Buddhism.

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