Awake in the World Podcast Michael Stone

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. In this talk, Michael argues that yoga and mindfulness are best practiced via the body versus striving for the attainment of philosophical or intellectual concepts. He encourages trusting that the body is the natural world and listening with the heart, so that “knowing” or too much technique don’t become obstacles to intimacy. Recorded on May 16, 2008.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. In this talk, Michael considers the final lines of the first pada of the Yoga Sutra through the lens of a Buddhist koan: Case 62 of the Book of Serenity. Recorded on May 25, 2010.

Michael gives a talk about the importance of form, and the importance of not becoming caught by form, and how this insight expands out to allow spontaneity, creativity, and freedom to be whatever you need to be moment by moment. Recording date unknown.

In this talk on awareness, Michael uses the metaphor of a nest to describe our accumulation of narratives, memories and viewpoints, and argues that non-attachment (vairagya) is crucial and “viewpoint interruption” is a practice in itself. Recorded on September 29, 2009.

Michael leads a thirty-minute meditation focusing on the finer points of the posture (form), and explains how physiological details and psychological states affect one another. Recorded on September 26, 2009.

This week we're revisiting a favourite Awake in the World podcast episode. In this talk, Michael highlights the hindrances to practice described in line 30 of the Yoga Sutras and then offers some techniques to work with them. Recorded on February 9, 2010.