Category: Beautiful Places

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Beautiful Places Beautiful Rituals Yoga

Circle your calendar

and make time for your yoga practice.  You will notice the difference after 6 classes. Different variety of yoga styles all working in tandem to bring out the best in you:) You deserve to treat yourself well – all styles of yoga, including my beloved Vinyasa Flow where I started and Restorative yoga for my weekly tuneup & recharge at a lovely neighborhood gem of a studio tucked away near SF airport (for those international travelers – great way to recover from a jet lag) Northern Peninsula/Silicon Valley – with cute downtown scene nearby.  The studio is near a ramen shop and a gourmet cupcake bakery… and right by the vintage antique shop and a “vintage” railroad tracks with trains still running … when you hear the train roar past you as you lie on your mat… the sound evokes that “journey” we are reminded of taking each time we are on the mat. It’s a magical space. I personally used to refer to it as my “urban-ish spa”:)

I have been to so many yoga studios – really, countless studios in my lifetime – SF, Southern Silicon Valley,  NY, LA, and even Tokyo… and just outdoors “AOZORA” – Blue Sky yoga circle( I used to teach when I was training myself) but the quality of this studio’s instructors and staff are just as high – Many of them I am proud to call my teachers myself – as they are teachers’ teachers… and it’s a relief to walk into a clean space filled with natural clear light.  Yes, the place is ECO-GREEN.  All the instructors there are all at the very minimum 200 hrs.certified from reputable yoga training schools and registered with Yoga Alliance plus most have thousands more hours of training and teaching… so reassuring that you are under the care of truly dedicated teachers.  In fact, the owner’s pursuit of the 8 limbs of yoga as a way of life, shows through upon walking in … Ashtanga yoga, which literally means “eight limbs”, ashta = 8; and anga = limb… 8 limbs..  limbs meaning steps;  8 steps in the road map to live a more meaningful life as we are all on that “journey” – and another train roars by:)

First limb is YAMA… and the five yamas are:

Ahimsa:  nonviolence

Satya:  truthfulness

Asteya:  non stealing

Brahmacharya;  continence

Aparigraha:  nonconvetousness

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More you study different cultures and philosophies, more you are struck by their similarities… as though there’s a common thread running through the vastness of our existence.

Yama means Mountain in Japanese and it is with honor I carry my family name which literally means, Oceans and Mountains.  Sounding rather Native American but coming from generations of aristocratic and/or Samurai families… but if you trace far back enough we all come from the same pool of sea water; whether you are from an aristocratic, royal or warrior families or from the primitives in some thick jungle.  We are one.  There’s nothing that really divides people (other than the socially imposed values and belief systems), when you think of our true origin and where we are returning to at the end.

Namaste.

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Beautiful Places Yoga

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum’s Yoga exhibit starts with an opening night gala tomorrow night !  

February 21st, Friday night… and Saturday, the 22nd, Yoga Festivals with yoga classes at the museum.  This museum houses some of the greatest arts from the East.  Don’t miss it:  the exhibit ends May 25th!

Note:  It’s said that Yoga dates back over 5000 years and so this exhibit only dates back 2000 years – the modern history –  I think that’s forgiven (I am saying this with a note of mirth:)

Here’s part of their press release – It’s one of my favorite local museums and no wonder:

All over the world, millions of people practice yoga to find spiritual insight and improved health. Many people are aware of yoga’s origins in India, but few outside of advanced practitioner circles recognize yoga’s profound philosophical underpinnings, its presence within Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi religious traditions, or the surprisingly various social roles played by male and female yogic practitioners over centuries. This exhibition shows yoga’s rich diversity and rising appeal from its early days to its emergence on the global stage.
Borrowing from 25 museums and private collections in India, Europe and the U.S., the artworks on view date from the 2nd to the 20th centuries. Stunning examples of sculpture and painting illuminate yoga’s key concepts as well as its obscured histories. Early photographs, books and films show yogis not only as peaceful practitioners, but also as warriors, showing yoga’s transformation in 20th-century India as an inclusive practice open to all. The show’s highlights include an installation that reunites three stone yoga goddesses from a 10th-century South Indian temple; 10 pages from the first illustrated book of yogic postures (asanas); and a Thomas Edison film, Hindoo Fakir (1902), widely regarded as the first movie ever produced about India.

“We are proud to be the only West Coast venue for this groundbreaking exhibition on yoga’s history,” said museum director Jay Xu. “Yoga’s history has transformed across places, cultures and religions, and today we step inside its ongoing transformation.”

The Asian Art Museum’s presentation of Yoga: The Art of Transformationwill be on view Feb. 21–May 25, 2014. Following the Asian Art Museum’s presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art (June 22–Sept. 7, 2014). The exhibition premiered at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery on Oct. 19, 2013 and will be on view there through Jan. 26, 2014.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Yoga: The Art of Transformation was organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution with support from the Friends of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne and the Ebrahimi Family Foundation. Presentation at the Asian Art Museum is made possible with the generous support of The Bernard Osher Foundation, Helen and Rajnikant Desai, Kumar and Vijaya Malavalli, and Walter & Elise Haas Fund.

ABOUT THE ASIAN ART MUSEUM
The Asian Art Museum–Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture is one of San Francisco’s premier arts institutions and home to a world-renowned collection of more than 18,000 Asian art treasures spanning 6,000 years of history. Through rich art experiences centered on historic and contemporary artworks, the Asian Art Museum unlocks the past for visitors, bringing it to life while serving as a catalyst for new art, new creativity and new thinking.

Information: 415.581.3500 or www.asianart.org

Location: 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 

Hours: The museum is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. From February through September, hours are extended on Thursdays until 9 p.m. Closed Mondays, as well as New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

General Admission: FREE for museum members, $12 for adults, $8 for seniors (65+), college students with ID, and youths (13–17). FREE for children under 12 and SFUSD students with ID. Admission on Thursdays after 5 p.m. is $5 for all visitors (except those under 12, SFUSD students, and museum members, who are always admitted FREE). Admission is FREE to all on Target First Free Sundays (the first Sunday of every month). A surcharge may apply for admission to special exhibitions.

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Last visit was to see Ellison’s beautiful Japanese Collection and now this… How I love this place!  With incense burning and udon at the Cafe, lovely for our 5-senses.

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Beautiful People Beautiful Places Beautiful Rituals Healthy Food Healthy Living

Visited Rainbow Grocery after the Shojin cooking session in San Francisco.  Of course bought sesame seeds so that I can grind some sesame myself at home… have been using my Cuisinart to make Tahini sauce and pesto sauce but I am now ready to at times, embrace the inconvenience of slow foods as to quote from Kyoto Journal’s interview with the famed Chef Toshio Tanahashi to the question,

“Shojin cuisine does not strictly equate to vegetarianism. How are they different?”

Chef Tanahashi answeres:  “Shojin abides by Buddhism’s Five Prohibitions, the first of which is “don’t kill.” However, one of the most important teachings of Buddha is also to accept all suffering and pleasure with equanimity. The same is applied at the dinner table. Buddhists should receive all food that is offered, and not distinguish between meat and vegetables. So, Buddhists are in fact permitted to eat meat in certain cases. Out of choice, however, Shojin cuisine only uses vegetables. Shojin cooking may seem limiting, but actually it is very liberating. Convenience will destroy humanity. Inconvenience leads to freedom.”

So in search of that “freedom”, I might sometimes forego Cuisinart as I hear him saying “mottainai” – what a waste – in his opinion, we lose a little life, that is, small pleasures inbedded in our ordinary daily life.  What he illuminates by this comment is that there is this perfect opportunity to “experience” a precious moment, a ritual… yet, mindlessly,  you are bypassing that opportunity by the short-cut in using a modern appliance. Need not go to any temples, shrines or monasteries to find the Zen in the ordinary… in the kitchen, on the floor…To him, it’s a chance to strengthen your core with your abdominal breathing, a chance to meditate and be at present with the experience as aroma of sesame wafts through the air you breathe.  Indeed, I experienced Pranayama, Meditation and Aromatherapy all at once!  Who would have thought grinding sesame in the special mortar* and pestle** to be so Zen.  The labor of love then makes for  the gastronomic bliss…of tasting the painstakingly prepared foods for the divine.

*Mortar – It is a ceramic bowl with very narrow – 1-2mm grooves in them for grinding small seeds like sesame.

** Pestle – in this case was special wooden one made from Sansho wood. Sansho, Japanese pepper is from Japanese prickly ash, or Zanthoxylum piperitum tree… Chef Tanahashi explained that from Ancient times it was known that this wood has properties to kill poisons, and along with salt and vinegar, was used to prevent food poisoning, etc. back when refrigeration was unavailable.   So while grinding, very very fine wood oil will seep into the sesame to make the process even more beneficial.  Unlike the regular ones at home, this wooden pestle was quite big… very solid in your hands but light enough to allow continuous grinding in circular motions possible – it’s quite a trance!

Hope he will make these tools available in US as well… or we will be looking into finding a local tree that may serve as a good substitute.  Any ideas anyone? Oh, no, as tree huggers, perhaps we shouldn’t be chopping down trees?  Only if we could replace that tree with baby trees … Having said that there’s lots of fire wood on sale on our street as our neighbor just cut down a giant tree from their back yard… sigh… Mottainai?

In reality, his way of time consuming cooking may only possible in monk’s world or as for that matter a nun’s… but to bring it into today’s context with so much yearning for the mindful, meditative, peaceful way of life, we can at least have the tools to create that or teach our kids the beauty that lies in simple pleasures of the ordinary everyday.  Why do we always need to be entertained ?  It’s yoga in the true sense.

It’s a cliche nowadays but yoga is how you live off the mat… at present, listening to the inner wisdom so what’s truly within us can shine bright.  Such teaching resonates with the kind of teaching Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D. shares in her precious book filled with yogic wisdom:  Living Your Yoga – Finding the Spiritual in Everyday.