The Tibetan Book of Yoga

The Tibetan Book of Yoga
Author: 
Geshe Michael Roach
Price: 
$23.00

Geshe Michael Roach's The Tibetan Book of Yoga is an excellent second yoga book for someone who is interested in Buddhism and is looking to deepen his or her yoga practice. The slim volume--based on Heart Yoga from the Gelukpa tradition of the Dalai Lamas--delves more into the philosophy behind the poses than their practice. In the first four chapters Roach provides a quick history of Heart Yoga and introduces the uniquely Tibetan Buddhist aspects of the practice. Drawing on Tibetan conceptions of human physiology, Heart Yoga imagines five levels to work in each yoga pose. These levels include the physical body and the breath but also encompass the "inner winds" (internal energy channels), thoughts, and "world-seeds" (each seed is a part of karma that "ripens when we look at something, and colors how we see it").

Heart Yoga is infused with tong-len, a Tibetan meditation of "giving and taking" where the practitioner generates compassion through a mental image of taking away pain from others and giving joy. In later chapters, Roach walks his readers through the 10 exercises that form the core of the daily, 30-minute Heart Yoga practice, and includes black-and-white photographs.