SADHANA - Un'immersione nelle tradizioni dello Yoga con Michael Hamilton

 
 

(The course will be held in ENGLISH with translation into Italian on request)

4 week end from 08.30 a.m to 5.30 p.m

Module 1: Stepping onto the Path - 5/6 October 2024

Module 2: Understanding the Body - 9/10 November 2024

Module 3: Understanding the Mind, Meditation - 18/19 January 2025

Module 4: Historic dimensions of Yoga - 1/2 March 2025


Living one’s life through the lens of yoga is a truly rewarding experience. This intensive is designed to give yoga practitioners a stable foundation in the practices and theories found in the Yoga traditions. Intended for students wanting to deepen their practice, or for yoga teachers wanting to supplement their understanding with another perspective.

To support our exploration different practices will be introduced, ranging from asana, pranayama, meditation, chanting and visualization techniques for calming and focusing the mind and accessing the heart, from where one can start a foundational sadhana in order to deepen one’s individual practice.

 

Module 1: Stepping onto the Path - 5/6 October 2024

Description

“For some yogis there is a clear feeling of a moment in time when they consciously decided to become interested in spiritual practice, for others there is not such a clear delineation. Either way, both yogis will be faced at some point with choices about what practices might be suitable to their path (sadhana), where they can draw support and inspiration from, as well as practical considerations regarding resources.
In this module we explore together some of the prominent approaches found in the yoga traditions to help clarify for us what could be a supportive environment that best meets us where we are at. With a light touch we focus on the orientations of Buddhism and its emphasis on cultivating meditation and compassion for freedom from suffering, Yoga Sutra and its emphasis on the eightfold path leading to liberation, and the Bhagavad Gita and its relationship to letting go as a practice of devotion will form the backdrop to creating a space where we can start to feel what sort of elements create a resonance within us.

Content

  • 2 days of morning sadhana (asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation) and afternoon workshops on topics.

  • Introduction to setting out on a path/choosing a sadhana

  • Constructing a routin

  • Practical considerations for setting up a practice

  • Orientations to yoga, applied theory

  • Three main orientation outlines focusing on the four noble truths, eightfold path and devotion

  • Exploration of Buddhist meditation orientations

 

Module 2: Understanding the Body - 9/10 November 2024

Description

“Living in our bodies can leave us at times exalted, and at other times we touch against the more challenging aspects of this experience. Befriending the body by accepting the paradox that the heart/mind - seeking freedom - is intimately interconnected to the body, leads us to the understanding of accepting our situation as it is as the path to our goal.”

Content

  • 2 days of morning sadhana (asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation) and afternoon workshops on topics.

  • Basic applied anatomy (key muscles, connective tissues)

  • Subtle body anatomy – koshas, granthis, nadis, chakras

  • Asana basics – alignment, adjustment, modification

  • Sequencing asana

  • Understanding practice along the lines of body/mind – elements & mind, koshas etc

  • Asana as foundational support to mindfulness - alignment

  • Breathwork as bridge to the internal forms of prana

 

Module 3: Understanding the Mind, Meditation - 18/19 January 2025

Description

“Discovering the potential of one’s mind is indeed an illuminating experience. When we read old and new text exalting the virtues of mindfulness and calm abiding, not to mention more esoteric text that allude to fascinating altered states of consciousness (jhanas) as well as special powers (vibhutti), we realize we know very little about “the mind”. And yet, it is also our mind, at any moment ready to be observed, explored and journeyed into. This vast world of unexplored expansion of consciousness, however enticing it sounds, is also the same mind that is often neurotic, anxious and often hard to live with. Both sides of this equation, the exalted mind, and the neurotic mind constantly seeking gratification, need to be known and embraced for us to grow and become complete humans.”

Content

  • 2 days of morning sadhana (asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation) and afternoon workshops on topics.

  • What is meditation? Mind training (bhavana), calm abiding (shamatha), enlightenment (moksha, nibanna, satori, turya) etc

  • Different orientations: stabilization, insight, compassion

  • Context and jargon: awareness, mindfulness, sati, spacious awareness, object vs objectless meditation, choice-less awareness

  • Focusing the mind – shamatha forms: jnana, matra repetition, visualization

  • Enquiry into mind – insight forms: shikantaza, mahamudra, dry-vipassana, body scans, koan, questioning

  • Meditation as skill to observe all experience (mindfulness)

  • Developing meditation as skill to work with difficult emotions (5 steps of Karma Tchagme)

  • The psychological dimension: Working with intention, motivations, belief structures, old habit energy, prayer

  • Practicing different methods, such as object centered, objectless, scanning, loving kindness (metta) meditation, tonglen, noting method (dry-vipassana), silent illumination etc.

 

Module 4: Historic dimensions of Yoga - 1/2 March 2025

Description

“The historical developments forming the backdrop of our modern interpretation of yoga is vast, complex and fascinating. In order to facilitate a way to approach such a long and colourfully diverse history, we will limit out interest to three main outflows that contain many of the prevailing approaches of yoga, namely classical yoga (raja), non-dual yoga (advaita vedanta) and the forceful yoga (hatha). Samples of text will be shared for us to have an example of the tradition, and we will discuss its implications in plenum. Afternoon sessions will have regular breaks for refreshing the mind, and end with gentle restorative postures.”

Contents

  • 2 days of morning sadhana (asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation) and afternoon workshops on topics.

  • Discussing early forms (pre-vedic & vedic)

  • Classical (Raja) yoga – Patanjali and the path of meditation (Patanjaliyogashastra)

  • Non-dual revolution – Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist Mahayana (Gaudapadyakarika)

  • Development of Tantra

  • Development of Hatha yoga (Hathayoga texts)

  • Modern incarnations

Price:

250.- 1 whole week end - Early birds (2 weeks before the date) 

280.- 1 whole week end - Full price

Book your mat here

 

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