Look • Jennifer Prugh Yoga

About Jennifer’s Art

As an extension of her yoga practice, Jennifer’s artwork is dedicated to meeting the moment, whether working in color, black and white ink on rice paper, or taking photographs. She attempts to come to her work with no prior agenda, responding to what arises. The process of making art has taught her about ‘life making,’ a continuous practice of learning how to best respond to and serve the possibility of any given moment.

Portraits

Children

Street Art

Nepal

Peru

Santorini

IceArt Sweden

Tibet

Cambodia

Ink Paintings

Mosaics

Acrylics

Bhutan

Vietnam

India

Samadhi is the last limb of Patanjali’s eight li

Samadhi is the last limb of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga. In Sanskrit, Samadhi means “that which is placed together.” What is placed together are the subject and the object. The word to describe samadhi often is "absorption." When we are absorbed, we've become one with.
Contemporary writing suggests that tiny samadhis can be experienced when we feel as if we are in a state of timelessness, love or ease. In other words, we can have everyday experiences, or tiny Samadhis." We will never know what seers or rishis truly experienced, even as the path is beautifully described in early writings. According to many ancient texts, practitioners of yoga have “yoked themselves,” or experienced an entire shift in their ground of being.
Science and our practice tells us that we are not as separate as our mind convinces us. “Practical Samadhi” is the understanding that our thoughts, words and actions effect the whole because we are the whole and largely, don't know it. The moments of grace (like maybe now) where we recognize our connection to “all that is” can be celebrated, and used to inspire supporting everyone in realizing they are both part of the web and the web itself.
Personally, I don't think we've come to a lived collective understanding of samadhi because we're not far enough down the path. We're still just learning to "come to a comfortable seat,” to sit with ourselves. I believe that as our collective practice of present moment awareness deepens, there will be a shift in collective consciousness. We will feel the love that we truly are. We have individual glimpses of it through the practice. I hope in my life time that together, we realize in an embodied way, our place in the web. As it is said, we belong to eachother. The great wise beings who have reached samadhi are lanterns who light the way. And I imagine that if mothers were once sages or rishis who had time to write, they would certainly say, yes, so is love.

We have developed distinct motivations behind our

We have developed distinct motivations behind our interest in meditating, from stress reduction and deep relaxation, to lowering blood pressure, or thinking more clearly, enhancing vitality, or having more empathy and compassion for others. Meditation can also be used as a method of contemplation, to “be with” a given issue as a means of accessing the truth at it's heart. Today we're considering meditation itself, known as Dhyana, the seventh limb of the eight limbs of yoga. Dhyana refers specifically to the meditation that opens the door to the absorption of Samadhi, self-realization or liberation. Dharana basically prepares the ground for a consistent flow of consciousness. Meditation is often described as the unfolding result of the continued practice of concentration.
The word Dhyana appears as early as the Rig Veda. The Chandogya Upanishad (7.6.1) states, “The earth meditates as it were, the heavens meditate as it were, the waters meditate as it were, the mountains meditate as it were, deities and humans meditate as it were,” which suggests a sense of "abiding in." The Yoga Sutras describe that which the practitioner abides within as the state of awareness.

According to the Yoga Sutra (I.39; II.1) the purpose of meditation is to intercept the fluctuations of mental activity which manifests in five ways: sensory knowledge, misconception, conceptualization, sleep and memory. I'd venture to say that for most of us, these five states are what most of us have available to us. There is another state though, arrived at through relaxed concentration and practice. I like what the Sufis might say, that Dhayana is the practice of intently looking at that which does the looking. How do we do that? Ram Dass would say we don't do it. We be it. We be with everything intimately as it arises, and we love it all. If love is hard to come by, we treat that which arises with tenderness, with the natural warmth found in our own heart. One redeeming quality about every beautiful depiction of Buddha’s face is there he is, calmly abiding in awareness, not clinging or rejecting, but being with - and in - it all.

Spring says, “yes, I’m here.” #ru_springvibe

Spring says, “yes, I’m here.” #ru_springvibes #rebels_united #springhassprung #wysteria

Before you read too far down this post, I recommen

Before you read too far down this post, I recommend finding a flower 🌹, because today’s theme is concentration, and a flower can practically be medicinal, given our current reality. In Sanskrit, the word is Dharana and it’s the step before meditation. Is that when we say come to meditation, we were usually mean come to concentration. Meditation comes out of concentration. So, sit with your flower and look right into the center. For some, focusing on a single point is relatively easy. And for some, using your peripheral vision and including all of your senses while slowly making your way to the center is more successful. Sutra 3.1: Concentration or dharana is binding the attention of the mind to a single object, place or idea.

Single pointedness. In the modern world this is truly an art form. Asana enables us to harness the potential of the body. Pranayama enables us to regulate the breath. Pratyahara enables us to diminish sense activity. Dharana enables us to direct the mind.

There are a wide variety of objects of concentration one can try: a burning candle, the ocean, the tip of one’s own nose or specific place on the body, the center between one’s eyebrows, and the sound of a mantra, but right now, the flower is nice. The point to diminish the relentless wanderings of the mind. Be completely with the 🌹 flower. How often are we completely immersed in a moment, or completely with each other, or completely with ourselves? If we’re too eager to control the mind, however, it will backfire. We accept the fact that the mind drifts, and with awareness and kindness we coax it back to our object, the flower.
I imagine think that internal fluctuations are much like snow in a snow globe. Be still, let the fluctuations slowly settle, attentive but relaxed, and enjoy the pauses between thought that begin to gradually lengthen. What an opportunity we have right now to really be with all we are being with. #dharana #concentration #theresnoplacelikehome #breathetogetheryoga #flowers #rose #flowermeditation #jennprughyoga

It’s a miracle we’re getting anything done ove

It’s a miracle we’re getting anything done over here. Tonight I’m back on YouTube teaching free yoga at 6pm. The virtual BreatheTogetherYoga is where I’ll be. Pets and family can come for free! #breathetogetheryoga #jennprughyoga #wearefamily #flowwithit🤘

“Just as when the king-bee flies up, the bees fl

“Just as when the king-bee flies up, the bees fly after him; and when he settles down, they settle down after him. So when the mind-stuff is restricted, the organs are restricted. This then is the withdrawal of the senses.” ~ Vyasa

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses from the outside world. Identification with the fluctuations of the mind perpetuates a lack of understanding of our true nature. The Maitri Upanishad states that if one becomes preoccupied with sense objects, the mind is activated, which leads to delusion and suffering. However, if the fuel of the senses is withheld, then, like a fire that dies down without fuel, the mind becomes reabsorbed into its source, the heart. “Heart” in yoga is a metaphor not for emotions, but for our center, which is consciousness or the self.

Yoga Sutra 2.54: Pratyahara is when the senses withdraw themselves from the objects and imitate, as it were, the nature of the mind.

Pratyahara is linked to the Niyama, Svadhyaya, in that we’re learning to continually focus our attention inward at any given moment, even while external events, sensations, thought and emotion rise and pass.
As the final limb of the five practices associated with the external practices of yoga, each of the five diminishes disturbance of the mind: emotional and societal disturbances are diminished through the practice of the yamas and niyamas, the physical body is brought to steadiness and ease through the practice of asana, internal energy is directed through the practice of pranayama and pratyahara which diminishes internal fluctuations caused by the senses. One tool we have at our disposal for pratyahara is listening to the sound of our breath, which removes attention from external sounds and phenomena. I use different methods to turn within. Listening to silence, or becoming aware of all sense impressions simultaneously. Some would call that relaxing in open awareness. The prompt, “relax the brain in the skull” I find helpful. With eyes closed, sometimes the inner gaze can go to the forehead or top of head, sometimes to the heart. Right now is as good a time as any to learn how turn inside and be at home in the heart. ❤️

White Tara, Goddess of long life and healing. And

White Tara, Goddess of long life and healing. And I’m fairly certain that all gods appreciate being adorned in 🌺 🌺 🌺 flowers. There is time to nurture our spiritual life and so many ways to “kneel and kiss the ground.” #ru_stilllife_20 #rebels_united #stilllife #tara #whitetara #ru_still_life #buddhism #tibetanbuddhism

The word, “Asana” first appears in the Upanish

The word, “Asana” first appears in the Upanishads about 800 BCE-200 BCE and the Bhagavad Gita about 500 BCE. Both texts use the term meaning a seat for meditation and rituals (btw, the Latin root of cathedral comes from cathedra, meaning seat). In Chapter Six, Verse 11 of the Bhagavad Gita the seat is described as: To practice meditation, fix up a clean meditation place with your seat neither too high nor too low. Insulate the seat with a grass mat, then a deer skin, and over those a clean cloth.

In the Yoga Sutras (about 300 CE), we find only three Sutras- totaling ten words that address asana. Compare this Patanjali’s treatment of the yamas and the niyamas, there are 20 Sutras that relate to the first two limbs of yoga.

Patanjali’s Sutras on asana are:

Sutra 2.46: The posture should be steady, comfortable and grounded in joy.

Sutra 2.47: Posture is mastered by relaxation of effort and meditation on the unlimited.

Sutra 2.48: When posture is mastered there is a cessation of disturbances caused by dualities.

The verses above suggest that yoga-asana must have a quality of ease and non-striving. When I was a yoga fledgling in the Reagan era, I saw fellow students fold forward in upavishta konasana, and as a gal in her twenties who couldn’t touch her toes, I felt striving. And oh, how I strove. Later in the practice, after the turn of the century , I felt what flying felt like, and I relished it. The practice changed again six years ago when meditation met devotion and I lost interest in asana, a difficult thing to do in my roll. But my motivation was honest. It needed to happen. I wanted asana to be truly awareness based. Now I’m practicing asana again regularly. The principles I utilize when moving into postures are rooting attention, softening where there is holding or contraction, becoming aware of internal movements and sensations inside the body, inviting a steady breath, and being fully in the posture. Now I approach my mat like coming to church. When we’re in this practice for the long haul, like a marriage, the relationship changes. As we grow, the practice grows as well. I find this to be beautiful.