Matthew describes in a straight forward manner what it should feel like when we practice yoga.  Getting that feeling across to yoga students has been a challenge, thanks Matthew you say it well.

These are my two favorites:

Though it is long this is great!

4 hrs = 80% greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease
and
4 hrs = 46% higher risk of all causes of death
compared with those who watched fewer than two hours a day.

“What we showed was that irrespective of a person’s exercise level, sitting for four or more hours watching television was linked to a significant increase in risk of death compared to watching lower amounts of TV,”

“The message here is that in addition to promoting regular exercise, we also need to promote avoiding long periods of sitting, such as spending long hours in front of the computer screen.”

It seems the adage  about keeping moving is right, when we stop moving we die.

Yesterday was Master YeYoung’s first tea retreat of 2010, which was a good time of studying the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), eating good food, drinking good tea, sharing conversation.

Which brings me to another reason to drink green tea from Los Angeles Times: a study by I-Hsin Lin from Chung Shan Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan, finds that drinking green tea helps fight illnesses from diabetes to heart diseases.

Researchers found those that drank one cup of green tea a day had a 5-fold reduction in risk lung cancer, for smokers and non-smokers.  Smokers who didn’t consume green tea had a 13-fold higher risk of cancer compared with smokers who drank at least one cup of green tea a day.

Previous research has shown tea may also protect against developing malignancies of breast, prostate, stomach and bladder cancers.

More tea please!

David with Her Eminence Dagmo Kusho Sakya at the Sacramento retreat of Sakya Buddism, July 2009

Master YeYoung organized a special visit to Sacramento by his Tibetan teachers from the Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche and Her Eminence Dagmo Kusho Sakya. We were very lucky to be honored with the presence of the high lamas, who rarely travel now.

The lamas spent two days with us, teaching, leading chants, and bestowing transmissions of Ocean of Compassion, Green Tara, and Medicine Buddha.

It is impossible to describe the experience . . .

Somehow Stumpy’s timing was perfect to catch me in cat pose.

So the cat on the page background was not Photoshopped . . . it was live and for real.

Thanks Suzanne for capturing this shot!

Learning the Chinese “Art of Tea” is one of my current endeavors.

What it takes is:
good water
good tea
good teapots
a certain stillness
lots of practice

Here is a link to Master YeYoung’s tea site: http://yeyoungtea.com/
Master has the best tea, good water, excellent teapots, and his stillness runs very deep. So of course he makes the best tea!