The ModernZen Collective Podcast
Are you ready to elevate your mind, body, and spirit? Join Lizzy Sutton and Nikki Sucevic on The ModernZen Collective Podcast, where conscious women come together to explore the art of living with purpose, balance, and spiritual grounding. Whether you're a single professional navigating the pressures of urban life or a stay-at-home seeker yearning for deeper connections, this podcast is your sanctuary for holistic practices and personal growth.
Tune in as Lizzy and Nikki delve into ancient wellness secrets, expand your consciousness, and help you discover your true life purpose. We tackle the challenges of work-life stress, the quest for inner peace, and the journey of rediscovering who you truly are, to be able to live in alignment. Here, we embrace the unconventional, celebrate community, and empower you to step beyond societal norms to find balance, joy, and holistic living.
The ModernZen Collective Podcast is here to guide, educate, and connect women ready to transform their lives. Discover a world where balance, joy, and holistic living are within reach. Connect, grow, and thrive with The ModernZen Collective—your space for holistic wellness in the modern world.
The ModernZen Collective Podcast
Yoga Beyond the Mat: A Journey Through Traditions and Philosophy with Kloe Zhang Latting
When Kloe first stepped onto a yoga mat 16 years ago, weight loss was her only goal. Today, after thousands of training hours across India and beyond, she understands yoga as something profoundly different – a spiritual practice that leads to liberation from conditioned thinking.
This episode takes you on a remarkable journey through diverse yoga traditions, revealing how commercialized Western yoga often misses the essence of this ancient practice. Kloe expertly unpacks the distinctions between Bikram, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Yin, and Restorative yoga, explaining their unique purposes and philosophical foundations.
Nikki & Kloe explore how traditional yoga balances standing postures with seated, prone and supine sequences, while many modern classes overemphasize standing poses. Kloe reveals fascinating origin stories – how Iyengar transformed eating blocks into yoga props, how Vinyasa was designed for energetic royal teenagers, and how Power Yoga emerged when Western bodies couldn't perform traditional sequences.
The conversation takes a powerful turn when Kloe shares how Zen Buddhism and yoga philosophy harmoniously inform her practice, especially in navigating profound grief after losing both parents. Her insight that "the letting go is undo – you don't do anything but return to the present moment" offers wisdom applicable far beyond the yoga mat.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner curious about yoga's spiritual dimensions or someone seeking tools for mindful living, this conversation illuminates how these ancient traditions offer exactly what our distracted modern world needs – a path to presence, peace and authentic being.
Join our free monthly meditation sessions with Kloe or experience her Wednesday Yin Yoga classes to deepen your own practice in our supportive ModernZen community.
Connect with Kloe through her profile on the ModernZen Practitioner Collective
Thanks for listening to The ModernZen Collective Podcast.
✨ Want more support between episodes? Download the ModernZen Co App for guided meditations, energy updates, and soulful tools—available on iOS and Android for just $3.99/month. Click the link above or search “ModernZen Collective” in your app store.
💫 Looking for deeper guidance on your path? Explore our vetted, curated Collective of holistic practitioners—perfect if you're ready to deepen your practice or fast-track your transformation with expert support.
🌿 Follow us on Instagram @modernzenco & personally at @lizzysutton.co & @nikki.sucevic
Hi, I'm Lizzie and I'm Nikki. Have you ever felt that your life was missing purpose, joy or deep connection? Welcome to the Modern Zen Collective podcast, where we embrace holistic living for a joyful, purpose-driven life.
Speaker 1:In this podcast, we'll explore holistic practices, consciousness expansion and spiritual alignment. We will dive into personal development practices that connect mind, body, spirit and share secrets that ancient cultures have known for centuries. Together, we aim to guide, educate and connect individuals eager to transform their lives.
Speaker 2:Join us weekly on the Modern Zen Collective podcast and elevate your mind, body and spirit. And now on to today's episode.
Speaker 3:Welcome everyone to another episode of the Modern Zen Collective Podcast. This is Nikki, and I'm having an interview today with one of our practitioners and a dear friend of mine, chloe, who's also based in the Chicago area, near where I am. Chloe, who's also based in the Chicago area, near where I am. Chloe has well, I want her to talk about herself, but over 1500 hours, if not more now, of training in yoga and just the a lot of the a lot of what I've learned from her and the wisdom from her is just being mindful in the present moment, as hard as it can be as humans, and she's traveled around the world for her teachings and she's taught around the world. So I want to have her introduce herself a bit, but we're so excited to have you here and your wisdom.
Speaker 3:Chloe does our monthly second Sunday meditation, which is wonderful, and it's a beautiful thing that we get to give for free to anyone who wants to join. And then also, chloe has a yin yoga on Wednesdays at one o'clock central time. That's a one hour class. That's a nice reset that we have a great community with that as well. But welcome, chloe. Thank you for being here on the podcast. So happy to have you.
Speaker 4:It's my pleasure to be here. So happy to have you.
Speaker 3:It's my pleasure to be here. I'm so happy to share your story and share more about your journey and how you help so many and how grounded you are is just something I find just so wonderful about how, what you bring to your teachings. But I, for those of you know, for those that are listening, that don't know a lot about your background and who you are, can you give us a little bit about your background and how you started in this journey?
Speaker 4:In yoga journey started about like 16 years ago and literally just to lose weight, and which I still consider myself fat all the time, basically. Yeah, so, long story short, I started when I was a teenager. I had a pretty severe eating disorder and it has lasted for over a decade. So when I started to do yoga, I was just do Bikram yoga, which is the hot yoga, and at that time it's still 90 minutes a section and very, very hot, and then sometimes I do three sections in a row and I get kicked out from the studio. Yeah, those are the crazy time. So basically that's how I started yoga, but literally just a physical movement.
Speaker 4:Until 2014, I had a very random opportunity to practice with some teachers that came from California At the time I lived in Vancouver and just within the practice you heard different messages. Like the teacher mentioned some spiritual things about the mindfulness, about how to grounding yourself and about your view right now, how you look at the things. That is actually diluted, that to driven you to the completely different way of happiness, and just for some reason maybe at the time, I was somehow ready for that point to be awakened and I absorbed those words and those messages pretty well, and I just started my meditation from there, and also yoga practice Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so wait, can we unpack a little bit more about the yoga to lose weight? Because I feel like that's such a big thing right now, just with the yoga fitness studios and with that being a big part of the culture that's out there working on our self-image, for feeling good in our body. Like, how do you guide someone who's in your class, like do you tell them like that's great, you're here to lose weight, wonderful, that's your journey. Or do you talk to them about you know all the other benefits if someone tells you that when you're teaching them?
Speaker 4:So, for the current state of my teaching, even when I started teaching, which is about 80 years ago, I don't mention weight loss from yoga. I don't mention it at all and I surely don't promote it because I just know that is not a real way of practicing yoga. However, talk about you know, go back to my experience, um. But however, talk about you know, go back to my experience when I started to do yoga as literally just to lose weight. Use yoga to lose weight is because being reading the advertisement and the people's talking, so a little bit background. When I was 16, I started modeling and I I do have a music performance background, so I was on the stage all the time performance background. So I was on the stage all the time when I said lose weight. I was literally 88 pounds and the 5'5 tall, but I still think I'm fat. So basically, that's like some twisted mind. It's my mind literally twisted.
Speaker 4:However, I'm not trying to blame me on this society. The trigger point for me to feel that I always constantly need to lose weight, it is the judgmental mind from the society. So, regardless of how skinny I was when I'm having shootings or when I go to like very big events and stuff like that. You always been told like, oh, you just oh, that's just so good If you can lose another five pounds, yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you're 16, 17 and you listen, you literally just like engraved in your minds like, oh my, okay, I'm still fat, I need to do more. You know, like just like engraved in your mind, like, oh my, okay, I'm still fat, I need to do more. You know, it's just like a regular thing. We always think we need to do more.
Speaker 4:So that's how I started that journey, which is Journey Guangguo. It was a very big struggle to me, a huge struggling. Anyway, go back to yoga. So I started Bikram yoga because I had my first son and I actually fairly lose weight so quick. After two months I'm already going, went back to my regular weight, but I didn't, I wasn't satisfied. That's that's where I started that steamy, hot environment to basically lose all the water, weight and all that. So, because I went through that journey and when I started to teach him, I never use yoga to lose weight as a promote or as the way of teaching, to guiding people.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't do that, yeah, it's people I don't, I don't do that. Yeah, it's, it's just blanketed everywhere. To that. That is, um, either a drawing factor or a benefit, um for for it.
Speaker 3:But for me, I started yoga in 2004 or so, so, wow, like 20, 21 years ago, and, um, it was a lot about helping my anxiety and how stressed I felt and how, just out of you know, I was in my early twenties. What was I so stressed about? Looking back at it, there's not much that like I had as my responsibilities back then, but just a lot of anxiety. And I realized I needed a place to move my energy around. And that's where I found a yoga studio in Denver. And that yoga studio was not corporate, it was very intentionally traditional yoga and it was very much aligned more from the spiritual perspective of, you know, like tapping in, feeling your energy, having a, you know, an extra long Shavasana at the end. What is like?
Speaker 3:What is your preference in terms of when you teach or when you take class? For it to be? I guess, where do you see the benefits of it? To be more of a mind-body connection, spiritual, where you're talking through the spiritual aspect and the chakras, or whatever, or a true, inhale, exhale, turn your body, move like this Like what do you prefer? Teaching or taking?
Speaker 4:For both. Obviously I would prefer the second one just to be more mindful with your body and your breath and you really connect to your mind, to be at the presence. That's a real yoga, right? So we can talk about a little bit history of yoga later.
Speaker 4:But when you, when you mention, like your first studio, that you went in some sort of like a spiritual environment, I literally just like just the word karma come to my head.
Speaker 4:It's like you have good karma, like sometimes, when I look back my history of my practice yoga, I was just thinking, oh my god, I literally went not wasted, but I literally spent 60 years like in the, you know, in the very commercialized, the very steamy, hot environment to do yoga, literally only focus on the weight losing and you just stretching, like intensively doing that. I did not receive any spiritual guidance for the very beginning until later, right, I moved to Vancouver. So, yeah, so I again, like earlier I mentioned already, I just really appreciate that the yoga teacher actually used that opportunity to be in the environment to bring in whatever knowledge that they have to to deliver that authenticity of what yoga really is. It is a mind body practice, right, we're not talking about enlightenment, but eventually, ultimate goal of yoga, it is to practice enlightenment, to free, liberating yourself, right, but that's too deep, that's too far away. But again, that's the first thing.
Speaker 4:Just like you mentioned, it's like so hard for us to we we don't even know where we're not here most of the time, because that habitual of the habit of destructive mind, destructive mind we always been distracted and we don't even know that we're not here. Yeah, so that's another thing. This morning I was talking about one of the yoga teacher come to my class to take my class and afterwards she just tried to speak to me a little bit how much she appreciates my class. I don't play music.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, You're with yourself when you don't play music and don't fill the room with words the whole time. You have to be listening to your body and being with your mind.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was literally telling her. I'm like this whole world, this whole world is full of destruction. Any moment, any moment, we're distracted, even if, like I'm a Zen student right now, right, I sit like 10 hours, you know, in session all the time. But you know, even if your body is there, you're sitting in a cross leg, it looks like a peaceful position, but, man, your body is there, you're sitting in a cross leg, that looks like a peaceful position, but, man, your mind is not. You're not there most of the time, right, but in this modern world we still like to promote, to give more destructions. And yeah, so I mean, again, it's personal, I disagree with that. So that's in my teaching, I try to not to go through that route. You don't need music to relaxing when you're doing yoga, because the posture is already there for you to be in the present, to release your thoughts, to be relaxed.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, absolutely. And I want to talk about your journey. How you start, how did you pick Bikram? Was it because it was hot and you just wanted to go sweat it out? Or did you know about the roses and everything? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, literally. Because at that time I live in Seattle and I was talking to one of the girls that she was babysitting my son sometimes come over and just to have some drink Back. Then I still drink. And she was just saying yeah, you know, I just went to this hot yoga place. It was amazing. Man, I just swear like a hell, I'm like yoga. She's like, yeah, that's the only yoga I would do Other stretching, I'm not going to do that, but this one is awesome and that's how I hooked me up Yoga. I never really imagined that I would do yoga. You know, I always been sort of sportive. At the time I was a wakeboarder, for sure. I've been wakeboarding since I was a teenager, you know like a pretty hardcore sports and stuff, but I never thought about yoga. But after she described to me how much sweat that she's on, yes, I'm going to go for that.
Speaker 3:Bikram is such a different world. So I want to let's talk, since we're here, let's talk about the history of yoga and yoga philosophy and the difference between what you teach and Bikram and other types of yoga. So, for those that don't know, do you want to explain Bikram a bit to us?
Speaker 4:Oh, it's quite straightforward. We're definitely not talking down Bikram yoga, okay, so Bikram is yoga. It is yoga. It's just Hatha yoga.
Speaker 4:26 postures, two pranayama practice, beginning a pranayama, closing with a pranayama practice. Yeah, it's yoga, but as we probably most of the people know all body movement of yoga is all under the umbrella of the hatha. So Bukram yoga is just hatha yoga. Yeah, for sure. Especially, they don't do vinyasa, they don't do jump around like Ashtanga. So, yeah, they're yoga, for sure. Nothing wrong with it. 26 posture he designed pretty well move a lot of spine forward, back bends, everything. Pretty good for you to do that 26 posture. If you think you narrowed yoga, then you misunderstood, in my opinion. I describe that 26 posture just like a fingernails of yoga posture, wise, right, and I think, particularly in that tradition it obviously, from my observation, is like it's they're just very lacking of introduce any spiritual um aspect of yoga. It's like all all the Bikram yoga that I've been, I never heard teacher to introduce anything that more spiritual um, connecting your mind and body is all about posture, alignment, posture alignment.
Speaker 3:So that's Bikram, yeah um, yeah, is it true with Bikram, that you're not supposed to drink water? Or you're not supposed to drink water like until like middle of the class or something like you're you're supposed to. Just yeah, what is that?
Speaker 4:yeah, so that I have to agree, because that's not just Bikram, that's in yoga tradition. Uh, in the traditional yoga, because, as you introduced me, I trained from everything, pretty much everything in India. So that is a yoga tradition. You drink water before the class and you don't take the water bottle into the shala and you finish your practice, you rest for about 10 minutes, then you drink water again. So the theories of not drinking water is because, um, in yoga we have a lot of folding and a backbend twisting, and when we're twisting, we're not just twisting your muscle, we're definitely targeting your organs. Get into really deep, the pancreas, your kidneys or everything. Yeah, so we do. We do encourage your body, even including the water in the stomach, as has been limited. So that that is the yoga tradition. Got it again.
Speaker 4:There's always a but yeah, so when I go to big room yoga, I can't, I can't not to drink water with within that 90 minutes. It's just too hot, it's really hot. That environment, because I teach, I taught at the big chrome studios, right, a couple of them. The, the temperature they leave the temperature whole day long is 108, whole day, day long.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it doesn't have much conditions where you might start a class and it feels cooler because there wasn't a class before this is always wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the humidity is about 50 to 60. So that's pretty good.
Speaker 3:But I can see that because when you because I want to talk through other yoga, that other yoga that you've learned but I can see that during a class let's say a vinyasa class and you go through a, you're going back up to down dog and you just did all of this work. You know, with whatever twists or whatever warriors you did it could be, you know hard I can see the yoga side of it right that it could be hard on your body that you just drank water yourself back upside down into down dog, like that's. That could be hard for your body to even digest.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and especially in the traditional yoga. So let's, let's not talk about Bikram anymore, let's move to the traditional yoga, because I'm an Ashtangi, I practice Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, so I'm in that lineage. So just speaking about a pure good yoga class that according to Indianian teacher okay, according to the traditional yoga teacher, so appear a good class is not just standing posture. That is a little bit thing that in america, in the western world, it's a slightly misleading. And slightly misleading because a majority of the class here in a yoga class, I would say 80 to 90 percent are standing postures, you starting with some brief warm-up and they will go through some sort of session and it's all standing postures.
Speaker 4:But a real, traditional, beautiful yoga practice. By design the standing postures should be just one third. Then we will come down to the earth to do the more sitting posture Okay so sitting posture. Then you will do the prone posture, which is your stomach is on the front to your some back bending postures and then you will end up in the Subhan posture. So that is the beautiful yoga, classic yoga class design.
Speaker 2:So, with.
Speaker 4:That being said, your stomach is full. Even if you're in between, you drink your water, for the seated posture is deep, forward folding and deep binding. It's just not reasonable for the body to really take even just a little water into it, because you do want to have that space and to um. And then prana is another um aspect we need to put into the thoughts, because when you have any uh, food or water in the body, again in the traditional yoga view, to see that is you're blocking the prana, you're blocking the energy, the, the nati, that going through smoothly because your body is actually digesting something in there, that you're putting alien things in the body. So that's another concern.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so that can, yeah. So then you're moving your body and yoga, whatever practice it is, and you drink water and it kind of stops that life force moving through you.
Speaker 4:Exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:So for someone who doesn't know exactly the difference between Ashtanga Vinyasa or how they're related, can you explain that a bit for us?
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah. So Ashtanga is not Ashtanga. Vinyasa Yoga, ashtanga is literally all of us like you. Minimum in the America minimum, you go through 200 hours training and in the very beginning of the yoga philosophy you have to be introduced into Ashtanga. That eight limbs. So the eight limbs is ethic practice, literally you need to have those disciplines and you don't lie, you don't steal, you don't do this and you do this, do that.
Speaker 4:So that's basically the um Patanjali the sage, 3,000 years ago, and he put all the yoga philosophy in the beautiful, very short actually it's only just 198 verse, sutra. Okay, so that's Ashtanga. So Ashtanga, literally in the yoga tradition we consider as Raja Yoga. Raja Yoga means king yoga, the yoga of the king. If you follow that eight step, eight limbs, to go practice yoga, then eventually, ultimately, you will become enlightened. You will be very liberated from this conditioned mind and free yourself from this illusion of the world. So that's the real. Ashtanga's goal is that's. It's a, it's a philosophy, it's also a guidance, it's a state, state, steps, so they give you an instruction. It's like you're reading a manual and you do that or you don't do that yeah, be a good person exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:So in the modern world, we literally skipped the first two steps. Yama niyama, most of people don't even heard about that. That's your ethic, um suggesting you know, you do this, don'tama. Most people don't even heard about that. That's your ethic suggesting you know, you do this, don't do that, eat this, don't eat that. And then we skip all that and then directly move to asana. So in the modern world, right in the modern world, we just boom, we get to the third step.
Speaker 4:You know we don't need to learn how to pro we don't need to learn how to pro we don't need to learn how to walk, we just directly go around, you know, because that's easy, because it's easy, because it's asana is literally very similar to workout right to when you're from the outside. When, look at that, if you don't really understand the philosophy of the history or exactly the true, you know essence of yoga, you look at it as like, yeah, it's just body movement, I don't see any spiritual things in it.
Speaker 2:So it's easy right.
Speaker 4:Because we're born to move this body, so it's easy to follow. Yeah, we're born to move this body, so it's easy to follow. Yeah, so when you're speaking asana, then that's ashtanga vinyasa will kick in. So ashtanga vinyasa is literally it's a short history, rather it's less than 100 years ago. It started from uh krishnamacharya, which is a beautiful um Krishnamacharya, which is a beautiful Ayurveda doctor, and he also is a very dedicated yoga practitioner. So the story began with vinyasa, which is I like to talk about it in America so popular, about vinyasa.
Speaker 4:Vinyasa, literally, is because of this sage Krishnamacharya being hired being invited to teach at the Mysore Palace, which where I just come back, mysore, south of India. Yeah, wow. And then, yeah, and the king invited him to teach a whole bunch of the royalties, that is, 14 to 18 years old, oh my god. And then he, yeah, he started to teach yoga to those kids, right, and? And he goes, like, these children cannot understand any philosophy and a spiritual thing, and he designed it to make them jumping back and forth and the flopping around, rolling around. That's why the primary series has a lot of rolling. Yeah, yeah, primary series has a lot of rolling. You know, back and forth, it's because they need it. You imagine that's like 14 years old, 18 years old. They have that energy, they need to burn all that. So he designed that and one of his students, padabi Joyce, which probably this name a lot of people should be quite familiar. Then he brought that to the west. So first he went to uk, the uk, france, and then he eventually come to the states. So that's how ashtanga vinyasa yoga gets so popular in the west. Yes, and then it is really really worth to mention a little bit power yoga. So one of the pandavi joy's original students, brian case, and he literally learned a few years in my solar practice with by the pandava joy and then just with the sequence right, ashtanga, vinyasa yoga, like a sequence primary series, second series.
Speaker 4:He might be touched, some of the third series, I believe, right, but maybe not. I don't know. I don't know the detail, but I know when he come back to the states and he look at all the people's like, yeah, these people cannot do all that. So so he, he literally made up, he, he made up power yoga. That's why I say it's a little bit off balance, because the power yoga in the beginning he wanted to call it grandma yoga, actually grandma's yoga. Yeah, he, he wants to, just because the westerner's body cannot be open that way. Yeah, so he, that's why a lot of standing postures a lot of standing postures.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because when you come down to the earth, you need to have a lot of opening in order to get the body to that deep, twisting, binding and all that. So that's the reason why wow, oh, that's so interesting. Grandma's yoga in the beginning. Yeah, he, he wanted, he thought about that name and later I don't know how come it's become power.
Speaker 3:So yeah, power don't sit at all. It's like you're standing for 55 minutes if not. Yeah, almost the whole thing exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:You're just standing right so you teach yoga. You know, in the, especially in america, the yoga class is like just super off balance, like 80%, 90%. Some teacher do like literally like five minutes stretching and I'm like seriously Like you should just make the people just do that whole time standing to do all those standing postures. Yeah, but that's just what it is.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I find it's hard to, as a teacher, to have everything in one hour when you have a one hour class that you're teaching, instead of more than that, like an hour and 15 or more than that, because I feel like the last 10 to 15 minutes. I really want to cool down the body and get it back to neutral and do you feel that? What length are your classes that you teach? Are they an hour, an hour and a half, 15?
Speaker 4:Yeah, uh, mainly an hour. That's like more standard here, yeah, and I I'm sorry I have to mention, I have to mention that there are classes are 45 minutes, which is like I got. I I was like, okay, yoga, express, sure, whatever. Everything has to be drive-through express. Drive-through starbucks, drive-through chinese food, whatever. Everything in the state quick, drive-thru Chinese food, whatever. Everything in the States is quick, yeah, drive-thru yoga, basically, yeah, you have to do it real quick, yeah.
Speaker 3:Go out to drink. Give yourself an hour instead of 45 minutes for yourself in a day.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and I mean fortunately. I mean obviously fortunately, because I have a class to teach, right, Fortunately I'm teaching those 45 minutes too, I have an opportunity to teach, yeah, but anyway, so I in my opinion okay, in my opinion I had one training was in Bali for 40 days. Every single section we practice is from 90 minutes to two hours. I just finding the ease, I finding the ease of the teacher, because that training is a little bit different, it's not just for one teacher, it's like a multiple different teacher come to the Shala to teach you different format, and I just finding, wow, I envy those teachers. Like your class can be so beautifully done, just because that time, you know, you can very slowly to have that seated or beautiful meditation to begin the class, which is you essentially need to have to ground, to feel that grounding mind to being here, and then, trust me, a minute or two, you cannot ground, please, yeah.
Speaker 3:Our mind is so crazy. There's no way you can ground in a minute or two.
Speaker 4:There's no way. A minute or two, yeah, and the people are playing music within one minute. I'm like how grand can you be really? But anyway, so I just love that 90 minutes to two hours length because you're just beautiful like you. You sit grounding and in India we always do a chanting, do quite long chanting and then, and then the teacher will give you some warm-up sequence. The warm-up sequence is really needed, I think. I, I, I, I, I think, even before your sound servitation, even sound servitation, it is a warm-up sequence, but before that, if you have a little bit more, you know, time to warm up, it's just healthy for the body it's fine and prevents injury with the spine and everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but basically anywhere your muscle needs to warm up too, like your rotator cuff, your, you know, bicep, tricep. It's easy to get pulled too right. So you have that warmth. It's just a lot more healthier to the body. And I like the ending too, because you have that 90 minutes Minimum. According to my teacher, joey Miles, if you practice 60 minutes, then your shavasana should be 10 minutes. Yeah. If you practice 90 minutes, then your shavasana should be 15 minutes. Yeah, wow, according to him. Yeah, so.
Speaker 3:I get that. Yeah, if you practice 45 minutes, how long is your shavasana? He's like why are you doing it for five minutes? Get out of here and go Express, express. Just take a breath and walk out the studio.
Speaker 4:Really right? I don't know. I mean seriously. I'm trying my best to not talk Sounds like a judging or even think judgmentally mineal in mind. I am at least trying I'd be 100 percent honest. Obviously I'm judging, sometimes right in my head, but I try not to. I try to be open my heart, open my mind, to be okay with the innovation. But yeah but in my opinion there has to be a limit. Innovation has to have a limit to respect the tradition and to respect the body. I think that's just something. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3:So more about yoga traditions and some differences. What about Iyengar with the straps and all of the things that was introduced? What's that about? Or how can we explain that to anyone that's of the things that was introduced? What's that about? Or how can we explain that to anyone that's listening for what that practice is?
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks for asking. I just think for this life I didn't cultivate that good karma to enter Iyengar Yoga earlier. Yeah, I have high, high respect to Mr Iyengar, even though I'm in the Ashtanga lineage, but well, basically he's from the same teacher Padabhijoy and Iyengar all from Prasramacharya, so they're all from the same master. Mr Iyengar is a very wise man and he suffered a lot when he was younger. He suffered from poverty, a lot of diseases, and yoga really cured cured him like it basically saved him from death. So that's why he's really. He has a high love to yoga and his philosophy understanding is really good too. However, again, come to US is more physical focus, but his physical focus, I think, is just very beautiful. He came here again same thing. He looked at the people and was like no, these people cannot do all that.
Speaker 4:No these people cannot do that, so I introduced you. You know these people cannot do that, so I, I, I, I, I introduce you and you know the block right now will widely, vastly use yoga block is literally in india. I have those ones wooden, ones wooden block. So the the yoga block is literally in india. And back, they used that block to eat. So it's like because Indian people sit on the ground all the time, so that yoga block is literally just for eating.
Speaker 4:And Iyengar, when he got the injury one time and from the motorcycle or something accident happened so he couldn't practice whatever vinyasa that he usually practiced and then he used those to help himself to figure out oh okay, I can use this to support the body a little bit and to still getting alignment, but, you know, to taking some time for the body to heal and taking some time for the body to reopen again. So that's how he developed those props. So the strap the strap is a beautiful history. It's actually from the banyan trees in India. Those banyan trees are just hanging there and, yeah, he literally used those to start it.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, that's where the yoga straps come from and the bolster obviously just pillows, just whatever pillows that he can find. And, yeah, he, he, he, really I think he brought yoga to a brand new level of the practice to benefit more people that able to, and, um, in the in the active term or also in the restorative term. So, yeah, I think that I younger, if, if you're listening and if you are new, you consider to enter this world of physical yoga, asana practice, yeah, at least give a, at least give a look at a younger yoga. It's just so much more reasonable for people to get in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah and yeah, being able to have that support and assistance to get into poses as opposed to, you know, looking at your neighbor and seeing how flexible they are but you can't. You can't get to where they are. But all of our bodies are so different the way that they're made up Exactly.
Speaker 4:Well, we are, or anything like that exactly, yeah we're always going to look different yeah, when we're speaking of here, I have to mention my teacher, joey miles. Again, I, I, I just adore that. I feel this is my good karma, that I, I actually find I actually have this beautiful teacher. He's also a Zen practitioner too. So what I really love about my teacher is he started Ashtanga Vinyasa practice when he was 17. So now literally like 30 years and he's already finished the third sequence, third series, everything.
Speaker 4:But the beautiful thing of him is he also is a very long time Iyengar practitioner. Oh really, so, yeah, so he dare, he literally I said he dare and he have that confidence to bring Iyengar technique into Ashtanga teaching. So that that is thing. Just when I started to practice him, practice with him, when I, when I see how he teaches me, I'm like, okay, done this, this is it, this is my guru. I never call anybody guru. I, I don't call him guru, but you know what I mean is like I I just okay, this is it, that's my how did you find him?
Speaker 3:Was that just a happenstance? It was just happened to be the teacher you first. Yeah, how did it all happen?
Speaker 4:No, he lives in UK. So I, when I practiced alone, I've been to a lot of trainings, but all in India. So majority of the time I practice alone, right by myself. But then there are time you just stuck, your mind stuck, your posture stuck, just stuck, and I just searching. I started to searching for I anger I mean ashtanga teacher around, but it just, you know, I I test my teachers, I test all the things. So I test teachers and I'm just like no, there's something lacking, especially Especially in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
Speaker 4:In this tradition some people are very compulsive, like they think things need to be this way, that way, which in my practice I don't think that's reasonable. I don't agree with that. But that's okay. Everybody have a different way of looking at things, anything right? Okay, everybody have a different way of looking at things, anything right.
Speaker 4:So I searching around and one time I just searching something, I forgot something, one posture or something, and then on YouTube just jumped up his video he was teaching in Purple Valley in Goa in India, which I'm going again this October to train with him, and so and I was like yeah, man, this, this guy, the way how he talks about it, the alignment and how he talk about mine all the time. I just love it, right, I attract to that. And I just google his name and boom, come up his website. And then yeah, so yeah, he has a his own studio in england. And then I just email him. I I said, hey, okay, this is where what? What my name, this is where I am. I stuck here and I don't know if there's anything that you could help. And he re re respond back to me and then, ever since we just started to training together, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. Uh, what a beautiful thing to have him. How long has it been? When was that first time that you worked with him?
Speaker 4:It's about two years. Yeah, not long ago. Yeah, yeah, not long ago, two years. But this two years just bring a lot of it's different. You feel different, you feel your practice is different. Yeah, everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, with yoga practices. I want to ask about a few more Um, I I want to um ask about uh, there's a lot of buzz about Kundalini and what that is and how that um, the Kundalini energy and and bringing it up and um up, and I would love to just chat a little bit about that and kind of what makes that different than you know an Ashtanga, a Vinyasa or you know how are they similar?
Speaker 4:Okay, so first I have to be very honest I'm not very knowledgeable of all so-called Kundalini yoga or Kundalini energy. But what I know is the Kundalini energy is in the base of the spine, that dormant there, and it is some very pure high energy from the sentient beings or being as a human being dormant there, which is like probably just be us be deluded, and that's just my interpretation. Yeah, but any yoga form yeah, any yoga form could able to, could be to awaken the kundalini yoga, to kundalini energy. Any form of yoga, yeah, any form, but kundalini yoga is. Obviously they have their own system, but they're also under umbrella of the Hatha. So, just for the information, fyi, they're still under the Hatha umbrella but they have really different movements, different names of postures and that's just their lineage there, their lineage there.
Speaker 3:But for whatever I have trained, whatever I've been told um any form of yoga you could achieve kundalini. Yeah, yeah, just with activating and releasing any tension.
Speaker 4:That's in yes, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:What about the differences between restorative, which is all over the place, and yin, because they sometimes can be mistaken for each other. Or you can think you're doing yin but you're actually doing restore and we do yin together, which is beautiful. What are the differences with that, or even similarities between, if you take a restored class somewhere versus a yin?
Speaker 4:thank you for asking this question. I really love to talk about this. So, um, they both are research of yoga and in yoga that they surely have a crossover for sure. They look very similar. They're all grounding practice. They both use props, but which restorative yoga should use more, vastly more props than in yoga. But the major, real, like intrinsic difference in between these two is the energy, is how the mindset to practice.
Speaker 4:So in yoga we design to practitioner is actually healthy, healthy practitioner to practice in yoga that your body has no injury, you're super comfortable with the body. You might or might not as open, that's fine, but that's all in yoga designed for to take your time to open. So the yin yoga is following the Taoism philosophy I don't want to go deep there because it's a new tradition anyway. So the yin yoga's energy is more you being there. It's very similar to inside meditation you being there with the posture, you. You see the sensation come out and you're not going to avoiding it but you're not also to pushing it more deeper or anything like that, just finding that middle way. So you're staying. You're staying with the sensation, just being there to allowing the body to open, without pushing or without running away. So if that explains things then you can see that picture.
Speaker 4:So that's the in-yoga practice, but restorative yoga they do look very similar. Crossover postures look very similar. But restorative yoga originally designed. You don't have to be heard to practice restorative yoga nowadays. Originally the restorative yoga started from Iyengar, so it's it's the design for the practitioners has some injury or illness by the time right. So we use plenty of the props to shape you, to feel the support, to open the body. So when you enter the posture, when you get into the posture of the restorative yoga in the beginning you're supposed to not feel anything.
Speaker 4:You're supposed to feel quite comfortably so that you relax, then you know you're teaching yoga. You relax, then you know you're teaching yoga. So when your mind is, when your body feel the comfort relax, then your mind become to relax now when your mind become to relax, then the healing energy just coming in.
Speaker 4:So literally you're in. The research of yoga is to try to get a body open in a very gentle way, to allowing the mind and the body both to finding that relaxing but opening, so the healing coming in. So that's why it's a beautiful practice in restorative yoga if we use it wisely, because nowadays everybody has something in your head.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not saying you have injury in the body, but trust me, everybody needs that time, right? Yeah, so it's just so nice you can have all the support and holding in the posture without too much of a sensation like you know quote unquote discomfort sensation to allowing the healing energy to come in. So in my view to because I trained yoga, yoga therapist, so I will go through all this kind of thing so in my opinion, restorative yoga is literally just a a very huge.
Speaker 4:It's more like a healing, healing practice yeah, yeah but unfortunately in our yeah yeah, yeah, but unfortunately nowadays you go to some restorative yoga, they're using straps and stretching.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of stretching instead of just like healing and feeling.
Speaker 4:and yeah is like the mindset how you started this practice. If you walk into restorative yoga, you should be more prepared as like today, I'm just here to allowing the body to being in the gentle open. So my mind is relaxed and then my healing is coming in. To heal my mind, heal the body. But don't do that expectation in yoga. You practice in yoga with me. In yoga you're supposed to feel edge, you're supposed to finding edge and then you know you know my QE. Sometimes, after the first edge, when your body gradually open, you actually moving for the next edge.
Speaker 4:So you're supposed to feel it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, feeling, feeling the edge and and like, yeah, and then not staying in that comfort in yin yoga because you can start and then it gets comfortable because you're there for a long time so you can just stay, but keep going to that edge like come closer to the earth, you know, open up your hip more, all of that, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:That's exactly how I'm teaching active forms of yoga. I talk about the same thing. Actually, joey tells me the same thing. It's like we always in life, we constantly try to find the in-between, the balance. Like, for example, a lot of people, they come to some sort of vinyasa yoga, they get so used to it and they just feel so good, oh my God, I'm on the top of the mountain. No, don't feel too comfortable about it. There are a lot more things that you can maybe, you know, explore a little bit more to make yourself like, yeah, don't be too satisfied. This is my cueing in my a lot of classes. I keep telling my students I'm like don't be too satisfied this, don't be too satisfied with this, don't be satisfied here. Just test the body, not to push, but testing. See how maybe there's a little bit layer that you can go deeper, deeper into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, only we know our edge and we know how to honor our body and how we might be pushing too hard to hurt it or we're pushing hard to grow, like we know that, like we know it better than anybody right, like of what you see, that's the thing.
Speaker 4:The yoga practice of honesty practice is very important. Honesty you really have to be honest to yourself. A lot of people, like when I was younger, I definitely not honest, because a lot of things I cannot do but I just push it and then I will get injury. When I was in Vancouver, I do snowboarding back then jumping about park, but there are a lot of things I cannot do and then I jump, I still do it and then boom, I got my knee injured and the whole season I cannot get back to the mountain. So basically, that's your karma. Right, you make the decision. Yeah, karma is not some returning thing, karma is just right now. Cause and effect. Cause and effect you make this decision, then it's more of just consequences we all have to take that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly the consequences of what we decide. Yeah, I want to talk more about, like one more of the yoga, my sore but yeah, the consequences. I find that a lot and I want to talk about, like your Zen philosophy and your teachings and what you're learning now. But we, particularly I don't, I don't know growing up or just in Western society I don't, I don't know growing up or just in Western society complain to complain and it's you know, we will complain that our car has a problem, but we're the one who bought the car, so, like we, it wouldn't have a problem if we didn't buy it. Like it's just, this is life and being a human and being on on planet earth and how it goes, and that's the, the karma, and and you know the cycle that comes back. It's neutral, it's like not good or bad, it's just coming back to what you're doing, Like this is just how it is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that goes back to the Buddhism teaching, the basic Buddhism teaching, like a three poison right Three anger and delusion, which you can call ignorance. So it's like I keep telling people like the current, right now, the current comfort is your past discomfort, obviously because you pass that discomfort, you make things, and then your current comfort zone is going to be your future discomfort because of grief. We're always not content with the current state. That's the greed, that's the first thing of human.
Speaker 3:We're always seeking more and more and more, or we think this isn't it? There's more Always.
Speaker 4:And the capitalism society, use that, use that nature of the human, of what we have to make profit. That's why we have been well taught, overly well taught, that we need more, we need to buy more things.
Speaker 3:The more improved, the more this, the more that we need all of more things. We need to be in more the more that we need all of these things. Like I, I saw something a few months ago where it was a woman that she was talking about how you're being sold red light therapy, you're being sold this, you're being sold grounding sheets, all this stuff there. She's like you literally could have all of this If you just, you know, go buy a campfire, put your feet in the soil, like all of these things we can have for free. But in a society we have that disconnection from, like the earth, mother Gaia, and how that is the healing properties of how we stay, you know, balanced. So we think we need all these exterior things and more and more and more and the newest and the newest. And, yeah, I agree that it really is part of that culture. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and the greed actually cause adding the ignorance. It's like, yeah, we wanted this, we want that, we develop. I know we're intelligent too, so we're the wise ones and the fools. Basically, we're so intelligent, we developed this, we invented this and we're basically destroying our own world. We're destroying this planet, the only planet that we could survive, and we think we will be here forever. We think that's the thing. You don't see through the truth, like just because we agreed this earth is changing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's changing anyway, but the nature is always actually very softly, sometimes softly, sometimes pretty harsh. To keep that balancing back, keep that, keep pushing back to the to the middle way to the. To keep that balancing back, keep pushing back to the middle way to the nature, to the balancing point. But we don't like that. We don't right. We want more human, we want more of this, we want more of that. We keep pushing, we keep challenging our planet. Yeah, that's just basically. You're adding a second ignorance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then we're just creating fatigue and exhaustion and disease from going against what's natural.
Speaker 4:Exactly yeah, and the environment and the climate. Everything is from us, yeah, from us, from us humans yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Like every single time when you put up a tissue, you don't have, you have no awareness, you just use it right. But do you know how many trees being caught and deforestation is one of the huge deal for the climate? Just every single paper towel that you keep using in the kitchen. I quit using that for years so I can talk about it. I don't feel guilty about it. Right now. I use cloth and I don't use tissue paper too. I use like just cloth.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I still use. Sometimes I still do, but I mean, like most of the time when I'm wiping my tears with my crying, I just use cloth. Yeah, like a cloth. Yeah, like a cloth, like a traditional one.
Speaker 3:that's so, so funny. I know, when I get, when I get into something that I've like moved past and I then I think like how could you still do that? Oh, I did that like a month ago, or whatever. It is like I'll decide to do something better for the environment or better for my health. And then it's that like how we like suss each other out as humans because from survival from tribal eras we had to see who was like the weakest and the fittest. So we suss each other out anyway in modern Western civilization and we'll think, why are you still doing that? You shouldn't do that anymore. But I was just doing it, yeah, but I was just doing it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but beautiful, there you go. Okay, let's go back to yoga. That's exactly the point. When you practice yoga with this mindfulness, every single breath. Say, for example, you're in the vinyasa yoga inhale, warrior two, can you complete? Do you aware you complete that inhale to get that warrior two precisely be in there? Can you aware that your back foot is grounding and the front knee is bending towards your left pinky toe or front pinky toe? Can you aware of that? And that is your spiritual practice, you're more aware of those present moments, aware of your body, movement and your breath. Then you will be more aware of the environment around you. What is the cause and effect? Cause and effect is always there. Yes, there you go. If you have to call yoga as a workout, no, I disagree, because if you've been guided in this way, you're really aware about every single warrior two and the transition into your chaturanga. You're aware of that fully. Then that's your practice, that's your spiritual practice, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so simple. So simple, and especially when you take out the stimuli, whether it be music or extra thoughts or anything that could layer on to keep you away from that spiritual connection. Piece of it, yeah yeah, yeah. What about Mysore? You just did your training. And what is Mysore type of yoga? You just did your training and what is?
Speaker 4:Mysore type of yoga. So Mysore is a place right in South India, near the Bengaluru. So Mysore is where original Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga started, just like earlier I mentioned Krishnamacharya and Iyengar is from there, patapijoy is from there. So the Mysore style very unique is because they actually is not a leading class. In general speaking Well, speaking a little bit history of yoga, yoga has always been individually practiced, so it's never been a super big group of a class of practice.
Speaker 4:Nowadays we do like that. It's never really been like that way. It's always like individual practice. So my source style is literally you as practitioner, as students, you take the ownership of your own practice. The teacher will give you a set sequence. You will look through. The teacher will teach you all individual postures to get through, understand, memorize all the sequence. It's your job. Once you memorize the sequence, you come to the class and it's a group class. You have a lot of people, a group of people together, but every single person on your own pace to do your own practice. Then the teacher will simply be in there as a helper, as a supervising, just looking at you and go there to manipulate.
Speaker 4:We surely use hand adjustments without permission. Without permission, it's not an option. Right, yeah, I know I need permission all the time, like I'm asking you. I'm okay, yeah, so, so basically the the teacher's uh um, role in this, my short practice is more either supervising you to see if there is any alignment that needs to be adjusted, or the teacher is going there to help you to deepen, deepen your practice, go bend forward, go deeper, go twist a little bit more deeper and your back bend needs a little bit more help, and then the teacher is there to help. So that's called my source style. It's literally you are taking your own ownership. So in this way, I love it because in this way the students you have been, you have that duty, you have that job. You need to understand your own body, you need to understand your own practice. You come here to the practice with the teacher. You already know your body, you already know what you should, should, do, and then the teacher here just to give, give a little bit help.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's all yeah yeah it's so is it? Does it take the same amount of time for everyone? Or is someone done way early because they went faster than someone else, or how does that go?
Speaker 4:yes, yes, so that's another beautiful thing you're all on your own, all on your own. Usually the windows is about two hours and two and a half hours it depends on the different shala. Usually it's about that window and you can come on time. You can come late and you can start in your practice completely different time and finish at a different time, but you will finish your finishing sequence, you will shavasana, and you can leave early. So that's another beautiful yeah, flexible, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, such great insights for all of these different practices. For anyone who's new to yoga or that wants to try something different, right, if they feel like they're being led and they haven't found the right teacher for them yet and I say that as a teacher, like I'm not for everyone and we all know as teachers we're not for everyone Maybe my source something that could help them to. You know, we do their own practice and just get those minor adjustments that they would need to enhance or to perfect not perfect, but to make it better. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And another thing I want to worth to mention a little bit. Back then I thought this is the same thing. I thought my sore style is only just practice Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. Back then I thought it was like that until this time I went to my sore. It's actually that's not true. You don't have to even practice Ashtanga Vinyasa sequence. You can have any sequence, as long as like sequence you already know. Then you come to the setting. The teacher is there, already know what you're doing and just guide you through it. Yeah, yeah. So it's not a ashtanga vinyasa yoga. You know sort of ownership my story? No, it's not. It's just my source style. You're on your own, but with the there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and how did all of this yoga training get you also interested in Zen philosophy and where you know you're growing now and evolving?
Speaker 4:it's funny, it's just kind of like this two thing woven, you know, together. At the same time when I started to practice actually the first time when I went to india is because I study buddhism in uk, in in london, I I enrolled a course about four months to study philosophy of buddhism and then, because of that, because of that spiritual awakening and but, but I was practicing yoga for years, right, I was decided I'm like I want to go to India, to go to the source of everything, the source of everything, yoga and Buddhism. So I just went there, yeah, yeah. So these two things are kind of like a keep evolving together, right. So, um, when I, when I come back from india, I did not, I wasn't in zen. I come back and I was actually in the theravada theravada tradition, which is like the oldest term of buddhism practice, which is really good. I I sit in vipassana, you know, like a silent meditation 10 days.
Speaker 4:And all that many times I got into the Zen is actually because my dad's death Two and a half years ago. After he died, I just tried to find him some peaceful space that I can go. I just need that space to go, and then, just very randomly, I didn't have any peaceful space that I can go. I just need that space to go and then just very randomly, I didn't have any peaceful space to go. I actually went to that. What's that? Well-maid, that Muslim temple, baha'i?
Speaker 3:Oh, the Baha'i temple, yeah, yeah, baha'i temple.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I literally go there every Friday because I teach at the Well--made at the time on Friday, and then I finished my class, I just go there to sit there, close my eyes for two hours. And then one time, very random yeah, very random One of my students was asking me where I'm going. I'm just like I'm just going to go to that temple to sit there. He's like are you a believer? I'm like, no, I just want somewhere very peaceful and quiet. And he goes. Really, there's a Zen temple, zen center in Evanston which is closed, right, and he mentioned to me. So that's how I walked into the Chicago Zen center. And then, the very first night, when I met my teacher Yu-san well, he's not my teacher right now, but Yu-san I just feel that warmth of opening. It's simple, it's quiet and at the time I just need that, I really need it.
Speaker 4:And once I entered that center, you're just finding how animal art is. So the art of the zen the silence, the bells, the silence, the bells, the silence, the bells. There's no talk. I just love it. I'm like, okay, there's no talking at all, I love it. Yeah, so that's how I started and obviously I have my Buddhism background and it helps a lot because it is original. Zen is Buddhism practice, for sure, everything is Buddhism practice, but I really love Zen right now. I am a Zen student, but I really love Zen right now. I am a Zen student as I really see that simplicity of the Zen that combine Buddhism and Taoism, which is my origin. I'm a Chinese, but I feel really not well-developed to understand what Tao is until I entered Zen. Wow, and that's how beautifully to connected everything together.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, and how we've talked about grief before and you just mentioned losing your father. How has that that experience with you know your Buddhism background and then being involved with Zen and a Zen student given you a perspective on on grief, and how can you know what can, what words can you give to someone who might be going through grief or, you know, just wants to know like how best to be here during that time?
Speaker 4:Yeah, first, when my dad passed two and a half years ago. You have all the knowledge. So that's a beautiful thing to mention Knowledge, intellectually understanding of the philosophy of the Buddhism or Zen. It's beautiful. You can read books, you can listen to the talks, you understand intellectually. It's good that you understand the theories.
Speaker 4:Nothing lasts forever. You know things always change and you have to be comfortably to be okay with discomfort, things like that right. So back then at that time, already helped by knowing intellectually, but still the grief was really strong. I didn't take day offs but when I went through that time I know how difficult it was every day, but I just keep using that. Okay, nothing lasts forever. This is just. Things needs to be. Death and birth is all celebration. There's no difference. It's just one, two, two sides of the one coin. We cannot by be biased with that. So that is that time. I use that to win through. But this time my mom just passed less than two weeks ago and I finding tremendously power.
Speaker 4:They come from my practice, my daily practice, the mindfulness and then the seated meditation. How I deal with this grief is I really identify. Grief is literally just one of the emotions. Okay, one of the emotions, and what emotions comes is all from thoughts and memories. It's all thoughts and memories and we always been possessed by our emotion, by we don't identify, we are thinking, we don't know. Like we just mentioned, we're not identify, we are thinking, we don't know. Like we just mentioned, we're not aware, we're thinking, we're letting ourselves be the slave of the thoughts, keep following the train. That's why we've been possessed by the emotion.
Speaker 4:So, because I know that from my meditation I practice every day, sitting there for hours I know there is a tool that can help you to step away from the thoughts. It's just simply your breath, your present moment. But the key is are you willing? Are you willing? So, like when you're sitting in the meditation, I use that first. When you're sitting in the meditation, majority of us we just completely lost in thoughts, right, but then that's fine. But when you catch yourself lost in thoughts and then you notice your breath is always there, available, your present moment is always there. But are you willing? That's my practice. I'm willing. Every time when I catch I'm thinking, I just like okay, I'm willing to come back with my breath, I'm willing to come back with my breath. So I literally use that technique to get through my grief.
Speaker 4:For this time, once I finding the emotion is very strong. It's my mom. Right, it's my mom. Emotion comes really, really strong. But you look at the emotion as like, okay, I know, the emotion is there. The emotion come from my thoughts, from the memories. I'm thinking about her. But do I do? Do I have a life? Do you need to teach? Do you need to contribute your ability, your duty into this world? And then my answer is yes. When I answer that yes, then it's easy for me to make a decision.
Speaker 4:Okay, then just focus on right now. You're going to use your right hand, open this door and you're going to use your right foot, step out of the store, go to your car, every step, highly fully focused at the present, what you're doing. Trust me, the thought has no space. Yeah, it's not. You have to try to drop it to let go. The the trying let go is you. It's not. You have to try to drop it to let go.
Speaker 4:The trying let go is worse. You're actually trying to push in and then you're doing it. The letting go is undo. You don't do anything but returning at the present moment, just right now, what you're doing. Like right now I'm talking to Nikki, I'm looking at my computer, I'm just fully here and then nothing else can be bothered. So basically that is a thing right now I'm using. Years later or a couple months later maybe something will come up differently and I don't know, things changes right. But as long as I have my practice right now, I just feel really empowering, like very have that beautiful skill, like just have a tool to help me to get through those very difficult time yeah, and you, you can meet yourself during those times of silence and stillness with the breath and not cloud it or try to fill it with something else to avoid it.
Speaker 3:You're, you know like meeting who you are and that's such a powerful honoring and you know, back to the yamas and niyamas, just like respecting yourself and having that honesty with honoring. And you know, back to the yamas and niyamas, just like respecting yourself and having that honesty with yourself of no like knowing that you're human and you're going to have these ebbs and flows of emotion and seeing it for what it is and not trying to push, push, push through it and mask it and do whatever it whatever you new like to in a western society that to go, go, go yeah yeah, always have to do something.
Speaker 4:It's actually the undo to release you, the not doing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the undo is the key to release yeah anything, basically the undo, and I think it's also very worth to mention a little bit the view. So in the we call it right view and the people here you know, in the modern world we understand right, the word is just too too much right or wrong, no, it's not that way, but it's more like a wise view. You should, you could use right, use another word. We're just very being hot-wired with words. The view of the death is very important too. I think majority, especially our society, trying to promote sadness, try to prevent, try to push, oh no, we don't want to die, we want to live forever, which the planet is already cannot handle it. But we don't see, we miss, we miss the very important part of it the minute we born, we designed to die. We're all going that direction again. It's the greedy, the greed, right, we agree, we don't want, we greed, we don't want, we want this, we don't want that. Yeah, so we bias, we celebrate birthday and then we don't celebrate death. Come on, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And what you were saying the other day when we were talking is that you know we inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale and it just when someone dies, they just don't finish the cycle, it's just.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Pema Chonchon said that right. Pema Chonchon says when I started the practice, when I find my first Lama, I told him I have fear. I have fear about death. And then the Lama says what do you fear about?
Speaker 3:Next thing hell don't come up anymore. That's the thing I love about Buddhism teachers.
Speaker 3:Like Buddhist teachers just give you things that make you like, oh yeah, greatest tutors ever Exactly. We're so attached to the physical and what we have here because this is what we know and you know to like the way I see it is that we're not taught a lot about our soul connection and that there's bigger than us and that you know to explore that that it's not just about here and the physical being of us. Like me being Nikki here, living in Chicago, and knowing that you know we continue on even though we're out of this meat suit. Yeah, the skin bag we want.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, we own this skin bag. We really own it. When the skin bag needs to go, it has to go. You know it's not. No, we don't own it. We don't own anything. Basically, that's a beautiful thing I love about Buddhism teaching Literally, they don't teach you anything. They're not teaching you, they're just pointing you. They're literally pointing the truth and we don't see that. It's like most of the time we're so deluded we're like what, oh gosh? When you're pointing that you think about it, it's like damn, what is it? It's so simple.
Speaker 3:Like really so simple. So it's the things that's glaring in front of us that we don't look at to actually see. We just avoid it, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and speaking of that, I have to speak for yoga, like, especially this time when I, when, when I was in my store, I got some deep yoga philosophy training too and it was really make me whole body like, just so like I was, I was shivering, I was like, oh my god, this is exactly the same thing as the buddha's teaching, but yoga never been promoted that way. You know, like patajani says, exactly same thing what causes your suffering, what causes your mind be deluded, and how this work can help you. Practice yoga can release this, can free yourself from that. It's pretty much exactly same thing, but obviously using different languages and terms of it. Right, yeah, but I was like, oh my god, finally, finally, that I know yoga is exactly the same things. Liberation is that's the ultimate goal of practice yoga yeah, yeah having, oh my god, it's not.
Speaker 3:it's not a power class you know what I mean, I know, I know what you mean. It's deliberation and leading yourself. It's not a workout yeah, full circle. It's not a workout. It's not yeah, to lose weight yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm getting so much better. Trust me, I'm so proud of myself. Like you know, probably four, four years. You know, probably four, four years, five years ago. Four, five years ago. Like there are students finish the class and come to you say, hey, thanks for the workout and it pissed me off. It pissed me off. I'm like it's not a workout, I'm like whatever. And now I'm just oh, I made a piece of it, it's okay, it's just the delusion ignores.
Speaker 3:That's fine, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 4:I'm still deluded. I'm still in this samsara, anyway it's fine yeah well, this.
Speaker 3:This has been wonderful, chloe, if you could give any I don't know wisdom to close out to anyone that's interested in yoga or Zen. What do you think is something that you'd like to share?
Speaker 4:I wouldn't call myself wisdom. I'm on the path, just like you and just like the rest of people that are listening. We're all on the path. The way is perfect, the way is our path. We don't need anything more. We don't need anything less, and just be free, go on it. Yeah, that's great. Every single moment is a practice. You don't have to practice on the yoga mat. You don't have to practice on the yoga mat. You don't have to practice on the Zafu. Really, every single moment is just simply a practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, life gives us the practice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you're heading out soon, so we appreciate the time you took to chat with us, and we'll have to do a part two to get more into some of that.
Speaker 4:I would love to.
Speaker 3:We'll share with some links in the show notes for people to connect with you and get your newsletter, join your yin yoga and some other things we talked about. But thank you everyone for listening. We'll catch you on the next one and thank you, chloe, for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. Bye everyone.
Speaker 2:Don't miss out on our journey to living an authentic, purposeful and joyful life. Join our membership and subscribe now to the Modern Zen Collective podcast on all major platforms and take the first steps towards elevating your mind, body and spirit. For all resources mentioned in this episode and to connect with us and our conscious community, check out the episode show notes for all links and our current offerings. See y'all next time.
