Here is my latest article for the teaching issue of the Shambhala Sun.
cyndishambhalasunjune2010

Check it out!  The email newsletter called My Yoga Journal is featuring the Best of Cyndi Lee this week — all my writings and teachings and interviews and even some videos from the last many years.

http://shar.es/mUQ6Q

One of my most blissful annual activities — attending the Jewel Heart summer retreat with my beautiful guru, Gelek Rimpoche.  I was joined by many wonderful sangha brothers and sisters from all over the world.  Here are some random pics.

This is the way to the Jewel Heart Center. Beautiful horses across the way and white fluffy clouds in the sky.

Dharma brothers: David from Boston and Derek from Singapore.

Rimpoche likes to squeeze our cheeks and lips and sometimes we do it to him, too -- this is my friend, Carla.

Dharma sisters: Sarah from Cleveland and Fran from Connecticut.

Getting ready to start the morning chants.

The summer retreat includes fun events in the evening such as Bollywood night!

On the right is our Bollywood dance teacher who taught us a fun dance and got us all laughing and sweating! On the left is my dharma sister, Colleen, who is also one of our awesome umzes/chant leaders.

After Bollywood dancing, came an amazing vegetarian Indian dinner made by our own dharma sister, Joan, who used to be the chef at the Oberoi in Delhi. She and her helpers cooked for four days to make this delicious meal -- the best Indian food I've ever tasted! Thank you! Then we watched a Bollywood movie and did the dance we learned. Fun, fun, fun.

Rimpoche and Derek at an Italian dinner the next night.

Beautiful dharma sister, Naomi, from the Netherlands. She has been studying with Rimpoche since she was 18, what good fortune.

Rimpoche and me making funny bird faces to each other. He loves to be playful!

Even though this picture is out of focus, I love it. I am soooo fortunate to have met Rimpoche and to get to study with him. He has been the most important influence and I am forever grateful to him.

Random guy sitting in a chair on the sidewalk.  He let me take a picture of his t-shirt.

This is a t-shirt made by famous graffiti artist, James de la Vega. You can check out the De La Vega museum on St. Marks Place.

The guy in the t-shirt wanted to see the picture but he didn’t like it because it didn’t show his face, so here he is.

Hello, sir. I like your t-shirt.

This is Lena. She took my workshops at Hamsa Yoga in Copenhagen. She came to my class at OM yoga last week because she is in NYC working. She is a cellist. And she does a very nice Vishvamitrasana!

Judith Lasater is teaching Experiential Anatomy at OM yoga this week. So I took her out to dinner last night at Tabla. Yum!

We were joined by her daughter, the lovely and talented, Lizzie. Lizzie said the dinner was a high "WPM" meal. That means words-per-minute.

Had an awesome day yesterday at Rimpoche’s teachings. I love being with him and with my Jewel Heart buddies.

Here we all are at the NYC Jewel Heart Center in Tribeca.  Carole Corcoran asked a question of Rimpoche.  He took a lot of questions yesterday.  Not just from us but from our JH sanghas in Ann Arbor, Chicago and Lincoln, NE.  Jonas has figured out how to hook up all our sanghas via the internet and so people get together for Rimpoche’s teaching in their own town, no matter what town Rimpoche is in, and so it was like we were all together.  Very cool.

Here is Rimpoche answering a question from a JH member in Lincoln, NE.  We will all be together in “real life” in a few weeks.  If you have the chance, I highly recommend the Jewel Heart summer Joyful Retreat — it’s going to be especially good this summer.  www.jewelheart.org. —  I’ll see you there!

We were so honored to host Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche at OM yoga Center on Friday night.  100 people were there to receive his teachings.  

My friend, Patty Gift, who is also a dedicated student of Rimpoche’s, and I, met him as he arrived.  We gave him and the friends that were with him a brief tour of OM and then we hung out in my office for about half an hour.  He is very gracious and also, quite luminous.  I look at him and think, “I’ll have what he’s having!”  He talked about how some people like to take a lot of teachings but it is important to actually DO the practice.
Here we are after his talk.  He gave a brilliant talk about the impermanent pain body and how we get stuck there.  How we get stuck sitting on our karma cushions but we don’t have to.  We can actually change it right now — snap!  Then he taught us some practices for doing that.  They are part of Tsa Lung, which is Tibetan Pranayama, but the breath work has to be connected with understanding of “I” as the pain body (also known as emptiness), and faith in the practice.  The crown chakra is the body, throat chakra is speech and heart chakra is mind.  So first you locate the pain or confusion, then you do certain movements coordinated with a certain way of breathing and exhaling.  Then, speech or thought in the throat , then feeling in the heart chakra, then navel chakra which is ripening and secret chakra which is action.  He led us in a powerful practice.  You will have to study with him to learn it.  I am not eligible to give that transmission.  It is not appropriate to just go teach anything you learn after one time — although, of course, many people do that.  But I am trained in the Buddhist path and you must receive permission from your teacher to do that.

Rimpoche kindly made himself available for group questions as well as individual connections after the talk.

This is another rimpoche that came with Tenzin.  He also teaches in Tenzin Wangyal’s sangha.  Check out their website at www.ligmincha.org.  I formally invited Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche to return to OM yoga and give us another teaching, so hopefully that will happen again soon!

This weekend we New Yorkers have an abundance of great Tibetan Buddhist teachings offered.  I recommend:

Friday, June 11, OM yoga Center — Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche will be at OM yoga Center.  I am so honored that he is coming back to OM yoga for a second time.  Tenzin Wangyal is a very special teacher.  His lineage is both Gelugpa, the lineage of HH the Dalai Lama, and Bon, the shamanic tradition of Tibet.  I have studied a little bit with Tenzin Wangyal and been very influenced by his teachings and from reading his books.  I have also studied with one of his main disciples, Alejandro Chaoul-Reich, who teaches Tsa Lung and Trul Khor.  Tsa Lung is Tibetan Buddhist pranayama and Trul Khor, which means Magic Wheel, is Tibetan Buddhist yoga.  

Friday night Tenzin Wangyal will teach Tsa Lung Yoga Movements at OM yoga Center.  He only comes to NYC every 2-3 years so don’t miss this special opportunity.  www.omyoga.com — for more information

*** Gelek Rimpoche in New York this weekend!!  Gelek Rimpoche is my root guru, my dear, precious teacher.  He will be giving one of his famous Sunday morning talks in New York this coming Sunday, June 13 from 10-11am at the Jewel Heart Center in Tribeca.  These talks are open to the public and are guaranteed to be inspiring, useful and fun!  This is a great chance for you to meet Rimpoche and receive his teachings with minimal commitment.   His Sunday morning talks in Ann Arbor, Michigan are legendary and attended by hundreds every week.  We are so lucky to have him here this weekend.

www.jewelheart.org — for more information

Check it out!  

http://www.hulu.com/watch/144922/flashforward-course-correction

Waylon Lewis, editor of Elephant, that very cool on-line magazine, has interviewed me a couple of times.  Here is a semi-recent one.  I hope you like it.  Below this link is another link to what he put up yesterday about my upcoming gig at SMC.  Thanks, Way!  See you soon in Boulder.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/09/24591-part-one-elephantjournalcom-interviews-cyndi-lee-founder-of-om-yoga-center/

And then here is the link to the SMC thing in Elephant.  Scroll down and along the way check out all the cool stuff on Elephant Journal.

http://www.facebook.com/elephantjournal

OM yoga: Revealing the Secrets of Vinyasa

Retreat with Cyndi Lee at SMC, May 28-May 31

 Have you ever wondered about vinyasa?  I mean, what is it really about?  Because you know it’s not just about moving with the flow, breathing in and out, getting sweaty and cool yoga music.  There is more to it than that, but what…?  You can feel that there is something else going on underneath, inside and in between all that.  (“In between”…there’s your first hint…)

Looking at the layers of practice and study is what Buddhists call Outer, Inner and Secret Teachings (there is even a level called Self-Secret).   We are going to unpack these layers of OM yoga vinyasa during my upcoming workshop at Shambhala Mountain Center called OM yoga: Revealing the Secrets of Vinyasa.

We will thoroughly explore the active, juicy outer layer– rocking yoga classes  blended with smart alignment, linking breath with movement while attending to quality, texture, length; and of course, the traditional definition of vinyasa, “to place in a special way” AKA logical, creative, fun, surprising and inspiring sequencing — the kind of sequencing that makes it possible for you to do things you couldn’t do before. 

How does that happen?  Well, it ’s a bit of a secret but has to do with harmonizing ambition with effort, aspiration with attention, view with focus.  This is the beginning of Inner and to me, where it really starts to get interesting.  You will be invited to open up to your own inner layer of experience, while moving, meditating, walking to the stupa, doing some homework alone and maybe in groups, because interdependence is a major aspect of the inner secret.  Some of what we will do is called Deconstructing and when you break things down, what is left? 

The secret part.  If you’re anything like me, you are dying to know the secrets!!!  But for now, you have to wait to learn those secrets because these things have to go in order.  You wouldn’t expect to do a headstand on the first day of yoga class, right?   So we will roll out the secrets of vinyasa, bit by bit, May 28-May 31.

We will have morning and afternoon classes on Saturday and Sunday, with an opening Friday night class and a closing Monday morning class.  We will have time for active and restorative work, meditation, discussion and questions.  You don’t have to be an advanced yogi at all!  But some yoga experience is recommended.  Any questions?  Email me at cyndi@omyoga.com.

In the meantime, here’s your first homework:  Contemplate these questions:  What is vinyasa?  (Hint:  it’s not about asana) and What isn’t vinyasa?  Is it possible to rest in between attachment and aversion, while moving in space?  Can your asana practice become a flow that neither leads nor follows?  Why would it matter?

Is there a cooler place to go for this than big mountains with a big stupa?  No.  You are very welcome to stay for a while and join me and David Nichtern for Yoga Body Buddha Mind, May 31-June 2.

Yoga Body Buddha Mind

taught by Cyndi Lee and David Nichtern

Meditation, like yoga, is a process of familiarization – of getting to know your own mind and body — warts and all!  David will introduce shamatha, traditional Buddhist mindfulness meditation, as a path toward making friends with ourselves, creating a gap between stimuli and response and leading to more options for a rich, joyful and beneficial life.  Cyndi will help you tuck this work into a fun, powerful asana class that will create sweat at the same time as it inspires you to become more aware of sensation, more curious about your experience, to become a more active participant in your own life. That’s the first session, called Making Friends with Yourself. 

The next two sessions are Dynamic Equilibrium and Obstacle as Path.  Each session will begin with a dharma talk given by David, meditation practice and discussion.  In the second part of each session Cyndi will lead you through a yoga class that embeds the dharma theme into action.  Can we be friendly toward ourselves in downward dog?  How can “not too tight, not too loose” help us in Tree Pose or with our kids or in business?  Is it possible for our hips to feel like gateways rather than padlocks? 

In the final session, David will introduce maitri practice.  We are like sponges — when we get squeezed whatever we have practiced, comes out, so why not practice lovingkindness?  Cyndi will integrate the compassion-building practice of maitri into a  a backbending asana class. Don’t worry – our assignment is not to do the fanciest bow pose but to explore the potential for unconditional friendliness, even when we are upside down and inside out.