Yoga Philosophy & Existential Phenomenology: Working Notes

Managing emotions doesn’t require controlling them. Managing emotions just requires becoming aware of them before becoming consumed by them. Managing emotions, in other words, requires awareness. COMMENTARY: This is simple, but not easy. And it’s simpler for some people—and some emotions—than for others. (And it is always made more difficult by craving some version of total emotional control.) Direct awareness, if nothing else, gives us choice—a moment to intervene in an inst

The practices of yoga are simple. You alway already have the only thing you ever need: your attention. Everything else is nonessential. COMMENTARY: In yoga, we cultivate awareness so that we may become aware of—before becoming consumed by—the automatic habits of thinking, feeling, acting, and perceiving that prevent us from seeing how our efforts to acquire peace might be reinforcing the very suffering we are trying to escape. When you notice a particular pattern, you’re no l