书 Book Review | Yoga of the Subtle Body
After the lecture about Subtle Body, I developed an interest in learning more about it therefore I started reading the book Yoga of the subtle body written by Tias Little. The writing of the book is poetic overall. Reading this book is like taking a voyage to inquire about the subtle things of the body that are interconnected with our soul. The subtle body as Tias said is the key to delight, love, understanding, and good relationships.
“Subtle means mysterious, irreducible, delicate, and fine. Looking into subtle things tends to temporarily suspend the thinking process into a state of open inquiry and wonder.”
What a beautiful saying, I like to observe the subtle movement of the white cloud flowing in the blue sky and the changing colour of the sunset. The vibration of leaves is the art of music. Sunlight filters through the leaves, casting dappled shadows, and the world suddenly falls silent for a long time. Observing the subtle allows me to enter into a meditative state of appreciating the wonder of life.
Our body is a wonder, full of awareness, intelligence and compassion. Getting back to the body is similar to returning to the birthplace where everything begins. Reading this book made me feel like I was getting to know that place - my body for the first time in a way of synthesising western anatomy knowledge and eastern medicine and philosophy. Through this book, I certainly learnt anatomy better. I learnt many medical terminologies from this book and it made me appreciate the things that I take for granted, for instance standing upright on two legs is a remarkable phenomenon. What’s more, the integral perspective is unique, refreshing and full of wisdom.
Following the sequence of seven chakras, the book is unfolded in eight chapters from the foot to the pelvis, sacrum, belly, diaphragm, lungs & heart, throat and crown. It gradually guided me to be aware of every part of my body, such as feeling the hip and notice my breathing pattern in my lungs. A body that is either too restricted or mobile is both problematic. It’s interesting to think how soft the body of a baby is and how stiff an old body can get. From this book, I learnt to connect with my body and feel my body better though the more I read this book, the more I realise how little I know about my body, which is born with me but why is it like that and how does it work? I can never know enough of it.
The book is written through a combination of theoretical writings and practice instructions. However, I find there were too many practice instructions interspersed with the theories which disrupted the reading flow and the instructions were explained so meticulously that made me sometimes want to skip them, especially when reading in a chair and the practices require lying down. I do wonder who would do every practice mentioned in the book, probably nobody but it might be useful as a guidebook for checking a certain part of the body like looking up a dictionary to see which exercise to do.
From the ground up is how we usually do the sequences of yoga and also how we open the chakras. For the journey of life we need to down into the depths and upward toward the sky. Approaching 30 years old, I notice that I become calmer and, instead of doing additions, I started to do more subtraction, to do less, to let go of things that no longer serve me. The shift in the behaviour partially maybe comes from doing yoga and meditation, which provides space and silence to connect with myself. Either going down into darkness or going up into lightness, both need a spacious and open mind which can only be attained by letting go instead of adding up.
To end this article just like the opening of the book appreciating the beauty of subtle things, I want to add another dimension of it: appreciating the beauty of babe steps, that we take little by little, step by step, proceed breath by breath, sensation by sensation with lots of loving-kindness.
Danyan Liu 刘丹艳
2024 july 25 in Amsterdam
二零二四年七月二十五日