bodily yoga in buddhism and during the times of shakyamuni

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HandsomeMonkeyking
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Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:36 pm

bodily yoga in buddhism and during the times of shakyamuni

Post by HandsomeMonkeyking »

I am not sure in which subforum I should post this.

I am interested in learning about the bodily types of Yoga which supposedly where practised during the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. In some accounts you can hear that he practised and learned from many teachers and I wonder what it was he actually did there.
Then there is the Tibetan Tsa Lung and I wonder if it all derives from some Hatha Yoga. And how things are connected. And whether people at Nalanda University also did some sort of bodily exercises, and which.

I wonder if there are certain types of bodily exercises that are quite connected with buddhism.

Its a very vague question and I am not sure I have explained well what I try to understand :-)

I hope someone can give some clues anyways, or help me getting more precise.
Thank you.
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Kim O'Hara
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Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: bodily yoga in buddhism and during the times of shakyamuni

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Hatha Yoga as we know it now is usually associated with Hinduism rather than Buddhism and traced back to Patanjali, writing a couple of centuries after the time of Sakyamuni. If you look for information about his writings you may be able to find more of what you're looking for. Start here, if you like: http://www.yogajournal.com/article/phil ... patanjali/
Complicating the whole question is the emergence of Hinduism from Brahminism in the time of Patanjali and the slightly later development of Tantra - for which this may be a useful starting point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra.

Sakyamuni learned from 'wandering ascetics' (or words to that effect) who certainly had some physical practices, but gave up on them (the teachers) because they couldn't provide the answers he was looking for. I don't recall coming across anything in the Pali canon which even mentions any 'bodily yoga' amongst the Buddha's disciples - unless you count 'go and sit under a tree and meditate' - but that certainly isn't conclusive.

Happy hunting!

:namaste:
Kim
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