The Tibetan Book of Yoga

November 24, 2003
In a slender, accessible volume, Roach (The Diamond Cutter
), a Tibetan-trained American Buddhist monk, advocates Heart Yoga, which "works on your heart in two ways: It makes your physical heart and your body healthy and strong, and it opens your heart to love others." Roach lays a philosophical foundation for the various poses of Heart Yoga before describing the poses themselves. He identifies what he calls a human's "Five Levels," which are like interdependent layers of an onion, beginning with one's external organs and moving progressively inward and incorporating breath, thoughts and, at the very center, "world-seeds": the condition of one's mind that colors how phenomena are experienced—whether one feels a rainy day is lovely or dreary, for example. By sowing positive world-seeds through Heart Yoga and other practices, a person can effect powerful inner change. Roach next describes the various poses of Heart Yoga in brief chapters, giving detailed instructions for doing the exercises, followed by explanations of how the poses work on the Five Levels and why. Roach handles his subject with a light, even inspiring touch. The instructions are detailed enough to practice but are not needlessly complex, and the explanations of key concepts—such as "Giving and Taking" (taking someone's pain upon oneself and radiating peace in return)—are inviting rather than dogmatic. Those new to yoga, as well as those looking to supplement their established yoga practice, will find this primer both helpful and lucid.

March 1, 2004
An American-born Buddhist monk, Roach (The Diamond Cutter) is a scholar and translator of Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Russian and the founder of the Asian Classics Institute in New York. His latest work is a hybrid, combining the ancient insights of relatively unknown Tibetan texts relevant to yoga with well-known or popular yoga postures. His aim is to bring the Tibetan texts into readers' lives through familiar yogic practices. The broader purpose of the yoga he teaches, known as Heart Yoga, is not "to stop at making us healthy, just so we could take longer to die. It was meant to change everything. It was meant to take each one of us on to what we are really meant to be." With woodblock illustrations and photographs, this book is suitable for most collections.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2004
Yoga entered Tibet from India more than 1,000 years ago. Over the centuries, various incarnations of the Dalai Lama adapted yoga to incorporate Buddhist practices such as sending love and compassion to other living beings. This Tibetan form of yoga is called Heart Yoga. Roach, an ordained American Buddhist monk, presents a 30-minute program of breathing, contemplation, and postures that he designed to open both the physical and spiritual heart. As he explains, the essence of Heart Yoga is the concept of " ton-leng," which means "giving and taking," and in the exercises he teaches, the practitioner is guided to use the breath as both a focus and a means of sending love to others. In turn, the practitioner sending love out into the world may experience an enhanced feeling of well-being. Gentle and relaxing, the exercises Roach recommends also emphasize the releasing of internal tensions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)