Frank Jude Boccio

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Frank Jude Boccio (born 1956 [1] ) is a teacher and one of the originators of mindful yoga. He is known both for his teaching in centres across America, and for his 2004 book Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind, which describes a practice that combines yoga as exercise and Buddhist meditational practice.

Contents

Life

Education and training

Frank Jude Boccio began practising Buddhism in New York at the age of 18. He read Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland, obtaining a graduate-level diploma but deciding not to write a thesis and hence obtain an M.A. In 1989, he began a period of study under Lyn Fine and Patricia Hunt-Perry in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh; in 1997 he was ordained into the Tiep Hien order. He then studied under Samu Sunim, who ordained him as a dharma teacher in 2007. [2]

He studied a variety of styles of modern yoga including Iyengar, Anusara, Ashtanga, Integral and Kundalini. He is a certified preventive and rehabilitative yoga teacher and therapist via the Bateman Institute. Georg Feuerstein has certified him for the Yoga Research and Education Center's 750-hour teacher training program. [2]

Career

Boccio founded the Empty Mountain Sangha and the peer-led Tucson Mindfulness Practice Community. [2] He teaches, lectures, and gives workshops and retreats in the Americas and Asia on mindful yoga, integrating modern yoga and Buddhist vipassana mindfulness, [2] at centres including Kripalu. [3]

He has written articles for magazines including Tricycle, [4] Yoga Journal , [5] Shambhala Sun, [6] Spring Wind, Namaskar, Elephant Journal, [7] and Experience Life. [2] He is the author of the 2004 book Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind which integrates Buddhism's Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana) with the practice of yoga asanas, [8] and chapters in various anthologies on the connection of yoga and Buddhism. [2] [9]

Reception

Mindfulness Yoga

Phil Catalfo, reviewing Mindfulness Yoga for Yoga Journal , wrote that it was not surprising that many yoga practitioners also studied Buddhist practice, as the traditions have common roots, but that Boccio's was the first "successful book-length discourse" that properly integrated the practices. In Catalfo's view, Boccio shows that Buddhist practice "is itself a form of yoga, presenting a meditational approach to asana practice". [10] He writes that the book consists mainly of four sequences, each of some dozens of "familiar poses": "Body as Body"; "Feelings as Feelings"; "Mindfully Aware"; and "Dharmas in the Dharmas", the headings intentionally reflecting the Anapanasati Sutta which combines mindful breathing with the direction of the attention to these four areas. [10]

Buddha in anapanasati, mindfulness meditation. 3rd century, Kushan Empire Seated Buddha in Meditation (3rd century, Yale University Art Gallery).jpg
Buddha in anapanasati, mindfulness meditation.
3rd century, Kushan Empire

The yoga and meditation teacher and author Anne Cushman, reviewing the book for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review , noted that "Sneaking Hatha Yoga into a Buddhist practice used to be a guilty pleasure, like nibbling a secret stash of chocolate during a meditation retreat." [11] Obstacles to combining them included Buddhist masters' warnings that hatha yoga's focus on the body encouraged a dangerous obsession with something that inevitably decayed, while modern yoga's energetic workouts did not look like serious spiritual practice. However, in the 21st century, hatha yoga is, she writes, regularly forming "an integral part of the schedule at Vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist retreats". Cushman writes that Boccio "solidly locates hatha yoga practice in Buddhist history and philosophy, emphasizing the mindfulness techniques laid out in the Anapanasati Sutta and Satipatthana Sutta ". [11] She calls the book "the most erudite" and "the most philosophically comprehensive" of the three works on the topic that she reviews, tracing the origins of yoga to the life story of the Buddha, "himself a wandering yogi" in India. The book then provides a "dense but readable summary" of the core teachings of Buddhism and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, before offering four complete, illustrated, meditational asana sequences, paying attention both to the physical postures and to their lessons "about the deepest truths in our lives". [11]

The Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health called Boccio's book "the first to apply the Buddha's mindfulness meditation teachings to asana practice". [3]

Publishers Weekly described the thesis of Mindfulness Yoga as "both novel and logical", since Buddhism "grew from Hindu-yoga roots", while modern yoga, especially the American kind, needed "greater appreciation of its spiritual significance." The review noted Boccio's debt to the Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh (who wrote the Foreword). It found the four sequences of asanas in the book somewhat hard to follow, making the book more suitable for established practitioners. [12]

In 2008, Nora Isaacs noted in Yoga Journal that Boccio and others such as Janice Gates, Cyndi Lee, Phillip Moffitt, and Sarah Powers, had "each, independently, discovered the benefits of merging mindfulness with asana", leading to "something we might call 'mindful yoga'." [13]

Personal life

Boccio has two daughters, one 36 years older than the other, and lives in Tucson, Arizona. [2]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoga</span> Spiritual practices from ancient India

Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatha yoga</span> Branch of yoga focusing on physical techniques

Hatha yoga is a branch of yoga that uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some hatha yoga style techniques can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Hindu Sanskrit epics and Buddhism's Pali canon. The oldest dated text so far found to describe hatha yoga, the 11th-century Amṛtasiddhi, comes from a tantric Buddhist milieu. The oldest texts to use the terminology of hatha are also Vajrayana Buddhist. Hindu hatha yoga texts appear from the 11th century onward.

<i>Anapanasati</i> Mindfulness of breathing, a form of Buddhist meditation

Ānāpānasati, meaning "mindfulness of breathing", is the act of paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, attributed to Gautama Buddha, and described in several suttas, most notably the Ānāpānasati Sutta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pranayama</span> Practice of breath control in Yoga

Pranayama is the yogic practice of focusing on breath. In yoga, breath is associated with prana, thus, pranayama is a means to elevate the prana-shakti, or life energies. Pranayama is described in Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Later in Hatha yoga texts, it meant the complete suspension of breathing. The pranayama practices in modern yoga as exercise are unlike those of the Hatha yoga tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buddhist meditation</span> Practice of meditation in Buddhism

Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā and jhāna/dhyāna.

In Buddhism, kammaṭṭhāna which literally means place of work. Its original meaning was someone's occupation but this meaning has developed into several distinct but related usages all having to do with Buddhist meditation.

The Vipassanā movement, also called the Insight Meditation Movement and American Vipassana movement, refers to a branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism that promotes "bare insight" (sukha-Vipassana) to attain stream entry and preserve the Buddhist teachings, which gained widespread popularity since the 1950s, and to its western derivatives which have been popularised since the 1970s, giving rise to the more dhyana-oriented mindfulness movement.

Sati, literally "memory" or "retention", commonly translated as mindfulness, "to remember to observe", is an essential part of Buddhist practice. It has the related meanings of calling to mind the wholesome dhammas such as the four establishments of mindfulness, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven awakening-factors, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the attainment of insight, and the actual practice of maintaining a lucid awareness of the dhammas of bodily and mental phenomena, in order to counter the arising of unwholesome states, and to develop wholesome states. It is the first factor of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness is the seventh element of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Anussati means "recollection," "contemplation," "remembrance," "meditation", and "mindfulness". It refers to specific Buddhist meditational or devotional practices, such as recollecting the sublime qualities of the Buddha, which lead to mental tranquillity and abiding joy. In various contexts, the Pali literature and Sanskrit Mahayana sutras emphasise and identify different enumerations of recollections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ānāpānasati Sutta</span> Buddhist scripture in Pali Canon

The Ānāpānasati Sutta (Pāli) or Ānāpānasmṛti Sūtra (Sanskrit), "Breath-Mindfulness Discourse," Majjhima Nikaya 118, is a discourse that details the Buddha's instruction on using awareness of the breath (anapana) as an initial focus for meditation.

<i>Satipatthana Sutta</i> 10th Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya, Pāli Canon

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and the subsequently created Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, are two of the most celebrated and widely studied discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, acting as the foundation for contemporary vipassana meditation practice. The Pāli texts of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta are largely similar in content; the main difference being a section about the Four Noble Truths in the Observation of Phenomena (Dhammānupassana), which is greatly expanded in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta. These suttas (discourses) stress the practice of sati (mindfulness) "for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the extinguishing of suffering and grief, for walking on the path of truth, for the realization of nibbāna."

Sampajañña is a term of central importance for meditative practice in all Buddhist traditions. It refers to "The mental process by which one continuously monitors one's own body and mind. In the practice of śamatha, its principal function is to note the occurrence of laxity and excitation." It is very often found in the pair 'mindfulness and introspection' or 'mindfulness and clear comprehension).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dhyana in Buddhism</span> Training of the mind through meditation

In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna or jhāna is a component of the training of the mind (bhavana), commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions and "burn up" the defilements, leading to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi)." Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment.

Samatha, "calm," "serenity," "tranquility of awareness," and vipassanā, literally "special, super, seeing ", are two qualities of the mind developed in tandem in Buddhist practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kāyagatāsati Sutta</span> Buddhist scripture in Pali Canon

The Kāyagatāsati Sutta is a Pāḷi Buddhist sutta which outlines the development of mindfulness through contemplation of the body in order to reach jhāna.

Buddhānusmṛti, meaning "Buddha-mindfulness", is a common Buddhist practice in all Buddhist traditions which involves meditating on a Buddha. The term can be translated as "remembrance, commemoration, recollection or mental contemplation of the Buddha." It is also one of the various recollections (anusmṛti) taught by the Buddha in the sutras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhante Vimalaramsi</span> American Buddhist monk (1946–2023)

Bhante Vimalaraṁsi was an American Buddhist monk and Abbot of the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Annapolis, Missouri.

Anne Cushman is an American teacher of yoga as exercise and meditation, a writer on Mindful Yoga, and a novelist. Her novel Enlightenment for Idiots was named by Booklist as one of the top ten novels of 2008. Cushman has also been an editor for Yoga Journal and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. She directs mentoring programs and multi-year meditation training for yoga teachers at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, emphasizing the fusion of yoga and Buddhist meditation and highlighting their shared history and philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mindful Yoga</span> Buddhist-style mindfulness practice with yoga as exercise

Mindful Yoga or Mindfulness Yoga combines Buddhist-style mindfulness practice with yoga as exercise to provide a means of exercise that is also meditative and useful for reducing stress. Buddhism and Hinduism have since ancient times shared many aspects of philosophy and practice including mindfulness, understanding the suffering caused by an erroneous view of reality, and using concentrated and meditative states to address such suffering.

Cyndi Lee is a teacher of mindful yoga, a combination of Tibetan Buddhist practice and yoga as exercise. She has an international reputation and is the author of several books on her approach and runs her business from New York City.

References

  1. ↑ Boccio 2004, p. 1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "About". Mindfulness Yoga. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 "Frank Jude Boccio". Kripalu . Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  4. ↑ Boccio, Frank Jude. "Breath and the Body". Tricycle Magazine (Fall 2005). Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  5. ↑ "Frank Jude Boccio". Yoga Journal . Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  6. ↑ "Frank Jude Boccio". Tucson Yoga. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  7. ↑ Boccio, Frank Jude (3 December 2012). "21st Century Yoga: Questioning the 'Body Beautiful': Yoga, Commercialism & Discernment". Elephant Journal.
  8. ↑ Boccio 2004.
  9. ↑ "Frank Jude Boccio's Dharma Talks". Dharma Seed. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  10. 1 2 Catalfo, Phil (28 August 2007). "Balance: [Review] Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body, and Mind by Frank Jude Boccio". Yoga Journal . Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  11. 1 2 3 Cushman, Anne (2004). "Buddhism And Yoga: From downward dog to the dharma [Reviews]". Tricycle (Summer 2004). Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  12. ↑ "Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind". Publishers Weekly. 19 January 2004. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  13. ↑ Isaacs, Nora (21 October 2008). "Bring More Mindfulness Onto the Mat". Yoga Journal . Retrieved 11 April 2019.
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