Cultivation of an observer awareness that watches whatever is coming and going in the stream.
Students balance in a boat pose across from a partner while holding their partners’ hands and pressing against their partners’ feet.
In this partner exercise, students sit back to back in butterfly pose.
Students sit with legs in a V, clasp hands with a partner, and gently stretch forward and back.
Pressing hands with a partner, students squat down and then lift up on tiptoe.
In this partner exercise, students sit back to back and balance in flower pose.
Pressing hands with a partner, students raise and lower their arms and link their breath with the movements.
Students sit across from a partner and come into turtle pose while clasping their partners’ hands.
Students imagine picking up whatever quality they need in the moment (e.g., courage) from a magical pool.
The psychoactive plant Datura metel appears across a range of traditions in premodern South Asia preserved in texts. Among those traditions is the form of tantric Buddhism (Vajrayāna) located in the yoginī tantras. In Vajrayāna works, the plant is most prominently used in instructions for bringing about one or more of the magical acts (ṣaṭkarman). This paper explores the possibility that datura was consumed for its hallucination-inducing potential by considering how the plant was viewed and used in premodern South Asia through an ethnobotanical approach to relevant texts. I argue that the material potency of the plant as a dangerous poison, well established in Sanskrit medical literature from an early period, gave it a magical potency that made it a favored ingredient in several hostile magic rites (abhicāra) found in the yoginī tantras. I suggest that the line between material and magical is an inappropriate distinction to draw when examining these tantras, and that the most responsible way to approach the use of psychotropic plants in a premodern culture is by examining what actors from that culture said about the plant rather than relying on our existing knowledge of the effect of that plant.
Progressive muscle relaxation is a practice of tensing and relaxing muscles one group at a time as a way of relaxing the mind and relieving stress.