The Yoga Sutras – The classic mystic text

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The Yoga Sutras – the original teaching

Cappuccino Club with Dr Georges Dreyfus
Saturday 22^nd August 2015

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Overview

Keeping up our tradition of mixing things up a bit, we’ll be taking a class with Dr Georges Dreyfus on the original Yoga Sutra – the classic text of Patanjali that is said to be the origin of Yoga (a point much debated!).

There’s no charge and no need to book, but you do need to bring your own cappuccinos (regular coffee and tea is available on site)

Saturday 22^nd August :

• 1:00 pm meet at the Little Bangkok Meditation Centre, Ekkamai
• 1:30 start (promptly – please, no coming and going or arranging refreshments after we begin)
• 2:30 (ish) Questions and discussion
• 3:15 finish

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The 8 stages of Yoga from this teaching will be
the framework for this year’s Dhamma Talk Series
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About the Cappuccino Club Meetups:

Many of our events are one way talks – from a teacher to the audience. We like to turn things around once in a while, and venture off the topic of just Buddhism. We’ve covered all kinds of subjects in the past, and had great fun with it. If you have suggestions for topics of future meetings, do mention it.

You don’t have to be an expert in anything, and we frequently venture off topic anyway, when the zeitgeist of the meeting suggests it.

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Georges B.J. Dreyfus, is an academic in the fields of Tibetology and Buddology, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist philosophy. In 1985, after 16 years as a Tibetan monk, he was the first Westerner to receive the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest available within the Tibetan scholastic tradition.

Dr Georges is one of our regulars in Bangkok, and is currently is Jackson Professor of Religion at Williams College, Massachusetts. He’s well qualified in Buddhism, Consciousness studies and other topics, and always has an interesting academic angle. Several of us have read his book The Sound of Two Hands Clapping.

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The Yoga Sutras:

This is a classic text, often thought of as an origin of Yoga. However, you won’t find any asana here – it was a mystic text of Union (the meaning of the word Yoga) and the way to it’s attainment. One of the aspects of the text was an Eightfold development of the path.

Here is the text itself. You are expected to read the text in full before our meeting.

But since you won’t, here is the wikipedia link too – so read some of that before you come.

Like the Buddha, Patanjali outlines a fairly complete path of development – different qualities that should be developed by a yogi on the path to Yoga (Union).

How similar is it to Buddhism (there is a short discussion of this question on the Wikipedia link)? How relevant was the text to Indian spirituality?

We’ll rely on Georges to lead the discussion – a topic he has taught in Williams College a number of times.

For the keen, there are some other texts about the Yoga Sutra here.

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Location:

Walk from Exit one Ekkamai BTS Station about 4 minutes. At the second soi on the left you will see Bourbon St. Restaurant – we’re next to that. Come up to the top floor.

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