Sunday 8 June 2014

Workshop Maitri: Yellow

I am in the middle of a Maitri workshop right now, I've just passed the second day and the last and third day is tomorrow. The workshop is given at the Shambhala Centre here in Amsterdam.
Maitri means friendship and it is a colour theory that is older than Buddhism, it probably originates from Hinduism. The five colors below form the most essential mandala: a mandala is like a chart from the world and the human mind.
Tibetan mandala
In the Maitri colour sessions, the five colours are being intensified so that they become a portal to our emotions and also to the wisdom energies that are hidden in those emotions: clarity, richness, warmth, activity and spatiality.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche derived the Maitri-practice from the energy philosophy of the buddhistic tantra. He combined the five colors with Tibetan yoga-postures which lead to unique experiences during the practise.
So far the theory.

On the morning of day 1 (yesterday) we experienced YELLOW (it looks more like orange in the picture above). After meditation we received a yellow tinted pair of 'glasses' (it really was a yellow filter attached to felt) and we were to lie on the floor in a specific position for about 20 minutes. We had to focus on our observation (feeling, seeing, smelling ect.) and our emotions. I observed a lot of anger in myself, openness to the space above me, but later on a pressing feeling as if the space above put me down. I also experienced a feeling of floating. Physically my fingers turned a little numb from continually spreading them out.
After those 20 minutes we were to walk outside aimlessly.  During that walk I noticed that my awareness was more open, that I saw a lot of details, everything was very focussed and it was all rather sparkly (drala). I also experienced a feeling of sadness and loneliness. Of course I had my camera on me, below are some images of what I saw.
pink plastic flowers and blue backdrop

pink rose

red bike against a mural

two red rose petals
Information on the colour:
YELLOW - radna (Sanskrit) - earth
The earth is big, heavy, wide, rich (in details), solid, its attraction is experienced by gravity. The earth is feeding everything and everyone. Earth is connected with feeling, because it is very primal. Earth is also about life and death. Yellow is connected to food, eating, preparing, cooking, collecting and territory. The wisdom of yellow is equality and equanimity. This practice is about attention for subtleties (-> details) and giving up of resistance.

See also: WHITE, BLUE, RED, GREEN

1 comment:

  1. Woh, wat een mooie foto's!
    En wat heb je de opzet van het Maitri - programma, + je persoonlijke ervaringen, goed verwoord!
    Groetjes
    Stephan

    ReplyDelete

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