"Kum Nye Yoga has become a way of life for me. Never before have I felt so balanced and positive" Meggie Hayne, Kum Nye student since 2006
I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak of my experience with Kum Nye. This last nine months has been profound for me. Kum Nye is transforming my experience of my own body, my meditation practice and therefore my relationships with others and life itself. While this is wordless, I will try my best to use communicate to you.
Since I can first remember, I have always been a woman with "heart" and a desire to help others (daughter, sister, mother, teacher, therapist). Yet, I always carried within me, often invisible to others, an underlying tension, fear and anxiety. This tightness and constriction has caused me and others a great deal of suffering. While my heart was filled with love, my body was in distress and tension.
I began a practice of Shamatha meditation in the early 90's, and felt like a "failure." While the teachings were a refuge, I could not find a way to practice that my body could engage with or relax into. My meditation practice did not go "in" to my experience or change my life. It remained like a "thought" experience.
My son has been a practitioner since he was 14 and he is now 28. He is a deep observer and one night he came to me and said, "Mom, I think you should check out Kum Nye Yoga and Tarthang Tulku." The rest is history. I fell in love. It felt like coming home at last. I have not been as disciplined with anything in my life, except motherhood, until I began Kum Nye. I simply long to practice. I experience an ache when I miss a practice and a joy when I come back. I have arranged my day to begin with Kum Nye in the dawn of the day. I have created a practice place in the center of my home, facing east and the sky. I wait for my Friday email like a little girl waits for Christmas morning. My husband and my son directly support my practice by accommodating my schedule and my practice time. My Sangha (which has met in our home since 2000) encourages me with their observations and feedback.
It is as if my body has been on hold, holding back and doing the best it could for 58 years. Now, my body is responding like a flower would respond to a fresh rain. I am so very grateful Arnaud. To Tarthang Tulku, to you, to Ratna Ling and to the humming bird over my shoulder in the practice room...for allowing me this opportunity to taste joy. My mind is calmer, my body is lighter, my sleep is deeper, and I want to keep this precious practice alive for others.
I have only just begun and humbly request more direct instruction from a teacher like yourself.
Jacquelyne F.
I am very impressed with the changes in me since beginning my Kum Nye study and practice almost a year ago. I must first admit that I have not been able to maintain my commitment to accomplish one level per week. In fact I am just now finishing Level III week 9. In the last month alone I have had two surgeries and been working with complex family situations. Since I am often unable to practice every morning I have taken the habit of not moving on to the next week's unit until I have done the level I am on 5 times. I feel this is the best way I can experience the physical and energetic connection that arises with the practice of each week's postures and contemplations.
It is my intention to simply continue after finally getting through Level V week 10 and as I return to the beginning and start again each unit will have even more resonance as I go through that pattern again.
The primary benefit to me of Kum Nye practice is the slowing down to complete presence in the moment with my mind-body-breath-activity. The after practice session effect of this is greater awareness in each moment of how my body and energy are being effected by and effect what is arising in all my activities with co-workers, friends, and dharma center interactions.
Several people from all of the walks of my life have asked me about the changes that they have seen in me over these last several months and as I have attributed much of that to Kum Nye I have spoken to them of this practice and its benefits. I am a meditation instructor and teacher in Washington DC. I have of course given them the titles of Thartang Tulkus many works that I have found very inspiring and useful on a practical level.
If I could be of service in facilitating a weekend or week long intensive at our Washington DC center please let me know.
Larry F.
Regarding e-Kum Nye, I've had a really gratifying experience. I find the opening texts very clarifying, educative and really set the soul of the course. I feel it gives a structure to the "crescendo" of the experience and I can experience a positive growth in the contact with blockages and also with my deeper feelings of joy. Surprisingly for me the online course has showed for me to put me in a field of experience together with other people. Taking the course together with pursuing a training for Kum Nye teacher and also being a mother has helped me a lot in the sense of giving a kind of support, structure.
Clineia C.
I am very sorry, but my English is not particularly marvelous. But despite of this I try to write. We have started with the practice of Kum Nye (from the book "Tibetan Yoga" in German version) in September last year. Since I/we started practicing Hatha-Yoga on a regular basis, we have not been seriously sick at all. (me over 20 years, Lutz 10 years). But the experience with Kum-Nye has an additional effect. For us Kum-Nye is the training of mindfulness. It is not an escape from the daily activities of life or something for improving of self-image. We learn the observation of all processes in body and mind not only during the practicing postures and movements of Kum-Nye. We expanding the observation and learn to be more in all the situations in life.
Kum Nye makes energy in our body living. Our sensory perception improves, feeling become deeper and... Sometimes the practicing of Kum Nye awakes the feelings from the past or let the dreams in the night to be a part of my own experience. It is obvious that we are more and more equable, tranquil and joyful. We begin to hear without ears, to see without eyes. We are able to notice more details in our environment than before.
Bogusia D.
Transformational is how I would describe the effects of Kum Nye on my body and mind. I can truly say that this is what me body and mind have been seeking for years and it feels like coming home. The feeling is like a tight, tight coil slowly unfurling. After the session, first thing I always notice is that I walk and speaker slower. Inside I feel space, lightness. Sleep has a beautiful quality, though I have always slept exceedingly well, now there is a different quality. Mental patterns are less sharp, softer, mellow. Behaviorally, glimpses of body awareness more evident on a daily basis, everything is less urgent, views are more balanced, mental chatterbox seems to have a sore throat and is much quieter!!
Doing the exercises is a beautiful experience. I believe I am following the descriptions OK. - they feel OK. I know though, that I do not spent enough time after each, sitting and being with the feeling - this is where maybe I am not relating, expanding and deepening the feelings, sensations...?? I cherish the day I found Kum Nye.
Rose H.
I had Gall Bladder surgery Nov. 28th 2006. Forty five days later I attended a Kum Nye retreat. I knew that to do Kum Nye should have had at least 90 days after a surgery, because Kum Nye practice works in a deeper level in our body. But even knowing it I decided to do the one week retreat. Well, of course in the beginning of the retreat I was paying attention to how my body felt, especially in the sensations in belly center while I was doing the exercises.... At the end of the first day practicing, at the last section of the practice, I felt a little dizzy. It had never happened before (I have been practicing Kum Nye for more than 16 years) it was the first time I had felt that sensation! Then I realized how deep Kum Nye was acting on me! But it only happened in the first day! In the next day ..second day... It was wonderful!! Nothing happened ..and I started to feel how different my belly was doing.... much better ..more comfortable ..more relax ...It was the first time after the surgery that I felt the belly center like that...It was like I had never did a surgery!!!
At the end of the week I could say that I was completely recovered from my surgery, only doing Kum Nye...so I could heal myself only through the Kum Nye practice !!! It is fantastic and powerful!!
I know how powerful is the Kum Nye practice... and I would like to express and share , as a long term Kum Nye student, the importance of the Kum Nye, the importance of this knowledge !!!
I would like to express my respect to all Kum Nye instructors, and my deep gratitude , appreciation, and respect to my Teacher Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, for his generosity to put these ancient teachings in books for the first time, allowing us to be trained and to share it with others!!
Nelson C.
