mala prayer beads

Today we had a specialist workshop in yoga given by Alan Goode, a senior teacher in the Iyengar tradition.   He introduced to the concepts of Mala and Krama – which may be based on some Sanskrit idioms, and this still requires some research and validation.  Separately I have for a number of years now been appreciating the significant parallels between yoga and music.  My interest in zen buddhism has in the last few years become deeper.  Though I acknowledge that Zen and Yoga are distinct practices with very different lineages,  I increasingly see the interrelationship between Zen and classical Astanga Yoga.  So today emboldened by a senior yoga teacher articulating these two concepts – which I have not as yet heard within my yoga circles – I now have the temerity to put forward my understanding of them as they fit into my more general enquiry, and because they are so fundamental to building blocks of the maturing disciplines in which I am interested, be it music, mathematics, yoga, zen.

Malas are a ‘string’ of ‘asana’s (poses or postures) connected to each other in such a manner that they can be repeated many times over.  It could be a sequence of postures which flow one into the other, a bit like a vinyasa which is repeated over and over again.  Within the yogic or Hindu tradition a Mala could be seen as the physical parallel to a repetitive chant done for a deistic adoration.   A parallel in zen meditation would be breath counting to ten over and over again for the duration of the meditation, or the Bamboo method of breathing as explained by Katsuki Sekida in Zen Training.   A parallel in music would be a set of repeated scales or arpeggios up and down the keys, an executed piece of music would probably be something like the music of Arvo Part such as Spiegel im Spiegel or Fur Alina.  No doubt there may are more parallels in the serial music genre.  Being aware of Yogic Dharana, Dhyana somehow I see in Malas, a deep significance that rivals that of Dharana and Dhyana, notwithstanding that they are physical Asanas.

Kramas are a sequence of poses in a cycle leading to maturity of a somewhat otherwise complex pose.  So for example in an attempt to do an upward bow backbend one may do chest,  arm abdominal, groin opening or strengthening moves, one may include a pose of middle level complexity tying all of these together, but which serves as a staging for the more complex or final pose.   I suppose it could include a few ‘coming out’ asanas too, to bring us back to equanimity.   These would probably be less than five but probably no more than ten asanas.   In meditation a possible analogy would be the ‘routine’ one uses in Vipassana or, more extremely in Shikantasa sitting; while in music it would be a bit like practising scales, then arpeggios in the musical key of a piece and doing small sections of the piece repeatedly, first with one hand, and then with the other, then putting them together so that the complex piece can then be played fluidly.   I suppose another conception of these Kramas could be a ‘theme with variations’ which is a simple theme stated very clearly and purely, and which is then developed with ever more complex variations, culminating with a really dazzling virtuoso piece and finishing with the restatement of the simple starting theme.  Some examples are: Mozart’s 12 variations on Twinkle Twinkle little star 12 Variations in C Major ‘Ah vous dirai-je, Maman’ K.265 or even more gloriously, like J.S. Bach’s Goldberg variations Complete BWV 988, with score, Kimiko Ishizaka piano.   In Zen there are parallels to the Ten Ox Herding pictures and Dongshan’s Five Ranks, however a more practical parallel would be in the stages of wrestling with a Koan across many interviews with a Roshi.

I have only scratched the surface of this enquiry and hope to explore it more here in the future.  Comments are welcome.

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