The first module features an examination of the most common meaning of the term “yoga” in a premodern Indic context: meditation. It will feature a brief introduction before diving into the material of the course. We will consider forms of meditation from Buddhism’s most ancient period as well as philosophical schools in Mahāyāna Buddhism that had a major impact on later meditational yoga. We will speculate as to the first-millennium transition from physical maṇḍala practice to the entirely visualized maṇḍala offerings of the Yoga Tantras. We will close by looking at methods for the practitioner to transform themselves into a buddha through visualization practices.

This module takes the meaning of the term “yoga” as “application” and examines the application of ritual as a mode of yoga. We will jump to the modern period to look at modern Newar Buddhist ritual practice. We will see how the Kathmandu Valley is critical to an auspicious, ritualized universe, and examine practices not usually considered to be ritual or yoga, especially tantric song and dance. It will be made apparent that the gurumaṇḍala rite constitutes a full commitment of body, speech and mind and that the elements of ritual incorporate the whole of tantric Mahāyāna thought.

This module continues with the understanding of “yoga” as meaning “application,” but in a progressively different setting than the ritual world examined in the previous module. We will open with an overview of sexual practices in Vajrayāna, including the theory behind them, the emphasis on secrecy, and the debates that raged concerning whether the instructions for sexual practices were to be taken literally or symbolically (debates still raging today). We will consider various techniques to bring about desired goals, and disambiguate magic from yoga. Then we will explore the figure of the siddha, the tantric practitioner par excellence, and how their behavior constitutes a perpetual practice of yoga.

This final module explores first female practitioners of yoga, and then the appearance of physical yogas in tantric Buddhism, especially the haṭha form that is so synonymous with “yoga” today. Whereas our first module focused entirely on mental yoga, this last module features a yoga that is fully somatic. We will consider the evidence for female practitioners of tantric yoga, especially in light of the sexual practices and siddha types discussed in the previous module. We will consider the theory behind the manipulation of subtle winds and fluids in the body, give an overview of his purported historical development and speculate as to what may have happened to the haṭha yoga of the Amṛtasiddhi and Nāth yogins had a viable Vajrayāna Buddhist institution never disappeared from today’s India.