Yoga āsana - what's the story?

Āsana literally means 'seat', the seat not just of our physical body, but of our whole psychic reality. Yoga techniques seek to cultivate a seat of awareness that is steady and clear, so we can move through the rich opportunities of life with greater poise, ease and in ways that can help us keep learning along the way. These days, āsana, or yoga posture practice, is one of the ways many people make some first kind of encounter with the perspectives of yoga. But beyond poses, posture, attitude and seat, what is āsana, what's it all about, what's the story? Recently a student on a training program I spoke on asked me about āsana, this episode offers an initial response, which may well be continued.