Frank Jude Boccio

Frank Jude Boccio (born 1956) is a teacher and the originator of Mindfulness Yoga as he distinguishes his approach, based upon the Buddha's teaching of satipatthana, from Mindful Yoga, which simply emphasizes doing postures mindfully. He explains the difference in his blog where he writes "In mindful yoga, one is practicing asana mindfully; in Mindfulness Yoga one is practicing mindfulness in the posture." He is known both for his teaching in centres across America, and for his 2004 book Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind, which describes a practice that combines yoga as exercise and Buddhist meditational practice.

Life

Education and training

Frank Jude Boccio began practising Buddhism in New York at the age of 18. He read Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland, obtaining a graduate-level diploma but deciding not to write a thesis and hence obtain an M.A. In 1989, he began a period of study under Lyn Fine and Patricia Hunt-Perry in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh; in 1997 he was ordained into the Tiep Hien order. He then studied under Samu Sunim, who ordained him as a dharma teacher in 2007.

He studied a variety of styles of modern yoga including Iyengar, Anusara, Ashtanga, Integral and Kundalini. He is a certified preventive and rehabilitative yoga teacher and therapist via the Bateman Institute. Georg Feuerstein has certified him for the Yoga Research and Education Center's 750-hour teacher training program.

He has written articles for magazines including Tricycle, Yoga Journal, Shambhala Sun, Spring Wind, Namaskar, Elephant Journal, and Experience Life.

Reception

Mindfulness Yoga

Phil Catalfo, reviewing Mindfulness Yoga for Yoga Journal, wrote that it was not surprising that many yoga practitioners also studied Buddhist practice, as the traditions have common roots, but that Boccio's was the first "successful book-length discourse" that properly integrated the practices. In Catalfo's view, Boccio shows that Buddhist practice "is itself a form of yoga, presenting a meditational approach to asana practice". He writes that the book consists mainly of four sequences, each of some dozens of "familiar poses": "Body as Body"; "Feelings as Feelings"; "Mindfully Aware"; and "Dharmas in the Dharmas", the headings intentionally reflecting the Anapanasati Sutta which combines mindful breathing with the direction of the attention to these four areas. Obstacles to combining them included Buddhist masters' warnings that hatha yoga's focus on the body encouraged a dangerous obsession with something that inevitably decayed, while modern yoga's energetic workouts did not look like serious spiritual practice. However, in the 21st century, hatha yoga is, she writes, regularly forming "an integral part of the schedule at Vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist retreats". Cushman writes that Boccio "solidly locates hatha yoga practice in Buddhist history and philosophy, emphasizing the mindfulness techniques laid out in the Anapanasati Sutta and Satipatthana Sutta".

In 2008, Nora Isaacs noted in Yoga Journal that Boccio and others such as Janice Gates, Cyndi Lee, Phillip Moffitt, and Sarah Powers, had "each, independently, discovered the benefits of merging mindfulness with asana", leading to "something we might call 'mindful yoga'."

Personal life

Boccio has two daughters, one 36 years older than the other, and lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Works