Follow the senses

Often when we feel fractured or broken our systems shut down and we cease to relate to the body. Typically we begin to exist only in the head, in the thinking mind which goes on and on in a ceaseless litany that seems to reinforce how broken we are.

The senses and the body are the first steps on our pathway to becoming whole. Yoga (the very word denotes wholeness, coming together) delicately encourages us to tune into the senses and to the sensations of the body.

Start with the five senses

"Every perception is an invitation into revelation. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching –
Ways of knowing creation,Transmissions of electric realization,The deepest reality is always right here."  Radiance Sutra 9

So we begin the process of returning to wholeness by simply opening the senses and tuning into everything that is there: tastes, sounds, smells, light and image, tactile sensations. We often forget to notice that taste, smell and touch are always here with us. Hearing and sight dominate. So pause a moment and see what you taste, what you smell, what are the tactile sensations of air on your skin, or the feeling of your clothes on your skin?

The trick here is to just let everything be here without any judgement. This is especially so with those dominant senses, hearing and sight.

If we have all five of our senses intact we are fortunate. However there is always another side to the equation. When we have sight and hearing, they can override all else. So long as the eyes are open we can be so distracted by the images we see. Who can keep their eyes off the moving images on a television? At least we can close our eyes, but then there are the ears!

As I sat meditating this morning, work started up at the block across the road where new houses are being built. There was no un-hearing it. Men were shouting their communications across the block, trucks were arriving to deliver things and the sound of tools began. The challenge was to let it be without judgement. For when we judge something we become fused with it and then disturbances arise in the emotions and the mind rejects what is here. When it is welcomed into the soup of what is here arising, it just arises and passes through and is not experienced as disturbing.

Consider the following potential protracted sounds in our environment.

• The neighbour's dog barking.
• The sounds of heavy equipment being used in the neighbourhood by a road maintenance crew. 
• Aircraft overhead. 
• People talking in a room where you are trying to work.
• The sound of your own tinnitus

Any of these could become totally distracting if you were to judge it as "negative". If however you can simply welcome it to be here does it not begin to recede into being a background to which you can habituate?

So I celebrate the sounds that were in my environment this morning, they truly gave me the opportunity to practice welcoming what is here along with other sensations, as part of the kaleidoscope of  things arising that come and go yet do not touch the inner me.

Be captivated by sensation

"The body is an oblation to Higher Consciousness" - Siva Sutra II:8

Beyond the senses lies sensation. As we practice asana, especially when we come into some semblance of mastery of technique and we achieve ease in the postures, and during savasana and in meditation, we can begin to attune to the subtler sensations of the body. It may take time to develop sensitivity to these subtler dimensions. That's OK. Give yourself permission to explore and take it at your own pace.

There are profound pay-offs.

Firstly, you will recognise what is harmonious and what is not harmonious in the body. Healthy choices become obvious and desirable. and if the body is facing injury or illness, you will know that early and be able to take early steps towards a remedy.

Then you will also discover how every movement of emotion and thought have their own sensation and location in the body. Recognising this you will have an early warning system and can allow yourself to welcome these as sensations as well and as you do find that when you open the door to them they no longer have to break it down and overwhelm you.

In this way we discover our wholeness.

Quieten the mind

"Yoga happens when there is stilling ... of the movement of thought ..." Yoga Sutra I.2

Because it is impossible to truly feel and think at the same time, tuning into sensation has another magical property - it quietens the mind.

Try it now.

Take a moment to settle, you might want to close over the eyes, then notice the state of your mind, the thoughts that are arising.

Now tune into sensation in the body and identify a part of the body you can truly sense and feel, not visualising it, just feeling. Perhaps your lips, perhaps a hand. Stay with it and allow sensation to fully unfold.

Stay awhile really tuning into sensation.

What happens to thinking?

The inner gaze: drishti, pratyahara and dharana

Do you ever catch yourself out during a yoga class having a wandering gaze? 

Those times when you realise you have been scrutinizing the great tights the girl in front is wearing, checking out the state of your pedicure and wondering how does that person on the next mat manage to always have such neat equipment when your own gets strewn all over the place!

It is great that you noticed, as that is the point at which you can return to the practice, bringing yourself back inside for the concentrated practice of yoga.

Drishta is a Sanskrit word meaning that which is seen, the visible, the manifested. Drishti is a verb - seeing, beholding. In yoga practice it comes to mean focused gaze, whether that is inward or outward. If we "take a drishti" we find a point of focus.

Thus when we are taking a balance pose such as tree pose, we might find a mark on the floor or wall in front of us and turn our gazing there, thus we have a drishti that helps us to balance. The moment we let our eyes wander, are distracted by the wobble of another person in the class, we might begin to lose our balance. The focused gaze keeps us steady.

In other asana practice we might keep our gaze on a part of the body. In Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2) the drishti often suggested is the middle finger of the leading hand. In some traditions it might be the thumb. In Paschimottonasana (seated straight legged forward bend) the drishti might be the toes.

The drishti may be ostensibly outward but there is always an element of the inner gaze in the practice. For this reason it is not a hard gaze but is practised with a soft focus. Practising drishti is actually turning our focus inward. By preventing us from being distracted by the people and objects around us drishti practice allows us to attend more closely to the nuances of the sensations of the body and the movement of energetic flows in the body. Practice with drishti and you might find that a whole class goes by and you have been in a zone of meditative felt sensation in movement and in stillness.

In this way drishti becomes a tool in the practice of pratyahara.

The Sanskrit word pratyahara means withdrawal. In yoga it is offered as a practice of withdrawal of the senses from external objects. Sage Patanjali gives pratyahara as the fifth limb of yoga. It is poised between four external practices, the yamas and niyamas (ethics and behaviours), asana (posture) and pranayama (practices of breath and energy), and three inner, meditative states of dharana (concentration) dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (realisiation).

The drishti, or soft-focussed gaze, loosens our attachment to all of the other sensory stimuli and moves us toward the practice of pratyahara in which we come inward, to the inner gaze.

Drishti is also a step on the path to dharana or concentration. The very act of focus is an act of concentration. The practice of drishti in an asana (posture) practice shifts posture and movement to the realm of meditation and is training in dharana that will come in handy when doing a seated, or still meditation.

If practising drishti eyes open in an asana practice the focus can be anywhere and it will need to shift as you go from one posture to another. The practice here is to be mindful of how it shifts. Some traditions give specific drishti points for different postures (Ashtanga Yoga created by Pattabis Jois gives nine). But what will work for one person may not for another. In Trikonasana (Triangle pose) and Parsvakonasana (side angle pose) you might find your drishti up, out or down. Where do you find balance, where are you turning inward? Go there!

A short drishti practice

Seated or standing, start with the hands in anjali mudra (prayer position) before the heart centre. Gaze softly at the finger tips.

Keep the gaze at the fingertips as you slowly point the fingers out, and then roll the hands to palms up, fingertips still touching.

Draw the hands apart opening arms wide and then raising them overhead as you try to keep the fingertips of both hands in view, note how they move to the peripheral vision. What happens when they disappear from view? Let the head turn up, eyes seeking the finger tips as you draw the hands together in anjali mudra (prayer hands) above the head. Your drishti will need to be content with the heels of the hands, but then as the hands draw back down to the heart, there are the fingertips in sight again.

Repeat a few times to see how it goes. You might then incorporate this into your asana practice next time you are on the mat.