First of all, Shanti-towners, thank you! Because, Shanti Town has now hit 100 followers! Small potatoes in the blog-o-sphere at large, but a big deal for this lady, so thank you, very much! I'm so happy to have you all here!
Ahem. On with the show.
The other day, in the midst of my third wedding-related melt-down in as many days, whilst trying to explain my deep state of overwhelm to my very amazing soon-to-be husband, he gently (as is his way) pointed out to me that perhaps part of the problem wasn't the amount of work to be done, but the way in which I was trying to go about doing it. He reminded me that often it is my habit to try and carry around and accomplish all things at all times, instead of setting out to do just one thing in an allotted amount of time.
The problem, in other words, was focus.
(And just for clarity's sake, let me just say...we are BOTH very involved in the wed-planning. This is not one of those bride doing all the work until she makes herself crazy, situations. Just so ya know. I'm just more prone to, um...crying.)
Okay, so...where was I?
Oh, right. Focus.
Sooooooo...my wise mister suggests it might be about focus. And as soon as he says it, I think back to an interview I had been (re)listening to the day before, with these two writers/parents of an autistic child, about autism. And in the interview at one point the dad talks about how one of the traits common in people with autism is the ability to focus really deeply on something, to the exclusion of all other things. He talked about how this was also a notable trait in most people we consider masters or geniuses, and I remember thinking, even at the time...argh! I'm doomed!!
Not because I don't know how to focus, I do...but because I forget, so often, the importance of focus and instead let the guise of obsessive productivity take it's place.
And I thought about what it's like, you know, to really focus on something...the way that the whole world can just drop away and time sort of fans out, like it might just go on forever. You know that feeling?
So, with all this on my mind and in preparation for classes, I took it to the books...specifically to The Heart of Yoga by Mr. TKV Desikachar (a famous yogi dude), to get a refresher course on the last three limbs of yoga: Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi.
Okay, brief primer: Dhāraṇā is the sixth limb of yoga (of the famed eight limbs that make up the backbone of the yoga philosophy) and it is, essentially, concentration.
Dhyāna, is the seventh limb, otherwise known as, meditation, and;
Samādhi, the eighth limb, which is bliss...absorption...the big tamale, the grand prize at the end of it all: enlightenment, yo.
Okay, so, these last three limbs...they're my favorite (philosophically), because of how beautifully they work together and what a smooth final progression they form to lead a body to bliss. Basically it works like this:
In Dhāraṇā, when you're focused on a singular object (or person or idea, or whatever)...your mind is quiet and moving in just one direction, toward the object of your focus. You're checking it out, you're learning about it, you're mind is on it, and only on it. You're focused.
And if you keep doing this for awhile, you get to move up a level, to Dhyāna...meditation. When you're in Dhyāna, you've still got this movement of your mind and your attention in the direction of your chosen object, but NOW, you've also got stuff coming back at you, from said object. It's vibing you back. And so inspirations are arising in you from the object, insights come seemingly out of nowhere...but it's not nowhere, it's just that the lines of communication have been opened (thanks to your dutiful focus) and now energy is moving in two directions, back and forth. This is Dhyāna.
And last but not least...if you can hang with your meditation, this deepened state of focus, something amazing might just happen...instead of you just sending your attention out to the object or it sending something back at you...now you and the object become one and the same. There is no more you. There is no more object of attention. You are subsumed, consumed, by one another. And this is Samādhi. This is bliss.
And isn't it, though? Isn't that bliss? To be so deeply involved in what you're doing, in what's right in front of you that the whole world, and you, and it...just disappear? I think this is just the most perfect description what deep focus is.
But the magic...the amazing part of this whole process, is that you can't just sit down and DO it. You can't sit down and say, now I'm going to be in Samādhi, or even, now I'm going to focus, because if your mind is wild or distracted or upset, well...good f-ing luck. These are organic states, that arise organically, so the only thing you can do to practice them, is to cultivate an environment that might just have fertile ground from which they can grow.
And that's why we practice.
And that's why we breathe.
And that's why, when we get overwhelmed, it might behoove us just to go for a walk, or read some lovely something, or just sit on our little porch and drink some tea and let the wind brush against us.
Like I am going to go and do...right. now.
