Feb 04, 2009
i listened to the humming of the water heater some 20 meters away. it was the only sound which was disturbing my peace of mind and concentration. the less i tried to think about it, the more acute its presence became. finally, it stopped. i smiled inside knowing i could now go deeper into my practice. then, i became aware of the laptop humming in the corner. it now had my full attention.
my mind seems to be searching or looking for something or another to fix itself on; almost always. the skill i would like to continue developing is to give it subtler and subtler objects of focus. how will it behave when there is nothing left to perceive?
Recently we have been doing short meditations during tai chi class while a brown belt kung fu class works out on the other side of the room. Those guys are huffing and puffing, occaisionally yelling and stomping. Master Joe reminds us to acknowledge and accept the sounds but to not interact with them.
Clearly, we are doing a different style of meditation, focusing more on the breathing mechanism than our mental state, but only shades of difference. We are encouraged to expand our awareness out to the entire room, to be aware of everything going on around us while at the same time being invested in the internal.
Paradoxically, we are encouraged to be aware of the external surroundings in order to increase our awareness of the internal. This is part of his ‘open focus’ study. According to those theories, attempting to block out something and focus directly on something else creates tension. I have found this to be a useful way of thinking in my meditations.
You observed that your ‘mind seems to be searching for something to fix itself on’–i’m sure that anyone who has done meditation can relate to that, I know I can. Are you trying to ‘block’ out these distractions, or would you use a different word, maybe just focusing instead on the internal? Are we using different images to accomplish the same goal–a clearer perception of the internal? Have your teachers talked about how to relate to this kind of external distraction while meditating?
I remember when Master Joe first related “open focus” to me. It reminded me strongly of a practice we learned called Antar Mouna. In the first stage of this practice, the mind is consciously externalized to listen to all possible sounds. The effect is the mind becomes satiatied, then bored, then does the opposite – begins to internalize. I agree, experientially, that trying to block out creates tension.
I wasn’t trying to block out the humming of the water heater, but noticed it was irritating me. My desire for that sound to go away felt more an expression of my frustration that I could not be at peace with it.
I thinking tuning out external distractions is completely possible and opens a different dimension of perception. In yogic terminology, this is the art of pratyahara – sense control in both directions (contraction and expansion).
This happens every night when we go to sleep. The sense organs still receive input, but the intellect filters them out; all the while a different reality may experienced internally such as when dreaming.
The practices I have been learning in the Satyananda tradition also emphasize openness and awareness to external distractions in a systematic process whereby the mind chooses to drop them or at least not react to them. For example, in the practice of body stillness, the body may still be felt, but it is inconsequential as the sensations being registered to not cause pain or pleasure.