Practice, Practice, Practice and Non-Attachment

Abhyasavairagyabhyam tannirodhah, sutra 1.12, was the topic of the very first yoga class I ever taught. I always liked this simple recipe. The restraint of this mindstuff (referring back to 1.2 and the last sutras with their descriptions of the fluctuations) happens through practice (abhyasa) and non-attachment (vairagya). You have to work hard and at the same time not be attached to the outcome. So, for instance, I now have a yard and I get to plant things. I have spent a lot of time digging and weeding and picking out plants, knowing full well that they may or may not do well. This is going to be a learning process. My mind wouldn’t be calm if I were attached to having a beautiful garden on the first try—every time a leaf turns brown or a plant looks wilty, I would get upset. I also don’t think my mind would be calm if I decided not to work in the yard at all because I don’t really know what I’m doing. There is a lot of frustration in not taking action. (Plus, really this isn’t really non-attachment because I still have an expectation of how things should go and that’s what I’m basing my decision on). To take action and not know is practice and non-attachment.

There is another sutra at the beginning of the second chapter that is very similar to this one. It lists three ingredients instead of two: tapah (effort), svadhyaya (self-study) and ishvara pranidhana (surrender). I have always thought that Patanjali put an extra step in, in case we weren’t getting it with just the two. What occurred to me recently is that really this is a clarification of practice. Practice is not just working or putting in effort. What actually makes it practice is the inclusion of self-study. Practice is something we do over time, observing what happens, so that we can make adjustments and improve. So if I plant the garden and everything dies, I look at what I did and see what I can do differently and then I try again. (Effort + self-study = practice)

I was recently at a Vedic chant training and there was a lot of abhyasa and vairagya. Vedic chanting is very precise and there are a lot of things to pay attention to—the notes, the vowels, the double consonants, the tongue position, the way the phrases link together, etc. So it is all about practice. We chant and listen and refine and listen and do it again and again—we practice. For me the non-attachment is about not getting attached to the idea of being “done” with a chant (“oh, I’ve got that one now, I don’t need to work on it anymore) and not attaching meaning to whether or not I did it well or made mistakes (i.e., it doesn’t mean anything about me if I was the “best” or “worst” one on a certain chant). And guess what? Non-attachment takes practice! For me, the practice of non-attachment on the training was harder than the practice of the chant itself.

So, speaking of chanting, you can hear me chanting this sutra on SoundCloud. Once you are there, you can find all the other sutras before this as well.

For more info about therapy and yoga with Stephanie, go to www.seattlesomatictherapy.com