As I said in
a previous post, I pretty recently moved into a place with a yard and have been
doing a little bit of gardening. I have a whole new appreciation for the phrase
“growing like weeds.” Weeds give a very tangible view of what happens when you
are not diligent in your practice. They just keep popping up. A person
could weed every day. I put in some weeding time every weekend and it feels like
if I were to miss a weekend, I’d be fighting an uphill battle to get back on
track.
Sa tu
dirghakala nairantarya satkaradarasevito drdhabhumih is sutra 1.14 (click here to hear it). Practice
becomes firmly grounded by practicing:
1) for a
long time (dirghakala)
2) without
break (nairantarya)
3) with
care, attention, reverence, respect (satkara)
4) with
respect, reverence, care, attention (adara) These must be important since they
are here twice (though not all versions of the sutras include adara). Adara
also includes eagerness.
5)
repeatedly, zealously
This seems
like further definition of the diligence mentioned in sutra 1.13.
Now, I often
think while I’m weeding that there is nothing wrong with weeds, why am I
discriminating against weeds? It’s true. But the thing is, I have to decide
what kind of yard or garden I want—which plants I want and which I don’t want.
And then it’s up to me to work repeatedly over a long time with attention and
zeal to make that happen.
My mind is
like my yard. I decide what kind of environment I want there and then work at
creating that—building focus and discriminating between thoughts that are
helpful and those that are destructive, between those that are true and those
that are not, etc. If you think dealing with the weeds is a serious job, they
are nothing compared to the wily and unruly thoughts in your head! This is
definitely going to require all the things on Patanjali’s list in this sutra.
I think the
part about care seems important (and not just because he says it twice). We
have to pay attention to what we’re doing and whether it is getting the results
we want so that we can continue to refine. If we just want to get rid of the
weeds, we could bulldoze the whole yard. If we just want to clear the mind we
could knock ourselves over the head with a rock. But this job of making our way
to yoga, a state of connection, requires a little more precision than that.
For more info about therapy and
yoga with Stephanie, go to www.seattlesomatictherapy.com
