How to Meditate When Your Mind Has Other Plans

From thought loops to awareness—this is how meditative practice actually works

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Dhāranā

In the early days, when I’d hear about an in-depth yogic teaching, I’d sometimes feel overwhelmed.

There was the Sanskrit terminology to reconcile, words from another language jangling around in my head, or on my palate, as well as the in-depth yogic concepts.

I remember, one day, my teacher was giving ‘program,’ which consisted of meditation, followed by a lecture on Yoga.

In this lecture, he spoke about ‘Dhāranā.’

“Dhāranā,” he told us, “Is the first of the internal limbs on the 8-limbed path of Yoga called Ashtānga.”

Just forming the word dhā-ra-nā in my mouth felt awkward.

I noticed my expression of the word sounded nothing like what he’d said.

my version was clunky, and the stress was off.

He went on, “Dhāranā means concentration, and is the beginning of the internal limbs. We must first develop our concentration then Dhyāna, meditation, is natural.”

It was beautiful what he said. I felt it, but I didn’t understand exactly what it meant.

Sure, I understood the gist: Dhāranā = good = concentration and that leads to Dhyāna.

But what was the point of it all in practice, or in life? I wondered.

And what does an ‘internal limb’ mean?

He continued, “Dhyāna is absorption.” Then as he closed his eyes, he said, “Let go of your mind, watch your thoughts....Absorb in the natural state…”

As his words trailed off, all of us, who were gathered, closed our eyes and following his lead turned inward in meditation.

After a while, feeling a bit antsy, I opened my eyes to see what was happening.

I starred at Guru ji and wondered, what’s his meditation like? What does this feel like for him?

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Working the Practice

A small ceremonial fire pot ablaze, sat on the table in front of him.

The image of his face, absorbed in meditation, mixed with the light of the rising flames, etched in my mind.

I resettled, closing my eyes again, and held the image of his meditative absorption in my mind’s eye. After a while that focus dissolved and left with it the strength to continue to watch my thoughts, and to edge out beyond them.

I told myself, “I am not this body and mind. I’m something more.”

Then I’d wait, with myself, wading through the thoughts, big or small, that cascaded.

“Let go of the mind,” I told myself, and returned to my newbie practice of watching.

But to my dismay, within 2 minutes, I found myself back in a thought loop!

Rolling out, one after another, the thoughts sometimes cut each other off:

“Don’t forget what she said/Did you pick up the books for Jess. Wait, how much vanilla are you putting there/ Wererere gwup sloozu…hg---julj…” and slowly thoughts turned to sound, then sound dissolved into breath, and breath became stillness [In those days, when I was able to see the thoughts, I’d feel annoyed that they existed, I’d let them go, and return to watching. The more I pulled back from them, the more they’d slow, stretch and subside, leaving the surface of the mind calmer for a time].

I repeated the cycle, watch thoughts, get caught in a thought loop, notice that and watch again, until the 45 minutes of our meditation time were up.

I did this daily for years.

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During the time when I did the ‘repeat watch, repeat watch’ etc, I learned something: