Yoga Teacher Training Journeys

On Quietness

The poet Rumi puts into words the things that can’t be thought with the mind; the joy and beauty of an open heart and the experience of  emptiness and quietness that comes from dhyana (when the meditator is not conscious of the act of meditation, but is only aware that s/he exists).

Rumi was a thirteenth century Sufi poet and he writes of love and surrender in a way that touches my heart so deeply. I totally feel him! Sometimes after sitting I read a poem or two – his words have a way of dropping into the stillness and just landing perfectly in my heart.

I wanted to write about the turning point in my practice.  When I started to move beyond the body focused discipline of asana and gradually turned my attention inward. I wanted to write about the stillness. It’s really hard!

Pranayama (breath control) really helped to cultivate a calm and quiet mind. I practice Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) daily because it’s really amazing for concentration.  It focuses and directs the attention internally, allowing awareness to settle on the breath, then I can move toward pratyhara (withdrawal of the senses) and letting go.

I practice insight meditation at the moment, contemplating the nature of things, whatever is arising in the moment – ‘choice-less awareness’. As my mind gets very quiet I begin to experience the stillness underneath the breath. I try and revisit this stillness everyday. 

Sometimes when it’s very quiet I experience the sound of silence.  The Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sumedho talks of “a high frequency sound, a ringing sound that’s always there… when you begin to hear that sound of silence, it’s a sign of emptiness – of silence of the mind”. So a lot of days this is my anchor. It’s a silence that I crave and that is always there.

That’s what yoga practice teaches me. That I have already arrived. I’m already home, I just need to wake up from that trance/dream that this is not so. Practice helps me to wake up and live fully.  It’s so beautiful.

Quietness 
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into colour.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the other side. Die,
And be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
That you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
From silence. 
The speechless full moon
Comes out now. 

Rumi 

Written by Davina Kruse, one of the Byron Yoga Centre Teachers

RSS Feeds