Mini-Lessons on Contemplative Practice, Intention

As Norm Farb explained at the recent workshop on the neuroscience of contemplative practices, the regular practice of yoga (including meditation) clears out the static, the noise, of the mind. Norm likened the practice to weeding an overgrown, untended garden plot. You go in, you pull out the weeds, and you prepare the soil for new seeds to be cultivated. With the practice, we are weeding and preparing the soil of our beings to begin to cultivate new values and intentions.

Both yoga and meditation have inherent values as outlined for thousands of years in the teachings. In yoga, we have the yamas (non-harming, non-lying, non-stealing, non-grasping, and celibacy or regulation of sexual energy so as to cause no harm) and the niyamas (self-care, contentment, rigorous practice, self-study, and dedication or devotion or surrender to the divine), and in meditation, there is the Buddha's Eightfold Path (Wholesome View, Intention, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, Concentration) and the Five Precepts (Refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrong speech, and intoxicants). When we practice yoga and meditation, the idea is that we pull the weeds and plant these seeds, or virtues, or intentions.

But as yoga and meditation are often taught here in the present day in the West without these ancient value-driven underpinnings, what are we planting during practice? If we do not plant things intentionally in our newly prepared soil, just about anything could be getting cultivated without our awareness. Is it the values of your teacher? Or values you were raised with as a child that may or may not be useful to you now? Do we continue to practice unhealthy habits of mind (harmful self-thought, blame, greed, hatred, delusion, etc.), unwittingly planting those things back into the waiting soil of the mind?

As part of your practice, set an intention. Let that intention infuse your efforts. If it is useful, continue to study with teachers that study and teach the philosophy of the practices as well as the practices themselves. Or do the studying for yourself. Study is a part of the practice of both meditation and yoga. But perhaps the most important thing is to continue to practice, and, each time you practice, work with an intention. What seed will you cultivate and lovingly tend in today's practice?