Tristhāna: The Three Dwelling Places (Part 1, Breath)
In the first book of the yoga sūtra Patañjali shares the definition of yoga: yogaś citta vṛtti nirodha, or yoga is restraining the fluctuations of the mind. That’s all yoga is, a turning inward and learning to work with our minds. Restraining the fluctuations of the mind equates to equanimity, not being rattled by our attachment to pleasure and our aversion to hardship. Yoga is to be able to stay in our calm, unwavering center no matter what life throws at us.
In Patañjali’s yoga sūtra he lays out a path for us to follow to achieve the outcome of yoga, or stilling of the mind. This 8-fold path, aṣṭāṅga yoga, focuses on developing our ethics and morals, and creating the conditions from which we can begin to work with the mind. In the yoga sūtra the primary means of working with the mind is through various levels of meditative practice.
Now, if you’ve ever tried to sit and meditate when your mind is full and busy, you know it’s no easy task. Heck, it’s tough to sit and read a book when your mind is busy, let alone, sit in stillness. So, the path laid out for us in Patańjali’s sūtra is only beneficial if we’ve first learned to concentrate our awareness and hone our attention.
In the west, we generally think of yoga as just the āsana, or the yoga postures we practice on our mat, and we view those āsana in a very physical way - a way to get more flexible or a way to get more strong. In fact, the primary aim of the āsana is to help us observe our mind. Through yoga āsana we can begin to see our tendencies, our preferences, our habitual responses and reactions to challenge, and so much more. But how can we observe our minds when we are wrapped up thinking about an upcoming work project, the fight we just had with our partner before we left home, or we’re otherwise busy observing everyone else in the room?
Tristhāna is a three-fold technique to help us anchor our attention to the present moment and begin developing the tools and skills we need to calm the fluctuations of the mind so we can practice Patañjali’s path of meditation. Tristhāna is the Sanskrit word that means “to have three dwelling places”, and is a technique comprised of three practices for focusing the mind; breath, bandha and dṛṣṭi.
Over the next few weeks we will explore all three components of the tristhāna technique, beginning this week with breath.
BREATH:
Breath is the foundational practice of the tristhāna technique. Centering our attention on our breath helps to anchor us to the present moment, allowing the thoughts in our minds to settle, providing us space in which we can begin to observe our tendencies. Two prānāyāma techniques, in particular, are most beneficial in anchoring our attention during āsana practice; sama vṛtti and ujjayi.
Sama vṛtti means equal fluctuation, indicating that the breath is steady and even. We are breathing in and out for the same length of time, with the same effort and depth, moving the same volume of air. This sama vṛtti breathing creates a cadence and a rhythm that is calming and soothing, and is the foundation of our breathing practice during āsana. If you do nothing else during your āsana practice, you should at the very least be focused on this slow, steady rhythm of breath.
Once we’ve developed the cadence of a rhythmic sama vṛtti breath, we can begin the yogic practice of ujjayi prānāyāma. The word ujjay comes from the root word ut, which means intense, and the word jaya, which means victory. Ujjayi, or the victorious breath, is a technique for focusing in the mind. Breathing in and out through the nose, creating a slight constriction at the glottis (the back of the throat), giving the breath something to gently hug against, we begin to generate a soft whispering sound, like the should the letter “H” makes. Some people liken this sound to the sound of waves lapping the shore, others to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves on the trees. Whichever imagery you prefer, the soft sound this breathing technique creates, and the effort required to maintain this sounding breath, both serve as a focal point, concentrating your attention on the present moment, and away from the scattered thoughts.
We are breathing all day long. Breath is a function of our autonomic nervous system, meaning that breath is involuntary, automatic, and we don’t even have to think about it for it to happen. What’s unique about the breath, as opposed to other functions of the autonomic nervous system, is that in addition to it being involuntary, we also have the ability to harness and control the breath, turning something automatic into something deliberate. We know, from science, that our breath can influence our mood, our state of mind, our attention and our body awareness, so when we breath deliberately we become the masters of our own internal environment. And at its core, this is what yoga is, the ability to stay in our calm, unwavering center, despite the chaos life might throw our way.
“When you own your breath, no one can steal your peace”