12/11/2025
Mindfulness | Dhāraṇā 🧘♀️
Mindfulness is a term most of you have probably heard of. It can be misunderstood and thought of as an attempt to 'empty' your mind.
This is impossible - you simply cannot empty or clear your mind. It is normal to have thoughts - around 6,000 a day according to a 2020 study.
Mindfulness is actually the art of concentration. Of making your mind FULL of one specific thing.
Your mind WILL drift and wander, it is only natural.
It's like training a puppy to sit - they are guaranteed to get distracted by something. But we still love them and we slowly regain their attention and bring them back to focus on the treat and on the command. We have to repeat this over and over again to help them learn.
Your brain is the same. Using our powers of concentration, we compassionately bring our minds back to whatever is our planned focus, with a smile of love at our inner puppy, not a frown or curse. We have to repeat this over and over again to help it learn.
In Yogic philosophy, mindfulness is known as dhāraṇā - concentrating the mind on a single point - an object, mantra or your breath.
By practising dhāraṇā we can hope to achieve dhyāna - effortless meditation where focus dissolves and you enter a state of pure flow and awareness - you become one with your breath or with whatever it is you had been concentrating on.
There is no separation.
This feels most like the 'emptiness' which we wish to achieve.
So, in order to achieve the sensation of a calmer mind, we must first tune in and focus on a specific thing. Training our mind to keep drawing back our awareness to this thing, over and over again.
This concentration can then become the conduit to the peace and quiet of the mind that we so desperately crave, the break from the to do list, upsets form the past, fears of the future, so we can sink into the stillness of the present moment.
🙏💚
