3.1 · The Tethered Mind

Concentration is binding the mind to one place.

Word by word

deśa

place, spot, region

bandhaḥ

binding, tying

cittasya

of the mind

dhāraṇā

concentration; literally, holding

Where it fits

Pāda 3, the Vibhūti Pāda, sets out what saṃyama is and what it yields, from powers to liberation (3.55). Vyāsa joins it straight to 2.55: the five outer limbs have been described, and now concentration is to be described (p. 203). So 3.1 defines the sixth limb of 2.29.

Reading

The third pāda opens with the inward limbs: concentration, meditation and absorption, which together are called saṃyama (3.4). Dhāraṇā is the first: choose one place and tie the attention to it. Vyāsa's commentary names some places: the circle of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the head, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, or an outer object. The binding is gentle and repeated. The attention wanders and is tied again, and that returning is the practice.

Vyāsa

“Concentration is binding the mind, simply as a movement of thought, to a place: the circle of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the head, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, or other places like these, or else an outer object.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 203.

Practice

Choose one place: the spot below the nostrils where the breath touches. Rest your attention there for twenty-one breaths. When it wanders, notice where it went, then tie it back. Count the returns, not as a score but as the number of times you practised.

A question to sit with

Where does your attention need to return?

Where commentators disagree

What is the 'place' the mind is bound to, and is the outer object meant to be a sacred form?

Vyāsa

The mind is bound, as a movement of the mind, to a place in the body (the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the head, the tip of the nose or tongue) or to an outer object. He does not say what the outer object should be. (Woods 1914, p. 203)

Vācaspati Miśra

Glosses the outer object as an 'auspicious support' such as Hiraṇyagarbha, Vāsava or Prajāpati, and quotes the Viṣṇu Purāṇa's long description of Viṣṇu's form as the model object for concentration. (Woods 1914, p. 204)

Vijñānabhikṣu

As reported by Mitra, he explains Vyāsa's 'outer object' as the image of a deity. (Mitra 1883, note on 3.1 (wisdomlib transcription))

Bhoja

Names only places in the body, such as the circle of the navel or the tip of the nose, and describes the yogin fixing the mind there in a quiet place, sitting upright. He says nothing of an outer object. (Tatya 1885, pp. 94–95; Mitra 1883, wisdomlib on 3.1)

Key ideas

saṃyama (holding together), aṣṭāṅga (the eight limbs), citta (the mind-field)