Buddha's Kriya: ripping away the attention
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Apr 16, 2017
MiBeloved 5 years ago
During exercises this morning there was a flash of a location in South Korea, where earlier this year, I visited three Buddha deities. After the flash it was like there was a live connection to those persons, three deities; one being Gautama Buddha, the other being Bhaishavya Buddha and the other being Amitabha Buddha. I greeted them with the respects due to deities and spiritual masters.
I was especially wanting to thank Amitabha Buddha for some assistance rendered in the working of the Anu Gita book which is just about finished in two publications, one with just an English translation and one with detailed commentary. He assisted with getting the right English words to express what was told in the Sanskrit.
After these greetings which were going on simultaneously as I was doing breath infusion in various postures at a place in northern Alabama, Gautama Buddha said he wanted to say something about using mantras during yoga asana and pranayama practice. The use of mantras then is different to its use during meditation practice. This was his instruction:
A yogi whose mind is obedient, whose mind is clean, whose mind does not generate thoughts, images and ideas should not use a mantra. There is no need for it then. If during postures and breath infusement practice, the yogi finds that thoughts keep arising and that some attention is forcibly going to such thoughts and images, then a mantra can be used.
Which mantra should it be?
The yogi should get a mantra from a senior yogi, who has used a particular mantra and had success with it and knows when to release the self from such use of the said mantra. In India, the most popular mantra used is:
Om namo Shivaya.
In Tibet it is:
Om mani padme hum.
Om is standard as the introductory sound and is also the concluding sound as hum in the Tibetan bija mantra.
In my time some yogis used Om alone, which was chanted for hours during practice. Hopefully a student can get a mantra which was used by an advanced teacher to completion, so that the process is already tested and proven in the progress of that teacher.
When doing the asana postures and breath infusion practice, if the attention is diverted to a thought, and if the attention was hijacked by the intellect, one should confiscate it from the intellect and put it on the required focus. But if one finds that when one does this the intellect again confiscates the attention in turn and takes the attention back to the thoughts and images, then one should take help from a mantra. With the mantra being repeated mentally (ajapa not japa) one will have the force to cause the attention to be released from the intellect so that the attention can be on the required focus.
So what is the focus?
If you are doing a posture to infuse breath energy into the knee for instance, then that area of the subtle body is the focus and the attention should be there. It should not at that time be in the head with thoughts or images or ideas. Even if only a small part of it is with the thoughts, that is a diversion and a mantra may be used as a last resort if one finds that one does not have the power to capture all the attention energy.
This is called ripping away the attention from the intellect and in time it will cause the yogi to have full success in the process of segregating the attention force from the intellect which usually commands that force and forces the self to perceive and permit many ideas, images and thoughts.
