How to Train Your Dragon: Guiding Meditation

How to train your dragon: Skillfully guiding students through the 3 rings of awareness

A dragon represents a subtle and powerful force that is contained within us, that we mstu awaken and learn to direct in order to attain our true nature. In the yogic tradition this would be the energy of the kundalini coiled up at the base of the spine. It is awakened when one encounters real teachings, and applies themselves to those teaching with true effort over time. As meditation teachers we are not responsible for awakening anyone’s kundalini, or inventing practices for them to do— we are only responsible for teaching people how to use the practices to grow. We are teaching them how to ride their Dragon.

The process of teaching meditation is a process of refining our awareness and bringing it within, from the physical to the subtle. In Shiva Sutra 3.4 we see this described in beautiful terms as circles or rings of awareness that we learn to place our awareness within. Ribngsthat it is our ability to place our awareness within subtler and subtler rings that defines our spiritual growth, and teaching meditation is no different.  “You must make all the circles (kalās) in your body enter one into the other from gross to subtle…You have to make the gross body enter into the subtle body, and you have to make the subtle body enter into the subtlest body.” 3.4. Each ring is smaller than the one before it, indicating a level of surrender and skillfulness that is required to pass through it. 

The Physical Ring

Flying through the first ring is easy for some and hard for others, don’t skip over this part. The physical body is the first and largest circle or ring that we pass through. This is the work of simply showing up at the cushion, being able to sit still, and putting in the time to practice. If you can’t pass through this circle, how can you expect to pass through a smaller one? One should really try to connect to the act of finding one’s center, and a balanced almost weightless position. This can be overlooked, but even just a little attention here can go a long way. 

The Subtler Ring

This is the majority of our work. The work of flying through this ring represents the work of the practice itself. We must always check in with ourselves and ensure that we are teaching that which we were given. It’s easy for practices to get embellished over time with ways that we may have adapted them, but take time to read satsang texts, listen to the guided practices and be sure to teach the practice you were given with integrity. There is no doubt that you will need to be creative in this endeavor, which we will talk about soon, but it should have a baseline from which to begin. 

Skillful Effort over time: It is also important to to recognize that this ring requires surrender and skillful means to fly through. The only way to fit through this ring is to shed aspects of our concrete reality, that’s surrender. And that kind of work takes practice. This means we need to be clear with our instruction and be willing to repeat them many times over, with slightly different emphasis along the way. If you stay connected to your inner sensation of the practice this will happen naturally. If you stay in your head, it will just sound repetitive. This also means that if we add a quote at random, change the visualization, or just go off on a tangent, our students will essentially have to start over, flying through a new ring with new layers of work. Keep it simple and try not to change the target. 

This subtler ring is a bridge between two worlds. It has elements of the physical, because that’s where we’re coming from, and it has aspects of the subtle, because that’s where we’re going. These cues should take you from the physical to the subtle in a simple repetitive way. You’ll notice that some of your favorite cues might have skillfully combined these two worlds, and thus were effective for you. A couple of cues that I remember being taught that bridged these two worlds were: 

“As you continue doing your mantra from the heart, imagine a small mouth there, and let your attention sink down and repeat the mantra from that space”

“Let the attention you keep in your head, all the attention we keep in our eyes and ears, sink down with each breath into the heart…Let your attention sink…sink down with each breath…sink into the heart.”

The Subtlest Ring

This ring is optional, and can’t be forced. It represents a merging with the practice, a state of being beyond the mind. 

“Gross has entered into subtle and subtle has entered into subtlest. And when, in the end, your mind becomes unminded, then you are one with God. There is no difference between your being and God. (Vijñānabhairava 56)” 

This subtlest circle is a cue that is the result of your own personal experience merging with a higher energy that is available in the moment of teaching. It is a teaching that is beyond your mind, and even beyond your own personal capacity in many cases. The state you can reach in meditation while you teach is often far beyond the state you reach when you are on your own. It’s the benefits of teaching. 

Maybe you have heard teachers in this school giving you a cue to merge with Tara, for example, during Tara practice. Or to let yourself dissolve completely into the space of the heart. Or to feel the energy running up to the crown with joy bubbling up. These kinds of cues should come directly from an inner spark of awareness, not from the mind. If you are really feeling something, then it benefits your students. If you aren’t, then it will just frustrate them. We can’t will this state of being into existence, we can only do our practice and let it arrive. And even when it does arrive, we can only be grateful, and allow it to pass through us, surrendering it afterwards and continuing to do the work that got us there. It’s exactly the fact that we can’t make it happen that makes it magic, and it shows us that our focus should always be on our work, because that’s the only way it arrives. 

“If it were to be produced, it would no longer be eternal. It cannot be ordered about. Then why all this pother about gaining the turya consciousness? What is the value of the upayas or Yogic disciplines mentioned in the Siva-Sutras? The answer is that though it remains as the background of all we are and do, we are unaware of it. It is not a feature of our normal consciousness. The upayas are mentioned so that we may prepare ourselves for its reception.” Shiva sutras commentary, Singh, 41

So don’t miss out on this opportunity to teach from a higher state. Always reach inside for a real experience of your practice while you teach. As Patanjali says, that when you might really understand it: “Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight, but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss. Following that is the comprehension that all is the Self (yoga).” 1.17