One of the very odd things about beginning meditation and yoga late in life is how they both tie back into and touch the life I lived before.
Both practices are concerned with inner peace, which would not seem to connect with either my years as a soldier or my years as a competitor.
But in the last year, the connections pop up in my practice of meditation and yoga, and I smile.
In my beginner yoga classes we did several balance poses: tree, airplane, and others. The key to doing these well is Drishti: focusing on a single point throughout the pose.
No problem for me. From bike racing, when I am climbing a long hill needing to maintain 95% of max heart rate, but not more, I focus on a point as high as I can see on the climb. I am going there. All of my effort is to get there, as smoothly as I can.
From firing a rifle, being able to focus, to be firmly grounded, my breath in control, is Drishti and puts me on target.
Today's meditation was on attention and awareness. Awareness is being able to perceive what is in my environment. Attention is focusing on one particular thing in my environment, even for a moment. When I am on guard or security duty, I maintain awareness of the area around me with all my senses. When I sense something that is a threat or out of place, I put all my attention on that spot, even for a moment.
Two people read the same book, watch the same movie, walk the same street and have a very different experience. Meditation and yoga give me a peaceful perception of some very hostile environments from my life. And I feel joy.
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