19 practices

A dharana of direct self-enquiry within a tantric, non-dual framework — questioning the sense of 'I' not by withdrawing from experience, but by asking what actually experiences it.

One of the tantra's most distinctive dharanas: rather than withdrawing from intense embodied sensation, it directs the meditator to stay fully present within the peak of that intensity itself, using it directly as the doorway.

A dharana that moves the outward gaze at the sky inward — attending to the dark, spacious field perceived behind closed eyes, traditionally called Chidakasha, the 'space of consciousness.'

A dharana of resting the gaze on a clear, featureless sky — using its boundlessness and lack of any single object to fix upon as a direct reflection of the boundless nature of awareness itself.

A dharana that uses the vertiginous feeling of looking down into a deep well or precipice — the momentary drop of ordinary composure it triggers is used directly as a doorway.

A dharana using suspended breath — held out after a full exhale, or held in after a full inhale — as a way of stilling the fluctuations of mind that ordinarily ride along with the rhythm of breathing.

A dharana of listening to a continuous sound — classically a stringed instrument, a bell, or flowing water — and following it inward past the point where the outer sound fades, into the subtler inner sound (Nada) it points toward.

A dharana that uses the simple, everyday act of eating or drinking as a doorway — dwelling fully in the sensation of taste itself, rather than treating it as background to some other activity.

A dharana of fixed, unblinking gazing at a single point until the eyes tire and ordinary visual engagement with the world gives way to something steadier underneath it.

A physically active dharana: swinging or rotating the body until the familiar sense of a fixed, stable self loosens, using disorientation itself as the doorway rather than stillness.

A dharana of entering deep darkness with eyes open, using the absence of any visible form as a doorway rather than something to be afraid of or to fill with imagined light.

A dharana that uses a remembered object or place not as something to dwell on, but as a pointer back to the bare experience underneath the memory — dropping the content of what is recalled while keeping the raw fact of having experienced it.

A dharana built entirely on unplanned, ordinary jolts to consciousness — the start or end of a sneeze, a flash of terror or sorrow, fleeing from danger, intense curiosity, the edge of hunger — each treated as a momentary doorway to the same ground the other dharanas approach through formal sitting.

One of the most famous of the 112 dharanas: attend to the brief gap where an inbreath turns into an outbreath, and where an outbreath turns into an inbreath — Bhairava-nature is said to shine forth exactly there.

One of the most quoted of the 112 dharanas: rather than attending to any object at all, rest attention in the gap or empty space between two objects — or, equally, in the pause between two thoughts.

A dharana that uses the drowsy threshold state just before sleep — neither fully waking nor fully asleep — as a doorway, since ordinary mental control has already begun to loosen there on its own.

A dharana that redirects rather than restrains attention: whatever the mind is drawn to, inward or outward, is met directly and held as the object of meditation itself, on the premise that nothing the mind can land on is separate from the one consciousness.

A vigorous dharana of continuous whirling or spinning until the body can no longer sustain the effort — the sudden collapse and stillness that follows is used as the moment of direct exposure to bare awareness.

A dharana of gazing at an object and then slowly withdrawing both the gaze and the mental knowledge of it, letting the object's impression dissolve rather than simply looking away, until only an open void of attention remains.