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THE EIGHTH LIMB: ABSORPTION (SAMADHI)

One is rigorously awakened by
stirring the desire for enlightenment itself.

Dogen Zenji

You can hear the smile in Heather’s voice as she talks about the day she took her father to his first yoga class. She is a senior manager at a wellness resort in the southwestern United States. At one time, her father had been an elite runner who placed in the Boston marathon. As a runner, her father had always been attentive to the warm-up, cool-down stretching that athletes do. Aging eventually slowed him down, and some of the activities that once had fueled his passion became unavailable to him. Heather’s sporadic attempts to get him interested in yoga had gone nowhere until he was in his eighties. While he was visiting from the East Coast, she finally persuaded him to come to the resort and take a yoga class with her.

“Our mission here [at the wellness resort] is intended to be holistic. What we do has a spiritual aspect that is centered on mindfulness and living your life in a fully present way. So many times I had tried to explain to my dad what mindfulness is, and why it is important to me, but he just wasn’t interested,” Heather says. “On the way to the yoga class, I was trying again to make him understand the shift that happens when you are truly present. But it didn’t seem to resonate or even interest him. He was looking out the window, saying, ‘Uh huh … Uh huh.’”

It turned out that Heather and her father were the only two people in the yoga class that day, which meant the teacher could lavish abundant attention on her father. Being athletic and competitive, her father was pleased to discover that he was good at yoga. He moved from pose to pose with deep concentration, going inward with an intensity that Heather hadn’t seen for a long time.

When the instructor brought them out of savasana, her father looked at Heather and said, “What’s the deal? We’re done? You don’t think I am capable of doing a 90-minute class?”

“It was a 90-minute class, Dad,” Heather said. “We have been doing yoga for 90 minutes.”

Her father looked skeptical and, after a glance at the clock, surprised. “I was in the zone, I guess,” he said. “Everything else just fell away. It feels to me like hardly any time has passed at all.”

“This is what I have been trying to explain to you,” Heather told her father. “You experienced mindfulness. You were fully present.”

Her father continued to practice yoga until his death a few years later.

Yoga’s eight limbs are like a flower bud. As each layer of petals opens, it reveals the next, and the next, until the fragrant core of full blossoming is revealed. At the peak of its bloom, the flower is fully realized. Samadhi is self-realization, the full bloom of yoga. All the limbs of yoga are designed to lead you to samadhi.

The Shabhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen describes the Eighth Limb as “a non-dualistic state of consciousness.” The Sanskrit translation of samadhi means “to bring together, to merge.” In the Sutras, it is described as uniting oneself or being absorbed into a collective consciousness or the divine. In this flowering, the Self unites with the Ultimate Reality. Ego disappears. In modern language, you might describe this as being “in the zone.” Reality shifts. In her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert described the experience like this: “Time gets all screwy in this thunderous space, and I am taken—numbed, dumbed, and stunned—to all sorts of worlds, and I experience every intensity of sensation.”

The Sutras and various yoga masters describe up to four different states of samadhi, the highest of which is described by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as “a state which you cannot describe.” While all that might sound a little wild for the world of work, it is not as bizarre as it might seem. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait points out that “The art of living in the world can be mastered without ignoring the supreme goal of life. When we achieve this mastery while retaining our spiritual focus, we achieve a state of balance and harmony, disregarding neither worldly obligations nor spiritual needs.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a renowned researcher in the area of happiness and creativity, has written extensively about a state he describes as “flow,” which has the same qualities as those attributed to samadhi. He says the key to achieving this state is developing the ability to “control the contents of our consciousness.” This is what ultimately allows people to determine the quality of their lives. His research supports the notion that achieving this state in a work setting is not uncommon, and he asserts that the best place to have this sort of experience is while we are doing meaningful work. When work offers high-challenge, high-skill opportunities, it engenders feelings of concentration, creativity, and satisfaction “flow.” In this situation, he says, “Your sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel a part of something larger.”

Some of the practices that lead you toward samadhi—particularly pratyahara, dharana, dhyana—might seem antithetical to the workplace. It’s probably hard to imagine an on-the-job scenario where you are encouraged to withdraw your senses, spend time in a dimly lit room looking inward, or silently chant a mantra while sitting at your desk with your eyes closed. Even so, if you were to achieve samadhi in the course of your work, it would look like dedication, creativity, and commitment. You would be consistently energized, enthusiastic, productive, and content. You would be, as they say, “absorbed by your work.”

Yet samadhi is more than just losing track of time or becoming unaware of your surroundings for a time. Zoning out at a meeting, for instance, could be a sign of boredom or an untrained mind. You might get lost working on a project to the point that time flies, but that may just speak to an ability to focus intently. Samadhi is more than that, because it is accompanied by a shift in consciousness. “Whether we are experiencing samadhi or not is not shown by sitting cross-legged with closed eyes and a meaningful expression on our face,” says T. K. V. Desikachar. “We know we are experiencing samadhi if we can see and understand things that we could not see or understand before.”

Brynne, a healthcare professional who has practiced yoga for nearly a decade, remembers having such a shift in an unlikely “union” with a difficult woman that forever altered the way she attends to patients. She is a physician’s assistant, and was working in a public health clinic when she walked into an examination room and had a visceral negative reaction to the obese and unkempt woman she saw.

“When you walk into an examination room, you get an immediate first impression. Usually the first thought is ‘sick’ or ‘not sick.’ My first impression was, ‘Whoa. This is not a beautiful individual.’” The woman was surrounded by several concerned family members, but she didn’t seem to have symptoms that needed immediate attention. What she mostly had was a bucketful of complaints. Even in a medical setting, Brynne knows that not everyone you see is obviously sick, “but you still have to figure out a way to help them.”

As the patient let loose her litany of gripes, Brynne was awash in judgment about the woman’s sharp tone, edgy demeanor, and annoying mannerisms. But what really got her attention was the woman’s out-of-control anger. She could feel herself tensing up in a way she knew would not be useful. For the briefest of moments, Brynne closed her eyes and connected to her breath. Inhale, exhale. In that moment, she felt the shift. “It was almost like I disappeared. I imagined that woman as me. She was me. Her face was mine. Her body, her family—all mine. Even her anger was mine.” The judgment about the patient’s looks, her mannerisms, and anger dissipated as Brynne became totally absorbed in helping this woman. The experience took on a surreal quality, as though she was attending to herself.

“We ended up having an amazing conversation. After a while, she calmed down, and I consulted with a psychologist. We sent her home with medicine and a referral for counseling. After she was gone, I realized I had actually lost myself to helping her, and I also knew without a doubt that I had helped her. You know, it is so easy to feel separate from patients. You see yourself as the expert. After that, I realized how often I was having these internal conversations: ‘I would never be like them. I would never make those unhealthy decisions. I would never be so weak to complain about something like that.’”

Because of the experience of absorption with that patient, her thinking shifted in a profound way. Brynne realized she was connected to everyone. She was everyone. “The people you want to disconnect from are the ones who probably need you the most. I have never looked at patients the same way after that day.”

THE POINT OF YOGA IS SAMADHI

It is all too easy to fall into the trap of letting someone else define your purpose at work. You are bombarded with myriad external messages that reinforce the assumption that someone else is responsible for what happens in the workplace. You’re hired for your skills and experience, but then you’re told what to do and when to do it. If you do it reliably and reasonably well, you get compensation. In that transaction, something often gets lost. It is easy to lose sight of who you want to be and what you want to create. If you can discover that, and bring it to work with you, it becomes liberating, according to my friend and mentor Barclay Hudson. He says, “It’s not just the practice of yoga, but the practice of mindful work—work as satisfaction in itself—that yields practice for everything else in life. Work liberation is practice for liberation of life, practice at being fully alive.”

The truth is, only one person is capable of defining your purpose, and that person can only be found by looking into a mirror. Through a dedicated practice of the Eight Limbs of Yoga, your dharma, or life’s purpose, becomes clearer. And when it does, the way you live it out is energized by awareness and aligned action. Understanding your purpose is the greatest contribution you can make to yourself, those you work with, and the enterprise in which you make a contribution.

If you are clear about purpose, it is easier to find that “sense of union” at work, a kind of joy that is felt whether you are sweeping a floor, serving a customer, developing computer code, running a company, or doing brain surgery. In those moments, in that “flow” of union with the object of your attention, you are experiencing samadhi.

Our yoga teacher Mary got a sweet taste of that feeling during her first savasana. “It was the first time I felt okay about myself in more than twenty years. I knew in my very core that I was okay, and I wanted more of that. I realized I had limited myself, been someone who was afraid to open my mouth. That experience stayed with me and led me to be more courageous.” It was a dawning of realization about her life’s purpose, and put her on the path to devoting her life to giving others the gift of yoga through teaching.

During one of the classes we took with her as we were writing this book, Mary shared a favorite quote from poet David Whyte: “We are the only species capable of preventing our own flowering.” For Mary, the quote points to samadhi as a natural state that we have lost and need to find again. “An acorn has to become an oak tree. If you plant a carrot seed, it is not going to become a tomato. A cat would never try to become a horse. As humans, we cover up our light. I don’t know why that is, but through the practice of yoga we can uncover it, expand it, share it, and recognize that everyone has it.” Marianne Williamson describes it like this: “Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learned here.”

When we asked Mary how she would describe an “enlightened worker,” she was thoughtful for a few moments. “I would say there is a palpable sense energetically. They have a smile that starts in their heart and shines through the light in their eyes. You know they are in themselves, and you want to be around them.”

Csikszentmihalyi uses the term “autotelic” for what we would describe as an enlightened worker. Such people feel autonomous and independent, yet are simultaneously “fully immersed in the current of life,” he says. The source of their happiness is doing the things that help them, and those around them, grow and fulfill their potential. They might be blessed with material wealth, but that is not the source of their well-being. While they may enjoy worldly pleasures, Csikszentmihalyi says, they don’t need “entertainment, comfort, power, or fame, because so much of what they do is so rewarding.”

PURPOSE, WORK, AND ABSORPTION

Soon after she was hired at a major East Coast university, Jana asked her boss to describe exactly what he wanted her to do. He answered, “I want you to take care of people.” Exactly how she did that, he said, was her decision.

The university attracts graduate students from all over the country and the world. Many bring their families with them. Jana’s job had been created to help these disparate educational expatriates create a community that would support the students’ experience. They depended on Jana to help them and their families get oriented to a new city, figure out where to reside, and solve myriad problems of daily living. Some of them knew only a little English. Many had young children to care for without their customary support systems, and spouses who were buried in their studies. She had an official job title, but the roles she took on included advisor, teacher, cheerleader, and confidante.

By tapping into the expertise and experience of the students and their families, Jana collaborated with the community to create childcare co-ops, programs for learning and practicing English, and classes in yoga, cooking, and gardening. With Jana’s help, they staged cultural awareness festivals, formed reading groups, knitting circles, art exhibits, and more.

“In crafting the tasks of the job, there was so much going on it sparked constant creativity and infectious enthusiasm,” says Jana, a longtime yoga practitioner who also teaches occasionally. “I have never before worked so hard in my life—I was putting out tremendous energy. But I also received tremendous energy from the community. It was so much fun, and I had a profound sense of satisfaction.”

Jana remembers this as a time of samadhi—being absorbed in the meaningful work of serving others. “I felt I had been planted in this fertile ground, and I blossomed. It was like … inhale, exhale. Where did the day go?”

Her experience mirrors one of an aspect described by Desikachar in The Heart of Yoga: “In samadhi our personal identity—name, profession, family history, bank account, and so forth—completely disappears. In a moment of samadhi, none of that exists anymore.”

Five suggestions for working toward samadhi

1. Spend a few minutes reflecting about times when you felt “in the zone,” completely connected and engaged in something that made you lose yourself. What were some of the key contributors to those times?

2. Understanding your purpose, then uniting that with a bigger vision, is key to experiencing samadhi at work. Ask yourself questions such as: “What is it I want to contribute? How can I fulfill my potential? How is what I am doing now serving that purpose?”

3. Use your answers to those questions to consider what aspects of work you could begin to look at in a way that would facilitate further developing your potential. What do you notice?

4. If you could reinvent your work life to be in better alignment with your purpose, what would it look like? What actions could you take to begin this reinvention?

5. What aspects of a yoga practice could connect you to purpose? Make a list, and develop a plan for incorporating those practices in a consistent and meaningful way.