Querencia, pratyahara, meditation.

​​When we take time out from our busy lives, when we slow down and explore our internal landscapes, we all inevitably arrive at the same experience. It is the discovery that we each harbour an endless reserve of power and capability.
 
In Yoga, we call the first layer of meditation, Pratyahara, or ‘withdrawal of the senses’.
 
In the ugly world of bullfighting, it is called Querencia. thankfully, it is a practice that empowers the bull and not its' opponent.
 
Querencia is a state that the matador does not want the bull to achieve. If the bull, taunted and enraged, is able to step back from battle, even for a moment, it has the opportunity to gather itself.
 
Tara Brach writes about it in her book Radical Acceptance...
 
“.. in the midst of a fight, the bull can find his own particular area of safety within the arena. There he can reclaim his strength and power. This place and inner state are called querencia”
 
The job of the matador is to keep the bull engaged in battle, and therefore, off balance. If the bull manages to find a moment of pause, it experiences remembrance of its most authentic self, apart from the violent situation at hand. It recalls that it is an 850kg beast of intelligence, which has the capability to outsmart and defeat a scrawny little human being.
 
The bullfights in which the matador does not triumph are invariably the bullfights in which the beautiful beast has captured moments of querencia.
 
Querencia is the ability to withdraw from the aggravating circumstance of battle (or life!); evaluate the situation clearly; draw strength from the inner well; then continue with the fight ahead.
 
This is when the bull becomes a ‘truly dangerous’ individual...
 
...with a regular meditation practice, so do you

#querencia #pratyahara #meditation #animalkingdom 
#internalisation

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