When did mindfulness become something we add to yoga?

I find that every time I read the Yoga Sūtras, something new is revealed. I make a connection I hadn’t made before, or join up another dot. This week, while I was reading Sūtra I.35 to my students, it got me thinking about mindfulness.

Around the same time, I’d noticed yoga classes sometimes advertised with mindfulness alongside yoga. I don’t want to make a big point of one advert, or criticise the teacher. It just made me stop and think: why do we sometimes talk about mindfulness as if it’s something separate that we add to yoga?

I was reminded of something from my time in Pune, at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute. Prashant Iyengar once made a joke about the word mindfulness: it sounds as though the mind should be full, when in yoga we’re often trying to quieten the movements of the mind. I remember it because it made me smile, but also because it made me think about the labels we use.

Sūtra I.35 is only a few words in Sanskrit, but there’s a lot to consider in them. One translation, by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, is: “Or else the mind can be made steady by bringing it into activity of sense experience.” BKS Iyengar translates it as: “Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.”

The commentaries open up different possibilities. Saraswati talks about bringing the mind into sense experience: sound, for example, through mantra, bhajan or kīrtan; sight through trāṭaka, the practice of steady gazing at a form. He also discusses subtler, psychic sensory experiences. Edwin Bryant and IK Taimni likewise give attention to super-sensory experience, though Bryant also points out that a sense object can be a support for the mind. Iyengar’s wording leaves room for contemplating an object of interest and becoming absorbed in it.

The readings aren’t all saying exactly the same thing. Some focus on higher or more subtle sensory experiences; others give a broader sense of using an object to steady the mind. That openness is part of what I love about reading the sūtras. Their Sanskrit is so concise, and each time I return to them I notice another layer.

It also makes me think about what can become the “object” of attention in our own practice. In Iyengar yoga, it could be a particular part of the body, an action within a pose, the movement of the breath, or the whole pose. What are the feet doing? What is the action of the legs? How does that change the way the spine extends? There is always something to observe.

I’m not saying that I.35 is literally about Iyengar āsana. This is the connection I’m making as a practitioner and teacher: when attention becomes precise, sensation gives the mind somewhere to stay. The practice can steady the mind, and that can open into a clearer awareness of what is happening as it happens.

In simple terms, I think of mindfulness as paying attention to present-moment experience with clarity, without immediately judging it or trying to fix it. It isn’t only about feeling calm. It can also be a simple honesty with what is here.

You can find that quality of attention away from the yoga mat too. Forest bathing is often described as a mindfulness practice. You slow down and notice the texture of bark, the sound of birds, the smell of the air. The forest matters, of course, but so does the way you meet it. It is the quality of attention that makes the experience mindful.

I was also thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh’s section on “Washing Dishes” in his book Peace Is Every Step. He describes noticing the dish, the water and the movement of his hands instead of rushing through the washing up so he can get to dessert. If the mind is already at dessert, we miss the washing up. It’s such an ordinary example, but it says a lot: the task in front of us can be the practice.

That feels familiar to me in āsana. We’re not just trying to get through the pose and move on to the next one. We have the chance to be there for the work itself:…. to feel, observe, adjust and understand.

I understand why mindfulness is sometimes named as an addition of a yoga class. Those words are familiar and can help people know what to expect. But when they’re listed as if they sit outside yoga, it makes me wonder how we’ve come to see them as add-ons.

When did mindfulness become something we add to yoga instead of something we recognise within it?

Sūtra I.35 has opened up that question for me. Its commentators draw out different meanings of sensory experience and concentration; my own practice has led me to reflect on how attention in āsana can steady the mind. And, as often happens when I read the sūtras, I’ve found myself joining a few more dots…… 🙏