Calm
What is śama? The stilling of the mind.
What is śama (calm)? Mastery over the mind.
Calm is mastery of the mind
Calm here is named śama, and its meaning is the stilling of the mind. It begins on the inside, with the mind itself, before anything is asked of the eyes or the hands. The mind that wanders toward every passing thing cannot hold a subtle inquiry; calm is the gathering of that mind, so it stays where it is set.
This is mastery, not suppression. To force thought into silence is to fight it, and the fight leaves it more restless than before. What is meant is gentler and steadier: the mind drawn back from what does not serve the search for truth, until it rests of its own accord. The withdrawal is from the unworthy, not from all thinking; the mind is freed to settle on what matters.
Calm comes before the reining in of the senses, because the inner discipline carries the outer one. Quiet the mind and the senses grow quiet with it. Bind the senses while the mind still races, and the restlessness only waits beneath the surface. So the work begins here, with the mind brought home.
When your mind is drawn toward what does not serve you, can you let it return rather than force it still?
In the commentaries
Śama is mastery held at the mind itself, before it ever reaches the senses. It is not forcing thought to stop, which only hardens it, but withdrawing the mind from what does not serve inquiry so it rests where it is placed and stays there. Set first among the sixfold wealth, it is the inner discipline whose outward counterpart, the reining in of the senses, follows next; calm the mind and the senses grow quiet of their own accord, while senses bound by force leave the mind still restless underneath.