The Shadow of Anusara?

Whew!  The following post has certainly caused a stir -- not just here but on Facebook! Considering that most of my posts garner no comments, and the most any ever did get were something like six, I got to kind of assuming no one was reading!

After reading through some comments on Christina Folosono Sell's Facebook page, I thought I would do a bit of a re-edit, both because I can see some further clarification may help, AND because I do agree that I used some terms that do not reflect "Right Speech." Worse, those terms seem to have derailed the more important point that I still heartily endorse: contemporary hatha-yoga, and Anusara in particular tend to foster a denial of duhkha and at times an almost aggressively "feel good" Pollyanna-like myopia.

For the record: I acknowledge John Friend as one of my teachers publicly, even mentioning him in the Acknowledgement section of my book, and indeed he has been an inspiring and influential teacher for me. I was a participant of one of his first Teacher Trainings as well as one of his first Yoga Therapy trainings. I attended workshops with him for several years after that and I've taken Immersions with Amy Ippolliti in New York, and with Darren Rhodes at Yoga Oasis in Tucson (where I also teach meditation).

Oh, and perhaps it is relevant to know that I am not a Buddhist.

Recently, the "exodus" of several senior Anusara Yoga teachers (including the two above-mentioned) has caused a bit of a ruffle among the wider yoga "community" (if one can even be said to exist). I am not interested in speculation nor in what it may or may not mean for John Friend or the "Anusara Kula."

What I would like to respond to is the following comments made by Elena Brower, one of those who have recently left the Anusara fold, the "defectors," as it points to something I have long felt to be a "shadow" of the contemporary hatha-yoga world, and in particular of Anusara culture -- and perhaps one that merely reflects John Friend's own shadow. Elena writes:

"What I found is that I wanted more, I wanted to know how to feel as amazing in my house as I’d felt on my mat. As expansive, as calm, as beautiful, as connected, as real. I couldn’t link my behavior at home to my composure in my practice, and I needed other ways to learn how to be more remarkable as a Mama, an ex-wife, a girlfriend, and most importantly these days, a daughter. My practice was giving me feelings of fulfillment but they didn’t last, and I was still going home and acting out of alignment with my yoga, which was getting painful."

I recognize this pattern! That disconnect between "practice" and "daily life;"  the lack of integration of practice and the rest of life. Here is what I wrote in my book, Mindfulness Yoga almost ten years ago, about something I experienced back in 1976:

"I began to notice that while I left the yoga class feeling the divine bliss of heaven, by the time I got off the train in Flushing, I was back in my own private hell. In fact, the bliss I was feeling in yoga class seemed ever more remote and alien to the rest of my life. Even after I had started to practice the postures and breathing exercises at home, I continued to find that whenever I wasn't "doing yoga," the peacefulness I felt while practicing continued to elude me."

What brought me to a deeper understanding was the following passage where the Buddha himself describes a similar experience he had with his yoga teachers:

"Though one may momentarily be secluded from the cycle of suffering, the watcher remains as a seed of rebirth. As soon as the situation changes, rebirth easily takes place again. This is just what happens now when I get up from meditating. No matter how profound my absorption, after a short time I get caught up again in the world of the senses. The basic causes and conditions for rebirth have not been extinguished. Complete liberation has not been achieved."

When I first read about the Buddha's dissatisfaction with the failure of his practice to fundamentally change his experience of daily life, I instantly recognized the similarity to my own experience -- how wonderfully calm and peaceful I felt after yoga practice, and yet how all too soon I fell back into the suffering of craving and aversion. And when I became a yoga teacher, I saw how many students seemed to have similar experiences. They would leave class blissed out, but as soon as they got "caught up in the world of their senses" they found themselves back amid their anxious lives -- from blissed out to stressed out. This is the "rebirth" the Buddha was talking about. The question became how do we stop this apparently ceaseless cycle, this endless emotional and psychological roller coaster? In our very lives generally, and in our own practice of yoga specifically, we can see the process of samsara, the cyclic process of "birth and death" over and over, moment by moment!

In my experience, contemporary hatha-yoga in general, and Anusara Yoga in particular, are permeated by a willful denial and ignor-ance of the reality of duhkha. I've had this "argument" with John Friend twice. Once, after I had lectured a group of Moksha-Yoga Teacher Trainees for over a week on mindfulness, buddhist meditation, and the philosophy and history of the Yoga Tradition, John Friend came to give a talk, and the very first thing he said was, "I know you've just had a Buddhist scholar here, and they are always talking about duhkha. But I come from a place of bliss." His talk degenerated from there! I was happy to hear one of the students respond to him, saying: "Frank spoke a lot about joy, but also made the point that the way to joy was through nobly facing and engaging with duhkha, not denying it or turning away from it."

Afterward, John actually did acknowledge to me that he had overstated his case, had gotten carried away, and had reduced Buddhism into a caricature. This did not stop him from, only a few years later, in my presence at one of his workshops, stooping to the same caricature.

And this is the shadow I have long seen in Anusara. Everyone is exhorted to aggressively "shine out with Shri" and it's all about bliss -- poorly understood as a super "feeling good" when the Tantric understanding of bliss is so much more subtle than that, and ultimately not reliant on feeling good at all! The bliss of the tantrika transcends the polarities of pleasure and pain. The Rainbow Body of Peace needn't be pain free. By definition, if it needs to be pain free, it is bound by those conditions and is therefore NOT freedom!

The "culture" of Anusara (echoing the culture of contemporary mainstream hatha-yoga) is fearful of the "noble truth of duhkha." A kind of hiding one's head in the sand is encouraged with lots of feel-good, empowerment/motivational speaker kind of new agey pablum designed to soothe and pamper egos so often desperate for validation. I've heard more applause at some Anusara workshops than I might hear at a concert! I've been invited to teach at ashrams where the brittleness of forced happiness, the plastered on smiles and the shying away of any discord is truly suffocating. 

So, I am glad that Elena seems to have broken free from the forced glee-club of Stepford Wife yogis from a culture that seems to have demanded of her this kind of consensus myopia, and found a way to integrate the freedom and peace found in yoga into her life, learning, as she says, "that I can finally look at my behaviors head-on, and not flinch, but instead, HANDLE them. Talk about them. Apologize for them instead of being too proud to address them. And then – most importantly – SHIFT THEM."

It is noble and ennobling to face duhkha, to awaken from avidya (ignore-ance) and denial. A greater ease with life, the "full catastrophe," arises when one no longer HAS to feel all "shri" and happy-faced! The radical acceptance and unconditional regard we seek cannot come from denying such a fundamental aspect of life as duhkha! This is not to say that that is all there is to life! What I am saying is that in turning away from duhkha, one turns away from the path leading out of duhkha. To deny duhkha IS duhkha!

And, to rectify mis-understandings, duhkha is NOT "suffering" and the Buddha did not say "Life is suffering." He said "there is duhkha." Face it! Though mental anguish is duhkha, that is not all it is! Duhkha is the fact that sometimes you lose what you like; you get what you don't like. Duhkha is the simply fact that happiness is not to be found in circumstances!

Now, some Buddhists seem to forget that there are Four Realities for the Noble, and that acknowledging and facing duhkha is only the first. Kind of like the first step of the 12 Step Programs, it's merely the beginning! Joy and Happiness are two of the Seven Factors of Awakening. Make no mistake: the Buddha was no kill-joy! He just wanted us to understand where happiness was truly to be found.

metta
frank jude

Boundless Joy: The Delight In Being

     “We hate it when our friends are successful,” sang Morrissey, the mope-rock, singer songwriter and former leader of The Smiths. And while  “hate” may be overstating the issue, a quick Google search of that song finds hundreds of articles and blogs quoting Morrissey, with people sharing the dark, not-so-secret fact, that rather than celebrating others’ successes and happiness, we often react with envy and jealousy. And the flip side of this human quirk is the guilty delight, or schadenfreude, we feel when others fail, as evidenced by so much of the popular reaction to celebrities’ foibles and misfortunes.

       It’s as if we had internalized the notion that there’s only so much happiness, joy, or good fortune to go around, and that if others are happy, there must be less available for us! This must be an age-old problem, and certainly not one limited to contemporary society, because already, over 2,000 years ago, both the Buddha and later, Patanjali, taught the practice of mudita, the third of the Brahma-Viharas, the yogic teachings on love, as an antidote to this notion that we need feel threatened or diminished by the happiness of others by cultivating the ability to take active delight in others’ good fortune.

The Classical Yoga tradition warns that feeling envy is painful and disrupting of our own mental well-being. The tradition singles out cultivating delight in virtuous people. “Don’t envy them; don’t try to pull them down. Appreciate the virtuous qualities in them and try to cultivate them in your own life,” Satchidananda writes in his commentary on Patanjali.

Speaking from the Buddhist yoga tradition, where the Brahma-Viharas are also known as the “Four Immeasurables,” or “Limitless Ones” the Dalai Lama speaks for a kind of ‘enlightened self interest.’ As he puts it, there are so many people in this world it simply makes sense to make their happiness as important as our own, because then our chances of delight are increased. If we are only happy for ourselves, there are many fewer chances for happiness. But if we can be happy when good things happen to others, then our chances for delight are increased “six billion to one!”

I try to remember this myself when I find myself on a long line, like at the bank. Rather than fall into impatience or envy of the folks toward the front of the line, I imagine their relief when they are called to the teller’s window and feel happy for them. By the time it’s my turn, I’m feeling pretty darn happy myself!

The root of the word mudita means “to be pleased, to have a sense of gladness.” The Buddha called mudita “the mind-deliverance of gladness” because this joyful delight actually liberates our hearts and minds. While the mainstream Buddhist tradition tends to translate mudita as “empathetic or altruistic joy” to emphasize our over-coming of envy and jealousy by taking delight in the happiness of others, as Thich Nhat Hanh points out, this is too limiting a definition because it discriminates between self and others. In Teachings On Love, he writes: “A deeper definition of mudita is a joy that is filled with peace and contentment. We rejoice when we see others happy, but we rejoice in our own well-being as well. How can we feel joy for another person when we do not feel joy for ourselves?”

So much of our unhappiness comes from the negativity we hold towards ourselves and toward others. Through our judgments, comparisons, and envy we suffer from a sense of aloneness and lack. Because there are so many constricting impediments to truly opening up to joy, mudita is often said to be the most difficult of the Brahma-Viharas to cultivate. Perhaps because of this very difficulty, mudita can be a powerful liberating force, freeing us from the sense of isolation and self-constriction. And, thankfully, there are many ways we can create the conditions for opening to joy, in asana practice, meditation, and throughout the day.

Whether in my own asana practice, or when teaching, when focusing on joy, I find it helpful to follow John Friend’s advice to “look for the good.” To counter-act the mind’s tendency to fixate on what’s “wrong” with a posture – or with any of life’s experiences – we can actively look for what is “right.” This is not a Pollyannaish denial of duhkha – the unsatisfactory and painful aspects of life. After all, mudita follows the first two Brahma-Viharas: metta, the friendly, non-judgmental accepting quality of what is, and karuna, the compassionate opening to whatever physical, emotional, energetic and mental ills you may be experiencing. We cannot open to real joy if we are caught in aversion or attachment. A psychotherapist I worked with once said that the most pain avoidant people have the least joy in their lives.

The Buddha said that all experiences can be categorized as being either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. When we cultivate joy, we focus more on the pleasant, but the neutral too can help grow more joy. Thich Nhat Hanh offers the example of the “non-toothache.” When you last had a toothache, you knew for sure that it was unpleasant and that to not have a toothache would be pleasant. But now, you overlook the joy of the non-toothache because it is “neutral.” By bringing attention to the fact that your teeth do not hurt, you may feel a gentle smile of appreciation arise. The neutral quality of experience, through mindfulness, can be the nourishment for greater joy.

A deep, and long relaxation is a must when cultivating joy in our asana practice. While lying in shavasana, you can “touch” various parts of your body with your loving attention. For instance, bringing attention to your eyes as you inhale, send an “inner smile” to your eyes, full of gratitude and appreciation for them as you exhale. Spend a few breaths, smiling to each part of your body. As you move your attention through your body, you do this for your limbs, your inner organs – even, and especially for those parts of the body you may be less than satisfied with – developing greater joy and deeper appreciation for what is.

This practice of cultivating appreciation and gratitude can be taken off the mat and practiced throughout the day. A student shared with me that she felt that life had lost its “flavor” and had become rather empty. As part of her practice, I asked her to spend some time at the end of each day, reviewing her day and making a list of five things that brought her some joy. I emphasized that these need not be “big” things; that perhaps seeing a child laugh while a puppy licked its face could bring her some joy. At the end of one week, she asked if she had to limit her list to five things. She said she found that there were many joy-filled experiences, even on her darkest days. Without denying her sadness and heavy spirit, she was finding that all was not dark. As Leonard Cohen says, “the joy kept breaking through.”

Somewhat paradoxically, the contemplation on impermanence can also enhance our ability to touch joy. The Buddha thought the contemplation of impermanence so important he called it one of the three “Dharma Seals,” saying that without an understanding of impermanence, one could not fully penetrate the Dharma, meaning both his teachings and the real nature of things. I know for myself that the awareness of the impermanent nature of all phenomena – including myself – makes me more sensitive to the effervescent nature of experience. When awake to impermanence, I do not take any one or anything for granted. I stay in touch with what’s happening, and feel the joy of simply being awake to life.

As the mental obstacles to joy are so pernicious, it is important to stay alert to their presence as soon as they arise. When we are judgmental, the mind becomes rigidly attached to how it thinks things should be. If we are judgmental of ourselves, chances are we are also judgmental of others. Mudita, being nonjudgmental, accepts that others can find happiness in things that we would not. Can we accept that others may choose to live their lives differently from us and feel happy for them? Viveka, or discernment is still required, of course. Unfortunately, many people delude themselves as to what makes them happy, and in fact create unhappiness for themselves or others. But if people are genuinely happy and they are not harming themselves or others, mudita is the practice of sharing in their happiness.

Comparing mind is another major obstacle to feeling joy. Whether we compare ourselves to others as better, worse, or the same, we are falling into the trap of “conceit.” Comparing can never bring peace or joy because there is no end to the possibilities of things we can compare ourselves to! While it’s obvious that comparing ourselves as “better” or “worse” is painful, it may seem surprising that even comparing ourselves as “the same” or “equal” to others is considered “conceit.” The problem is, that all comparing is looking at others in order to define oneself. It is evaluating our self worth in reference to others, when the spirit of mudita and the other Brahma-Viharas affirms that we innately deserve to be happy. When we truly believe and understand that deep reality, we can take delight in the happiness of others instead of feeling threatened by it. Our relationship to the world becomes one of communion rather than competition.

The formal practice of mudita-bhavana (joy cultivation), celebrates the happiness of all beings – ourselves included! In fact, through the growing insight into the interdependent nature of the world, we see that the happiness of “others” is indeed our happiness.

To enter into the spirit of mudita-bhavana, it is helpful to recall your own innate goodness. Bring to mind a time when you said or did something that was kind, generous, caring or loving. If nothing comes to mind, turn your attention to a quality in yourself that you enjoy or like about yourself, some skill or talent perhaps that you can recognize and appreciate. If still nothing comes to mind, simply reflect on the basic “rightness” of your innate wish to be happy.

Then begin to offer yourself appreciative and encouraging phrases acknowledging the joy and happiness you’ve experienced in life.

“May I learn to appreciate the happiness and joy I experience.”

“May the joy I experience continue and grow.”

“May I be filled with joy and gratitude.”

Of course, you are free to create any phrases that have an appreciative intention, and as you send these wishes to yourself, open yourself to whatever feelings arise in your body and mind. Notice what – if any – reactivity is provoked by the practice. Don’t expect to instantly feel great joy and appreciation. As a “purification practice,” sometimes all we see is our lack of appreciation and the mind’s judging reactivity. Simply note whatever arises, and return to the phrases, with as much friendliness and compassion you can muster.

After directing these phrases to yourself for a while, the traditional sequence moves on to a benefactor, defined as someone who has inspired you or offered you aid in any way.

“May you experience joy and may your happiness continue.”

“May you be filled with appreciation for your happiness and success.”

“May your happiness and good fortune continue.”

“May you be successful and met with appreciation.”

Following a benefactor, the sequence moves on to a loved one or friend; then towards a neutral person, defined as someone you barely know – maybe even a stranger for whom you have no strong feelings one way or the other. Following the neutral person, we see if we can include sending these phrases and connecting to feeling joy and delight for the happiness and success of the “difficult” people in your life; perhaps someone you envy, but generally those whom you have shut out from your heart.

“May your happiness and joy increase.”

“May the joy in your life continue and grow.”

“May you be successful and met with appreciation.”

If it becomes too difficult to send to a difficult person, acknowledge this with non-judgmental acceptance, and return to sending these phrases to a loved one or yourself. Trust that in time, your heart will expand to include even those for whom you now feel resentment and envy.

Finally, with the understanding that all beings wish to be met with appreciation, we send these phrases to all beings throughout the world. Imagine radiating these positive thoughts from your immediate environment, out in all directions, sending appreciative joy-filled wishes to all beings in existence. When you feel ready to end the meditation, take some time to simply sit with your feelings, and your breath, honoring whatever you experience.

In the Buddhist yoga tradition, the practice of “sharing merit” is another antidote to the idea that the happiness of others means there’s less for us. When we feel that there is a fixed amount of happiness in the world, we fall into an embittered, resentful state of competition with others. Yet, happiness, like love, increases when it is shared. Sharon Salzberg, the Buddhist meditation teacher, describes merit as a power that is born in and grows through acts of goodness. Sharing this merit itself is a powerful, wholesome action that generates its own power. When you give away your merit to others, your own merit increases! Happiness does not diminish in our hearts when we share it. It isn’t a commodity limited in such a way that it has to be rationed.

When we share merit, happiness, or love with all sentient beings, by the very nature of our own sentience, we are included! There is no real separation between “us” and “them.”

In this spirit, I would like to offer the version of “sharing merit” that I like to end all my classes with:

“Whatever merit we may have generated through our practice together

We now dedicate and offer all of it

to all sentient beings throughout the world, equally.

May our thoughts, our words, and our actions

Bring benefit to the world.”

Mudita-Bhavana

The salient characteristic of joy is a gladness that celebrates the happiness of others. It is the  opposite of envy and jealousy. Ultimately, through the insight of no-separation, the happiness of “others” is our happiness.   

Preliminary Practice:  Bring to mind the image of a benefactor whose happiness you share in. Begin with the following phrases:

       

     May your happiness and good fortune continue.

     May your success and prosperity continue.

Basic Practice: The same attitude as previous meditations (metta and karuna).

The Phrases: The two above and/or other appropriate statements.

The Traditional Sequence of Mudita Bhavana:

1.     To a benefactor and then a loved one or friend.

2.     To someone you envy.

3.     To other individuals.

4.     To groups of people.

5.     All beings, known and unknown to you.

Book Club: The Buddha and The Yogi: Paradigms of Restraint and Renunciation by Mu Soeng

I was looking forward to Mu Soeng’s chapter, and for the most part, was not disappointed! In fact, personally, along with Chip Hartranft’s, Goldfield and Taylor’s and Powers’ chapters, this one by Mu Soeng is one of my favorites.

His opening paragraph makes his the first to really address the “commodification” of Yoga and Mindfulness found in this book (Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind). And ironically, there’s been a lot of words shared in the blogosphere around the argument as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing! For some reason, those with the most vested interest in the popularity of Yoga (in particular) seem to take offense with anyone speaking up and saying – as Mu Soeng puts it – “something seems to be missing; something fundamental to the raison d’etre of both traditions.” I don’t see anything controversial about such an assertion, and yet, there seems to be many who take offense at such an observation.

I am delighted that more and more people are becoming aware of the liberating power of mindfulness. Yet, without articulating it, many remain unaware of the ‘ultimate’ liberating nature of mindfulness in regard to our culture’s consumerist worldview. Even at the time of the Buddha, he said that mindfulness goes against the grain in it’s vision of “individuals and society grounded in restraint and renunciation, in simplicity, in doing away with the clutter of possessions, and so on.”

When Lululemon tights go for $100.00 and more, I think it safe to say we may have lost sight of the deeper truths Yoga and Mindfulness offer. The three major sources of suffering, according to the Yoga Tradition (including Buddhism) are greed (craving), hatred (aversion) and delusion (ignore-ance). The Yogic way of life is one that seeks to counter-balance these three ‘poisons,’ through the “yoking” involved in meditation (as well as pranayama and asana practice).

Where things get a bit hairy is when the Yoga Tradition creates a cosmological and ontological “samsara” that one seeks to liberate oneself from. This makes not being ‘reborn’ into the best thing you can do with this life. IF one takes this in a purely metaphorical, psychological way, as does the modernist Buddhadasa Bhikhu, then I have no problem with this. But when we reify this understanding into a cosmological worldview, then this life tends to be devalued. In fact, this devaluation is addressed by Mu Soeng as a "positive hermeneutic." This is something, as a naturalist, I wish to avoid.

When we remember that “samsara” is not a place but a process; “the process of craving and clinging; of greed, hatred, and delusion,” as Mu Soeng writes, then we can utilize this humanistic, psychological understanding. In fact, other scholars have also pointed out that to think in terms of “entering nirvana” is also inappropriate as nirvana is also not a place but it too is a process! As ugly as it may sound to our ears in English, the Pali can best be translated – according to these scholars – as “nirvanizing.”

I really appreciate Mu Soeng’s speculation regarding the two competing ‘value systems’ with that which adopted Shiva (the god of asceticism) and that which adopted Vishnu (the householder’s god). Certainly, I don’t think it can be argued otherwise than that the Buddha clearly preferred the way of the renunciant over that of the ‘dusty house-holder.’ However, to his credit, he did teach householders, and recognized many as becoming fully awakened arahants.

As Mu Soeng points out, we “moderns” wish to have our cake and eat it too. I think that to at least some degree, this is what lies behind the huge popularity of so-called “tantric” based forms of hatha-yoga. “Everything is divine” goes the party line, so why hold back from enjoying all life has to offer. Why indeed? But is enjoyment really what one seeks? And if so, is it the enjoyment of a string of ephemeral experiences, possessions and relationships?

Bikram poses with his 50 Rolls Royces, and the obscenity of this seems to escape all too many students and practitioners of yoga! One may say, it’s fine if one is not attached to the cars. But I would argue that there is more than one’s level of ‘attachment’ that is at issue here.

Now, Mu Soeng’s conclusion is where I part company with him! He seems to feel that the only alternative to living a mainstream, consumerist life is “to align oneself with the worldviews of these traditions if one is to go beyond the habits of consuming desires…”

If he means we need to align ourselves with the ideas of going against the stream of our craving and grasping, our aversion and delusion, than I’ve no argument there. But that is – to my mind – a far cry from aligning with the worldview that life, in particular the householder life, is something to escape from!

As I think I have done in my Zen Naturalism blog, one can and perhaps ‘should,’ contextualize one’s contemporary spiritual views and intentions based upon modern, even secular, humanist, naturalist worldviews. We needed take on tradition supernatural, dualistic, transcendentalist worldviews to avoid commodification of the teachings and practices. As I tell my students, while I am old enough to have protested the Vietnam War, hung out at C.B.G.B.s and make ‘punk’ movies, there is nothing as counter-cultural and radical as attempting to live mindfully and simply.

Book Club: Emptiness: Shunya and Shunyata by Christopher Key Chapple

Forgive me for not getting this out the next day; things got a bit 'hairy' here in Tucson on January 8th.

This is a fairly short section, but we mustn’t take that as indicative of the importance of this subject! The teaching on ‘emptiness’ is arguably the most important among the teachings of the Buddha. Chapple draws the similarities with Patanjali well, though other scholars argue that Patanjali’s use of “empty” is not the same as the Buddha’s meaning.

That aside, I think it important to keep in mind that the word most often used by the Buddha in the Pali Canon is “empty,” and that in time we find the use of the word “emptiness” growing in importance. However, when a word goes from adjective to noun, we can all too easily fall into the error of reification, and indeed this has happened repeatedly in the history of Buddhism.

So, here I’ll take a page from Thich Nhat Hanh. In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, which Chapple quotes in this section, Thay says we should not take the bodhisattva Avolokiteshvara at his word without asking first, “Empty of what?” All phenomena are empty of self-nature is the response. That is, no phenomena exists from it’s own side, independent, autonomous, persistent, unchanging. There is no ‘essence’ behind, above or below phenomena. However, many Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists have reified this description of phenomena as empty into the ‘emptiness’ of phenomena being their essence. So it is important to remember that not only form is empty, but also emptiness is empty!

As Chapple points out toward the end of this section, ultimately there is a major distinction between Patanjali and the Buddha, despite all their similarities. Chapple says Patanjali suggests that the realization of the empty nature of phenomena delivers one to a higher state of awareness, which the Buddha denies. I think this is both unclear and perhaps not fully accurate. The Buddha of the Pali Canon, at least seems to posit some kind of awareness that is present in the state of nibbana, but the Buddha strongly asserts that even nibbana is empty of ‘self.’ That is, while all phenomena are seen as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self, nibanna is permanent and ultimate satisfaction, but remains ‘not-self.’ The state of liberation for Patanjali, kaivalya is said to be that which occurs when Purusha realizes its ‘self-nature.’

And though this is a small quibble, I do want to make clear that the Buddha did not proclaim that suffering results from desire. The word he used, tanha, meaning ‘thirst’ is more accurately understood to refer to the more urgent grasping and clinging to objects of desire than desire itself. In fact, the Buddha said desire for liberation was necessary for anyone to even consider yoga practice!

"Awakening To Prana" by Chip Hartranft (Conclusion)

The final part of Chip’s essay begins with the section entitled “Bhavana: To develop and ‘make much of.’” In fact, it is helpful and important to remember that the word most used by the Buddha for the mental cultivation of meditation was indeed bhavana. As Georg Feurstein points out in his ‘ten fundamental principles’ of the Yoga Tradition, the practice is yoga is all about process. I think even those traditions that emphasize “sudden awakening” do so with an implicit awareness that such sudden awakening occurs after some time of practicing. In Zen, the Korean master Chinul, as well as others, speak of ‘sudden awakening; gradual cultivation.’ This refers to the fact that after the sudden awakening into our true nature, there is a gradual cultivation of that insight, or as Chinul said: “It is not enough to be enlightened; one must live an enlightened life.”

In the sections “Right Effort” and “Gathering Energy,” Chip argues against what is perhaps the most common process in meditation when he suggests that “most yogis benefit from feeling a larger field of awareness and observing” rather then beginning with a “more specified field right from the start.” Frankly, that has not been my experience. Most of my students have a hard time with non-specific awareness and seem to benefit most from first developing what the Japanese tradition calls joriki – a kind of physic energy that allows for the sustaining of awareness which enables them to observe ever-changing field of mind-body experience without getting caught or swept away in them.

However, I do think the points he makes in the section “Within and Without” are valuable to contemplate. For example, I have had many students who found “listening meditation” more accessible than breath awareness or even mindfulness of sensation. Further, Chip argues that the idea that the Buddha meant “in somebody else” when instructing the yogi to be mindful of the body…within, without, or both is “improbable.” I personally do not make much of this, but I also agree – as Chip also notes – that the commentarial tradition that says “external” does refer to others is indeed of great value! Just think of how often you sense the emotion and energetic state of those who you are close to. Such sensitivity is a boon for the cultivation of right action.

In the section entitled “No ‘There’ There,” Chip draws the parallel between the vision of dharma-megha-samadhi mentioned by Patanjali towards the end of the Yoga-Sutra, and the vision of the dhammas arising and passing away. It is this understanding that all phenomena are not ‘things’ at all, but momentary conditions of energy in constant flux that leads to what the Buddha called the liberation of ‘letting go.’ As Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, we should not think of this as a letting go of reality, but rather letting go of our wrong perceptions and misconceived notions about reality! Letting go means relinquishing all that keeps us (falsely) separated from reality as it is. All boundaries between ‘us’ and the ultimate reality, between us and others is seen as not real. However, for Patanjali, having reified awareness as a Purusha, offers a letting go of one reality (that of the material universe) to abide in another reality (pure spirit or pure awareness). I think this philosophical difference is one that should not be white-washed nor ignored.

Finally, Chip points out how Patanjali would most likely not recognize much (if any!) of what goes on in the typical contemporary hatha-yoga class as yoga! The deep states of concentration he spends most of his time on in the Yoga-Sutra, are by definition impossible to attain while in Downward Facing Dog! So Chip asks if we’re really doing Yoga while on the mat and he says “yes.” I say, “maybe” or at best “it’s possible.” As he points out, if one takes the appropriate mental stance to one’s experience while on the mat (that is to say, if one is practicing and cultivation mindfulness) in such a way that our mind-body conditioning is revealed so that we grow in insight and equanimity, and more toward the stillness of sitting, then one is ‘doing Yoga.’ As I often point out to my students, while practicing “Tree” for instance, if you are cultivating stability and ease mentally, even if continuously falling ‘out of the pose,’ they you are ‘doing Yoga,’ but if you are struggling, and getting caught in irritation or frustration, they you’re just standing on one leg! And apparently not even doing a good job of it!  :-)

Metta,

frank jude

"Awakening To Prana" by Chip Hartranft (Part 3)

Considering that my wife and I are expecting a baby any day now, I thought I’d post as much as I can now, knowing some days may pass after labor begins before I can get back to this. But there’s no rush in “keeping up” as anyone is free to comment on any post, including the earliest ones at any time.

Today, we enter into the second half of Chip’s essay, beginning with the section entitled “The Yoga of the Buddha.”

The Yoga of the Buddha

Chip makes a strong assertion in his very first sentence, saying that “A careful exploration of the Buddha’s Yoga, both through practice and analysis, finds it virtually indistinguishable from the praxis elucidated by the Yoga Sutra. Is this so? From my own reading, study and practice, I offer a qualified agreement. I have long found much support for my practice in the model offered in the Yoga Sutra, and in many ways the meditational practice found there can be called a from of Samkhyan vipassana.

In terms of ethics, in terms of meditational approach, and in terms of many aspects of practice, the Yoga of Patanjali and the Yoga of the Buddha are indeed indistinguishable. However, one big difference in the meditational approach is that in the Buddha’s Yoga, “Samyag Samadhi” (variously translated as “Right Concentration” or “Right Meditation”) is defined as entering into the first, the second, the third and the fourth jhanas, similar to the first four samadhis elucidated in the Yoga Sutra. It was from the fourth jhana that the Buddha is said to have discovered (uncovered?) the truth of “things as they are” and thus led to realization or awakening.

For Patanjali, it most certainly seems that the process of concentrated interiorization of consciousness leading beyond the eighth samadhi and into a vision of reality he refers to as the dharma-megha-samadhi from whence liberation occurs. The import of this is that very few of us will ever likely become virtuosi of meditation, moving into such deep levels of samadhi. And the good news from the Buddha is that we don’t need to!

An important parallel between Patanjali and the Buddha, as Chip makes clear, is that for both of them, the primary means by which humans come to freedom is through “seeing,” (vidya). In this sense, both are soteriological forms of practice based upon “knowing” rather than theological forms of salvation through faith or belief. This, I believe is clear, despite those theistic yogis who interpret Ishvara as some kind of God. And what needs to be seen, is that awareness, free or empty of any characteristics is already and always free, as already mentioned in my previous post.

I really like Chip’s approach to the all-important concepts of vidya/avidya, and abhyasa and vairagya. These last two are the twin poles of yogic practice. As I point out to my students, the most basic meditation instructions point to the necessity of these two principles: “Bring your attention to the breath. Notice when the mind wanders, and bring it back to the breath.” All of this is primarily the practice of abhyasa. And vairagya is the mental stance we need to take to the wandering itself. Letting go of all reactivity (the irritation, frustration, aversion, grasping and clinging) to the mental activity, we practice this ‘non-reactive’ stance, over and over.

The Intention To Awaken

Elsewhere in this blog, we’ve discussed the importance of intention, and of grounding ourselves in the intention to awaken. The Daily Practice for this month of September, in fact, is an example of this in the morning recitation of the “Awakening Gatha:”

Awakening this morning,

A brand new day is before me.

I (vow/intent/aspire) to live each moment fully,

And to look upon all beings

With eyes of compassion.

As Chip says, the Buddha is exhorting us to keep at the forefront of our consciousness the clear intention to awaken. It is helpful to keep in mind that the word we generally translate as “mindfulness,” sati (smriti in Sanskrit) is related to the word for memory!

The Current of Prana

In this section, Chip reminds us that for the yogi/ni, the energetics of the body is of utmost importance, and it is through the breath that we gain entry into the energetic body. It may seem to some a bit pedantic to seem to belabor the point about what is meant by “the body,” but believe it or not, this has been a long-term debate within the Buddhist Yoga tradition, and has profound relevance to those of us who wish to practice hatha-yoga as an integrated practice of Yoga; which is to say, a comprehensive practice bringing the meditational stance and mind to the practice of the movements and postures of hatha-yoga.

I fully agree with Chip, who echoes completely the argument made by one of my root teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, that the “whole body” mentioned by the Buddha is indeed the whole body and not the “body of the breath,” because one has had to pay attention to the whole body of the breath in the earlier practices in order to see if the breath was long or short! After all, how would you know if the breath were long or short without paying attention to the whole breath!?

With the inclusion of the whole physical body, we who practice hatha-yoga can see how the body and the breath inter-are; how the breath conditions the body and the body conditions the breath. I write about this in great detail in my contribution to the book, so I won’t belabor the point here.

Tomorrow, if labor hasn’t already begun by then, I will conclude our examination of Chapter One and look forward to continuing with the contribution of Roshi O’Hara.

In metta

frank jude

Book Club: "Awakening To Prana" by Chip Hartranft (Continued)

Today’s post is perhaps the most challenging for me as I need to address a subject I confess I am not as clear upon as I would like to be. Michael Stone and Chip Hartranft are both better educated than I am, as well as much more subtle thinkers than I, so when we come to a point of disagreement, I want to tread carefully as I am not sure I understand their position well enough to summarize it, and therefore I’m a bit anxious about misrepresenting their perspective. I will invite both of them to comment, of course.

Discrimination and Freedom

Chip begins this section accurately describing Patanjali’s position that consciousness (citta) as part of mind and therefore of Prakriti, does not "know." Consciousness is a display known in the space or emptiness of awareness (Purusha). The discriminating insight (viveka) is recognition of the difference between consciousness and awareness, and is something that must be seen directly. Of course, this direct seeing can only occur once the agitation of mental and physical reactivity has been calmed down, hence the importance of yogic (meditational yoking) practice.

For Patanjali, freedom from the misidentification of awareness with consciousness is only possible once the distinction is clearly seen. Awareness (Purusha) is other than Nature (Prakriti). It is, as Chip translated, “of a different order than unfolding nature.”

Throughout the ages, it is this understanding of Patanjali’s that Purusha and Prakriti are of two different orders, shared with the Samkhya school of philosophy, that has been acknowledged by scholars and yoga practitioners to be of a dualist nature. While most of the Yoga tradition adheres to a non-dual (or perhaps more accurately monist) philosophical orientation, dualism is not unknown. There is even a dualistic form of Vedanta, though the non-dual form is by far more known and influential – especially upon the contemporary practice of Yoga.

For Patanjali, this direct vision sees that suffering is in fact simply an artifact of consciousness (and thus Prakriti). Awareness, Unconditioned Knowing is, and always has been, untouched by suffering! Awareness is impersonal and timeless, beyond conditions, therefore beyond suffering. As Chip points out, the yogi doesn’t really become free from anything. Awareness was always free. The whole drama of bondage and liberation is played out in the mind (Prakriti) while Purusha had been the disinterested witness all the while!

Phenomenologically, it does indeed feel like there’s a distinct difference between awareness and consciousness. Imagine yourself thinking, “I am so confused!” How do you know you are confused? Is the awareness of your confusion confused? Of course not! It clearly knows confusion is present. Awareness has no sense of “I” in it either. It is a “pure subjectivity” with no “self” in it. Thus it can never be “known” as a object of knowledge. Awareness itself simply “is.”

But, when we take this experience as an ontology, like I believe Patanjali intended, then this duality is understood to be ‘real.’ In fact, this is also the understanding of Theravada Buddhism.  Remember I said in the ocean of the Yoga Tradition, we’d find some schools of Buddhism that had more in common with schools of Hindu Yoga than with other schools of Buddhism? This is one of those cases!

The distinction between Purusha and Prakriti in Patanjali’s Yoga is similar to the radical distinction between samsara and nibanna (nirvana) of the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

Yet, Chip and Michael argue that those who make the case for Patanjali’s dualism are missing the point. I am not clear as to how they come to deny the dualism of Patanjali. In conversation with Chip, I said that unless Patanjali were to declare “Purusha is Prakriti; Prakriti is Purusha” echoing the non-dual emptiness teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, we cannot escape Patanjali’s embedded dualism. He did admit that such a formulation would be alien to Patanjali.

This philosophical point, I believe is worthwhile investigating because even if one wants to argue that these are just words, metaphors, such metaphors have significant impact on the way we view the world. For Patanjali, it makes no real sense to speak of jiva-mukta, embodied enlightenment or embodied liberation. For Patanjali, full liberation is a dis-embodied, fully transcendent state of being! The state of kaivalya arises when the gunas, of no more relevance to awareness, become resolved into the unmanifest Prakriti. For Patanjali, (and the Theravadins) nature, this world, only has significance or value to the extent it serves us to transcend it! At the conclusion of this section, Chip seems to imply that Patanjali endorses the jivan-mukti position of embodied freedom, but I remain unconvinced. Of course, this  doesn’t mean we cannot re-interpret the text to give support to this idea, but let us acknowledge that that is what we are doing.

But again, the real sticking point for me is this teaching that there is a “pure awareness” that stands apart from the constructs of birth, identity, thought and experience. Even in the Buddhist tradition there has been on-going debate about the existence of some kind of “pure awareness.” For dualists, this is not a problem, as they assert that there really are two ontologically real ‘substances.’ To my mind, some ‘middle-way’ perspective that sees the two as interdependently arising seems both to make sense and to resolve the issue of dualism and/or non-dualism.

The question may arise as to what’s the big deal? For me, I want a spirituality, a spiritual practice that values the body, the world, this life rather then seeing it all as simply something to be emancipated from! For me, the liberation is in the transformative relationship to the body, the world and to life that comes from seeing directly the not-Self nature of all of it.

The Indian Buddhist yogis, for instance, used this “not-Self” doctrine as a way to devalue the conventional, relative world. Later Buddhist yogis of the Hua-yen school essentially discussed the doctrine of emptiness similarly to the Indian masters with the main difference being one of emphasis. That difference is that the Hua-yen masters chose to emphasize the point that emptiness is interdependence. AND, simultaneously, they emphasized that interdependence is emptiness. So, even for the Chinese, emptiness functioned as a way to critique the conventional mode of perception and experience, thus devaluing it. However, at the same time that the perception of emptiness abolished the clinging and grasping after independently existent selves or substances, there also emerged from this metanoia (a turning in the mind) a very positive appreciation for the way in which things relate to each other in identity and interdependence. The Hua-yen masters interpreted emptiness in a positive manner without concretizing emptiness as did some other Mahayana schools, but neither did they fall into the greater error of even greater attachment to the world, nor did they abandon the basic Buddhist understanding of conventional experience as delusive and painful. So, by “positive,” I do not mean to infer that they see emptiness as some positive force or entity. What I do mean, is that in its emphasis on interdependent being (what Thich Nhat Hanh calls ‘interbeing’), Hua-yen was able to retain a positive, even joyous, creative appreciation of the absolute value of each aspect of this being.

Book Club: "Awakening To Prana" by Chip Hartranft (Continued)

In today’s post, I’d like to take up where I left off in the previous post in discussion of Chip Hartranft’s contribution to Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind. In section five Chip introduces Yoga’s Eightfold Path, Ashtanga.

He begins by saying that despite differences of philosophical description and emphasis, the yoga paths of Patanjali and the Buddha are “virtually indistinguishable.” In fact, I have heard some scholars say that Patanjali offers a form of “samkhya-vipassana,” and while I think this is actually quite accurate, there are other scholars, such as the esteemed Georg Feurstein, who though giving Chip’s translation and commentary on The Yoga-Sutra a very strong positive review, also asserted that Chip goes too far in drawing the parallels. Here, Chip even implies that Patanjali was inspired by the Buddha “to adopt the well-known structure of the Buddha’s eightfold path.” I think there is no argument that one eightfold path influences the other; however, there is some evidence that may lead one to assert that the ‘real’ yoga originally taught by Patanjali is the kriya-yoga he describes and that the yoga he is most known for, ashtanga, or the eight-limbs model, is actually a later editorial insertion!

An interesting observation, in any case, is that in the Buddha’s eightfold path, the first two limbs are related to wisdom, the middle three to ethics and the last three to meditation, which in Patanjali’s eightfold schema, the path begins with the first two limbs of ethics, then goes into progressively deeper interiorization of consciousness. Here again, many (Buddhists) have asserted that all the following limbs are devoted to meditation, and that Patanjali’s path lacks the wisdom component. I disagree with that assessment, but it does seems that wisdom for Patanjali must come from the deepest levels of concentration/absorbtion (samadhi) while that is not seen as necessarily so for the Buddhist tradition. One last remark about the two paths here that I’d like to make is that when the Buddha’s Eightfold Path is presented as the Three Trainings, then the first limbs are ethics, the middle three are related to meditation and the final two are related to wisdom. This ordering seems more in line with Patanjali’s ashtanga-yoga.

In the next two sections, Chip briefly notes the yamas, as “disciplines” that address the yogis relationship to the world and the niyamas as “disciplines” relating more to the yogi’s internal personal sphere. While this is something often stated, and makes for a handy, efficient summarization, the situation can easily lead to overstatement. For instance, the first yama, non-harm (or as Chip has it, non-violence) does indeed relate to how a yogi should act in the world with the intention of causing no (or as little as possible) harm to others. But many teachers have also pointed out the importance of non-harming oneself through one’s thoughts and actions.

In his section on asana, Chip makes the important point that if we take Patanjali’s instruction here to heart, then rather than being merely a progressive ‘step-ladder’ the eight limbs are holistic and even holographic in that any one limb carried to its deepest depths can – in Chip’s words, “mature to the point of transformation.” In fact, after years of practice, several years ago I began teaching a retreat/workshop entitled Body of Peace that is based simply on the three aphorisms related to asana (as well as a single paragraph from Dogen’s Genjo-Koan.) Another point Chip emphasizes is though one can indeed seek to create stability and ease in hatha-yoga-asana practice, it cannot be denied that the most subtle levels of relaxation Patanjali is speaking about cannot arise outside of more stable postures such as sitting – and, as the Buddha might add, lying down.

I totally agree with Chip’s take that the pranayama of Patanjali is not to be confused with the more active pranayama of hatha-yoga, but instead relates to the subtle changes that naturally arise when one “yokes” one’s attention to the breath and the energy currents riding the breath. I am sure many of you who practice meditation have found times when the breath has grown very slow, with long gaps between the breath, and perhaps even periods of time where the breath seems to have stopped completely, effortlessly. 

Extending into pratyahara, Chip describes this as attention becoming so unifed that the power of externals to distract is “neutralized.” What I find interesting about pratyahara is that while many speak of this as akin to a tortoise withdrawing it’s limbs, and to a complete blocking out of any awareness of “externals,” I find the Zen teaching on keeping the sense doors open, so that awareness of externals remains, but, without distraction a kind of more subtle and deeper practice of pratyahara. In fact, the kind of samadhi where all awareness of externals is absent is often derided in the Zen tradition.

Chip concludes his overview of Patanjali’s ashtanga-yoga by simply stating that the final three limbs form a continuum where all “names, concepts, psychosomatic structures, and volitions come to subside, after which only a phenomenon’s bare arising and passing away remain.” Hence, from one-pointedness (dharana) to one-flow-ness (dhyana) to total absorption (samadhi).

The birds have vanished into the sky,

And now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

Until only the mountain remains.

--- Li Po