It’s so easy to forget the roots of yoga; that what we practice today evolved out of a contemplative tradition, one based on an intimate relationship between student and teacher, and an impressive level of discipline and devotion. Postures (what of them there were) and breathing exercises were practiced in the service of — as preparatory to — meditation. And meditation was (is) practiced in order to gain deeper and ever more refined understanding of one’s essential “self” and the wider nature of consciousness. What we might consider “psychology” today was the stuff of yogic or Buddhist contemplative study and practice whose origins date back a few thousand years.
Can we recall these roots, re-tracing a path back to self, to this modern yoga thing we do? We can remember the sage Patanjali, whose sutras (aphorisms; concise statements of wisdom) on yoga comprise one of the seminal extant texts of the earlier contemplative practices. What he has to say about the body and breath we might learn to apply to our asana practice, and as both a practical matter and in deference to the contemplative origins, we could allow for more time to breathe and to sit.
In Book II Sutras 46–48, Patanjali says:
46 Sthira-sukham-asanam
47 Prayatna-saithilyananta-samapattibhyam
48 Tato dvandvanabhighatah
46 The postures of meditation should embody steadiness and ease.
47 This occurs as all effort relaxes and coalescence arises, revealing that the body and the infinite universe are indivisible.
48 Then one is no longer disturbed by the play of opposites.
(Translation: Chip Hartranft)
Sutra 46 “sthira-sukham-asanam” about steadiness and ease is perhaps the most oft-quoted one in contemporary yoga practice. The reason is perhaps two-fold. It’s one of the three out of the entire text of 195 sutras that mentions posture/asana (so according to Edwin Bryant, less than 1% of the total text), and it addresses a fundamental tenet and aspiration of practicing postures: the balance, or I would argue the tension, between effort and ease.
If we take the sutra as applicable to the practice of modern postural yoga, we’re immediately confronted with the stark difference between it and any other form of physical conditioning. What is this interplay between ease and effort or as the text states, steadiness? It is to me, a quality of watchfulness in the postures. We can call this observation or witnessing or awareness or even for that matter, mindfulness. In yoga postures we try to observe our internal state with some sense of constancy. Where is the work? Is it too much? Is it perhaps, not quite enough? How can I adjust? What is the quality of my breath in this moment? In this moment? Is steadiness fighting against ease? For that matter, is there any ease at all? What about the muscles of my face? And on and on and on. This is what we do in yoga. And we can’t observe if we’re checked out, or watching TV or listening to something through ear buds. We can’t really observe if we’re distracted by the form and athleticism, the acrobatics of the poses. There are no mirrors or music in an Iyengar classroom. We practice yoga to attempt to navigate tension and release, discomfort and ease, struggle and surrender. To do that we need to get close to internal states, the felt sense of what is active, and what is neutral or non-active.
Sutra 48, “Then one is no longer disturbed by the pairs of opposites,” points to the state of coalescence (samaphatti) described in 47. I would gesture, that in asana, as in meditation, we’re looking for the middle way, the fine line, where we can hold the pairs, but not be disturbed by a desire for one or the other. We stop before pushing too far into discomfort (yoga is not a “no pain, no gain” pursuit at least in the physical sense), or longing for rest. We simply abide and then notice what it’s like to hold the tension. In this place, perhaps we rise above — we sit just outside our own experience, to witness the having of an experience — to realize the inherent sameness of the opposites. That they are, as the saying goes, two sides of the same coin.
Is all of this too tall an order for working on forward folds or arm balances? Of trying to commit to getting on a mat for some time every day if possible? Even in circumstances where we’re working with commitment, slowly, deeply therapeutically, developing awareness of every important somatic nuance in an effort to heal or stave off degeneration, we can get lost in the body. But if we’ve been practicing for any amount of time, we recognize at least a sliver of truth or reality here, in the way we’re taught to practice yoga with the guidance of teacher who understands something about “right effort.” At least that is my hope. That we can practice asana as a way of practicing balance, and that elusive coalescence. We practice in this way so that as one of my favorite teachers reminds me, all that isn’t practice can be lived in this same way.
This isn’t taught in asana-based yoga often enough. I get it. I’m guilty of it as a teacher. There isn’t time. Yoga becomes something else we need to just get on with. Check that box. And it is fundamentally an internal experience, as in one that no one can tell you how to have, or do for you. Can practicing yoga postures be contemplative? In the sense of having an experience of unity or transcendence? I don’t doubt it. As a more intellectual exercise, we can practice asana with more awareness of when we “over think” versus an allowing for more feeling, or detached observation.
Practicing postures as a means to a more optimal meditation discipline on the other hand, is the heart of the tradition. We do ourselves and the tradition a disservice when we cut out the heart. Other of my fave teachers counsel more stillness as an antidote to the incessant and break-neck speed of our world and our lives. Slower, quieter, not faster, louder. We need time to refill our reserves. We need respite, retreat, restoration. And we need the ritual of it every day, not just when we’re about to break, or when we get a few hours for the privilege of “spa day.” Is it not literally insane that we devote more money and care for our graying hair and dry skin than we do for our breath and our minds?
I’ll be trying to carve out a few extra minutes of my classes to just sit. To bring our embodied practice to an end in that place of comfortable stillness, where we can learn to abide what passes through the field of awareness, and in that, allow the flowering of our modern practice to honor its roots.
Bryant, Edwin F. 2009. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. New York. North Point Press.
Hartranft, Chip. 2003. The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali. Boston. Shambhala.