Beyond duality

Vitarkabādhane pratikpakṣabhāvanam*

Yoga Sutra 2:33

Translations:

When the mind is disturbed by passions one should practise pondering over their opposites.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

In order to exclude from the mind questionable things, the mental calling up of those things that are opposite is efficacious for their removal.

William Q. Judge

When distracted by wayward or perverted rationalization, suitable counter measures should be adopted to keep away or remove such obstacles, especially by the contemplation of the other point of view.

Swami Venkatesananda

When negative feelings restrict us, the opposite should be cultivated.

Alistair Shearer

When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite [positive] ones should be thought of. This is pratipaksha bhavana.

Swami Satchidananada

Cultivating of opposites

The phenomenal world is a world of opposites: Hot/cold, big/little, smart/stupid, black/white, me/you. It is a world of dualistic opposites. It has to be so. Whatever we are experiencing now, the opposite is also here, or at the very least, waiting in the wings. Our thinking is in opposites, our feeling and emoting is in opposites. 

Yoga Sutra 2:33 recognises that we become embroiled in disturbing cognitions and feelings and counsels the cultivation of the opposite. You might ask, if the opposite can always be here too, why do I get caught up in the most uncomfortable of the pair, in distress instead of in comfort? 

This has to do with the way our brain has evolved to keep us safe.  We have a negative bias.  Better that we mistake a stick for a snake than a snake for a stick. What happens though is that we get a bit trapped in the negativity and begin to  suffer.  We believe it, so we suffer.

In this age of the wonders of imaging the brain scientists have now shown how cultivating gratitude for example can change the very structures of the brain, growing the hippocampus and shrinking the amygdala. Cultivation of gratitutde is an example of cultivating the opposite.  When doom and gloom is all around, practice noticing what there is to be grateful for.

Welcoming opposites

The practice becomes even more powerful when we also practice welcoming both sides of the pair, not rejecting that discomforting side, not clinging on to that more comfortable side, but being open to them both.

In the practice of iRest® yoga nidra meditation we do this, moving between the two sides of the pair, welcoming both, whether it is a feeling in the body, such as hot/cold, an emotion and its feeling in the body, such as sad/happy, or a thought or belief, such as I am stupid/I am smart. We always notice how they feel in the body and go between those feelings, not just summoning them as a thought.  What does it feel like to believe I am stupid? What does it feel like to believe I am smart?

Both together

It is when we reach the point where we hold them both together that the really big power moment comes. It is not a merging, but both here together, both opposites at the same time. 

Wow! The resolution opens up to a state that is beyond opposites.  This is a sense of open, welcoming, Presence that is full of equanimity. How so?

Moving beyond duality to the simple way things are

This embodied form incudes all the thoughts, emotions, and every perception that we have, including the me thought. This embodied form is constrained by thought into believing in separation, a me and a you. It is in this state that the opposites arise.

The mind of thoughts is so powerful, and we are so habituated to its illusions, that we need a few tricks if we are to see beyond it and experience another Reality. And one of those little tricks is this work in opposites. When we hold these two opposite constructs of the mind at the same time, we may be able to "see" beyond them to the simple awaring Presence that everything is. 

Everything is. It is not was or will be, it is. 


* vitarka - doubt, discussion, discursive thoughts, passions
   badhane - disturbance, harrassment, torment
   pratipaksha - the opposite
   bhavanam - should be thought of, pondered, state of mind

Tripping over my stories

Lately I have been noticing how I keep tripping over my stories. Sometimes I have checked in with a friend, to say, "Am I reading too much into this?" I am truly thrilled that I am noticing this.  Otherwise I would just be reacting, believing my stories to be true.  That I am suspecting that my own, essentially fabricated, story is involved is a step in the right direction. 

Let me explain what I mean. I will then examine the implications and the alternative, and give you a five step path to freedom from your stories.

The mind is hard-wired to make up stories

The shocking thing to our sense of self is that the mind is hard-wired to make up stories. It has been known by the yogis for centuries, they called these stories vikalpa but it  also has been shown scientifically. Experiments with folk who have had the left and right brain hemisphere's disconnected to treat severe epilepsy have shown that one side is constantly making up stories that may have no connection to reality in order to rationalise perceptions. We are literally hard-wired to lie to ourselves! I know, it is shattering. (Could this be true? Want to know more?) Believing those stories can be a source of great suffering.

Shocking ... and liberating

This can be a shocking thing to realise; but when we do it is so liberating. No longer do we need to believe those stories ... like the one that is saying "I am just not good enough",  which can take a few different guises, like these:

• I am not good-looking enough, my body is imperfect.
• I am not intelligent enough.
• I am not sophisticated enough (for this job, this event, these people)
• I am a failure at everything
• I am out of my league.

Sometimes the stories come in the guise of blaming. Someone else is to blame for all my suffering.

Then there are the stories about obligations - you should or should not behave in a certain way, like you should (or should not) wear brand name yoga clothes in your yoga class, or you should (or should not) wear your hair in a certain way, get tattoos, body piercings or have cosmetic surgery.

Let me be clear, I am not saying here that we should or shouldn't do any of these things, but what I am saying is that we should be sorting out whether we are behaving in a certain way because of the stories that are not true, or not. After all, a story my brain has made up could well be saying to me not to do something and a story your brain has made up might be telling you to do exactly the same thing.

When my stories intersect with yours

Now we really are in a tricky pickle! When any of us meet from the point of view of believing our own stories, we can either reinforce our delusion, or come into conflict over our delusions. We are all doing the best we can, but when that best is blindfolded by myth, the outcome may appear less than skillful.

Even our love for each other is not enough to lift the veil. How often do we interpret the actions of  a loved one as a slight on ourselves, when in reality they are acting on the basis of their story, and we are reacting on the basis of our own?

The true course is felt not thought

None of us are immune. Only if we can recognise when our view, our course of action, is being guided by story, will we be free.

The only true course is one that is free from story, and that course is felt, not thought. To tune into that we need to become still, to listen beyond the stories.

The inner quiet place of Truth

The good news is that we do not need to relegate ourselves to suffering by forever believing our stories. The meditative paths of yoga offer us techniques for accessing the inner quiet place of Truth. It is simple, however simple does not mean instant nor easy, but if you think it is worth being free of your stories, the path is there to follow.

The alternative to action based on stories is not anarchy

What is the alternative to thinking through a course of action, to basing decision making or action upon anything other than the stories the mind presents us with?

Naturally, if you see through the stories, you will no longer be compelled to act upon them.  They may still arise but will have no power.  So how on earth do we find the right course of action. This is a radical shift.

When we let go of, or see right through the story-telling of the mind, and are free of them at last, does this mean that we are governed by nothing, that all is anarchic?  Not at all. Being free of the stories is a stilling of the mind, and this is the object of meditation. When the mind becomes quiet we can "hear" a different voice. I place that in quotes because you don't really hear it, you feel it. Free of the compulsion of stories, we come into an intuitive power that shows us the way through feeling, and the feeling is one of harmony.

Choose the path that feels most harmonious. Which path feels most right?

The five step path to freeing yourself of the tyranny of your stories

1. Intellectual knowing that your mind is always creating stories is a start. Having read this blog, you have taken this step.
2. Practice meditations daily that encourage a connection to the deep Inner presence that you are. This is beyond thoughts and stories. (iRest® meditation does this.)
3. Watch how your stories arise, unfold and dissolve within this Awaring Presence.
4. Keep practising until you can bring this into daily life, find yourself as Awaring Presence, and see the stories arising.
5. Keep coming back to Awaring Presence and feel into the action that will feel harmonious. Follow that.

This path works

I am recommending this path from personal experience. It works.  That is why lately I have noticed myself noticing my stories. I am looking forward to continuing to refine the process until I can feel truly free of the stories and be guided solely by that inner quiet voice of harmony.

There is nothing new about this path though. If you care to look you will find exactly this path set out in the writings of the ancient sages.

It's a bit scary ... but then that fear is just another story I am telling myself. It feels harmonious, so I am going there.

Being kind

"Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."

Versions of this saying abound and attributions are many. It is a worthy axiom to live by.

I am amazed by the troubles that people are managing in their lives all the time.  They may be presenting to us as if nothing at all is unsettling them, but in fact their life may be full of turmoil.

How often does our own turmoil take us away from kindness? I know it does with me, and it is highly likely that my own problems are miniscule compared to others'.

To a great degree our ability to be kind to others, no matter what we ourselves are dealing with, hinges on our ability to be kind to ourselves.  How do we do that when faced with a crowd of sorrows?

Meditation and meeting ourselves as unchanging awareness helps. When we access that part of ourselves which is untouched by the anxiety, the grief, the guilt, the worry, and know ourselves to be that, no matter what else is arising, and meet the same in everyone else, that is the truest kindness we can offer ourselves and all others.

Reset your defaults

There were some intensely emotional moments last week when I heard the news that loved ones were involved in a serious car accident. There were moments when I was caught up in "how did they survive"! There is horror and trauma in that thought,  it might so easily have been a different story. But it wasn't. I have been watching and welcoming  all the emotions that the events have unleashed, and the thoughts that accompany them. There truly is nothing that is not a messenger with a valuable message to deliver.

Immediately upon hearing the news I recognised feelings of anxiety and distress in my body and then the presence of immense gratitude.

Yes, along with tumultuous other feelings there is gratitude - has to be, my loved ones did survive, and that is a miracle. Concern for them remains, there are injuries to body and spirit to be navigated, but oh so much gratitude.

I am also experiencing deep gratitude for the guidance of my teachers who have shown me the way to welcome my feelings, emotions and thoughts, all as sensations in the body, and the lessons that become available through lived experience of the deep wisdom of the teachings.

This week I have been doing the practices and proving them to myself. I don't pretend to be a saint and it is not always so easy to live the teachings, my feathers are often ruffled. I am ordinary like that - we all are. But I am glad I have been doing my yoga practices daily and that they can step up and help me to navigate difficult times.

What yoga practices are they that have been so useful?

Well it has not had a lot to do with a well executed, nicely aligned trikonasana, although I still advocate asana practice to keep the body healthy, and a lovely asana practice can also be a moving meditation. However in my experience, love it though I do, yogasana practice alone is not what builds resilience in the face of what life throws at me.

I am most grateful (there's that word again) for the practices of iRest®.  Of all the yoga sadhana (practices) I have learnt in 40 odd years of exploration in yoga and meditation, iRest has provided me with the tools that work, for me, working in meditation daily and then taking the same practices into daily life where we really meet "stuff". And my tumultuous week has focused my understanding of how well it works.

The brain's default positions and how to change them 

The default position of the mind is to wander all over the place, to ruminate. This is the factory default if you like, and it serves a purpose. The mind in Default Mode Network is scanning the internal environment and in so doing may make new connections, make plans, analyse events and so on. That can be useful, until it takes over and gets us into an overthinking loop.

Another default position is our Negative bias. We are preset to see the worst, just like the A. A. Milne character Eeyore. Again this is protective. Better to get out of the way of a stick thinking it to be a snake than to get bitten by a snake you saw as a stick.

You can see where this leads us.  When the Default Network and Negative Bias get going together we have discursive negative thoughts, and everything is doom and gloom, just like poor Eeyore!

"The Default Network and Negative bias together lead to discursive negative thoughts ... but you can change the default settings."


Just as on your computer you can change default settings to something that will serve you better, it is possible to change your mental defaults as well.

Meditation techniques often get us out of this loop by focusing the mind, which moves us into another network called the Attention Network (sometimes called "Task Positive Network"). In the Attention Mode we can focus and learn. It is possible to stay in Attention Network for a sustained period of time, such as when performing a creative task that becomes all consuming and we completely lose track of time and whatever other responsibilities we may have. It is not possible to be in the Attention Network and the Default Mode simultaneously. "Best to stay busy" is often a response to difficult times, but all too often we can turn off the Discursive default mode during the day by staying busy, but the moment we stop being busy and try to sleep it rushes back online.

Meditation techniques that use points of focus, such as breath awareness, mandala visualisation, chanting, or that set tasks like rotating awareness through points in the body, are switching on the Attention Network. And studies do show that the more we switch on the Attention Network, the less discursive is the Default Network and the more we are able to concentrate. 

In iRest we employ such techniques for example when we sense the body and attend to the breath. 

But it is not a complete reset of the defaults.

Resetting the defaults - the alternative

Research has shown that if we utilise meditations on the feelings of the heart, loving kindness, compassion, gratitude as examples, we begin to reset the Negative bias. I have long had a daily practice of gratitude which I often share in class - think of just three things today that you could be grateful for. There is always something to be grateful for. Build this practice into everyday life and we literally change our brain, taking a more positive outlook.

And yes, we can also change our default network away from the discursive Default Mode Network.

There is another network which we can call the Present Centered Network. We learn to step into this network in our iRest practice, for example when we work with opposites. We utilise the Attention Network first. Try this:

Sense the left hand. Feel it fully. Let go of visualising it and just feel the left hand.

Shift to the right hand. Feel it fully, without visualising, just feel the right hand.

Go backwards and forwards between hands, attending to sensing just that one hand while you are there, and then to just the other.

When the time is right sense both hands at the same time.

While sensing one hand or the other we are utilising the Attention Network, but the moment we sense both at the same time we open into Present Centeredness. With consistent practice in various situations as we encounter in a regular iRest Yoga Nidra practice (by regular I mean daily), Present Centered becomes our new default that we can carry into everyday living, it becomes our Default Present Centered Network.

I offer gratitude to those who gave me reminders this week as I drifted back into the old Default Mode and Negative bias - you may not have even known that you were reminding me but at various times the messages came and helped me to keep finding my way back to the Present centered. 

My deepest gratitude I offer to my teachers, especially to Richard Miller who took the ancient teachings and tweaked them for our modern lives, infusing them with his knowledge of psychology that joins in him with an amazing and deep knowledge of yoga traditions. And others who have also learnt from him and who have helped along the way to illuminate my path, including Anne Douglas, Fuyuko Toyota, Jennifer Carbanero, Kirsten Guest, Molly Birkholm, Ford Peck and Stephanie Lopez.

Learn iRest Yoga Nidra with me - find the next 6 week course.

The dance of ever renewing delight

I recently spent a week on retreat, in silence, while also being in community. Try imagining sitting in a dining room full of other people and talking to no-one. Many find it impossible to imagine.

What a treat it was! And a week did not seem long enough in the end.

Silence doesn't only mean "not talking". It means "not doing anything that will take you away from the ongoing meditation and stilling of the fluctuations of the mind". Pretty much no texting, emailing, reading the frivolous, like Facebook,. I didn't take a computer, and the only book I had was my handbag sized copy of the Yoga Sutras interpretively translated by Swami Venkatesananda, as it goes wherever my handbag goes. I did indeed open and read it on a few occasions at night and during the long afternoon breaks, finding that it could take me deeper, rather than taking me away.

Another text that might have also taken me deeper would have been the Radiance Sutras had I thought to take it. Many of the meditation practices we did on retreat were from the Radiance Sutras.

The retreat was titled "Embodied Awakening" and was led by a very talented teacher, Anne Douglas. The title indicates that the body itself is a gateway to awakening. As we come into a heightened sensitivity to information of the body we start to open all of our perception, including to the experiences that are beyond the body.

Through repeated body-sensing practices, meditation and Yoga Nidra, and by not interspersing this with the things that would take us away, we began to enter a more awake state.  An awakeness that is awake no matter what the state of the body, awake even if the body sleeps, dreaming or dreamless, and awake in a vaster sense than ordinary wakeful states.

The Radiance Sutras are Lorin Roche's beautiful, modern, interpretive translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (c.800CE), a lovely text from the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. The title of this post is taken from Sutra 156.

Let me share Sutras 155 -156 with you.

155
Breath flows
Into this body
As a nectar of the gods. 

Every breath is a whisper
Of the Goddess:
"Here is the ritual I ask of you -
Be the cup
Into which I pour this bliss,
The elixir of immortal peace." 

156
The breath flows out with the sound sa,
The breath flows in with the sound ha.
Thus thousands of times a day,
Everyone who breathes is adoring the Goddess. 

Know this, and be in great joy.
Listen to the ongoing prayer that is breath.
Life shall dance in you
A dance of ever-renewing delight.

Perhaps you are put off by this talk of "the Goddess" so lets talk about that. Who is this Goddess?

The text comes from the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. The "Goddess" is, at a story-telling level, the consort of Shiva, who is sometimes called Parvati, but also is known as Shakti. But such terms are actually metaphorical. This God and Goddess are not personalities, they are the Universe, and they are in fact one. The Goddess is the energetic aspect of Consciousness that causes manifestation. In other words, Shakti causes Divine Consciousness to pulse, and matter to come into being. These concepts have a very nice correlation with astrophysics!

So everything is really Shiva-Shakti, and you can experience this, in your body. Your body becomes a pathway to knowing the Divine and a pathway to returning to the knowledge of your True Nature. So the 112 meditations of the Vijnana Bhairava are 112 gateways of the body to returning to your True Nature.

Here in these two sutras our gateway is the breath. "Be the cup into which I pour this bliss", be receptive to the breath, "be in great joy", "listen to the ongoing prayer", "life shall dance in you".

So next time you are lying quietly - in savasana at the end of your next yoga practice perhaps, or even in bed tonight, waiting for sleep, be receptive, open, listen, feel and quietly let this wondrous experience of the breath be meditation and prayer.

There is a poem about how I was feeling when I returned from retreat here.

You might also be interested in a previous post, Siva - Sakti.

Dealing with negative thoughts and emotions

When we are in emotional turmoil thoughts can go around and around in our head. They become so persistent that we cannot sleep or concentrate on any other job. The emotions that accompany them threaten to overwhelm us. In the worst times we become quite dysfunctional and mentally unwell.

For example, perhaps we lost a job or broke up with our partner. Beliefs about ourselves that have their origins in childhood may arise, such as "I am not good enough", "there is something wrong with me", "I am stupid", or "I am unlovable". And with each of these beliefs comes wave after wave of emotion, such as sadness, anger, shame and guilt. The emotion reinforces the belief and the belief reinforces the emotion.

Not surprisingly we find these emotions and beliefs uncomfortable and we regard them as negative, and something to get rid of. So we resist them, try to push them away, suppress them. This might work for awhile, until something else happens, and those old beliefs are arising again and along with them come all of those "negative" emotions.

We want to know how can we deal with these negative thoughts and emotions and be rid of them forever?

Properly understood, all experiences are signposts to guide us back to our inherent wholeness. We take such emotions and beliefs to be "negative" only when we misunderstand their role and lack the skills to welcome them and receive their messages. 

When we truly welcome and observe all emotional experiences, all thoughts and beliefs, we cease to mistakenly identify with them and learn to recognise that they truly are just passing through. 

In so much as I am sad in this moment I can also be happy. I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can observe my emotions pass through, and I can enquire into them, discover a belief that is accompanying them, explore the belief, discover all the messages they are bringing me. I can also invoke and welcome the opposite belief and emotion, so I know that none of it is permanent.

Be drawn to the practices and wisdom teachings that help you to learn to meet and greet whatever arises. Learn to be curious about the felt sense in the body of any emotion and to watch it pass through. Learn to recognise the temporary nature of all movements of the mind, and how to remain at ease in every situation. Recognise that no thought or emotion is truly a negative experience, they just are, and they all have a valuable message that will show you the way home to your inherent wholeness.

The practices we are given in iRest®, whether as Yoga Nidra or meditation, establish a safe place to practice and develop our skills in meeting all that arises. It nurtures us to be open and welcoming and always at ease in every situation. These are ancient teachings that cross many cultures as the poem by Rumi below attests. But in iRest they are packaged to be accessible to us in our modern world.

Translation by Coleman Barks. Image from www.yearofjoys.com

How to catch a monkey

• Take a coconut and drill a hole in it just big enough for a monkey's open hand to fit through.
• Tie the coconut down to the ground
• Put something inside the coconut that the monkey will find irresistible, such as peanuts or banana
• Wait

The monkey will soon come along and reach inside the coconut to grab the delight inside. But with his fist firmly around the treat he is unable to draw his hand back out. The monkey is most reluctant to let go of the treat and remains trapped!

This simple method of catching the monkey is a parable for our own suffering. Our attachment keeps us trapped in the condition of suffering.  Just as the monkey would only need to let go of the bait to be free, all we need to do is to release our attachment.

The Buddha gave the three causes of suffering to be attachment, anger and ignorance.

Patanjali, who wrote the "Yoga Sutras" lists five causes: ignorance (of our true nature); our ego, which defines us as many things, but blinds us to our true self; attachment, like the monkey; aversion or resistance, which is the flip side of attachment; and, fear of death. 

We are advised by the sages to still the mind. I suspect that this is even harder for modern people in the information age to do than it was before the endless barrage of electronically conveyed visual sand mental stimulation. 

I have noticed that when people come to meditation courses quietening the mind is often one of their motivations, yet when people sign up for asana classes relaxation, flexibility, strength and fitness are more often the reasons given. It doesn't matter really. 

If we learn the techniques of meditation we learn techniques to still the mind. It will however be challenging.

In a movement based asana practice, we may first engage in the outward sensations of the body, and the mind may be challenged initially to connect with the body, to discover a sense of its place in space. We may be confronted by limitations of the body. Yet the more we practice, the more we familiarise with the poses of yoga, the more we begin to turn inward, and the practice becomes a moving meditation. In the end we do begin to open to ourselves, to the possibility of discovering our true nature.