ABSOLUTE EXPERIENCE

"The question of [Yoga] is a very confusing one. Nobody knows, but everybody knows that somebody knows. That seems to be the problem we are facing: maybe nobody knows at all or maybe everybody knows. So we should not purely trust the information, suggestions, and ideas that come to us from external sources, but actually work with ourselves and try to develop our own personal understanding and appreciation of [Yoga]. [Yoga] seems to be the basic space in which we operate in our ordinary, everyday life. It brings some sense of comfort and, at the same time, some sense of confusion. There seems to be a basic play between the two." (72)

The quote above is from Chogyam Trungpa's book, True Perception which is all about "dharma art," or a kind of purposeful creativity. Each time the word Yoga appears in brackets, I have taken the liberty of replacing what Trungpa actually writes which is the word Reality. This passage occurs during a discussion of the ways in which we perceive the phenomenal world, and how purposeful creativity is dependent upon learning to simply be in the midst of experience rather than constantly trying to grasp and define it.

Trunga explains that ordinary experience is a teetering between boredom and excitement. Sometimes we are so familiar with the things taking place around us that we are numb to them, and they have ceased to intrigue us. And at other times we perceive something particularly beautiful or fresh or stimulating, and we feel a surge of excitement. (Consider for a moment how that may apply to experiences had on the yoga mat.) But both of those kinds of perception -- bored or excited -- are their own kind of confusing and aggressive. They each come with a busy-ness in the mind and heart -- questions, emotions, reactions, energetic fluctuations, etc. What we should be aiming for instead is a state of absolute experience in which we lack fluctuating reactions, which means we stop accepting or rejecting, liking or disliking, and we just are. From that state of being, Trungpa says, we gain a clarity of mind and heart which fosters very honest and worthwhile creative self-expression.

Likewise, our yoga practice is meant to cultivate an experience of sustained serenity in which life's everyday obstacles simply cease to be problematic -- rather than accepting and rejecting, liking and disliking, we learn to just be in the midst of all that exists around us. That is, of course, easier said than done. But we actually often make the process of attaining it harder than it needs to be.

We spend a lot of our time wondering about the right way to practice -- which style, how often, how intensely. We say things to ourselves like Am I doing this pose correctly? Will I ever get into that posture? Do I go to class enough? Should I try harder to practice at home? Is it bad that I don't like...[insert noun of choice]? Is everybody watching me wobble right now? Is this class going to be too difficult for me? Do I need a better sticky mat? Etc. Etc.

Who cares? So what? It doesn't matter; not really, because there is no one right way to practice. We want to know all the answers, or we want to have access to the source that knows. But that doesn't exist. There isn't a system or a book or a person that knows all. Or, like the quote suggests, maybe we all know equally well. Either way, the information won't come to us from any particular outside source. Instead, we learn through shifting our perception of ordinary experiences. We have to learn how to stop craving the right way, and simply be. As long as our experiences are rooted in acceptance and rejection we will always be teetering between boredom and excitement which means we are perpetuating confusion and aggression.

Yoga is both comforting and confusing. In fact the entirety of the human experience occurs between comfort and confusion. And our aim is a reconciliation of the two. Humanity is an interplay between these two states of being and when we have mastered them into equanimity, we have won the game. To get that, however, we almost have to stop wanting it.

It is our obsession with it that keeps it elusive. Our intuitions tell us that mind/body/spirit equanimity is important and necessary. Therefore, we feel as though we should have better internal access to it -- we should just know how. And when we don't, we get frustrated. And because we still have this gut-feeling that we need it, we then turn to external sources -- we say to our friends and teachers and therapists and even strangers, I've tried to attain wholeness all by myself and can't seem to do it. Do You know how? Can You help me? And when they say, Yes I can! then we try what they suggest, and some of it seems to work and some of it doesn't. And all the while we're liking some things and not liking other things and we're accepting the things we like and we're rejecting the things we don't like and we're bored and we're excited and we're comforted and we're confused. And the whole thing just keeps on going.

And we've missed the point. The lesson is that it isn't something you do or have or say or think or feel. It's actually the absence of those things. It's just being. Trungpa describes it as behaving like a frog in a puddle: "The frog simply winks its eyes at each raindrop that falls on it, but it doesn't change its posture. It doesn't try either to jump into the puddle or to get out of the puddle" (75). The frog is neither accepting nor rejecting. He is neither bored nor excited. He isn't concerned with his own sense of self-froggy-ness, and he isn't seeking his frog-neighbors' advise on how to be a better frog. He just sits. He just is. And because of that, his existence is one of absolute experience. He has that experience because he isn't trying to have it.

Yoga -- in its myriad of forms and functions -- is a collection of actions whose focus is likely to result in personal and interpersonal well-being. But it isn't the yoga itself which is liberating. You cannot simply "yoga" your way to absolute experience. You cannot say, I am going to practice yoga, and therefore I will become liberated. And it's not about discovering the "right way" to do it, and then getting everything you ever wanted. All the wanting and trying in the world won't produce it. Rather, yoga is a method (not the only method, nor necessarily even the best method, but one method) by which we learn to just sit in the puddle in the rain; not because we want liberation but because we understand that it is the reality of the experience we are having and neither accepting nor rejecting it will change it. The reward for that understanding is a reconciliation of comfort and confusion; is absolute experience. It's not something you do; it's something you experience when you stop grasping for it.