Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.4 states: vrtti sārūpyam-itaratra – Or the seer remains obscured by normal mind activity. This sutra alone is somewhat incomplete without the context of the two sutras that precede it. The second sutra tells us that yoga is stillness of the mind and the third follows that up with what happens in that stillness – a connection to our ultimate selves, our essence, becomes possible. Then this fourth sutra is referring to the alternative, the “otherwise” (itaratra), we are caught up in the mundane, ordinary, day-to-day turnings of our mind -- identifying with that instead of the ultimate. We’re distracted and residing in/identifying with (sārūpyam) the fluctuations (vrttis) rather than the essence of ourselves (svarūpe).
In his book “The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali”, Edwin Bryant characterizes this essence as “its [the seer’s] own nature as pure consciousness devoid of content [even knowledge]”. Bryant writes, “Vyāsa (the author of the original commentary on the sutras, known as the bhasya) calls the soul the master and the mind its property: He compares the mind to a magnet that attracts iron within its proximity–the consciousness of purusha. The mind serves its master, the soul, by presenting objects of experience in the form of vrttis. When these ever-changing states of mind are presented to the soul, the soul becomes conscious of them, but is mistakenly identified with them by the citta (mind), and thereby appears affected by them. This misidentification, or ignorance, avidyā, is the cause of the soul’s apparent bondage in the physical world of matter.”
“The physical world of matter” is, in Sanskrit, samsara. In the teachings that derive from the Vedas (yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism and more) samsara is generally accepted to represent the material world as characterized by its continuous cycle of birth, life and death. EVERYTHING in this world that we currently inhabit is samsara and is impermanent. In Buddhism this is a foundational fact upon which the teachings and practice (aka “the Dharma”) are built. And whether we are a believer in concepts such as God and soul or not, the above teachings from the Yoga Sutras can help us to understand how we relate to ourselves, one another and our environment.
When I took up sutra 1.4 for the umpteenth time this past week as I prepared to talk about it during our Saturday morning class I once again perceived it in a slightly different way than I had on prior explorations. That’s how dharma study works because every time we come to it our internal lens of viewing has changed in some way. This time it happened to coincide with study of the self as guided by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche in his program Joy of Living Level 3. Rinpoche has been guiding us to examine our sense of self through a three-pronged approach of (1) unhealthy; (2) healthy; and (3) luminous (or ultimate) self.
Now, some of you may read this and think “but, I thought Buddhism taught that there is no self”. And that brings up yet another super interesting and highly nuanced question – did Buddha teach that there is no self, no soul, as it were? The word that comes up in Buddhist teachings is “anatta” (Pali) or “anatman” (Sanskrit) as the doctrine of "non-self" – that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. As many scholars point out, it would seem that a better translation is “not-self” rather than “no-self”, leaving a bit of wiggle room in terms of how we think of this teaching. That said, referring back to the above concept of samsara, this does point out a significant difference between Buddhism and other religions because in Buddhism we don’t subscribe to the notion of a permanent enduring entity or “soul” that lies beyond this material world. That said, Mahayana Buddhists do generally believe in what could be called an essence and it is often referred to as “Buddha Nature” – our pure peaceful loving core of compassion.
I find Guy Armstrong’s book titled “Emptiness” to be of great help in understanding this concept of anatta. In it he points out that the Buddha said the body, thoughts, emotions, and consciousness is not self – encouraging us to investigate the various aspects of our experience and ask “Could that part of my experience actually qualify to be what I really am? What the self really is?”. Guy suggests that it is helpful to put the concept of not-self alongside meditation – because mindfulness meditation gives us the opportunity to come fully into the present moment and out of the way of the oncoming train of thinking and conceptualization. What we’ll see is that most of our thoughts revolve around I, me and mine. If we pay attention to that feeling, we’ll see that the thought trains stir us up toward revisiting the past and looking toward the future, causing us to get involved in wanting stuff, regretting stuff, anger, and fear. Stepping out of that is stepping out of I and into the present moment. Once we get calm in the moment, the thoughts drop away and we may wonder “where am I?” – a spacious experience – resulting in an uncertainty about who we are. We see that self-ing was just an activity and when it stops space opens up --- and that can be disorienting and even frightening. It’s actually the most trustworthy space in our experience, but it takes some getting used to. For example, when fear arises we can let it wash through, trust in the space and you can settle into that space letting it feel like home – a refuge.
OK, so with this in mind, we can look further at Mingyur Rinpoche’s teaching on sense of self to see how that can lead to a better understanding of what Patanjali is getting at in sutras 1.3 and 1.4 when he tells us that the mind is either caught up in samsara or abiding in our essence. Rinpoche describes the unhealthy sense of self as being singular (I, me, mine oriented), independent (deluded into thinking one has control) and permanent (mistakenly thinking that things are stable, consistent and unchanging). Whereas the healthy sense embraces one’s impermanent, interdependent, and multiplicitous nature. So, rather than being stuck in the “I’m #1 or I’m a failure - that’s in control and gonna live forever” sort of mind one is able to access the more open, accepting, connected, loving side of one’s self. And Rinpoche points out that we may experience both and that’s OK, it’s only believing in the unhealthy sense of self that creates a problem, i.e., suffering (dukkha). And further that the unhealthy sense is also a manifestation of our wisdom and a natural part of our experience of self. Beyond both of these is the luminous self, the self beyond self wherein healthy and unhealthy qualities are combined to present the full picture of who we are!
Returning to Edwin Bryant on sutra 1.4, he writes “Yoga is about stilling the vrttis, stopping the film midway so that the mind can realize that the emotions, fears, happiness, pains, births and deaths, etc., it has been experiencing do not exist in the soul but are the inert flickerings and permutations of the material spectacle. Thus yoga is ultimately about liberation from the external material world, or in traditional Hindu terms, from samsara, the cycle of birth and death.”
It seems to me that this stopping of the film is very much related to our ability to see ourselves — to be able to identify the aspect of our sense of self that is engaging and, especially when it’s the unhealthy side of us, intervene to move our experience in a more positive direction.
Thank you yoga, I think I’ll keep practicing…. ;-)