In the teachings of the Buddha, nirodha is the word used to summarize the Third Noble Truth, the cessation of suffering, and thus it has often been used as a synonym for nirvana. Besides cessation, its meaning has been given as “unbinding,” “quenching,” and “extinguishing.” It might help us to clarify the meaning by looking into the action being described.
What is unbound? One could say that the mind is unbound from attachment, from all activities of mind that catch us in dukkha. What is quenched? Our suffering is quenched, like a fire that is put out with water. The fire of our suffering is extinguished. What ceases? All our erroneous ideas, our notions that keep us from experiencing reality as it is. This means particularly the cessation of ideas regarding birth and death, permanence and annihilation, being and nonbeing, and coming and going—traditionally known as the eight concepts. As it is these concepts or notions that form the foundation of our suffering, expressed through our clinging and aversion, these notions must be gone beyond. We see that reality is beyond all ideas.
There are levels of cessation, and nirodha is a process. As we practice our asanas, we may notice many small cessations. For instance, we may have the experience of an unpleasant sensation and a mental formation of aversion. With mindfulness, our attachment to feeling good is seen, and based upon our awareness of impermanence, the attachment fades away. Over time, whenever that kind of experience arises, the fading away continues until that particular attachment ceases. This is a small but potentially profound taste of liberation. One meaning of the word nirvana is coolness. So, to draw out the metaphor: the fire of our attachment and the heat of dukkha are extinguished in the coolness of nirvana.
Finally, with the last exercise of the fourth tetrad, there is letting go. But you are not letting go; it is not something that you endeavor to do, but it happens because there is nothing to hold on to. As I mentioned before, the final thing that is let go of is the idea of a separate, enduring self. Throughout the previous contemplations, there was still that final vestige of self-consciousness that could take credit or possession of the insight into impermanence, fading away, and cessation. The irony is that this is a letting go of what was never there!
The Pali term used for this contemplation can be translated as “throwing back” or “giving back.” We give back or return everything to which we were attached. We have attempted to hoard and take for ourselves what belongs to life—to nature. The Buddha tells us that the highest understanding is to take nothing as self or belonging to self. With the sixteenth contemplation, we give back all that we have claimed as self or belonging to self.
We do not let go of reality. We let go of our wrong perceptions and misconceived notions about reality. As Shariputra says to the dying Anathapindika, a laystudent of the Buddha, in the Sutra on Teachings to Be Given to the Sick, we need to see that “These eyes are not me. I am not caught by these eyes.” This understanding must include the whole body-mind process, including all the senses, the objects of mind, and consciousness. “All these things are not me. I am not caught by any of them.” The sutra goes on to say that all things arise because of causes and conditions. When these causes and conditions change and cease, then these “things” cease to manifest. The true nature of things is not to be born and not to die. Our practice is to see that we are not enclosed in this small and ever changing “skin bag,” but that we are life without boundaries, free of all imprisoning divisions, beyond space and time. This is why it can be said that we do not practice for ourselves. When we practice to liberate our minds, we practice to liberate all beings.
In this we are letting go of our burdens—the same burdens we have created over and over again through our misperception of reality. Problems are not so much solved as cease to be problems. What weighed us down is dropped and we are enlightened, “lightened up.” Over the years, enlightenment has become concretized and reified into a state of being. When thought of in this way, it becomes something that happens once, way off in the future.
But enlightenment is a process of continually cultivating letting go, nonclinging. The Buddha had his great insight and then cultivated that insight, and lived from that insight, moment by moment for the rest of his life. Awakening is not something that is to be attained in some far-off distant future. In any moment we can see how we have become caught in our notions and by our attachments. We can see how this is dukkha. And if we see it deeply enough, the clinging fades away and ceases, and liberation—lightening up—happens.
As Thich Nhat Hanh cautions us, “Letting go does not mean abandoning one thing in order to seek something else.” Letting go means to see through all that keeps us (falsely) separated from reality as it is. From this perspective, as I stated in the Introduction, the boundary between us and ultimate reality, between us and others, is seen as not real. There is nothing that ultimately needs to be removed or added or joined together. We find enlightenment not in turning away from our human condition but within our existential human condition, and as its fulfillment. Through this practice we finally can see for ourselves that it is indeed possible to drop our burdens—to let go of the heavy weight that has held us down for so long. As the Sufi poet Rumi writes: “How long will we fill our pockets like children with dirt and stones? Let the world go. Holding it, we never know ourselves, never are airborne.”
The letting go of enlightenment is to be with whatever it is that is happening, free of personal agendas. When the desire arises that something be other than it is, we see through it to its fading away and ceasing.
The sixteen exercises or contemplations found in the Anapanasati Sutta are like the stages of a training program, and they are like the layers of an onion. As a training program, we can go step-by-step and review them again and again, with ever increasing subtlety and refinement. Or we can peel away the layers of the onion, while continuing to be steeped in its flavor from the surface to its empty core. In any event, we arrive at a time when we let go of any attachment to the formal practice. Of course, we may still sit in meditation and practice asana, but it is the awareness and the insight that has been internalized that makes all of life the field of practice, a “formless field of benefaction,” as the Zen tradition puts it.
While I was writing this chapter, I received a letter from one of my students, who had lost her fiancé in a terrible accident several months earlier. She wrote, “Yoga practice and the Buddha’s teachings have had a profound effect on my life. Experiencing yoga and the mindfulness approach to living during this time of transformation has had a huge impact…it has guided me through some really trying and exhausting moments.”
Many students who have practiced with consistency over the long haul have expressed similar observations. Many began to practice in periods of great strife and turmoil. And many began seeking a life free from problems. They were looking for life to be other than what it is. What they have found is that “shit still happens,” but it doesn’t seem to stick to them so tenaciously. They experience greater ease and stability in whatever shape they find life takes through them, and after all, this is the very definition of asana.
MINDFULNESS YOGA: SEQUENCE FOUR
THIS FINAL SEQUENCE, like the final tetrad of contemplations, utilizes all we have been working with already, but works with the more subtle aspects of experience of impermanence, nonself, cessation, and letting go. Elements from the first three sequences, such as slow movement and vinyasa, allow us to look into both impermanence in every instant as well as cyclic impermanence.
Of course, remember that any sequence of postures can be approached as Mindfulness Yoga, and once you are familiar with this way of practicing, you may want to explore other sequences of your own and of other teachers. Beginners may want to skip Warrior Vinyasa or any other postures that seem too challenging.
1. Corpse Pose
3-5 MINUTES
Begin in CORPSE POSE, with your legs about 12-18 inches apart and your toes turned out. Position your arms at your sides, at least a few inches from
the torso, with your palms turned upward.
First, just let your awareness rest wherever in your body you experience the breath. Simply notice how the breath is coming and going. Remember, let go of the tendency to control or manipulate and just see for yourself what is happening now.
The first thing you notice is that the breath has direction. It goes into the body and then it goes out. Know an in-breath as an in-breath and an out-breath as an out-breath. Notice the specific feeling tone of an in-breath and the specific feeling tone of the out-breath. Observing ever deeper, see how each breath is impermanent. It arises, has duration, and then ceases. See the process of breathing.
Then begin to see the various other qualities of the breath. Following the entire “breathbody,” know a long breath as a long breath and a short breath as a short breath. Avoid trying to make them even. Just breathe and see. The breath may be long or short, even or uneven, deep or shallow, rough or smooth. Just note the breath, paying attention, without trying to make the breath any particular quality. As you pay attention to the breath, notice any changes that happen naturally. Whatever quality predominates, notice how it varies over time and how the predominance of one quality may change to another quality.
Then, still allowing the breath to come and go naturally, begin to expand your awareness to include the whole body. Are you holding tension in the body, perhaps tensing the legs or the buttocks as if you need to still hold yourself up? Without forcing it, once in your awareness, does the tension release? Feel the weight and volume of the body as it presses into the floor. Can you feel the tips of your toes and fingers without wiggling them? How do you know where in space the body is when you remain still and quiet? Do you experience hard and fast boundaries or is the outline of the body indistinct?
As you focus on the breath moving throughout the body, ask yourself, “Who is the breather?” Let go of any answer. And keep questioning.
2. Knee-to-Chest Pose
45-60 SECONDS EACH SIDE
Slowly slide the right heel along the floor, bending the knee toward the ceiling as you slide the foot into the buttock. Pay attention to the feeling tone of the leg and the whole body as you do this. Can you feel any changes in your weight distribution or the center of gravity in your pelvis as the foot moves into the buttock? Once there, slowly lift the foot off the floor and bring the knee into your chest while holding it with both hands. Pay attention to the subtle changes you may experience at the level of sensations, breath, and mental formations. With awareness, can you see the lived truth of impermanence?
After 6-8 breaths, slowly lower the foot to the floor near the buttock and then slide it out to straight. Notice the discrete point where you know you can fully release the weight of the leg to the earth, and when you do, notice any changes in the breath and the feeling tone throughout the body. Have you been holding the breath or holding tension in the body? This whole process includes the awareness of cyclic change and seeing how that awareness can change the cycle of reactivity—of aversion and grasping.
Repeat with the other leg.
3. Simple Crossed-Leg Sitting Posture
2-5 MINUTES
Sit with your legs crossed, with your feet underneath your knees. Sit on the forward points of your sitting bones (avoid rolling the pelvis backward and rounding the lower back). With your hands beside your hips, feel the sitting bones grounding down as the crown of your head rises up, lengthening the spine. Feel where in your body you sense your weight as it presses down into the earth.
Now place your hands on your knees, and with your eyes closed, open to the feeling tone of “just sitting.” Notice how over time various sensations may arise: itching, twinges of discomfort, throbbing, dullness, sharpness. Observe them and see how they are constantly varying. Can you see that as soon as you begin to react to them, either with aversion or with grasping, judging, or comparing, the sense of self grows ever stronger? Can you see how, when you reconnect to just what is happening, the experiencing grows more spacious and lighter, even if the sensation remains?
4. Cross-Legged Forward Bend
8-12 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Now, extend out over the crossed legs resting your forehead on your arms. As you sit here, notice where the breath is experienced in this forward bend. Do you feel the belly pressing against your thighs? Can you feel the breath in your back body? Perhaps you can feel the ribs expanding and contracting with each breath. Notice if you are holding tension anywhere in the body and see if you can just let go. Do you find that the in-breath lifts you slightly while the out-breath releases you back down into the forward bend? If so, don’t exaggerate this movement, but also refrain from inhibiting it. Let the breath move the body freely and release into the experience of the movement. Again, notice any changes in the body and mind as you stay here in this posture.
When coming up from this posture, draw the navel back to the spine and roll the spine up, one vertebra after the other, until you come back to Simple Crossed-Leg Posture.
Repeat with other shin placed on top.
Modification:
If you find your lower back rounding and your head and forearms do not come to the ground, sit on a blanket or two so that your pelvis is elevated and you can tilt forward from your hips, and rest your torso on a bolster or enough blankets so that you can rest with your spine extended.
5. Seated Side Stretch
8-12 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Place your right hand beside your hip and stretch the left arm up. Slowly slide the right hand out to the side, onto your forearm if you can, while bending over to the right. Keep grounding your left sitting bone, while stretching through the fingers of your left hand; bring the arm as parallel to the floor as possible. If it’s comfortable enough, turn your face to gaze up. If your left arm is blocking your view of the ceiling, try to take the left arm back toward your ear.
Sitting in the posture, feel where the breath is experienced. Notice the difference between the left side of the body and the right side. Notice how quickly the mind may move into attainment mode and grasp for that “extra stretch.” What happens if you let that go and use the breath to determine where you should be? Come up on an inhalation while stretching the fingers of your left hand up toward the ceiling. Exhale as you release the left arm to your side.
A whole cyclic process arises and passes away as we move to the side, breathe there and then rise up to straight. How much of this process were you truly aware of and how much did you just not notice? See what happens as you move to the other side.
Repeat on the other side.
6. Cat/Cow Pose
6-10 REPETITIONS WITH YOUR BREATH
Have your hands straight down from your shoulders and your knees straight down from your hips. On the exhalation, round your back like an angry cat, tilting the pelvis backward and tucking the tailbone between your legs. Let your head hang down as you gaze back toward your pelvis. On the inhalation, tilt your pelvis forward, dropping your belly toward the floor as the crown of your head and your sitting bones reach up toward the ceiling, your back moving into a soft backbend. Here your back has a gentle backbend, as it takes the line of a cow’s back.
Let your natural breath determine the duration and rhythm of your movement. Begin the movement with the tilting of your pelvis, and let the movement generated by this action flow up your back like a wave moving through water. Pay attention to the body of the breath as well as all that arises as you move from one position to the other. See and feel how this constant movement conditions the breath, the body, and the mind. Notice too if there is any tendency for the mind to drift off and the body to go on “automatic pilot.”
7. Downward-Facing Dog
10-30 BREATHS
From COW POSE, tuck your toes under and, reaching your sitting bones up and back, straighten your legs into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG. Keep the sitting bones lifting and let go of the notion that you need to have your heels come to the floor, yet do keep them moving toward the floor, but not at the
expense of the elongation of your back.
As you continue to stay in the posture, notice how your experience of it changes. Does resistance arise in the form of boredom, anger, or discomfort? When noticing if you are caught in any particular reaction, see if the noticing changes that. Be alert to any subtle (or not-so-subtle) judgments that may arise, and how quickly awareness of judging can escalate to judging the judging. Keep coming back to your breath and what is happening in this moment and let the whole process of judging go.
Modification:
With tight hamstrings, the lower back will round and compress. Simply bend your knees until you can feel the back lengthen and the lower back regains its natural (inward-moving) lumbar curve. If the backs of your legs are really tight, besides bending your knees, you may want to experiment with stepping your feet a bit wider than hip width.
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