Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. (Heart Sutra)
Yoga and Buddhism - two practice methodologies which are increasingly popular in the West in myriad forms - are distinct yet interrelated dharma traditions which arose in conversation in the Indian subcontinent. Individually, many modern yogis blend the traditions - go to a hatha yoga class one weekend and a Buddhist meditation workshop the following. Indeed, many teachers now offer yoga classes employing Buddhist metaphysical principles, or teach yoga during mindfulness meditation retreats. I believe this is a field ripe for conversation, which is why I teach Buddhist mindfulness yoga.
While these two traditions are distinct, the history of Buddhism and the yoga tradition are intimately intertwined. Siddhartha Gautama, who would become known as the Buddha, learned from the foremost yoga teachers of his day before he broke away to form his own distinct yoga school which later evolved into Buddhism. One might understandably make the mistaken assumption that Yogacara (the practice of yoga), a prominent philosophical tradition originating around the 4th century CE, was a Hindu yoga school. In fact, Yogacara was one of the most influential Buddhist schools which focussed on how the mind constructs reality as we experience it. On the flip side, Patanjali borrowed a number of Buddhist meditative techniques and philosophical ideas in his writing of the Yoga Sutras, even outright appropriation of entire Buddhist doctrines, such as the Brahma-viharas (divine abodes), four mind-states conducive to enlightenment.
So for those of us Buddhist yogis or even those just tantalized by Buddhist philosophy - where do we begin exploration of this hybrid?
In the Satipatthana Sutta, a highly revered scripture especially in Theravada (Southern School) Buddhism, the Buddha lays out a system of meditation which is still followed by Theravadans and Western Buddhists in the insight meditation/vipassana movement. It teaches four foundations for meditation - mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feeling-tone, mindfulness of the heart-mind, and mindfulness of the dharma. In sitting meditation, the entrance point to mindfulness of the body is the breath - being aware of the sensations of the body as we inhale and exhale:
Breathing in a long breath, the meditator knows, "I am breathing in a long breath;" breathing out a long breath, they know, "I am breathing out a long breath;" breathing in a short breath, they know, "I am breathing in a short breath;" breathing out a short breath, they know, "I am breathing out a short breath.” (Satipatthana Sutta, author’s paraphrase)
Ujayi breathing and other hatha yoga pranayama (breathing techniques) use a conscious control of the breath, rather than the observation of the autonomic breathing reflex that mindfulness meditation espouses. However, it is possible to bring mindful attention to our more effortful pranayama as we bind the attention, body, and breath together, such as when mula bandha (root bind) automatically engages at the bottom of the breath. To practice this, find a comfortable, tall seat, and begin a very slow round of ujayi pranayama, creating a rushing sound in the back of your throat. As you inhale, imagine an energetic line of breath starting at the base of your spine and travelling all the way up to your soft palate. On the exhale, the energy descends from the soft palate back to the base of the spine. Even as you visualize this flow of prana (breath), if you exhale completely, you will notice the pelvic floor musculature - particularly the pubococcygeus muscle - automatically engage and lift. In this way, we can mindfully observe prana and the engagement of the pelvic floor musculature simultaneously. In other situations, such as yin yoga and sitting, it might be more beneficial to completely let go of control of the breath and bring mindfulness to its natural rhythm in order to enter into greater stillness.
The second foundation, mindfulness of feeling-tone, refers to the sensory experience of the categories of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Every stimulus our mind receives automatically gets shuffled into these three general categories, and each of them has a felt sense we can engage with mindfully. Fear, for example, might be an unpleasant inner contraction, a clenching of the muscles of the face, an unsettling feeling in the stomach. The mind automatically reaches for things which are pleasant and tries to push away unpleasant sensations, and in general it ignores the neutral ones. This establishment of mindfulness of feeling-tone opens the way to the third foundation, mindfulness of the heart-mind, which is the awareness of thoughts and emotions. We observe the thoughts but don’t become entangled in them.
Practicing these three foundations together moves our yoga practice into a meditative depth that is impossible without mindfulness. Sarah Powers (www.sarahpowers.com), founder of Insight Yoga, teaches a brilliant and simple use of inquiry in posture to establish these foundations. As an experiment, move into any asana and first notice the sensations arising in the body while in the posture. Ask yourself three questions: what am I feeling? (mindfulness of the body); what does it feel like? (mindfulness of feeling-tone); and how am I relating to this experience? (mindfulness of the heart-mind). As we practice these observations, we can learn to discriminate between the subtle, distinct unfolding of sensations which the mind normally lumps together: I am feeling a stretch in my right hamstring. This stretch feels like pulling, familiar. This sensation of a line pulling on the outside of my right thigh is pleasant, this sharper sensation closer to the midline feels vaguely unpleasant, and my left leg feels neutral. I am reacting by wanting to deepen the stretch. I am telling myself a story about how my right side is so much tighter than my left side.
The final foundation, mindfulness of the dharma, can either specifically speak to particular doctrinal concepts within Buddhism (ex: mindfulness of the Four Noble truths), or the meditation on the various phenomena which make up our sensory/psychological system (ex: mindfulness of the senses). In the Mahayana (East Asian) school of Buddhism, the fourth foundation is mindfulness of sunyata or emptiness. Emptiness can be a difficult concept to grasp: all phenomena are empty of independent existence - that is, everything that exists only does so in relation to everything else. Everything is connected, and our concept of discrete objects is actually false. The opening of the dharma eye is the experience of becoming aware of the essential interconnectedness of all things and the fading away of the distinction between self and other. As we meditatively investigate the dharma, we begin to see that there is nothing observable that is permanent, unchanging, completely satisfactory, or possesses a quality we could call “self.” (It is important to note that there are some atypical schools which teach a positive expression of sunyata called Buddhadhatu - Buddha-nature - where the entire universe is permeated with the capacity for enlightenment, and is by some teachers upheld as the True Self).
It is this fourth foundation which may be the distinguishing mark of Buddhist yoga. Popular yoga spirituality teaches a path to understanding our True Self. In the traditional advaita vedanta (non-dual) Hindu philosophy, our True Self is identical with the True Self of God. By and large, Buddhism teaches that our Selfing Project actually gets in the way of the divine experience which cannot be expressed in human words or to fully grasped with the cognitive mind. Any fundamental quality that could be called an individual self only exists in relation to other objects. All things inter-are. Form - the world of symbols, names, and concepts - is emptiness. Emptiness - the interpenetrating nature of all phenomena - is form. The actual meditative experience of this paradox is profound and ineffable.
So how does this unexplainable concept of "form as emptiness, emptiness as form" apply to our asana practice? As we establish mindfulness, we can begin to let go of our notions of the forms of postures having any inherent meaning or “right way.” When I’m in downward facing dog, there are alignment principles which can keep me balanced and safe, but ultimately even balance and safety are concepts constructed in the world of form - useful, but without inherent meaning. What is the form of the posture? There is no essential significance to any asana, and yet I weave a story which gives it some meaning: look at me, I’m in handstand for the first time! As normal thought drops away, I can begin to observe that I am as much the contact between my hands and the mat, the mat itself, the people around me sharing this same form, as I am what I think of as “me.” In fact, nothing about the posture or the body or even the sensations and thoughts that accompany it have any substance which I can call truly me or mine, as convinced that I am that they belong to me.
Finally, and impossible to stress enough, Buddhism, like yoga, prescribes ethical living. It insists that for our meditation to be useful, we have to live a life which causes no harm and serves the entire community. Bodhicitta, the mind practice which is the path to enlightenment, is the desire to find compassion, empathy, and awakening for the benefit of everything and everyone everywhere. It requires that we live a life of service and justice. It requires effort to end the oppression of the world. This is the Engaged Buddhism taught by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, vipassana teachers Kittisaro and Thanissara, and many others. It is the Buddhism of this new age, born in a time of globalization in a new home outside of Asia. Buddhist yoga demands that we step off the mat and take our practice with us wherever we go, so that we become the kindness and compassion that will ultimately liberate the world. It demands that we make our living honestly and that we treat everyone with equal respect and dignity. It demands simple living in such a way that we are aware of social justice and environmental consequences. Buddhist yoga is a tool for bringing positive transformational change to the whole world.
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Geoffrey Dice, DMD, RYT 200 is a yoga teacher and Buddhist practitioner, trained in Vipassana, empowered in Tibetan Buddhism, and currently studying Soto Zen. He brings years of practice in many spiritual traditions, and a love of alignment, anatomy, breath, and mindfulness in asana to his classes. In his spare time he is a dentist
On March 17, 2016, join Geoffrey for an evening workshop with chanting, bowing practice, meditation, and asana practice on the principles of Buddhist Mindfulness Yoga. We will explore the First Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of the Body, in a movement and meditation focussed class. Register at http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/buddhist-mindfulness-yoga-the-first-foundation-tickets-22300930684?aff=eivtefrnd
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