Truth through the Paradoxical Lens of Yoga

Impermanence is obvious. It's dark and then it's light. I'm sleeping and then I'm awake. This pear is not ripe and then it is. I'm breathing in and then breathing out. My eyes are watering in the wind. The water is boiling and transforming into steam. Oh, you can fill in a thousand immediacies that were different a minute ago, or two weeks ago or will be shifted by the time you read the next word. Blink. Blink.

In all of this intermittent reality what is truth?

Is truth drowned and lost in the sea of impermanence? Is truth substantiated only by the moment, an ever shifting, yet layered history, like the earth? A reality, when examined, that reveals conditions from yesterday, last year and millions of years ago? Doesn't what you find depend upon where you dig; and depends upon how wide a site or context you examine with what skills?

So it seems the truth is situational, and personal, yet constant and universal. Surely this is paradoxical.  I apply my pre-existing assumptions, my learned expertise, my experiential practices to what is happening in this moment. If I cultivate an ability to be aware beyond the reactive, by repeating this practice, applying my attention in many different contexts,  I can begin to perceive  these personal elements: my pre-existing assumptions, my learned expertise, my experiential practices. Patterns of reactivity or my very own personalized systems of layering observations and experiences begin to separate out from the original sources, or instigations. Over time I can see how even these internal structures of mine have changed. 

In this mash up of interpretation and experience, how do we know when something is true or not true? I remember as a teenager,  my history class was given several different first-hand accounts of one historical event and we were asked to attempt to detail what actually happened from putting these differing points of view together. Of course, this was interesting and challenging, but even with the same multiplicity of accounts, each of us put together a different view of those events, as filtered through our own pre-existing interpretive structures.

Is it any wonder that in our current political context, reality is being played like a game of telephone where each person whispers to the next what they thought they heard, interpreted through their own pre-existing patterns of vocabulary, reactiveness, contexts etc.

Can yoga help us hear ourselves, each other, and the truth? I think so. Once we accept that we are each a complex mechanism of interpretation for each grain of truth, it's possible to see how, when seen from another vantage point of experience or understanding, the same object looks different. The object itself is not frozen in its form either, being a continuously transitioning little bit of impermanence itself! So there is lots of space in each moment for compassionate embrace of confusion, tolerant amusement at the desperate gripping for the one-true-reality that we all feel at one moment or another, and application of a series of observational mechanisms for helping us find our own foundation and stay open minded in that moment.

Paradox is welcome in my view through the practice of yoga. We can be physically releasing into the elemental force of gravity through our feet, while at the same time feel an uprising energy throughout the body. With practice, it possible to embrace both/and as a way of seeking truth too.

Paying Taxes

I do not mind paying taxes. I am so grateful that so many people can collectively support each other in a peaceful, productive way. We have agreed to support on a massive scale the ability of many to travel within our communities, to collect and recycle our waste, to educate our young, to maintain the safety of our work environments, to protect ourselves from oppressive or violent external or criminal forces, to maintain an ever-evolving judicial system, to earnestly approach equity in our civil behaviors, to support those vulnerable and elderly and the very young to ensure nutritious food and health care, and so many other aspects of our common life here on this particular part of planet earth. It is not so in many places.

So many people seem to equate taxes with something bad. Perhaps the "government" is taking something away from its citizens in order to do destructive and terrible things. Maybe the taxes paid because of income earned on investments, and properties, on wages and winnings all came out of singular causes and conditions totally as a result of the efforts of one individual person. We know this is not so. Without each other's help and support none of us would be productive in the ways that we are now.

Certainly people take advantage of conditions and situations, and there are many who are unscrupulous and self centered in their greed. There are those who will sell a bad bill of goods, or not follow through on what they have been paid to do. There are those who take advantage of others in a state of need, and there are some who have no moral compass to help steer them away from harming themselves and others.

I like to imagine that these are the exceptions rather than the rule. I do not think of myself as so unique. The vast majority of people I have known throughout my life are people who, though they may have wrestled with indecision or moral confusion at times in their lives, are generally willing to put their hands in towards the common good or the good of someone else. It is this that I choose to hold when my heart sinks at the news of terrible human behaviors and irresponsible harm towards others.

This is how I conceive of taxes until they are used to pay for a military or industrial or environmental or educational strategy that oppresses others or causes irreparable harm. It is for that reason that I believe a fully functioning democracy is vital to sustain my belief that we can live in the principle of "Do no harm." I do my part to support a civil culture and structure that accommodates various belief systems and respects the individual among the many. Paying my taxes is part of this. I carry the weight on my own shoulders and I share that responsibility when I pay my taxes. A longer view helps me get through the times when I see the government take action that is harmful to others. I put more energy towards opening my ways of understanding, releasing my judgmental mind and being compassionate towards the fears and pain that are the underpinnings of these acts. This is not easy, but helps get me through my own anger and sorrow. I understand that others do not share my views and may feel despair at some of the actions I would perpetrate. Underneath everything, though, I hope we can learn to stop wishing others harm as a solution to our problems.

I hope our existence outlasts our separateness.

Everything Co-Arising In This Moment

Every single thing is inter-related. Accepting that is like entering a vast open space at once filled with all that exists at the same moment that it is eternally empty and pure. I remember feeling completely elated after watching an investigation on public television that traced the branching bloodlines of humans back to specific individuals and then further back to indeed one genetic place. One genetic human place at the core of all of us, and over all time, I'm convinced we could trace that back to one genetic living organism. It felt so validating! No wonder we can feel so connected to people anywhere, no matter what might seem different among us.

Explaining this idea that everything is co-arising, in other words, nothing is separate from anything else, may seem easier in more concrete terms.

I can look at the grocery list as a dream of the future -- what we need around here to eat and to clean up and to sustain ourselves and to entertain ourselves. The grocery list is also a commitment to future action, that I will go and I will get these things. The grocery list reflects my ideas about nutrition and my upcoming schedule and the time I will have to cook. It anticipates what I imagine about where my family members will be, in fact, where I will be, sharing food. The grocery list also reflects all my hard work over the past few days, cooking and using up all the edible resources around here. It also anticipates the combined work of my husband and me, having trading our time and energy for the cash resources I will use to buy the food for our future meals. The grocery list is a vast concept, containing all of this: what has been done and what is projected. It cannot exist in the present tense without all of these aspects embedded in its evolution.

Looking at ordinary circumstances or conditions in this way allows me to see the tip of the iceberg in the concept of co-arising. Perhaps you have read or heard about how everything is part of everything... People used to be fond of saying "you are what you eat" as a way of describing this to some degree. The paper you write upon can also lead you on this journey through the sun and the leaves, the rain and the paper pulp, among the hands of the people operating the machines and the machine itself that cut down the tree or re-cycled the cardboard that was again transformed that into the paper before you.

This can seem hard to follow, but just think about any one thing for a moment. Allow your mind to open and begin including all that you know about this one thing. Try it with the oatmeal in the bowl before you in the morning. How many hands have helped get this to you? Of course the cooking and such is part of that (what went into the cooking... gas from the earth that came to you through the pipes...stored where? pulled out how exactly? where? when? by whom? in what weather? stored deep since it was produced by what?...when?...). Okay, you can do this yourself until your head spins... the pot it cooked in, the utensils used, the packing of the oats and their transport, the harvesting, the birds plucking at bits of dry oat shells, the rain water, the plants breathing into the very air itself blown from where? And of course the people who did the planting and harvesting, plowing and weeding, investing their energy into your bowl of cereal with so many mornings of early rising, their feet on the earth, breath in the late afternoon, feeding the animals the dried oats that didn't make it to your bowl... Not to mention all that you are, your hand on the spoon.

Seeing the world as co-arising leads me directly to gratitude for everything, and can also help me when I feel that strange dualistic idea that I am separate and on my own.

All of this can exist in one moment as you feel the warmth of your oatmeal, smell that aroma, notice your stomach grumbling. Enjoy your decisions about brown sugar or walnuts, yogurt or wheat germ, maple syrup or blueberries, knowing that your existence and that of your oatmeal are intimately connected, so much so that one cannot exist without all the other conditions co-arising.

Watching the spinning mind, going over this material, I am amazed at how I can also feel the air on my skin in this moment. My inhale reminds me that my oatmeal and I exist. My exhale brings a smile, that I can release into being here, and eat.