Sat down on the mat last week at the beginning of a class, cross-legged, spine straight, ready for the usual salmagundi of philosophy and self-help that starts many nyc yoga classes.
“A reading from Jack Kornfield today,” the teacher said.
“Ah, good,” I thought. “Straight-up buddhism. Fresh. Fine with me.”
She proceeded to read a passage about the three poisons: attachment, aversion, and ignorance. Mr. K described how each of us is predisposed to one of them. The passage described three people entering a party: one sees annoying people, unattractive surroundings, demands on his/her time; another sees how great the people look, how interesting they are, how nice it is to be at a party; the third enters unsure of what is up, what his/her place in it is, what’s going on.
Aversion, attachment, ignorance. All lead to suffering. For “party” read “yoga class.” The teacher went on to say we need to avoid these in our practice on the mat. There are poses we like, poses we hate, poses we skim right thru or don’t understand. We must disengage from our attachments and aversions and ignorance. We must just move from one pose to another, evenly. One taste. Once again, I heard buddhism become a call to the gray side.
I’m not a fan of the gray side. I spent too much time there already. After a bout of depression (if by “bout” I can refer to my general outlook on life between, say, approximately ages 15 and 35) I finally learned a few cognitive-behavioral tricks that made life look like a better place. Be grateful. Stop looking at the negative. What you put into a situation can change the situation. (i.e. if you enter a party, sit in the corner with your hair over your eyes, chuck back a few shots of Jack, and mock the boho bourgies in your peer group and their deluded aspirational materialistic pretensions, as well as all hope for true human communication, you will not create a very good life for yourself or any one around you.)
And it’s okay to feel emotions. That was a biggie. It’s okay to feel aversion and attachment, as it were. It is a heck of a lot better than that gray muck of blahness, that disengagement that marked so much of depression. Yeah, I’m happy to be alive. At a party or at yoga or on a cold rainy subway.
And yeah, am I ever the attachment person. I have to admit it. For I had looked around the yoga studio and thought, “how attractive these people are, how interesting they are; how nice it is to be at a clean and airy studio with a healthy body.” Most of the time, I am grateful to be anywhere. I like stuff; I like people; I like breathing and moving. I like being around. I know that will change, but what’s here and now is pretty much alright with me.
And what the HECK is so wrong with that Mr. K?!?, I thought? I prepared to toss my own flavor on the philosophical salmagundi, armed for mental combat, equipping myself with a discussion of the first of the Four Reminders, Precious Human Birth. It is good to be conscious of the value of life. That’s not necessarily attachment.
Later in the week, the reading for the Hardcore Dharma 2 group included Ponlop Rinpoche’s discussion of fear and its place vis a vis the three poisons. With attachment, fear doesn’t come as fear of loss; it comes as fear of attachment. And I wondered, who has that fear? The teacher who warned against it, or me, who defends it? Both, of course.
So often, when I find myself overcome with joy at being in a yoga class, filled with the well-being that comes from exertion and execution, I try to practice the breathe-out part of tonglen. When I feel something good, rather than hold onto it for myself, I breathe it out to whoever needs it. To my sister-in-law with degenerative disk disease, my mom with asthma, the old man on the subway with cracked and oozing feet. I try to give it away, for whatever that’s worth.
And that also expresses some fear of attachment. Layers upon layers. This stuff hides in every nook and cranny of practice, of life. And that’s okay.
I wish we could debate the salmagundi that begins yoga class. I wanted to shout, it is okay to see how attractive the people are! I mean, c’mon, it’a a nyc yoga class full of freshly washed, well-nourished, fit and trim 20- to 30-year-olds, in a lofty studio flooded with light. It’s pretty darn attractive in there. Is that so wrong? At my age, I know that doesn’t last forever. And it’s okay.
Later that week, another yoga teacher warned about how we create problems just so we can solve them. We sure do, I thought, we sure do.