Yoga Philosophy & Existential Phenomenology: Working Notes

“Whether we like it or not, our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions determine so much of our lives—but only because we avoid them.” - Why Composure Fails Under Pressure Facing our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions isn't simply a matter of doing more and more inner work, because for some of us, inner work is the very thing we use to avoid the anxiety of taking meaningful action. But facing ourselves also isn't simply a matter of doing more and more outer work, because

THE STRUCTURE OF COMPULSION Lived experience contains a kind of background friction: a sense that one’s being/doing/having is insufficient, not quite “enough”—that is distinguishable from any specific, bounded episode of discomfort. This background friction is not a pathology to be healed/eliminated, but a non-optional dimension of experiencing. This friction is the affective side of a core structure of experience. I find myself already given over to conditions I did not choo

Self-acceptance is not something you “do”. Self-acceptance is the result of no longer avoiding your unwanted thoughts and uncomfortable emotions—the result of no longer avoiding yourself. Self-acceptance is what remains when you no longer instinctively avoid those aspects of yourself you don’t care for (or even wish didn’t exist). An instinctive desire to eliminate/smother/fix the (often unexamined, conditioned) discomfort of self-criticism or self-rejection keeps us anxiousl

In traditional yoga texts, it was somewhat common to conceive of attention as something like the consequence of our sense organs ‘reaching out’ into the world to grasp things (sights, sounds, etc.). This conception would characterize yoga/meditation as being a quest to (and/or result of) control one’s senses, the effect of which is something like not being taken in/up by the habitual self-movement of attending. This practice of controlling or withdrawing one’s senses is not t

Resilience is the capacity to inhabit crisis without being possessed by it. Certain setbacks are especially destabilizing because they refuse to respond to our standard coping mechanisms (including our support structures and/or personal emotional flexibility). In such setbacks, we find that our attention simply cannot disengage from the setback itself. In these moments, we rarely react solely to what actually happened. Failures can surface what we were secretly relying on our

If we weaponize spiritual practice—that is, if we use spiritual practice as a shield to protect ourselves against the thoughts and feelings and people and situations that create discomfort and anxiety—we're only ever reinforcing the very problem we were attempting to solve with our spiritual practice. COMMENTARY Spiritual practice is not inherently liberating merely by virtue of being spiritual practice; our practice(s) may be used in order to (attempt to) push away negative.

Much of Classical Indian philosophy is engaged in the project of attempting to understand the nature of the reality in which we find ourselves. These systems are traditionally taught as having developed comprehensive metaphysical frameworks about what ultimately exists beyond/beneath/behind our most immediate experience. A phenomenological approach begins from the premise that any such claim—about what ultimately exists beyond our everyday experience, including any “first cau

You are meditating “incorrectly” if you are trying to become calm. You are meditating “correctly” when you notice that you are trying to become calm. COMMENTARY: Striving cannot secure the state it seeks because striving is already the pre-reflective organization of experience around what is absent, threatened, or not-yet-achieved. Desperately striving to calm one’s mind can reinforce the very lack of calm that motivated the quest for calm in the first place—just as the more

How you relate to your experience is your experience. Appearing is always already happening. Experiencing is, most basically, an ongoing stream of appearing, the basic occurring of which is not subject to our will, and is that within which we exercise our will. There is always more appearing—always more that shows up that we did not author and cannot have pre-decided how we will feel about. We cannot stand outside of our experience and decide in advance what will be allowed t

Is "embracing discomfort" the key to making progress in life, personally or professionally? Not universally, no. We want to be mindful of not creating new compulsions—including a compulsion to ‘embrace discomfort’—lest we become trapped by them (e.g., mistaking discomfort for progress, instinctively/reactively rejecting ease or comfort—even in our relationships). This can end up reinforcing the same craving-avoidance loops we were perhaps hoping to escape in our pursuit of pr

Whether we like it or not, our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions determine so much of our lives— but only because we avoid them. COMMENTARY: Our discomfort determines so much of our lives—but only because we avoid it. We cultivate the capacity to remain with discomfort so that our lives aren't fully determined by habitually and unthinkingly avoiding it—so that we have choice (even if our choice is precisely to avoid it). To “remain” with discomfort requires becoming dire

Whatever our claims about such concepts as reality, self, consciousness, G0d, etc., these claims themselves only ever appear within experiencing. We do not encounter these concepts (or anything) outside of experiencing. Experiencing is always already happening; we don’t go anywhere to find it, and we don’t “construct” it from some private interior space. Experience is a continuous stream of appearing that is not subject to our will. Unlike imagination, experiencing is not som

In yoga, what you do is far less important than how you do it. COMMENTARY: Any practice—postures, breath control, meditation, mantra, devotion, inquiry—can be taken up as part of the attempt to secure oneself against discomfort, to become complete, pure, in control—invulnerable. And in that case, the practice only reinforces the very problem it was meant to solve—just as a stronger desire for money, fame, or status produces a stronger awareness of lack, obscurity, or powerles

Managing emotions doesn’t require controlling them. Managing emotions just requires becoming aware of them before becoming consumed by them. Managing emotions, in other words, requires awareness. COMMENTARY: This is simple, but not easy. And it’s simpler for some people—and some emotions—than for others. (And it is always made more difficult by craving some version of total emotional control.) Direct awareness, if nothing else, gives us choice—a moment to intervene in an inst

The practices of yoga are simple. You alway already have the only thing you ever need: your attention. Everything else is nonessential. COMMENTARY: In yoga, we cultivate awareness so that we may become aware of—before becoming consumed by—the automatic habits of thinking, feeling, acting, and perceiving that produce and reproduce our suffering—including, perhaps especially, our efforts to acquire peace that might be reinforcing the very suffering we are trying to escape. When