A Yogi & a Zen Koan

I have recently fallen for a new yogi, Seane Corn.  It started with listening to her NPR “On Being” interview with Krista Tippet that I heard a few months back. But then I didn’t really think of her again till a week ago when I felt compelled to listen to that same interview a second time.  I do that sometimes.  “The same river twice” I call it to borrow from author Alice Walker.  And this time, the second listen, was such a different experience. So funny how that happens…

Seane Corn actually described a similar experience at the beginning of her own 20+ year yoga journey.  She said she was walking home from a yoga class and she noticed a completely new emotional experience (happiness) that she had never had before. The next day she returned to the exact same yoga class, and for the first time she heard the yoga teacher talking about love and god.  She knew rationally of course that the teacher was not talking about these things for the first time; Ms. Corn just had never heard them before.  It had been that fantastic ability of the brain to filter out what we are not able to understand yet. Until we can.  According to her interview, that unfolding process is actually the very nature of yoga.

After listening to the Seane Corn radio show a second time, I felt moved to read other interviews/articles she has given.  I wanted to learn more about this 40 something year-old yogi who grew up on the same east coast as me.  Sometimes I find myself disconnected to yogis who are male or significantly older or of a different country and/or culture. Probably because these purely superficial demographics is a way to keep the truth at arms-length.  But in this instance, without those surface differences, I think my guard was down enough to listen to the material from a more open and willing position.  For example, I heard Ms. Corn say that she tries to not judge the validity of the yoga that others’ practice.  Whether that be the teenage prostitutes she works with in Los Angeles or the middle aged woman whose sole objective in her yoga is to lose weight.  To paraphrase, she summed it up this way, “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” 

When I heard Ms. Corn say that, I thought to myself, how come I didn’t hear her say that the first time? And more importantly, how can I begin to apply that same nonjudgmental stance in my own life? After I asked this second question, grace showed up.  Because I immediately had an answer.  An answer to a question I’ve been asking myself for nearly 10 years regarding a complicated relationship impasse that I’ve felt so confused and stuck in- seemingly without a solution. 

Now, I know if a trusted and admired individual had said those very same words 10 years ago when this impasse occurred absolutely nothing would have happened. At that time I had no relationship with god, nor any interest to. The statement would have fallen dead flat on me. Yet now, her words felt like a key that has unlocked an impossible to solve puzzle inside of me.  In other words, I had to evolve over the last decade before I'd be able to internalize the solution to my relationship dilemma.

So I began to repeat the words in my own mind: "that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” While doing this I imagined this relational impasse, and for the very first time in a decade, I felt a shift inside of me that allowed me to envision a way forward.  The quintessential light at the end of the tunnel was finally in my view. I can’t tell you what a huge release and relief this was for me.

In Buddhism there is something called a koan, sometimes it is called a Zen koan. Think of it as a puzzle that a spiritual teacher might give her student. However, this is not like a New York Times cross word puzzle. As Jack Kornfield says in his book The Wise Heart, ”a genuine koan cannot be solved by the thinking mind.” Thinking. Rationalizing. Using facts and logic. That’s what I had been doing all these years and getting no where with this relationship impasse.  And as the years went by, I actually got more frustrated because I couldn’t figure my way out. My mind was not coming up with solutions. What I had not been using was my heart, let alone my soul.

In the interview Seane Corn added, “when I surrender, I’m in the presence of god,” For me,surrendering to a problem, ceasing my can-do problem-solving cognitive approach to a stressful situation, is the ultimate koan. What I’m learning is, sometimes not forcing and practicing patience is exactly what is needed to make my way through the dark tunnel to get to the other side.  I was trying to find understanding of this impasse in order to reconcile it.  But that left me in a polarized duality: I’m right, He’s wrong. What I needed to practice instead was a non-judgmental middle way: “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.”

After this awakening, my interest in Ms. Corn led me to read an O Magazine article by her as well.  In the article she told a humbling story about the origins of her yogic journey and relationship with god.  At the end she said, “god is not something to be discovered, simply uncovered, and the journey of self-awakening will be unique for each soul.” Based on my recent experience, I would have to agree with this.  A spiritual task or koan for me is to surrender to the idea that clinging to my agenda in mytimeframe may not be helpful in matters of the soul.

What spiritual task are you working on?