Nirodha
Yoga is the containment [nirodha] of the modifications
of the mind.
—Patanjali
(Yoga Sutras)
The third noble truth is Nirodha. This word means to confine. ‘Rodha’ originally meant an earth bank. ‘Ni’ means down. The image is of being down behind a sheltering bank of earth or of putting a bank around something so as to both confine and protect it. Here again we are talking about the art of containing a fire.
—David Brazier, The Feeling Buddha
In Patanjali's second sutra, the one I've quoted above, nirohda is
often translated as inhibition rather than containment. Some of the
words the Thesaurus coughs up when the prompt is inhibition are: coercion,
force, compulsion, pressure, restraint, repression. The sense of all of that
is too severe. The word contain, on the other hand, gets us: hold, accommodate,
receive, embody, carry. That’s much more the sense of Patanjali’s
nirodha. The basic idea is protection. Inhibition sounds much more like oppression.
How many times has oppression been proffered as protection. Nevertheless,
containment involves at least some inhibition. A gentler kind perhaps.
Back in the 60’s, my friend Philo Farnsworth, III once took me to
visit his famous father. (He was famous for the invention which made
television possible and was included in a set of stamps of famous inventors,
along with Marconi and Edison and a few others.) Philo's father and I talked
(he talked, I listened) about a lot of things. One of them was cancer.
Although his field was physics, he thought a lot about cancer and
he had a theory about it. His idea was that cells became cancer cells at
some given rate due to random fluctuations and mutations. This was normal
and unavoidable. The body, just as naturally, had mechanisms for finding
these cells and destroying them. This goes on continuously, like an lawnmowers
continuously keeping the grass cut. Problems come, he thought, when
the lawnmower slows down or the grass grows too fast. It was just a rough
idea at the time. For him, it was fun to think about.
Of the four noble truths spoken by Buddha, the first says that some
affliction is unavoidable and the second, that we will have reactions
to affliction when it happens. The third, nirodha, is that, for freedom’s
sake and peace, when these reactions occur, practice containment.
(The fourth truth is about how you do that.) For me, the message is this:
affliction is a part of life, you cannot escape it without escaping life.
Cancer, Farnsworth was saying, is a part of life. You can’t kill something
like that without killing life itself. He was saying that the natural thing
is to contain it. Life is full of things we need to contain. Balance
is another good word. Like keeping our body temperature from going too
far this way or that, by doing something to balance the inevitable changes
in the weather.
I bring this example up because there's something real and basic
about it. It’s a reflection of our models of life and living in this
world. Our fundamental stance, our way of being in the world, is tied to
these simple ideas. The usual approach to cancer, drugs, surgery and radiation,
in it’s imagery of destruction and war, in its goal of the total
destruction of all cancer is just one expression of the denial of affliction,
and therefore misses the truth of containment.
Buddhism and Yoga are spiritual disciplines, practices with the aim
of having life altering experiences such as seeing God in everyone and
everything, experiences of peace, love and understanding. Buddha said
that upon awakening, he understood everything. These experiences,
he told us, come about through containing the passions that arise
in reaction to the inevitable pain and loss that afflict all sentient
beings. Its okay to love, to feel joy, just train yourself to be
ready, to hold yourself together, to contain yourself when the inevitable
changes come. Train yourself!
For Buddha, the middle way was the right path; drawing back from
extremes; balanced between fire and ice; a moderate temperature
and a moderate life. The passions, it would seem, require containment.
Well, look at all the horrors that flow from the uncontained. Hate,
for instance, or greed. Are these reactions to affliction? I think
so. How else do such things quicken, but through pain? After years of
practice, after long hours of watching and containing the passions and
the images, memories and thoughts that feed the fire, after that comes
understanding, freedom and peace.
As a psychotherapist, one of my tasks is to help people learn how
to contain without repression, how to express without extremes. I
help people bring painful thoughts and memories into awareness and these
often evoke very strong emotions. I help people hold onto these emotions
long enough to understand them, without letting the emotions completely
hijack their minds and bodies. Healing starts with honesty and acceptance
and the process needs patience and strength. The wound itself tells us
what is needed. So, we give it time to speak and more importantly, we listen.
For me, containment is the heart of the healing relationship. Clients
learn to handle their suffering without running from it or being
overwhelmed by it. Through that they gain understanding and the
freedom to change. For the client who is repressed, some way to
express that offers relief. For the client who is out of control,
a way to calm down. The method, like the eight-fold way, is a path to
peace. It starts with whatever is real right now and passes safely through
whatever comes to release and understanding. Helping with that is more
than just skill, more than expertise and objectivity. It is that yes,
but something more…. I would call it friendship.... as a friend might
hold us, when a great hurt sweeps through our hearts and minds.... holds
us as we pour out our pain and gather the strength to go on. Banked earth,
a fire contained and kept safe from the wind.
With permission, excerpts
from writings of Ron Kurtz
Copyrights 2007 Ron Kurtz Trainings, Inc.