On pain, attachments, & Aparigraha
Aparigraha (Sanskrit: अपरिग्रह) and the real cause of suffering
Suffering is not the experience of pain. It is the experience of resistance to pain.
Every time I find myself writing about pain, suffering, love, or the admittedly more dramatic emotions of personhood, I have flashbacks to tear-damp journal pages of angsty teenage years, Bright Eyes albums, and my long-lost (oddly popular) Tumblr.
And for a moment I feel shame. A moment.
Then I let the shame pass because
to be cringe is to be real
to be cringe is to be free and
in the past, it’s in these moments of profound drama and pain that I end up writing something that readers tell me touched or helped them in some way.
Don’t get me wrong, I write all the time. Writing about joy or humor or career or anything else can be just as profound and important. But personally, even when I hate what I’ve published, it’s these cringy sad posts that I end up hearing back about. One person, or 5, or 10, reach out to me and actually let me know that it was important to them in some way. So despite the fear of zeitgeist cringe culture and online bullying, here goes.
One of the deepest lessons from my 500 (official) training hours in yoga philosophy is that the phenomenon of suffering is actually not the result of pain or something happening to us.
Rather, suffering is the resistance we have to the pain itself. Suffering is the questioning of the pain - why me, why now, why this, why hurt?
Suffering is the attachment to its opposite - what happened to my plans? I expected something different. I thought I could stave off pain forever if I only did X Y and Z perfectly. Something was supposed to work.
Suffering actually comes from not surrendering to the presence of pain itself.
In our darkest moments of feeling hurt, betrayed, broken, lost, forgotten, isolated, or wronged in some way - your job is not to patch over the wound as quickly as possible, nor to stare at the gaping wound forever. Getting over something or going through something.
No, your job in these moments is to release control over what you are experiencing. Your job is to surrender to the experience and, to the best of your ability, do so without judgment. Your job is to unattach yourself from your expectations and allow a path to unfold in front of you in time.
This practice is called Aparigraha (Sanskrit: अपरिग्रह) and it means:
non-attachment
surrender
release of control (or the illusion of control)
Depending on where you apply aparigraha, it can have many more meanings. For example, when practicing yoga or the desire to become a “master”, it means unattaching from the fruits of your labor; simply practicing is the point. Or, it can mean detaching from material desires and overconsumption or the desire for ownership over things (that one can find contentment without external belongings).
Note: It does not mean to detach yourself from all your experiences, or release the care you have, or dissociate. It is a practice of releasing the need for control and expectations.
Take me, for example, right now. (I mean, not right now, because I’m at a coffee shop writing this, but me a few nights ago.) I have found myself on the bathroom floor, crying. Not crying, but sobbing. Sobbing so hard my ab muscles are sore and my jaw muscles ache and my head hurts and my hands are shaking and I swear the ducts by my eyes must be dilated to allow such amounts of tears to pour down my cheeks. It’s not pretty — there’s snot too, and coughing, and a wild look in my eyes.
I won’t be sharing here the details of what caused this; but I don’t need to in order to talk with you all about the levels of Aparigraha I had the opportunity to practice here.
In this primal moment of such overwhelm (and trauma response), the body kicks into gear to regulate: it cries to push the energy out, and I am allowed to just be *in it*. For however long it takes me to come back to mindfulness. I am in it, and it absolutely sucks. Then, eventually, I zoom out.
Dhāraṇā - धारणा - mindfulness or concentration. being aware of your awareness, pausing to find presence, zooming out to bigger pictures, or zooming into components.
In between two waves of pain, I remember the difference between pain and suffering. Suffering is remaining here, on the floor, letting my thoughts swirl so expeditiously around my head that I drown in them. Suffering is attaching to the feeling - the hot tears, the aching chest, the adrenaline shots through my body. Suffering is the questioning of why me, why this, what happened, I thought/assumed/wanted………
But pain can (and must) happen, and it needn’t come with suffering as well. Here’s what this same scene looks like when I’ve used Dhāraṇā to zoom out and Aparigraha to practice nonattachment:
I may still be on the floor, but I am no longer doubled over.
The hurt keeps the tears coming, but I am no longer frustrated at myself or judging myself for how fast they are coming.
I am not shaming myself for what I must look like right now.
I am looking plainly at what happened, acknowledging that I was hoping for something different, and sitting in the knowledge that the way it ended up happening is not a reflection of me or my worth. Even if I don’t believe this yet.
I feel a wave of adrenaline build in my chest and shoot through my stomach and arms, and I say, wow, body is really reacting. It must not feel safe. I am safe. I’m just not safe in the way I expected and planned.
A wave of loss, or anger, or fear of change rushes over me. From my place of Aparigraha, I am able to say “this wave makes sense. I didn’t see it coming. It’s not what I wanted. This isn’t how I saw my life going at this phase.” I am able to say these things instead of curling in on myself, squeezing my eyes shut so tight again that a headache begins to form, wondering if this next exhale will come out as a sob, scream, or not all.
The pain may not stop, at least not tonight, but my suffering needn’t be so damaging, so consuming, so long-lived.
Again, this is not a practice of detaching from every experience (this would get into the territory of spiritual bypassing). It just means repeatedly (it’s called a practice after all) non-attaching yourself from expectations and the illusion of having control all the time. The practice is the point.
Why you? Baby, this is being alive, not a punishment.
Why this? Baby, I couldn’t tell you. But I can tell you that Spirit (you might call it God or Goddess or Universe or deities or higher self or guides or ancestors or nature or something else) breaks things apart for you in order to build something better. It sucks, and maybe you really wanted what got broken. But that’s faith - believing you are being looked after and that even the most jarring, shocking, painful Tower moments come before the moments of hope, potential, and rebirth.
It’s time to stop resisting the pain.
Practice listening to your intuition; visualize what you want YOUR life (just you) to look like, and what you can do each day to align yourself toward that vision. Be authentic to yourself.
Let things fall apart.
Enter the darkness not knowing where it leads.
Sit on the bathroom floor for as long as you need, and then sit up.
What is meant for you will find you, again, and again, and again.
You’re that worthy. You’re that seen. You’re that held.
Even when you want the control, even when you genuinely want to put the blindfold back on and stay in what’s familiar, it’s time.
You don’t need to be scared of the pain. The suffering doesn’t come from the pain, or the change. It comes from resistance to what’s in front of you.
It is not a punishment.
You will make it through this, even if you don’t think so, even if you don’t want to.
I know that because I’ve been there enough times to know.
I will not downplay your hurt. But I will be here with a hand, a matching headache (for now), and an annoying spiel about yoga philosophy should you want it.
Love,
Hannah
Om
Sahana vavatu
Sahanau bhunaktu
Sahaviryam karavavahai
Tejasvina vadhita mastu
Ma vidvishavahai
Om shanti shanti shantih
May we both be protected
May we both be nourished
May we work together with great energy
May our studies be enlightening
May there be no enmity between us
Peace in body, mind, and spirit. Peace in all realms.
Found in the Krishna Yajurveda Taittiriya Upanishad (2.2.2) and as learned from the teachers at Ignite Institute
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If you are new here, you might like January 2024's letter since it covers the origin story and plan for this community.
If you want to see resources on how to support Palestinians and find your role in protesting the ongoing genocide, see May 2024's letter. The same links also lead to general resources on resisting fascism, capitalism, isolation, white supremacy, and other systems of harm.
This is ahimsa: not just non-harm, but the active dismantling of systems that cause harm. None of us are free until all of us are free.
** Disclaimer: Content on Deep, Dark, & Convoluted is not intended to cure, treat, diagnose, or prescribe, and should not be used to replace professional care. I am not a medical, psychological, nutrition, therapeutic, or clinical professional. What I AM: A guide and a forever studient. As a yoga teacher, I have knowledge, but as the student, you come with your own inner wisdom. Many systems of magic, science, and other schools of thought can coexist and needn’t clash. **