First, Trust Your Experience || By Beth Hinnen, Certified Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher
Once, at a conference, I played a game. Everyone was told to take a slip of paper from a basket, read it and then stand in different areas of the room depending on how many “F”s we saw. A small group went over to less than 5, a much larger group went to 6, another formed at 9, and a sole person stood in a group for more than 9.
At this point, we were told we could read the paper again, then go talk to anyone else in the room. As people drifted to different groups, I read the paper, felt confident in my assessment and stayed put at 6. However, I noticed that more than half of the 6 group went to 9. Hmm, I thought, what’s up with that? Once again, we were offered to read the paper, and go talk to anyone else. As I looked over at the 9 group, I saw two women standing near the wall, and felt an openness from them, a non-judgmental attitude and recognized a softening in my being. I approached them and asked what they knew. They explained how they got to 9 and I immediately joined that group.
It turns out, we were all given the same sentence. And how the brain operates, human eyes tend to skip small words that don’t add to the content or meaning of the sentence, like the, and, a and yes, of. While technically I did the exercise correctly, I saw 6 Fs, there were actually 9 including 3 Fs in the word of. There was much discussion, lots of congratulations to the folks who initially saw all the Fs; more congratulations to the people who immediately went to another group to find the answer, and awe and wonder at the person who included Es as elaborate forms of Fs (and so was in the over 9 group).
What I found fascinating was the lack of acknowledgment of the folks who initially trusted what they saw; who didn’t immediately think they were wrong and had to seek external confirmation as soon as they could. Do we all lack a sense of faith and trust in our own experience that we bail on it as soon as we see other people doing something different?
On the other hand, there is a place where holding onto a belief doesn’t serve us. What’s a spiritual practitioner to do?
The Yoga Sutras offer an answer. To gain what is called “right knowledge” what my teacher defines as reliable and trustworthy information, it has three aspects. The first is direct experience. Direct is the key word. It can’t be clouded by beliefs or assumptions. For instance, I remember growing up and being served scallions, only I called them “little green things.” I tried to pick them out of everything because they looked funny, and they were … green. My suspicion of them doubled when one night I didn’t pick them out, and woke up vomiting at 2 am. I told my mother who was cleaning up that the “little green things” made me sick. She wearily told me that wasn’t true. I had caught a stomach virus. Hmm, my 12 year old self thought, I don’t think so. The story about “little green things” in food being awful stuck.
Fast forward to a few decades later when I took an interest in cooking and lo, I came across scallions again. No longer the tender, doubting 12 year old, I got a chance to experience scallions with new eyes and palate. With the clarity of age and the curiosity of a budding home chef, I began to buy, eat and enjoy scallions with no ensuing sickness. I finally had a direct experience of them without a story about them.
Which brings us to the second aspect of direct knowledge, inference. Had I had access to that skill at age 12, I would have realized that if the “little green things” made me sick, they would have made my entire family sick. We’d have all been up at 2 am making a mess. Inference means not having direct experience but having enough experience to draw an accurate conclusion. Like where there’s smoke, there’s fire (or at least some kind of burning happening). In my case, I could have inferred that my mother was correct. Since I was the only one sick, I could conclude it was not something everyone ate. It was another source.
The last aspect is authoritative testimony. This is where it’s been written down, and passed the test of the ages, or where a trusted source offers wisdom. It’s what rings true, even if there isn’t a direct experience, or more so, absent the building blocks for inference. The Bible (Old and New Testaments), the Koran, the Yoga Sutras, the Tao de Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Pali Canon (Buddhist scripture) and many more texts point to the ultimate reality, and so ring true after millennia of time has passed. (Of course, I could have taken my mother to be an authoritative source, but you know how pre-teens are.)
Lest we be bamboozled by TikTok, the worldwide web or any other platforms, the Yoga Sutras make it clear that it is best if all three are present for reliable, trustworthy knowledge. Authoritative testimony on its own might point you in a certain direction, yet, as the Buddha said time and again, don’t trust that alone, have your own experience. Test it out.
Back to the conference. When I stood up to share my experience, and said I was totally fine staying in the 6 group, that I didn’t need anyone external to confirm what I saw, much of the room laughed. I’m guessing they were laughing at my obstinance, my ego-related confidence in knowing I was right. It wasn’t that. What I was saying is that I was confident in my experience. That is, until I inferred a major shift in how other people were seeing it. Even so, I still wouldn’t have been convinced in their epiphany, except, what I saw was two women who had no agenda, no pride in their choice, authoritative testimonies if you will. It was such openness and non-attachment that drew me over to explore what they had seen.
And just as quickly as I had held my 6 ground, I switched to 9 with nary a recrimination. I harbored no guilt or shame, no sheepishness or hesitation. After all, I did the exercise correctly. I only saw 6, and I trusted my capacity to count. And just as equally, I trusted my capacity to be enlightened, to be shown how others saw the same piece of paper in a different way.
In the atmosphere we live in today, there is such little ability, it seems to me, for folks to have honest conversations, to question their own opinions and views, even harder, their beliefs, and open themselves up to new information. Yes, first, trust your own experience. That way, when new information comes in and you test it out, it is much easier to trust the new experience, which may or may not include, changing your mind.
About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.
