Sailing your ship

There's been so much rain recently that there's a chance we might soon just float away! So in that vein I've got a few watery metaphors for practice I wanted to share with you.


The what, how, and why

The first one comes from my yoga teacher Jonathan Monks (YogaMonks). He likes to connect the three main aspects of traditional yoga – Hatha, Raja, and Bhakti – to the different parts of a sailing boat on the sea: the boat, the sails, and the wind.

First a little about what these aspects are:  
The sanskrit word "hatha" means wilful or forceful, sometimes also translated as "ha" meaning sun and "tha" meaning moon. As these two sounds, the word captures both the active (masculine, yang, hot, solar) aspect, and the receptive (feminine, yin, cool, lunar) aspect within all of us. Hatha yoga is a spiritual path that can be traced back to the "Goraksha Samhita" written by Yogi Gorakshanath in the 11th century and the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika" written by Yogi Swatmarama in the 15th century. It is, in the words of Jonathan, "the juxtaposition of two opposing forces to reveal the one (all emcompassing) force beneath and beyond." All physical yoga practices can be classified as hatha yoga.

Raja yoga, meaning "royal yoga" or "royal union" and is concerned principally with the cultivation of mind. The term can be traced back to the "Yoga Sutras" of Patanjali, who described a succession of meditation steps for preparing and building up to complete contemplative absorption (dhyāna, dhyana, samadhi). Basically raja refers to the meditation aspect of yoga.

Bhakti yoga is a spiritual path in Hindu philosophy for fostering love of, faith in, and surrender to oneness (or God). It's the devotional aspect of yoga, and might include practices such as listening/reading the sutras, kirtana (praising or singing), doing service, worshipping, and surrendering the self.

In this analogy, Jonathan likens the 'hatha' aspect to the boat. It's our vessel for travelling on the often stormy seas of life, and our regular physical practice helps to make sure our boat is seaworthy.

If hatha and our boat is the 'what', then the raja aspect is the 'how'. He associates this 'how' with the sails – for the boat to gather speed and follow the right course the sails have to be in good clean condition and properly rigged. The mind has to be properly cultivated in order for it to perceive clearly the winds of life, and catch them most wisely.

That leaves the bhakti aspect, the 'why'. Why do we do any of this practice in the first place? Something has to motivate us – if not God, then the wonder of life, or to become one with 'the way', or perhaps simply the wish to help others. In this analogy, bhakti refers to the wind. It's what powers us along, fills our sails and drives along our vessel.

And the water? It's life itself, with all it's waves of up and down. And what are waves? Just temporary patterns of energy on the surface of the ocean of emptiness.

Jonathan Monks's yoga analogy - drawing by Carol from our sadhana course

Rowing out of the marina

The second little metaphor is from my Zen teacher Daizan Skinner (ZenWays.org), and relates to the stages of practice.

Let's imagine we've got a little sailing dinghy at its berth in the harbour. In order to get it out of the sheltered marina and onto the open water, we need to row it out (or I guess these days you'd most likely start up the outboard motor). As you row out, you have to be careful for obstacles and other boats, and it's slow going. But in the busy marina without any wind it's the only way.

Once you're out on the open water with a good stiff breeze, you can hoist your sails and let the wind push you forward.

Now, as we've said, it's no good hoisting the sails in the port – they would get in the way, flapping about and blocking your view. But equally, there's no use in rowing when you're out of port and the sails are up catching the wind. At best it simply doesn't help, and at worst it actually gets in the way, hindering your progress.

So you need both the oars and the sails, but for different circumstances. They need to be used wisely.

Using our oars is like putting in the effort when it's needed, like doing something on a recommendation until you start seeing the benefits. We need to row ourselves out to a place where the wind can take over and can blow us forward – doing our practice until the practice does us! The wisdom then comes in knowing when to stop rowing...


Course changes

So we've got a seaworthy boat, we know why we want to practice, and we've managed to row out of the marina into the open sea. We're up and going, cutting through the waves with the wind filling our sails. Now the course we take becomes important – are we heading to a tropical island hideaway for silence and no distractions, or to a disaster zone to help out?

Something a friend of mine very wisely said on a retreat recently: a tiny course correction right now makes a massive difference to your destination over a long journey. A half-degree course change could put you 100s of miles away from where you were originally headed. That's why setting your course is so important. 

But it doesn't mean you shouldn't be flexible and change course when needed – sometimes a dramatic and unanticipated change is needed when a storm unexpectedly brews, or you realise that you're needed more at home than at the latest war zone.

Do small changes in navigation matter?

Water and ice

The final metaphor comes from Zen Master Hakuin (1685-1768). Hakuin taught that Buddhas (not just The Buddha – he's referring to any enlightened being) are like water and ordinary people are like ice. We're all made of the same stuff. There's no difference, except they are in different states. 

Mindful attention is like sunlight, melting away the frozen places in the body-mind. As things free up on the physical level, things open up on the emotional level. As things start to let go in our body and hearts, then our mind begins to open up and we become able to slip more and more easily into that wonderful flow of life.


Got any more? Add them in the comments below – I'd love to hear them.