Not too Tight, Not too Loose
Not too Tight, Not too Loose
There is classic Buddhist teaching about the Buddha talking to a guitar player about the appropriate effort for meditation. While in the story the Buddha is talking specifically about meditation, in reality, the lesson can be applied to anything we do - meditation, work, relationships, love, sports, yoga, cooking, etc. All activities require a balance of effort and ease. This is the key lesson in Yoga Sutra 2.46: Sthira-Sukham-Asanam (meaning that the seat should be steady and comfortable.)
When I first learned to cook I believed everything should be cooked on the highest heat. No one taught me this. My mother is a skillful cook. She has a nuanced hand in the kitchen that she learned from her father. I was ignorant of the art of cooking. I did not know that applying too much heat would burn my food or strip the food of flavor. It did not make sense to cook on lower heat, and because it didn’t make sense, my food was bad. Every time I cooked, I made bad food. I did not enjoy cooking. I was too tight. My sole focus was to cook as fast as possible and to get there my only tool was to cook at the highest heat. I had to loosen my approach to cooking and learn that medium and medium-high were oftentimes more than enough. Yeah sure, if I want to boil just water I’m using high heat but I also want that water to boil as fast as possible! But if I want to prepare a lovely breakfast of perfectly fried over-medium eggs I needed to learn to apply less heat, to loosen up. Loosening up created space for me to learn, to make mistakes, to laugh at some epic disasters but to try again. And when I loosened up I learned to enjoy cooking.
The other side of being too loose in the kitchen showed up when I was preparing a birthday cake for my partner. In some epic baking failures, I would follow a recipe and if it didn’t come out right I’d shrug my shoulders and tell a cute story of how I failed to master some New York Times recipe. I didn’t want this for his birthday cake. I was preparing a favorite from his childhood with his grandmother – a classic Southern caramel cake. Those were big shoes I was stepping into it! Being too loose here could mean settling for a sub-par cake. I enlisted the aid of friends to get a copy of a modern version of the recipe more appropriate to my skill level. I bought the necessary kitchen equipment. I bought triple the ingredients because I knew I was going to be moving to the “tighter side” of cooking and needed to practice. I baked a few test cakes, made a few test frostings, and even solicited feedback. Finally, when it came time to make the official birthday cake, I had all the knowledge, skills, and the best of my abilities to produce the cake. It was a success! The point I’m making is that it’s not just yoga & meditation that asks us to find the balance between effort and ease.
So what does this have to do with the Buddha?
The story goes that the Buddha came upon a guitar playing and asked him how he tuned his guitar. The guitar player replied if I tune the strings too tightly, they break. If they are too loose, no sound comes out. The Buddha replied that this way to hold your mind in meditation. Buddhist teachers use this story to show that we don’t need to be too tight. We can let our thoughts be as they are, allow our mind to be at rest within its activity, to feel its flow and energy. As well, we don’t need to be too loose, that we need to remember to apply the technique with a light touch to maintain an environment of order and clarity. Similarly, this is how we practice yoga.
If we’re too tightly focused on the physical form we can overlook the energetic, mental and spiritual benefits of yoga. If all we’re looking for is the perfect lotus pose, we might press too hard past our edge and injure ourselves. Ironically, once we find the pose we may be unsatisfied and wonder what’s next or what’s so special about it. Andy Richter has a podcast called “Three Questions with Andy Richter.” In an episode, he talked about the trap of celebrity, that when he meets some famous people he’s often struck by how that level of fame or success isn’t enough and they keep looking for the next thing. This is like the guitar string that is too tight, it breaks. This is like my original idea of cooking, only high heat! We can wind ourselves so tightly wound that we forget that the pose isn’t the endpoint. We lose curiosity and wonder. We forget the nature of our body, our mind, our breath.
Just as important our practice can’t be too loose. The Yoga Sutras also say that all that is required of practice is to show up consistently, and try. This is the perfect encapsulation of “not too loose”. Put some consistent effort into your practice. If you are working towards a lotus pose but it’s outside your range of motion (and honestly it’s just a smidge outside my hip rotation) that doesn’t mean skip it. Instead, work towards the pieces that are accessible: fold the knee, externally rotate through the hip, sit propped on the floor. This “not too loose” side of the practice allows you to place your focus on the physical sensations, the rate of your breathing, or the nature of your thoughts. Being “not to loose” allows us to be curious about what could be.
In what areas of your life do you want more balance? If you have a too tight area, what can you do to create a softening, to open up that space? If you have a too loose area, what can you do to create a container, to give boundaries and definition? I would recommend getting on your mat and practicing yoga. What we do on the mat is how we live our lives. You may find a pose, even a simple pose like a triangle, that you are acting too tight in and soften it with a block under your hand. You may find a pose you’re too loose with like a deep backbend that just happens to coincide with an “urgent need” to use the restroom. Instead of leaving the room try taking a deep breath and working just to your edge. I’d love to hear more about your experiences — keep in touch.
