2.17 · The Moon in the Water

The cause of what can be avoided is the joining of seer and seen.

Word by word

draṣṭṛ

the seer

dṛśyayoḥ

and the seen

saṃyogaḥ

joining, conjunction

heya-hetuḥ

the cause of what is to be avoided

Where it fits

The second part of the frame: the cause of what is to be avoided. Vyāsa marks the step (Woods p. 140). The cause is the joining of seer and seen. The following sūtras explain each term: the seen (2.18–2.19), the seer (2.20), why they meet (2.21–2.23) and what binds them (2.24).

Reading

The cause of avoidable suffering is the joining of seer and seen: awareness becoming so entangled with what it witnesses that it seems to suffer what it sees. Seeing itself is not the problem; the identification is. When the water trembles, the reflected moon seems to tremble, though the moon in the sky is still.

Vyāsa

“For example: the sole of the foot can be pierced; the thorn can pierce; and the way to avoid it is either not to tread on the thorn, or to tread on it with a shoe in between.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 140.

Practice

Watch a film or a video for five minutes and catch the moments when you are 'in' it. Then try the same with your own mood: catch the moment you become it.

A question to sit with

What are you so close to that you have merged with it?

Key ideas

puruṣa (the seer, the self), prakṛti (nature, the seen), duḥkha (suffering)