योगसूत्रYoga SūtrasOpen in the app

II. Sādhana Pāda · sūtras 2.33–2.34

Cultivating the opposite

What this passage does

A safeguard for the first two limbs. When harmful thoughts press against the restraints and observances, cultivate the opposite (2.33): see clearly how such thoughts are done, caused or approved, from what motives, in what degree, and that they end in endless suffering and ignorance (2.34). It comes before the fruits, because the restraints are established only once such thoughts stop arising.

Learning goals

The argument, step by step

  1. When harmful thoughts press against the restraints and observances, cultivate their opposite.
  2. Vyāsa's model: the yogi recalls why he took refuge in yoga and refuses to take back what he gave up.
  3. Harmful thoughts such as violence may be done, caused or approved.
  4. They arise from greed, anger or delusion and may be mild, middling or intense, which Vyāsa multiplies into eighty-one kinds and then calls countless.
  5. All bear endless fruit in suffering and ignorance, and reflecting on this is cultivating the opposite.

The sūtras

  1. 2.33 vitarkabādhane pratipakṣabhāvanam
    When troubled by harmful thoughts, cultivate their opposite.
  2. 2.34 vitarkā hiṃsādayaḥ kṛtakāritānumoditā lobhakrodhamohapūrvakā mṛdumadhyādhimātrā duḥkhājñānānantaphalā iti pratipakṣabhāvanam
    Harmful thoughts such as violence, whether done, caused or approved, arising from greed, anger or delusion, mild, middling or intense, bear endless fruit in suffering and ignorance. Reflecting on this is cultivating the opposite.

Study

The restraints and observances (2.30–2.32) will not keep themselves. 2.33 meets the pressure on them: "When troubled by harmful thoughts, cultivate their opposite." Vyāsa introduces it with the words "as for these restraints and observances" (Woods p. 183), so its scope is the first two limbs.

Vitarka here does not carry its sense at 1.17, where it names the coarser level of absorption on an object. Here it is thinking turned toward harm, and 2.34 defines it. Vyāsa gives a model of the opposite (Woods p. 183). Suppose the thought arises: I will kill the one who hurt me; I will lie; I will take his goods. The yogi reflects: roasting on the pitiless coals of rebirth, I took refuge in the way of yoga, giving safety to every living being; now I am taking back what I gave up, like a dog returning to its vomit. The opposite here is a vivid recollection of one's own purpose and of where the thought leads. Vyāsa adds that the same method is to be applied in the other cases too.

2.34 gives the analysis: "Harmful thoughts such as violence, whether done, caused or approved, arising from greed, anger or delusion, mild, middling or intense, bear endless fruit in suffering and ignorance. Reflecting on this is cultivating the opposite." Three distinctions, each threefold. Harm I do; harm I have done by others; harm I approve. Its motive: Vyāsa's examples are greed for meat or skin, anger at being hurt, and the delusion that killing will earn merit (Woods p. 184). Its strength: mild, middling, intense. Vyāsa multiplies these to eighty-one kinds of violence, then says that, since living beings are countless, so are its kinds (Woods p. 184). His picture of the fruit is stark: one who takes a life lives every moment on the edge of losing his own (Woods pp. 184–185).

Two things stand out. Approval counts: one who cheers harm on shares in it. And the remedy is reflection. Seeing clearly where a thought leads is itself the cultivation. Vyāsa's comment on 2.4 had already said that afflictions become thin when overpowered by cultivating their opposites (Woods p. 107). So this method links the first limbs back to the thinning promised in 2.2.

Readings differ on what 'the opposite' is. Many teachers read it as replacing a harmful thought with a contrary one, kindness for anger. Vyāsa's own model is reflection on consequence and on one's commitment. Both are found in practice; the text's example is the second. The triad of greed, anger and delusion is also shared with Buddhist teaching, and teachers may note the overlap without claiming more.

For practice, these two sūtras are among the most usable in the text. They need no special state of mind, only honest analysis at the moment of pressure.

For discussion

  1. Why does Vyāsa tie 2.33 specifically to the restraints and observances?
  2. In Vyāsa's model, what exactly does the yogi bring to mind as 'the opposite'?
  3. Why do you think 2.34 counts harm that is caused or approved, as well as harm that is done?
  4. How does seeing where a thought leads change the thought, without suppressing it?
  5. How does this method connect with the thinning of the afflictions promised in 2.2?

A common misreading

Cultivating the opposite is often taught as positive thinking that covers over a harmful thought. Vyāsa's method looks straight at it: where it came from, how strong it is, and where it leads (2.34), so that the thought loses its pull.

A practice for the room

Hand out paper. Each person recalls one mildly harmful thought from the past week: a wish to snap, to shade the truth, to take more than their share. Privately they place it on the map of 2.34. Done, caused or approved? Greed, anger or delusion? Mild, middling or intense? Then they write one line on where it would lead if followed. Nothing is shared. Two minutes of quiet to close.