Posture

What this passage does

The third limb in three short sūtras: posture is steady and easy (2.46), achieved by relaxing effort and meeting the boundless (2.47), and its fruit is that the pairs of opposites no longer strike (2.48). This is nearly all the text says about āsana. Its role here is to give a stable seat for breath control, which begins "with posture in place" (2.49).

Learning goals

• Explain what āsana means in this text and its two qualities.
• Explain the two means of 2.47 and how Vyāsa and Vācaspati read each.
• Explain posture's only stated fruit and how it prepares for breath control.

The argument, step by step

1. Posture is steady and easeful.
2. Vyāsa gives named seats as examples; the sūtra itself gives only the two qualities.
3. Such a posture comes by relaxing effort and by meeting the boundless.
4. Vyāsa: when effort ceases the body no longer shakes; or the mind, coalescing with the boundless, brings the posture about.
5. Then one is not struck by the pairs of opposites, such as cold and heat.
6. With the seat steady, breath control can begin (2.49).

The sūtras

1. 2.46 sthirasukham āsanam
   Posture is steady and easeful.
2. 2.47 prayatnaśaithilyānantasamāpattibhyām
   By relaxing effort and meeting the boundless.
3. 2.48 tato dvandvānabhighātaḥ
   Then one is not struck by the pairs of opposites.

Study

After the two ethical limbs, the third gets three short sūtras. Vyāsa marks the turn: the restraints and observances have been stated with their powers, and now posture and the rest will be described (Woods p. 191).

2.46: "Posture is steady and easeful." Āsana means a seat; Vācaspati says the word can mean either what one sits on or the way one sits (Woods p. 191). Vyāsa's comment is a list of named seats: the lotus, the staff, the couch, the seated crane, elephant and camel, the even arrangement, the steady-and-easy, the as-is-comfortable, and others like them (Woods p. 191). Nearly all are ways of sitting for practice. Vācaspati glosses 'steady' as motionless, and says the steady-and-easy seat is the one the sūtra's author approves (Woods pp. 191–192).

2.47 says how: "By relaxing effort and meeting the boundless." Vyāsa reads it as two ways (Woods p. 192). When effort ceases, the posture is accomplished, so that the body does not shake. Or the mind, coalescing with the boundless (ananta), brings the posture about. Vācaspati sharpens the first. The effort to be relaxed is the ordinary effort by which we hold the body up; a person who keeps it cannot settle into the posture taught. He also reads ananta as Ananta, chief of serpents, who holds up the earth on his thousand steady hoods. That image is Vācaspati's, not Vyāsa's (Woods p. 192).

2.48 gives the fruit: "Then one is not struck by the pairs of opposites." Vyāsa: once posture is mastered, cold and heat and the like do not overcome him (Woods p. 192). This is the only fruit the text names for posture. Its role is to give a stable base for breath control, which 2.49 begins "with posture in place".

Readings differ. The main dispute is ananta: endless space, Vācaspati's serpent, or something like attention without limit. Whether 2.46 describes all postures or names one, the steady-and-easy seat in Vyāsa's list, is also argued; Vācaspati's remark leans toward the second. And there is a historical question. The many standing and flowing postures taught today draw on much later sources and on modern developments. A teacher can say plainly that the Yoga Sūtras say very little about āsana, and that what they say is about a seat.

For practice, the passage gives a test any posture can meet. Is it steady? Is it easy? If effort is gripping, release it. If attention is narrow, widen it. The aim is a seat that no longer needs managing, so that attention is free for the breath.

For discussion

1. What does the word āsana mean here, and what does that suggest about the purpose of posture in this text?
2. Why must both steadiness and ease be present at once?
3. What effort does Vācaspati say must be relaxed, and why would keeping it get in the way?
4. What might 'meeting the boundless' mean in practice, on the different readings of ananta?
5. Why is not being struck by the opposites (2.48) a fitting fruit for posture?

A common misreading

These sūtras are often cited as the source of modern posture practice. The text gives three lines about a seat for practice, steady and easy, whose purpose is to support breath control (2.49); the varied postures of today come from much later sources.

A practice for the room

Sit in any comfortable seat, on a chair or the floor. One minute: find the least effort that still keeps you upright. Three minutes: on each exhale, let go of one place that grips more than it needs to: jaw, shoulders, hands, belly. Two minutes: widen attention to the whole room and the space beyond it, and rest. Anyone uncomfortable shifts at once. Close with 2.46 said aloud.