Transformations

What this passage does

Before saṃyama is turned on objects, Patañjali explains change, since the powers that follow depend on it. Vyāsa asks what happens to a stilled mind, given that the guṇas never stop moving (p. 208). The answer is three transformations of the mind (3.9–3.12), then the same analysis applied to the elements and senses (3.13), to substance and quality (3.14) and to sequence (3.15).

Learning goals

• Name the three transformations of the mind (3.9, 3.11, 3.12) and say what changes in each.
• Explain change of quality, time and condition, and what carries it through (3.13–3.15).
• Say why a theory of change comes before the powers of 3.16 onward.

The argument, step by step

1. Even a stilled mind changes: impressions of going outward give way and impressions of stilling appear.
2. Those impressions keep the mind's flow calm, but only while they are renewed.
3. In absorption, scattering wears away and one-pointedness rises.
4. In one-pointedness, the thought that fades and the thought that rises are alike.
5. The same analysis explains change of quality, time and condition in the elements and the senses.
6. A substance runs through its qualities, whether past, present or not yet nameable.
7. Differences in sequence cause differences in transformation, so a seen sequence reveals past and future (3.16).

The sūtras

1. 3.9 vyutthānanirodhasaṃskārayor abhibhavaprādurbhāvau nirodhakṣaṇacittānvayo nirodhapariṇāmaḥ
   The transformation of stilling: impressions of going outward give way, impressions of stilling appear, and the mind is pervaded by the moment of stilling.
2. 3.10 tasya praśāntavāhitā saṃskārāt
   Its flow becomes calm through impressions.
3. 3.11 sarvārthataikāgratayoḥ kṣayodayau cittasya samādhipariṇāmaḥ
   The transformation of absorption: scattering wears away and one-pointedness rises in the mind.
4. 3.12 tataḥ punaḥ śāntoditau tulyapratyayau cittasyaikāgratāpariṇāmaḥ
   Then again, the transformation of one-pointedness: the thought that fades and the thought that rises are alike.
5. 3.13 etena bhūtendriyeṣu dharmalakṣaṇāvasthāpariṇāmā vyākhyātāḥ
   This explains the transformations of quality, time and condition in the elements and the senses.
6. 3.14 śāntoditāvyapadeśyadharmānupātī dharmī
   The substance underlies its qualities, whether past, present or yet to appear.
7. 3.15 kramānyatvaṃ pariṇāmānyatve hetuḥ
   Differences in sequence cause differences in transformation.

Study

This passage explains change, because both the practice of pāda 1 and the powers from 3.16 depend on seeing how things change.

Vyāsa opens with a question: since the guṇas never stop moving, what change takes place in a mind that has been stilled (Woods p. 208)? The answer is the first of three transformations. In stilling, 'impressions of going outward give way, impressions of stilling appear, and the mind is pervaded by the moment of stilling' (3.9). Vyāsa makes a point that matters for practice: outward-going impressions are not thoughts, so they are not stilled when thoughts are stilled (p. 209). Only repeated moments of stilling lay down the opposing impressions. Hence 3.10: 'Its flow becomes calm through impressions.' Vyāsa warns that when those impressions weaken, the outward ones overpower them again (p. 210). This restates 1.12–1.14 in the language of saṃskāra.

The second transformation belongs to absorption: 'scattering wears away and one-pointedness rises in the mind' (3.11). Vyāsa calls both qualities of one mind, which runs through them (p. 211). The third belongs to one-pointedness itself: 'the thought that fades and the thought that rises are alike' (3.12). Even the steadiest mind is a sequence of moments. What makes it one-pointed is that each moment matches the last.

Then the analysis widens to everything. 'This explains the transformations of quality, time and condition in the elements and the senses' (3.13). Vyāsa's images: one stroke counts as one, ten or a hundred by its place, and one woman is mother, daughter and sister (pp. 215–216). Strictly, he says, there is a single change. When a plate of gold is broken up and reshaped, its condition alters but the gold does not (p. 213). He answers an opponent who holds that a substance is nothing over and above its qualities; Vācaspati identifies the opponent as a Buddhist. 3.14 names what carries change: the substance that 'underlies its qualities, whether past, present or yet to appear'. Of the latent ones Vyāsa says only that everything has the nature of everything (p. 225). 3.15 adds that differences in sequence explain differences in transformation, with Vyāsa's clay passing from powder to lump to pot to shards (p. 229).

Readings differ on the philosophy behind this. Vyāsa's account fits the Sāṃkhya view that an effect already exists in its cause, so nothing comes from nothing and nothing is annihilated; 4.12–4.14 return to it. Some Buddhist schools of the period held that only passing moments are real. The passage is one side of that debate, and a teacher should present it as such.

For practice the point is plain and hopeful. Stillness is not a switch. It is a slow shift in the balance of impressions, made one moment at a time, and it has to be kept up. And because change follows sequence, close attention to a sequence can see where it came from and where it is heading, which is exactly what 3.16 goes on to claim.

For discussion

1. Vyāsa says outward-going impressions are not thoughts (3.9). Why does that make silencing thoughts insufficient?
2. What keeps the calm flow of 3.10 going, and what ends it? Compare 1.13–1.14.
3. How is the one-pointedness of 3.12 still a kind of change?
4. Use Vyāsa's gold plate or clay pot to explain the three kinds of change in 3.13 and the substance of 3.14.
5. Why might Patañjali place this theory of change just before the powers?

A common misreading

That a still mind has stopped changing. Patañjali says the opposite: even stilling (3.9) and one-pointedness (3.12) are transformations, moments replacing moments, and the calm lasts only while its impressions are renewed (3.10).

A practice for the room

Sit for six minutes. For the first three, each time the mind settles for even one breath, mark it silently as 'one moment', and do not judge the gaps between (3.9). For the next three, rest on the breath and notice that each breath is new, yet like the last (3.12). Close by asking the room, without needing answers, whether settling came more easily towards the end.