Yoga and Timeful Experience

“Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river;
it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger;
it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”
-Jorge Luis Borges

Our relationship with time can be both comforting and bewildering. We’re reminded of its passing by prompts from life’s cycles, being in a familiar experience and realizing how things have changed. We can feel helpless to its progress, yet know we play a role in how we perceive it; the quality of our attention dilates experience, making it less finite.

Yoga is a practice of getting closer and closer to kṣaṇa (Sanskrit), a discrete moment of experience, where everything is born and dies in a universal twitch. Studies have shown that mindfulness helps us discern one flicker of experience from the next, increasing the acuity of our lens on life. In yoga, we bring mindfulness to bodily sensations and their reflections of perception, with hues of emotion and shades of memory. If time is a precious element, our practice helps us sense its abundance. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; drenched yet courageous. That’s timeful experience.