At this point, we were told we could read the paper again, then go talk to anyone else in the room. As people drifted to different groups, I read the paper, felt confident in my assessment and stayed put at 6. However, I noticed that more than half of the 6 group went to 9. Hmm, I thought, what’s up with that? Once again, we were offered to read the paper, and go talk to anyone else. As I looked over at the 9 group, I saw two women standing near the wall, and felt an openness from them, a non-judgmental attitude and recognized a softening in my being. I approached them and asked what they knew. They explained how they got to 9 and I immediately joined that group.

It turns out, we were all given the same sentence. And how the brain operates, human eyes tend to skip small words that don’t add to the content or meaning of the sentence, like the, and, a and yes, of. While technically I did the exercise correctly, I saw 6 Fs, there were actually 9 including 3 Fs in the word of. There was much discussion, lots of congratulations to the folks who initially saw all the Fs; more congratulations to the people who immediately went to another group to find the answer, and awe and wonder at the person who included Es as elaborate forms of Fs (and so was in the over 9 group).

What I found fascinating was the lack of acknowledgment of the folks who initially trusted what they saw; who didn’t immediately think they were wrong and had to seek external confirmation as soon as they could. Do we all lack a sense of faith and trust in our own experience that we bail on it as soon as we see other people doing something different?

On the other hand, there is a place where holding onto a belief doesn’t serve us. What’s a spiritual practitioner to do?

The Yoga Sutras offer an answer. To gain what is called “right knowledge” what my teacher defines as reliable and trustworthy information, it has three aspects. The first is direct experience. Direct is the key word. It can’t be clouded by beliefs or assumptions. For instance, I remember growing up and being served scallions, only I called them “little green things.” I tried to pick them out of everything because they looked funny, and they were … green. My suspicion of them doubled when one night I didn’t pick them out, and woke up vomiting at 2 am. I told my mother who was cleaning up that the “little green things” made me sick. She wearily told me that wasn’t true. I had caught a stomach virus. Hmm, my 12 year old self thought, I don’t think so. The story about “little green things” in food being awful stuck.

Fast forward to a few decades later when I took an interest in cooking and lo, I came across scallions again. No longer the tender, doubting 12 year old, I got a chance to experience scallions with new eyes and palate. With the clarity of age and the curiosity of a budding home chef, I began to buy, eat and enjoy scallions with no ensuing sickness. I finally had a direct experience of them without a story about them.

Which brings us to the second aspect of direct knowledge, inference. Had I had access to that skill at age 12, I would have realized that if the “little green things” made me sick, they would have made my entire family sick. We’d have all been up at 2 am making a mess. Inference means not having direct experience but having enough experience to draw an accurate conclusion. Like where there’s smoke, there’s fire (or at least some kind of burning happening). In my case, I could have inferred that my mother was correct. Since I was the only one sick, I could conclude it was not something everyone ate. It was another source.

The last aspect is authoritative testimony. This is where it’s been written down, and passed the test of the ages, or where a trusted source offers wisdom. It’s what rings true, even if there isn’t a direct experience, or more so, absent the building blocks for inference. The Bible (Old and New Testaments), the Koran, the Yoga Sutras, the Tao de Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Pali Canon (Buddhist scripture) and many more texts point to the ultimate reality, and so ring true after millennia of time has passed. (Of course, I could have taken my mother to be an authoritative source, but you know how pre-teens are.)

Lest we be bamboozled by TikTok, the worldwide web or any other platforms, the Yoga Sutras make it clear that it is best if all three are present for reliable, trustworthy knowledge. Authoritative testimony on its own might point you in a certain direction, yet, as the Buddha said time and again, don’t trust that alone, have your own experience. Test it out.

Back to the conference. When I stood up to share my experience, and said I was totally fine staying in the 6 group, that I didn’t need anyone external to confirm what I saw, much of the room laughed. I’m guessing they were laughing at my obstinance, my ego-related confidence in knowing I was right. It wasn’t that. What I was saying is that I was confident in my experience. That is, until I inferred a major shift in how other people were seeing it. Even so, I still wouldn’t have been convinced in their epiphany, except, what I saw was two women who had no agenda, no pride in their choice, authoritative testimonies if you will. It was such openness and non-attachment that drew me over to explore what they had seen.

And just as quickly as I had held my 6 ground, I switched to 9 with nary a recrimination. I harbored no guilt or shame, no sheepishness or hesitation. After all, I did the exercise correctly. I only saw 6, and I trusted my capacity to count. And just as equally, I trusted my capacity to be enlightened, to be shown how others saw the same piece of paper in a different way.

In the atmosphere we live in today, there is such little ability, it seems to me, for folks to have honest conversations, to question their own opinions and views, even harder, their beliefs, and open themselves up to new information. Yes, first, trust your own experience. That way, when new information comes in and you test it out, it is much easier to trust the new experience, which may or may not include, changing your mind.

About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.

From birth we are bombarded with dogma: Merriam Webster defines dogma as “a point of view put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds.”  We are conditioned early on, for better or worse, to believe. 

Believing provides many emotional benefits.

If we believe the world is essentially good, we feel less stress and greater wellbeing. All the unknowns in life can be explained with a belief. Beliefs tell us what to do when and why. They provide a moral and ethical basis to operate from; they are essentially operating programs that tell us how to interpret life. As such, people often ask: “What should I believe? How should I look at this?” 

Behind every belief is a fear.

If you think about it, the only reason anyone adopts a belief is to alleviate a terrible fear. The parent says to the child: “Do what I say, or you will be punished.” This, “What I say” also includes how the parent feels about him or herself – the nonverbal parts of awareness that cause us to react to others unconsciously, i.e., “What you said made me feel like trailer trash.” Obviously, I could not make you feel like trailer trash if you did not already believe that you were.

Beliefs are all self-reinforcing.

If you believe a latte will calm, and reward you, it will. Not only that, but anything anyone does or says to dissuade you from your belief only intrenches you more. You become a “Latte-ite” and look for others to join you. You form groups of latte-ite’s, and that only distracts you from discovering the real source of your stress: It is always another belief, like, “I’m not good enough.” So, behind every belief there is always another belief that counteracts your first belief, such as, “I am good enough. I’m even better than anyone else.” All this complexity works against your own function. It takes a lot of energy to balance “I am good enough” against “I’m not good enough.” It is important to note that neither of these beliefs, that consume so much of your time and energy, have anything to do with who you are. What would it be like to go through life without any beliefs at all? Or should I say, actively observing yourself to see if what you just did was an automatic reaction, and then tracing your reaction to a belief. Having discovered the belief, like: “We should always be loving and kind,” not reinforce it – allow it to wither and die. What you are left with is your naked self. Why don’t you effervesce with love and kindness without your belief? The more you look at the why of what you do, the less you relate in a prescribed way. You begin seeing the fear behind your belief, and you begin to separate who you are from your conditioned self. You become less rigid and controlled, more open and accepting – loving if you will.

David Hoefer is an unlicensed psychotherapist specializing in depression.
He is in private practice at DenverDepressionHelp.com in Denver, and Lakewood, Colorado. He can be reached at 720 404 9160 or hoeferman2@gmail.com; davidhoefer.com.