What happens when experience opens beyond yes and no?
Here is something we have been introducing to teachers on our Somatics trainings: the Tetralemma.
The Tetralemma is a method of philosophical inquiry found in Indian philosophical traditions, particularly Buddhist philosophy. It invites us to explore four possibilities in relation to a statement, taking our inquiry beyond the familiar distinction between something being true or false.
The four possibilities are:
- Yes — the statement is true.
- No — the statement is not true.
- Both — the statement is both true and not true.
- Neither — the statement is neither true nor not true.
At first, this might seem unnecessarily complicated. Surely something is either true or it isn’t?
Most of us are accustomed to organising our understanding this way. We make distinctions, reach conclusions and use those conclusions to make sense of our experience. This is a remarkably useful capacity. It allows us to recognise things, communicate with one another and navigate the world.
Yet experience itself can be considerably richer than the descriptions we use to understand it.
The Tetralemma offers us an opportunity to explore that richness.
A sideways glance at yes and no
I sometimes wonder whether something like this is happening when I’ve asked people questions during my travels in India.
Someone might respond with a very definite yes, most certainly, accompanied by that wonderful sideways head wobble which, to my unfamiliar eyes, seems to contain both a nod and a shake of the head.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking, Well, is that a yes or a no?
Of course, the head wobble has its own cultural meanings, and it isn’t an expression of the Tetralemma. Yet the experience has sometimes reminded me of the way our familiar distinctions can become less straightforward when we encounter another way of expressing or understanding something.
Perhaps the answer is yes. Perhaps it is no. Perhaps there is a sense in which both are present, or neither quite captures what is being communicated.
To my Western-trained mind, this initially sounds rather like a complicated way of saying maybe.
But the Tetralemma offers something considerably more interesting than uncertainty.
Rather than leaving us suspended between two answers, it invites us to explore the experience of each possibility. What might you discover as you explore all four possibilities?
And what can you notice when your experience is no longer organised entirely around choosing between opposites?
Exploring the Tetralemma through Somatics
In our somatic teaching, we are interested in more than understanding the four possibilities intellectually. We invite people to explore them through their own lived experience.
You can begin with a statement about yourself and notice what happens as you consider it. What do we sense? What thoughts arise? How does our experience change as we approach the same statement from different directions?
Let’s take a familiar example:
“I have a tight lower back.”
Perhaps you have said something like this many times. You recognise the sensation, know where you experience it and have developed a familiar understanding of what it means.
Let’s explore what happens when we take that statement through the four possibilities.
1. Yes — I have a tight lower back
Take a moment to consider the statement.
I have a tight lower back.
Perhaps you recognise the sensation immediately. You might notice the relationship between your lower back, your pelvis and the rest of yourself. You may sense a particular quality of tension, or recognise how the sensation accompanies certain movements.
As you acknowledge the statement, notice what becomes apparent.
You are bringing attention to an experience and recognising it through words. The description gives you a way to identify something that matters to you.
What do you notice when you attend to the experience itself?
2. No — I don’t have a tight lower back
Now consider the opposite.
I don’t have a tight lower back.
Perhaps you remember occasions when your lower back has felt different. Perhaps, as you explore your experience right now, you notice areas of ease alongside the sensations you have been describing as tightness.
You might discover movement where you had previously noticed restriction, or recognise that the quality of your experience varies with your position, attention or activity.
The original statement remains part of your experience, yet another way of experiencing yourself is becoming available.
There is no need to persuade yourself that the first statement was wrong. You are simply allowing your inquiry to include something else.
What becomes apparent when you explore this possibility?
3. Both — I have and don’t have a tight lower back
Now consider both statements together.
I have a tight lower back, and I don’t have a tight lower back.
Can you recognise something of both in your experience?
Perhaps you notice tightness in one area and ease in another. Perhaps the sensation you initially identified as tightness is accompanied by movement, adaptability or a sense of space.
You might even notice that the experience changes as your attention changes.
The point is not to manufacture a compromise between two opposing descriptions. It is to explore whether both can have a place within the experience you are having.
This opens an interesting distinction.
A description can identify something real about our experience without describing the entirety of that experience.
When we recognise this, we can appreciate a greater range of detail. Our sensing becomes more differentiated, and our understanding can develop alongside it.
4. Neither — I neither have nor don’t have a tight lower back
And now we arrive at the fourth possibility.
I neither have nor don’t have a tight lower back.
What happens when you consider that?
You might find yourself wondering what on earth the statement means. You may begin searching for an explanation, trying to resolve the apparent contradiction or find another way of describing your lower back.
We often notice this when introducing the Tetralemma to people. The first three possibilities can be relatively easy to explore, while the fourth frequently produces a rather puzzled expression!
We are accustomed to understanding experience through descriptions, comparisons and familiar frameworks. When those frameworks become less useful, the mind often responds by searching for another one.
So, rather than trying to solve the fourth statement, what if you simply notice?
What is your experience when you are neither identifying with the original statement nor identifying with its opposite?
You might become aware of sensations that have no immediate label. You might notice the activity of your attention itself, or the way your mind keeps returning to the question of what your lower back is like.
Perhaps something else becomes apparent.
There is no particular sensation you need to find, no correct response to produce and no conclusion you need to reach.
The exploration is in the experiencing.
And this is where the Tetralemma begins to offer us something beyond a more elaborate way of thinking. It invites us to explore our relationship with the very descriptions through which we understand ourselves.
From freedom from to freedom to
We have also explored the Tetralemma through our understanding of freedom.
When people first encounter somatic movement, they may be interested in freedom from something: pain, stiffness, restricted movement or familiar patterns of tension.
These are understandable starting points. They can bring attention to aspects of experience that matter to us and invite us to discover what else might be available.
Yet there is another direction we can explore.
What are we free to experience?
Freedom to move in unfamiliar ways. Freedom to discover a different quality of movement. Freedom to experience ourselves with greater ease, sensitivity, coordination or elegance.
Here, the emphasis shifts towards the development of our capabilities and the qualities we can bring into expression.
We might then explore the third possibility.
What about both freedom from and freedom to?
We may experience a change in something that has previously occupied our attention while discovering new ways of moving, sensing and relating. The two can be present together, each contributing something to the experience as a whole.
And then comes the fourth possibility.
What about neither freedom from nor freedom to?
For a moment, what happens when you allow your experience to exist without organising it around what you wish to leave behind or what you hope to achieve?
Perhaps you can sense yourself without needing to establish a direction of improvement. Perhaps our attention becomes available to something that has not yet been named.
This is an intriguing place to explore.
Our experience can be organised around intentions, preferences and aspirations. These are valuable aspects of how we direct our lives. Yet we can also discover something through the quality of attention that is available before we decide what our experience should mean or where it should lead.
Sometimes, the next discovery begins when we allow ourselves to experience what is here.
When awareness opens beyond its familiar distinctions
This exploration can lead naturally into conversations about meditation, contemplation, awareness and what might be described as oneness or beingness.
Consider how frequently we organise experience through distinctions.
Pleasant or unpleasant. Comfortable or uncomfortable. Right or wrong. Something to approach or something to move away from.
These distinctions help us navigate everyday life. They allow us to recognise preferences, make choices and give direction to our actions.
At the same time, they influence what we attend to and how we experience what is happening.
When we encounter a sensation and immediately identify it as uncomfortable, for example, our attention may organise itself around that quality. We might begin evaluating it, comparing it with a preferred experience or anticipating what we would like to happen next.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It is one way our attention operates.
The Tetralemma invites us to explore another dimension of awareness: what happens when you experience something without immediately requiring it to fit within a familiar distinction?
In meditation, this can be a subtle but significant discovery.
We may begin by noticing sensations, thoughts and feelings. As our attention develops, we can also become aware of the activity of noticing itself. We can recognise the descriptions that arise, the distinctions we make and the way these shape our experience.
And we can explore what it is like to allow experience to unfold without requiring every aspect of it to be named, evaluated or resolved.
This is not a matter of adopting a new belief. Nor does it mean that physical sensations or limitations disappear when we change our descriptions of them.
It is an exploration of how we experience ourselves, and of the relationship between our lived experience and the frameworks through which we understand it.
Perhaps the distinction between observer and observed can itself become an object of curiosity. Perhaps awareness can include a greater sense of the whole, in which sensations, thoughts, movement and perception are experienced as related aspects of living.
Words such as oneness and beingness point towards territory that can be difficult to communicate through definitions alone.
The invitation is to explore.
Beyond finding the right answer
One of the most interesting aspects of the Tetralemma is the way it changes our relationship with a question.
We begin with a statement. We explore its truth, its opposite, the possibility of both and the possibility of neither.
At each stage, we have an opportunity to discover something about our experience. We may notice details that were previously outside our attention. We may recognise that two seemingly opposing descriptions can each illuminate a different aspect of what we are experiencing.
And when we arrive at neither, we can discover what happens when the familiar alternatives no longer provide an answer.
Our attention can become curious about the process through which we experience, describe and understand ourselves.
This has particular relevance in Somatics, where sensing and experiencing are central to our inquiry. A description can be useful, but the experience itself continues to offer us something to explore. Our awareness can develop, our sensing can become more refined, and our understanding can grow through that development.
The Tetralemma provides a way of engaging with this process.
It does not require us to abandon distinctions or treat every statement as equally true. Instead, it invites us to explore the relationship between a statement and the experience it describes, allowing our understanding to develop through direct inquiry.
Sometimes we discover that our original statement captures something important. Sometimes we discover another dimension of the experience. Sometimes we find that the question itself has opened into something we had not considered.
And sometimes, the most interesting discovery is the experience that becomes available when we no longer need to settle the question.
An invitation to explore
You can explore the Tetralemma with almost anything that has become familiar in your understanding of yourself.
A sensation. A movement. A belief about your capabilities. A statement you have repeated so often that it seems simply to describe the way things are.
Choose something that interests you, and allow yourself time to explore the four possibilities:
- Yes: What do I experience when I acknowledge this statement?
- No: What becomes available when I explore its opposite?
- Both: What can I discover when I allow both descriptions to be present?
- Neither: What happens when I explore my experience without identifying with either description?
Move through the questions with curiosity. Notice your sensations, your thoughts and the ways your attention changes. Allow each possibility to offer its own experience.
When you reach the fourth, you may find yourself wanting to work it all out. You can include that impulse in your exploration, too.
There is no requirement to arrive at a particular state or reach a definitive conclusion.
The value lies in discovering what happens as your inquiry unfolds.
Perhaps you will recognise that your experience is richer than any single description can convey. Perhaps you will discover new ways of sensing yourself, or a different relationship with something you have long taken for granted.
Or perhaps you will simply enjoy the curiosity of exploring.
What becomes possible when you allow your experience to be greater than your understanding of it?
This is one of the invitations the Tetralemma offers us in Somatics: to keep discovering, to keep refining our awareness, and to remain open to the living experience through which our understanding continues to develop.
Sometimes, the discovery begins when we stop asking experience to fit the answer we already know.
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