# klishta - Author: @gurupanguji - Date: 2026-05-06 - URL: https://gurupanguji.com/blog/2026/05/06/klishta/ - Categories: essay - Tags: articles --- I was in a plane with no wifi yesterday and so instead of sleeping, I decided to try to invoke a state of "nothingness." What I narrate next is the rollercoaster that led to some clarity. It started with a heel turn: _panic._ --- I've never felt _panic_ the way I felt it at that moment. Everything felt like it was folding in on itself as I saw some people in the back starting to boo. I couldn't bring myself to look at my friends, where I knew I'd find some small semblance of support. I turned around to look at my fellow performers. They seemed to be lost in their own worlds. I couldn't tell if they were fighting their own insecurities, lost in their own craft, or tuning out the world in a healthier way. My sweaty palms gripped the microphone desperately as I continued to sing the next verse: > "And nothing else matters..." --- My life is at a fork, yet again. We were supposed to list the home this year and buy ourselves some independence. Now that plan is hitting walls I did not see coming. It seems like I _want_ something that cannot be achieved. Or at least, something that cannot be achieved in the way I imagined it. And my mind is having a hard time accepting that. --- You'd think that once you've gone through a moment of clarity, once you've come out of that kind of panic, it won't happen again. The truth seems to be that clarity is not a permanent state. It is a practice. And when enough unresolved things remain in tension, it's easy for the mind to lose the discipline and peace it needs to see reality. And yet, reality matters. > There are two kinds of reality: mental phenomena (nama) and physical phenomena (rupa). Nama experiences something; rupa does not experience anything. Seeing is, for example, a type of nama; it experiences visible object. Visible object itself is rupa; it does not experience anything. What we take for self are only nama and rupa which arise and fall away. The 'Visuddhimagga' ('Path of Purity', a commentary) explains (Ch. XVIII, 25): *Source:* [The Four Paramattha Dhammas \[Chapter 1\]](https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/abhidhamma-in-daily-life/d/doc2706.html) Buddhism gave me one language for this: mentality and materiality. Yoga points to a neighboring pattern: the mind’s modifications, the colors - _klishta_ - some painful, some not. > _Vrittayah Pancatayyah Klishta Aklishta_ > “The modifications of the mind are fivefold; some are painful (kliṣṭa), others are not (akliṣṭa).” *Source:* [Yoga Sutra 1.5: Vrittayah Pancatayyah Klishta Aklishta](https://www.yogkulam.org/blog/yoga-sutra-1-5-vrttayah-pancatayah-klishta-aklishta) Those links are great follow-on reads, but the key takeaway for me is simpler: There is _reality_. And then there is _perception_. In my own experience, panic sets in when perception takes over. The mind starts spiraling into an infinite loop of overwhelm. It turns a solvable problem into an imagined one. The problem grows teeth. It becomes vast, surreal. Mythic. And once something _feels_ unattainable, anxiety and fear kick in. Then I flail. Or freeze. Or get stuck. And that stuckness hardens into darker emotions. --- So, on the flight, I slowed my breath down. I told myself to start _feeling_ again. Not the spiral I was going down, but my actual senses. The literal ones. Feel the seat. Where does it hurt? What feels comfortable? What feels uncomfortable? Feel the breath. Where does it feel _easy_? Where does it feel forced? Wiggle the toes. Which ones move easily? Which ones feel stuck? This is my practice for coming back to reality. For becoming _present_ again. Not to _distract_ myself. To observe. Observe reality, not the virtual world colored by my emotions, feelings, insecurities, wants, and needs. Observe what is material: the cool temperature, the warm seat, the dry air. Loosen the grip of what is mental: the anxiety of the unknown, the fear that we will not get what we want, the feeling of _failure_. --- In my wise old age, I can confidently say that [it's all about the reps](https://gurupanguji.com/2026/01/21/its-all-about-the-reps/). And still, I go through periods of self-doubt, where the terror of uncertainty is paralyzing. The seeds of doubt cloud clarity as I desperately try to clear the fog that envelopes me. I went looking for nothingness and found the opposite: The body. The seat. The breath. The dry air. Reality, stubborn and small, waiting for me to come back. So I've developed a practice to center myself. To focus on what is real before my mind turns fear into prophecy. Because the only path is _through_.