…But the Hand Says Stop
The other day I was driving along a quiet country road — the kind bordered by stone walls and old maples, where the pace of life seems to slow on its own — and came upon a stretch of bridge work. Traffic cones narrowed the lane. A temporary traffic light had been set up, glowing red.
So I stopped. Of course I did. Red means stop. This is one of the earliest lessons we learn, so deeply wired it barely requires noticing.
But then I saw the traffic officer and road workers standing just beyond the light. They were waving me forward. ‘Go’, their hand signals said. ‘Come on through.’
The light was red. The hand said go.
I felt my foot hesitate on the brake. My belly tightened. My eyes darted between the signal and the officer. A brief flicker of confusion — almost comic in its intensity — passed through my whole body as I eased off the brake and rolled through.
A moment later, in the rear-view mirror as the light turned green, the officer held up a firm hand to the next car: ‘Stop.’ Green light, but don’t go.
The whole episode lasted perhaps thirty seconds, but it left a residue I recognize as a good teacher — the buzzing, unsettled feeling that arises when a deeply held assumption is suddenly overturned. What we might call, quite simply, confusion. Or, if you prefer a more general and physiological term, stress.
The Body Knows First
What struck me initially was that my body registered the conflict before my thinking mind could sorted it out. That grip in my hands. A holding in my diaphragm. The slight forward lean of vigilance. This is not unusual. Neuroscience research has shown that the amygdala — the brain’s threat-detection center — processes signals of conflict and contradiction faster than the prefrontal cortex can evaluate them. As neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has described, there is a “low road” of rapid, sub-cortical emotional response that precedes the “high road” of conscious reasoning (The Emotional Brain, 1996).
In other words, the body responds before the mind understands what is going on or why.
This matters for our practice. In the Buddhist tradition, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (The Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness) teaches that mindfulness of the body — kāyānupassanā in Pali — is the first foundation of awareness. Perhaps the body is where we begin because the body is where experience arrives first. Before a story, before an opinion, before a decision, there is sensation that can be known directly.
“And how does one dwell contemplating the body in the body? … When going forward and returning, they act clearly comprehending; when looking ahead and looking away… when bending and stretching their limbs… they act clearly comprehending.”” — Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya 10 (trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi)
When the red light said stop but the officer said go, mindfulness of the body first revealed the situation — through tension, hesitation, and a visceral sense of discomfort, before I could think my way through it.
Saṃskāras: The Grooves We Travel In
Why was such a small event so disorienting? Because traffic signals are what the yogic tradition might call saṃskāras (Sanskrit, sankaras in Pali, the language of the Buddha’s teachings) — deeply etched mental and behavioral impressions and patterns. I have driven through thousands of intersections. Red means stop. Green means go. Such patterns are carved into the body-mind like repeated or constant water flow carves grooves into stone.
In the Yoga Sūtras, Patañjali describes how saṃskāras shape our perception and our responses:
When old saṃskāras are weakened and new saṃskāras are created, the mind undergoes transformation. — *Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali*, 3.9–3.12 (trans. based on Edwin Bryant, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali)
The traffic light moment was a tiny disruption of a saṃskāra — a crack in a groove so well-worn I’d forgotten it was even there. And in that crack, something opened: awareness. I noticed the pattern precisely because it was broken.
This is one of the quiet gifts of confusion. It wakes us up.
The Neuroscience of Contradictory Signals
Modern science has a long name for the discomfort I felt at that intersection: ‘cognitive dissonance’ — the tension that arises when we hold two contradictory pieces of information at the same time. The psychologist Leon Festinger, who first described the phenomenon in 1957, found that humans are strongly motivated to resolve such contradictions, often by dismissing one signal or the other (A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford University Press).
More recent research in the field of error prediction has shown that when the brain encounters unexpected outcomes — when reality violates what we anticipated — it generates a “prediction error” signal. These signals, often associated with dopaminergic activity, are the brain’s way of flagging: ‘something has changed; pay attention’ (Schultz, W., “Dopamine reward prediction error signalling,” *Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B*, 2016).
In that moment on the country road, my brain was doing exactly this — recognizing that the world was not behaving as expected and demanding that I attend more carefully. The discomfort was not a malfunction. It was an invitation to presence.
Confusion as a Gateway to Practice and Understanding
In Zen Buddhist practice, there is a deep appreciation for confusion as a doorway to awakening. The tradition of kōan practice — where a student is given a seemingly paradoxical question like “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” — is designed specifically to exhaust the conceptual mind and open something beyond our habitual patterns of logic.
The red light moment brought me into deeper intimacy with life, for a few moments at least. I did not already ‘know’ what to do. My habits were suspended. And in that small gap, I became acutely aware: of my body, of the officer, of the road, of the rain-slicked pavement beneath the tires. Everything sharpened.
The Buddhist teaching of anicca — impermanence — also lives here. Traffic rules I think of as fixed are, in fact, conditional. Dependent on circumstances. The light was red, yes, but the conditions had changed. The bridge work made the usual rules insufficient, perhaps even inappropriate in some way I will never know the details of, but which the traffics officers were tending to. A human being had to step in to override the machine, because the living situation required something the automated system couldn’t provide: discernment in real time.
This is, in a way, a beautiful teaching on paññā — wisdom. Rules and structures serve us well — until they don’t. And when they don’t, we are called upon to meet the moment directly, rather than relying on what we’ve always done.
From the Mat to the Road
Yoga practice offers a parallel when we hold a posture, noticing where we grip, where we brace, where we push beyond what serves — often out of sheer habit. The teacher may offer an adjustment that feels counterintuitive: soften where you think you need to hold. Engage where you think you should relax. The body resists. The mind protests. And then, sometimes, a new kind of balance emerges — not through more effort, but through a willingness to release the familiar pattern.
As the Bhagavad Gītā teaches: “Yoga is skill in action.” — Bhagavad Gītā 2.50
Skill, here, is not about following the rules more perfectly. It is not the skill of a rat in maze getting a treat at the end. It is about responding to what is actually happening — with presence, with sensitivity, and with a willingness to let go of the pattern when the pattern no longer fits. It is about maturing as a human being.
Reflection Questions
- Where in your life are you obeying a “red light” out of habit, even when conditions have changed?
- Where might you be pushing through a “green light” without pausing to check what’s actually being asked of you
- Can you recall a recent moment of confusion or dissonance? What happened in your body? What did you notice?
What would it feel like to welcome confusion — even briefly — as an invitation to wake up, rather than a problem to solve? - Notice what arises in your body as you sit with these questions. Tightness? Curiosity? A softening? The body often knows things the mind is still working out.
A Brief Practice
The next time you encounter something that doesn’t match your expectations — a plan that changes, a conversation that takes an unexpected turn, a rule that suddenly doesn’t apply — try this:
1. Pause. Before reacting, take at least one conscious breath.
2. Feel. Notice where the confusion or tension lives in your body. Name it simply: *tightness, heat, buzzing, holding*.
3. Stay. Rather than rushing to resolve discomfort, remain with it for a just few moments. Know the not-knowing.
4. Respond. When you do act, respond from this fuller, more present awareness — rather than the groove of habit alone.
This is, in its own quiet way, is part of practicing of the Middle Path Healing Arts approach. Not clinging rigidly to the rules. Not throwing them away. But meeting each moment with the willingness to know it, and to respond with care.
If you would like to book an individual session with Éowyn to explore applying this in your own life, go here.