Buddhist Epistemology Applied to Learning AT: Essay

THE SEQUENCE OF COMING TO KNOW AN OBJECT

In this essay I will take the Buddhist epistemological 5-fold division of coming to know an object and explore its relation to coming to know the object of natural human co-ordination. The process of discovering this object was the work of F. M. Alexander. It stands in my mind as one of the outstanding discoveries of the 20th century, yet remains largely unrecognized precisely because the knowledge can only be understood in its full impact by a process of direct perception.

So I think it is quite interesting to explore how Buddhist epistemology can be understood in an Alexander context.

In this essay I will explore my own knowledge and experience, from my first lesson in 1969, to my experience today as a trainer of Alexander teachers in Japan.

The Epistemological 5-fold Division
1. Wrong View
2. Doubt: towards wrong view, equivocal, towards correct view
3. Correctly Assuming
4. Inferential Cognition
5. Direct Perception

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1. WRONG VIEW

A great debate rages in the Alexander world: how should we advertise ourselves? If we actually say what we do, people just don’t get it. If we talk in the way people expect — just do these things, pay this money, and you will get better — then aren’t we selling ourselves out to the very ideas we are attempting to re-educate?

So every Alexander teacher is usually faced with the same problem when first beginning to guide a new student into knowing their own co-ordination — the student’s profound wrong view of how movement actually works. It is not the kind of ignorance where they are lacking information — that would be easier to remedy — it is the kind of ignorance where they are actively entertaining the wrong idea.

From a very early age, most of us are “told” to stand up straight, to sit well, stop slouching, keep our shoulders back, look sharp, stand to attention etc. The underlying presumption in all these directives is that both parties already know what constitutes good co-ordination.

However, even the casual investigator of people’s everyday co-ordination will soon infer that this knowledge is not known. The ubiquitous stiff neck, together with commonly found sore backs and a host of other posturally-induced ailments, is adequate testimony of our abyssal lack of real knowledge when it comes to knowing how to best utilize the extraordinarily efficient design of our movement system.

Underlying all our misdirected efforts is an attitude fundamental to all our suffering — attachment to the idea that we need to ‘do’ the correct thing, that there is a ‘correct’ and new object to be found, and when we finally know this object, then all will be well.

So we set ourselves off in an endless progression of ‘actions’ to try to ‘correct’ the misaligned and misdirected patterns of movement, and usually find ourselves getting nowhere. We impose our ideas on the functioning of our system, when the problem is our many erroneous ideas that are already being imposed on the movement of our system.

The essential wrong view here is that we are not an agent in the cause of our problem.
Our language is even structured to abrogate our responsibility for our condition.

You will hear a person say: “I have a bad back.”
They have a bad back? Really? What does it look like? Where does it begin and end? How is it that it can function independently of mind to “cause” your problem?

It takes only a short insightful meditation to realize the wrongness of this view, yet this language of cause is universally accepted as natural. However, the reality is that nothing, beyond my own actions, is ‘causing’ my neck to be stiff. It is not a result of stress or pressure. It is not a result of ‘people making me do’ things. It is not a result of my being ‘too tired’ or ‘too old’ or ‘too busy’. It is nothing more than my own reaction to whatever cause presents itself.

This is familiar territory for a Buddhist — transformation of our state of mind is based on this simple idea. It is a process of changing my reaction to a cause, by recognizing that it is within my power to do so.

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2. DOUBT

Student: “I understand what you mean, it’s all because of me. I accept that. So what exercises can I do to make it better?”
Teacher: “There are no exercises.”
Student: “What do you mean? How can I practice?”
Teacher: “By becoming aware of what you are doing.”

At this point in the lesson, the student often cocks their head to one side, looks suspiciously at the teacher, and wonders if they haven’t wasted their money after all. Overcoming doubt is a great first problem in the knowing process.

Direct Experience as the Antidote to Doubt

Alexander evolved an extraordinary solution — he bypassed conceptuality and evolved a means to offer a directly perceived experience of an alternative co-ordination. Direct perception always involves some molecular or particle transaction with phenomena external to our Self — in this case the physical contact of the teacher’s hands on the various parts of the student’s body.

Through this contact, the teacher imparts to the student the experience of a manner of co-ordination more naturally suited to the design of the human structure. It overcomes doubt very quickly.

But it still leaves the student ignorant of how they can bring about this experience on their own.

This dichotomy between conceptually knowing and perceptually knowing the experience of good co-ordination is at the heart of widely different teaching pedagogies within the Alexander community.

Using Logic When Direct Experience Is Not Possible

To induce knowing without the benefit of experience, it becomes necessary to use logic that can be checked by the person in doubt. In Alexander work, this includes:
• mapping the actual anatomical structure,
• comparing it with the student’s assumed structure,
• demonstrating perceptual errors using mirrors or video.

The work of knowing at this stage involves sweeping away the clouds of ignorantly held ideas, allowing the “blue sky” of more accurate understanding to appear.

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3. CORRECTLY ASSUMING

In this phase, people often get fanatical — so convinced are they of the efficacy of the work, they want the whole world to know about it. I know, I was one!

It is interesting now to look back and see how my deeply held convictions had no real substance or understanding from my perspective today.

Correctly assuming knowledge means accepting that the information given is correct. Because some of the information is powerful and effective, all information from teachers tends to be assumed correct.
This is a grave error.

Teachers — including Alexander himself — are not omniscient. People collect odd ideas and hold them as true. Correctly assumed knowledge is still subject to distortion and misapprehension. It is unstable and easily lost.

A Zen Story

Many sects were invited to an ecumenical council.
In one room: young monks arguing fiercely, eager to prove others wrong.
In another room: the Masters — all silent, quietly knowing the oneness of their realizations.

HH the Dalai Lama has described meeting a meditating priest whose universal knowledge he recognized instantly — despite their radically different lineages.

This is the difference between merely assuming and truly knowing.

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4. INFERENTIAL COGNITION

This is knowledge that you can truly call your own.

In my own case, I can honestly say that only in the last year or two — after 38 years of practice — have I begun to have knowledge that is truly mine.

Reflecting on this gives me insight into the meaning of inferential knowledge.

My zeal emptied out. My work became more relaxed and enjoyable. My inner need to prove others wrong (and convince myself I was right) diminished. I became more interested in understanding the condition of the other person’s knowing.

A relaxed attitude results because the knowledge is truly seen in the world. It produces a transformation of behaviour — in Alexander terms — and I imagine the same is true in Buddhist practice.

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5. DIRECT PERCEPTION

In the Alexander world, this knowledge is imparted through the teacher’s hands at the beginning of the process — but without conceptual understanding behind it. It is like someone helping you walk through a door, and when you arrive on the other side, there is nothing there.

It is like seeing the reflection of the moon in a lake — not the real thing, but close enough to convince you something special is happening, that you think you know what the moon is really like.

Alexander’s Own Discovery

Alexander discovered the object of natural human co-ordination only after a long, rigorous process of observation, analysis, and experimentation. His final obstacle — which blocked him for years — was that the experience was so unexpected that his system refused to be guided by the knowledge contained within it.

He later said:

“We can’t do what we don’t know, if we keep on doing what we do know.”

The power of directly knowing an object is that it completely blows away any apprehension that preceded it.

Yet before that door can open, we must be guided by 100% trust in our own reasoning processes — a conceptual construction built from long hours of listening, reflecting, and meditating.

Thus, Dharmakīrti surmised, direct perception must be built upon the rock-solid base of inferential cognition.

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There is a lot more I could add, but I am already overdone!
Thanks for your patience in seeing it through to the end.

Kyoto, April, 2007