What matters is what happens within and between people. If you are dissatisfied, then there is a problem within you although its cause(s) might be external. If you and I are in conflict, then there is a problem between us although its cause(s) might be internal.
Some say, "Change individuals, thus their relationships, therefore society," whereas others say, "Change society, thus its members." I used to argue for the first position against the second whereas now it seems obvious to me that both approaches are necessary. What is the best that can be said about changing the self? What is the best that can be said about changing society? How do they connect? Don't start in one places. Start in two places, then bring them together.
To understand society, we study history and economics - and reach diametrically opposed conclusions. However, these disagreements are just part of the problem to be addressed. There is no way to avoid continuing conflicts before hopefully approaching a resolution or at least progressing beyond the current multiple crises. We approach understanding of the self through modern scientific (?) psychology and/or long-established meditation practices. Specifically, we understand Zen by practicing it, not by studying it. There is no mechanical parallel between addressing social problems and addressing psychological problems. Sciences differ as their subject-matters differ. A science of psychology and/or society cannot be as mathematically precise as physics. The observer effect becomes all when the observer is the observed.
This finally brings us to Isaac Asimov's psychohistory and Poul Anderson' s psychotechnics. The psychohistorians apply mathematics to society but also develop a mental power that seems to be a powerful form of hypnosis. Asimov merely internalizes social power relationships. A well concealed elite secretly manipulates a galactic population.
Anderson's psychotechnics, synthesizing several already existing disciplines, is less implausible as also is the fact that his Psychotechnic Institute tries to cope with social crises but is overwhelmed and even outlawed although the science of psychotechnics comes to be firmly established many millennia later.
22 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm puzzled by this persistent mentioning of Zen by you. To touch on ideas broached elsewhere, Zen seems far too abstract and bloodless for Christian nations. In the West Christian monasticism and forms of meditation/contemplation has been far more influential, not Zen.
Moreover, it seems to me that if Zen is divorced from its Japanese Buddhist origins, it becomes even more of a merely abstract idea meaning nothing to most people. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST, say, but not abstract koans.
And that last line yours, hinting at Anderson's "The Chapter Ends," reminds me of how I am not convinced that story belongs in the Psychotechnic timeline.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
I mentioned meditation practices as ways to understand and change the self. Zen just happens to the one that I am involved with. Of course a discussion like this should take in everything. Any blog reader who practices TM or hatha yoga is welcome to contribute.
As I experience Zen, it is the exact opposite of abstract and bloodless but I am very far from arguing that most people in Christian nations should adopt it. It should be known about and accessible. That is all. It does not involve koans. The basis of Zen (Ch'an, dhyana) moved from India to China to Japan and is now at home in the US and Europe. It transcends all such contexts.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think I understand your argument, even if I don't find it convincing. Zen seems to have no end goal, directed nowhere in particular. Christian mysticism and contemplation is fixed on God as the final end or desire of the mystic. And that makes sense to me.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
You don't have to be convinced. We each practice as we are called to. The end of Zen is here and now.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Noted, with some puzzlement.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean: Zen techniques aren’t particularly abstract, they’re just hard to describe in words. I’ve used modifications of many of them, and they’re highly practical, in my experience.
Right on. Our group practices just the basic zazen, not any modifications. It can involve sitting for a long time with nothing apparently happening but patience and perseverance are necessary.
Kaor To Both!
It reminds me, I think, of the meditation taught in THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING.
Happy New Year! Sean
I didn't find them all that difficult, but they seemed very common-sense when I ran into them in my teens -- more a matter of making explicit and systematic what had been intuitive.
It's a matter of internal control, but that sounds more schematic than it actually is. Less a matter of brute force or confrontation than of redirection.
I find it more a matter of being in control of what you pay attention to, how, and how much.
You can get remarkable results from this.
For example, I've found it possible to deal with considerable physical pain, and other sensations like fear or boredom, by learning to systematically redirect attention and avoiding feedback loops and internal 'busywork'.
This saves a lot of psychic wear and tear and wasted effort. People tend to feel battered by internal storms, but they often don't realize how much of that is due to their own participation, which can be withdrawn.
There are analogies to the martial arts, where you meet force directed at you not by -stopping- it, but by redirecting and controlling it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Your comments, as always, were very interesting. It reminded me of this bit from Chapter X of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, after Djana had stunned and tied up Flandry: "Once he was over the initial shock and had disciplined himself, Flandry didn't do badly at first. While no academician, he had many experiences, ideas, and stray pieces of information to play with. Toward the end, though, environmental impoverishment got to him and each hour became a desert century. When at last the detectors buzzed, he had to struggle out of semi-delirium to recognize what the noise was. When the outercom boomed with words, he blubbered for joy."
So, yes, I agree that people lacking in either interior resources or the training needed to handle it, will often react poorly to periods of boredom or high stress.
Happy New Year! Sean
You can sort of turn things off internally in situations like that; just let the mind go. Don't try to think, don't try not to think, don't stop things "passing through" by paying attention to them.
It feels sort of like a withdrawal of the self-observing part of the self.
When you do that, time passes but not in the way we're generally accustomed to.
This is our practice but you seem to find it naturally easier than I do. We are all different. There is an individual subjective aspect to everyone's practice.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
I think, if I was in a situation like that of Flandry, I would try to handle matters by contemplation of "...experiences, ideas, and stray pieces of information..." But I certainly don't know how well I would do!
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
As a theist, you would pray some of the time. I would meditate, maybe also trying to focus attention with agnostic prayers to "Whatever gods may be."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, indeed. And remember or contemplate favorite parts of the Scriptures, such as the story about King Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33.
A short, theistic prayer is this: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
Happy New Year! Sean
Paul: I had a lot of experience when younger in martial arts that use this sort of mental training as part of the art.
You might call it physical meditation -- not by sitting still (though we did that too sometimes) but by combining physical movement with mental withdrawal.
"Getting your mind out of the way of what you're doing", as our sensi put it; he had a quote he was fond of: "When thinking, just think. When acting, just act. Don't dither."
The difference when you got the trick of it was quite noticeable. You weren't fighting yourself with indecision, and you weren't second-guessing yourself.
So you moved faster and responded to situations more quickly and "accurately". At the same time you could observe yourself doing it and make adjustments to fit the circumstances. Sort of a paradoxical feeling of being intensely -inside- the moment and outside it at the same time.
If you're doing that and the opponent isn't, it's like you're moving at normal speed and they're in slow-motion.
This applies both to action and non-action. You can sort of flip a switch and your body does things; or you flip it the other way and things flow over you without lasting affect.
Sometimes I'll do this with sensations, sort of as practice. For example, I'm feeling an itch on my ankle right now.
Normally, you feel an itch as a command to scratch.
But if you 'step back', the sensation of the itch just -is-. It doesn't involve an action, nor is it particularly distracting. It just sort of passes through.
Then I can sink back into the state where the itch has to be scratched. (Just scratched it.)
The martial arts explain the different, more practical, context. We do a little walking and working meditation but our main practice is just sitting.
Paul: the method I learned has all sorts of daily applications too.
A prosaic example: finding parking spots.
You just switch from seeing -cars- to seeing places where the cars -are not-. You stop "seeing" the cars, in a way. They're still there, but you're not -seeing- them because they're not the objects of attention.
When you do that, the "not-car" places suddenly leap out at you.
We learned it as part of a method of "seeing" certain sequences of actions, seeing them as physical movements through time but as if they existed on all segments of the duration at once.
You exclude the things that don't fit the parameters; not blanking them out, but not -focusing- on them.
When you do that, the sequences you're looking for leap out at you too.
And at a slightly higher level, you can see the sequence as it developes all the way through to its conclusion, for instance the way a stepping punch starts with shifts of balance, the way the shift of balance predicts the direction of thrust, and the way the body will move through the second or so it takes.
You don't see it in those verbal terms, of course. You become conscious of the whole sequence simultaneously, both the parts that have already happened and the state in that instant, and the potential play-through.
So you can treat the whole movement, including the parts that haven't happened yet, as an 'event' and deal with the whole thing.
When two people who are both doing this spar, it looks like they're dancing.
From the inside, in a way it -feels- like dancing, as if everything is inevitable.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I think you try to show how your character, Luz O'Malley behaves like that in moments of extreme danger. And esp. dangerous to her when her opponent also has knowledge of the martial arts. It must look a lot like they are dancing.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean: if you acquire the skill, the necessary mental attributes appear, because they're essential preconditions.
Getting them explicitly does help, and speeds up the process. Natural talent matters too, of course.
I'm no more than middling in terms of natural fighting talent, but I did quite well when applying advanced technique against more talented people who hadn't had the same quality of training.
People who had both walloped the snot out of me, of course.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Meaning steady, consistent practice can help compensate for having only middling fighting talent. Which reminded me of just why competent armies drill, drill, drill their men!
Happy New Year! Sean
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