Saturday, August 22, 2009

SAUNDARANANDA 13.47: Guarding Against Dejectedness

daurmanasy'-aabhidhaanas tu
pratigho viShay'-aashritaH
mohaad yen' aanuvRttena
paratr' eha ca hanyate

= - = = - = = =
- - = - - = - =
= = = = - = = -
- = = - - = - =

13.47
What is called dejectedness, conversely,

Is, in connection with an object, a contrary reaction

By going along with which, in one's ignorance,

One is smitten thereafter, and smitten there and then.


COMMENT:
My first draft of a comment on this verse consisted of only three words: Quad Erat Demonstrandum.

The teaching of FM Alexander may be regarded as an exercise in finding out how all too true this verse is, on multiple levels.

The challenge in translating a verse like this is to find a translation that is open enough to allow the full range of intended meanings, which may be more numerous than we can imagine.

I associate dejectedness in the first instance with failure to achieve an object in the sense of an ambition, an end, a goal in life. This kind of failure is liable to be followed by a dialectic swing of the kind FM Alexander described in his famous quote pertaining to the middle way: "It is owing to this habit of rushing from one extreme to another -- a habit which, as I have pointed out, seems to go hand in hand with subconscious guidance and direction -- to this tendency, that is, to take the narrow and treacherous sidetracks instead of the great, broad, midway path, that our plan of civilization has proved a comparative failure."

Again, hostility against or 'repulsion' (as per EHJ and LC) from a noxious sensory stimulus, that is, an object directly perceptible by the senses, can also be associated with a kind of dejectedness. The contrary reaction that certain wimpish individuals are liable to experience every time a noisy aircraft flies overhead, might be a case in point. Guarding against dejectedness, in such instances, might mean refusing to let the blighters get you down. Or at least, if they have got you down already, then it might mean starting afresh from there.

On a more subtle level, as a method of working on his own integrity, a person might, say, form the intention to join hands and bow without stiffening the neck and tightening in various joints. In this case, the conscious intention is not to be drawn into end-gaining for a particular object, but rather to attend to the means-whereby of directing muscles not to contract unduly. But notwithstanding this conscious desire, unconsciously a reaction is likely to take place which is contrary to the practitioner's intention. That is to say, when he actually goes into movement, he is liable to do just the opposite of what he was intending. So instead of his head being allowed to release out of the body as he inclines forward, his unconscious end-gaining attitude may cause the person in question actually to pull his head in, like a frightened tortoise. And this contrary reaction may also be understood as a very subtle form of dejectedness.

Lest all this sounds like too much doom and gloom, I'll finish by remembering how Marjory Barlow responded when, called upon to extend my leg on her teaching table while directing my neck to be free, my head to go forward and up, and my back to lengthen and widen, I in fact made a horlicks of it and gained the end of extending my leg only at the expense of stiffening and twisting horribly. "At least you know you made a mess of it!" Marjory said encouragingly. In the same vein, Nelly Ben-Or once told me, when I expressed to her my anxiety about taking people's money for purporting to transmit to them what FM Alexander taught: "As long as you know you are a fraud, you are not a true fraud."

In order not to be a fraud, I begin every day by sitting in lotus and wishing to be free. And the wish has to be real. It can't be just a question of merrily observing how fixed I am. The first thing has to be a genuine wish to be free. Then I observe how fixed I am.

Maybe the most insidious form of dejectedness is that sometimes very subtle fixing which is associated, on so many levels, with trying to be right. In the end, being fixed is the greatest evil to guard against, as the Buddha, if I hear him correctly, indicates from 13.49.

In order to steer an exact middle course, it is no use being fixed: one has to be free to change direction at every moment. And the best way to study this in practice for oneself is to keep totally still, being totally ready to move. (Even in a swimming, I suppose, such a moment might be possible? My brother may confirm.) I first realised this for myself a long time ago in the context of competition karate. But then I got bogged down in a couple of heavy emotional attachments -- I got well and truly smitten, by a double punch -- and it has taken me more than 30 years to come back to this most basic and simple of truths: the best way to study what freedom is, the best way to experience non-dejectedness, is to keep totally still, being totally ready to move.

EH Johnston:
But what is known as the desire of avoidance is repulsion with regard to any object ; by giving way to it out of delusion a man is ruined in this world and hereafter.

Linda Covill:
What is termed aversion is the repulsion of a sensory event, to which acquiescence, out of delusion, brings ruin in both this life and the next.


VOCABULARY:
daurmanasya: dejectedness
abhidhaanaH (nom): n. telling , naming; a name , title , appellation ,
tu: But

pratighaH (nom.): m. ( √han) hindrance , obstruction , resistance , opposition ; struggling against (comp.) ; anger , wrath , enmity ; combat , fighting ; an enemy ; opposition , contradiction
viShaya: object, sense object
aashritaH (nom.): attaching one's self to , joining; relating or belonging to , concerning

mohaad = abl. of moha: m. ( √1. muh ) loss of consciousness , bewilderment , perplexity , distraction , infatuation , delusion , error , folly ; ignorance
yena (inst.): by which
anuvRttena = inst. of anuvRtta: obedience , conformity , compliance
anu: after , along , alongside
vRt: to roll along, go
anuvRt: to go along with, follow, obey, assent

paratra: ind. elsewhere , in another place , in a future state or world , hereafter
iha: in this place , here ; in this world
ca: and
hanyate = 3rd pers. sing., passive of han: to smite , slay , hit , kill , mar , destroy

4 comments:

Ian Cross said...

Hi Mike,
I found out last week about a swim to Cardigan Island from Poppit Sands for Leukaemia Research. If anyone wants to sponsor the event, please see here: http://www.justgiving.com/peter-bodenham/

The last person to do this swim did it 15 years ago.

I've been doing a bit of training, liking the idea (one that I'm now reviewing) of being last home... but poised. This morning, I did a lone one mile swim to the pier and back. My aim was to see if I could do the full swim without stopping and without reverting to breaststroke. Without a single thought of what the tide was doing, I sailed along for the 750 metres to the pier, front crawl feeling like the easiest thing in the world. As soon as I turned round from the pier I realised there was a fairly strong riptide! The whole of the trip back seemed like a battle against mental weakness and laziness. I couldn't get any kind of rhythm going. My goggles (an old, unwanted pair from someone who came for lessons, when we actually sell goggles for a living!) kept leaking and fogging up. I soon decided that after every 100 front crawl strokes I would treat myself to a bit of breast stroke but found that, against the tide, my glides were getting me nowhere. I now wonder if I could have stuck to my plan, just kept doing front crawl, one arm in front of the other. But giving up the idea of doing this seemed to be necessary at the time. I enjoyed doing a bit of backstroke as well as breast stroke and found that front crawl felt better after each rest. But the best bit was when I stopped, for a pee, and just bobbed in the water for a few minutes, letting the tide move me around and looking at the scenery. After this, the finishing point didn't seem far but the trip back from the pier did take bloody ages. I hope I can finish the event but expect to be a very long way behind everyone else. I'm not sure if this confirms anything related to today's post but the experience is fresh in my mind.

Mike Cross said...

Hi Ian,

I think you gave yourself a physical challenge, wherein your life depended on your determination to do something. And within those parameters you experimented with doing more or less, giving up a fixed idea, et cetera.

But what this verse is about, as I read it, is the more mental challenge of NOT DOING something -- because NOT to go along unconsciously with an unconscious reaction to an idea of doing something, is I think what FM meant by "the most mental thing there is."

I think I stumbled on this kind of practice of not doing in competition karate, not clearly understanding at that time what it was. But Marjory Barlow understood exactly what it was, and so she set up the conditions on her teaching table where I could sort of look at not doing under the microscope, in the context of NOT reacting to the idea of moving a leg.

To practice that in the water, I would imagine, you would have to set up a situation, unlike what you were in this morning, where not doing could take precedence over doing.

If we can set up situations where the determination not to do seems to be a matter of life and death, as easily as we can set up situations where doing really is a matter of life and death, we might make more progress in scratching the surface of the egg.

All the best,

Mike

Ian Cross said...

There was a procedure that we worked on together a few years ago. It was as follows: cross legs, rendering you helpless, let
the other move you around in the water with his hands on your ribs
encouraging expansion of torso, and let air out slowly without overdoing it. When in need of
air, point finger and wait for the other to lift you out of the water
(resisting the temptation to help) continuing to let air out as you pass through the surface. Let air come in through the nose in its own time (encouraged by the
other's hands on the back) and when the other sees you've done this, he puts you back and floats you around again. For most people this is scary. Even letting air in through the nose is counterintuitive.

Ian Cross said...

There was a procedure we worked on together a few years ago. It was as follows: cross legs, rendering you helpless, let
the other move you around in the water with his hands on your ribs
encouragingexpansion of torso, and let air out slowly without overdoing it. When in need of
air, point finger and wait for the other to lift you out of the water
(resisting the temptation to help) continuing to let air out as you pass through the surface. Let air come in through the nose (avoiding instinctive tendency to gasp and suck air in through mouth) in its own time (encouraged
by the other's hands on the back) and when the other sees you've done this, he puts you back and floats you around again. For nervous swimmers, this procedure can be quite scary.