Volume 7, Number 2, March
2008
Quote From Moshe: “…very often there are better ways of thinking which open up new vistas and make the unthinkable real and put the impossible within our grasp.” The Elusive Obvious, p. 122
Talking About Silence
Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain specialist who had the powerful experience of losing her own brain function and being able to pay a scientist’s attention as it happened. She describes this remarkable occurrence in a lecture which you can download at http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php#more.
She had a stroke caused by a
massive clot on the language side of her brain.
Over the next four hours, she lost her ability to move, to talk, and
finally to think about the past or the future.
While she found the experience frightening,
In the
end, she was rushed to a hospital where doctors removed the clot. It took her eight years to completely recover
to the point where she can speak normally.
But in recalling that moment of clarity, she considers it a kind of
Nirvana. She theorized that if
she could reach Nirvana, then anyone can.
“I believe that the more time we spend
choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the
more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will
be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.”
Quite so. But what’s
keeping us from running this inner peace circuitry? I think it’s the temptation of language
itself.
Robin
Dunbar, in his book Grooming, Gossip, and
the Evolution of Language makes an interesting case for the use of words in
the human species. Fifty-thousand years
ago, we had no language. We operated
like all the other non-linguistic creatures on this planet, where every
creature in the community groomed every other.
This kept the community together.
Language may have been a tool which enabled us to unify a community far
beyond the limits of grooming routines.
Larger communities can overcome smaller ones in the battle over
resources such as food and water.
Language may have been the key to our present dominance on this planet.
But
language clearly has a downside. The
part of the brain that uses language is the part that creates boundaries, that
sets us apart from one another and keeps us from feeling the connections
between us. The biblical
A
great many people are trapped in language.
They cannot understand what they cannot talk about. If someone uses words they do not understand,
even in their own language, they perceive this as a threat. They are terrified of any means of
communication that does not involve words.
They prefer to heighten the boundaries between one culture and another,
one community and another, one person and another, and in language itself, one
rule and another.
Language
can be used to unify people. Even so, we
cannot rely on language alone to generate connections. As a tool, it is far too powerful and
precise, and when it is wielded more vaguely, as in poetry, it often fails to
reach the majority of speakers. On the
contrary, if Jill Taylor’s experience is to be believed, then by purposefully
quieting our language center, we can feel a greater sense of connection with
the world and a greater sense of peace.
I
remember a particular day while I was in my training to become a Feldenkrais
practitioner when a trainer was taking us through a lesson. He stopped to guide me through a movement
sequence where I had gotten stuck. As I
finally found the missing pathway and created a smooth, elegant movement
something amazing happened: The little
voices in my head, which go on day and night, stopped suddenly. I heard nothing.
The
quiet lasted for some time and gave me great relief, but also profound
sorrow. I realized how much of my mental
babble was a way of feeling connected to myself, even feeling self-worth. I had to face the fact that I had value even
without my interior monologue, and that is a very hard lesson for me Eventually my
habitual chatter returned, but I haven’t forgotten the experience or the
insight.
As
I ponder certain lifelong challenges I face in my life such as impulsive
eating, or an inability to keep from picking at my nose and ears, I begin to
wonder if these activities are a way for my mind to bring me back to the
present moment, when I stray too far away from it. When I’m binging on food,
or picking, I’m totally in the present moment. Unfortunately these “present moment”
activities can be destructive and harmful, but perhaps they are the only way my
subconscious mind has of keeping me from losing myself entirely to the past and
the future.
I
want to spend more time cultivating a quiet mind. I don’t want to give up language
entirely. I love words, and I love the
way I’m able to think about the past and the future so easily. But there are times when my passions become
obsessions and inner quiet may be the keystone to preventing that arch from
collapsing.
The Feldenkrais Method is designed to
transcend language. Movement is a
neutral means of communication. In ATM
lessons, practitioners must use language to speak to a group of people, but the
language is often in the form of questions which may generate nonverbal
answers. In FI, language is used far
less often.
The
Method has the advantage over other mind-quieting exercises in that it is
specifically designed to lead us towards higher organization. It has a purpose and a
direction that keeps us engaged, the way dancing does. While mind-quieting in and of itself is
valuable, we may find the Method to be an acceptable way to experience it for
the first, but hopefully not the only time.
© 2008