I’m in Freiburg again, this time to start a year-long program about CI and how to teach it. Asking oneself how to teach a subject is one of the best ways of actually deepening the subject itself. I’ve also just checked the proof of the Italian version of Spinoza’s Yoga (Lo Yoga di Spinoza), which will appear soon with Mimesis. Yesterday night I also dissembled the meditation corner and the altar that I had in my bedroom for the last six years. I dislocated each piece throughout my house and I no longer have a devoted corner for contemplative practice. I’ve also rolled up my yoga mat and since a month I stopped with Ashtanga. What’s happening?
A few things crystalized over the past months (or year):
The ‘theoretical’ limitation of most of traditional contemplative practices consists in the fact that they aim at moving back towards the ‘Source’ (the Absolute, the Void, God, however you want to call it). This is an important move, insofar as it puts (finite) things into their proper context (their Source indeed). But it becomes a limitation as soon as one imagines that reverting to that Source is actually the whole point. It isn’t. It can’t be. If the Source is real, then anything that exists (any finite thing) is an expression of it, it’s something that emerges from that Source, for no other reason that the Source ‘wants’ (sloppy language, but just to keep this simple) to explore what it feels like to be that finite thing. The Source does not need to go back to itself, it knows itself already. The Source wants to be here and now, to play in the world. This is a truth that surfaces in some teachings of the non-dual Shaiva tradition, and in the Bhagavata Purana, under the idea of the divine Lila—God’s play. But if this is taken seriously, then the whole problem is not to get back to the Source (although this might be a necessary step in order to put things in context), but rather to see how is it possible to fully being this finite thing (whichever we happen to be). Not how to move back to the infinite, but how to inhabit the finite as finite is the real challenge, the deepest question, the work that needs to be done. And being finite means something paradoxical, namely, being neither a nothing, nor a self-standing substance—being a ‘more’ as Spinoza would say. That’s not easy.
The ‘practical’ limitation of most of traditional contemplative practices consists in precisely having a practice aimed at a certain goal. Inevitably, this is a mental construction, namely, a series of tools and means to be put in place in order to reach a given state. There is no practice without an inner teleology. The problem with this inner teleology is that by practicing in this way, one inevitably remains within the spectrum of mental activity—within the domain of planning means to achieve ends. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, except for the fact that all mental constructions are simplifications that mask, hide, and skew the infinite complexity and ambiguity of reality, making one blind to its most important aspect—it’s mystery, the fact that reality is ultimately unknowable (see here). If you want to get somewhere, follow the mind. But if you don’t want to get anywhere, and just break free, you can’t follow the mind, and you can’t have a practice. The Buddhist tradition recognized this paradox and reconciled it by insisting on how deep familiarity with mental constructions ultimately leads to dispassion towards all mental constructions. The problem is that this solution risks overshooting the target, since the point is not just to be dispassionate towards everything (which leads back to the Source), but being passionate for the mystery of each and every thing (see point 1 above).
Taking these two points together, I realized that at this point in my exploration, I need really to move beyond practice. I still do CI, but only because I don’t think it is a ‘practice’ in the sense in which yoga or formal meditation are usually constructed. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I do CI, and I never know whether I can do it, until I actually get into it. Every time there is a little moment of thrill and suspense—is this going to happen? Is it going to work again? I never quite know. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
I’ve mentioned earlier (here) that CI results from the interplay between the force of gravity and the force of lightness. I’ve now come to discover that their proper balance appears and manifests as a sense of fluidity, as a watery quality of movement, which is smooth and active at the same time, unpredictable and dynamic, but also soft and reliable. At this moment, how to cultivate and embody this aspect fully is one of my themes of CI research.
But another question that I ponder and explore is this: how can you be neither one nor two? Being one means being fully unified and assimilated to anything else. For instance, you dance in a duo and the two partners become just one single organism, so much so that none of them retains any degree of genuine independency. Dissolving into oneness is very nice and sometimes comforting, as it suggests a sense of relief from any further responsibility. But isn’t also a subtle form of escape? The very fact that you are, entails that you are not (to some extent, or in some way) the rest or the other. Can you honor this ‘not’? By contrast, being two means retaining a degree of self-sufficiency and independency, while using the other(s) as a tool, a prop, a support, an environment, but ultimately without really needing them. This ideal of autonomy is also comforting and reassuring, but unfortunately is just false. We’re neither one (differences are real), nor two (self-sufficiency is unreal). We constantly oscillate in the whole spectrum of possibilities between being-one and being-two. Often, we collapse on one side of the spectrum. But how can we manage to remain in the middle, without verging to either extreme? I tend to ask this question from an embodied, kinesthetic perspective, because I’m sure that if we find a kinesthetic solution, then all the other dimensions of the problem (its meaning, its symbolic implications, its interpersonal and social aspects) will become clear almost by themselves. So, the question is: how do you move with another in order to be neither one, nor two?
Gravity is the force that tends to pull everything towards the same point and making it just ‘one’. Lightness is the force that tends to pull everything apart, articulating, distinguishing, disentangling identities and creating the ‘two’. So, a working hypothesis might be precisely the idea that in order to be neither one nor two, gravity and lightness needs to be in perfect balance. How does this manifest? As fluidity, as a watery quality that movement assumes when the two forces complement each other.
This seems abstract perhaps, but it is a radically embodied perspective. Gravity is felt in the body, is a pull, a traction. You feel gravity when you stand and when you fall. And you feel gravity when you relate to other people (as in ‘falling in love’—such a beautiful and precise metaphor!). Lightness too is felt in the body, as a dynamism, an energy, a rising of enthusiasm and expansiveness. And you feel lightness when you know what you want to do, and how you want to do it, and just move in the direction that seems needed, take action, initiate a new gesture. The watery quality that results from the merging of these two forces is not just an image, is a way of moving, which is dynamic without being hard, soft without being weak, directed while remaining flexible and agile, strong and clear without being tense, accommodating and inviting surrender, but without giving up. It is possible to embody these qualities in kinesthetic interactions. Is it possible to embody them also in more complex and constrained relations? Like when being with friends, partners, co-workers, fellow humans and living beings? Can we dance like water all the time, everywhere?
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