The following text
grows from the inside out. Within it we will take a look at the human condition
and its place in the world, bouncing off of both recent and ancient findings
and concepts. We will start from deep within us and expand outwards, both
upwards into the sky and downwards into the earth, just like the plant does in
growing. The point therein will be to briefly introduce a philosophy, a common
sense that corresponds to both what we feel and experience, and to what we have
learned through analysis and inquiry. As the title indicates, the following
will be structured into three parts, only to watch them amalgamate in the end.
Throughout the
first part, which will be termed ‘embodied’, we will be looking deep within us
and explore the revelatory concept of modern philosophy of mind and cognitive
science, called Embodiment. With this concept in mind, Cartesian ideas of dualistic
existence, of identifying with the conscious mind only, cannot be upheld. What
this may mean for us practically will be the focus of this presentation. Here we discover ourselves, not within the
organism, but as the organism. The concept of embodiment hence is the
foundation of this text. It is the root from which everything else sprouts.
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| by Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, License CC-BY-SA 3.0 |
Accordingly, the
second part will inquire into one of the main implications of this very
root-concept. Here, we will take a look at the psychological, or rather psychosomatic,
relevance of this, mainly focusing on Alexander Lowen’s work. As a
psychotherapist Alexander Lowen is known for developing what is now known as
Bioenergetics. Its main premise is the unity of body and mind and the relevance
of vibration and grounding for the health of the organism. This is not an
esoteric discipline, as the terms might suggest, but a consequence of the slow
shift in medicine towards a holistic approach to health. Here, we will ground ourselves in reality and stand firmly, yet always
dynamic and never rigid.
Throughout the
third part we will expand further outwards, integrating ourselves into an
ever-changing and strongly interrelated environment. For that matter we take a
look at the ancient philosophy of Daoism, which is based on a correlative,
dynamic and inclusive cosmology. The main Daoist text, the Dao De Jing, with
its poetic and metaphorical expression will function as our entry-point into
understanding the Daoist approach to life. Here,
we will find ourselves deeply embedded in an ever-changing, mutually entailing
world-process in which we are just as significant as anything else. Finally, we will see whether
we cannot make ourselves comfortable there, or even feel at home.
Embodied
The main
‘Embodiment Thesis’ as formulated by Robert Wilson and Lucia Foglia reads as
follows:
“Many features of cognition are embodied in that they are deeply dependent upon characteristics of the physical body of an agent, such that the agent's beyond-the-brain body plays a significant causal role, or a physically constitutive role, in that agent's cognitive processing.”[i]
This isn’t merely
stating that there has to be a brain in order for there to be a mind, but even
further it implies that “our conceptual systems and our capacity for thought
are shaped by the nature of our brains, our bodies and our bodily interactions”[ii], as Lakoff put it. Not
only is it impossible to separate the mind from the body, but the body also
influences the very structure of the mind. This further leads to an
understanding of the mind as much more a part of the organism, rather than as
the controller of it. Research therefore suggests that Descartes’ concept of ‘I
think, I exist’ and further identifying with the ‘mental substance’ only, is
inherently flawed. However obvious the problems of such a strong mind-body
dualism may seem, similar concepts are still deeply entrenched in cultural
common sense and language. We say ‘Me and my body’, or ‘My body reacts..’, we
don’t say ‘I’, or ‘I react..’. Our sense of self seems to imply some kind of
entity within the organism with which
we identify. While what exactly we say as far as terminology goes might not
make that big a difference, what makes a difference is how we truly feel
underneath the words.
Research in
embodied cognition therefore also presents the opportunity to rethink our own
identity and realize that we are more than the conscious aspect of our mind
that we are not merely some entity encapsulated within a body, but that we are
the organism, all of it. A popular Zen kôan points to just that:
“Who is dragging this corpse around?”
Everybody who has
exercised before or has generally moved around a lot will have experienced the
correlation of movement and well-being, which is one simple way of experiencing
our embodied nature. Other ways which are more and more well-researched denote
the correlation of how posture can influence the mood of a person, for better
or worse. The real joy with which
embodiment can present us however, seems to be the expanded sense of self, to
no longer feel ‘a stranger and afraid’ isolated within a body, but to feel oneself fully as an organism,
living, breathing, moving. It is in this spirit that Alexander Lowen
created the concept of Bioenergetics.
Grounded
Alexander Lowen
founded his concepts on the conviction that “[y]ou are your body and your head
doesn’t control it”[iii],
with that in many ways ahead of his time. Further, the key aspects of
Bioenergetics are Grounding, Breathing and Vibration.[iv] For now, the focus will
be on the aspect of grounding, the three concepts can however never be fully
separated from each other. From inquiring deeply into these basic assumptions,
also by studying with Wilhelm Reich, Lowen observed and concluded that childhood
trauma often times leads to a natural defensive reaction of the child in the
form of muscular armoring. If the child, in expressing pain or grief through
sobbing or expressing anger through biting, is repeatedly shunned and punished
for these natural emotions and reactions, it will, for the sake of survival,
stifle its very own freedom of expression by chronically contracting the
associated muscles. This muscular armoring can be quite thoroughly distributed
throughout the body, yet the most important areas are the jaw and
correspondingly the neck, holding back both sobbing and biting (however also
laughter), and the muscles of the front of the body, that is the muscles of
respiration. For Lowen and quite possibly for any non-dualist, emotions are
physical, bodily sensations, hence the restriction of breathing also dampens
feeling, so as not to express those ‘inappropriate’ feelings.
Feeling can
further be understood as a movement, a vibration or wave of excitement that
flows through the organism. Examples of this are the waves of sobbing or the
contractions of laughter which can be easily observed and felt. From this it
follows that the more supple and soft a body is, as opposed to rigid and
constricted, the more vibration and excitation it can hold or rather let flow
freely. Lowen hence attributed great importance to the motility and vibrational
capacity of the organism, to which the term ‘vibrant health’ should point. The
more (involuntary) movement one can allow, the more alive one will be. An
expanded sense of self, an ego deeply embedded in the body, is what goes right
along with this.
The concept of
grounding revolves around exactly these points of motility and softness.
Further, the real point here is trust. If we, because of our life experiences
or traumatic events, do not trust the world around
us anymore, we defend. We put up rigid barriers which, as we have seen,
correspond to physical, neuro-muscular barriers. We can’t fully trust other
people and further don’t even seem to trust the ground to hold us up. Therefore
we stand rigid and contracted, in a way attempting to hold ourselves up, to
pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It can’t be done. If on the other
hand, we can trust life, even if it means tears and fury, and hence relax our
constant effort to defend ourselves, we may realize that the ground will hold
us up no matter what. So we relax. In that, the tension in the lower body,
especially in the psoas muscles, and with that all excess tension fades and we
literally sink back down to earth. Here, when we fully feel our feet on the
ground, almost flowing into it, merging with it, we feel safe and alive. We discover ourselves not only as a single
organism living on a planet, but
further as an organism deeply rooted in the earth which gives live to us, and
hence we trust it deeply.
Integrated: At Home
In its main
premises, Daoist cosmology denotes a world that is deeply interrelated and
always subject to dynamic change. In the Dao De Jing it is said that “[a]s soon as everyone in the world knows that the
beautiful are beautiful, [t]here is already ugliness”[v],
pointing to the concept of Yin and Yang or the mutual entailing of opposites.
There can never be only one without the corresponding other. That way, all
things are mutually dependent on each other, which makes them inseparable. It
is quite common for us to see that there can’t be black without white, but this
also includes that by virtue of us having a soft skin, we evoke hardness out of
wood or even that by virtue of having eyes that relate to the radiation of the
sun, we evoke light out of the universe.[vi]
In a world where ‘distinct things’ cannot be separated from each other, all
there is is one process. We may call it god, or we may call it Dao, what it
comes down to, is that all things are intimately connected, including
ourselves. Here, we find ourselves deeply embedded in the world-process and
hence not as an isolated cork floating in the ocean, but as a wave which is
continuous with the water.
For this very reason, going along with the stream of
change that is the world, is acknowledging that one is not separate from it.
Trying to resist it however, reveals an entanglement with the illusion of being
separate. This point is very similar to the philosophy of Bioenergetics, as the
following chapter of the Dao De Jing elucidates:
“While living, people are supple and soft, but once dead, they become hard and rigid cadavers. […] Thus it is said: Things that are hard and rigid are the companions of death; Things that are supple and soft are the companions of life.”[vii]
Realizing that we are not separate from the
world-process, but a unique aspect of it, a unique expression of the whole
‘thing’, we may feel both more significant and whole in this world. As we have
seen, this begins with the
inseparability of body and mind and extends itself to the connection of earth
and organism and finally, to the connection of cosmos and organism.
There are many ways in which one can translate the
words ‘Dao De Jing’ into English, depending on aim and personal preference. For
now, I will choose one of my favorites:
Feeling At Home in
This World
Notes:
[i] Wilson, Robert A. and Foglia,
Lucia, "Embodied Cognition", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/embodied-cognition/>.
[ii]
Lakoff, George und Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books, 1999. p.
265f.
[iii] The Lowen Foundation. „The
Energetics of Bioenergetics – Trailer.“ Online Video clip. Youtube. Youtube,
15.02.2012. Web. 05.05.2016.
[v] Dao De Jing: “Making This Life
Significant”. Trans. Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall. New York: Ballantine
Books, 2003. p. 80.
[vi] thejourneyofpurpose. „You Are the
Eternal Universe – Alan Watts.“ Online Video clip. Youtube. Youtube,
11.11.2007. Web. 06.05.2016.
[vii]
Dao De Jing p. 195.
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