BODAI (4): Establishing the Mind
Alexander work, in a nutshell, is inhibiting unenlightened behaviour.
Anybody who has followed my progress on the blogosphere over the last couple of years may have concluded that I am not a particularly good advert for it.
What it entails, in any time that can be set aside just for work on the self, is taking some simple task -- say, rising from a chair, or moving a leg when lying down, or joining hands and bowing while sitting in lotus -- and watching oneself make more or less of a pig’s ear of it.
I have made a pig’s ear of a lot of things in my life, not least in key human relationships, but my relationship with Marjory Barlow was good in the beginning, middle, and end.
Practically the first words I heard Marjory speak were these: “Alexander work is supposed to be fun. It is the most serious thing in the world, this work, but you mustn’t take it seriously.”
Or to put it the other way, this work of inhibiting unenlightened behaviour is not to be taken seriously. BUT IT IS THE MOST SERIOUS THING IN THE WORLD.
Why? Because the original cause of suffering in the world is not out there in CO2 emissions and wars and floods and the rest of it. The original cause of suffering in the world is right here in me, in my views, opinions, expectations, in my habitual attitude of grim determination, in my wanting to feel secure, in my trying to be right, in my fear and greed, in my emotional worrying, in my endgaining and faulty sensory appreciation, in my susceptibility to be drawn into idle philosophical discussion, in my over-reliance on my top two inches, in my lack of practical wisdom; in short, in all my unenlightened behaviour.
The most serious thing in the world is my inhibition of my own unenlightened behaviour, and to see the most serious thing in the world as the most serious thing in the world, may be to establish the bodhi-mind.
Thus, to devote oneself just to sitting in the full lotus posture, with body, with mind, and as body and mind dropping off, is not selfish in an unhealthy way. It is, in Master Dogen’s teaching, the supreme way of establishing the will to cross all living beings over to the far shore of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Anybody who has followed my progress on the blogosphere over the last couple of years may have concluded that I am not a particularly good advert for it.
What it entails, in any time that can be set aside just for work on the self, is taking some simple task -- say, rising from a chair, or moving a leg when lying down, or joining hands and bowing while sitting in lotus -- and watching oneself make more or less of a pig’s ear of it.
I have made a pig’s ear of a lot of things in my life, not least in key human relationships, but my relationship with Marjory Barlow was good in the beginning, middle, and end.
Practically the first words I heard Marjory speak were these: “Alexander work is supposed to be fun. It is the most serious thing in the world, this work, but you mustn’t take it seriously.”
Or to put it the other way, this work of inhibiting unenlightened behaviour is not to be taken seriously. BUT IT IS THE MOST SERIOUS THING IN THE WORLD.
Why? Because the original cause of suffering in the world is not out there in CO2 emissions and wars and floods and the rest of it. The original cause of suffering in the world is right here in me, in my views, opinions, expectations, in my habitual attitude of grim determination, in my wanting to feel secure, in my trying to be right, in my fear and greed, in my emotional worrying, in my endgaining and faulty sensory appreciation, in my susceptibility to be drawn into idle philosophical discussion, in my over-reliance on my top two inches, in my lack of practical wisdom; in short, in all my unenlightened behaviour.
The most serious thing in the world is my inhibition of my own unenlightened behaviour, and to see the most serious thing in the world as the most serious thing in the world, may be to establish the bodhi-mind.
Thus, to devote oneself just to sitting in the full lotus posture, with body, with mind, and as body and mind dropping off, is not selfish in an unhealthy way. It is, in Master Dogen’s teaching, the supreme way of establishing the will to cross all living beings over to the far shore of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
posted by Mike Cross at 7:30 AM
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