Some years ago, at a conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE), I got excited about an idea brainstormed with a group, and the thought keeps popping up in various ways to this day. The idea, of how contradiction is a pathway to truth, may seem strange to some, so it’s worth a little exploration.
The most recent flash of the thought came in relation to my posture, an ongoing concern of mine for years, but especially since having developed sciatica a couple of years ago. The short story is that things I took as good posture, or ways to achieve good posture, turn out not to be so good in reality. In the last years before the sciatica finally kicked in, I struggled to sit for zazen even for my daily half hour, much less the half-day sits I did. And part of the reason was that I was exerting effort to fix my sitting by doing something very stressful and probably harmful. Only after two years of doing Zhan Zhuang have I gradually learned to stand, and then sit, better. Learning to get to the position that is helpful and then relax into it taught me that the straining I was doing would never have achieved good posture.
Ideas that get in our head, no matter the source, often need contradiction to evaporate or be corrected. Another posture example: from a book on Buddhist yoga, I got it in my head that Buddhism is a mind-only practice. I once stated this to a zen teacher in a private session, and she said “But Zen is not mind-only.” It took me years to learn through physical experience that she was right. Now that I have learned how to stand, I can apply the same lessons during zazen and my posture while sitting gets better and better. Slow-motion, physically-experienced contradiction affirms a verbal contradiction!
The immediate source of the thought during the ACMHE conference was more of the interpersonal sort. We all describe ourselves to ourselves in various ways, and I have found that it is good to be careful in how I do so. I’ve learned this through contradiction. To myself, “I am this” (good way of being toward others!), then I happen to catch myself treating someone completely against that belief. Time to recognize my fallibility, the imperfect truth about myself. And in so doing, I become more compassionate of others.
Maybe contradiction is too strong a word, maybe just finding out I’m wrong, and most importantly admitting it, is the key. If I can’t admit to my own illusion once discovered or when faced with it, I am lost. All I have to do is look back over my history of saying I’m right only to find out I’m not to completely debase any certainty that I might espouse at a given time.
My last thought for now is that this practice is one excellent for musical analysis, or discussions about music in general. My Just Listening workshop is all about encountering music honestly, with a strong emphasis on not knowing. When I engage with others in this way, sharing what I remember on hearing a piece for the first time, I find sometimes that an initial impression of some musical event turns out to have been mistaken, a view corrected by listening again or by the comments of another listener. I have learned to be happy for the input of others, contradicting me, helping me find truth, and defusing that ego-driven sense of certainty. It is extraordinarily liberating.