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Tommy
Jan 16, 06 - 7:43 PM |
a talk delivered at UCB 2002 - mentions Peter
Talk delivered at The American Psychological Association, August 23, 2002 What Buddhist Meditation has to Tell Psychology About the Mind Eleanor Rosch Department of Psychology University of California, Berkeley …I’d like to end with a case study. Peter Ralston ran a martial arts school in Berkeley for many years unnoticed until he won the world martial arts championship, the first Westerner to do so. A martial artist is a good subject for us because what he does involves action in a very overt form, and action is a particular sticking point for people. We tend to believe that the things in this talk may sound good, but we personally would never actually do anything if we weren’t pushing ourselves in the ordinary conscious way. (At some meditation centers, this is called the enlightened jellyfish question.) In the martial arts you not only have to act, but there’s immediate feedback on your actions which are obvious to everyone. (So you should listen to this man because he has a credential much honored in our society – he really can beat people up.) Here are some quotes from Ralston’s autobiography which show his progression on his path (the explanatory headers are mine): One: The starting point: ambition, focused intention “As a teenager I wanted to be the best fighter in the world. Period!” Two: Recognition of the unsatisfactoriness of the ordinary conscious way of doing things. (May come with success) “Around that time, I would go to classes and fight black belts and win, but still feel like I lost...Something wasn’t right.... I was winning from natural ability, but I wasn’t winning because I really understood anything...” Three: Finding the unbiased mind beyond fear and desire. Opening perceptions. Appreciation. “It was in that situation that I first learned to drop fear of getting hit, or of winning or losing... What that did was open up my perception to what was really happening. I just saw a fist coming and I’d move...When I’d get worried about it, I’d get stuck somewhere and get hit... It’s a beautiful secret, an exacting and tremendous feedback.” Four: Expansion of the knowing field. Also some change in sense of time. “...abilities like being able to read somebody’s disposition accurately started to come. The moment they would think to hit me I would stop them. That’s it. Handled. I just kept finishing everything before it got started.” Five: Actions from awareness; simply knowing what to do and it’s always appropriate “New abilities started to arise... I didn’t have to be cognizant of any movement on their part, psychic or otherwise, to know what to do. I just knew. That blew me away. I didn’t have to perceive a thing...very simple, very simple.” Six: Comes full circle; transformation of the original ambition and intention “I decided that if I were to continue to do this, I wanted to start contributing what I did and what I knew in a much larger way. I wanted to transform the martial arts in the world into a place for the development of the human being, and of honesty.” http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/research/ethics/ethics/Bios/APA_talk.pdf |
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