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Self as Dynamic Flow
River of Fire River of Water
The vast network of interconnectedness comes alive with self-understanding that is entirely inconsistent with modern assumptions about the self. This was made clear to me in a conversation I had several years ago with a high ranking Aikido instructor from Japan at a summer camp in Massachusetts. He made an interesting observation, saying, “in America you talk about martial arts as self-defense, but the aim of martial arts is to train yourself to the point that there is no self to defend. The term self-defense is very strange to me.” Strange, indeed, because the purpose of Aikido, a product of the East Asian worldview is to reduce reliance on ego strength and train one’s ki-power, such that every movement becomes a circular or spherical attuned to the universal life force. Unlike the popular concept of a confrontational self-defense, Aikido techniques forms a dynamic sphere that afflicts any direct blows, forcing the attacker, already off balance, to fall by his own momentum.
In East Asian cultures the dynamic flow of ki (ch’i in Chinese) forms the vital center of the person. It is neither mental nor physical, yet infuses both mind and body. While forming the core of a person is entirely different from the ego self. Thus, for example, in vernacular Japanese ki is frequently used as the subject of a sentence. Instead of saying, “I don’t want to go,” a person says “ki refuses to move.” Instead of “he is undependable,” “his ki constantly changes.” Instead of “I am upset,” “ki is upset.” Instead of “I understand,” “ki understands.” Instead of “he is a coward,” “his ki is weak.”… In brief, there are countless such phrases in which the subject is the unifying ki-energy, never a self-conscious agent.
In contrast to such an understanding, the indisputable agent of action in the English language is the self. For example, the Random House dictionary of the English language, second edition, lists approximately 1100 compounds for self. It begins with “self-abandonment” and ends with “self-wrought.” The focus on the “self” may explain the reason why Western interest in Buddhism so far has been mainly psychotherapeutic. The primary goal is seen as health, wealth, and well-being. Buddhism does contain a strong dose of the psychological, but its primary concern is confronting the problems of suffering, evil and death that may have no rational answers.
Something similar to the dynamic flow of ki-energy may be found in the thought of William James. He describes the conventional understanding of self in terms of natural self, social self, and spiritual self. First is a self-identified in relation to material possessions-body, clothes, family and so on; second is self and social relationships-fame, honor, and so forth; and 30 includes the soul, spirit, and psyche. But these are all objectified, conceptual notions. The living self is the stream of consciousness or stream of thought that flows below them. A similar understanding of the dynamic self occur simultaneously in the philosophies of Henri Bergson (élan vital) in France and Kitaro Nishida (pure experience) in Japan the three thinkers represent a break in traditional philosophy focusing on metaphysics, although each goes on his separate way.
What all this suggests is that the proper understanding of interdependence requires a radically different orientation to “self.” When the basic self is a stream of consciousness that can never be objectified, or the flow of ki that is neither mental nor physical, we naturally become free of reifying “self.” We, then, become obliterated not only from “self” but from the tyranny of words that cause the fragmentation of our world.
When the integrity of the new sense of selfhood is thus established, free from any conceptualize notions and false discriminations, one has embodied the Buddha Dharma in one’s being. The somatic embodiment appears in the recourse to the five senses to describe the religious life. Thus, we find for example, frequent references to the taste of Buddha Dharma, the flavor of true entrusting, the fragrance of myokonin, the touch of compassionate light, seeing the heart of compassion, hearing the light of compassion, and so one. Religiosity at its depth affects our body and impacts our five senses.
O Saichi, tell us what kind of taste
Is the taste of Namu-amida-butsu.
The taste of Namu-amida-butsu is-
A joy filling up the bosom,
A joy filling up the liver,
Like the rolling swell of the sea,
No words-just the utterance, “oh, oh!”
Excerpted in gratitude from: River of Fire River of Water by Taitetsu Unno, Doubleday New York, 1998
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