SAUNDARANANDA 12.42: Unsteady Confidence & Errant Direction

vyaakulaM darshanam yasya
dur-balo yasya nishcayaH
tasya paariplavaa shraddhaa
na hi kRtyaaya vartate

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12.42
When a person's seeing is disordered,

When a person's sense of purpose is weak:

The confidence of that person is unsteady,

For he is not veering in the direction he should.

COMMENT:
This verse, as I read it, is still clearer evidence that the Buddha is describing confidence as not primarily a psychological phenomenon but as primarily a physiological phenomenon, in particular as a function of the vestibular system.

If a child is suffering from primitive vestibular reflexes that have been retained in very immature form, that child will invariably have reading difficulties. Often the mother will sense that there is something wrong with her son's eyes and send him off to the optician, only to be told that the boy has got 20 : 20 vision. This prompted Jane Field, a fellow-trainee of the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester to publish a pamphlet titled, "My vision is perfect. Why don't I see?"

In fact, the problem in such cases of disordered seeing is not in the child's eyes but in his ears. As Alfred Tomatis correctly observed "we sing with our ears." And not only that: we also read with our ears, and see with our ears. We interpret all sensory information that relates to the dynamic orientation of ourselves and all things in space, primarily through our vestibular system. When a person's seeing is disordered, the fundamental problem is always vestibular. The problem has to do, primarily, with the person's lack of ability to orient himself or herself within the gravitational field.

Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler may be three of the best known Germanic/Austrian/Jewish figures in the history of 20th century ideas, but another Viennese Jew who deserves to be better known is Paul Schilder, to whom is attributed the phrase that "When we understand the vestibular system, we will understand neuroses."

The following is quoted from Chapter 13 of Paul Schilder: Mind Explorer (1985) by David G. Hubbard and Charles G. Wright:

Dr. Schilder appears to be the first pyschiatrist to view the human psyche as a physical phenomenon, suspended in space, and actively moving through it.

As a gifted neurologist, Schilder returned again and again to the cerebellar and vestibular systems, which are intimately concerned with body motion and spatial orientation. Most investigators have overlooked the role of gravity (as a linear accelerative force which constantly influences vestibular function) in connection with human development and behaviour. Paul Schilder did not.

Stimulated by Schilder's ideas regarding motion and space, the senior author began some time ago to consider the potential influence of gravity in relation to human personality development. Psychoanalysis teaches theories of oral, anal, and genital stages which decisively influence development. On the other hand, Schilder's work seems to suggest an additional pyschological stage (gravitational) which is operative over a lengthy period of personality development extending through and beyond the traditionally recognized stages. This gravitational stage appears to be more influential in orderly, sequential development of logic, of neurobiological reflexes, and of personality function than Freud's classical stages. We must, for example, bear in mind that a human infant spends the first years of life learning to move and orient its physical body against the ever-present force of gravity. The individual then spends much time and effort during the following 10 to 15 years developing motor skills which make possible coordinated movement despite that force. It would seem that this long process must play a part in molding the maturation of personality.

Surprisingly, however, a careful search of the literature both in psychiatry and neurobiology revealed almost no reference to the influence of gravity upon development.

Neither Gautama the Buddha nor FM Alexander would feature in such a search of literature in psychiatry and neurobiology. But both understood that confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with gravitational security or insecurity. It has to do with knowing or not knowing where one is going, relative to the vertical. It has to do, in short, with direction in life. Confidence, at the deepest level, has to do with veering in a direction which is not down.

FM Alexander was an unsurpassed genius of recent times in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he asked his students to ask themselves what it means to allow the head to go forward and UP.

The Buddha was 2000 years ahead of his time in understanding the influence of gravity upon development. That is why he transmitted as the one great matter the practice of UPright sitting -- with a physical effort, with an effort of the pysche, and with the sense of effortlessness which is experienced when the right thing doing itself.

Confidence that the right thing does itself comes from experience of the right thing doing itself. The job of an Alexander teacher is to give the Alexander pupil the experience of the right thing doing itself. The means to accomplish this is to stop the wrong thing from doing itself, using four preventive directions which, I have argued, correspond to four vestibular reflexes.

In conclusion, then, what is the relation between vestibular dysfunction and psychological insecurity? Is it the relation between seed and corn? Or is it the relation between H2O and water?

EH Johnston:
As for the man whose doctrinal sight is dim and resolution weak, his faith is unreliable ; for it does not work to the desired end.

Linda Covill:
When a man's vision is blurred and he is weak in resolve, his faith wavers, for it is not operating towards its proper outcome.

VOCABULARY:
vyaakula: bewildered , confounded , perplexed , troubled ; confused , disordered ; quivering (as lightning)
darshana: n. seeing , observing , looking , noticing , observation , perception
yasya (genitive): for [him] who

dur-bala: mfn. of little strength , weak , feeble
yasya (genitive): for [him] who
nishcaya: conviction , certainty , positiveness ; resolution , resolve, fixed intention , design , purpose , aim

tasya (correlative of yasya): of him
paariplava: swimming ; moving to and fro , agitated , unsteady , tremulous ; wavering , irresolute
shraddhaa: confidence

na: not
hi: for
kRtyaaya = dative of kRtya: "to be done" ; action, achievement ; what ought to be done ; what is proper or fit ; effect, result ; purpose, end, object
vartate = 3rd person singular of vRt: to turn, roll on; to move or go on , get along , advance , proceed ; to be intent on , attend to (dat.); to act , conduct one's self , behave towards (loc. dat. , or acc); follow a course of conduct, proceed, continue ; to tend or turn to , prove as (dat.)