SAUNDARANANDA 13.51: Fixing vs Seeing

abhuuta parikalpena
viShayasya hi badhyate
tam eva viShayaM pashyan
bhuutataH parimucyate

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13.51
For by the unreal means of fixing

One is bound to an object;

Seeing that very same object

As it really is, one is set free.

COMMENT:
In this verse unreal parikalpa is contrasted with, or opposed to, seeing an object as it really is. It is a situation of either A or B; A vs B. To use a term from probability theory, A and B are "mutually exclusive" events.

So here is the puzzle: A and B are totally opposed to each other. B is seeing as on object as it really is. A is unreal. So what is A?

The obvious answer is that A is illusion, false conception, unreal imagining. B is seeing an object as it really is, and A is illusion.

The unobvious answer that emerges upon deeper investigation of the problem, however, is that A is not so much illusion as fixing. It has less to do with my conception of an object than it has to do with how I use myself.

When a person fails to see an object as it really is, the most fundamental factor is how a person uses his or her eyes. Even a person with 20/20 vision sometimes fails to see, because of the way he or she uses her eyes.

A colleague of mine named Jane Field, a leading though not well-known expert in the area of inhibition of vestibular reflexes, wrote for parents and teachers of dyslexic children a pamphlet titled "My vision is perfect: why don't I see?" The answer, as I understand it, is that I don't see because of the way I use my eyes.

And the way I use my eyes, in turn, depends on the way I use myself. The way I use my eyes, for example, depends on how I approach sitting upright:

When I practise sitting upright, am I able to allow all the natural mechanisms to work freely? Or is it necessary for me to intervene, to put a spanner in the works and fiddle about?

Am I an allower? Or am I a fixer? B or A?

Am I a fixer? Or am I an allower? A or B?

Do I have to be the one who is in control? Or can I truly welcome the insecurity of not knowing, of having nothing to hold onto, of letting go? A or B?

Am I the end-gainer? Or can I follow, even for one moment, the true means-whereby? A or B?

If A is fixing, if parikalpa means fixing, then why does the Buddha call it abhuuta, not real?

The Buddha calls fixing unreal because when a sitting posture is arranged, or held, by some clever human being who is putting a spanner in his own works, thinking that he knows what the right posture is, then that sitting 'posture' lacks something natural or spontaneous.

This I think is why the Buddha is saying that, as a means of practising integrity, fixing is not real.

At the end of a lesson, Marjory Barlow once looked me in the eyes and said, "It has to be real." There was something in the way she said that sentence that has caused me never to forget it.

Just because fixing is not real does not mean that it is an easy habit to be free of. As a wise man once said, "The most difficult things to get rid of are the ones that don't exist."

Marjory Barlow's book An Examined Life contains the following passage in which she contrasts fixing and really seeing. Marjory is answering a question specifically about how, in giving an Alexander lesson, she addresses the use of the eyes.

I say, I want you to look at something, but see it. That's the great secret. Because you can be looking at that picture and not seeing it at all. Ask them, "What were you looking at?" It isn't a question of staring, it's a question of consciously directing the eyes, so that they are seeing. Some teachers don't use their eyes at all. It's terrible. FM used to say that a lot -- "Look at what you're doing, you've got to use all your senses," he used to say.

It's all part of the fixing. That's our biggest evil, fixing. FM used to say that. "You all fix." See, it's the desire to hold onto something. You've got to let it go and be in danger.

The intention of the phrase "consciously direct the eyes" in this passage should not be understood as an exhortation to do something specific with the muscles of the eye. (As always, beware the written word.) Marjory is talking about the eyes in this passage because she was specifically asked about the eyes.In fact, in the 30 or 40 lessons I had with Marjory, I don't remember her once mentioning the eyes. But she spoke constantly of letting the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen, while sending the knees away.

So pashyan in this verse, as I read it, does not mean seeing only with the eye. As discussed previously in connection with the golfer who couldn't keep his eyes on the ball, truly to see an object as it really is may be a function of the co-ordination of one's whole body-mind. And a particularly important role within this overall co-ordination, as far as my present understanding goes, is played by vestibular reflexes beginning with the Moro reflex. So the way I use my eyes depends to a large extent on the way my ears use me.

EH Johnston:
For a man is chained by the false conception of an object, while by seeing the same object as it really is he is liberated.

Linda Covill:
For a man is imprisoned by unreal imaginings about a sense object, but when he sees that very same sense object as it really is, then he is freed.

VOCABULARY:
abhuuta: mfn. whatever has not been or happened
parikalpena (inst.): through fixing

viShayasya (genitive): of an object
hi: for
badhyate = 3rd pers. sing, passive of bandh: to bind , tie , fix , fasten , chain , fetter

tam eva: that very
viShayam (acc.): object
pashyan: seeing

bhuuta: n. that which is or exists
-taH: (adverbial/ablative suffix) as is, in accordance with
parimucyate = 3rd pers. sing, passive of parimuc: to unloose , set free