Расселл Делман (Russell Delman) более сорока лет изучает и преподаёт различные практики, которые можно было бы назвать практиками осознавания (awareness), если бы это слово не использовалось для описания столь разных, иногда почти противоположных по принципам, занятий. Наиболее важными для себя он считает дзен-медитацию, метод Фельденкрайза и соматическую психологию. Поводом для этого интервью послужил текст Расселла "Эволюционирующее человечество". Мы говорим также об осознавании, методе Фельденкрайза, Буддизме, московском метро и о любви.
Russell Delman. I think if we look at what a human being is, in my way of thinking, it is not just one solid thing, it is changing. Humanity, or human being – how to define it or how to think about it – is changing because there is an evolution of human beings over time, and that evolution is still going on. Most of the people think of evolution as a physical process – the process of changing from being a monkey to being a human – that kind of thing. But I think we can go further and think about the evolution of consciousness, the evolution of thought. And what it means to be human is something that is still uncovering, we are learning how to be human. I don't think we start out human, we are learning to be human. And we are reaching a time when it is really a question on the planet, will enough people develop what I would call human qualities? The human quality of awareness, for example, which means the ability to look beyond just your own safety, beyond your own concerns, your own desires, and look at the needs of others. And for many people right now on the planet, I think, there is a growing capacity to care about life other that ourselves, and our own family, and our own culture, our own religion, and our own nation – all of that limited prespective. At the same time there is a very strong identification that groups of people have, with a small view of human: only muslim, only jew, only Chinees, only United States... So there are two trends I see right now, and it is very interesting to be alive because the technology that lives right now means that depending of which one grows faster we might be in a great danger. That capacity to see from a large point of view, or that capacity to just be identified with your own group.
Petr Andreev. I think Feldenkrais said somewhere that there are two possibilities: if you start to be more sensitive you go more and more sensitive, and if you are going towards being less sensitive then because of that you become even less sensitive.So those two paths depart from each other.
R.D. I think there is something like that. I think there is a very strong what could be called a biological code for survival. And that part of the human being we share with the animals. The first our program says: your most important job is to keep living. And if that's true if that's your belief, if that's what's moving in you then you can do lots of terrible things to other people or to anything that's in your way. But if you start being able to grow awareness to be able to step out of what we could say is fear based survival and to be able to look from a larger point of view then we start seeing that my survival is dependent on your survival.
It's so wonderful in the world right now that we have this economic crisis. Why is it wonderful? Because evrybody sees how interconnected we are. That China can't survive if the Unite States goes under, that the United States can't survive if China goes under.
P.A. Even Russia can't survive.
R.D. But it's wonderful – we need each other! Even these old historical conflicts that are all based in fear and a limited self-identity, even those: we are being asked to go beyond all that in order to be able to survive.
P.A. What is the mechanism of awareness? For many people it seems to be something self-centered: for example in Feldenkrais you are becoming aware of your skeleton, or in yoga, and this seems to be very self-centered. There are well educated people who consider Buddhism to be egoistic. How does it work that from being aware of yourself something changes in your relationships?
R.D. That's a really important point. Because on the surface it looks like we are becoming self-absorbed. And it's a great danger.
P.A. I think people looking through the windows seeing Awareness through movement lessons, they see people lying on the floor and then standing up slowly and walking..
R.D. ..like zombies around the room. And it's the same, you watch people meditate – we have an expression in English „a navel gazer“. First, from outside it looks like we're getting completely self-absorbed. And even from the inside I would say it's a real danger that many people do become self-absorbed. I think it's a real danger of Buddhism, Feldenkrais, of any method of looking inside, there is always this danger of narcissism. And we want to be careful about that. That's why in most traditions they say you need a teacher so you don't get lost in yourself. What Feldenkrais saw is the same thing as Buddhists see – that looking inside is a step, it's a step in the direction of being able to be simultaneously paying attention to the inner world and the outer world until „inner and outer“ breaks down, it's no longer a helpful distinction. All there is - is your life, there's living. And for me to live as an aware being, I want to be equally aware of you as my hand moving, equally aware of the wind and the people sitting over there as my breathing, that is all part of living. And that's when awareness really starts growing, it's not inner life but it's life. But for the most of us, we're so disconnected, so lost in our thoughts, and so lost in the trance of society(there's a trance state that we go into in society) that in order to return to ourselves, to wake up, we start with our body. Why is the body a good place to start? Well, right now for you to feel where is your right thumb you have to step out of your trance, you have to wake up for a moment. But you could also say, for you to feel the breeze on your skin, you have to step out of the habits of thinking, the habits that you've been taught by your society, you have to enter the present moment. And that's where becoming human begins – we are able to step out of everything we were taught to believe or to think, and we return first to the present moment, first we get grounded right here, right now. And this present moment needs to include the inner and the outer, and then it becomes that question that we have started with: how can I value my concern, my care, my interest in you, or in Russia, or in the world, how can I value that equally to how I value this person – Russell, and what his needs are? And I would say, for people on the path of awareness those have an equal weight. Your caring begins to grow to include everything, all of life. The Buddhists would say, the reason why I meditate is to take care of all sentient beings. That's a pretty hard thing to understand if you've never meditated.
P.A. Doing Feldenkrais makes you less violent. What is beautiful about it is that it comes naturally, it is not forced.
R.D. Yes, I appreciate that very much from Feldenkrais, who was a very powerful man, physically powerful. He came from a violent background. It's so interesting that so often the great teachers are teaching what they needed to learn. And he really learned what it meant to be a sensitive human being. But sensitive doesn't mean weak. Sensitive means you have enough confidence that you don't need to be violent. That's a different image.
P.A. And that also makes you less vulnerable.
R.D. Yes, very much so.
P.A. I like the expression „trance of society“. If you are in Moscow in the metro during peak hours you have a very strong impression of people in trance. You can see people going from A to B and just bumping into other people crossing their way. But they can be very kind people otherwise, when they go upstairs and sit in a cafe with friends.
R.D. Yes, they become another person when they come out of the trance, of that trance.
P.A. And I like to look at it this way: I don't want to go down there to meet this pressure from the crowd, it's very uncomfortable. So, I kind of teleport myself. I am here myself, and then I send my body to another place, and there I become myself again. And what happens in between is may be like a trance. I don't remember that I bumped into someone.
R.D. Right, it's like sleepwalking.
P.A. And that way you live in discrete steps.
R.D. And I would also say, if you teleport yourself to your business meeting, or you teleport yourself to your home, you also are going into different trance states. So that there is a deeper trance when you are on the subway, and now you become yourself as the business person. And you close off all the other parts of yourself. And you might not even notice that the person has a very sad look in their eyes because you're doing your business, because you're in that trance. It's a different trance, may be it's a more subtle trance than the one in the subway. But we want to notice what does it mean to be an awake and aware human being that is also functional in many different contexts.
P.A. And may be in more continuous ways.
R.D. Yes, and one of the things that can help us to have more continuity is the fact that in each of those situations your body is there, your breathing. You may be breathing differently in the metro, and then at the meeting, and then at home. But I wonder what happens if one can have some awareness of their breathing. And in the metro if you're standing there's some weight. What would happen if you started to feel I'm here and I'm standing and I can feel my feet on the floor.
P.A. A sort of release – the first thing I can imagine.
R.D. Something like that! And can you imagine if there were twenty people in the car who learned to do that? It would be a different world, literally! People would treat each other differently.
P.A. In the Moscow metro you can also see how inefficient this behaviour is. The train comes to stop and the doors open, and the people on the platform gather so close to the doors that the people in the car can't get out. Getting in and out takes much longer than if they would make space. It's evident. But if you are the only person that steps back then you are the last one to enter the car.
R.D. So everybody is self-protective, they don't want to be the last one. That's why most social change can't happen with one person. It's interresting. Change has to happen one person at a time altogether. What that means is the change has to happen inside each individual. So we need to do that kind of awareness work so we are awake in ourselves, and it needs to happen in a social context. That's why Buddha talked about three jewels. The first jewel is called Buddha, and what that means is – you when you're awake. Buddha is not the guy who lived 2500 years ago, it's you when you're concsious, when you're fully human, in Sanskrit it means „awake“, that means you're not in a trance. So the first jewel is Buddha, the fact that you are Buddha when you can remember yourself. The second jewel is called the Dharma which is the teachings of Buddha which is a path of being awake. And then the third jewel is called Sangha. Sangha means community. Because he realized that unless you have a group of people working together it's really hard for you to remember that you are Buddha, there are too many forces working against you. But even a small group of people working together has a much bigger effect. If you have three people it's not just adding three people, it makes a much bigger, exponential effect on the power of that. So it's part of why it's so important that we have groups of people. And that's why I've started these EmbodiedLife groups. In different cities they start to get together and support each other in learning how to be awake. So it's a paradox – it has to happen one person at a time, and it has to happen in groups.
But the good news is that there are many different groups around that are approaching this from slightly different points of view. They see that it's essencial that we become more human quickly. More human in the sense that the circle of our caring grows beyond our self, our family, our religious group, our national group... That's what's needed for human beings to survive – the growing of our care.
P.A. You are saying that you see a growing evolution of consciousness that is going on right now, and that it becomes more strong.
R.D. Simultaneously, I see a stronger level of fear and identification with small groups. And they're going on at the same time.
P.A. Can it happen that now in terms of consciousness there are different kinds of people, and may be one kind will survive? It is not any more so much about genetics but about consciousness. The principle of the division is different, but may be we can speak about one more move in this survival game in which the human kind with a more developed consciousness will win.
R.D. Well, I think it's uncertain, I don't think the story has been written. What I'm saying is that what I believe is that's a unique moment. Because the technology has changed the situation. There's only so much danger for big groups of people two hundred years ago, it was all local, relatively. Even what we thought of as a world war in the last century – even that's local compared to what's possible. And so, I really think it's a question right now: is consciousness evolving fast enough to keep the simultaneous movement of people who are seeking power for their small group from winning. And I really think that's a planetary question right now. Similarly I think that's the same question when we look at things like global warming, or we look at other dangers for the planet. The basis of capitalism is self-interest. But what happens if you start realizing that you can't survive if you maintain the value of self-interest, that we have to, not just to be nice but for survival, we have to be concerned about each other. And even be concerned about the planet. And that's a different consciousness!
P.A. What you are saying is like a logical conclusion. I find it beautiful that it can also be organic. It is not only because you see not just one but fifteen steps ahead. But you also have this intuition.
R.D. There is that inner sense. Awareness doesn't just grow in any direction. There is something organic, there is something that moves us towards a greater care. Or, if we really want to say it right, but for most people it's a little too imprecise, toward geater love. And the evolution of consciousness is actually towards expanded love, and that's what I mean by bigger care. And if it wasn't too much like the 60s we could say it's love that will save the planet. But love with intelligence. And personally I tend to be very optimistic about our capacity. And I'm also very realistic. As I look around then I look at the forces that work on the planet, and I know the strength of our narcissism, I know the strength of our self-absorbtion, I know the strength of our fear. Those are the forces that are fighting against this evolution of consciousness. So, it's quite a time to be alive.
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