Articles & Essays Book Reviews

The Altering I/Eye: Consciousness, ‘Self’, and the New Paradigm in Acting

We are looking at the scene from the side, you and I. And yet for me alone is echoed in multiple mirrors of shifting centres each of which I call ‘I’, each one a subject which feels and suffers, which expects a word, which is redoubled in a scanner’s image, a concrete fragment that seems to partake with me of a mixture of intimacy and foreignness. (Varela, 2001, 259)

The self is forever changing, like a dream. (from the Majjhima Nikaya, in Bancroft, 2001, 115)

This article investigates selected perspectives on the body, world and ‘self’ in the changing views of the bodymind, consciousness and the relationship to the natural environment through scientific revolutions known as the New Paradigm during the Twentieth Century, and complementary aspects of the notion of ‘non-self’ in Buddhism. It explores ways in which these ideas may offer a helpful metaphor for approaching some of the complex areas surrounding the notion of consciousness and ‘self’ for the actor, and suggests an alternate model based in a psychophysical approach to acting, and the creation of a character for the actor, which they both are-and-are-not. This invites an approach to the bodymind within a particular framework in which the body and ‘self’ are seen and experienced as being in constant change, as a process rather than a fixed, separate object. William Blake, in his poem The Mental Traveller wrote, ‘For the eye altering, alters all’. If we change the way we see/perceive something, which alters our consciousness, we can change our reality of it. This article aims to offer a perspective through an altering of the eye that sees, and the ‘I’ that perceives the seeing, to lead to a shift in the understanding and experience of our-‘self’ as actor and character.

Natalie Crohn Schmitt has highlighted the way in which the notion of performance as event rather than object, can be understood through ideas from quantum physics:

In science, it has come to be understood that the event is the unit of all things real – that energy, not matter is the basic datum. In the increasingly widespread perception of reality as endless process, performance, not the art object, becomes primary. […] [T]he performance makes clear its nature as event rather than object. (Crohn Schmitt, 1990, 231 – 234)

David George has conducted a similar examination, and uses quantum physics as a metaphor in his suggestion that theatre ‘recognizes and enforces a conception of reality as plural and parallel, indeterminate and hypothetical, the co-creation of spectator-players – in a word, potential’. (George, 1989, 174) George also uses aspects of Buddhist theory to complement these ideas from the ‘new’ sciences. The work of both Crohn Schmitt and George has been an important step in understanding the potential that this new paradigm may offer. They have essentially focused on examining the performance and theatre event as an experiential phenomenon, and their arguments are key in this respect. My intention is to take a similar stance, but apply it specifically to the bodymind and ‘self’ of the actor, and question how this may articulate an altering of the I/eye with regard to both actor and character as being process and potential rather than a fixed, unchanging object. This metaphorical understanding of body and ‘self’ may help the actor in training their own bodymind, and in the creation of a character which they both are and are-not. Inherent in this is the paradox and complementarity of different aspects in a unified whole, as well as an infinite amount of potentialities from which one is chosen to be made into a reality in a particular point in time and space, which becomes the life of the character in a moment of the through-line of the play. This altering view is in part intended to avoid an over-identification on a psychological level with the idea of a ‘character’ as an-other ‘self’ which the actor becomes. Instead, if an actor approaches a character with a sense of a changing bodymind and ‘self’, they can firstly understand the way in which they construct their own ‘self’ through habitual patterns of their bodymind, and in turn this may assist in the creation of an-other set of patterns appropriate to the construction of the character in a specific moment of a play.

Drawing on key shifts in thought from fields of quantum physics, cognitive sciences and new views on evolutionary theory, as well as Buddhist philosophy and practice, the following issues inform this approach:

- instead of fixed, absolute ‘things’ or objects, there are patterns of interconnecting relationships;

- the interrelationship and interdependence between observer and observed, between ‘thinker’ and ‘doer, between theory and practice;

- the whole is larger than the sum of its parts, and is connectionist, non-central and nonlocal;

- complementarity, a ‘unity-of-opposites’, the way in which a sense of the whole is created through a synthesis of different factors, and how this leads to an embodied paradox of being;

- how our sense of a fixed, unchanging ‘self’ can be re-viewed to being a set of constantly shifting patterns, of many potential ‘selves’ that are me-and-not-me.

These basic ideas can be found within what has been termed the paradigm shift[1] within the Twentieth Century, which includes dramatic changes within science, particularly physics, neurophysiology, psychology, biology and evolutionary theory. These new theories have created a revision of not only the ‘natural world’, but also of the body and the lived experience of the body, and how both body and world are interconnected in a way which was not seen or believed to be possible in the previous lens for understanding reality. It has also marked a time in which there has been an increasing interest in Asian philosophies and practices within the West, which has left its influence on the development of western actor training throughout the 20^th Century. But ideas from science and philosophy in relation to the body have often been an important factor in the history of the theory of approaches to acting. As Joseph Roach points out:

[C]onceptions of the human body drawn from physiology and psychology have dominated theories of acting from antiquity to the present. The nature of the body, its structure, its inner and outer dynamics, and its relationship to the larger world that it inhabits have been the subject of diverse speculation and debate. (Roach, 1993, 11)

The paradigm shift in the new sciences disrupts the understanding and belief in ‘how we see the world’, which had been established through classical physics and philosophy from the Seventeenth Century. It requires, even demands, an enormous change in thinking and ways of seeing and perceiving that is, in a real sense, revolutionary. Marilyn Ferguson describes a paradigm shift as simply being ‘a distinctly new way of looking at old problems. […] [It is] a principle that was present all along, but unknown to us’. (Ferguson, 1982, 27, 28) One of the perspectives inherent within the new paradigm is a shift from a singularity of an absolute truth, vision or theory, to a plurality, or a complementarity of differences, a multiple set of possibilities, and an inability to hold onto one, single thing, and say ‘this is how it is’. It is within the many, the all, that the one whole can be found and is made from, and yet this one is not singular.

Within the context of the idea of pluralities and a synthesis of possibilities creating the whole, this examination will be both interdisciplinary and intercultural, to step beyond a single ‘truth’ or way of looking at ‘things’ and our-self. Not only is plurality and paradox an inherent factor within all the approaches that I will be using, but it can also be situated within a selection of contemporary re-evaluations of the structure and assumptions of systems of analysis and discourse that are occurring within interdisciplinary investigations. In their study The Embodied Mind, an interdisciplinary exploration of cognitive science and Buddhism, Varela et al explain that their proposition is to build a bridge between mind in science and mind in experience by articulating a dialogue between these two traditions of Western cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology. … We do not intend to build some grand, unified theory… [n]or do we intend to write a treatise of comparative scholarship. Our concern is to open a space of possibilities in which the circulation between cognitive science and human experience can be fully appreciated and to foster the transformative possibilities of human experience in a scientific culture. (Varela et al, 1991, xviii-xix)

I refer to this proposition as analogous to my own in this discussion, in that rather than intending to offer an absolute, unequivocal outcome, or a ‘grand, unified theory’, I hope to both ‘articulate a dialogue’ and ‘open a space of possibilities’ between various scientific theories in the New Paradigm, aspects of Buddhist philosophical psychology and cultivation practice, and selected theories and practices of a psychophysical approach to acting and the creation of character. Buddhist theory and practice contains ideas which are of great similarity to those being discovered within the New Paradigm, and indeed key figures within related movements, such as Fritjof Capra, Joanna Seed and Francisco Varela, have also investigated and articulated this connection. Buddhism, as I will discuss later, can be seen as a science rather than a religion. The Buddha wanted his students to become ‘scientists’, literally scientists of their ‘self’, and this scientific investigation through a system of mindfulness and insight practice into the processes of the bodymind, and creation of ‘self’, demonstrate similar findings to those of quantum physics and contemporary approaches to neurophysiology and evolutionary biology, and these may all help in constructing a new ‘picture’ of the changing body and ‘self’ for the contemporary actor. David Shaner discusses the potential usefulness of comparative studies in creating a different view to that which we have become accustomed, which can lead to an altering of habitual patterns of thinking and behaviour:

[D]ifferent cultures attach different values to particular modes of experience and produce distinctive philosophical structures. … Exploring new paradigms and atypical modes of thinking often inspire new and creative ways to examine age-old problems. Creativity is difficult when one’s thoughts are encrusted with stale habits. (Shaner, 1985, 25, 26)

Within the re-framings offered through the comparative views of the New Sciences and Buddhism, the nature of performance and acting itself can have great potential as a model of experiential understanding for creating different approaches to analysis and critical discourse in other disciplines. David George, in his re-reading of the epistemology of performance through Buddhist philosophy, suggests that

[p]erformance is not a new art form so much as a new paradigm: it offers not so much a new phenomenon as a new way of looking at ‘known’ existing phenomena, different ways of responding to them, experiencing them, thinking about them. (George, 2000, 26)

This article aims to offer a new way of seeing through an altering of the eye that sees, and the ‘I’ that perceives the seeing, leading to a suggestion of a movement from a fixed ‘self’ and separate body, to non-self and an ever-changing bodymind. So the changing body is not only the body-in-change, but the body-as-change, and this results in a change in understanding and experience of our-“self”, which questions our whole perception of the way in which ‘I’ as a separate being exist at all.

The following discussion of aspects of the paradigm shift in the Twentieth Century will highlight ideas that will then be used as a way of seeing and perceiving the bodymind and ‘self’ in relation to aspects of Buddhist philosophy, and in the context of acting.

To See or Not to See: the changing view of the bodymind

Physicist Dana Zohar explains that ‘physics, like all science, began in the realm of daily experience. It began with wonder and with questions of how and why things worked, with the kind of questions we all ask about our world and our place within it. […] Through history we have drawn our conception of ourselves and our place in the universe from the current physical theory of the day’. (Zohar, 1991, xii, 2) The paradigm shift that occurred in science and philosophy in the Seventeenth Century saw ‘things’ as separate individuals in a mechanistic, mathematical and completely measurable universe. Cartesian dualism became the basis of classical physics, and the main influence on the development of the work of the man whose ideas have shaped so much of the way the world is ‘seen’: Isaac Newton. His Principia Mathematica in 1687 defined a model whereby ‘the entire physical world could be known and mastered through the extension and refinement of mathematical theory [which] became the central feature and guiding principle of scientific knowledge’. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, ix) The separation of mind and matter/nature allowed ‘scientists to concentrate on developing mathematical descriptions of matter as pure mechanisms in the absence of any concerns about its spiritual dimensions or ontological foundations’. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, ix)

In Newton’s world, everything is fixed and determined, and fundamentally mechanistic: atoms move through space in set patterns bumping into each other, but these interactions do not change their individual nature because of the separateness. In this clockwork view of the universe, nothing new can happen, and free will and consciousness play no part in creating this model that is utterly measurable and definable. This was also the view of the body, that it is mathematical and mechanistic, and separate from what can be seen and known by the mind to which this model is being revealed by a divine agency. We become separate, individual, fixed and thinking ‘selves’, where the whole is reduced to the sum of its parts, and everything can be measured and observed by the ‘I’ that thinks and the ‘eye’ that sees. For Descartes, ‘the sense of science was to be sight’ (Classen, Howes and Synnott, 1994, 88) and in his Rules he stated that ‘we cannot doubt “what we can clearly and perspicuously behold”’. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, 393) This creates a correlation between the sense of sight with the reasoning/perceiving power of the mind, separating it from the body and the other senses, which has dominated much of western philosophical and cultural thinking and practice. The world was observable and measurable by a separately existing scientist, who was in a superior position to that which they observed, and hence did not affect their experiment through their observation. For Descartes and Newton, to see is to know, and the ‘I/eye’ that sees is itself fixed and separate, and does not alter what it perceives and sees.

Within this context, it is an irony that it was initially the study of light, which has so often been the metaphor for the truth of what can be seen and known, that became the source of study in the paradigm of the new physics in the Twentieth Century, which led to Newton’s ideas being shadowed by ‘a vision of physical reality that is not visualizable, or which cannot be constructed in terms of our normative seeing of everyday experience’. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 19) In the altered picture created by quantum physics, a new world of particles, waves and space opens up in the ‘tiny micro-world within the atom’, (Zohar, 1991, 4) where opposites exist in a unified, complementary whole, which is in constant flux, and utterly interconnected and interdependent in a nonlocalised, shifting pattern, that cannot be perceived as separate from the scientist as observer and their experiment.

One of the major shifts within this new paradigm is that, unlike in classical physics where ‘truth’ was based on sight, in the quantum realm nothing can be truly observable and quantifiable by our usual understanding of seeing and knowing. This is partly because actual experiments of much of the theories are simply not possible, as it might involve having to travel at the speed of light, and over distances which are immeasurable to us. As a result, much of the interpretation of the quantum world is done through ‘thought experiment’, by the imagination, and not by the separate eye that sees and knows through observation. Peter Forrest explains that thought experiment is not an attempt to replace actual experiment by a priori considerations. Rather, it is a way of bringing out the consequences of quantum theory. But it so happens that the thought experiments […] are like actual experiments, and the results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Actual experiments could also bring out the surprising consequences of the quantum theory, but not as clearly. (Forrest, 1988, 56)

The validity of the theory is proved by what can be visualised in the imagination, rather than what can be visually ‘seen’ by the eyes observing an experiment ‘for real’. The quantum world extends far beyond our everyday understanding and perception of reality, because ‘quantum mechanical events cannot be directly perceived by the human sensorium, [so] we are not normally aware that every aspect of physical reality emerges through the interaction of fields and quanta’. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 50) Our picture of reality in the new paradigm cannot be seen and experienced through our everyday use of the senses: it is the imaginative understanding of this new world that enables us to enter into it as a reality. For Nadeau and Kafatos:

The entrance fee for the uninitiated is a willingness to free oneself from the constraints of everyday visualizable reality and to freely exercise the imagination. Although this brave new world may seem, initially at least, quite bizarre, it represents, from a scientific point of view, the ‘way things are’. What is most important about this journey for our purposes, however, is that it leads to an understanding of nature in which there is no radical separation between mind and world, and no basis for believing in the construct of a homeless mind. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 39)

What is that we find if we enter into this bizarre new world? One key point is that of wave/particle duality. Particles are point-like substances, and exist in a particular location in time and space, whereas waves are constantly shifting, unlocatable undulations. At a subatomic level, both these seeming opposites exist at the same time in the Principle of Complementarity.[2] For Newton, only particles existed as matter, but in the quantum view, both particles and waves are matter, and are together what matter is. However it is only possible to observe matter either as particles or as waves at one time: the whole picture cannot be seen/known by the eye/I. This paradoxical reality can only be imagined, and remains unseen, and yet this is the nature of quanta. In the quantum world, particles and waves change state without any perceivable cause, electrons leap from one orbit to another, and ‘there exist no actual ‘things’ but rather myriad possibilities of countless actualities’. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 15) These infinite possibilities and probabilities are resolved/dissolved into a specific actuality at the point of observation/interaction, so who and how the ‘self’ perceives and behaves is interdependently creating the specific situation that occurs. Both ‘self’ and ‘world’ are made present in each moment by and through the choices, actions and reactions that create our sense of reality.

This is ‘seen’ even more clearly in new views on evolutionary theory and biology where, as in quantum physics, the whole in larger than the sum of its parts, and reality emerges from the interconnections and relationships between the behaviour of all organisms. In moving onwards from observing the microcosm/macrocosm of the quantum universe, what this biological view shows is a way to a new understanding of body, and hence self, where the body and self are always in change, because they are creating reality through their changing and constant interaction with the world. For Nadeau and Kafatos:

In the so-called new biology, a new view of the relationship between parts and wholes has emerged that is remarkably analogous to that disclosed in the new physics. … Our current understanding of the relationship between parts and wholes in the biological sciences not only obliges us to abandon purely reductionist explanations of complex biological processes. It also suggests that some aspects of the dynamics of Darwinian evolution are in need of revision. (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 12)

Classical or traditional evolutionary theory saw the environment as fixed and pre-given, therefore independent and separate from the human ‘self’. Contemporary evolutionary theory is offering a different view, one in which the environment cannot be separated from the organisms within it. Richard Lewontin writes:

The organism and the environment are not actually separately determined. The environment is not a structure imposed on living beings from outside but is in fact a creation of those beings. The environment is not an autonomous process but a reflection of the biology of the species. Just as there is no organism without an environment, so there is no environment without an organism. […] [In this way] the organism is both the subject and object of evolution. (Nisker, 2000, 198, 199)

The I/eye creates not only its-self, but its entire environmental surroundings: the inner and outer cannot be separated. Susan Oyama explains: ‘as extraorganismal environment is made internal by psychological or biochemical assimilation, so internal state is externalized through products and behaviour that select and organize the surrounding world’. (Nisker, 2000, 199) This is an enormous paradigm shift from a separate, superior I/eye that is interpreting representations from an objective, independent environment. The system is choosing which stimuli it reacts to, and this becomes a learned, habitual process as ‘over time each organism forms its unique, individual pathway of structural changes in the process of development. Since the structural changes are acts of cognition, development is always associated with learning.’ (Capra, 1997, 261) Through this habitual choice, each system creates ‘its own world according to its own distinctive structure. As Varela puts it, “mind and world arise together”’. (Capra, 1997, 262) As in the picture from quantum physics, there are an infinite number of possibilities and probabilities available from which the bodymind, in each moment, chooses its own presence and reality.

This leads on to the question of the relationship between body and ‘self’ – who am I, if not my-self? And whose is this body, if not mine? But can I really say this is ‘my’ body, thus claiming ownership of the whole ecological system that this body comprises of, and the entire history of evolutionary life to which it belongs, and label it as my-‘self’? A very real example of how new developments in biomedicine and philosophy are forcing this question to be examined, is through what might be considered the most body-changing of all experiences: organ transplantation. Francisco Varela was not only a biological scientist, but also a phenomenologist. Towards the end of his life he had a liver transplant, and during the following few years before his death, kept a journal of observations based in his own knowledge of the biological body, and his experiential life through the lens of phenomenology. This account contains some extremely moving and beautifully poetic reflections on a changed and changing body, and a personal interrogation into how a sense of ‘self’ can be invested into a body when a part of it has come from someone else:

I have received someone else’s organ! […] I’ve got a foreign liver inside me. Again the question: Which me? Foreign to what? We change all the cells and molecules of a liver every few weeks. It is new again, but not foreign. The foreignness is the unsettledness of the belonging with other organs in the ongoing definition that is an organism. […] ‘Self’ is just the word used by immunologists to designate the landscape of macromolecular profiles that sit on the cell surfaces and announce the specificity of a tissue during development. […] The self is also an ongoing process every time new food is ingested, new air is breathed in, or the tissues change with growth and age. The boundaries of the self undulate, extend and contract, and reach sometimes far into the environment, into the presence of multiple others. (Varela, 2001, 260, 262, 263)

This journey through the new paradigm of the Twentieth Century, from the vastness and minutiae of an ever-shifting quantum world, to the changing body in evolutionary theory, where ‘mind and world arise together’ to give an altered view, a new picture of a body in constant process and interplay with the world, of a non-separate and non-fixable ‘me’ or ‘you’, is echoed in Varela’s very real experience that points to his observations that body and self are in ‘an ongoing process’. This is the changing and changed body seen in the new sciences, as opposed to Descartes’ and Newton’s view of the world and mind as distinct, body and mind as separate, and a fixed, immutable ‘self’ that is located in the seeing and reasoning of the thinking mind. But now, the I/eye is altered: we can see and be in a another way, and this may offer a new world of possibilities to the actor in understanding both their own ‘self’, and the creation of an imagined world and character made present through infinite possibilities actualising into a specific reality.

The views discussed from the New Sciences resonate strongly with those from the embodied practice and philosophy of Buddhism, and this next section will introduce complementary aspects from Buddhist thought related to the notion of ‘self’ and ‘non-self’, to further open up a dialogue of possibilities of the nature of consciousness and the bodymind for the actor.

As stated previously, the Buddha encouraged his students to think of his teachings in terms of being a science, rather than a religion. He wanted the students to become their own scientists, literally, scientists of their ‘self’. Buddhism is not a disembodied philosophy or theory, but instead offers a very practical and pragmatic study of and investigation into the nature and processes of the bodymind. Through this, there can be a realisation and understanding of the way in which we construct the idea of ‘self’, our ‘self’, or who and how I am. One of the 3 Characteristics of Existence in Buddhist terms is anattā in Pali, anātmā in Sanskrit, which means ‘non-self’. Essentially, Buddhism believes that there is no abiding identity, no permanent ‘I’, no fixed ‘self’, which continues unaltered from moment to moment. Instead, there is a constantly changing or evolving pattern of reactions happening within the bodymind organism. The Buddha stressed the need for investigation through the practice of awareness or mindfulness into the entire processes of the bodymind in each moment to understand this at an organic level, rather than as an intellectual idea. G.P. Malalasekera explains: ‘in the Buddha’s teaching, the individual’s being is a becoming, a coming-to-be, something that happens, an event, a process.’ (in George, 2000, 53) There is a constant movement or stream of ever-shifting patterns, from which humans create a sense of continuity, labelled as the ‘self’, and which we believe to be the same ‘self’ existing through each moment. The Sri Lankan Buddhist monk and scholar, Walpola Rahula explains that instead of the ‘self’ being a fixed object, the ‘series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it is not the same flame nor is it another’ (Rahula, 1959, 34) (in Pali: na ca so na ca anno: ‘neither the same nor another’).

If there is nothing but continuous movement, then what is it that is moving? In all of the Buddhist traditions, it is the five skhandas (Sanskrit)/khanda (Pali) which make up the sense of a permanent ‘self’. Skhanda is usually translated as ‘aggregate’, but a more appropriate term would be ‘heap’ or ‘bundle’. The skhandas are the building blocks of the ‘I’. Varela et al explain that ‘[a]ll five [khandas] together constitute the psychophysical complex that make up a person and that makes up each moment of experience.’ (Varela et al, 1991, 68) The five skhandas in order are:

The five skhandas are usually experienced together as a process, which gives the sense of continuity of experience. Their individual investigation by breaking up each moment to explore the stages separately, shows how each moment is constructed by and through the skhandas. It is when ‘these five physical and mental aggregates which are interdependent are working together in combination as a physio-psychological machine, we get the idea of ‘I’’. (Rahula, 1959, 26) What is perceived as being a continuity of experience, is actually a succession of events: there is contact through the senses with an object in the world, followed by recognition, evaluation and categorization, resulting in the decision to a particular action.

Each moment of experience is ‘only a combination of ever-changing physical or mental forces or energies’, (Rahula, 1959, 20) which are divided into the skhandas. It is the way in which the five aggregates operate and interrelate that creates ‘the character – the color and taste – of a particular moment of consciousness.’ (Varela et al, 1991, 68) It is also the skhandas that create the sense of ‘self’, which is ‘a convenient name or a label given to the combination of the five groups. They are all impermanent, all constantly changing.’ (Rahula, 1959, 25) It is the way in which the skhandas combine that creates our ‘personality’, the way we perceive, think about, and respond, that is familiar or habitual to us so as to be recognizable as ‘me’. An investigation into each moment will reveal that the way that moment is seen and acted upon is created through the skhandas, all of which are constantly in change – there is nothing abiding or permanent within them. As one thing ceases, it conditions the beginning of the next.

The picture that the paradigm of Buddhism offers is of an ever-changing bodymind with no central, fixed abiding ‘self’: a constant altering of the I/eye with the in-sight of mindfulness, to see that I do not exist in the way that I may have thought that I did. The 13^th century Zen master Dōgen wrote in his Genjo-koan, the ‘koan realised in life’:

To forget the self is to become one with all things of the world. (Nisker, 2000, 191)

Self-awareness, self-investigation and self-understanding leads not to self-consciousness, but to self-forgetfulness, which is non-self, and this forgetfulness of self in turn leads to the realization of the interconnectedness with all other things. In this way, the New Paradigm of science in the 20^th Century, is echoing the findings of Buddhism over 2,500 years. It is not surprising then, as stated earlier, that many key figures within the New Paradigm have also referred to or practiced Buddhism. The picture that is offered in this view: of non-self, and ever-shifting patterns within a constantly changing bodymind, reacting in particular ways in each moment which creates the sense of ‘I’, can be applied to the paradigm of acting to offer an alternate approach to understanding the nature of the ‘self’ of both actor and character.

Michael Chekhov suggests that actors have a deep ‘desire for transformation, [or] speaking our theatrical language, a desire for characterization’. (Chekhov, 1996, audiocassette 1) The idea of transformation at a psychophysical level suggests a fluidity of the idea of ‘self’, which has the potential to change and evolve in an ongoing process, rather than being fixed and immutable. The view of self’, body and world offered in this discussion of the New Paradigm and Buddhism, is now applied to the process of acting, in an attempt to suggest that if the idea of a fixed and permanent ‘self’ as object is altered to that of an ever-changing shift of patterns which is non-self, then this can help the actor in training their own bodymind, and in the creation of a character which they both are and are-not. Inherent in this is the paradox and complementarity of different aspects in a unified whole, as well as an infinite amount of potentialities from which one is chosen to be made into a reality in a particular point in time and space, which becomes the life of the character in a moment of the through-line of the play. This altering view is in part intended to avoid an over-identification on a psychological level with the idea of a ‘character’ as an-other ‘self’ which the actor becomes, which might be situated within the realm of Descartes and Newton, with a fixed and separate ‘self’ and ‘other’. Instead, if an actor approaches a character with a sense of ‘self’-forgetfulness’, they can firstly understand the way in which they construct their own ‘self’ through habitual patterns of their bodymind, and in turn this may assist in the creation of an-other set of patterns appropriate to the construction of the character in a specific moment of a play.

Throughout the changing paradigm of approaches to actor training in the 20^th Century, there has been a move towards a psychophysical understanding of a unified bodymind and world, and an altered approach to the ‘I’ of actor and character. Alison Hodge suggests that two of the ‘key factors of the early twentieth-century interest in actor training are partly a knowledge of Eastern traditions, partly the influence of objective scientific research.’ (Hodge, 2000, 3) One of the most influential figures who reflects this is Konstantin Stanislavsky, whose interest in yoga and western science, particularly Ribot and Pavlov, led to his development of a new approach to actor training and performance. Stanislavsky wanted to find the creative state for the actor though his understanding of behaviour and conditioning, and the training of the bodymind of the performer, and describes this state as ja esm, or ‘I am Being’. This state is ‘the actor’s sense of being fully present in the dramatic moment. A term that functions in the System as a synonym for ‘experiencing’’. (Carnicke, 1998, 174) This experiencing is a complete engagement of the bodymind with the action, where rather than ‘actor’ or ‘character’, there is a combination of ‘experience and imagination, physical characteristics and written script.’ (Benedetti, 1998, 10)

To address this within the realms of the paradigm shift in the Twentieth Century, I would like to propose a process of interrelating complementarity, in which both me and not-me co-exist, and where there is a correlation between conditioning/reconditioning and neutrality. By neutrality in this context, I am specifically using the definition by Jacques Lecoq, who described the neutral state as being ‘a state combining calm and curiosity’. (Lecoq, 2000, 15) It is from this open, ready and engaged state that the potential possibilities in a present and presenting moment are available to the actor, and from which she can select one to be/become. However ‘neutral’ is not completely blank and formless: the empty space is never really empty in the quantum universe, rather it is full of moving particles which are potentials waiting to be actualised in any moment. Being calm and curious is certainly not a blank state of emptiness with no-thing present: it is rather a bodymind filled with potential. This idea of neutrality as being a state of calm and curiosity that can lead to a transformation of the psychophysical being in each moment, could be seen as being an ideal, since often what tends to be manifested are instead habitual patterns of the bodymind caused by conditioning. It is this conditioning that creates a psychophysical event which is labelled as ‘me’, because the particular habitual reactions lead to conditioned patterns - physical, mental and emotional - which are familiar, and therefore are recognizable as ‘me’ and ‘mine’. This very process leads to the paradox: we are creatures of habit, this is how we live and learn, but this can result in a fixed and singular sense of ‘self’. However, conditioning also offers the possibility for re-conditioning, and it is this that may help in the realisation of the infinite potential of ‘selves’ that can emanate from a neutral state of openness and playfulness in the actor.

The idea of conditioning, as stated, played a major part in the development of approaches to actor training in the work of Stanislavksy, and in turn also on Lee Strasberg’s approach to Method acting in America. Pavlov researched the physiology of the digestive system, which led to his experimentation of conditioned reflexes, in which he famously conditioned a dog to salivate in response to the sound of a bell without the need for the sensory stimulus of a piece of meat. Pavlov developed the idea of reflexes from the work of Descartes, in terms of seeing the body as a machine which functions according to established patterns of behaviour in the connection between a stimulus and a response, which can be trained:

It is obvious that the different kinds of habits based on training, education and discipline of any sort are nothing but a long chain of conditioned reflexes. We all know how associations, once established and acquired between definite stimuli and our responses, are persistently and, so to speak, automatically reproduced. (Pavlov, 1960, 395)

Pavlov’s physiological experimentation was later developed into Behaviourism in America through the work of psychologist John B. Watson (1878-1958). Whilst it is not possible in this article to go into a detailed discussion of the work of Stanislavski, and consequently Strasberg, in relation to Pavlov and conditioned reflexes, they have both stressed the importance of the idea of conditioning in connection with an examination of the behaviour and emotional life of the character. Roach points out that:

To both Pavlov and Stanislavski, behaviour consists of chains of physical adaptations, continuous transitions in the direction of the stream of consciousness caused by physical stimuli. (Roach, 1993, 208)

This contributed to Stanislavski’s development of the Method of Physical Actions, where the actor performs a chain of actions which have a logic in terms of the conditioned behaviour of the character: ‘Going from one episode to another, the actor gradually clarifies for himself the whole line of his behaviour, of his conflict, of his logic during the entire course of the play’. (Toporkov, 1979, 211)

If the idea of conditioning and reconditioning of the bodymind is re-viewed through the altering eye/I of the new paradigm shift, then this may offer a realm of potentiality to the actor in approaching the paradoxical complementarity of the notion of character as being both ‘me-and-not-me’. Quantum physics and Buddhsim have indicated that ‘self’ and world are interdependently creating their reality in each moment according to choices, actions and reactions in that moment. These choices are often based in what could be described as conditioned reflexes that have been learnt and established as habitual responses, or to repeat Oyama: ‘over time each organism forms its unique, individual pathway of structural changes in the process of development’. (Nisker, 2000, 199) However this does not indicate a fixed organism, which remains separate and unchanging in a psychological sense of ‘self’. As Varela has expressed it, ‘mind and world arise together’ (Capra, 1997, 262) and mutually create each other in a specific reality from the ‘myriad possibilities of countless actualities’. (Zohar, 1991, 15) Conditioning may imply a predilection for a particular manifestation of bodymind patterns, but within a nonlocal and emerging universe, the ‘self’ is constantly re-creating its-self in each present, so there is no permanent, fixed ‘me’ that continues from moment to moment. If the belief in a separate and abiding ‘I’ is removed, and instead the understanding of constantly shifting ‘selves’ from an infinite potential of possibilities is seen, then the actor is not limited to how ‘I’ usually am, and therefore can allow a greater ability for psychophysical transformation. Conditioning in terms of learnt habitual patterns still exists, but if this is not labelled as ‘me’, then re-conditioning or the learning of new patterns and possibilities can take place, which are also not-‘me’ or ‘mine’.

I explore this view of body, world and ‘self’ in my own work with actors. Based on the idea of non-self I use the term ‘states of being’ for the actor, which are specific patterns of body, mind, imagination, breath and subtle energies that exist and operate within a person at any given moment. By exploring what these precise patterns might be in a particular situation or experience in relation to breathing, posture, facial expression and gesture, the actor can then recreate and embody them in a performance situation to re-present states of bodymind, which can be linked together to create a sense of ‘character’ and narrative. This co-ordinates body, mind and breath in a way that fully engages the whole psychophysical organism with the image and action being performed. In this way, there is no separate ‘me’ doing the action, there is simply action. The sense of self, of ‘I’, is bound up with conditioned psychophysical habits and reactions, and the choices that we make in relation to the world around us, whereas the state of non-self is transcending that to allow for a new ‘state of being’, or character, in the organism. In this way, the ‘self’ of both actor and character can be re-viewed as being a potential of ever-shifting patterns made manifest in this moment, and is an emerging and emergent process. Therefore, if a particular bodymind pattern is manifested that consists of shallow, rapid breathing, a raised body temperature, and extreme tension in the shoulders and stomach, can I say this is ‘me’ or ‘my character’ being angry? Could it instead be seen as a ‘state of being’ which has been deliberately created in this moment through an understanding of conditioned responses for the purpose of performing ‘anger’, but it is not ‘me’. It is rather a potential that has been manifested in this moment as a choice. When this moment of performing anger has passed, ‘I’ am a different psychophysical being, so can it still be ‘me’? As Varela questioned in relation to his own body: ‘Which me? […] The self is an ongoing process’. (Varela, 2001, 262, 263)

The actor first needs to study themselves as actors, as individual people, in order to be able to see and understand what their particular habits and conditionings are, and how they construct their sense of self and identity, to refer back to the need to ‘study’ the self before ‘forgetting’ the self as stated earlier in Dōgen’s Genjo-koan. It is only then that they can begin to explore how to let go of these habits and conditionings, in order for their bodyminds to express a different psychophysical state, which can be labelled a character, that is filling the bodymind, but is ‘not-me’. To repeat the Pali phrase, na ca so, na ca anno, it is neither the same, nor another, which could be considered as a helpful way of explaining the acting process of playing a character within the framework of the paradoxical New Paradigm. In terms of a training and performance process for the actor, this is where complete awareness and understanding of the bodymind allows for total engagement with the action, which leads to getting the ‘self’ out of the way to a point where in the moving, there is just the movement. The sense of ‘I’ is forgotten because we are performing a psychophysical pattern which is ‘not-I’, ‘non-self’. There is no fixed self of either actor or character acting the action, there is only action. If there is a holding on to a fixed sense of ‘self’ in a psychological sense, then this paradox is not possible. But if the I/eye is altered to seeing this as a possibility in the realms of the paradigm shift and within the ‘non-self’ of Buddhism, then a memory of a personal experience can be used to evoke a particular ‘self’ in this moment, but it is not ‘me’ in a singular and absolute sense. This means there is no need to identify with it as being ‘me’, so it can pass through this moment and change in the next, without being limited by habitual patterns associated with the idea of ‘me’ as fixed and permanent. As Michael Chekhov states, ‘If we could stop all the old habits, other impulses would come which are more subtle, much finer. […] It can be done only if we can discard all our habits. […] Then you will see that you are not poorer but actually much richer and more expressive as actors.’ (Chekhov, 1985, 40 71) This is where the idea of neutrality, of a state of potential, or ‘myriad possibilities of countless actualities’, (Zohar, 1991, 15) offers a way in to a quantum world for the actor where they can ‘freely exercise the imagination’, (Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999, 39), and become both me-and-not-me, simply playing/being the action, with no actor to be found.

Works Cited

Carnicke, Sharon, 1998, Stanislavski in Focus, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Chekhov, Michael, 1985, Lessons for the Professional Actor, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.

Chekhov, Michael, 1996, Michael Chekhov on Theatre and the Art of Acting: The Five-Hour Master Class, ed. Mel Gordon and Mala Powers, New York: Magi.

Classen, Constance, Howes, David, and Synnott, Anthony, 1994, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell, New York: Routledge.

Crohn Schmitt, Natalie, 1990, ‘Theorizing about Performance: Why Now?’, NTQ, Vol. VI, No. 23, 231-234.

Ferguson, Marilyn, 1982, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and social transformation in the 1980’s, London: Granada.

George, David, 1989, ‘Quantum Theatre – Potential Theatre: a New Paradigm?’, NTQ, Vol. V, No. 18, 171-179.

George, David, 2000, Buddhism as/in Performance, New Dehli: D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd.

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M, 1999, Philosophy In The Flesh, New York: Basic Books.

Lecoq, Jacques, 2000, The Moving Body: teaching creative theatre, trans. David Bradby, London: Methuen.

Nadeau, Robert and Kafatos, Menas, 1999, The Non-Local Universe: the new physics and matters of the mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. ix.

Pavlov, Ivan, 1960, Conditioned Reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex, trans. and ed. G. V. Anrep, New York: Constable.

Roach, Joseph, 1993, The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Shaner, David, 1985, The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism: A Phenomenological Study of Kūkai and Dōgen, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Strasberg, Lee, 1966, Strasberg at the Actors Studio, ed. Robert H. Hethmon, London: Jonathan Cape.

Toporkov, Vasily, 1979, Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years, New York: Routledge.

Varela, Francisco, J, 2001, ‘Intimate Distances: Fragments for a Phenomenology of Organ Transplantation’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, no 5 – 7, 259-271

Varela, F, Thomspon, E, Rosch, E, 1991, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, Cambridge, USA and London: MIT Press.

[1] Thomas Kuhn first used the term ‘paradigm shift’ in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

[2] The Principle of Complementarity was developed by physicist Niels Bohr.