June 17, 2015

June 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my eight and last response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Roger Bass. Even if Hamlet became a Zen Buddhist, he would never say “to be or not to be or neither.” Since his old repertoire would have been extinguished,, he would only say the word “neither,." His new Zen repertoire, which is without “to be or not to be” wouldn’t make any sense. Most likely, however, Hamlet wouldn’t say the word “either” either, because his Zen meditation would have taught that saying or thinking that word would trigger “to-be-or-not-to-be” private speech. Although as an enlightened Master Hamlet would have “public behavior” which would be “fluent, presumably very sensitive to the environment and seemingly without mediation,” behavior analysts aware of SVB would immediately hear that he was having NVB, even if he wasn’t opening his mouth. The emperor without clothes seems to have reincarnated into a Zen master without words.

The subject-object relation exists because of NVB and once NVB stops our faulty knowledge stops. Stated differently, once SVB begins, Zen-nonsense ssmply stops. It is not that “Other distinctions born from an I-world (subject-object) relation would also become untenable.” In SVB nothing becomes untenable, as the knowledge expressed in SVB is sufficient to the individual.   To be with “No I” and to have “no life or death and no I that suffers”, one must have SVB and one must of course be in a situation which allows SVB. Instead of creating such a situation Zen patriarchs create a situation for NVB, by being against talking. 

When I was in my teenage years, I read a lot of Zen literature. It helped me move beyond the Catholic thinking of the verbal community in which I had been raised. The dialogues between Zen masters and disciples delighted me because of the seemingly original answers that were given by the Zen masters. As I grew older and  familiarized myself with Zen meditation these dialogues seemed more and more dull.  I became interested in meditative communication.

 

When the meditation had ended, people would drink tea and slowly began talking again. Whenever that happened I felt disturbed and  the natural thing to do was to talk about it. However, every time I opened my mouth, I was rejected, avoided, stopped, punished, send away, shamed and ignored. It  was a painful period of my life, but I persisted with my inclination to talk about meditation. It seemed to me that the quietness and peacefulness we had experienced during our meditation should carry on in our talking. Although I wanted to achieve this, I was unable to accomplish it, but I was at the same time intrigued about why this was such an impossible thing to do. It was because of the repeated rejection and my failure to engage in what I now call SVB that I ended up talking with myself. 

 I was hyper-sensitive to rejection and predicted it correctly. It was  frustrating there seemed to be no way to talk about this. One day, I got on my bicycle, to go to some place where I used to hang out,, but while I was on my way there something stopped me. I was thinking about the people I was going to meet and I suddenly didn’t want to see them anymore. It would have been more of the same conversation. I had to do something, but didn’t know what. 

While I was thinking about my previous conversations,, I began to peddle my bicycle slower and slower until it came to a stop. I stood next to my bicycle and felt afraid. I was trembling and I was not successful in calming myself down. I stood there for couple of minutes, which seemed like an eternity. It was next to a canal and a big ship was slowly passing by. The bridge nearby was open. By looking around I regained a sense of calmness. I told myself to go home. For a moment, I thought I was going to ride my bicycle back home, but decided to walk back home with my bicycle in my hand. As I came closer to my home, the fear of not knowing what to do  increased. What was I to do? It seemed as if everything I could have done had been done. There was nothing left to do. My wife was at work and I was at home alone. 

I went into the empty attic of our house. There was only an old carpet on the wooden floor. I sat on that carpet and thought about Buddha who must have meditated often. I tried to close my eyes, but it was so sunny that I opened them again. I stared into the attic space and then I saw underneath the roof a small box. I was curious what was in it. It must have been left by the old people who used to live there. They were too old to climb the stairs and were now living on the ground floor. The box contained some old novels. I took them out one after the other, but then I saw a small gong. It had a string on it and I held it up by its string. I wondered if there was also a stick with a ball on it? I reached in the box and found it. I held the stick with the cotton ball in one hand and the gong in my other hand. I struck the gong and heard its sound and then I said to myself " sounds good.” As I said that I heard my voice and that I was sounding good. I instantly felt good It was a discovery. The gong taught me to sound good. When I sound good, I feel good. 

I had found what I had been looking for. This is how I wanted to talk. I wanted to sound good while I speak. I sat there striking the gong many times and while talking with myself tears rolled down my cheeks. I told myself that everything was going to be fine and that from now on I was going to listen to myself while I speak. I told myself that others can also listen to themselves while they speak and that we can talk like that. The well-being from listening to my own voice was so profound that I laid on my back and fell asleep. 

When I woke up I wanted to go to my friends and tell them about what I had found. I tried to explain it to them and told them about listening to myself and that they could also do that. It  didn’t work out very well. Many people were just as tired of me as I was of them. I had to go back again into my attic to hear my gong. When I struck it and matched its sound with the sound of my own voice, I realized  thatI had stopped listening to myself while I had been talking with my friends. I practiced again and again until I had found this peaceful sound, the sound with which I wanted to talk. 

Since at that time I didn’t know anything about behaviorism or about environments stimulating and maintaining my behavior, I was beating myself up over the fact that I again and again lost the sound with which I wanted to speak. Again and again I went back to my attic to practice by myself what I now call SVB. 

 My old friend Lak, who always drank and smoked pot, said that he liked what I did and he encouraged me to continue with it. With him I was able to explore for the first time what happens when two people listen to themselves while they speak together. We spend days talking with each other, while walking through the city, over the beach or in the park. Although I needed to repeatedly correct him because he was not listening to himself, he also numerous times corrected me because I was not listening to myself. As time went by and our friendship blossomed, a time during which he used less drugs and drank less, it became apparent that I had really found something. Especially when other friends joined us it became more and more interesting. SVB was and is totally enjoyable and energizing.