For the briefest but necessary recap, the last post asserted that the Buddha taught that samskara, or "mental formations," gave rise to consciousness, a necessary condition to the existence of the Ego-Self. A couple Millenia later, Indian neurologist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran came to a similar conclusion, and stated that naturally occurring "mirror neurons" in the brain gave rise to mental models that let an observer put themselves into another person's shoes and look at the world from another's point of view. From there it was just a short step to turn that vison inward and create a mental model of yourself. This is the dawn of self-awareness, or consciousness. So both the Buddha and modern neurology agree that the concept on an abiding, independent self is created from our own mental models, or sanskara as they call it in Sanskrit. We exist because we assume we exist.
Okay, that's all fine and good for mystifying your neighbors at a cocktail party, and it should win you some approving nods from your friendly neighborhood guru. But the next revelation came to me as independently as my chance reading of neurology was from my practice of Zen. This time, I was reading about linguistics and the text referenced the concept of schema.
Schema, for lack of a better definition, are sets of conventions or assumptions held by a society, that are understood and tacit between two people talking, such as there is no need to mention them. "I had a tire blow out last night and I could barely control my car," someone might tell you. What they don't have to tell you, because it's understood, that they were driving a gasoline-powered vehicle with an internal combustion engine and four tires - two in front and two in back - along a paved public road with other similar vehicles on it. If anything were any different than that, they would have mentioned it, like they were on a motorcycle, or a horse was pulling their car for some reason.
When they say, "I had a tire blow out last night and I could barely control my car," you immediately and subconsciously draw on your own experience with cars and tires and maybe even blow-outs and create your own mental image, a model if you will, which we call a schema. Thus, schema equals mental model equals a form of samskara. As you discuss this unfortunate event with your friend, they will pick up from your comments if your schema needs any fine tuning. If you say, "That must have been scary late at night when no one was around to help," they will correct you if only happened at 6:00 pm, during the evening rush hour. If you say, "good thing the cops weren't around to give you a DUI," they will counter that they were quite sober, and the cops did come by and assist.
This is how we communicate. It saves time and energy. If your friend had to explain each and every aspect of the incident, like the make, model and description of the vehicle, the rules for driving, the existence of highways, and so on, it would take forever and they would never get to the point.
Here's my favorite example of how schema works. A very short story: "On her way to school, Mary was nervous about the math test." End of story. Your mind, based on your own personal experience with school and getting there and math tests, had already made its own schema, a mental picture of Mary on her way and worrying about the math test.
But let me make the very short story just a tiny bit longer. "On her way to school, Mary was nervous about the math test. Yesterday, she was barely able to control her students." Suddenly, your whole schema changes as your mind throws out one set of assumptions for another.
I propose that much of our problem communicating and understanding one another, much of the reason that we are so polarized politically, socially and economically, is because we have very different schema from each other but don't realize it. A so-called "Karen" sees three Black teenagers running in the parking lot of a mall, and her schema immediately perceives shoplifters evading the law. A Black mother may see them as three children in trouble, escaping harassment, possibly requiring her intervention and protection. A liberal progressive might see them as young men fleeing persecution or wrongful accusations. A college football coach might see three potential first-round draft picks. But when each reacts according to their own perception, according to the narrative they've constructed around the event, it conflicts with the perception and narratives of the other observers, and trouble ensues.
This isn't a hypothetical situation. Recently, on the NextDoor social media app, someone posted a story titled, "I Just Chased Three Blacks Running From Dick's Sporting Goods." Many people immediately jumped on his case and called him "racist" - what difference does their skin color make? He could more accurately have titled his post "I Just Chased Three Shoplifters Running From Dick's Sporting Goods." But to the schema of the original poster, "Blacks Running From Dick's Sporting Goods" and "shoplifters" meant the exact same thing - the words in his mind were virtually interchangeable.
The original poster was shocked and deeply offended when people accused him of racism. "I was just trying to give an accurate description," he claimed, "in case anyone else saw them." He followed them in his car for several miles, even as the dispatcher on 911 was telling him to back off and stop. Fortunately for everyone involved, they (the alleged shoplifters) got away before any violent confrontation occurred. The worst part of this story is that while he was pursuing another vehicle, calling 911 and heading toward some sort of potentially violent confrontation, his 9-year-old daughter was in the car with him.
For the record, yes, the poster was being racist - assuming they were shoplifters based on the color of their skin, and then seeing and labeling them simply as "Blacks" (not even "Black men" or "Black teenagers") and not "suspects" or "shoplifters" is the very definition of racism. But I digress.
We form schema based on our experience and on the society around us, our families and our upbringing, our reading, and our choice of news outlets. Our original poster's experience caused his schema to perceive the Black men as "shoplifters" as automatically and naturally as you first imagined that Mary was riding on a school bus. I don't mean to make excuses or justifications for his behavior, but our original poster was merely reacting to his hard-wired schema in the way that seemed natural and appropriate to him. That those same actions seem reckless and wildly inappropriate to some is due to the schema of others.
Thinking this through and applying it widely, almost everyone is acting according with their own schema, their mental models, their samskara. Sadly, though, some people have some really unfortunate sets of schema. The bizarre person who takes off his clothes and sits down in the road during rush hour is merely reacting to some tragic schema that somehow got locked in his head. The person who repeatedly lies and tells the American public that he didn't lose an election that he obviously and demonstrably lost is behaving in accordance with his own schema. The alcoholic slowly killing herself with one more little drinkie, drink, drink is perfectly in accord with her own schema.
Samskara, then, is not only the mental model that gives rise to consciousness and imagines us as various different Ego-Selves separated from the rest of the world, but is also the set of assumptions we've received during life from society and the world around us. Sometimes, it's amusing and even refreshing to see someone react to a different set of schema, but more often its confusing and upsetting, and the source of much of the conflict in the world.
tl;dr: Mary's a lousy teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment