Dancing with the Abyss
“And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” ~Nietzsche
This post only appears to deal with tango. My interest in Tango lies in the way it so beautifully expresses the principles of the Alexander Technique. Thus, like most things I say or write about Tango, the real subject here goes far beyond tango. What we will consider goes to the heart of all artistic activities, ultimately illuminating the creative heart of everyday living.
We begin with a tango teacher admonishing the leaders in his class by saying, “It’s not your body . . . always give your partner time to make the movements you want.” There is something very nice there. Connection demands that we give each other time to respond. We worry so much over the ends of things, and this creates a tension that bends us toward the past and the future––sometimes simultaneously. But we can only dance NOW. If we look deeply into the dance, we can begin to see how our reactiveness manifests, how habits control us, how the discursive mind whirs, how we try, especially perhaps as beginners, to make this wild phoenix a tame little chic. But when we really look deeply, we may tremble. We arrive at a place where Nietzsche’s quote transcends its existence as an overly sweetened fortune cookie. Instead, when we break it open we find, not a fragment of kitsch, but bundle of invitations from playful gods and goddesses: invitations to dance, invitations to laugh and to cry, invitations to let go of what we think we are and allow ourselves be moved by rhythms divine.
What I am getting at: the suggestion of this teacher takes us only to the EDGE of the abyss. To dance right into it, into that brilliant light that from the edge appears as terrifying darkness, we have to go further: Why is he only pointing out that HER body is not my body? Shouldn’t I ask if MY body is really my body? How does dancing HAPPEN? NOW we can fall:
“Our bodies do not belong to us.” ~Kōdō Sawaki Roshi
Let that sink in. What does it mean? We need to really LOOK here. Is this Zen baloney, or is this guy speaking from concrete experience? Here’s the full quote:
Our bodies do not belong to us. They are the true activity of the life of the great universe. That is to say, our bodies are the great universal life. The proof that this body is the life of the universe is in zazen. In zazen, you place your hands like this and cross your legs and do nothing at all with regard to yourself. By doing zazen in this manner, your body will become the reality of the great universe.
IF this is true, if we should take this as something important, something that can actually guide our development as dancers, at ANY level, then we can rewrite that like so:
Our bodies do not belong to us; the dance does not belong to us. The dance is the true activity of the life of the great Cosmos. Life is Dance. Our body is the Cosmic body dancing. The proof of this can be found in Tango. You take a woman (or a man) in your arms and do nothing at all. You connect fully and allow yourself to be moved. Your body and your dance then become the reality of the great Cosmos.
Sawaki Roshi put the matter this way as well: “Zazen is not the life of an individual; it is the universe that is breathing.” Likewise: dancing is not the life of an individual or of two individuals; it is the universe that is breathing and dancing. Indeed, he INSISTS on this point, again and again. Below are several quotes from Sawaki Roshi. Just make the translations yourself. For instance, where it says “zazen,” replace it with “Tango,” and where it speaks of Buddha, keep it as Buddha, or change it to "Kali," or “Dance,” or “great dancer,” or “genuine person,” or “true self,” or “faithful Christian”:
“Zazen is the purity of one’s own nature through the body . . . . In zazen . . . [you] take a pause from everything. Don’t think in terms of good or bad, or judge right from wrong. Stop the movement of consciousness. Refrain from the calculation of ideas. Don’t seek to be a Buddha . . .”
“The universe and I are of the same root. The myriad things and I are one body. That is zazen.”
“If you sit with faith in zazen, you will be a Buddha.”
“We stop the one who can’t cease from seeking things outside, and practice with our bodies with a posture that seeks absolutely nothing. This is zazen.”
“Though it is thought that zazen and faith are different and said that zazen is not [related] to faith, doing zazen in this way, becoming intimate with the self, creating a very clear self, is what I call faith.”
We can see here the value of Tango in spiritual practice, in our growth as human beings, in the nourishment of our relationships, and more. This is why I advocate Tango (and the Alexander Technique) as Practice, as Way. Of course, I make no distinction between Dance and Life, and this is why lessons in the Alexander Technique are to me just lessons in dancing, in how to dance your life. This is also why I teach tango-infused Alexander Work. My concern is not with technique, but with this deeper issue. These quotes also hint at the importance of zazen or some other form of contemplative practice as a foundation for DEEP “progress” in Tango or Alexander Work. Of course, one can also consult the scientific literature to understand this point.
It is important to realize that we are not pursuing “Zen ideas” here. This is about your LIFE. It has to do with tapping into the sources of creativity, living an inspired life, understanding the nature of free will, seeing into our reactiveness and our many habits of thought and action. What is the relationship between fate and freedom? Who is DOING my life if I’m not? Martin Buber points at the moon:
Fate and freedom are promised to each other. Fate is encountered only by him that actualizes freedom. That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me. But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me . . . he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance––this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom. It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate––with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light––looks like grace itself.
Can I hear an “Amen”? Or a Shalom, or a Shazam, or an Om Namah Shivaya! Let that Buber vibe sink in. Catch some of the resonance: “the deed that INTENDS me,” “this MOVEMENT of my freedom,” “I cannot accomplish it the way I INTENDED,” “freedom and fate EMBRACE . . . to form MEANING,” “fate . . . full of LIGHT––looks like GRACE itself.” The whole of Tango’s mystery is there. The Dance intends US, it accomplishes itself THROUGH us, not as we think it SHOULD, as we try to tame it and make it known, but as it must be. The dancers embrace within the embrace of the Dance, and in the midst of all this embracing, “leader” and “follower” fall away, I-It relationships vanish, two Thou’s become fully empowered by their own receptivity, and the MEANING of Life, which cannot be SAID, is now DANCED. This, THIS, is Grace. Graceful dancers follow the curves and contours of fate as it lovingly whispers with freedom. We see Grace and we soak in a truly aesthetic experience because, as Joseph Campbell would put it, the dancers have become metaphysically significant: they have carried “the radiance of the transcendent into the field of time.”
We should keep looking, though. We THINK we understand. But do we? In the beautiful little story, Zen in the Art of Archery, Herrigel gives us the following key:
. . . . One day I asked the Master: “How can the shot be loosed if ‘I’ do not do it?”
“‘It’” shoots,” he replied.
“I have heard you say that several times before, so let me put it another way: How can I wait self-obliviously for the shot if ‘I’ am no longer there?”
“‘It’” waits at the highest tension.”
“And who or what is this ‘It’?”
“Once you have understood that, you will have no further need of me. And if I tried to give you a clue at the expense of your own experience, I would be the worst of teachers and would deserve to be sacked! So let’s stop talking about it and go on practicing.”
. . . . Then one day, after a shot, the Master made a deep bow and broke off the lesson. “Just then ‘It’ shot!” he cried, as I stared at him bewildered. And when I at last understood what he meant I couldn’t suppress a sudden whoop of delight.
“What I have said,” the Master told me severely, “was not praise, only a statement that ought not to touch you. Nor was my bow meant for you, for you are entirely innocent of this shot. You remained this time absolutely self-oblivious and without purpose in the highest tension, so that the shot fell from you like a ripe fruit. Now go on practicing as if nothing had happened.”
How many Tango dancers can let go enough to accept this? There are parts of our ego which need strengthening, and parts which need lessons in intimacy and surrender. What is weak in us: deep and genuine confidence, and connection to our true human power. What is strong in us: the tendency to take credit, to try to DO, to make things known, to tame, to proclaim, to become obsessed with the ends of things.
I would like to go a little further, to return again very specifically to the notion of human creativity. One lesson emerging here is that our whole life is spontaneous creation if we allow it (the paradox: it is even if we don’t). Dancing with the abyss means dancing with this wild, spontaneous nature of our life. It is unfixed and unknown. I am thinking right now about writers and artists with whom I have Worked. If we consider the narrow conception of creating something, like writing a book or making a piece of art, we can gain insight, not only into Tango, but into the necessity of dancing with the abyss in everyday life. Few have nailed this as well as Nietzsche did in Ecce Homo. The passage below comes from the section on Zarathustra. This makes it particularly appropriate because, as Nietzsche tells us, “Zarathustra is a dancer,” and, as Isadora Duncan frequently pointed out, Nietzsche himself is “our dancing philosopher.” Remember, though, we are reading this to understand not only inspired dancing and inspired creative work, but also inspired LIVING:
Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a clear idea of what poets of strong ages have called inspiration? If not, I will describe it. –– If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one’s system, one could hardly reject altogether the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely a medium of overpowering forces. The concept of revelation––in the sense that suddenly, with indescribable certainty and subtlety, something becomes visible, audible, something that shakes one to the last depths and throws one down––that merely describes the facts. One hears, one does not seek; one accepts, one does not ask who gives; like lightning, a thought flashes up, with necessity, without hesitation regarding its form––I never had any choice.
Shazam!! Sense, among other things, in the midst of such richness, a resonance with Suzuki Roshi: “When you know everything, you are like a dark sky. Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky.” In the light of the flashing, Dance reveals itself, Poetry reveals itself, something in the world yields over its secrets. But our dancing philosopher hasn’t finished. There’s nowhere left to go, yet we’ve just warmed our muscles for flowing movement:
A rapture whose tremendous tension occasionally discharges itself in a flood of tears––now the pace quickens involuntarily, now it becomes slow; one is altogether beside oneself, with the distinct consciousness of subtle shudders and of one’s skin creeping down to one’s toes; a depth of happiness in which even what is most painful and gloomy does not seem something opposite but rather conditioned, provoked, a necessary color in such a superabundance of light; an instinct for rhythmic relationships that arches over wide spaces of forms––length, the need for rhythm with wide arches, is almost the measure of the force of inspiration, a kind of compensation for its pressure and tension.
Everything happens involuntarily in the highest degree but as in a gale of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity. –– The involuntariness of image and metaphor is strangest of all; one no longer has any notion of what is an image or a metaphor: everything offers itself as the nearest, most obvious, simplest expression. It actually seems, to allude to something Zarathustra says, as if the things themselves approached and offered themselves as metaphors (“Here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you; for they want to ride on your back. On every metaphor you ride to every truth . . . Here the words and wordshrines of all being open up before you; here all being wishes to become word, all becoming wishes to learn from you how to speak”).
Can you just FEEL the Tango: a rapture, a pace quickening and slowing according to its own need, an ecstasy shuddering over one’s body and expressing itself in rhythm, all being approaching to become Dance, to learn from us how to speak through Tango. Rumi, great poet of the Alexander Technique and of Tango, understood all of this, and he constantly tells us the abyss is where we need to go. Here he echoes Nietzsche:
Do you think I know what I’m doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,
or the ball can guess where it’s going next.
Or the foot can guess where it’s going next, or the center can guess where it’s falling next, or I can tell you where my life should be going next, or how I will next take this woman into my arms, or kiss my beloved, or show my gratitude for some unexpected gift from the Cosmos . . .
I would like to insist that we keep in mind the very practical nature of looking into and dancing with the abyss. Martin Buber gives us a stern warning about intellectualizing any of this: “We cannot go to others with what we have received, saying: This is what needs to be known, this is what needs to be done. We can only go and put the proof in action.” There is no formula, and no amount of intellectual agreement or argument matters here. The point is to DANCE. Not only to go out and try some Tango, but to dance your LIFE. We may think all of this is for writers, dancers, artists. But our “life span” is a canvas, the body a set magical brushes; our life span is also a dance floor, a story, a butterfly dreaming in the wind.
For some advice on the practical dimensions of looking into and dancing with the abyss, we cannot do better than Thich Nhat Hanh. He encourages us to look into the abyss in many ways: “When we say it’s raining, we mean that raining is taking place. You don’t need someone up above to perform the raining. It’s not that there is rain, and there is the one who causes the rain to fall.” In case that’s not clear enough, he dances right up to the very stating point of our conversation: “You might think that your body is your individual possession, but your body belongs to the world as well . . . . to say, ‘It’s my own life!’ is a bit naive.”
One thing I adore about Thich Nhat Han, one in a very long list, is that he makes the abyss a lovely thing. He essentially tells us that looking into the abyss means gazing into the eyes of the Buddha. From this viewpoint, understanding that Life is acting THROUGH us is not really scary. Rather it can be a saving grace. When we face something difficult we can leap into the arms of the abyss instead of running from it. We can ask the Buddha to handle the situation for us, to dance with the challenges we face rather than TACKLING or DOING them “on our own.” The Zen Master tells us that, “Even in the most difficult situation, you can walk like a Buddha.” To illustrate, he tells of a visit to Korea in which hundreds of people, cameras in hand, rushed toward his group as they were walking: “ . . . they were closing in. There was no path to walk, and everyone was aiming their camera at us. It was a very difficult situation in which to do walking meditation [i.e., for him, to WALK]. And I said, ‘Dear Buddha, I give up, you walk for me.’ And right away the Buddha came, and he walked, with complete freedom. And then the crowd just made room for the Buddha to walk; no effort was made . . . . This works in all situations.” (Incidentally, every religion asks us to dance with the abyss. For instance, John 3:21 tells us that, “Everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do.” In the Gita we read that “The man who has seen the truth/thinks, ‘I am not the doer’/at all times–when he sees, hears, touches,/when he smells, eats, walks, sleeps, breathes.”)
Let me end by encouraging you to dance with the abyss. It’s everywhere, waiting to embrace you and to Work on you and through you. If you already dance Tango, really ASK, “Who is the one dancing? Who is dragging this bucket of bones around the floor?” If you’re new to Tango, don’t worry about being a beginner. When you face the challenges of learning, just ask the Buddha to dance for you (and then ask, “Who is this Buddha dancing for me?”). If you’re not a “dancer” in the stereotypical sense, remember that you are still a Dancer, and every moment of your life is a chance to manifest it. Any of us can ask the Buddha to deal with difficult dances, and any of us can keep looking into that lovely abyss. When it begins to look back, we start to grow in miraculous ways.