zen in the art of science teaching

Zen in the Art of Science Teaching

Bill RomeySt. Lawrence UniversityCanton, New York 13617

INTRODUCTION

People in western countries have recently shown rising interest in east-ern philosophical currents arising out of Taoism (Chinese), Hinduism(Indian), and Buddhism (Japanese). Attempts to reach enlightenmentthrough means other than western science characterize the writings ofRoszak, Reich, and other apparent critics of modern, big science. [1, 2,3] Many have decried the "anti-scientific" attitudes of these writers. [4,5] Actually, Roszak does not claim at all that science has no value. Heonly calls for a replacement of emphasis more on spiritual and trans-cendent values and less on materialistic and analytical values. Put scienceback on a par with other human activities. Remove it from its pedestal.Pirsig claims we must transcend both purely analytical ("classical") andpurely "romantic" viewpoints. [6] Enlightenment lies along a knife edgethat separates these currents.

Recently, a number of scientists have discussed how eastern philosoph-ical currents can enhance the practice of science. Perhaps our closer tieswith Mainland China, after 20 years of almost total lack of communica-tion, have accelerated this process. Suddenly, acupuncture receivesserious consideration in the west after years of relegation to the realm ofquackery and mysticism. And then the Chinese predict earthquakes in away we have not been able to duplicate yet, and using unusual criteriasuch as animal behavior and other events that have hitherto been pooh-poohed as folklore only. [7] Siu many years ago pointed out the rel-evance of eastern approaches to the practice of "big" science in majorresearch laboratories. [8] Capra more recently applied Taoism to phys-ics, showing how modern research and ancient philosophy have comemore and more to approach the same conclusions. [9] Toben and Sarfattialso attempt to use eastern viewpoints to explain physical problems. [10]The sometimes mystical viewpoints and approaches of Einstein are wellknown. [11] Lovenburg discussed how the ancient, dialectical ChineseUnique Principle of the Yin and Yang can help provide a better under-standing of earth problems and of rocks in a more holistic way. [ 12]

Eastern philosophical views and "techniques" represent powerfultools in the overall search for enlightenment that must be a primary goalof people interested in nature and in science. In this paper I wish to de-scribe and comment upon some specific techniques and approaches andto provide access to resources that others may find useful in facilitatinglearning in science.

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116 School Science and Mathematics

ZEN

I have selected Zen as a focus for several reasons. The current popular-ity of Zen provides a not entirely frivolous reason. Among westernerswho have introduced these ideas, Alan Watts stands foremost. [13, 14,15] Herrigel, in describing Zen and archery, never mentions "Zen" in histext at all. [16] Pirsig begins his book on Zen and motorcycle main-tenance with the disclaimer that the book is neither about Zen nor aboutmotorcycles. [6] Galhvey applies Zen to tennis, and Franck uses it as ameans to seeing. [17, 18]We are caught immediately in a seeming paradox. The paragraphs

above imply elusiveness, ineffability, ambiguity, and imprecision. Yet wehave all learned to think of science as sharp, precise, and exact. The es-sence of Zen lies precisely in paradoxes and their resolution. We arefaced immediately with the yin (softness, femininity, ambiguity, impre-cision) and its dialectical opposite, the yang (certainty, hardness,masculinity, precision).One could easily get caught in a jurisdictional dispute involving

various eastern philosophies. Each sect considers its wây to enlighten-ment the only way, just as schools of scientists, artists, writers, and pol-iticians fall into similar traps. Capra points out that Zen is a Japaneseblend of Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. [9] As such, Zen, takenbroadly, may allow a greater degree of latitude than any "school" takenindividually. The viewpoints presented and others that may be found insome of the sources mentioned and listed in the bibliography, provide apowerful set of ideas and attitudes wîch have heretofore been little usedin western education.

OBSERVATION AND CONTEMPLATION

Much of the practice of science revolves around supposedly precise ob-servation. As teachers, we pass on our ideas of w^hat people should ob-serve and how they should make their observations. We seek to helpothers develop an analytical eye like our own, to know w^hat to look for,as we do. Once observed, an object or phenomenon must be describedand then analyzed in the hope that \\e will find relationships revealed inthe data. The very word "datum" is from the Latin for "the given,"wât is there. Yet any description actually represents an abstraction. Thegeneral semanticists have long written about the problem of mistakingmaps for the territory they represent. [19] It is impossible fully to de-scribe anything that is seen. As a matter of fact, too rapid emphasis ondescription and getting oneself embroiled in the semantic filters set up byverbiage often short circmts seeing. [18]Mas^v wrote of the importance of contemplative observation in addi-

tion to analysis. [20] Taoists, who completely abjure describing and

Zen and Science Teaching 117

analyzing, become entranced in passive observation of aspects of natureas diverse as whole landscapes or of individual blades of grass or stones.They probably are more acute observers of both details and wholeness innature than any natural scientist has ever been. The insufficiency ofwords and the actual confusion words may produce lead Taoists to avoidany attempts to verbalize what they see.

Increasingly, at least a few scientists seem to be developing an intuitivesense of the need for contemplative observation. Miles Hayes of theUniversity of South Carolina developed a slide-tape presentation (sub-sequently reproduced as a motion picture) entitled "Suzanne’s Lament"in which he tried to convey a sense of the wholeness of the Alaskan coast-al landscape, its geological, biological, and human factors, and of the ef-fects of man*s activities on the environment. Hayes’ film has been widelyshown at geological meetings and in schools. The film has no narrative� only music. At the 1976 meeting of the eastern section of the NationalAssociation of Geology Teachers I saw a similar presentation, on theGrand Canyon, prepared by John Thomas of Skidmore College. Ray-mond Pestrong of San Francisco State University presented an audio-vis-ual event on art and the earth at the 1975 meeting of the Geological So-ciety of America. Harvey Kirk of Santa Monica Community College pre-pared a multiple-screen event on biology and ecology. Books on the earthby Leveson and by Harrington contain elements of this same intuitive,contemplative approach. [21, 22]

Several years ago I travelled down the Green River on a rubber raft, inthe company of 30 science teachers from secondary schools in the Denverarea. Floating along a quiet stretch of the river, balanced on the side ofthe raft, I began to imagine what it would be like to be a particle of sandor silt carried along by the water. My perceptual apparatus tuned in to anew, participatory, non-verbal, quiet kind of observation of the river.On another occasion, Bill Elberty and I were on the outer beach of CapeCod. As the weaves crashed up over the beach, we plunged in. At first webegan to analyze the refraction patterns of the on-coming waves. But wesuddenly realized that to analyze was to abstract, to reduce, and in a realsense to lose touch with the wholeness of the waves and their meaning,their complex yet simple realness. Analytic thought always kills some-thing. But at the same time it creates another thing rather than dwellingon what has been killed. Thus, in analysis we experience a death and a re-birth. [6] No "good" or "bad" value need be assigned to analysis. Suchdeath and rebirth constitutes another paradox we must live with in sci-ence.

THE ROLE OF TEACHERSFor my part, I have often played down the role of "teachers." [23, 24,


25] Yet teachers are highly valued in eastern philosophy. Teachers canhelp people explore the ineffability of nature and can help them find en-lightenment. Siu calls the kind of teaching that is involved in Zen and inTaoism "negative teaching." [8] In the west, almost all of our teaching is"positive teaching." An item under discussion is specifically pointed outand discussed. Even in so-called "inquiry" teaching, the teacher keepsthe students very close to the point at all times, and manipulation is doneon a tight rein. -[25, 26] In negative teaching, on the other hand, the sub-ject of interest is specifically not discussed. Discourse is restricted towhat the question is not. You can*t have a teacher assigned to you inZen. [27] You have to find your own teachers, the people who can, at agiven moment, help you to learn. Furthermore, when you are ready tolearn, a teacher will appear. This suggests some interesting things aboutthe nature of teaching as a profession and about assigning students to asingle teacher rather than giving them free access to whomever they feelthey can learn from. How viable can our roles be as "full-time teachers"in compulsory public schools?Zen masters use koans (paradoxes) as a major way of helping people to

find enlightenment. Many of these are famous, such as "What is thesound of one hand clapping?" In science we are continually faced w^ithparadoxes, too. An example lies in quantum theory and the problem ofwhether light and subatomic matter are waves or particles. How cansomething be both? This problem is no less paradoxical than the koan,"What was your original face- the one you had before your parents gavebirth to you?" [9] The real world escapes precise verbal conceptualiza-tion. What is understood cannot always be expressed. The map can neverbe the territory.

In one school of Zen, the Rinzai (Sudden) school, the master gives thekoan in a formal meeting. As the student ponders, the master may sensethat he is on the verge of enlightenment. Then the master may do some-thing wildly unexpected: he may shout or hit the student. [9] This mayseem a little like a folk remedy for hiccups, but it seems to work for somepeople. Don Juan, as he teaches Carlos Castaneda, does sudden, out-landish things that help Carlos break out of the mental fixations thatkeep him from seeing. [28, 29, 30, 31] In a sense, Hayden did it in his sur-prise symphony, too. Many good lecturers resort to sudden, unforseenmovements and tricks to shock their audiences into a new state of aware-ness.A quieter school of Zen, the Soto or gradual school, involves mainly

meditation and sitting. [9] The present infatuation many have w^ith trans-cendental meditation or the relaxation response belongs in this categoryas do many yogic disciplines [32, 33] Pearce discusses the importance ofgetting away from "roof-brain chatter," the constant semantic clutter in


our minds, if we want to free ourselves for new understandings, to allowourselves a chance to get in touch with the primary processes that go onin us all the time but are usually concealed by the "roof-brain chatter"that fills our waking minds. [34]Many of these approaches require discipline and commitment as does

any search for enlightenment. In a sense, much scientific and otheranalysis can be looked at as a yogic discipline as intense as any compli-cated series of physical postures and meditations that might be attempt-ed. In a footnote, Capra warns about information from physics that he ispresenting, ". . . the following discussion may . . . appear . . . dry andtechnical. It should perhaps be taken as *yogic* exercise which . . . maynot be much fun but may lead to a profound and beautiful insight intothe nature of things." [9]

NOWNESS

An important focus of eastern thought involves "newness," perceiv-ing what is going on now, without clutter about what has happened pre-viously, or what might happen next. In a sense, a fixation on now mayseem antithetical to a "scientific" view, for one of the main tests of ascientific idea lies in how it helps to predict outcomes of events. Such pre-dictions are based on careful examinations of records from the past. Sci-ence revolves around prediction and control. The Buddha, on the otherhand, answered questions about the origin of the world with "noble si-lence." An eastern view of explaining things is found in the story ofTozan, who was weighing some flax when a monk asked him, "What isBuddha?" Tozan responded, "This flax weighs three pounds." By a Zenview, explaining nature means to show its unity, and ultimately, there isnothing to explain. [9]Much of our schooling is rife with fixation on past or future. The big-

gest questions of every hour in school are oriented toward such things as:

’What will I do after school?"’What will I do next period?"’Here is your assignment for tomorrow."’How will I ever pass this test?"*Did you do yesterday’s lesson?"’How did I ever do such a stupid thing?"’Where will I go when school is out this summer?"

The most debilitating question of all that overshadows all of our westernthinking is, "What will I do when I grow up?" These are all questionsthat produce mainly anxiety and fear. As such, they block enlightenmentand understanding.These questions prevent students and teachers from seeing the now. In

Zen, perfection is to live everyday life spontaneously and naturally. Howcan one ever begin to be in touch with the past and with future possibil-ities unless he is first entirely present in the now^ Here lies another para-


dox. Is good science possible unless we concentrate our attention on thepresent moment?

"Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and rivers and rivers; while you arestudying Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; butonce you have enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are againrivers." [9, p. 124]

SOME APPROACHES

How then can teachers set up instructional situations to enhance thepossibility of enlightenment for both themselves and for their students?Pearce casts doubt on all "mind engineering," attempts to developmethods that can lead to enlightenment or get us in touch with creativeunderstanding of our world. [34] In Zen, the route to learning is notthrough doing, but rather through not-doing, again a paradox. In asense, what we are looking for are not so much approaches and methodsas attitudes and a new kind of openness and stillness to help us transcendthe restrictive world of words and fixed forms to which our culture hasconfined us. Kuhn and Pearce have both indicated how science pro-gresses by bursts and starts. [35, 36] Each real advance is based on theremoval of some filter that somehow kept us from seeing a relationship,a piece of unity. As such, scientific advances are true times of enlighten-ment in the Zen sense.Methods thus provide no guarantees of helping us get beyond the

limits established by our acculturation and its ruling sets of ideas. Pearcepoints out, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." [34] Thismay be very frustrating to us, for you or I may not even be the properteachers to lead a given student to enlightenment even though the studentmay be assigned to yours or my class. So all we can do in schools is to setup some conditions which might at least enhance the possibility that indi-vidual students can find learning or meaning, on their own terms, at onetime or another. No amount of exercises, scheduling, expectancies,goals, or impatience can hasten this. Competency-and performance-based approaches may totally obscure what is truly important in thelearning situation. Patience, openness, and an attitude toward waitingand encouraging may help.Here are a few Zen-based approaches that at least seem to help some

students become more open to new kinds of awarenesses. These will notget anyone there, wherever that may be. All they can do is help people toget processes started through which they may be able to move ahead ontheir own. The realms I am concerned with in this paper are the realms ofprocess.

Non-analytical observation: Look at an object in front of you, anyobject. Just look. Do not analyze it or describe it to yourself verbally.Just look. [37] Now look at the space around the object rather than at theobject itself."


Try "drawing/seeing." Gaze at an object and draw it, using a largesheet of paper, without looking at the sketch as it develops. The idea isnot to make a "good’* sketch in the conventional sense, but rather to"see" the object more fully. [18]

Swinchatt describes the kind of fear that people experience when theyare asked to observe something for extended periods of time and withouthaving someone tell them in advance what they are expected to see. [38.]Challenge students to spend several hours doing nothing but describingan object, rock, plant, or process in minutest detail.

Imagine an object as something other than what it appears to be. Useyour mind to transform it into that other object. Now look at a familiarobject and see how strange you can make it seem to you. After this, lookat a strange object and see how familiar you can make it seem to you.

Fantasies: Ask a group to take a fantasy journey with you. Some goodsources for such exercises can be found in Stevens and in Masters andHouston. [37, 39] Earlier, I described my fantasy as a sand grain beingtransported by the Green River. You might ask students to imaginethemselves as a rock undergoing weathering or some other process. Helpthe group to relax first by closing their eyes, breathing slowly and easily,and concentrating on relaxing various parts of their bodies in turn. Thenbegin to suggest:

You are a rock ledge on the side of a mountain .... Imagine your surroundings ....It is a hot summer day .... An animal walks across your surface .... Imagine whatthis feels like .... It begins to rain .... Imagine the feeling of the rain and what itdoes to you ....

Such a fantasy can be continued to involve freezing, night-time, light-ning, the effects of tree roots, getting dissolved, and many other suchevents. In similar fashion, people may be asked to imagine themselves asanimals, plants, chemical reactions, anything. Such exercises, by provid-ing an entirely different viewpoint than usual, may help to foster anintegrative kind of understanding. [24, 25]

Light-shows: Slide shows, films, music may be used to generate a con-templative, reflective, open mood rather than as a vehicle for analysisand "study" or "instruction" in any conventional sense.

Meditation: For students who w^ish to attempt such procedures forclosing off their normal mental noises, many meditation proceduresmentioned above may be used.

Spontaneous playfulness: Any ways in which you can introduce play-fulness into the normal school environment may help to allow unusualideas and views to come forth. [24, 25]

Essence: A set of materials called Essence I and Essence //, created bythe American Geological Institute through a grant from the National Sci-ence Foundation contain many ideas that can be directly* applied inschools at most levels. Many of these are consonant with Zen ap-


proaches. (These materials are available commercially through Addison-Wesley, publishers.)

SOME ENDING THOUGHTS

Zen appears to pose problems for many science educators. It implies adetached approach to the world, and yet we like to think of ourselves asliving in a world^pf action. The detachment of Zen does not, however, in-volve withdrawal from the world. On the contrary, its fixation on nowrequires active participation in everyday affairs. It involves awakening inthe midst of everyday life. Seeking enlightenment has been likened to rid-ing an ox in search of an ox. [9] It’s a matter of seeing what is really infront of us all the time but without concealing its true nature through allof the filters of our culture. This does not mean discarding intellectualand analytical approaches. Rather it involves looking for a new point ofbalance between intellect and logic on the one hand and intuition andfeeling on the other. We need to integrate our analytic and non-analytichalves. It is almost as if we were promoting schizophrenia in most class-rooms as we now function. Introduction of some aspects of the way ofZen may help redress the balance.

REFERENCES

1. ROSZAK, T. The Making of a Counterculture. Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y. 1969.2. ROSZAK, T. Where the Wasteland Ends. Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y. 1972.3. REICH, C. The Greening of America. Random House, N. Y. 1970.4. FRANKEL, C. "The nature and sources of irrationalism." Science, 180:927, 1973;5. WADE, N. "Science and its critics: must rationality be rationed?" Science, 185:925-

927; 1974.6. PIRSIG, R. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Morrow, N. Y. 1974.7. PRESS, F. "Haicheng and Los Angeles: a tale of two cities." £’05, 57:435-6. 19768. Siu, R. The Tao of Science. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1957.9. CAPRA, F. The Tao of Physics. Shambhala, Berkeley, Calif. 1975.

10. TOBEN, B. and SARFATTI, J. Space-Time and Beyond: Toward an Explanation of theUnexplainable. Dutton, N. Y. 1975.

11. CLARK, R.Einstein: The Life and Times. World, N. Y. 1971.12. LOVENBURG, M. "Yin-Yang and rocks". Journal of Geological Education, 21:172;

1973.13. WATTS, A. The Way of Zen. Pantheon, N. Y. 1957.14. WATTS, A. Nature, Man, and Woman. Pantheon, N. Y. 1958.15. WATTS, A. Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal. Pantheon,

N.Y. 1973.16. HERRIGEL, E. Zen in the Art of Archery. Pantheon, N. Y. 1953.17. GALLWEY, W. The Inner Game of Tennis. Random House, N. Y. 1974.18. FRANCK, F. The Zen of Seeing, Vintage, N. Y. 1973.19. KORZYBSKI, A. Science and Sanity. Inst. of General Semantics, Lakeville, Conn. 195820. MASLOW, A. The Psychology of Science. Harper, N. Y. 1966.21. LEVESON, D. A Sense of tlie Earth. Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y. 1972.22. HARRINGTON, J. To See a World. Mosby, St. Louis. 1973.23. ROMEY, W. Risk-Trust-Love: Learning in a Humane Environment. Merrill, Colum-

bus. 0. 1972.


24. ROMEY, B. Consciousness and Creativity: Transcending Science, Humanities, and theArts. Ash Lad Press, Canton, N. Y. 1975

25. ROMEY. B. Confluent Education in Science. Ash Lad Press, Canton, N. Y. 1976.26. ROMEY, W. Inquiry Techniques for Teaching Science. Prentice-Hall, Englewood

Cliffs, N.J. 1968.27. RAM DASS. The Only Dance There Is. Anchor, Garden City, N. Y. 1974.28. CASTANEDA, C. The Teachings of Don Juan. Univ. of Calif. Berkeley, Calif. 1968.29. CASTANEDA, C.A Separate Reality. Simon and Schuster, N. Y. 1971.30. CASTANEDA, C. Journey to Ixtlan. Simon and Schuster, N. Y. 1972.31. CASTANEDA, C. Tales of Power. Simon and Schuster, N. Y. 1974.32. CAMPBELL, A. Seven States of Consciousness. Perennial, N. Y. 1974.33. BENSON, H. The Relaxation Response. Morrow, N. Y. 1975.34. PEARCE, J. Exploring the Crack in the Cosmic Egg. Julian Press, N. Y. 1974.35. KUHN, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.

1970.36. PEARCE, J. The Crack in the Cosmic Egg. Julian Press, N. Y. 1971.37. STEVENS, J. Awareness: Exploring, Experimenting, Experiencing. Real People Press,

Moab.U. 1971.38. SWINCHATT, J. "Miscellaneous Observations from a Wandering Mind." Jour. College

Science Teaching, 3:197-199, 1974.39. MASTERS, R. and HOUSTON, J. Mind Games, Delta, N. Y. 1972.

WEATHER PREDICTION

One of the keys to understanding and eventually predicting our future weatherpatterns may come from the rocks of ancient North American caves, says Dr.Russell Harmon, assistant professor of geology at Michigan State University.Dr. Harmon hopes to show that oxygen incorporated within the spear-likestalactites and stalagmites of underground caves can tell us what temperatureswere once like and \\o\\ fast they changed during the past 400,000 years.

"If we learn how the earth’s temperature changed in the past," he explained,"it will be a lot easier to predict our future weather and to make plans for copingwith it."The principle behind his idea is simple�temperature affects the composition

of water and of rocks formed within caves. Oxygen naturally occurs in differentforms or isotopes. In water, the relative amount of each oxygen isotope dependson the water temperature.Water seeping below ground from the surface is essential for the formation of

layers of limestone crystals�a second phenomenon that is influenced by temper-ature.Most of the water is lost. Dr. Harmon explained, but small amounts are

trapped between the stalagmites’ crystals.By extracting this water in the laboratory and measuring the amounts of the

different oxygen isotopes in the water and within the rock itself. Dr. Harmoncan determine the temperature that existed when each layer of the rock wasformed.The rocks can also reveal when temperature changes occurred, Dr. Harmon

said, because the rocks also contain small traces of uranium. Uranium decays ata known rate, to another element, thorium.By measuring the ratio of uranium to thorium within each rock layer, he

added, we can determine the age of each layer.

zen in the art of science teaching

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