We have been looking at
Money in the Foundation Tai-Chi Chi Kung Training and looking to see what is a
COGNITIVE AND a RECOGNITIVE understanding and application of the Tai-Chi
Principles to the relationship with money.
A re-cognitive
relationship with money is valuing money as a means to exchange goods and
services. Most of the inner and outer work focuses on learning how to use money
wisely, and even though the UK’s Chancellor (this year 2004) is allowed to be
37 billions pounds sterling in debt, the talk continues about how to use money
wisely. The joke is there is in actual reality NO MONEY there to spend wisely!!
That is 37 Billion Pounds Sterling in DEBT! (U.S.A goes even one step further,
TRILLIONS OF US DOLLARS IN DEBT). t is like trying to practise the Tai-Chi Form
37 Steps without any feet to stand on in the first place! So, no matter how wise
the money is spent, the first step shows that there is a serious default error
here, you cannot spend when you have no credit energy. You cannot physically
lift up a heavy object when your back pain does not even allow you to stand up.
You could say that you are in debit relationship with your body.
But, let us say, there
is a CREDIT situation, in your case, for example. You do have some money in the
bank or in your wallet, a plastic card or cheque book
or cash. The money you have is also subjected to relative valuation,
isn’t it? A loaf of bread costs differently 30 years ago from now. So, the
relationship with money is relative to the world’s current situation. That is
precisely the problem, ‘Relative’. We do not relate directly to money for
what it is, it is merely a means to an end. Like the way people use their
relatives and friends—sometimes, wonderful, caring, happy and sometimes
abusive, disrespectful and even back-biting with gossips and hurtful actions and
remarks. Money is being hated, loved, abused, hankered after and distrusted.
So, what is a cognitive
relationship with money? It is to sense that indeed that money in its origin is
from Mother Earth—whether we speak of paper cheques, coins, money
and even plastic. Some people will argue that they have internet banking,
you still need a computer to access it right? The computer is also made of
materials from Mother Earth. And sooner or later, you will also have to use cash
even if you do not believe in cards or cheques, right? To COGNISE money, you
really have to slow down, be still, let go your RE-COGNITIVE judgements of what
money was and is. Hold a piece of your paper money or coin and feel receptive to
what it is. It will surprise you what emotions are contained within that money
you hold. People have been putting different feelings into those bits of coins
and money. For me, fresh out from school, in a bus one day, I experienced a
cognitive experience with money, and felt directly what the coins were and from
then onwards, realised one of my purpose in this lifetime was to help myself and
people transform our relationship with money. For further details, do check up
my book, ‘15 Ways to a Happier You’ Page
142—147.
I have been inspired by
some of the exciting and inspiring examples of students of Rainbow Tai-Chi
School who have worked with this topic in-depth. Please check this out in the
Education section of the website.
A MEDITATION OF MONEY by Caroline Walshe
FTT TRAINEE TEACHER
MARCH 2004
“It has taken
quite sometime to cognise my money, but today it happened! From a re-cognitive
view, my relationship with money has been a LOVE/HATE one, with plenty of hate
in the love! It has been such a mixed bag for me, I have so many negative
beliefs about money, all tied up with guilt and whether I deserve it or not.
Today, I felt money is none of these things. I began to feel the emotions, to
smell it also from the money, from a £10 note full of hope, to an anxious £5.
They heated up and became something else in my hand. And with the pound coin,
first I felt this feeling of fear, low down in my body, and a horrible pukey
smell. After allowing that to be, and taking the coin back to the AMAZING MIX OF
METALS that came from the earth. I began to fill it with LOVE, until it became
warm and tingled in my palm. When I looked down, it shone back at me, looking
for all the world like a part of my hand. AMAZING! This pound coin has had, is
having, along and carried life, has had so much emotion and ideas put on it and
in it, yet it is just this BEING that really never did anything to anyone, it is
just there! And it now glows with love and feels like a new friend! WOW!
I feel
like energising every piece of money and every card I have! It is such a new way
of looking at money. It makes me realise how truly EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE,
EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE is a living being, with an ability to be a vehicle
for everything that we put in it. Looking
at my relationship with money re-cognitively has enable me to see so much fear
in myself and so much mixed emotion, confusion, guilt—is it a good thing to
have money? Is it a good thing not to? I went home at one stage and wrote 3
pages of negative beliefs!! (And the same on positive ones). It tied in with a
lot to do with my relationship to art and the belief that ART SHOULD BE FREE.
Which is something I am looking at still. It also ties in to my attitude to
good! And since the last month or so I am only now really buying myself healthy
foods I want to eat more than ever before. But it ties in so much with the idea
I have had before, that I won’t have enough to eat. It is amazing to see these
negative beliefs all connected. But is so amazing to experience money in a
different and friendlier way! I have found a new friend.
RE-COGNITIVE/
COGNITIVE STUDIES
Recognitive Studies and their Impact on Consciousness in Education and Why Cognitive Studies is Urgently Needed in Education Today by David Ellis, FTT Trainee
The
major emphasis in education today is the use of recognitive teaching and
learning methodologies. Recognitive means using our mind and our memory in order
to solve problems and make sense of the world about us. Recognitive is about re-membering
what we have been told, read or experienced.
It concerns the process of
thinking and the acquisition and storing of knowledge in our minds. It is about
images from the past, frozen in time, from which we are expected to
learn. Recognitive education relies on assessments, on goals, on competencies,
on examinations as a means of structuring, controlling and justifying its
existence.
The
primary drive in education is to know in order to do. The America 2000
(1991) initiative, bemoaning the lack of educational progress over the previous
eight years states “Our country is idling its engines, not knowing enough nor
being able to do enough to make America all that it should be.” Such phrases
as “ensure that all students use their minds well”, “possess the knowledge
and skills necessary”, “workplace know-how” and “ability to put
knowledge to work” are symptomatic of recognitive education. In condemning the
current state of educational practice Drake suggests that we are too reliant on
behavioural methods, reducing the human condition to a matter of stimulus and
response, denying that which is most human – the ability to make meaning. He
says that in education we focus on the acts of teaching–objectives, methods,
and evaluation–and not upon the acts of learning. The emphasis on ‘doing’
negates the art of ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ which are the tools we use to
become more conscious of ourselves and the world around us. Thus constantly
‘doing’ hinders our spiritual progress.
The
roots of the behavioural paradigm that dominates much of our education are in
the philosophy of Realism developed by Aristotle. Aristotle, a student of Plato,
led us towards observation and experimentation and away from intuition and
rationalisation as a method of finding truth, beauty and justice in direct
contrast to Socrates the century before. This
was the beginning of the scientific method that has come to pervade our culture.
The contemporary behavioural stimulus-response-reward model sees the student
as a passive receptor of knowledge and the teacher as the controller, motivator
and assessor. This knowledge exists in the world as a ‘body of knowledge’.
The teacher presents that knowledge to the student who has been conditioned to
record it and usually learn it. The pay off is the student being able to
remember this knowledge and make
use of it in an examination, commonly by reciting it. As you can see there is
much use of ‘re-‘ in this methodology.
This
philosophy relies on the student having the ‘right answer’, which in turn
leads to the concepts of being ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’ as
assessed by tests. No wonder we grow up with the idea that we are just not good
enough. As the body of knowledge grows even larger, and with the advent of
electronic publication and the easy access to vast quantities of knowledge on
the internet, we can so easily sink into a personal feeling of ‘not knowing
enough’ just as the US government cited in the report above.
The other aspect to this burgeoning
mass of data is that in order to efficiently access it we need to
classify it – leading to a state of reductionism, where we, of necessity,
split the world into ever smaller units of knowledge. Thus we lose all sense of
the wholeness of the universe. The
sheer overwhelming mass of external data can also hide our own sense of self and
place in the world – there is so much data here we are reduced to nothing.
Recognitive
education often makes us reliant on experts as sources of
knowledge. These can be intellectual, philosophical and spiritual
‘experts’. We are encouraged to
revere these experts and not
question their knowledge, wisdom or integrity. This removes our own sense of
power and capability, giving it away
to those we perceive as knowing more than us or who we see as greater
intellectual abilities than ourselves. Of course, we require others to be able
to perform certain tasks for us – like a homeopath or a plumber – but we do not have to see ourselves as victims of
ignorance, as is very much the case for many people.
The
recognitive learning process is, by its very nature,
passive. This encourages us to be passive receptors of information –
digesting, remembering and thinking
about the data. This is a mechanical process using the mind. We do not involve
our real selves in this process; we are merely onlookers onto someone else’s
image of the world. The whole
process of recognitive education distances us further from ourselves. As Drake
says “we have created a nation of followers in a world that demands
leaders.”
We
are encouraged to know more, to achieve more qualifications, to see the world as
others see it, to lose ourselves in the mass of humanity, to subjugate ourselves
to those individuals and institutions who use their intellect and knowledge as a
means of exercising power. Education
today is not an education for living and being ourselves, merely an education
for existing. We become less and less conscious.
The
cognitive process involves direct perception – it is very different to using
our minds or our memory. The information we receive is new to us, ever unfolding
before us as we let go of our preconceptions of how things should be. The
paradox is that this ‘unknowing’ process allows us to know who we really
are. The following beautiful passage seems to go to the very heart of the
cognitive process comparing it with the recognitive reliance on textbooks.
“Youth
is a delicious dream, the savour of which is stolen by the riddles of textbooks
that render it a harsh vigil. Will ever a day come when sages can combine the
reveries of youth with the joys of learning, the way a common enemy unites the
hearts of those who hate one another? Will a time arrive when nature becomes the
teacher of the son of Adam, and humanity his book, and life his school? We do
not know. But we sense our rapid progress towards spiritual advancement, and
that advancement is the perception of the beauty of natural things by means of
our innermost feelings, and seeking happiness through our love for that
beauty.”
Gibran,
p.32
In
the cognitive process we are looking both outwards at the world and inwards
to our very core. We use our inner processes which we are all endowed,
irrespective of our measured intellectual capabilities and learned knowledge.
In the novel Siddhartha, the ferryman is the wisest one – he says his
wisdom comes from the river he transports people across; from nature itself. He
is in no need of books, he has himself. Before he meets the ferryman, Siddhartha
is warned by Gotama, a Buddha, of the recognitive process of studying:
“But
beware, you who are greedy for knowledge, of the jungle of opinions and the
battle of words. Opinions are worth little. They can be beautiful or ugly,
anyone can espouse or reject them. But the teaching that you have heard from me
is not my opinion, and its aim is not to explain the world to those who are
greedy for knowledge. It has a different aim–liberation from suffering. This
is what Gotama teaches, nothing else.”
Hesse,
p.27
In
response, Siddhartha praise Gotama for his teaching but makes the point that
ultimately you have to find out your own truth – no one can do this for you,
not even the wisest teacher. The cognitive process is about discovering your own
Being. This is the antithesis of recognitive education.
“Much is
contained in the doctrine of the enlightened Buddha, much is taught in it–to
live in an honest and upright way, to avoid evil. But there is one thing that
this so clear and venerable
teaching does not contain; it does not contain the mystery of what the Exalted
One himself experienced, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I
understood and realised when I listened to the teaching. This is the reason I am
going to continue my wandering–not to find another or a better teaching, for I know that one does not exist, but in order to
leave behind all teachings and all teachers and to obtain my goal on my own or
die.”
Hesse, p.28
The
Zen methodology which utilises koans as tools for self understanding rejects the
teaching of facts in favour of self discovery through
a succession of insoluble riddles.
This is also an example of cognitive studies.
The roots of cognitive education are in the philosophy
of Idealism which originates from perhaps the most famous secular teacher in
Western history, Socrates. After failing to find a suitable teacher he set out
on a journey to educate himself using a process of questioning the fundamentals
of life as he saw them: truth, beauty and justice. It is ironic that he was put
to death in his pursuit for these ideals. The Socratic method of teaching was to
ask questions of students and lead them towards logical analysis and a
realisation of ideal truth; both the teacher and student benefiting themselves
in this process. There were no text books nor a formal school. Socrates held
that ideas are real and the world as we see it is merely a shadow of the
ultimate truth. He also believed that ideas (or ideal forms) are naturally
conceived within the minds of men. Modern Idealism owes much to the philosophers
George Berkeley and Immanuel Kant, who maintained that the apparently objective
world is really a product of the structure of human consciousness and that it is
the mind which creates our view or reality.
Kant
believed that education should be concerned with a critical investigation of
metaphysics, of which he said “here you will find the noblest objects of this
science, the knowledge of a supreme Being and of a future world provided by
principles of pure reason”. He maintained that “knowledge is no more than a
means to an end… unless knowledge can be put in the service of appropriate
ends, it cannot truly benefit individuals or society.” Also that knowledge
requires that theories are verified by experiencing them through our
senses; knowledge always being tied to our perception of the world – combining
both our understanding and our sensibilities. He said that learning occurs
between theory and practice and that no matter how complete the theory is,
something is required to provide a connection and transition between the two. He
believed in education from experience is necessary since “one who leaves
school to enter the world will realise one has been pursuing empty ideal and
philosophical dreams in a world that what sounds good in theory is of no
practical use.”
Another
philosophy that relates to cognitive education is Humanism, as developed by Jean
Rousseau. His ideas have been adopted by educators such as Abraham Maslow and
Maria Montessori. Humanism sees children as “actively becoming”. The
educational outcome is that teachers get out of the way, to allow students to
become what he/she is destined to become. Humanism doubts the effectiveness of
conventional schools, preferring to allow children freedom to explore and
develop on their own.
Twentieth
century definitions of cognitive education (e.g. from work of Piaget, Flavell,
Ginsberg and Opper) have much in common with the ideas expressed above and those
of Peter Choy. They emphasis that learning should be student centre; that
learning is an active and creative process that can be intrinsically rewarding
and that learning involves students making meaning out of experiences rather
than solely receive information. It suggests that knowledge is not ‘out
there’, to be received but is ‘in here’, in the mind, and must be created
anew by each individual for him/herself. This is a vast improvement over
behaviourist inspired educational practices. However, they depart from Peter
Choy’s concept of cognitive studies in that they focus on thinking and the
mechanics of the intellect/brain, emphasising the teaching of ‘thinking
skills’ to students. In Choy’s
words this is the realm of recognition.
Education
today is focussed on recognitive theories and practice. Even in purely
recognitive terms of assessment it is not working well, huge resources being
used with low overall success rates in numeracy and literacy. In terms of
development of consciousness in the individual it has little worth. Thus
education today does not make much impact on increasing the overall
consciousness of the population as a whole and of that of the planet. Hence we
are stuck with the same problems that have been with us for centuries. It is
vital that we become more aware of cognitive studies as a means towards
self-discovery, of learning how to Be rather than constantly trying to learn how
to Do. We desperately need people who know themselves and who can harness their
inner power and access to the spiritual world to make changes on this planet,
leading towards a more loving and spiritually realised world. Now that we have
moved into Aquarius, we may see an increase in the use of intuitive practice, of
being more fluid and the desire to raise our own and group levels of
consciousness.
1.
Kahlil Gibran Spirit
Brides, Penguin Books, 1998
2.
Hermann Hesse Siddhartha,
Shambhala Publications, 2000
3.
Drake The Cognitive
Paradigm, www.edu.drake.edu/romig/cognito/cognitive.paradigm.html
4.
M.F. de Tal The
Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant, www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Kant.html
5.
George L. Ziniewicz Kant: How
do we know that we know what we know, www.fred.net/tzaka/kant1
6.
Peter Choy
Discussion of Cognitive and Recognitive Concepts, FTT course, Nov
2001