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From Map to Experience: The Practice of Dō

Throughout this essay, a distinction has been emphasized between what happens and the representation we construct of it. However, intellectually understanding this statement does not resolve the problem being raised. “The map is not the territory” is itself another map and, as such, can be understood, accepted, and even repeated indefinitely without changing the way we experience what happens.

The practical question can then be formulated as follows: Is it possible to perceive the representation while it is being formed, before it becomes transparent and comes to be experienced as that which it represents?

Perhaps some traditional Japanese practices can be understood from this perspective. Kadō, shodō, sadō, kendō, karate-dō, and other dō clearly differ in their techniques and immediate aims, but they share certain features that are particularly interesting in relation to the question that concerns us here. The prolonged repetition of relatively simple gestures, established forms, and a deliberately limited environment make it possible to perform the same action again and again. In a certain sense, these conditions resemble those of a laboratory, since the dōjō reduces some of the complexity of everyday life. A flower is arranged, a brushstroke is made, tea is prepared, a kata is repeated, or the same exchange of blows is practiced again and again. The action is familiar and is repeated and, precisely for this reason, over time it may cease to be the sole object of attention. From that point on, processes that normally remain hidden by their very speed and familiarity may begin to become perceptible, including expectations, predispositions, routines, self-evaluation, or the representation we construct of what happens. All these processes form part of learning and of our habitual way of engaging in the practice. The question is whether we come to recognize their participation in what we are experiencing, or whether they remain so transparent that we attribute directly to what happens what our representation, our conditioning, and our habitual responses are contributing.

Repetition then takes on a different meaning. Besides allowing the technical refinement of a gesture, repeating a relatively simple situation thousands of times creates conditions in which we can begin to perceive the participation of our conditioning and routines and, alongside them, something even subtler: the difference between what happens and what thought constructs about what happens.

This “noticing” does not necessarily imply a temporal interval between the two. To speak of a “before” in which the event would happen and an “after” in which the representation would appear would reintroduce the temporal categories that the essay itself has called into question. It is a matter of the possibility of experientially recognizing a difference that usually remains invisible, including within that experience the participation of acquired responses and dispositions that may be set in motion without our even noticing them. Nor does the practice require trying to eliminate thought. Attempting to attain a state in which no representations arise could easily become another goal constructed by thought itself. The question seems simpler and, at the same time, more difficult: representations can be recognized as they arise, and our conditioning and habitual patterns of response can likewise become perceptible while they are operating.

Here we may find a possible relationship between the dō and everyday life. Clearly, the relatively controlled conditions of practice are not the final aim, since outside the dōjō those conditions disappear. For example, someone contradicts us, we lose something we value, we remember an offense, we fear something that might happen, or we consider that someone is acting against our interests; in these situations, the representation of what is happening and our conditioned response to it may arise almost simultaneously. “They have humiliated me,” “what happened cannot be forgiven,” or “this should not be happening” may come to be experienced with such transparency that we barely notice how much we are adding to what happens or the extent to which our reaction is following already learned patterns.

The practical hypothesis would be that the familiarity acquired through years of practice may begin to manifest itself in these situations as well. It would not necessarily take the form of a deliberate operation such as “now I must remember that this is a representation” or “I am acting in a conditioned way,” since that would mean adding another thought. It could involve a deeper modification in our way of experiencing, so that what began to become perceptible during practice might also come to be recognized spontaneously in ordinary events.

The dō would not provide a theory about what the correct representation of reality is, nor would it necessarily teach us what we should think, what moral criteria we should adopt, or how to resolve each conflict. Its possible function would lie at an earlier stage, creating conditions in which we may come to recognize how we construct our representations, how our conditioning intervenes, and how certain responses are set in motion before the entire process becomes invisible and we cease to recognize its participation in the way we experience what happens.

This also allows us to understand the limitation of the essay itself. A text can describe the difference between map and territory, analyze the language through which we construct our representations, and point to the possible “forgetting” that occurs when they become transparent. It can also point to the participation of our conditioning and habitual responses. But all these explanations remain maps, and no argument can replace the experience toward which they attempt to point.

Perhaps it is precisely here that philosophy and practice can meet. The essay attempts to point through concepts to a difference that the practice of a dō allows us to learn to recognize through experience. The question then ceases to be merely “do I know that the map is not the territory?” and takes on a much more practical form. When I look, listen, act, remember, or think, can I recognize what happens and at the same time notice the representation I construct, the conditioning that intervenes, and the responses that arise from it? This “noticing” is only a first step. With practice, a point comes when this deliberate attention is no longer necessary and the response once again arises spontaneously, without the participation of our representations, conditioning, and routines necessarily remaining unnoticed.

From this perspective, the dō can be understood as a context in which, through repetition and practice, we learn to recognize what usually remains invisible in our experience.