Consider yourself. You are a composite creature, comprised of a sublime mind tethered to an animalistic body. With reason, you think about the world; with body, you feel it.
The two elements which form you are completely dissimilar. Reason treats of what is true and eternal; the body is limited by space and time and can only interact with what is tangible, in the here and now.
This polarity within yourself must be resolved, for the mind and the body have divergent goals to which they tend, disparate ends. The mind requires what is true and right (truth being what it needs for its survival, deteriorating in the presence of unreason), while the body demands what it needs for its survival. These are their respective natures. Clashes result, as the body, being unreasonable, regularly demands what reason denies, and the mind, being uncaring and insensitive, will call for things that pain the body; the composite creature, man, is left tormented.
Ideally, temporal body would defer to eternal reason in cases of dispute. But this takes time and practice. Reason must first develop its full powers in order to subdue savage body. Before that might happen, mind and body war, and their master – you – hurries to defuse the tension at any cost. Agitated by the duality within your soul, you rush through a peace-plan designed to effect unity and harmony between the warring factions.
Rushed treaties typically require great compromises, and this one is no exception.
(If you are wondering when you signed this treaty, I would caution that I am discussing what happens in the inner, locked chambers of your mind, the doors of which we are now prying open.)
The terms of the peace are quite simple: Body will be understood in light of reason and speak the language of the mind.
For example, when the body feels hunger, a thought is immediately triggered: “I should eat.” The hunger itself – merely a bodily sensation – is unconsciously layered with meaning. Mind makes sense out of body, assigning reason to a physical urge, as if hunger were a logical argument: that man should eat. Feelings disguise themselves as reason.
In fact, sensation means nothing. There is no meaning to a feeling, only a feeling. You feel hunger, but whether you should or shouldn’t eat is a separate matter completely, which can be determined by reason alone. There is certainly a cause for the feeling, a reason for its occurrence, and thus feeling is extremely useful to the mind – but only as a signal. It has no meaning, in and of itself. It is not reason and cannot determine what should be done.
Yet in an attempt to effect a rapprochement, you learn to think with your body. This is the common ground for reconciliation between the enemies within. Bodily sensations are translated into the language of the intellect, and thus you bridge between body and reason and achieve – so it seems – inner peace.
Coupling body and mind protects you from the body’s worst excesses. In a certain sense, the body becomes subservient to the mind, circumscribed by reason. Since bodily sensations are assigned meaning, anything to which meaning cannot be assigned becomes off-limits. Body will only do that which mind could process and make sense of. The most disorderly and chaotic acts are not doable by a functional mind-body coalition.
Thus, you feel like you are under control and peace is restored; body and mind are in harmony.
But this is a false peace, uneasy and illusory, and a disservice to mind and body alike. Reason is corrupted if interpreted through the lens of the body, as only the mind can reason effectively; to think with the body is to be unreasonable. Moreover, if you think with your body, you will feel with your mind – you will not allow yourself thoughts that are not ratified by the body as good. The most immaterial, rarified thoughts will be off-limits by the terms of the peace.
The body, too, is shortchanged in this deal. Unreasonable body is a wild beast – tame it with meaning and it is unfaithful to its very nature. Body is animalistic and mind is sublime; the man-animal hybrid is neither and is unstable too, its components both unnatural and unfulfilled. The peace will eventually lead to more anguish.
But man can do better. As reason develops its powers to control animalistic body, body and mind should be allowed to coexist side by side in all their wondrous dissimilarity. As your reason becomes stronger, you can and should unlearn to think with your body.
Weaken the mind-body connection, even sever it!
When you experience a sensation, remind yourself that it means nothing. Arrest the feeling and observe it. Notice it for just what it is. If you feel hunger, don’t instinctively think: “I should eat.” Hold the sensation as merely a sensation that contains no meaning at all, in and of itself, for suffering means nothing bad and pleasure means nothing good. Through this practice, you begin to tease apart the hybrid creature, allowing your mind to become distinct, complete and unrestrained.
Your mind will become stronger, strong enough to subdue savage body, and the body will rediscover the animal it is designed to be and live as such – but only when mighty reason allows. A stark duality will develop within yourself, but a manageable and even fascinating duality, where the parties communicate and interact, each in their own unique nature. Body will defer to reason, and when reason determines that something desired by the body is right, the body will enjoy it – but purely as animalistic body, as a stranger to mind.
I should warn you – this prescription is not appropriate for everyone. A mind incapable of commanding its body must necessarily inspire that body, corporealize mind, and become a man-animal; but those capable of becoming real men must first uncouple mind from body.
Feel pain and pleasure like the animal your body is and think like the human you could be; then you deserve to be called “man.”
Sources and references:
Genesis 6:3
TB Yevamos, chapter 6
Very interesting reflections, as usual.
I wonder whether there is nothing at all derived from the body that has any meaning. Take suffering. Is it perhaps through my own corporeal experience of suffering that I can identify its wrongness - and then feel sympathy for others in pain? If so, the body might provide a better perspective on good and evil than the mind. The mind, you write, is "uncaring and insensitive." In that case, perhaps the correct moral insights require the body as much as they require the mind - or even more.
Or is this what the author means by the final peace that can be achieved between mind and body?
"Weaken the mind-body connection, even sever it! When you experience a sensation, remind yourself that it means nothing."
It is important to distinguish sensation within the modality of self-centered homeostasis (self-other, with the self being the intellect and other being the body) and sensation within the modality of interpersonal dialogue (with the self being the individual, and the other being the counterparty in dialogue). There are several routes to achieve connection with the "infinite other" and thereby transcend physicality, living on an endless plain of intellect. The most common one we experience is the self-other connection of interpersonal communication. Much like the mitzvah of tzitzis, with the kavana of the t'cheiles-kisei hakava meditation, through connection with others, we can engage in a relational experience with the infinite other itself through recognition of the chelek hashem expressed through others. It is this communion (in our caste of "m'daber") that sets us apart from the universe and allows us to experience the divine connection. Recognition of the other is an unnatural and highly intellectual pursuit, but it also sets us apart through Dibbur. Through the empowerment of the self (b'shvili nivra), we gain a clearer sense of our self and our ability to make conscious choices of how we want to engage in the dialogue with the other. Once we attain clarity, we enter into a state of empathy by becoming more open to others in recognition of their unique self. Recognition of others must be based on empowerment in that communicants must be confident in their freedom to make decisions regarding the course of the dialogue. Communication between the self and the self creates agency and empowerment, and communication between the self and the other- creating empathy and recognition, requires a strong mind-body connection. In interpersonal dialogue (Dibbur), the body and the mind think and communicate together. This goes beyond physical gestures and using the mouth to articulate sounds. Neuroscience points to "mirror neurons" in the prefrontal area of the brain as the foundation for our capacity to achieve empathy by feeling what the other feels. Although the extent of their importance within the context of language processing and empathy is debated in scientific research, it is a fact that dialogue and empathic capacity is limited in the absence of these neurons. More importantly, while engaging in dialogue, one must integrate his and the "other"s emotion and physicological response within the interpersonal dialogue itself. Dibbur is as much a physiological dialogue as it is a verbal dialogue. Dvarim shebileiv are not dvarim until they exist in expression. To properly recognize self, achieve empowerment, and recognize other, one must incorporate the body's cues and physiological response into its empathic vocabulary. If one were to live an isolated existence, comprised only of self and an infinite other, then one can benefit from severing sensation from meaning. But when one lives in a continuous dialogue with others, the sensation can be communication from the infinite other itself. Some feelings are too valuable to be lost in pursuit of the relationship we think we are achieving by ignoring it.