Academic Exchange Quarterly Summer 2005 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 9, Issue 2
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Writing Under the Bodhi Tree
Erec Smith,
Erec Smith, PhD, is an assistant professor of English and
writing center director.
Abstract
Buddhist Philosophy provides
a fitting set of guidelines for writing center pedagogy and inspiration.
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Charter of Interbeing” supports the importance of rhetoric, kairos and audience consideration, in general. Also, it
provides a model, through its concept of “sangha”
(community), for a writing center environment conducive to student support. Hanh’s “Charter” provides a holistic foundation for novice
and veteran writing consultants on which all theories and practices of writing
tutorials can rest.
There have been many theories of peer writing assistance
that attempt to give us the proper outlook on how to conceptualize and
actualize a writing center session. What’s more, many of these theories provide
imperatives that every writing consultant should know before entering a writing
center. However, these theories only provide part of the overall ideology
necessary to promote the utmost productivity in a writing center setting. In
addition, these fractions of the theoretical tutoring experience have been
relayed in ways unnecessarily dense for undergraduate writing consultants
trying to simultaneously assuage the anxiety of tutoring and provide the best
service for their student writers. We are in need of a more comprehensive, yet
accessible, theory.
Ironically, I’ve
found such a theory while taking a break from writing center research and
pedagogy. Even stranger, this theory is couched in the fundamentals of Buddhist
philosophy . One day, while indulging
the leisure-reader in me, I picked up Thich Nhat Hanh’s Interbeing:
Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism.
However, it wasn’t long before I noticed something that resonated with
the writing center director in me. This innocent looking book, written by a
Buddhist monk that I’d taken interest in out of pure curiosity, had provided
the comprehensive theory every student writing consultant should read before
stepping into a writing center. Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Charter of Interbeing” is the perfect credo for writing center theory
and practice.
I must begin by saying that I am not trying to promote a new
ideology; I believe writing center consultants, in their anxiety, can become
too dependent on such things. What’s more, if relied on too much, what first
may have seemed liberating and fresh can easily become restricting and
stale. The fairly recent development of
post-process theory, “the body of theory which argues that writing does not
always occur in the orderly stages presented by writing process theory”, warns writing consultants and writing center
administrators not to “adhere too strictly to a formula of non-directive tutoring”
(Braun 10). D. Diane Davis, in her book Breaking Up [At] Totality: A Rhetoric
of Laughter, writes,
Any assumption of a “social essence” functions to
deny both the infinite finitude (the unprecedented
multiplicity) of singular beings and the radical differences among those
singular beings. Even when it is downsized to the level of a
“discourse community,” as Faigley has observed, the myths of common-being serve
to “suppress differences among members and exclude those who are labeled different”(231). Proponents of expressionist, feminist, and
social epistemic rhetorics of composing typically deal with this problem by
turning the pedagogical task toward myth
re-vision/reproduction. But, while reinscriptions are certainly not nothing (they are necessary), they also will not have
been enough to effect a rigorous hesitation in the machinations of exclusion. (13)
However, we are human and need something on which to hold.
We have to have some grounding (most of us do, anyway). We have to have
something on which to look back, or at least glance back, for some security.
Thus, we arrive at Thich Nhat
Hanh’s “Charter of Interbeing,”
which, paralogically, provides a theory that shuns
theory. It’s time we looked at this mysterious charter as well as the definition
for “interbeing.”
Interbeing,
what Hanh calls “Tiep Hien” is understood as “being in touch with” (Tiep) and “realizing” or “making it here and now” (Hien) (1). The Order of Interbeing,
then, is a group of people devoted to being connected with people based on a
particular situation and not based on an unattached, ahistorical
dogma. There seems to be a parallel
between the Order of Interbeing and writing center
administrators and consultants who want to empower and guide student writers
based on their individual and situational needs.
When analyzing Hanh’s “Charter of
the Order of Interbeing” we can better see the
connections between a writing center staff and a Buddhist sangha
(community). A consideration of each principle (nonattachment from views,
direct experimentation, appropriateness, and skillful means) separately, and
considering a substitution of “writing center theory and practice” for
“Buddhism,” will present guidelines quite apropos for writing centers.
Nonattachment from views: To be attached means to be
caught in dogmas, prejudices, habits, and what
we consider to be the Truth. The first
aim of the practice is to be free of all attachments, especially attachments to views. This is the most important teaching of
Buddhism. (8)
Writing consultants must never bring preconceived notions or
a strict methodology to any tutoring session. This erases the individual and
his or her specific situation and replaces them with a ready-made issue, or
attempts to solve a problem with a ready-made solution. We must not be attached
to particular ways of doing things. We must not be attached to the idea of
mastery (or any ideas, really). We must let the student writer and the
particular writing situation dictate our behaviors. Training to be a writing
center consultant must consist of providing a repertoire of methods for a
consultant, and never a way to handle every tutorial. Not all Freshmen, writing the same assignment
for the same professor, can be tutored the same. A good writing consultant
realizes this and does not need to attach him or herself to a particular
method. This may be daunting for many, but it is completely necessary to
achieve the utmost resourcefulness for student writers.
What’s more, writing consultants must not be too attached to
their own personal beliefs, lest they be distracted from their original
mission. When I was a graduate writing consultant at the
Direct experimentation: Buddhism emphasizes the
direct experience of reality, not speculative philosophy. Direct-practice-realization, not intellectual
research, brings about insight. Our own life
is the instrument through which we experiment with truth. (8)
Implicating Buddhism as a motivating force for writing centers
would probably perpetuate the division of theory and practice so common in
English departments that house writing programs and writing centers. As
mentioned before, theory is important when informing students about the variety
of cultural, gender and rhetorical issues inherent in tutoring, but ultimately,
we must focus on the student writer substantially more than a theory devised by
an armchair scholar who has no knowledge of the student writer’s existence or
experiences. This, according to Hanh, brings about
insight, or a realization of the best way to deal with a tutoring situation.
“Our own life is the instrument through which we experiment with truth” is a
very important statement. It inherently couches social construction, lore (as
opposed to theory) and the emphasis of human interaction over a-situational
methodology. This is a major key to writing center tutorials.
Appropriateness: A teaching, in order to bring about
understanding and compassion, must reflect the
needs of people and realities of society.
With the third principle, we can start to see the inherent
overlap of guidelines in “The Charter of Interbeing.”
All depends on the situation and all reflects Bruech’s
claim that meaning is situational, interpretative and public. That is to say,
meaning is based on one’s current environment, the attitudes and experiences of
those interpreting meaning in that current environment, and the implied
tendency of meaning to be based in social construction. Social construction is,
of course, reflected in many sayings of the Buddha as well as theory in
rhetoric, composition, and writing center practice. However, social
constructionist theory, as applied to composition and writing center pedagogy,
has also stopped short in providing an effective underlying strategy for its
application to writing center theory and practice.
Kenneth Bruffee, an important and
initial champion of social constructionist pedagogy, expounds on the benefits
of social construction, but doesn’t lay out a clear plan for its use in his
essay “Peer Tutoring and the Conversation of Mankind.” He writes,
Organizing collaborative learning effectively
requires doing more than throwing students together with their peers with little or no guidance or preparation. To do that is merely to perpetuate, perhaps even aggravate, the many possible
negative efforts of peer group influence: conformity, anti-intellectualism, intimidation, and leveling-down of
quality. To avoid these pitfalls and to marshal the powerful educational
resource of peer group influence requires us to create and maintain a demanding academic environment that
makes collaboration—social engagement in intellectual
pursuits—a genuine part of students’ educational development. (652)
Bruffee importantly makes an
adamant and watershed demand for an academic community that promotes
collaboration and guidance, but leaves it up to the reader to figure out an
effective way to bring such a community to fruition. However, his desire for a
space centered upon “social engagement in intellectual pursuits”, a kind of
academic sangha, is precisely the kind of environment
promoted by Hanh’s Charter of Interbeing,
and the writing center seems like the idea setting. What’s more, Bruffee provides incomplete advice by not combining his
thoughts on social construction with nonattachment and skillful means; one
cannot effectively handle the needs and actualities of people with an
appreciation of social construction, alone.
John Trimbur, who expands on Bruffee’s ideas, also implies a need to “reflect the needs
of people and realities of society” as well as the fact that this cannot be
done solely through a desire to collaborate. In “Concensus
and Differences in Collaborative Learning,” Trimbur
writes that a desire to arrive at consensus may still be too much of an ideal
that disregards real-life practicality. In trying to fix this problem, he
writes, “The revised notion consensus I am proposing here depends paradoxically
on its deferral, not its realization. . . . Replacing the ‘real world’
authority of consensus with a rhetoric of dissensus
can lead students to demystify the normal workings of discourse communities”
(615). Trimbur makes a valiant effort to promote a
non-attachment to ideals, even if that ideal is consensus; this is a wonderful
attempt to focus on students and their particular lives as opposed to something
more transcendent of teleological. Like Bruffee, Trimbur seems to embrace Hanh’s
notion of direct experimentation. Even non-attachment from views is expressed
through Trimbur’s mode of direct experimentation, a
“rhetoric of dissensus,” that, “lead[s] students to
demystify the normal workings of discourse communities” and “turn the
conversation in the collaborative classroom into a heterotopia
of voices—a heterogeneity without hierarchy” (616).
However, Trimbur still falls short; he seems to leave behind the
extremely important need for rhetorical competence. Fortunately, the Charter of Interbeing does not.
Skillful
means (upaya): Skillful means consist of images and
methods created by intelligent teachers to show the Buddha’s Way
and guide people in their efforts to practice the Way in their own particular circumstances.
Sans the religious bent, the fourth and last principle of
the Charter of Interbeing is, basically, a definition
of rhetoric or “expedient means.” The
distinguishing aspect of the fourth principle is, indeed, rhetoric. Consider
Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as "an ability, in each [particular]
case, to see the available means of persuasion" (Aristotle 36) and its
importance to the Buddhist purposes. Then, consider its importance to writing
center tutorials. Writing consultants
must be trained and provided experience to build the storehouse of possible
methods to be used. When to use each method is strictly at the consultant’s
discretion; Principles One through Three already address the need for
consultants to gauge the tutoring situation and act accordingly.
Training and providing experience for writing consultants is
key to developing “skillful means.” Being
exposed to the writings of various theories and narratives as well as
methodologies (as long as writing consultants are aware that no methodology is
universally appropriate) is imperative the development of writing consultants. Immersion into the theories and lore of
writing center culture can help construct a writing consultant skilled in
creating the “images and methods” appropriate for a given tutoring situation.
What’s more, social construction has done much to create the
personalities of the student writer and consultant before the particular
tutoring situation takes place. When
applied to the writing tutoring session and the prevailing characteristic of
writing as situational/interpretive/public (Breuch),
social construction morphs into a more inventive “social-epistemic rhetoric”
defined by James Berlin as “the study and critique of signifying practices in
their relation to subject formation within the framework of economic, social,
and political conditions” (77). Social
epistemic rhetoric, like Buddhism (especially when considering all four
principles of the Charter of Interbeing
simultaneously) promotes the creation of meaning as synonymous with the writing
process; student writer and writing consultant, socially constructed into their
current, particular selves, come together to make a specific meaning
appropriate for their specific situation.
I am not trying to sell a religion through this essay, nor
am I trying to make writing center pedagogy a Buddhist “thing.” I happened to
have found a fitting and succinct list of guidelines to serve as an easily
accessible foundation to any writing center pedagogue, whether novice or
veteran. The Charter of Interbeing is an excellent
springboard into the tutoring experience, and other learned theories and
practices can supplement the charter for utmost effectiveness.
Endnotes
[1] Actually, the thought of finding writing theory in
Buddhism was only stranger to me at the time.
Buddhism has already been
compared to, or appropriated by, rhetoric and composition; however, one must
take these texts a bit further to apply them to writing centers, specifically.
Michael Mcphail, author of Zen in the Art of
Rhetoric, focuses on the Buddhist idea that language is empty, and the ways in
which we describe things are arbitrary and situational. What’s more, the
arbitrariness and situational nature of language should empty the writer of any
notion of being held back or limited by language as a stable monolith (McPhail 20). In fact, Zen koans,
paradoxical statements, or questions that illicit paradoxical responses in an
attempt to open and enlighten the mind, give major insight into the nature of
language and the true essence of the guru/teacher/tutor.
Consider the koan, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
This koan
like most others, are meant to imply the arbitrariness of meaning. The koan may, initially, make the listener question every
assumption he’s ever known, especially if he or she aspires to practice
Buddhism; would not killing the Buddha defeat the purpose? The point of this koan is a major point of Buddhism: true enlightenment does
not involve following anyone but oneself. The Buddha, or any other teacher,
can, at best, only be guides on the road to enlightenment (Kopp 11). Likewise, a writing consultant, as a peer,
should not present him or herself as an authority on writing, but a guide who
is slightly more familiar with the environment along the path to
“enlightenment.” No writing consultant
should be certain of a student writer’s compositional destination. Lee-Anne M. Kastman Breuch writes,
Although I am unable to produce specific
content-based pedagogical agendas that can be immediately transferred to the
classroom, I do suggest that the rejection of mastery and engagement in
dialogue lead to an important implication for how we teach writing: such a
stance helps us reconsider teaching as an act of mentoring rather than a job in
which we deliver content. To think of teaching as mentoring means spending time
and energy on our interactions with students—listening to them, discussing
ideas with them, letting them make mistakes, and pointing them in the right
direction. (Breuch 121)
This ideal outlook on
rhetoric, which echoes the main point of koans in
general, is how Breuch sees this “post-process
theory” working best in writing centers.
Writing centers provide a
concrete context for post-process theory because one-to-one interactions are
the primary practice of writing center tutors, as well as the subject of
writing center research. . . . Given that post-process theory emphasizes
dialogue in writing instruction, as well as the importance of mentoring, and
given that such dialogue in writing instruction is the core of writing center
work, the connection between post-process theory and writing center pedagogy is
easy to support. (121-122)
Although Paul Gamache writes explicitly about the connection between
Buddhism and writing centers, he eventually stops short of a more holistic
influence of Buddhist philosophy. Gamache, in his
essay “Zen and the Art of the Writing Tutorial,” takes two aspects of “the
eight-fold way to enlightenment” described in the fourth noble truth of
Buddhism. Right mind and right action are the ways one should think and act to
attain enlightenment. Gamache uses these admirably as
a general rubric for entering a writing session, and writes,
The specific techniques that
I use are determined by the specific situation—student and assignment—not by
any routine or “typical tutorial” model.
However, even though the specific techniques that I use vary widely, all
are designed and used to achieve the same overall purpose—to give each student
what he/she needs. . .” (Gamuche 4)
Gamuche’s elusion of any “typical tutorial” implies a need, by
the writing consultant, to do whatever it takes, and have the ability to do
whatever it takes, in order to “give each student what he/she needs.” This idea is not only mentioned in Buddhist
texts, but spoken of and used by the Buddha, himself.
[2] This quote can be found on page 231 in Faigley’s Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernism and the
Subject of Composition.
[3] Aristotle’s statement, in Book I, section ii of
Rhetoric, that rhetoric is "an ability, in each [particular] case, to see
the available means of persuasion" is an excellent bridge from Buddhist
philosophy to the Western tradition. Of course, various connections can be made
throughout the history of rhetoric, transcendental thought, and postmodernism,
but the effectiveness of Aristotle’s statement to Buddhism and writing center
pedagogy is ideal.
[4] Throughout The Lotus Sutra, but specifically in chapter
2, the Buddha expounds on his past tendency and present need to use rhetorical
tactics to explain concepts that were too profound to be directly expressed
through words. In chapter 2, entitled “Expedient Means,” we find out that “the
foremost device of the Buddhas” is, in fact,
expedient means, a term synonymous with rhetoric (Lotus Sutra 27). According to
the Buddha, the mystic law is something that cannot be described through words
(25), and that expedient means (rhetoric), the one great device of all Buddhas , is the device of choice for Buddhas
who are all trying to attain the “one great reasons” why Buddhas
exist at all: to “open the door of Buddha wisdom to all living beings”
(31). While trying to explain all this
to a worthy disciple name Shariputra, the Buddha
states,
Shariputra, the Buddhas preach the Law
in accordance with what is appropriate, but the meaning is difficult to
understand. Why is this? Because we
employ countless expedient means, discussing causes and conditions and using words
of simile and parable to expound the teachings. . . .Shariputra,
the Thus Come Ones [Buddhas] have only a single
Buddha vehicle which they employ in order to preach the Law to living
beings. They do not have any other
vehicle, a second one or third one. Shariputra, the
Law preached by all the Buddhas of the ten directions
is the same as this.
Shariputra, the Buddhas of the past used countless numbers of expedient
means, various causes and conditions, and words of simile and parable in order
to expound the doctrines for the sake of living beings. (31)
From these words, we can see
that “expedient means” (rhetoric) is the only “vehicle” available with which to
put human beings on the right path. And it must be; one need not look to
Eastern religions for philosophical ponderings about the illusory nature of
words, or language’s inadequacy to directly relay a message. So even the
Buddha, a world-renown religious figures, calls rhetoric the “single Buddha
vehicle” (31).
The Buddha also states how
important audience consideration is when employing expedient means. He states,
“I know that living beings have various desires, attachments that are deeply
implanted in their minds. Taking cognizance of this basic nature of theirs, I
will therefore use various causes and conditions, words of simile and parable,
and the power of expedient means to expound the Law for them (32). This echoes
the writing consultants’ need to act according to the situation, which changes
with every session. If a teacher can take into consideration the many voices
that inform each student, that teacher will be more affective. What has been
shown by Breuch and others is that the best situation
for a decent attempt at gauging these voices is the face-to-face tutoring
session of which writing centers are the designated space.
References
Aristotle. On Rhetoric.
Braun, Paula, Courtney Patterson, and Sarah Abst. “Tutor’s Column: Talking Back to Tutoring
Manuals.” Writing Lab Newsletter Feb. 2005: 10.
Breuch, Lee-Ann M. Kastman.
“Post-Process ‘Pedagogy’: A Philosophical Exercise.” In Cross-Talk in Composition Theory.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative
Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’.” College
English 46.7 (1984): 171-187.
Davis, D. Diane. Breaking Up [at] Totality: A Rhetoric of
Laughter.
Gamache, Paul. “Zen and the Art of
the Writing Tutorial.” The Writing Lab Newsletter. 28:2, October, 2003, 1-4.
Hanh, Thich
Nhat. Interbeing: Fourteen
Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism.
McPhail, Mark L. Zen in the Art of
Rhetoric.
Trimbur, John. “Consensus and
Difference in Collaborative Learning.” College English. 51.6. (1989) 602-616.
Watson,
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