Energetic configurations of all these steps have the same basic structural elements: the dominating orientation of the energies (towards the communion with Christ), the formation out of the two conjugated activities, attention and prayer (“ontological mover”) and so on. It means that the practice in this higher block is the spontaneous step-by-step ascent, in which the basic structural elements remain invariant and every next energetic configuration represents more differentiated and ordered dynamical form. Clearly, this description corresponds to the dynamics of self-similarity (though the dynamical structures are not spatial formations now, and the formal definition of self- similarity through scale invariance cannot be applied to them). Thus the block of the higher steps of hesychast practice reproduces closely one of principal synergetic patterns (represented, in particular, in deterministic chaos): spontaneous generation of a hierarchy of self-similar dynamical structures. It is obvious that the “synergetic paradigm of synergy” is present here.
As a result, we find that the higher steps of hesychast practice represent the overlapping or the common part of all the three domains of synergy, theological, anthropological and synergetic. On this common territory the corresponding paradigms of synergy are perfectly in accordance with each other. The synergetic paradigm can be considered here as a particular case of the anthropological paradigm concretizing the dynamical mechanism of synergy in a definite class of anthropological practices. The presence of a common territory, on which all the three paradigms of synergy essentially coincide, makes it possible to conclude that there is one universal paradigm having the theological, anthropological and synergetic paradigms of synergy as its representations or branches.
This conclusion can be supported by other examples of synergetic phenomena in anthropology. One example is provided by the initial steps of the hesychast Ladder which are conversion and repentance. Their goal is the change-over, in which a human person passes the Spiritual Gate: rejects all former regimes of his/her usual existence and begins to follow the strategy of ontological alternative striving with all his/her energies after God. Although in this initial part the practice did not yet reach synergy, the ascetic tradition basing on its rich experience states that some presence of Divine energy, even though implicit, is necessary to an adept in order to take the road directed to Divine being (in philosophical terms, the event of the ontological choice is a genuine ontological event, it is endowed with actual ontological contents). It means that repentance, at least when it is the start of spiritual practice, presupposes a kind of “pre-synergy”, a certain initial and implicit form of synergy. Let us remember now that Orthodox and especially ascetic repentance is a large set of very specific techniques cultivating a rich spectrum of sharply negative emotions and sensations: intense and insistent self-condemnation, contrition, compunction, remorse, all this taken to the extreme limits; tears and various kinds of physical self-torture… so that all these “repentance labors” were usually regarded by positivist science as a kind of madness. These two features taken together form the conceptual frame of hesychast repentance: its goal is the start of an ontologically alternative strategy and its means for reaching this goal are the concentration of many extreme, unusual and painful practices. But this combination has an obvious synergetic interpretation: the goal of repentance means radical restructuring of man’s inner reality and behavioral patterns; the “repentance labors” drive his inner reality far from its usual regimes of stability and equilibrium; and then even the implicit action of ontologically outer energy (pre-synergy) generates the desired restructuring. This restructuring is, however, not followed by the generation of all the hierarchy of new dynamical forms, i.e. the establishment of full-scale synergetic dynamics; and this fact is another manifestation of the mutual accordance of the two paradigms of synergy: the phenomenon, in which anthropological synergy is present only as a certain “pre-synergy”, in the aspect of its synergetic properties shows only some “synergetic pre-synergy”.
Similar example can be found in Zen, and we shall consider it briefly so as not to restrict our discussion by hesychasm alone. We shall see that the “synergetic paradigm of synergy” is the basic mechanism behind the famous phenomenon of satori, the culminating event of Zen practice. It is a complex event integrated into a subtle spiritual practice that has, in its turn, its doctrinal fundament in certain schools of Buddhism. Here we shall omit all the doctrinal aspects and concentrate only on dynamical mechanisms of satori as an anthropological phenomenon (the detailed exposition of the phenomenon and our interpretation of it is presented in the work[14] ). In a very simplified description, satori or “illumination” is sudden breakthrough of man’s consciousness to some new Truth or Light or Being related directly to the final goal of all the practice. What is considered as the main distinction of satori is not so much the result of the break-through (which is close to mystical experience of many other spiritual traditions) as specific strategies and techniques developed for reaching it. The way to satori is not the stepped advancement and ascent: instead of the ladder paradigm found usually in spiritual practices we see here the deadlock paradigm. Man’s consciousness must be driven to the deadlock, and this deadlock must be felt most keenly, and it is only out of such deadlock that the break-through to the illumination is possible. Specific techniques invented for producing the necessary deadlock state belong to the most striking and famous elements of Zen. Very roughly, these techniques are of two kinds: 1) the actions of the Zen master with respect to the disciple who wants to reach satori, 2) the meditation on the koans (literally, riddle or absurd situation), special paradoxical problems that have no logical solution. The actions are sudden and unexplainable, absurd, and often shocking, rude, aggressive (e.g., in one famous episode the master has broken the leg of the disciple); koans plunge adept’s mind into the protracted deadlock state that brings him to the extreme limits of exhaustion and despair.
14
S.Horujy. Zen as an Organon // Diogenes’ Lantern. A synergetic anthropology project in the modern context of the humanities. Moscow, 2010. Pp. 522-572. In Russian.)