Buddhism and Babies!

Class discussion on Tuesday prompted me to consider the relationship between the Buddhist idea of non-self and an article that I was required to read for Infant and Child Development. The article addressed the research of Esther Thelen on the stepping reflex of infants. The stepping reflex is present in newborns, and can be evoked by gently stroking the feet on a solid surface- the newborn will move his or her legs in a very organized stepping movement. However, after 2 to 3 months of rapid growth and weight gain, the reflex disappears. Thelen found that by submerging infants from the waist down in a fish tank, and stroking their feet on the bottom of the tank, the reflex returns and the infant steps. By placing the infant in the tank, his or her legs were again light enough (as they were at birth) to lift and step. It was this interaction of environment and individual that produced the behavior. As Thelen put it in her article The Improvising Infant: Learning about Learning to Move, "the behavior resides not in the infant, nor in the fish tank, but in the entire baby-in-context situation." (Thelen, 1996). This dynamical systems theory approach to the stepping reflex applies to the Buddhist idea of self. There is nothing inherently unique to a person, and therefore one cannot be defined out of the context of life. It is only though interaction with the environment and other individuals that the self exists. The environment elicits the response that we call individuality.