Bates Method Ain't Mechanical

Every my appreciable advance in Bates practice I did in a special state of the mind that I would call conscious and responsive reflection. It is usually when I am not in haste, not obliged to do and think anything and have my time to be with myself and meditate. I look inside my mind and sometimes cope to recognize clearly the wrong thoughts that cause me strain, and eliminate them. These thoughts are not like words but rather volitions (like a mental command to clench fists) that have become habitual and subconscious. Having realized and canceled these, I enter the condition when I no longer support strain, but am not yet fully relaxed. It is quite volatile, I need to continuously balance and dodge my mind to keep the wrong thoughts off. This condition of "no longer supporting strain" is the best starting point for practicing other Bates techniques, such as central fixation, swing, shifting, flashing etc., which are in this case very efficient.

I think my findings accord with what Bates wrote about mental strain:

"TEMPORARY conditions may contribute to the strain to see which results in the production of errors of refraction; but its foundation lies in wrong habits of thought. In attempting to relieve it the physician has continually to struggle against the idea that to do anything well requires effort. This idea is drilled into us from our cradles. [...] The mind is the source of all such efforts from outside sources brought to bear upon the eye. Every thought of effort in the mind, of whatever sort, transmits a motor impulse to the eye; and every such impulse causes a deviation from the normal in the shape of the eyeball and lessens the sensitiveness of the center of sight. If one wants to have perfect sight, therefore, one must have no thought of effort in the mind. Mental strain of any kind always produces a conscious or unconscious eyestrain and if the strain takes the form of an effort to see, an error of refraction is always produced."

Unfortunately, the next time I try to reproduce my previous success, it often happens that I fail to remember the mental state I was in, and only try to repeat things mechanically, which has little or no efficiency. I think many practitioners are familiar with this effect.

The resolution I'm finding is that one has to let more peace into the mind for more quality reflection. Perhaps one needs to devote more time to practice and during that time learn to fully retire from any business one may be doing during the day. Nothing is going to work if one keeps thinking about other things, while straining volitions remain in the background. Also, it is easier and more efficient to support the relaxed state of the mind afterwards, than to reacquire it again, but one needs yet to learn to do it, because it easy to return to the habitual strain when one gets back to work.

Another thing to mention is creative thinking. Our mind likes to have fun and play games, and is relaxed by doing so, but dislikes boredom and is strained by the latter. For this reason, even if some particular thought or image used to do a great job of relaxing my mind, after having been repeated many times it ceases to work, because it becomes boring and my mind rejects to think it any more. So I need go ahead and invent another one. These little and temporary personal customizations of Bates techniques make them work for me, provided that I thoroughly understand the underlying fundamental principles.

I've seen some people claiming that Bates method isn't perfect and needs to be enhanced because many people fail with it. I believe though that it's not the problem of Bates method but the problem of practitioners. Bates method is not mechanical but creative, and people are sometimes just not willing to be like that.