The reason why Taoism and Zen present, at .rst sight, such a
puzzle to the Western mind is that we have taken a restricted view
of human knowledge. For us, almost all knowledge is what a Taoist would call conventional knowledge, because we do not feel that we
really know anything unless we can represent it to ourselves in words, or in some other system of conventional signs such as the
notations of mathematics or music. Such knowledge is called
conventional because it is a matter of social agreement as to the
codes of communication. Just as peop
le speaking the same
language have tacit agreements as to what words shall stand for what things, so the members of every society and every culture are
united by bonds of communication resting upon all kinds ofunited by bonds of communication resting upon all kinds of
agreement as to the classi.cation and valuation of actions and
things.
Thus the task of education is to make children .t to live in a
society by persuading them to learn and accept its codes–the rules
and conventions of communication whereby the society holds itself
together. There is .rst the spoken language. The child is taught to
accept “tree” and not “boojum” as the agreed sign for that (pointing
to the object).
Besides language, the child has to accept many other forms of
code. For the necessities of living together require agreement as to
codes of law and ethics, of etiquette and art, of weights, measures,
and numbers, and, above all, of role. We have di4culty in
communicating with each other unless we can identify ourselves in
terms of roles–father, teacher, worker, artist, “regular guy,”
gentleman, sportsman, and so forth. To the extent that we identify
ourselves with these stereotypes and the rules of behavior
associated with them, we ourselves feel that we are someone
because our fellows have less di4culty in accepting us-that is, inbecause our fellows have less di4culty in accepting us-that is, in
identifying us and feeling that we are “under control.” A meeting of
two strangers at a party is always somewhat embarrassing when the
host has not identi.ed their roles in introducing them, for neither
knows what rules of conversation and action should be observed.
Once again, it is easy to see the conventional character of roles.
For a man who is a father may also be a doctor and an artist, as well as an employee and a brother. And it is obvious that even the
sum total of these role labels will be far from supplying an
adequate description of the man himself, even though it may place
him in certain general classi.cations. But the conventions which
govern human identity are more subtle and much less obvious than
these. We learn, very thoroughly though far less explicitly, to
identify ourselves with an equally conventional view of “myself.”
For the conventional “self” or “person” is composed mainly of a
history consisting of selected memories, and beginning from the moment of parturition. According to convention, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my
conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real “me” than what I am at this moment. For what I am
seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is .xed and .nal. It
is the .rm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and
so it comes about that I am more closely identi.ed with what no
longer exists than with what actually is!
We are not suggesting that Westerners simply do not use the
“peripheral mind.” Being human, we use it all the time, and every
artist, every workman, every athlete calls into play some special
development of its powers. But it is not academically and
philosophically respectable. We have hardly begun to realize its
possibilities, and it seldom, if ever, occurs to us that one of its most
important uses is for that “knowledge of reality” which we try to
attain by the cumbersome calculations of theology, metaphysics,
and logical inference.
Taoism, on the other hand, is generally a pursuit of older men,
and especially of men who are retiring from active life in the
community. Their retirement from society is a kind of outward
symbol of an inward liberation from the bounds of conventional
patterns of thought and conduct. For Taoism concerns itself with
unconventional knowledge, with the understanding of life directly,unconventional knowledge, with the understanding of life directly,
instead of in the abstract, linear terms of representational thinking.
Confucianism presides, then, over the socially necessary task of
forcing the original spontaneity of life into the rigid rules of
convention–a task which involves not only con1ict and pain, but
also the loss of that peculiar naturalness and un-self-consciousness
for which little children are so much loved, and which is sometimes
regained by saints and sages. The function of Taoism is to undo the
inevitable damage of this discipline, and not only to restore but also
to develop the original spontaneity, which is termed tzu-jan b or
“self-so-ness.” For the spontaneity of a child is still childish, like
everything else about him. His education fosters his rigidity but not
his spontaneity. In certain natures, the con1ict between social
convention and repressed spontaneity is so violent that it manifests
itself in crime, insanity, and neurosis, which are the prices we pay
for the otherwise undoubted benefits of order.
Things are produced around us, but no one knows the whence.
They issue forth, but no one sees the portal. Men one and all
value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know
how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach
knowledge. Is not this misguided?
In Chuangtzu’s words, “The perfect man
employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing.
It receives, but does not keep.”
The idea is not to reduce the human mind to a moronic vacuity,
but to bring into play its innate and spontaneous intelligence by
using it without forcing it
The state of consciousness described sounds not unlike being
pleasantly drunk–though without the “morning after” e5ects of
alcohol! Chuang-tzu noticed the similarity, for he wrote:
A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may su5er,
does not die. His bones are the same as other people’s; but he meets the accident in a di5erent way. His spirit is in a condition
of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he
conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot
penetrate his breast; and so he does not su5er from contact with
objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine,
how much more is it to be got from Spontaneity. (19)10
Perhaps the special /avor of Zen is best described as a certain
directness. In other schools of Buddhism, awakening or bodhi seems
remote and almost superhuman, something to be reached only after many lives of patient e:ort. But in Zen there is always the feeling
that awakening is something quite natural, something startlingly
obvious, which may occur at any moment. If it involves a di;culty,
it is just that it is much too simple. Zen is also direct in its way of
teaching, for it points directly and openly to the truth, and does not
trifle with symbolism.
In other words, if nirvana is actually here and now so that
to seek it is to lose it, a realization through progressive stages is
hardly appropriate. One would have to see into it in the present moment, directly.
To the Taoist mentality, the aimless, empty life does not suggest
anything depressing. On the contrary, it suggests the freedom of
clouds and mountain streams, wandering nowhere, of Aowers in
impenetrable canyons, beautiful for no one to see, and of the ocean
surf forever washing the sand, to no end.
mplicity. While the Zen experience does not imply any speci>c course of
action, since it has no purpose, no motivation, it turns
unhesitatingly to anything that presents itself to be done. Mo chih
ch’u is the mind functioning without blocks, without “wobbling”
between alternatives, and much of Zen training consists in
confronting the student with dilemmas which he is expected to
handle without stopping to deliberate and “choose.” The response
to the situation must follow with the immediacy of sound issuing
from the hands when they are clapped, or sparks from a Aint when
struck. The student unaccustomed to this type of response will at
>rst be confused, but as he gains faith in his “original” or
spontaneous mind he will not only respond with ease, but the
responses themselves will acquire a startling appropriateness. This
is something like the professional comedian’s gift of unprepared wit which is equal to any situation
owever useful as a discipline for
inculcating patience and fortitude. Although the West has its own
contemplative tradition in the Catholic Church, the life of “sitting
and looking” has lost its appeal, for no religion is valued which
does not “improve the world,” and it is hard to see how the world
can be improved by keeping still.
There is, indeed, nothing unnatural in long periods of quiet
sitting. Cats do it; even dogs and other more nervous animals do it.
So-called primitive peoples do it–American Indians, and peasants of
almost all nations. The art is most di-cult for those who have
developed the sensitive intellect to such a point that they cannot
help making predictions about the future, and so must be kept in a
constant whirl of activity to forestall them. But it would seem that
to be incapable of sitting and watching with the mind completely at
rest is to be incapable of experiencing the world in which we live
to the full. For one does not know the world simply in thinking
about it and doing about it. One must 5rst experience it more
directly, and prolong the experience without jumping to
conclusions.
All time is here in this body, which is the body of Buddha. The past
exists in its memory and the future in its anticipation, and both of
these are now, for when the world is inspected directly and clearlythese are now, for when the world is inspected directly and clearly
past and future times are nowhere to be found.
Awakening almost necessarily involves a sense of relief because it
brings to an end the habitual psychological cramp of trying to grasp
the mind with the mind, which in turn generates the ego with all its
con4icts and defenses. In time, the sense of relief wears o<–but not
the awakening, unless one has confused it with the sense of relief
and has attempted to exploit it by indulging in ecstasy. Awakening
is thus only incidentally pleasant or ecstatic, only at 5rst an
experience of intense emotional release. But in itself it is just the
ending of an arti5cial and absurd use of the mind.
5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment