Philosophy II ©Richard R. Kennedy 1974
BUDDHISM: “YOU Are Your Own Refuge”
There is a fascinating lure about this man Buddha. A man gifted with health and material splendor from noble birth, nevertheless, grasped the essential tragedy of existence, becoming sensitized to the millions of his countrymen suffering under the power structure of caste; he walked among them, loving them, instructing them, giving them hope and courage—most important, courage. Here he promised them literally nothing but the strength of themselves within:
One man on the battlefield conquers an army of a thousand men. Another conquers himself—and he is greater. (The Dhammapada, translated from The Pali by P. Lal)
Notwithstanding his spiritual heroics, the popular belief — in the western matrix anyway — seems to be that he is an embodiment of spiritual pessimism if not nihilism as noted here by Buddhist scholar Stcherbatsky:
The term [Nirvana] has passed into almost all our languages with the definite meaning of an annihilation comparable to the extinction of fire when the fuel is exhausted. [quoted by G.R. Welbon, The Buddhist Nirvana and Its Western Interpreters]
Is it Buddha's hang-up with nirvana or ours that gets in the way of his positive accomplishments? Though Karma itself by natural causes of disease and catastrophe inflicts sorrow, we miss the humanistic trend of Buddha if we do not recognize that desire is a self-willed and deliberately conscious effort of man through which sorrow is self-inflicted or inflicted upon others. This act of negation of will is the true characteristic of the saint, which finds its last completion in the absolute cessation of personal consciousness;...This deep longing is expressed more purely and significantly...in its final transfiguration and highest perfection, Buddhisrn....Brahma finds his salvation in the saints who, by perfect negation of the will of life, by the sympathy with all suffering which alone fills their heart, enter the state of Nirvana.... Such a saint was Buddha. According to his doctrine of the migration of the soul every man is born again in the form of that creature on which he had inflicted pain. [Wagner on Music and Drama, quoted by Welbon]
Welbon is quick to point out that it is “Wagner the artist, not Wagner the, scholar" that speaks of Buddha. Nevertheless, Wagner sees Buddha as a heroic figure struggling for the salvation of man and of life itself. The scholar is interested in the accuracy of his research; the artist is interested in the truth of his identity through the superstars of his creativity that intuitively show him the light at the end of the tunnel. Thus, an affinity for mysticism and faith is generated in a world that really has no truth anyway other than the “terrible and questionable truth of existence" of which Nietzsche and Buddha both were curiously aware and recognized the need for transvaluation, or a transcendental turn:
What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of your contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome. [Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, quoted by Welbon]
And
The ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt. Dharma has only one taste, the taste of Nirvana. [Dhammapada]
“The world is too much...getting and spending we lay waste our powers.” Progress and the quantitative acquisition that goes with it entails human erosion. Few have the enduring volition of enhancing the quality of life in the classic Confucian style; still fewer would, nay, could, cope with the dismissal of fear and doubts, which the espousal of the Four Noble Truth entails. The Confucian quality of life is at most secondary; it is a luxury few if any have a compulsion for—a strange pursuit of happiness. The Four Noble Truths is regressive to the western dynamics of self-aggrandizement.
Buddhism is far from regressive; in a curious way it is almost Grecian in its spirit: it boldly looks at life and spits in its eye for what it is: So this is life! Youth into old age Health into disease Learned fools miscall it pleasure! [The Dhammapada p6]
This was a youthful, disdainful Buddha experiencing his first shock of life. Soon afterward he shows his revulsion to life:
The oil-filled lamps were sputtering out. Around him he saw wild and violent women, (heretofore his lovely dancing girls)some foaming at the mouth, some grinding their teeth, some mumbling, some yawning, some spitting, some drooling. [Ibid p8)
O the precious line of a disillusioned youth! “Saddle me a horse !” But an older, wiser Buddha, in spite of this Jonathan Swift world, instructed:
The man who punishes those who do not deserve punishment, or offends the inoffensive, punishes and offends himself. Speak gently, and they will respond. Angry words hurt , and rebound on the speaker. All fear punishment, all love life. Therefore, do not kill, or cause to kill. Do as you wouldwant done. [Ibid pp83-4]
Yea unto life! Make the best of it, notwithstanding the Noble Truths.
The first of these truths is the glaring fact of life — pain and suffering — the second faces up to the reality that this suffering is conditioned by the matrices of nature, culture, society and ancestry: there is no enduring metaphysical self one need protect. This logically leads to the third which remedies the first two by obliterating the pain altogether. The fourth is the manner in which this suppression is obtained. Here one begins by suppressing lust completely which in turn destroys samkara or the mental complex leading to the obliteration of consciousness; the entire province of pedestrian existence coming to a halt. Of course, the Greek tragedian would laugh at this: The thrill of life is in the attempt at the impossible in temporal existence; certainly you don’t aid the Furies into hurling you into the abyss! Out-fox them, dammit! — for as long as you can. If the brand of fate is on your ass, let them find it. Buddha would counter: Now who’s being immature? Your way is but a game leading to inevitable frustration; for all assertion all desire are sins and the very source of unhappiness. Out-fox the Karma by liquidating your component parts, reducing you to the absurdity that you are and turn out the light. If one desires nothing there are no tantrums. Such a struggle is not for ordinary men! It is one thing to cool the passions; quite another to stop the flow of fresh insight, speculation of an afterlife, curiosity of the surrounding world. How masterful unto himself to abstain from it all!
I have not taught that the world is eternal. I have not taught that the world is not eternal. ...I have not taught that the soul and the body are the same....that the soul and the body are different....that the liberated person exists after death....not exist after death....Why have I not taught all this? Because all this is useless, it has nothing to do with Dharma, it does not lead to the cessation of passion, to peace, to supreme wisdom....to Nirvana. (Ibid. pp19-20)
This struggle is called the Eight-fold Path — right beliefs, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right occupation, right effort, right mindedness, and right rapture. On the surface, it seems almost Confucian, but the attainment of enlightenment for Buddha is not the joys of the quality of life, of sitting down to a good cup of tea and discussing methodology in rectifying the current dynasty. On the contrary, enlightenment is the denial of these “important matters.” Still, Buddha himself could not deny that ultimate renunciation springs from a powerful, positive system of ethics. Wrong actions spring from wrong beliefs, leading one astray from Dharma. Wrong aspirations impede our insight into the wisdom of self-renunciation, Wrong speech hinders our beliefs and desires by involving us in nitpicking and calumny. Wrong effort will lead one astray from control over the passions. Wrong conduct is having no regard for the blessedness of life; for it is only through life one comes at rest with himself. Wrong occupation [just look at today’s auto industry!] is one involved in some field in which he believes he should quit and does not. Wrong mindedness is lack of respect for the elements of being and is incapable of ridding himself of lust and grief. Wrong rapture is not experiencing the calm of contemplation, the inability to eradicate the torments of frustrations.
Avoid these two extremes. On the one hand, low, vulgar, ignoble, and useless indulgence in passion and luxury; on the other, painful, ignoble, and usele5s practice of self-torture and mortification. Take the Middle Path....It is the Eight-fold Way....(It) leads to insight, peace, wisdom enlightenment, and Nirvana. [Ibid. pp22-23]
This escape must eventually be realized; otherwise there would be no point to the Middle Path if it did not lead to an end. Buddha, however benevolent, never tries to hide the fact that there is a method to his madness: that the ultimate objective is paradoxically to fulfil the self by annihilation or absorption by the void. Since all humanity was bound to Karma’s symbol, the bhava-cakra or wheel of life and consciousness, in which the old is dissolving and the new becoming, and since the individual is in continuous suffering and life is contingent upon one’s previous existence, the only escape from this cycle was to achieve unconsciousness not only of the world but of the very self thus ending the cycle by merging with the Absolute or the Nothing. In contrast to this apparent negativism of achieving Nirvana, strict discipline and clear thinking are essential! Clear thinking leads to Nirvana a confused mind is a place of death. Clear thinkers do not die, the confused ones have never lived. The wise man appreciates clear thinking, delights in its purity, and selects it as the means to Nirvana Clear thinking, right action, discipline and restraint make an island for the wise man, an island safe from floods. [Ibid p49]
As in any ideological or religious thrust, however individual-centered, Buddhism has left its imprint on human relations: Brahmin women have periods, conceive, give birth and breast feed their children. And yet these Brahmins born as all other children are born, say that they are better than children from the other castes....Is only a Brahmin capable of having a heart of gold, can only a Brahmin show love, gentleness, and goodness? Can’t a warrior, a merchant, a worker?....Can only a Brahmin go to the river with a string of bathe balls and powder and wash himself clean of dirt? Can’t a warrior, a merchant, a worker? Is the fire produced by a Brahmin rubbing two Sal sticks together any brighter than the fire produced by a trapper, bamboo weaver, or scavenger who picks up two sticks from a pig-sty or dog trough?[Ibid.]
No system that brings equality into the world can go unnoticed for very long—particularly within a caste-system which actually felt threatened by Buddhism, even though the latter eventually was abandoned in India: Probably owing to the rigidity of the power structure and the rich heritage of Hinduism. Its democratic essence, however, was more responsive in China because of the flexibility of the Taoist-Confucianist enlightenment. The Taoists and the Buddhists took to the hills, as it were, to find fresh insight into the appreciation of nature, owing to the right mindfulness, particularly in the Zen school. Suddenly one understands on hearing the chirping of a bird or from the fragrance of a flower. The gentle words and actions of Buddha touched many oriental artists. His sphere of influence reached the Japanese poet Matsuo, Basho:
I am one who eats his breakfast gazing at the morning glories.[ The Way of Silence, Basho]
It is inconceivable that Buddha spending a lifetime on the road in discourse of the Dharma felt not the peace he sought while on the Way:
Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of Ancients, too, who have died on the road. [ Dhammapada p8]
“Therefore a Zen master when asked , ‘What is the Tao?’ replied immediately, ‘Walk on!’ [Watts, The Spirit Of Zen ] So, too, had Buddha directed: “if you find no equal on life’s road, go alone!” Thus, in approaching the threshold of Nirvana human interrelationships begin to erode and the contemplation of nature takes on a fresh intensity, like the dying animal scratching the earth. Small wonder the Buddhists have sought out some of the most romantic corners of the world. This devotion to nature became a source of Buddhist art and of Zen Buddhism. Man in the end is an island.
Holy is the forest. Holy is the place where the senses are at peace, where the saint finds refuge and simple delight. [The Dhammapada p72]
All who have achieved real excellence in any part possess one thing in common; that is, a mind to obey nature, to be one with nature, throughout the four seasons of the year. Whatever such a mind sees is a flower, and whatever such a mind dreams of is the moon. It is only a barbarous mind that sees other than the flower, merely an animal mind that dreams of other than the moon. ([Basho]
Buddha’s sphere of influence in covering the dignity of life is another curious paradox of a man whose incursion was to renounce the world. His doctrine of universal love toward all creatures paved the way for a much needed Christianity in a time when cruelty was a prevailing way of life. His sense of brotherhood was certainly a sobering influence on a civilization designed by the caste. His influence fanned east and west to the more laissez faire or competitive societies which could be far worse than they are had not Buddha, as other great thinkers and legislators contributed each in his own way, mollifying a very difficult world. To this day Buddhist monks welcome into their fold rich and poor, learnéd and ignorant; for all have the potential for right character.
The disciples of Gautama are always awake, day and night delighting in compassion and love. [The Dhammapada p140]
In spite of the irony of the deification of one who believed not in God or gods, he allayed the fears and superstitions of his followers that had heretofore been under the dogmatism of systems incorporating wrathful gods. He truly liberated them by showing them the way to salvation without mediators or priests or divinities but through self-examination and good will, not through ostentatious offerings to gods and systems. One need not look to God; he is within:
No one is higher than him, who will not be deceived, who knows the essence, who has abandoned desire, renounced the world and lives untouched by the flow of time. (Ibid)
Here, perhaps, lies the point of Buddha: he is a braking action for the west. This upstart needs the older wisdom to hold up the mirror. For only in honest reflection will we ever reach a sensible solution to what life is all about.
You are your own refuge. Black Enlightenment1970
To play the heavy is as a rule a more difficult task than the role of protagonist on the side of righteousness. Rhetoric and oratory rely on the underpinnings of logic and ethics to be persuade the enlightened; whereas sophistry relies on gyrations of half-truths, innuendoes and prejudice — no small task if deliberate, but ironically very simple if out of ignorance. Little wonder, then, that giants like Douglass, Walker and Garvey ring out through the ages as exemplars of style and persuasion. In the 60s these giants were great historical sources for the blacks who crawled out of their insulated Harlem renaissance, along with disillusioned liberal whites in Washington willing to accept minimal responsibility for the 400 years of black oppression, though not blame precisely. The ugly war, assassinations, and Watergate, of course put a stop to the march on the path of King’s dream. The heavy character resides in all of us as individuals but from the clearer vantage of law and the higher perspective of history somehow the whispers of what should be done takes hold and haunts the social consciousness to action. What with the turmoil, Watergate creaked unnoticed until one day the foghorn went off and the ship of state was alerted. Evil forces at work, in spite of the destruction left in its wake eventually succumbs to its own symbiotic erosion. Its irrational strain breaks down because it unwittingly generates a moral resistance supported by the logic of social consciousness. Had the Confederates won, they would have collapsed from empty values and isolation. Ironically the North won and perpetuated the South’s evil institutions. Even Nixon someday will go the route of Macbeth to the pit of idiocy of sound and fury — the mirror of ourselves, of every indecent and corrupt ideologies in the sad composition of history. What use legitimate rhetoric, why articulate what’s already in the heart, why dwell on the obvious? As Douglass said, “What, then remains to be argued?’ Yet Douglass knew all too well that without argument, constant persuasion, the sleeping body politic will never waken to a sense of justice. Douglass was under no illusion that the listeners on the conclusion of his July Fourth Speech would march on Washington; but he did know that his speech would go down in history, and perhaps one day to be used as a weapon for posterity’s struggles. This is the function of great oratory: a persuasive record in history added to the slow awakening of a just nation. Moses did not invent God; poets before him did. King, Malcolm X, or Cleaver did not invent black protest; Walker, Garvey and Douglass did. It is interesting to speculate — since Walker’s son as legislator was unable to bear fruit — who the great, black legislator will be in tying these disparate forces of deeply rooted righteousness, or will the legislator, motivated by the ghost of Garvey, first lead his people from the great land of sin? The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority. In the meantime there will be other black spokesmen, other John the Baptists, who find it necessary to prick the conscience of the nation and to stir “their black brethren from the lethargy so common to wearisome oppression.” The wheel of justice were lugged to the hub of freedom by Walker, a martyr, and Garvey; Douglass set it in motion on a very appropriate day
TAKE THE “EL” TRAIN
Distant indeed is the twentieth century from the space in time of Academia where and when Plato stood tall facing his eagre pupils gathered round the tree of pure knowledge that stretched its fragile limbs upward to the realm of ideas — the soul’s yearning for dwelling among the stars. Surely, Plato’s choice of site was no accident; though some would argue that Olympus would have been more appropriate, Plato would not have tolerated the vulgarity of Homer’s gods under the same roof. Surely, he — the metaphysical poet that he was — must have mulled over the leasing of the Parthenon until his nervous monad obsessed with the betrayal of art, intuited the “fourfold principle”. Surely, revulsion was imminent: the vileness of such earth works would gravitate his pupils ‘ flight into a sense & presence, obviating the call of “fly me” into the sky within. Nevertheless, Plato had had to realize reluctantly that to sustain his disciples high motivation — lest it be dampened, lest his lesson plans be rained on — shelter had to be sought. Even for Platonist Heidegger's primal principle applies: To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell. Thus, the Western schoolhouse was conceived, whence a continual progression. or regression of architecture took hold. From inspiring temple to drab monastery; from the red schoolhouse to sprawling dragons of modern times, one common theme is apparent: to reflect the style of living and learning of respective space and time: “Dwelling is the manner in which mortals are on the earth....we do not dwell because we have built, but we build because we dwell.”
As children my friends and I used to crawl under the turnstile and ride the El in the city. To us, in truth, though, of course, subliminally, it meant dwelling: the great piles firmly imbedded in the cobblestones below were Herculean legs that held us up to the sky and rails we viewed from the roaring front car gave us the perspective of gods vaulting the dwellings of mortals. Small wonder we never stole a ride on the subway, for we were mortals on earth, not moles in it. Apparently the EL did not measure up to Heidegger’s categorical imperative:
‘On the earth’ already means ‘under the sky.’ Both of these also mean ‘running before the divinities' and include a belonging to man’s being with one another.’ By a primal oneness the four — earth, sky, divinities and mortals — belong together in one.
For where is man's brilliant work — the El? — scrapped, hauled out to sea or shipped to Japan. The fourfold had been violated: man’s works are to be under the sky, not in it. Yet was this principle offended really? Those dwelling below could not savor its lofty pleasure, could not experience its exhilaration, could not. sense its Olympic majesty. To them it was noisy, ugly and offended the city sky and the sun’s play of light and shade. What is left to recapture this primitive presence? I merge with my children’s excitement — their sense of unique presence — when they ride the roller-coaster at Rye Beach. Do I indeed sense dwelling when they wave as they climb the impressive apex and I drink in the beautifully and divinely sinuous structure lighted under the dark skies of the concealed divinities? Surely, the early dwellers of the city felt the magnificent presence under the El as well as on it. This was dwelling. It was every city kid’s temple. What else could so perfectly capture the Greek order? Old Sol’s fingered rays finding their way through the rail ties to extend into infinity the unique pattern of full light and abrupt shade and then changing to blinding flashes when the divinities roared along their free sky. There was a sense of belonging, a sense of “preserving” owing to the strong vertebra overhead and the magnificent legs behind which one could cling to escape the intrusive trolley the taxi, the cop on the beat. “Staying with things” was the joy of the city kid; for here under the El, under the sky hearing the boisterous arguments of the divinities, and the comfort of “being with one another” — the great tribe along the temple’s avenue, feeling mortality because the fleeting gods overhead reminded the primal tribe of its insignificance, its inhale of life, only to exhale death; the presence of earth, of dwelling — everywhere in its iron and steel, its rust and fungus, its great trees lying horizontally overhead, the smell of burning rubber and gasoline, its rain and snow buffing its mighty cobblestones, its great heaps of garbage and produce paying homage to its proud structure — yes, the mother of us all had bestowed her presence to her children. But there is more than the fourfold theme to dwelling; there is the accident of changing time through which there are those who move and feel not the presence or a sacred staying with things: they exploit and plunder, thereby disjoining the fourfold of those who care, of those who are at one with the earth, the sky, the godhead, their fellow creatures. The school building that really belongs to a community is by accident — the architect stumbled onto Heidegger. For, it is the architect not the community not the dwellers, that may feel a presence. In the cities, nay, anywhere in modern society, dwellers have little or nothing to do with earth works. It is Heidegger turned upside down; “We dwell because we have built.” Thus, man, just as I as a kid in the city, adapts to a sense of presence.
©Rrk, 1973 Somewhere Is The Way Somewhere between the life style of the Taoist and the Confucians lies a pragmatism capable of creating a more workable world. The apparent impudence of the Taoist for man-made works of civilization — language, hardware and government — is equally at odds with the scheme of things as is the unattainable aristocracy held high by Confucius leading to frustration and resentment of the masses. Though everyone is potentially a poet in the Taoist sense or capable of a mystic selflessness, in a world bombarded with materialism, full awareness of the Tao is improbable; though. everyone is potentially a governor unto himself, the glaring reality of the politics of the mean renders the Confucian concept absurd — particularly in light of his statement on the “Three Classes of Men.” Just as the artist’s idea must yield in part to the obstinacy of his materials, so too, must man somehow bridge the gap between two beautiful but impossible dreams, the concrescence of which, however, could well realize what this Creation is all about. Some have labeled Confucius in the area of political philosophy anywhere from die-hard conservative to quixotic naivete; to his tribute he ran the gamut: an eclectic who believed that harmony must reign by grappling with discordant factions everywhere in life. Like Nietzsche he believed harmony grew out of discord; the ineluctable synthesis is to attain the “quality of life.” It was no accident that Confucius loved music which he considered essential in establishing harmonious relationships — a kind of societal Tao. Plato, too, was quick to recognize the symbolic and practical significance of music permeating the soul which ultimately would mirror the harmony inherent in the cosmic realm of ideas. Establishing harmony for the symphony of life does not, of course, come easily; for, to attain moral enlightenment through the art of living one must learn how to live, ‘the root of everything,” said the Master. The animal instinctively learns to do his thing, neatly predictable and preordained — no such comfort for the rational specie pulled between the divine and the primeval. Destined perhaps to settle somewhere in the middle, man, for the time being, seems to settle for one bias over another or torn between the two:
Learning without knowledge is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous....A scholar who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with ...I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out anyone who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to anyone, and he cannot from it learn the other three I do not repeat the lesson. [ Analects Bk II &VII]
Today’s American educator, in speaking to the Master’s last comment may well be justified in questioning his ability to teach; surely, Confucius would not make it as a teacher in a ghetto; yet he does raise a gut-issue in education. Notwithstanding the rhetoric of liberalism, only those students willing to give of themselves reach the pinnacle of real education that has shaped character, however imperfectly, in man for some three thousand years. The rest ride the back of the bus and learn to make a living, not learn to live, not learn to "rectify."
When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path. What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others ...The gentleman can find himself in no situation in which he is not himself. In a high situation he does not treat his inferiors with contempt. In a low situation, he does not court the favor of his superiors. He rectifies himself, and seeks nothing from others, so that he has no dissatisfaction. (The Doctrine of the Mean Bk XIII&XIV)
To rectify through reciprocity has its own reward; it is much like lovers who never tire of doing things for each other; it is the ‘good will to men’ that many experience on Christmas Eve — receiving is immaterial because there is a profound faith that in some size or shape it will of its own accord take place out of the spirit of giving — thus lies the harmony of rectification.
In the end, most philosophers, however social-minded, however much they wish to be considered social philosophers responsible for some pervasive thrust to change the world, all fall prey to the recalcitrance of mankind that settles a breath away from the beast. Confucius, in aligning his rationale with the social way suffered frustration, in spite of his mastery in equanimity. During his final illness he cried: “No wise sovereign arises; there is none in the empire who will make me his master. My time is come to die.” [Mencius, Works of, III] Not unlike Jesus waning on the cross cried, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” Small wonder, then, that philosophy, in the end, tends toward edification of the individual by following the Gentleman of Confucius:
What the gentleman seeks is in himself. What the mean seeks is in others. [Analects Bk XV]
Still, it cannot be denied that Confucian philosophy was secular and therefore vulnerable to political experimentation. His disciple Mencius took the premise of moral enlightenment by applying it to political speculation: if man is essentially good then government, too, can be good. Uncultivated nature, however, corrupts. Man, as though at odds with nature must cultivate his "four beginnings.” Since man is a subject in nature and not an object he is capable of rectifying his essence. Assimilating the Master’s principle: “to rule is to rectify,” Mencius systematized the primordial “Four Beginnings” — compassion, shame, inherent judgment, and behavior — and upgraded them to — an affinity for humanity, the pursuit of justice, the attainment of moral leadership and a style for good government. And, like Plato, Mencius chose the least resistant path of monarchy over that of democracy by hoping to establish a dynasty of philosopher-kings. It made sense to Mencius to “correct what is wrong in the prince’s mind; once rectified the prince and the kingdom will be settled.” Nevertheless, he must have suspected, as did his master, that it was an exercise in futility, even though he did not heed his master’s dictum: From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. [The Great Learning, italics mine]
The humanoid is still distant from the original concept of what humanity is all about. It must indeed seek what is in others but only to rectify what is found in himself if he is ever to realize its archetype. Government is an expedience, a biding of time, as it were, until the individual is somewhere, some way at rest with nature's God — call it the “withering away of the state” or by Kant’s categorical imperative, or until each individual comprehends the " characteristics of the gentleman":
The superior man thinks of virtue, the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favors. The mind of the superior man is conversant righteousness; the mind of the mean is conversant with gain. The Gentleman has neither anxiety nor fear. When internal examination discovers nothing wrong what is there to be anxious about, what is there to Lear? [Analects Bk IV&XII]
The Tao is the only way, according to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. In contrast to Confucius and Mencius, the way to harmony is in the Tao, not in the social order, nor in the self; but as Heidegger might put it, in “staying with things," or in having a sense of presence with earth works, his “fourfold principle”:
On the earth already means under the sky. Both of these also mean running before the divinities and include a belonging to man’s being with one another, By a primal oneness the four--earth, sky, divinities, and mortals--belong together in one. [from “Building, Dwelling, Thinking"]
Western man is a long way from accepting the Tao of subject dissolving into object, permitting the flow of the One — the only legitimate self in the universe—to wash ashore the shells of pseudo-selves. Man’s ego trip—ironically through the flow of Tao—is destined for oblivion; yet this misconception of the self is part of the scheme of things; for without this laughable existence, this frustrating affirmation of what is unreal, there would be no flow of consciousness and thus no intentionality, no ontological insight, no meaning to pure existence through which man attains "quiescence" or the point at which he started. The primal myths have said it all. Whether Greek, Hebrew or Chinese the thrust is the same: an insatiable drive for identity, the process of individuation in order to be free in the realm of becoming, the only means of escape from the unutterable monotony of Being or non-Being:
Once upon a time I, Chuang-tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming that I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming that I am a man.
Chuang...tzu’s brilliance here pricks the conscience of intellection, devastating our Apollonian contrivances; for no way can the supreme truth of Tao be refuted: it is there — like the haunting Moby Dick to whom Ahab in the final analysis had to yield; the Furies to whom Prometheus was bound; or the eternal truth to which Hamlet resigned: Our indiscretions sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; And that should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
Where lay the difference between the Tao and Western Fatalism but in the attitude—in the acceptance? On the surface it would appear that the Western Promethean spirit is the way; to wage war with the Tao, regardless of the cost, regardless of its awesomeness. “Peace with honor, not with surrender.” U.S. involvement in Vietnam is an example of the relentless, eternal structure of the Tao and the botching of the Western mind — Hamlet’s words ring in our national conscience. May all the Kissingers of the world learn to negotiate with the Tao as Chuang-tzu had done:
When man is extremely tranquil, then the heavenly light is given forth. He who emits this Heavenly Light sees his Real Self. He who cultivates his Real Self achieves the Absolute. When he achieves the Absolute the human elements will drop away, but the Heavenly qualities will come to his assistance.[Chap. 23]
This willingness to stay with things rather than to look upon all that there is as the enemy, tends to create a harmony with, and a respect for nature’s ways; the latter perspective tends either to destroy or plasticize existence. It leaves man with the cry, “If only we didn’t have to contend with it!” How much improved our attitude, our zest for the good life., if without having to completely deny our style of living, we permitted our absurd selves entrance to Lao-tzu's realm:
Devote yourself to the Absolute Emptiness; Contemplate earnestly in Quiescence. All things are together in Action, But I look into their Non-action, For things are continuously moving, restless, Yet each is proceeding back to its origin. Proceeding back to the origin means Quiescence. To be in Quiescence is to see Being-for-itself.
The curtain closes, only to be drawn again for the ensuing act of the drama of life, the human comedy — the absurd struggle in the field of action — to say, yea unto Confucius, only to return to Lao-tzu’s navel.
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