Jan

3

Wang Yangming’s Flower

Filed Under Feuilletons |

Wow. Did I really use the word “Geist” in my last post I’m such an asshole. I swear it won’t happen again.

david-chelsea.jpgBut speaking of Geist (he he), I’m thinking about the Chinese idealist philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529), sitting in front of a bamboo tree for a week with his friend. He was an innatist Confucian philosopher who believed that because of the human capacity for memory, one can comprehend every essence of multivalent physical objects in the universe, by examining and understanding - through anamnesis - each essence of every thing, one by one, gradually. (Or - so to speak - rung by rung, up the Plato’s ladder).

Anyways, Wang and his friend sat in front of a bamboo tree. They didn’t eat or sleep, trying to explore the complete essence of the tree (Pass the pipe, Wang!). The friend passed out after three days, the wuss that he is, and Wang fell ill after one week. But he concluded that in the end, he continued to exist in his state, just as the tree had all along, on its own accord, existed in the universe.

According to Wang’s formulation, it is not the world that molds the mind, but the mind which gives rise to the world, through reason. First of all: the word “mind” is problematic here, as the word should mean “heart” or “consciousness” as well; just as it is with the German word Geist, the Chinese word escapes a straightforward English translation. It is common in the western world to use the word “mind” with Wang’s philosophy, but in the eastern world, the translation of the word tends toward “heart” rather than “mind”; to me, it makes more sense to use “heart,” albeit in a loose sense. Especially since the word “mind” comes with a heavy Cartesian baggage in the western philosophy. Just know that we’re talking about heart-mind-consciousness. So in rephrasing, Wang said that since “heart” is reason itself, there is nothing in the universe outside one’s “heart,” no reason outside “heart.”

One day, as Wang and his pupils were walking alongside a cliff, one of his pupils pointed toward a flower tree growing in the dark crevice of the cliff. He asked Wang: “If indeed there exists nothing outside one’s heart, then how related is that solitary flower in the cliff to my heart, seeing as it lives and falls quietly, unbeknownst to me” Wang replied: “Before you noticed that flower, both your heart and that flower were silent, but in the moment you noticed the flower, the flower’s color became clear, and is that not letting you know that it lies not outside your heart?”

little-prince.jpgWang’s response is almost a paraphrase of George Berkeley’s dictum, Esse is Percipi. Or what about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? But screw all those comparisons: Wang’s response to his pupil precisely mirrors the fox’s lesson to the Little Prince in St. Exupéry’s book, doesn’t it? The fox teaches the Little Prince to “tame” him, and through that taming, the fox says he shall hear every day, in the Prince’s approach, “the sound of a step that will be different from all others.” After he learns to “tame” the fox, and gets to “know” the fox, the Little Prince realizes that the roses on earth cannot compare to the rose he loves back in Asteroid B-162. When the Prince goes back to bid farewell to the fox, the fox tells him that he has a very simple secret to tell him -

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Happy new year, everyone.

(Top Image: by David Chelsea)


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