At the very root of Chinese thinking and feeling there lies the principle of polarity, which is not to be confused with the ideas of opposition or conflict. In the metaphors of other cultures, light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and the positive with the negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes through much of the world.
To the traditional way of Chinese thinking, this is as incomprehensible as an electric current without both positive and negative poles, for polarity is the principle that + and -, north and south, are different aspects of one and the same system, and that the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system.
People who have been brought up in the aura of Christian and Hebrew aspirations find this frustrating, because it seems to deny any possibility of progress, an ideal which flows from their linear (as distinct from cyclic) view of time and history. Indeed, the whole enterprise of Western technology is "to make the world a better place" -- to have pleasure without pain, wealth without poverty, and health without sickness.
But, as is now becoming obvious, our violent efforts to achieve this ideal with such weapons as DDT, penicillin, nuclear energy, automotive transportation, computers, industrial farming, damming, and compelling everyone, by law, to be superficially "good and healthy" are creating more problems than they solve. We have been interfering with a complex system of relationships which we do not understand, and the more we study its details, the more it eludes us by revealing still more details to study.
As we try to comprehend and control the world it runs away from us. Instead of chafing at this situation, a Taoist would ask what it means. What is that which always retreats when pursued? Answer: yourself. Idealists (in the moral sense of the word) regard the universe as different and separate from themselves -- that is, as a system of external objects which needs to be subjugated. Taoists view the universe as the same as, or inseparable from themselves...This implies that the art of life is more like navigation than warfare...
~ Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way, from Chapter 3 ~
To the traditional way of Chinese thinking, this is as incomprehensible as an electric current without both positive and negative poles, for polarity is the principle that + and -, north and south, are different aspects of one and the same system, and that the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system.
People who have been brought up in the aura of Christian and Hebrew aspirations find this frustrating, because it seems to deny any possibility of progress, an ideal which flows from their linear (as distinct from cyclic) view of time and history. Indeed, the whole enterprise of Western technology is "to make the world a better place" -- to have pleasure without pain, wealth without poverty, and health without sickness.
But, as is now becoming obvious, our violent efforts to achieve this ideal with such weapons as DDT, penicillin, nuclear energy, automotive transportation, computers, industrial farming, damming, and compelling everyone, by law, to be superficially "good and healthy" are creating more problems than they solve. We have been interfering with a complex system of relationships which we do not understand, and the more we study its details, the more it eludes us by revealing still more details to study.
As we try to comprehend and control the world it runs away from us. Instead of chafing at this situation, a Taoist would ask what it means. What is that which always retreats when pursued? Answer: yourself. Idealists (in the moral sense of the word) regard the universe as different and separate from themselves -- that is, as a system of external objects which needs to be subjugated. Taoists view the universe as the same as, or inseparable from themselves...This implies that the art of life is more like navigation than warfare...
~ Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way, from Chapter 3 ~
Yes, it is a long quote, but I thought it important to thresh out fully the point Watts is making. So, what say you?
First on the principle of polarity.
ReplyDeleteMy first insight for this concept may have come from Einstein's theories of relativity. Any motion is meaningless unless there's something else by which to measure it. Of course, if you have more than one thing to measure against, then the motion observed depends on the point of view.
The principle of polarity is the simplest case of relativity where the existence of something depends on it having a relationship to one another thing. My favorite example is that love can't exist without sin.
Later on our "violent efforts" to manipulate our world.
"What is that which always retreats when pursued?"
ReplyDeleteA Dream.
Trying to capture a dream when moving from dream state to waking state, is an attempt to control something that exists a world away.
It does not belong where we would try to put it.
Dreaming is the polar opposite of thinking.
So, here's my real comment.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like we're meddling in places we shouldn't. But, how do we draw the line and know when it's okay to meddle and not to meddle?
If it is given that we should not meddle at all, then we should revert to living as hunter/gathers. If not meddling is the way, then that's cool.
However, even domesticating plants and animals is meddling with the universe. Once you allow even what you may think is the most minor of meddling, there is no clear cut line where we should and shouldn't meddle. It's real easy in hindsight to say something was not a good thing to do. It's hard to always know beforehand when something can go bad or how it could go bad.
Rather than placing judgment on ourselves for what we've done in the past, we should live in the universe we have here and now.
Since "Toaists view the universe as...inseparable from themselves...", does this mean the contemporary Toaist seeks to navigate the universe as it is today with the problems we have created and leave them be?
Until we stop emphasizing the differences between ourselves, Christians, Hebrews, Taoistst, etc,, we can never find peace. Until we seek to take responsibility as a single unified organism, we can never find peace.
I feel the greatest saddness when we use labels to divide rather than embrace our diversity.
Meddle: to interest oneself in what is not one's concern : interfere without right or propriety.
ReplyDeleteOne can not meddle with oneself.
That is not meddling.
One does what one does, and that being so, as Lao Tzu says: the universe is perfect.
Only when we start meddling in the affairs of others, do things go wrong.
"You should read the Tao te Ching".
"You should be like me".
Etc.