Among the
aspects of Taoism that first attracted me was its general answer to what Douglas Adams called the big questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything:
“Stop asking questions.” Nowhere in any Taoist text will one find such a
succinct pronouncement, of course – or at least it isn’t likely – but the idea
pervades the literature, as when Lao Tzu said, “The Tao that can be spoken is
not the Tao.” Mahayana or Zen Buddhism teaches another answer to the Big
Questions: “Who is asking?” That is the jumping-off point for a lot of further
dialogue concerning identity and ego and pride and desire and so on – for
another time. To me the most striking of these closely-related perspectives is their
insistence on the importance of the experience rather than on the knowledge
that experience begets. In slang terms, the essence of Taoism is “work with the
flow of the universe” and the essence of Zen is “be mindful.”
Now take a modern example: a sweater. Most of us own one. The typical sweater is a long-armed wool, cotton or synthetic garment, sometimes with a hood and usually sown pretty thick. They’re also decorated, most of them anyway, and some are bright and festive; some are dreary or fierce with skulls on them; some are hand-sown and “rustic”-looking; and still others are embroidered with logos for teams or groups or their manufacturers. And all of these things are symbolic. Just as it is considered vital to the modern experience to know what letters mean (all of which are entirely symbolic), or how to interpret – at terrific speed – all the various dials and signs within and without our automobiles, it is also considered vital to be able to see the “deeper meaning” behind a sweater. This one means its owner is thrifty. That one means the owner is stingy or poor. She got her sweater as a gift. He’s wearing one that demonstrates membership in his respective tribe (say, “punk” or “hipster”). More socially-conscious people can see deeper meaning still: that one was made cheaply in the Philippines by underpaid laborers; that one was made by a craftsperson with a sewing machine; that one was made in a big, polluting factory in Oregon; and so on. And why is that one so dirty – is its owner a slob? A hard-laborer? A dirty hippie? And why is that dude wearing a sweater in the middle of July?! These and myriad other questions all frame the following: what does the sweater mean?
It’s a sweater. The only meaning it has is in your head. It has no essential nature beyond “sweater,” at least not one that is self-evident; remove it from its cultural context and those meanings all change or disappear. Furthermore, no matter what you think a sweater represents, I’ll bet it’s something altogether else to a dog. It’s an olfactory reminder of its owner. It’s a bed to lie upon. It’s a chew-toy.
This is what’s implied by one of my favorite old Zen stories: someone once asked a Zen master, “What is the eternal nature of the world?” He responded, “It’s windy again this morning.” In other words: the deeper meaning of the world is the world itself, just-so. In still other words: stop asking. Of course, Zen tales aren’t meant to be interpreted in the way of a myth or a fable; they’re structured more like jokes than like moral tales, in that the intention is to create or induce a state of mind. But one is free to interpret them if one so chooses, in the same way that one is free to try and interpret a sweater. Whatever answer one finds is in his or her own mind – the thing is still just the thing.
Now take another example: a chunk of quartz crystal. To the geologist it is an example of a process, specifically a crystallization process. To a gem collector it is either “a marvelous new addition” or else “another one of those things I’ve already got.” And then there’s the spiritualist… It is a frozen beam of cosmic energy. It is a receptacle for mental powers. It is a vessel for ancient spirits to inhabit. It is a conduit to a realm of spirits that inhabit all of nature. It is a magnet for good fortune. It is a healing scepter. It is an aura-cleanser. It is…
It’s a rock.
Furthermore, it’s doing a superb job of being a rock, better than any actor with any amount of training. A chunk of quartz crystal is absolutely the finest example of a chunk of quartz crystal you can find in this wide world; anything else is an imposter. And the same can be said for everything else in the world – for trees and bushes, birds and flowers, and rocks and rocks and rocks. The world is beautiful, interesting and amazingly, intoxicatingly complex just the way it is; isn’t that enough?
Many people have, in many ways, pointed out the decline of religiousness in the modern world, which has left a lacuna that I find rather annoying, exemplified by what I like to call the Agnostic Credo: “There’s got to be more to all of this!” Yeah, maybe, but then maybe not; any philosophy that begs its own question is a three-legged one. Worse still is the more nebulous and begging phrase, “Everything happens for a reason.” Yes, as if there was a purpose for the movement of all energy in the universe – which may, in fact, be true, but if you can demonstrate to me how that purpose is made plain to human observers I’ll eat my hat. A more honest way to say that would be to cut “for a reason” off the end of it, but of course then you would just be stating the obvious. “It’s windy again this morning.”
For my part, I think this sort of thinking has more to do with socialization, acculturation, and the more simple psychological idea of imprinting than with people trying to fill a void previously filled with rampant religiosity. See, it was Pavlov who introduced us to the theory of imprinting when he got his dog to salivate at the sound of a bell – he, in other words, taught the dog that a ringing bell is more than just a ringing bell. He taught that the ringing bell had meaning. Note the word “taught” in that sentence, as opposed to “showed.” His teaching was within the parameters of a contrived experiment, and what it shows is contrivance. Pavlov did not just demonstrate learned behavior, which is no great thing; most behavior is learned. What he demonstrated was how learned behavior can be a conditioned response, and, more importantly, that interpretation can be taught in such a manner. Pavlov literally taught his dog that a ringing bell has a deeper meaning, a symbolic meaning, specifically interpreted as “food cometh.” What’s the difference between that and the person who sees deeper meaning in a sweater or a crystal?
I once read about a teacher who would, at the start of a new course with new students, produce a matchbox and say, “Now what is it?” Invariably some students would reply, “Matchbox!” “No, no, ‘matchbox’ is a word. This is not a word. I mean what is it really?” After the students looked around dumbfounded for a moment he would throw it at them. “There, that’s what it is.” And if you ask a great Zen master what will happen after you die, he or she might reply, “It’s windy again this morning.”
Finally, while it’s no great philosophical trick to show that the idea of something is not the thing itself, where I draw a harder line is on basic, earthly material experience. Most of what I’d call the higher philosophies (and no, I don’t just mean Eastern philosophies, I mean ones that are highly developed and well-worn) preach mindfulness, or being fully aware and involved in one’s doings and experiences, even if not necessarily consciously aware. But your eyes, your ears, and indeed your whole mind can only focus on so many things at once, and much of the time we go around swimming in thoughts and not focusing on the world around us at all. Most of what we see, in fact, is peripheral, and even when we’re staring something right in its face we’re seeing reels and reels of other sights in our minds. Many car crashes are caused by this. Meditation is a practice at focusing the mind, or rather at un-focusing it from trivialities. Better still, in the words of anthropologist Wade Davis, it is a method of calming our turbulent mental waters. But we needn’t go so far as all that. Just look at the sweater or the chunk of quartz crystal and see it, really see the thing without being distracted by the cloud of imagined accoutrements that swarm about and all but obscure it from view.
We are raised in a world of symbols and purpose, and we’re taught to believe that this is of utmost importance. And so it is, if you’re interpreting the symbolism on a menu or a stop sign, or if you need to remind yourself that the purpose of a sock is to keep your foot warm. And a sweater has an evident purpose, if not an evident meaning; its maker imbued it with purpose. But attaching symbolic meaning and, worse, a sense of purpose toward a part of the natural (that is: non-human) world, like a rock, detracts from the full experience of it. Maybe it is a healing rod or a wand of psychic energy and maybe it isn’t, but whatever else it may be it is most certainly a rock and it’s pretty damn good at being one. Show some appreciation.
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