Commentary on J. Glenn Grays Splendor of the simple

·期刊原文

Commentary on J. Glenn Gray's "Splendor of the simple"

Chang, Chung-yuan

Philosophy East and West V.20 P241~246

University Press of Hawaii

Honolulu, HI [US] (http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/index.html)

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Professor Gray's paper gives us a clear and profound presentation of the essential framework of the most recent thought of Martin Heidegger. The paper is obviously the result of Gray's spending years absorbing Heidegger's thought and repeatedly consulting with the noted philosopher himself. Since .my field is Chinese philosophy, I welcome this opportunity to relate the essen­tial ideas of Heidegger with Taoist and Ch'an Buddhist philosophies. Perhaps through our discussion we will find some basic thoughts which may pave the way toward bringing the philosophies of the East and West together.

In his paper Professor Gray says that "I have no doubt that many of Hei­degger's insights . . . are profound and enduring, capable of indefinite further development and enrichment in areas of knowledge usually remote from phi­losophy." To discuss meaningfully Heidegger's way of thinking we have to strip ourselves of our own habitual ways of thinking—that is, if we think conceptually and representationally ourselves, we will never be able to under­stand Heidegger's strict or meditative thinking. What is this strict thinking? As Professor Gray says, it is to think back to the origin in order to reach behind "usual and traditional conceptions," and to "gain astonishing insights into what has not been thought hitherto." Professor Gray points out that what Heidegger is aiming at in his endeavor to think the simple in its origin, to think behind the beginning, is at once an intensity and equanimity which opens to things as they are and yet is persistently singleminded. What is this singlemindedness? Professor Gray points to the difference between the "I," which is the genuine, original self, and the "me," which is the traditional, acquired, and adapted self. The task of Chinese Taoism and Ch'an Buddhism is to lead man to see his original self, that is, the I, which is nonconceptual, nontraditional, nonrepresentational, This genuine, nonconceptual, nonrepresentational self is reached through releasement. In chapter 48 of the Tao-te Ching we have : "the student of knowledge gains day by day; the student of Tao loses day by day." Through the process of losing, or releasement, one will return to the roots, or kwei ken, which is the movement of reversion. Thus, we read; "reverse is the movement of Tao." In this connection the question arises: What will be the outcome of the process of losing or releasement ? The goal of releasement is to reach wu, or Nonbeing, or Nothing. Therefore, according to Taoist philosophy, Nothing is the root of everything. It is in the -Nothingness that the Taoist "builds," "dwells," and "thinks."

Perhaps the most fundamental concept found in both Heidegger's philosophy and Chinese Taoism is the concept of Nothing. This Nothing in Heidegger's philosophy may be identified with wu, or Nonbeing in Taoism. In his essay "What is Metaphysics?" Heidegger says: "Only on the basis of the original manifestness of Nothing can our human Da-sein advance towards and enter'

Chung-yuan Chang is Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawaii.

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into what-is."[1] The Nothing Heidegger speaks of is "neither an object nor anything that 'is' at all."[2] It is in Nothing that we may experience the vastness of Being. Nothing is not Just the negation of the totality of what is, but is more original than negation, or we may say, it is the source of negation.

According to Heidegger, we can think the totality of what-is and then negate what we have imagined. "In this way we can arrive at the formal concept of an imaginary Nothing, but never Nothing itself."[3] It is only when what-is-in-totality actually falls away from us, and ourselves along with it, that we come face-to-face with Nothing. What-is -in-totality is objectivity and we are sub­jectivity- The falling away of what-is and ourselves thus frees us from both subjectivity and objectivity. In the Taoist expression this is called ming, or light, which is the illuminating aspect of Nonbeing. I wonder if this ming is close to Heidegger's idea of Lichtung, which Professor Gray has described in the sense of a clearing and lighting. In Ch'an experience one reaches the illumination of ming through the experience of "the great death." Similarly, in Heidegger's approach one must experience Nothing through dread before the revelation of what-is is possible. This pure revelation exists nowhere but in the experience of the man who seeks the truth. In fact, the process of seeking is the truth. For Heidegger, it is Nothing. For Taoists, it is Nonbeing. According to both Heidegger and Chinese Taoists, this Nothing, or Nonbeing, must be experienced in the sense of a pure finding. It cannot be reached through any process of rational or objective thought, which would only di­chotomize subjectivity and objectivity into polarities.

Rational, objective thought is what Heidegger calls calculative thinking, which differentiates between the observed, or the objectivity of what-is, and man as the observer, or subjectivity. But what Heidegger calls strict or es­sential thinking is thinking which is free from calculation or observation, and is "determined by what is 'other' than what-is," that is, Nothing.[4] In Taoism it is called the knowledge of no-knowledge, or Nonbeing. For Ch*an it is the thought of no-thought, or the mind of no-mind, or the Buddha nature. For Heidegger, "This thinking answers to the demands of Being in that man surrenders his historical being to the simple, sole necessity" of preserving the truth of Being.[5] But Being is not a product of thinking. It is thinking itself. Thus Being and thinking are identified as one. Ch’an Buddhists would say that this is the thought of no-thought in action. In other words, we may say that Being is experienced in Nothing, or Nothing discloses itself in Being. As Heidegger puts it, "Nothing, conceived as the purely Other than what-is, is the

[1] Martin Heidegger, "What is Metaphysics?," in Existence and Being, trans. R. F. C. Hull and Alan Crick (Chicago; Henry Regnery, 1949), p. 339.

[2] Ibid., p. 340.

[3] Ibid., p. 333.

[4] Ibid., p. 357.

[5] Ibid.,p. 358.

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veil of Being. In Being all that comes to pass in what-is is perfected from everlasting."[6] This everlasting is the Nothing which is the veil of Being, and what-is, or we may say, "ten thousand things," arc perfected through Being, which is manifested from Nothing, or Nonbeing. Heidegger clearly points out that instead of "abandoning Nothing in all of its mysterious multiplicity of meanings, we should rather equip ourselves and make ready for one thing only: to experience in Nothing the vastness of that which gives every being the warrant to be. That is Being itself."[7]

Heidegger's previous approach proceeded from what-is in order to reach Being. As he said, "what-is comes from Being." For the Taoists his approach is based upon the notion that all things are created from Being. But one cannot merely analyze ten thousand things, or what-is, and assemble them into Being. In Heidegger's words, "No matter where and however deeply science investigates what-is it will never find Being."[8] In his introduction to Discourse on Thinking John Anderson states that "it seems impossible to escape from sub­jective distortions and to learn anything about Being as such by means of the method Heidegger used in Being and Time."[9] But in his later approach Hei­degger plunges directly and immediately into the ground of all possibilities, which is what he called Nothing. It is in this Nothingness that he finds Being. In the Taoist expression. Being is created from Nonbeing. Thus, in order to find Being one must first discover Nonbeing. Without the realization of Non-being there would be no ground for its manifestation, or Being. As Anderson points out, "what seems to be necessary in order to comprehend Being is a method of understanding which can grasp man's nature in terms of its ground, rather than simply in terms of the horizons of experience."[10] To grasp man's nature in terms of its ground is to reveal Being as derived from Nonbeing. In the Taoist expression, ten thousand things are created by Being, and Being is created by Nonbeing. In "What is Metaphysics?" the translator refers to this saying from the Tao-te Ching in relation to Heidegger's statement that "only on the basis of the original manifestations of Nothing can our human Dasein advance towards and enter into what-is." This would seem to indicate that the two streams of thought, in Heidegger's new approach and in the Chinese Tao-te Ching, flow together in their similarities.

In his book Identity and Difference Heidegger compares his own concept of Being with that of Hegel. For Hegel, Being is absolute thought thinking itself, and is conceived in the traditional, logical sense as ground, or Logos.

[6] Ibid., p. 360.

[7] Ibid., p. 353.

[8] Ibid.

[9] John Anderson, introduction to Discourse on Thinking, by Martin Heidegger (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 17.

[10] Ibid.

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It is the absolute concept, or the absolute Idea, which moves toward the negation of all individual distinctions and their elevation into the "higher reality of the whole."[11]

For Heidegger, instead of establishing Being as the ground, Nothing is conceived as the source, and Being is its manifestation. In the work of Chuang Tzu we have: in the very beginning there was wu, or Nonbeing, which is Nothing and nameless. It is that from which the One is produced. The One is inherent in it, and yet it is formless. The One that is produced by Nonbeing and is inherent in it is Being. For Heidegger, Being differs ontologically from beings. Heidegger moves from this difference, which is what has not yet been thought, to the oblivion of the difference, which is what is to be thought. What has not yet been thought is Nothing. What is to be thought is Being. This process is a move forward in thought by means of a step back out of the realm of metaphysics into the previously undisclosed realm of truth. Through this step back, Being is thought without being an object of thought. The step back takes us out of metaphysics into its essential origin, which is Nothing, or Non-being. As Professor Gray says, Hegel sought to establish philosophy as wisdom itself, in the form of absolute knowledge. "Heidegger seeks to reverse this overweening claim and to transform philosophy into something much more preliminary and 'poverty-stricken' than even the love of wisdom." Heidegger maintains that "Philosophy is only set in motion by leaping with all its being, as only it can, into the ground-possibilities of being as a whole."[12] The ground-possibilities of being as a whole are Nothing. Thus, Heidegger says that one must let oneself go into Nothing, and ask, "why is there Being at all ... ?"[13]

For Heidegger the experience of Nothing occurs only in rare moments. In his book What Is Called Thinking?, a collection of lectures given at the University of Freiburg, Heidegger tells his students that "we are attempting to learn thinking."[14] The way of thinking is long, he says, and our few steps "will take us to places which we must explore to reach the point where only the leap will help further. The leap alone takes us into the neighborhood where thought resides."[15]

The leap in Heidegger's thought is a leap away from the attitude of representative thinking. In Ch'an there is a similar attitude of moving away from our ordinary ways of thinking. In Suzuki's words, satori may be denned as "an intuitive looking into the nature of things, in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. Practically, it means the unfolding

[11] Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York:Harper & Row, 1957), p. 16.

[12] Heidegger, "What is Metaphysics?," p. 349.

[13] Ibid., p. 349.

[14] Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking7, trans. Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 12.

[15] Ibid., p. 12.

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of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of a dualistically trained mind."[16] To enter into the abyss of this new world and to be free from the dualities of representative thinking is, for Taoists, like leaping across a chasm or a gulf. Either one succeeds in the leap, and attains sudden enlightenment, or remains as one was. Thus, in both Taoism and Ch'an, the leap opens the learner's mind to an entirely new way of thinking. This opening out of the mind through confrontation with the unexpected is like opening a door upon a new world of experience. Similarly, for Heidegger, "the leap takes us abruptly to where everything is different, so different that it strikes us as Strange. Abrupt means the sudden sheer descent or rise that marks the chasm's edge."[17] Thus the process of the leap seems to be conceived in the same way in both Heidegger's meditative thinking and Chinese philosophy.

Various explanations may be given for the radical change in Heidegger's thought from extreme rational analysis to the direct, immediate approach of essential thinking. In the field of Chinese philosophy we also find a drastic change in the development of Chinese Buddhist thought from complex metaphysical approaches to the direct, abrupt approach of Ch'an, which might serve as a reference in the study of the change in Heidegger's thought. The Chinese Madhyamika school attempted to obtain śūnyatā through the highly developed and refined dialectical process of the double truth on three levels.[18] Through this process of incessant negation the Chinese Madhyamika Bud­dhists intended to reach behind traditional, logical thought and thus open man's mind. But they became entangled in the complexity of their own dialectical framework, and could not set themselves free. -This led to the discontinuation of the Madhyamika school and the rising of the direct, immediate approach of Ch'an.

Similarly, Hua-yen philosophers sought to grasp the universe dynamically in its unceasing movement through the interrelation among all individualities. Their complicated formulas present a very refined description of the un­impeded mutual solution among all particularities, and their eventual identification.[19] When the metaphysical structure of the Hua-yen school became too

[16] Daisetz T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 1st ser. (New York: Grove Press, 1949), p. 230.

[17] What Is Called Thinking?, p. 12.

[18] The double truth consists of a common truth and a higher truth. The higher truth on the first level is negated and becomes the common truth on the second level. The higher truth on the second level is negated and becomes the common truth on the third level. The higher truth on the third level reaches the extreme of logical negation. The com­plexity of this higher truth may be illustrated in the following formula: The mind is both not-existence and not nonexistence and, simultaneously, it is neither not-existence nor not nonexistence.

[19] The Hua-yen concept of the simultaneous unimpeded mutual solution among partic­ularities may be illustrated as follows: One enters into one by taking-in one; one enters into all by taking-in all. All enters into one by taking-in all; all enters into all by taking-in all. Finally, we have not only one is in all, or all is in one, but one is all, all is one.

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complex to awaken the minds of its devotees, they converted to the abrupt thinking of Ch'an Buddhism.

The change in the development of Chinese thought from extreme logical and metaphysical complexity to the direct, concrete approach of Ch'an might offer us an insight into the development of Heidegger's philosophy from his earlier analytical approach to the direct, essential approach of his recent thought. Of course, the natural surroundings in which Heidegger spent his lifetime have undoubtedly influenced his thinking. But if this influence of nature were the sole factor in the formulation of his thought, it would have emerged earlier in his study, when he analyzed the transcendental structures of man's experience in order to reach an understanding of Being. It was after Heidegger's Being and Time, however, that he made a complete change from complexity to simplicity, from an analytical approach to a direct, intuitive one, from highly technical, philosophical expressions to common, simple language, from book-form presentation to plain, simple dialogue, such as in his "Conversation on a Country Path." To what extent this change is similar to the rise of Chinese Ch'an Buddhist thought may be determined through our further study. What may be pointed out at this time is that the essential thinking maintained by Professor Heidegger may be considered one of the basic means for establishing a unity among the philosophies of the world. In fact, in this conference we have seen that a "prerational harmony" among the philosophies of the East and West has already begun.