A Review of Metaphysics: East & West

·期刊原文

A Review of Metaphysics: East & West
Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal
By Kenneth K. Inada
Vol.4, 07.1991
pp.361-377

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P.361
Summary

The world has indeed become one, but nations and cultures
of the world are still at variance with each other, each
adamantly maintaining its own position. Geographical,
racial, social and psychological barriers are hard to come
down. Yet, people are in contact with each other and must
live together. There must be a unifying factor or force to
show the way to harmonious relationship. One of the ways,
perhaps, is to reassess the nature and function of
metaphysics. So as we are in the last decade of the 20th
century and will soon enter the 21st century, it might be a
good idea to review the metaphysical foundations of East and
West.
The metaphysical foundations are important clues to
understanding cultural differences. Heretofore, the concept
of metaphysics has been understood in the traditional sense
of substance, object, subject, world, space, time, etc. and
many have been turned away from it because of its technical
language and consequences.
In this essay, 1 argue for a novel type of metaphysics:
an organic metaphysics. The ideas, indeed elements, of
organic metaphysics are seen abundantly in Chinese and
Buddhist thought. Some of these are the concept of change,
yin-yang phenomenon, non-action, non-being, vacuity,
humanity, constant mean, wheel of life, emptiness,
Buddha-nature, non-self and compassion. The true
understanding of these must inevitably lodge in an organic
metaphysics since these terms simply defy ordinary logic and
sensibility.

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One of the great assets of an organic metaphysics is that
it helps one to overcome dichotomizing one's experience and
the world. This habit of dichotomization in perception is
so ingrained that it will take a huge effort and time to
resolve it. One bright note here is that meditative
discipline, a contribution of the East, is picking up
steadily in the West. Similar efforts must be promoted to
benefit both the realms of man and nature.
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As the 20th century comes to a close, it would seem
appropriate to have a general review of the metaphysical
foundations of both East and West. The review of course
cannot be comprehensive nor exhaustive but will attempt to
cover the main points in both sectors so as to indicate
certain fruitful areas of discourse that might be pursued.
Where the 19th century West has been metaphysically
climactic, especially in the philosophy of Hegel, it ended
appropriately enough with Nietzsche who, as many scholars
have commented, tolled the death knell to Western
metaphysical understanding. True enough, the 20th century
opened up with a strong distaste for entities as such and
discourse on them.In a sense, the Western philosophical
world had matured sufficiently to see the pitfalls of
engaging in metaphysical entities and understanding based on
them. And in another sense, although science had started off
with the substantive treatment of nature within a general
Newtonian world, it slowly but gradually came to the
realization that the substantive treatment framed within
absolutistic metaphysics either skewed or limited the
understanding of matters within the rapidly growing
scientific field. This became all the more obvious since the
acceptance of the evolutionary nature of things. If elements
are then unfixed or non-static by nature, then a new world
of understanding had dawned.
The paradoxical new situation however was that man's ideas
could not keep up with the world of changing tangible entities.
That is to say, because change is a more elusive and difficult
concept to grasp than permanence, human minds began to
concentrate on the obvious tangible entities which seem to
give the impression of durability and stability. Our minds
and perceptions could not simply get away from the precision
and power of mathematics as a model. Somehow the intangible
nature of ideas got lost in the perceptual shuffle for
objective understanding. The inclination for the tangibles
and permanence won out decisively. This has the story of
materialism, East and West, where the false substitution of
the stable for the instable began to rise and dominate the
very lives of men.
If such is the case, what has man East or West done to
alleviate the condition ?

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Not much, to be sure, but East nor West could ill afford to
remain silent and passive for long. The time to act is long
overdue.
In rapid succession, starting with the new Einsteinian
physics through indeterminancy principles and quantum
physics and to present day sub-atomic or particle physics,
we have seen the rapid deterioration of substance-oriented
physics. The irony of it all is that the non-physical world
has been awfully slow in keeping up with the discoveries in
the physical world. That is, there is an inherent inability
on the part of human beings to fit in or adapt to the on
going changing phenomenon in nature. As a result, a
tremendous lag, a kind of cultural or ideological lag of
monumental proportion has arisen.
In a sense, this lag is a kind of built-in phenomenon
based on biological function. That is to say, where the
sense faculties are able to distinguish and report honestly
their respective perceptions or perceptual data, their
contents have been interpreted by the mind pretty much along
peripheral lines. In consequence, the understanding we have
of the perceptual data have been superficial and
fragmentary. This kind of perceptual understanding has been
going on for quite some time but it was rendered more
obvious in the modern period ever since the appearance of
Cartesian dualism. Descartes' famous dictum, cogito ergo sum
(I think therefore I exist) is the climax of man's attempt
to crown human reason or mind over the total nature of human
perceptions. It was the triumph of mind over body but with a
vengeance unbeknownest at the time. For human beings still
belittle the value of their senses in comparison to the mind
in understanding anything. The widening of the gap
accelerated during the rise of the sciences and is still
widening; in the meantime the sciences in general go on
their work with confidence and aloofness. Yet in the 20th
century we have begun to see signs of displeasure from the
sciences, especially in particle physics and the behavioral
sciences, which found themselves hampered by limitations and
lacunae in obtaining definite answers to the conditions in
the nature of things. The reason for this is that the realm
of the tangibles alone does not inform all that there is in
nature. Thus the so-called non-rational or irrational realm
which heretofore

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had not figured in human understanding had to be taken into
consideration. Gradually, the subject or perceiver had to be
included in the overall structure of perception. It is
recalled that Sigmund Freud, one of the great modern
thinkers, led the search for answers in the inner workings
of the mind in order to add new dimensions to the nature of
perception. He brought to the fore the function of the
unconscious, a truly innovative idea neglected so long by
man. In retrospect, though, it would seem that this
psychological coup was but the beginning of the search for
the fuller dimensions of being that combines both the
subjective and objective realms. We are at this point in
East-West discourse.
Though far from any success in our search for total
perceptual understanding of things, we must take stock of
past achievements, especially in Asia proper, and center our
attention on the two great and continuous civilizations of
India and China. Although these civilizations are not at
their glorious splendor of yesteryears, they are still
formidable and retain much of the essentials of the great
moments of human endeavor that propelled them to their great
heights. We need to take a closer look at these essentials;
indeed some of them are quite novel and cogent today,
especially in respect to their guidance in understanding and
intimating with the nature of holistic perception.
It may sound like a contradiction in terms but, first of
all, it would be necessary for us to attune ourselves to a
kind of organic metaphysics which lends itself to fluidity
and resiliency. In other words, we must conceive of a
metaphysics which is not limited to rigid conceptual
understanding oriented in merely spatial dimensions. For in
dealing with reality, experiential reality in particular, it
is necessary that a metaphysical description and
understanding be truly open, unfixed and indeterminate in
any way, such that it is able to acco-mmo-date more than
what the senses report. Earlier it was said that the
sciences had to incorporate the non-rational or irrational
realm. Now it must be asserted that this realm must be given
a more precise focus and function. Indeed, it will soon be
clear that the Western and Eastern conceptions of the
non-rational are not always speaking in identical terms. But
the important

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point is that the Eastern view of the non-rational is part
and parcel of a metaphysics that promotes a complete
unadulterated nature to perception and understanding. This
is an entirely new metaphysics for the West to ponder on;
indeed, this so-called novel organic metaphysics is uncommon
and unknown in the West for the most part. Its presence in
Eastern thought however cannot go without notice, especially
for the fact that it has shaped Eastern civilization. It is
in brief the very foundation of what is the East. Still, it
is difficult to grasp and remains obscure because of its
foundational nature in ordinary experience, i.e., it is the
very basis upon which perception takes place in dynamic
ways. In other words, whenever there is perception under
ordinary metaphysical understanding, we can only describe it
in terms of the substance or elements involved in it but the
substance or elements in and of themselves do not constitute
the perception itself. That is, perception includes the
substance or elements but in addition much more content. The
"much more content" refers to the openness of perception
to which one must focus. This is a challenge but it also
creates a paradoxical situation in the organic metaphysical
perception of things. So while Eastern experience is
essentially built on this novel metaphysics, Western
experience is still essentially based on tangible and
rationally deducible nature in perception.
The foregoing discussion on the dynamic foundational
nature of experience relative to organic metaphysics is
necessarily difficult to fathom at least on first encounter,
but it deserves more patient attention in light of exposure
to Eastern thought and culture. Let us explore the Eastern
tradition and see how its rounded nature of metaphysics come
into play. Take the case of China, for example. The Chinese
from time immemorial had sensed the movement of the world,
inclusive of man's activities, as involving a balanced,
rhythmic flow that does not at any time go into extremes.
They simply called it the Tao (道) the Way of the nature of
things. But the concept of the Tao is not the easiest to
describe nor to comprehend; in fact Taoist philosophy put a
stop to all analysis by stating clearly that the Tao is
ultimately indescribable and indefinable. Stating so, the
Chinese did not abandon all talk or search for it. Its
initial elusiveness and complexity were but the basic
challenge for one to intimate with it.

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The very first verse or chapter of the Tao Te Ching
reveals that the Tao is two-faceted: one facet is indirect
and relates to human endeavors in the realm of the senses,
the other in subtle and profound ways refers to the realm
beyond human endeavors. But the "gates" to both facets are
always open, if only one has the proper basis of perception
to function on. Like the function (用) and substance
(体) dynamic inherence, the senses and non-sense realm reveal
different natures but both are infrastructural and united.
They constantly derive meaning and subsistence from each
other.
For a closer look at the phenomenal dynamics based on the
Tao, the Chinese came up with a most ingenious symbolization,
i.e., the yin-yang (阴阳) phenomenon. When the mind focuses
on understanding the phenomenon, it seems inevitable that
the phenomenon itself will be divided into elements or two
mutually exclusive principles and that these two are placed
in dynamic relationship. Indeed they are in dynamic
relationship but not as separate or independent entities.
There is no dualism involved here, nor is there a monism
for that matter. These terms, dualism and monism, are rigid
metaphysical absolutes which the Chinese did not conceive
of from the very beginning. This is not to say however that
there had not been any dualistic interpretation later by
commentators in and out of China.
The yin-yang, as hyphenated, depicts reality in the
flow without any division or lacuna. The only time it
seems to be separated is when the mind attempts to decipher
the course of function by way of either yin or yang
dominancy. But that is strictly a theoretical accounting and
a far cry from the way reality reveals itself. So when the
mind deals with the function of reality, it already removes
itself from that reality by its dichotomous nature, thereby
reducing reality to mere conventional knowledge. The mind
however is a necessary component in the perception of
reality and functions completely within the yin-yang
phenomenon. In consequence, the mind in its normal function
cannot really understand what is happening except after the
consummation of the event or events. Put this amounts to a
post mortem analysis of the momentary dynamic existence
exhibited by the yin-yang phenomenon.

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The yin-yang phenomenon is arguably one of the finest
representation ever made by man in coming to grips with the
dynamic nature of things. This is the Oriental way of
explaining the simple changes (易)by retaining the all
important fact of constant proportion, rhythm and harmony in
the rise and subsidence of momentary events. Thus, to define
the yin-yang phenomenon in terms of two opposing pairs, such
as, positive and negative, man and woman, light and darkness,
etc., is totally off the mark. Rather, the phenomenon
depicts in very subtle ways how one facet dominates
without subduing or destroying the other and in turn
reverses its role by laying dormant and potent until the
next moment. This series of ascendance-dominance-descendance
in infinitesmal scale or degrees in either direction is an
inviolable perpetual course of nature. This is the basic
source for the resiliency, flexibility, softness and
viability manifested in each moment's existence and it is
the challenge to each of us to capture those traits, if not
completely then in close approximation, in our everyday
activities.
True, the Tao and yin-yang phenomenon are very close to
present scientific conception of the movements of atoms and
sub-atomic elements. What is important here however is that
the Chinese have beautifully expressed the Tao and yin-yang
phenomenon in their ways of life long before any scientific
analysis and confirmation had appeared. All the more then
that the West must discover the East to work in tandem on
the essentials of human experience.
Another key Taoist concept that has played a crucial role
in the Chinese metaphysical frame of mind is the seemingly
innocuous concept of non-action (无为). This concept had
given the Chinese mind the necessary basis for harmonizing
man's effort within the framework of the world, an effort
which is not wholly and positively one-directional, nor does
it function within the cause-and-effect scheme of things.
That would be too plain and simple. The Chinese non-action
still results in things being done or created but not in the
one-dimensional sense. Its work is done in the total, hence
rounded, sense of taking into consideration every aspect of
the experiential event in the making. Thus, as the positive
nature or issue is not identified as such the event

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will fulfill itself by integrating everything within its
purview and leaving nothing unattended. This is the simple
natural way (自然); it is the way of man also.
More significantly, this concept of non-action laid the
foundation for the understanding of the subtle, non-apparent
nature of experience. In this sense, it is affiliated with
the concept of the Tao and serves as a kind of connecting
link with the concept of non-being(无). Non-being is not a
negative concept pitted against the positive concept of being
(有), nor does it have a separate existence. Dimension-wise,
perhaps it is the same as being for it is always co-extensive
with the latter's nature of existence or, from another
aspect of things, it is larger than being for it is the very
source of being. Yet, in the final analysis, it is an
immeasurable quantity. Because of its non-observable nature,
it remains subtle and elusive to human minds but in essence
it is that which effectuates or produces being, i.e., all
phenomenal existence. It is not possible to go beyond or
behind it because there is literally nothing there. It is
simply the basis of all beings. We might go a step further
to assert that it is the basis of all beings in the becoming
process, the cyclic process of evolving non-existence to
existence to non-existence, etc. So long as there is
becoming, non-being will always be involved in the
production of beings. In this respect, it is the fountain of
life and the foundation of all phenomenal life.
The concept of non-being is little, if any, appreciated
in the West because of the overly involvement in the
positivistic nature of experience and scientific inquiry.
Science generally has no room for the non-positive nature
simply because the positive dominates the scene of becoming
in its measurable quantity. It would simply go against the
grain of scientific methodology to introduce unobservable
aspects of being and becoming. This view however has been
challenged in contemporary particle physics as stated
earlier. Nevertheless, the average person goes on living in
the realm of positive and tangible quantities, without
regret or remorse, since there is hardly any visible cause
for concern. And if damage were done, it would be attributed
to the malfunction of the quantities in that realm, while
the non-positive and

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non-tangible quantities will continue to remain in the
background. The sense or spirit of regarding for
non-positive and non-tangible quantities of being is a
crucial point here. To the dogmatist or cynic who does not
believe in the presence and function of the non-positive and
non-tangible quantities, there is no answer. But to a
curious skeptic who wishes to explore and fulfill his or her
life in novel ways that will result in wholesomeness and
harmony, there is hope and possibility.
Generally speaking, the Chinese mind was largely molded
by the great systems of Confucianism and Taoism.
Confucianism crystallized the concept of humanity (仁)and
its implications to such profound depths that the Chinese
could no longer dismiss it from their daily consciousness.
For a single concept to be so powerful and dominant in human
consciousness is so rare that it would have to be held not
only in wonder and awe but also as a singular achievement of
mankind. Much of this achievement however is unappreciated
or simply lost because of humanity's non-tangible quality.
Confucianism naturally came up with cognate and supportive
human virtues, such as, propriety (礼), righteousness (义),
trustworthiness (信), wisdom (智), altruism (恕) and loyalty
(忠) to bolster and propagate the nature of humanity
but these virtues, like all other human virtues are again
non-tangible, which easily flash across one's consciousness
without any penetrating and sustaining force. Yet, the
overall triadic metaphysical framework of heaven-earth-man
together with the infrastructural relationship from the
emperor down to the nuclear family, the latter of which with
its own mini infrastructure, had kept the Chinese mind alert
and alive to the actualization of the profound nature of
humanity and other virtues surrounding it.
Taoism, in a word, provided the Chinese with an attitude
toward life which is extremely natural and simple but
profound. To be a Taoist recluse in search of truth of
existence was but an example of the length to which the
Taoist taught on achieving naturalness. In this, they
ridiculed the Confucian formalism, conformism and
objectivism in regard to general learning and social
behavior. In the final analysis, though, Taoism served
beautifully as a

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vital complement to Confucian humanism with its emphasis on
the basic naturally flexible and soft ingredient in the way
of life.
It was of course the Chinese genius to incorporate
Buddhist doctrines within their already ennobled life of
Confucianism and Taoism. Where on earth could one find a
highly civilized people with a well developed way of life
gradually giving way to a foreign ideology and, in the
process, come up with an appreciably greater understanding
of human nature and life? What China accomplished during the
heyday of Chinese Buddhism in the T'ang Dynasty has changed
irrevocably not only Chinese thought and culture but also
touched the lives of contiguous countries, such as, Korea
and Japan, including the Southeast Asian countries. It was a
singular feat not to be duplicated anywhere in the world. At
this point in time, Far Eastern culture took on its own
distinctness aided by Korean and Japanese contributions in
their own respective ways. What then are the Buddhist
doctrines or essentials which the Chinese absorbed so
readily ?
As one would expect, the first attraction to Buddhism is
the psychological factor: the nature of universal human
suffering(苦). It covers every phase of a human being from
birth until death, the only exception being the utter
eradication or conquest of the elements that gave rise to it.
Since volumes have been written concerning the nature, rise
and conquest of suffering, especially dealing with the
Four-fold Noble Truth, the discussion will gloss over this
area and merely state that this important psychological
factor gave the Chinese mind a better look at how human
experience functions. Heretofore, human behavior was looked
upon, generally speaking, from an externally oriented
metaphysical framework--the familiar triadic
heaven-earth-man relationship, the Tao, the yin-yang
phenomenon, dynamics of change, humanity, propriety,
non-action, vacuity and harmony. But now the focus turned
from the external to the internal constitution of man.
Buddhism inverted the situation such that it was all in a
person's power to solve one's own problem of suffering. The
power of course came ultimately from systematic and
disciplined meditation. This is not to say that the Taoists
did not engage in meditation in order to achieve

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quietude and vacuous existence. Perhaps, because of the
meditative factor, the early Taoists were attracted
initially to Buddhism. Be that as it may, the crucial point
here is that Buddhism now presented to the Chinese mind a
truly exciting and absorbing metaphysics of human
experience. Within this metaphysical context, we are able to
appreciate the Buddhist principles or essentials in action.
The Buddhist structure of perception consists in the five
aggregates (pa~nca skandha, 五蕴), namely corporeality
(ruupa, 色 ), feeling (vedanaa, 受 ) , primary image
(sa.mj~naa, 想 ), run of imagery (sa.mskaara,行), and clear
conscious thought (vij~na~na,识). The soundness of this
structure of perception lies in the continuous flow of
perceptual data from the corporeal realm to consciousness.
This is no surprise since Buddhist psychology follows
closely the discipline of yoga from start to finish. The
historical Buddha's enlightenment was but an obvious result
of perfecting a unique form of yoga. Thus the yogi starts
with self-examination of one's defiled nature, understands
and arrests it, and finally eradicates it. This process must
heed to the continuity of perception from contact with the
outside world, through the bodily processes, and eventually
to the conscious realm. Otherwise, any meditative exercise
would quickly prove ineffective by being disjointed where
the organic nature of being would not only be soiled but
warped with gaps or lacunae everywhere.
This basic Buddhist psychological ground appealed to the
Chinese, especially the Taoists, who proceeded to
incorporate other Buddhist essentials to their quest for
peace and harmony. It was further developed and crystallized
into the famous wheel of life (pratiitya-samutpaada, 缘起)
in twelve segments. In a way it depicts the wave-like
phenomenal sa.msaaric life (轮回), i.e., the continuum of
suffering due to the desires and attachments thereof. It
also instructs that the suffering states can be removed as
the desires and attachments cease to grasp the being. The
psychological ground in brief is foundational to the
understanding of suffering and the ultimate realization of
enlightenment.
The foremost Mahayana Buddhist contribution is the concept
of emptiness (`suunyataa,空). It is close to but not
identical to Taoist vacuity (虚) and

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non-being (无), although within certain limits both seem to be
expressing similar phenomena of experience.Vacuity is closer
to the concept of void, and non-being to the status of non-
existence prior to phenomenal existence. Emptiness,a not too
happy English term for the Sanskrit `suunyataa, is actually
depicting the state of fullness of being, that despite or in
spite of the occluded nature of experience (sa.msaara,轮回),
the realm of emptiness or purity can be achieved.This status
of experience is a clear reminder that Buddhist principles or
essentials are non-dichotomous through and through.Ignorance
(avidyaa,无明) or the conventional nature or truth
(sa.mv.rti-sat,世俗谛) may exist and persist but it does not
clash with the state of illumination (vidyaa,明) or the
supreme nature or truth (paramaartha-sat,胜义谛). They
function within the selfsame realm of existence. This is made
possible by the nature of emptiness.
Ontologically speaking, for example, emptiness is the
state of ridding one's being of all forms of defilement. In
this way, all perceptual data would be in a more flexible and
resilient ground. Without emptiness, the data would be rigid
and unable to move and adjust readily to different conditions.
It serves as an ontological cushion, so to speak, upon which
variant perceptual forms rest, thrive and express themselves.
In a sense, it is the lynchpin of existence or experience, an
ontological principle responsible for all clear and easy
experiences. Naturally, only a few are gifted in capturing
this very principle of being because the vast majority are
so caught up in the perceptual data that they are unable to
intimate with the grounds of the data themselves.
Another great concept of Mahaayaana Buddhism is Buddha
-nature (Buddhaksetra,佛性). This concept together with
emptiness have laid the foundation for the vast and extensive
nature possible in experience just as the term, Mahayana (大乘),
implies. It has made experiential content cover more grounds
than ordinary experience permits. This means that in
ontological terms, Buddha-nature refers to a boundless
ground or basis for enlightenment. All this sounds very
metaphysical and it is but in a truly existential sense.
Buddhist psychology clarifies not only the inner ways of a
person but alsounifies the external ways of a man-in-nature
as well. This is the basic

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premise upon which human relationship functions, i.e., the
initial establishment and resolution of meditative
discipline already contains an opening to the vaster and
extensive nature of being in contact with the external
realm. In this way, there is no inner and outer realms of
existence. It reveals, in another way, how the Buddhist
non-self doctrine (anaatman,无我) prevails in the Mahayanistic
way. It also affirms forceably the nature of compassion
(karu.naa, 慈悲) of the Bodhisattva way of life
(Bodhisattvacaryaa,菩萨行 ).
The essentials of Buddhism we have discussed so far are
quite amenable to traditional Chinese thought. In
particular, the Confucian concept of humanity and constant
mean (中庸), Taoist concepts of the Tao, non-being, non-action,
and the yin-yang phenomenon are all malleable and fluid.
They easily fit into an organic metaphysics of mankind as
related to nature. We simply do not have the space to go
into a more detailed analysis on how Buddhist and Chinese
doctrines harmoniously blend with each other.
Here we are concerned more about how Eastern and Western
thought might be able to converge on metaphysical grounds.
For, in any East-West discourse, we must seize on the most
fruitful and conducive phase in the enterprise. This phase
is metaphysics, not epistemology or ethics, for it is
foundational to man's understanding in such a way that it
underlies both epistemological and ethical deliberations.
Moreover, metaphysics is comparable to the role of
mathematics in the sciences, i.e., it forms the basis for a
universal language tying in all fields of scientific
endeavor. But here we are not involved in a universal
language dealing with science and technology. Rather, we are
dealing with the ultimate question of human nature and
function, both of which would of course by extension involve
science and technology and not the other way around. That
is, the present age is so replete with data on science and
technology that concern for human nature and function are
relegated to secondary position or importance, if at all,
and thus the erosion of the human domain goes on unabated.
The hope then is for a revival and renewed effort on
metaphysical understanding. In this century, the logical
positivists have done a tremendous

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service by presenting us with the clarification of language
in use and the verifiability theory of meaning, but at the
same time, they have clearly marked off the non-metaphysical
areas of thought. The movement was a logical conclusion to
the rise of scientific philosophy and the adherence to the
traditional conception of metaphysics. The movement also
revealed the limitations of its enterprise, the principal
one of which is the denial of metaphysics in pursuing its
verifiability theory of meaning. This generated a
paradoxical situation in which the empirical verification
involved traditional metaphysics but which it set out to
deny in the first place.
The two great Western metaphysians of human experience are
Immanual Kant and Alfred N. Whitehead. Both are landmarks in
the sense that Kant capped the Newtonian world and Whitehead
the Einsteinian world. Kant wrapped up his metaphysics by
the three transcendentals--aesthetic, analytic and
dialectic, but in the process he left a gaping hole between
the dialectic and the aesthetic and analytic. This is
permissible under the Newtonian framework which sharply
distinguished between the realms of man and God, a sort of
an extension of the distinction between phenomenon and
noumenon. Indeed, the distinction was brilliant and original
but then it purposely left the uncertainties, antinomies
paralogism, alone in order to leave the door open for faith,
as Kant readily admitted. What started out to be a holistic
metaphysics ended up in disjointedness and alienation.
Where Kant arrived at a deadend in metaphysics because of
a basic disconnection in experience, Whitehead fared better
with a world connected through and through. Unknowingly,
Whitehead, based on Einsteinian Relativity Theory, had
developed a cosmology quite close to Buddhist Hua-yen
thought of mutual penetration and mutual identification of
the elements of experience. Even God in its primordial and
consequent natures functioned within the inner dynamics of
this cosmology. He was always guided by a profound synoptic
vision of the nature of things, albeit Western and largely
Platonic. He cleansed Western thought of some categorical
errors, such as, the bifurcation of nature. In all this, he
brought Western philosophy closer to a


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global nature and intercourse with the East.
Kant and Whitehead, and many others in the West like
Heidegger and Wittgenstein, have brought global sense of
philosophy to a higher plane. Yet, it seems that Western
thinkers in general have not been able to accommodate basic
Eastern thought, such as, emptiness and non-being, into
their epistemology and metaphysics. Kant's three
transcendentals cannot handle them, nor can Whitehead's
concept of creativity, Bergson's temporal reality,
Heidegger's being-in-the-world or Sartre's existential
nothingness.
In our enterprise today, we must be wary of past mistakes
in imposing high sounding but irrelevant metaphysical
theories on human nature and function. We must not, for
example, introduce strictly non-human forces into human
experiential content. Should there be any forces, they must
conform to and comprise the very nature of experiential
content itself and not be something totally external or
alien. With this in mind, the organic type of metaphysics is
advanced. This type is connected with the ontological nature
of things where the term, ontology, is not restricted to the
traditional metaphysical view of treating entities,
including the self, as separate and independent. For, in the
final analysis, there are no entities floating in mid-air.
Vacuous existence is mere thought and has no credence in any
life or experience.
It goes without saying that to see things from within a
system locked in a dichotomous framework, is very difficult,
if not impossible. This is because any resolution may turn
out to be another example of a dichotomy or a further
refinement of the existing dichotomy.
It certainly is about time that we look earnestly at
ourselves as a vital organism which extends out borderlessly
to the surrounding world. For example, the Buddhist wheel of
life is not internally bound but extends to the entire
external world reported by perceptual data, however
invisible and inconsequential some aspects of the data may
be. It is about time also that our perception be holistic in
the sense that the inner and outer realms are not treated
separately or dichotomously. These realms should collapase
or are strictly non-divisive except that the mind lapses or
lags behind in a sort of

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perceptual habit of dichotomization.
In pursuing this habit of dichotomization, we may go a
step further to assert that notions, such as, unity, oneness
and totality are generally mental constructs which do not
ultimately have anything to do with the nature of things.
Yet, it must be admitted that we normally perceive things
dichotomously or fragmentarily. This means that there must
be some corrective measures implemented to compensate and
balance our perception into a holistic nature. Meditative
discipline is one such important measure and, although the
vast majority of the people are not attuned to its worth,
being wary of its method and consequences, many Westerners
are presently engaged in it in centers throughout the world.
This is indeed an auspicious sign. It should ease the way
toward an acceptance of an organic metaphysics of being.
The main thing is to take on a spirit of openness and
flexibility. There are already abundant and proven Eastern
principles of life which could easily blend with Western
thought and culture. The challenge - the meeting and
blending of the two cultures - is ever present and should
result in benefits to both man and nature.

P.378

提 要:
世界确实已经变成一个了，但世界上的国家和文化仍然千差万别
，谁都坚持自己的立场。 不论是地理、种族、社会或心理上的障碍，
都很难加以拆除。 不过，人是群居的动物，必须生活在一起。如何达
成和谐的关系，一定有一个统一的因素或力量。 其中有一个方式，可
能就是重估形上学的性质和功能。 处于二十世纪最后十年的我们，即
将进入二十一世纪， 此时来检讨东方和西方的形上学基础，不失为一
项好主意。
形上学基础是了解文化差异的重要线索。形上学概念向来都是以
实质、客体、主体、世界、空间、时间等传统意义来了解，由于专有
名词太过艰深，许多人就掉头而去了。
在本文中，我提出新的形上学，有机体的形上学。有机体形上学
的观念 (其实就是要素 )，在中国和佛教思想里俯拾皆是。譬如，无
常的观念、阴阳的现象、无为、无生、虚无、人性、中庸、轮回、空
、佛性、无我和慈悲。如果想真正了解这些名词，不可避免地一定要
放在有机体形上学的架构内，因为它们破除了一般的逻辑和知觉。
有机体形上学有一项很特殊的优点：它可以帮助我们避免将我们
的经验和世界划分为二。这种在认知上二分法的习惯，可以说是根深
柢固，必须费很大的劲和努力才能消除。这里很值得一提的是：坐禅
训练，这项东方的贡献，正在西方蔚成风气。同时，为了利益人类和
自然界，我们也必须作相同的努力。