The monk, with commentary

Though there has been seclusion in all this lockdown periods I don't think I have nourished my mind much. In China I managed to read some books but nothing that really sparked wider thoughts. Now with my life really spinning only two tracks, work and running, I don't feel much more is pushing my ideas about the world. Running, while there is a sense of overcoming my recent injuries and the sense of picking myself back up, is a physical tempering but not a mental one. Work, while I am learning a lot and entering new domains, hasn't really changed my view of the world, of people, of things that matter. Even though the world has certainly had more than its fair share of flu and flux, most of the happenings have reinforced my ideas more than stirred stuff up.

Perhaps it's the 40 thing. In Chinese, there is a saying: 四十而不惑, which means that once you're forty, you are clear about the world. Maybe there comes a point where it's just so much harder to surprise you with an idea when you've seen so many things before.

I remember when I was almost twenty reading Chinese philosophy and really feeling some thought systems chimed well with me. There was one book that kept me intrigued and it's that which I want to return, to read and see if line by line it gives me any further pause or insight reading it from twice the number of years on Earth. That book was the eponymous 庄子, transliterated as Chuang Tzu or Zhuangzi, who was a representative "Taoist/Daoist" thinker. He is probably the "number 2" in the canon behind 老子 (Laotzu/Laozi). But whereas Laozi spoke in axioms, Zhuangzi liked to flesh things out in stories. The one section of his work that ruled them all, in my heart at least, was the second chapter 齐物论, a title which in its brevity could be translated as many things. I remember it translated as The Equality of Things and in my Uni days I wrote an A+ essay on it. Now I see in the text I've borrowed from the James Legge translation another title, The Adjustment of Controversies. (Such is the peril in translating a terse ideographic language!) The first title translation I think gets to the heart of what he talks about but certainly the idea certainly does come up of addressing controversy, the origination and nullification of disputes. Anyhow, may I introduce you Zhuangzi's second symphony/chapter as interpreted by James Legge (with small edits by me):

Dze-khi was seated, leaning forward on his stool. He was looking up to heaven and breathed gently, seeming to be in a trance, and to have lost all consciousness of any companion. His disciple, Dze-yu, who was in attendance and standing before him, said, 'What is this? Can the body be made to become thus like a withered tree, and the mind to become like slaked lime? His appearance as he leans forward on the stool today is such as I never saw him have before in the same position.' Dze-khi said, 'Dze-yu, you do well to ask such a question, I had just now lost myself; but how should you understand it? You have heard the musical notes of Man, but have not heard those of Earth; you may have heard the notes of Earth, but have not heard those of Heaven.' 
Dze-yu replied, 'I venture to ask from you a description of all these.' 
The reply was, 'When the breath of nature comes strongly, it is called Wind. Sometimes it does not come so; but when it does, then from a myriad apertures there issues its excited noise;—have you not heard it in a prolonged gale? Take the projecting bluff of a mountain forest;—in the great trees, a hundred spans round, the apertures and cavities are like the nostrils, or the mouth, or the ears; now square, now round like a cup or a mortar; here like a wet footprint, and there like a large puddle. The sounds issuing from them are like those of fretted water, of the whizz of an arrow, of the stern command, of the inhaling of the breath, of the shout, of the gruff note, of the deep wail, of the sad and piping note. The first notes are slight, and those that follow deeper, but in harmony with them. Gentle winds produce a small response; violent winds a great one. When the fierce gusts have passed away, all the apertures are empty and still;—have you not seen this in the bending and quivering of the branches and leaves?'
Dze-yu said, 'The notes of Earth then are simply those which come from its myriad apertures; and the notes of Man may just be compared to those which are brought from the tubes of bamboo;—allow me to ask about the notes of Heaven .' Dze-khi replied, 'When the wind blows, the sounds from the myriad apertures are different, and its cessation makes them stop of themselves. Both of these things arise from the wind and the apertures themselves:—should there be any other agency that excites them? Great knowledge is wide and comprehensive; small knowledge is partial and restricted. Great speech is exact and complete; small speech is merely so much talk . When we sleep, the soul communicates with what is external to us; when we awake, the body is set free. Our intercourse with others then leads to various activity, and daily there is the striving of mind with mind. There are hesitancies; deep difficulties; reservations; small apprehensions causing restless distress, and great apprehensions producing endless fears. Where their utterances are like arrows from a bow, we have those who feel it their charge to pronounce what is right and what is wrong.; where they are given out like the conditions of a covenant, we have those who maintain their views, determined to overcome. The weakness of their arguments, like the decay of things in autumn and winter, shows the failing of the minds of some from day to day; or it is like their water which, once voided, cannot be gathered up again. Then their ideas seem as if fast bound with cords, showing that the mind is become like an old and dry moat, and that it is nigh to death, and cannot be restored to vigour and brightness.
Joy and anger, sadness and pleasure, anticipation and regret, fickleness and fixedness, vehemence and indolence, eagerness and tardiness;—all these moods, like music from an empty tube, or mushrooms from the warm moisture, day and night succeed to one another and come before us, and we do not know whence they sprout. Let us stop! Let us stop! Can we expect to find out suddenly how they are produced?'

May I just say as writing from any era that the above stands as an awesomely sustained prose: The notes of Earth - wind and the sounds of natural air flow; the notes of man, music; but the notes of heaven is where we get our controversies. What is it that causes all the conflict, noise, highs and lows? Why when you get any set of people together "things happen"? Why do people choose to die intellectually on "that hill" while pissing in the breeze. All of our angular personalities clanging and howling to create the "notes of Heaven". The Big Bang might have been a bit of a blast, but the residual energy coalesced into stars, and mass pulled them together into orbits; till nuclear reactions caused them to become unstable and eventually collapse to form heavier elements and thus planets. Heavenly music. A peaceful stone age clan cleaves in two and occupy two sides of a mountain range, and through a dispute over seniority and tribalism initiate small conflicts that beget grudges that end in open warfare.

When I was young, I was full of confidence in my knowing and knowledge, and I would choose fact over tact; and was often inarticulately bumbling in social situations. Of course, reading those words above didn't slow me down. Knowing seem to be a sensual thing. I recall even in high school feeling like my mind could wrap around knowledge. Touch it. Smother it. Love it. Probably my love of chess and language came from the fact that there was a feeling that they were inexhaustible. Knowledge though seemed to be limited. Perhaps my mind still viewed knowledge like a finite series of encyclopaedias. It bred the feeling I could look down on others from what little pile of information I had acquired. And that little pile was often my hill to die on.

While the topic has been on the controversies, you can see below the equivalences beneath. There is no need for the full-throated disputes when there is nothing but the shapes, apertures and holes of ourselves as humans which is but an objective form and distinction inherent in all of us.