Coming to Terms with

Timelessness
Coming to Terms with

Timelessness

Daoist Time

in

Comparative Perspective

edited by

Livia Kohn
Three Pines Press
www.threepinespress.com
© 2021 by Three Pines Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.

987654321

Printed in the United States of America

This edition is printed on acid-free paper that meets
the American National Standard Institute Z39.48 Standard.
Distributed in the United States by Three Pines Press.

Cover Art: “Measuring Flow: Clock over Yin-Yang and Planets.” Design
by Brent Cochran.
Front Art: Yin-Yang, Seasons, and Dimensons of Time. Design by
Françoise Desagnat.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kohn, Livia, 1956- editor.

Title: Coming to terms with timelessness : Daoist time in comparative
perspective / edited Livia Kohn.
Description: First. | St Petersburg : Three Pines Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021037123 | ISBN 9781931483506
Subjects: LCSH: Time--Religious aspects--Taoism. | Taoism--Relations.
Classification: LCC BL1942.85.T56 C66 2021 | DDC 299.5/142--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021037123
 Contents
Livia Kohn
Introduction: The Nature of Timelessness 1

Steve Taylor
The Varieties of Temporal Experience: Time Perception in
Altered States of Consciousness 13

Mercedes Valmisa
What is a Situation? 26

Joseph L. Pratt
Time and Space within Daoism’s Holistic Worldview 50

Andrej Fech
Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus 71

Nada M. Sekulic
Magic Square and Perfect Sphere: Time in Daoism and Ancient
Greece 90

Wujun Ke
Daoist Cinematic Temporality and the Taiwanese New Wave 111

Patrick Laude
Ways of Time: Seeing Dao through Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki 127

Qi Song
Daoist Aspects of Time Perception in Hakuin’s Zen Experiences 149

Juan Zhao
Synchronicity: A Modern Interpretation of Time in the Yijing 168

Jeffrey W. Dippmann
Immortality and Meaning in Life: A Daoist Perspective 188

Contributors 217

Index 219
 Acknowledgments
This book is the third edited volume of the project on “Dao and Time.” As
did its predecessors, Dao and Time: Classical Philosophy and Time in Daoist
Practice: Cultivation and Calculation, it emerged from the 13th International
Conference on Daoist Studies, “Dao and Time: Personal Cultivation and
Spiritual Transformation.” Arranged by Robin Wang, the conference took
place in June 2019 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in
close proximity to the 17th Triannial Conference of the International Socie-
ty for the Study of Time, organized by Paul Harris. I am deeply indebted
to them both.
This volume focuses particularly on exploring the many modes in
which timelessness plays out in Daoist thought and practice, notably as
seen under the light of comparison with, and perspectives in, other phi-
losophies and religions, periods, and cultures. It engages with a variety of
topical themes, inspirational thinkers, historical periods, and geographical
regions. Doing so, the work adds a yet completely different dimension to
the understanding of time in Daoism and opens further venues of explora-
tion, academic discussion, and personal insight.
As editor, I am deeply grateful to everyone involved in the project
and particularly the contributors. Not only have they created exceptional
work but they have also been wonderfully patient with the editing process.
I am excited and pleased to be able to offer their work to the scholarly
community in this volume.

—Livia Kohn, July 2021

 Introduction

The Nature of Timelessness

LIVIA KOHN

Timelessness marks the primordial state at the beginning of the universe

and the ultimate goal of the Daoist endeavor: as such it is the mode of time
that most preoccupies both thinkers and practitioners. Called atemporality
in J. T. Fraser’s system of six major temporalities, it denotes the state of the
primeval universe that existed in the “pure becoming of cosmic chaos”
(1999, 27), the first fractions of a second right after the big bang about fif-
teen billion years ago. Consisting of nothing but electromagnetic radiation,
it was without time in any form and had “no lawful physical processes”
(1982, 50), characterizing a world without causation (2010, 19).
A state of elementary unfolding, timelessness is cosmic chaos, a word
that originally means “abyss”: the primeval emptiness or dark gorge of the
universe (Fraser 1999, 60; 2010, 20). It means eternity as much as infinity,
an unlimited (vertical) immediate presence and an endless (horizontal)
reaching out. While in some ways dynamic, marked by “the perpetual mo-
tion of the photon and the ceaseless vibration of the electron” (1986, 13), it
also means the complete absence of choice and freedom, a fundamental
darkness and immersion. As J. T. Fraser says, “Only what is temporal is
open to change and hence to evolution,” can transform into higher and
subtler levels of complexity (1986, 13).
This pure cosmic form of timelessness relates to Christian notions of
God and eternity (Muller 2016, 18), Plato’s ideas and unchanging forms
(Davies 1995, 24), as well as the Socratic understanding of the destiny of
the soul as having “to climb from the dark, the sensory, and the temporal
toward the luminous, the intelligible,” that is, the atemporal (Fraser 1986,
13; Lucas 2002, 145). In Christian theology it is sometimes interpreted as
endless duration, sometimes as being outside time, but always associated
with eternal life and the unchanging validity of religious dogmas. In clas-
sical Greek philosophy, it is a key attribute of the Heraclitean logos and
the unmoved prime mover, signaling the eternal validity of the rules of
numbers (Fraser 2007, 75; Smolin 2013, 9). Many religions, moreover, place

1
2 / Livia Kohn

timelessness, described by Mircea Eliade as illud tempus (1958, ix), on a

mythical plane and describe it as a completely “other time beyond our ac-
tual time, in which miraculous, primordial, mythological, and symbolic
events took place or even still take place” (Franz 1981, 221).
Recognizing timelessness as a precosmic “potentiality of transcending
time into blessed eternity” (Fraser 1990, 25), seekers of many religions also
see it as the ultimate state of existence and envision it in different forms of
paradise and otherworldly realms, places and times that go far beyond the
ordinary, reaching into transcendence, immortality, and ultimate perfec-
tion (Whitrow 1981, 564; Turner 2010, 336). They speak of attaining com-
plete oneness with the divine, classically realized in mystical union, char-
acterized by ineffability, true knowledge, and passivity as well as a sense
of immersion and self-transcendence (James 1936, 370-71).
In this idealized experiential dimension, timelessness signals a realm
of complete fulfilledness, a world where one always wanted to be, perfect
peace or glorious battle. There is no decay or illness, no suffering, no bodi-
ly need—only indestructible, healthy, vibrant life. Here humans can find
final and true justice, the ultimate immersion in love and realization of
perfection. In other words, timelessness in this sense deeply connects to
the human need for refuge from the threat of the passage of time and the
knowledge of the end of self (Fraser 2007, 75).
Beyond the far beginning of the universe and ultimate goal of exist-
ence, timelessness yet also appears in ordinary life. A vividly present mo-
ment without progress in immediate connection to the timespace underly-
ing reality and reaching into the depths of the collective unconscious
(Franz 1981, 221), it is to time what emptiness is to space: an openness, a
gap, a break, a way of nonbeing. As absolute rest or motionless existence,
it offers a pause to the soul from its constant work of self-definition and
strife for greater perfection (Fraser 1990, 115).
Classically this is experienced in “a sudden, seemingly spontaneous
flash of absolute power or ecstasy” (Ellwood 1980, 69), often called a mys-
tical experience. It is overwhelming, ineffable, and transtemporal, yet full
of knowing certainty. Ineffable, it cannot be described in human terms, but
descriptions commonly include notions of timelessness and the sense of
being grasped by something higher and greater, merged with a state both
at the deep root of all existence and its ultimate goal (Kohn 2021, 254).
In other words, people in the grip of a mystical experience have a
sense of being outside time and beyond the self, of being grasped by some-
thing greater and vaster, and of merging into an immeasurably larger
power. They feel as if going beyond all known reality of time and space, as
 The Nature of Timelessness / 3

if their ordinary senses have stopped functioning, while yet being in touch
with the innermost secrets of the universe (Happold 1970, 45).
The same altered state of consciousness, the overwhelming sense of
being fully present in a powerful and empowering way appears also in
enlightenment moments in Zen (Suzuki 1956), in the peak experiences ex-
plored by Abraham Maslow (1964), in flow as defined by Mihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi (1992), and more. While these states can be prepared but
not planned, there are certain ways that allow the induction of a sense of
timelessness. A prominent example is ritual, which provides a time out
from personal strife or suffering, from the chaos of history: changeless and
timeless, it offers a structured way to step out of ordinary time (Brand
1999, 43).
This also means that timelessness is a function of consciousness and
has a place in the brain. While the left hemisphere provides linear aware-
ness, critical analysis, technological progress, chains of causality, and other
organizational structures such as timetables, the right hemisphere func-
tions in modes of wholeness, restoration, contemplation, beauty, cyclicali-
ty, and overall integration (Sills 2004, 150; Bogen 1969, 3). It works with
overarching patterns and grasps structures all at once, establishing an
awareness that reaches beyond the rational, the factual, and the temporal
into spheres of balance and harmony, oneness and synthesis. By connect-
ing actively with the right side of the brain, seekers find release from line-
ar temporality and gain a complementary view of the world, engaging in
fully holistic perception, that is, “the comprehensive, complete perception
of events as intertwined entities, each reciprocally influencing each other”
(Sills 2004, 151; Ornstein 1980).
The right hemisphere of the brain is the internal function that opens
human beings to the cosmic flow in encompassing timelessness. For ex-
ample, when Harvard University brain anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered
a hemorrhage in her left hemisphere in 1996 and lost its function, she
found that “all concepts of time and space evaporated, leaving me instead
feeling open-ended, enormous, and expansive” (2009, 68). Thinking in im-
ages and resting in the eternal now, her entire self-concept shifted toward
fluidity and timeless presence. She says,

My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate

from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemi-
sphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated
and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a
boundless sea. (Taylor 2009, 69)
4 / Livia Kohn

A number of mind-altering techniques including hypnosis and drugs

such as mescaline have the same effect, if less radical and more temporary
(Noreika et al. 2014, 529), as do ways of intensifying perception through
various rhythmic techniques. “Regularly repeated photic or auditory sti-
muli tuned to endogenous brain rhythms can evoke altered states of con-
sciousness” (Turner 1986, 242-43): the external rhythm alters or amplifies
the endogenous brain rhythm that is necessary for the regulation of neural
functions and opens alternate modes of consciousness.
Timelessness being cosmic and ultimate as well as experiential and a
function of the brain reinforces its centrality and has led various thinkers
to come to the conclusion that the entire paradigm of human temporality
is rooted in some sort of monstrous illusion: all time is in fact merely an
elaborate product of the human mind. Thus, for example, Lucretius (ca.
95-55 BCE) in De Rerum Natura says that “time cannot itself exist.” Saint
Augustine (354-430) notes that time depends entirely on the mind with its
power of distending into past and future through memory and anticipa-
tion and as an objective phenomenon remains inexplicable. And Angelus
Silesius (1624-1677) notes, “Time is of your own making; its clock ticks in
your head. The moment you stop thought, time too stops dead” (Davies
1995, 23). While this may appear depressing at first sight, it yet opens the
way to complete control and offers the possibility of taking charge of time:
it places the self in a position of greatness. Rather than a cause for despair
or hopelessness with the thought that timed reality is a pure mental con-
struct and ultimately unreal, it offers hope and encouragement toward
attaining greater and subtler dimensions of life.
This very much is the position of Daoism. Already the Daode jing rec-
ognizes that the emergence of ordinary timed reality is necessary as the
universe gives rise to something rather than nothing yet, whatever form
this reality may take, it always remains part of creatio continua, the eternal
going out and coming back of Dao (Girardot 2008, 77). While the ultimate
goal of Daoists is to realize the timeless condition of nothingness before
creation in its ultimate form of immortality, they yet live in sympathy with
Dao as it unfolds on earth and relish the constant cyclical interplay be-
tween chaos and the re-emergence of the world. They are well aware of
the powers of the mind in creating and manipulating time, deeply versed
in manifold theories and interpretations of the different modes of tempo-
rality, and engaged in a plethora of methods and techniques that allow the
modification and reorganization of time. But in that they are not alone.
Rather, their endeavors are echoed and matched by thinkers and practi-
tioners of other religions and schools of thought, active in other parts of
the world and different periods of time.
 The Nature of Timelessness / 5

This Book

This book explores just how Daoists come to terms with timelessness in all
these different dimensions while also undertaking close comparisons with
other thinkers, religions, and cultures. It offers presentations of a more
theoretical, speculative nature in alternation with those that focus on con-
crete life situations, presenting in turn discussions on issues of personal
perception, philosophical speculation, visual representation, self-
cultivation, and meaning in life.
To begin, Steve Taylor provides a summary of the different factors
that influence the human experience of time as outlined by psychologists.
He identifies four “laws” of psychological time and explains the psycho-
logical factors that lie behind them, working from his research into time
expansion experiences (TEEs). Such experiences typically occur when a
person’s normal sense of time slows down or expands significantly. They
are associated mainly with accidents and emergencies, but also with mys-
tical, psychedelic, and “in the zone” experiences during sports.
Typically linked with a sense of calmness and well-being as well as
with alertness and the opportunity to take preventative action, TEEs are
interpreted variously but, as Taylor concludes, tend to indicate a shift out
of a normal state of consciousness into a different timeworld. They suggest
that human beings’ normal experience of time is neither objective nor ab-
solute. It is a psychological construct, generated by the psychological pro-
cesses and structures of our normal self-system. Most specifically, it relates
to the strong boundary of our self and the sense of duality this creates. In
spiritual experiences (and most altered states of consciousness in general),
this state of duality is transcended, also resulting in a transcendence of
fast-flowing linear time.
Echoing this, Mercedes Valmisa asks, “What is a Situation?” She leads
us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by
two main sources: the Zhuangzi—a multifarious compilation from Warring
States China (ca. 4th c. BCE)—and José Ortega y Gasset’s (1883-1955) Unas
Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in Metaphysics)—the transcripts of a
course on metaphysics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20 th century.
Much as other ontologically subjective entities and events, situations do
not preexist the intentional subject: instead, they are created alongside an
act of noticing.
In Classical Chinese, shi 勢, commonly rendered “propensity” and the
closest the language comes to our concept of “situation,” denotes a dy-
namic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as
other entities and processes as constitutive elements. Here a situation is
6 / Livia Kohn

not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern
within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to
arise. These ontological reflections are also important for a philosophy of
action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situa-
tions—as in the creation of worlds—hence the importance of understand-
ing what the agent notices (Ortega’s reparar) and fails to notice, what we
privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among
the world’s plural affordances.
The Zhuangzi explains that the relational affordances that we actual-
ize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized
and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents
co-construct one another over time. This acknowledgment is crucial to re-
train our agency in order to illuminate our own blind spots, overcome our
uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move be-
yond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the
world.
Looking at similar issues from a different perspective, Joseph L. Pratt,
in “Time and Space within Daoism’s Holistic Worldview,” notes that the
Daode jing offers a holistic explanation of reality, starting from an ultimate
reality of Emptiness, called the Dao. The Dao is followed by the One, a
totality capable of encompassing all of conventional reality, and then by
the Two, the yin-yang dynamic reflecting the basic interplay between the
Dao and the One at the next essentially energetic level. From here emerge
the Three, allowing for three-dimensional form and a further fundamental
yin-yang dynamic between the energetic yin-yang Two and the material
Form Three.
This seamless cosmology and metaphysics, ranging from an absolute
nothingness to a play of form, explains how consciousness and cognition
exist as the higher energetic Two in relation to form as the lower material
Three. It also shows how time and space are a function of form, cognition
and, most importantly, consciousness. Finally, Daoism explains how time
and space have both yin and yang aspects. The yin circular aspect, the here
and now, allows for a direct or immediate path to the transcendent One
and ultimately to the Dao. The yang linear aspect, expressed in the stand-
ard one temporal and three spatial dimensions, is necessary for the yin
circular aspect and, ultimately, for the experience of the Dao to be mean-
ingful.
As this holistic explanation demonstrates, people can achieve a har-
monious state, in Daoism called “effortless action” (wuwei) and in modern
psychology described as state of “flow,” where form, time, and space are
experienced fully. This transcendent return to the Dao figures in all of
 The Nature of Timelessness / 7

life’s endeavors from walking a dog to running a business, and can be cul-
tivated by mindfulness practices such as meditation, taiji quan, and yoga.
Equally focusing on the Daode jing, Andrej Fech, in “Temporality in
Laozi and Plotinus,” conducts a comparative study of temporal concepts
in the writings ascribed to the two eponymous authors. These two bodies
of text were created in different intellectual environments and epochs, and
yet there are multiple correspondences in their work, including their view
of the ineffable One as the origin of the world, their positing of several
precosmic stages, as well as their emphasis of the importance of return.
By comparing the temporal implications of these ideas, this study
argues that both sources operate with similar sets of temporal metaphors,
implying both cyclical and linear motion. They also cohere in viewing time
as emerging prior to the completion of physical reality. As for their differ-
ences, in Plotinus, eternity refers to the atemporal state of existence that is
a hallmark of the intelligible reality prior to the emergence of the hyposta-
sis Soul. It can be realized by a human individual only by means of con-
templative return. The noetic grasp of timeless reality has no prolonging
effect on one’s bodily existence.
Unlike Plotinus’ dichotomy of atemporality (eternity) and temporali-
ty (time), the relevant discussion in the Laozi, which does not posit the ex-
istence of an ideal intelligible world, is based on the distinction between
long and short temporal intervals. Accordingly, the main principle of the
text, the Way, endures due to its ability to perform timely return. Since
here the return is not confined to intellectual understanding, but also in-
cludes ethical components, any person able to carry it out in their actions
can, in principle, achieve longevity.
Remaining in antiquity but looking at more schematic visions of time,
Nada M. Sekulic, in “Magic Square and Perfect Sphere: Time in Daoism
and Ancient Greece,” explores the visual representation of key features of
time. Discussing myth, magic, and temporality in ancient cosmological
philosophy and religion, she outlines common settings and differences as
found in ancient Greece and early Daoism. She focuses in particular on the
idea of the perfect sphere as found in Greek cosmology represented by
Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Plato, then compares these notions to the
explanations ancient Chinese thinkers give of magic squares such as the
Luoshu (Writ of the Luo [River]) and the cosmology of the Yijing (Book of
Changes). Common points include similarities to the Pythagorean theorem
as well as medical ideas such as humors and phases. The main difference
is the overall meaning of the imperfection of cosmos.
Another mode of the visual representation of time is the topic of
Wujun Ke’s “Daoist Cinematic Temporality and the Taiwanese New
8 / Livia Kohn

Wave.” She shows just how Taiwanese New Wave directors invoke Daoist
references in moments of temporal dilation to comment on Taiwanese so-
ciety during the post-martial law period, a time of rapid neoliberal trans-
formation. Though noted for their use of slowed-down cinematic time,
Edward Yang’s Yi Yi (A One and a Two, 2000) and Tsai Ming-Liang’s
Stray Dogs (Jiaoyou, 2013), masterpieces of the Taiwanese New Wave, are
not typically discussed in terms of their references to Daoism.
This changes with this essay. It opens a consideration of Daoist cine-
matic temporality as discourses around durational time are necessary but
insufficient to address the spiritual dimensions of time. By resurrecting
Daoist thought to intervene in the homogenous, empty time of late capital-
ist modernity, Tsai and Yang attend to temporality on a cosmological level,
emphasizing acceptance of both the mundane repetitions of daily life as
well as the inevitability of change and loss. While Edward Yang’s Terroriz-
ers is perhaps the most well-known representative of the New Wave for its
portrayal of urban alienation and postmodernity, Yang’s final film Yi Yi
pays homage to the spiritual dimension of secular life by invoking
Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream in the context of a grandmother’s passing.
Similarly, Tsai Ming-Liang is discussed in terms of slow cinema and dis-
posability, yet he directed Stray Dogs with a quote by Laozi in mind. At-
tending to such details allows us to excavate the existence of unruly tem-
poralities and the enduring influence of spiritual thought on secular life.
Remaining in modernity and moving on to connections with both
Western and Buddhist thinkers, Patrick Laude, in “Ways of Time: Seeing
Dao through Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki,” points out that Daoism pre-
sents a vision of time that is both cyclical and linear. Its philosophies con-
ceive the world as manifesting in cycles of flow and return, whereas its
religious visions see it as moving toward a state of harmony called Great
Peace.
This raises first the question of the relationship between spiritual
transformation and cosmic change, as reflected in the tension between the
Daoist sense of degradation resulting from the collapse of spontaneous
oneness with Dao and its millenarian tendencies. Hence the second ques-
tion: Is the religious view of time descending and declining toward de-
struction, or ascending toward a final apogee, entropic or progressive?
Thirdly, we must envisage that spiritual perception and imagination can
also be focused on transcending time and reaching eternity in the present,
independently from the vicissitudes of history.
The essay explores of some of the metaphysical and spiritual implica-
tions of this triadic power of time in light of the works of René Guénon
(1886-1951), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and D. T. Suzuki
 The Nature of Timelessness / 9

(1870-1966). The relevance of these authors flows not only from the con-
siderable impact their works had on entire generations of intellectuals and
spiritual seekers, but also from the way they were able to articulate and
reformulate fundamental insights of Christian theology and Asian wisdom
traditions in original, provocative, and seminal ways, providing invalua-
ble tools of intellectual and spiritual revitalization.
How this plays out in religious practice is further explored in Qi
Song’s “Daoist Aspects of Time Perception in Hakuin’s Zen Experiences.”
She begins by outlining the biography of one of the major Zen masters of
Tokugawa Japan, Hakuin Eikaku (1686-1769), then shows how he worked
with several different modes of time perception in his various Zen experi-
ences. First of all, during the enlightenment experience of kenshō, time for
him collapsed into a single instant and vanished completely, opening him
to the underlying cosmic reality of timelessness. Then again, when suffer-
ing from Zen sickness, time in his experience was dilated and extended
into long, drawn-out, and painful segments. Those two represent extreme
poles that could also be described as heaven and hell, purity and defile-
ment, oneness and division, and so on.
After learning Daoist techniques, however, Hakuin switched to a gen-
tler and more fluid way of practice, leaving these extremes behind and
focusing more on the world of stars, nature, and physicality. Working
closely with the natural rhythms, he emphasized their manifestation with-
in the body through breathing and energy guiding, notably in the ocean of
qi and the lower elixir field. He adapted his body’s patterns to natural time
structures as manifest both within and without, while opening his mind as
pure consciousness to flow through the different parts of the body. In this
manner, he established smooth and harmonious movements, finding the
true root of enlightenment deep within himself and going beyond time as
a historical marker and ancestral agent.
Linking self and culture, mind and body in the context of how time
creates meaning in human life is the focus of the contribution by Juan
Zhao. “Synchronicity: A Modern Interpretation of Time in the Yijing” trac-
es the emergence of Carl Gustav Jung’s (1875-1961) concept of “synchro-
nicity,” then analyzes its relationship with the Yijing [Boo of Changes),
pointing out that it provides a good way of interpreting time (shi) as found
here. Jung’s synchronicity echoes the revolution of the understanding of
time that formed part of 20th-century Western physics and philosophy. Yet
he also had recourse to the ancient Chinese classic.
By working with the notion time as presented in the Yijing, Jung
could propose his particular take on the new vision of time, leading to the
theory of synchronicity. This added a whole new dimension to the preva-
10 / Livia Kohn

lent law of causality—a way of looking at things from a more quantum-

based perspective, of simultaneity and coincidence. Proposing this, Jung
affirmed another dimension of science, integrating and enhancing the
modern significance of the Yijing. Doing so, he also gave a new life to the
ancient concept of time, making it accessible to, and relevant for, the con-
text of modernity. Seeing time from a comparative perspective and in a
dialogue between China and the West, Juan Zhao deepens our under-
standing of time as well as of the overall situation of human life. Flowing
smoothly with the river of time, the human mind can become one with the
entire world that makes up its environment, thus opening new and varied
paths to moral improvement and spiritual cultivation.
Looking at how time plays out in life from a yet different angle, Jef-
frey W. Dippmann focuses on “Immortality and Meaning in Life: A Daoist
Perspective.” He points out that most Western philosophers have focused
on the issue of bodily immortality and the power of death that forces us to
utilize life to its fullest, knowing that it can end at any moment. An elixir
of life is often seen as counterproductive since it would cause life to be-
come a drudgery of relentless indifference and boredom.
In the Daoist tradition, the notion of xian involves the attainment of
some sort of immortality. Xian come in three types: heavenly immortals
who have ascended into heaven and occupy a position in the otherworldly
bureaucracy, earthly immortals who are ready for ascension but remain on
earth, and those who transcend this world through deliverance from the
corpse and leave behind a token or substitute. In keeping with the search
for meaning in life, the present study primarily focuses on earthly immor-
tals.
By utilizing tales as found in collections of biographies and classical
hagiographies, Dippmann shows that there can indeed be meaning in life
for those who attain bodily immortality. For example, the Liexian zhuan
records the tale of Boshi sheng (Master Whitestone) who, even after 2000
years, desired nothing more than a long life on earth. When queried as to
why he didn’t ascend to heaven, Whitestone replied that he could not im-
agine enjoying himself as much in heaven as he did on earth. In contrast to
the Western concerns over tedium and despair, the Daoist vision cele-
brates life, and offers the possibility of a continued joyous existence filled
with wonder and hope.
 The Nature of Timelessness / 11

Bibliography
Bogen, Joseph E. 1969. “The Other Side of the Brain.” Bulletin of the Los Angeles
Neurological Societies 34.
Brand, Stewart. 1999. The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. New York:
Basic Books.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1992. Flow: The Psychology of Happiness. London: Rider.
Davies, Paul. 1995. About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Eliade, Mircea. 1958. Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human
Culture. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
Fraser, J. T. 1982. The Genesis and Evolution of Time: A Critique of Interpretation in
Physics. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
_____. 1986. “The Problem of Exporting Faust.” In Time, Science and Society in China
and the West, edited by J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F. C. Haber, 1-20. Am-
herst: University of Massachusetts Press.
_____. 1987. Time: The Familiar Stranger. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press.
_____. 1999. Time, Conflict, and Human Values. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
_____. 2007. Time and Time Again: Reports from a Boundary of the Universe. Leiden:
Brill.
_____. 2010. “Founder’s Address: Constraining Chaos.” In Time: Limits and Con-
straints, edited by Jo Alyson Parker, Paul Harris, and Christian Steineck, 19-36.
Leiden: Brill.
Franz, Marie-Louise von. 1981. “Time and Synchronicity in Analytic Psychology.”
In The Voices of Time, edited by J. T. Fraser, 218-32. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press.
Girardot, Norman. 2008 [1983]. Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism: The Theme of
Chaos (Hundun). Dunedin, Fla.: Three Pines Press.
Happold, F. C. 1970. Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology. Baltimore: Penguin.
James, William. 1936 [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Modern
Library.
Lucas, J. R. 2002. “Time and Religion.” In Time, edited by Katinka Ridderbos, 143-
65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maslow, Abraham H. 1964. Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold.
12 / Livia Kohn

Muller, Richard A. 2016. Now: The Physics of Time. New York: W. W. Norton.
Noreika, Valdas, Christine M. Falter, and Till M. Wagner. 2014. “Variability of Du-
ration Perception: From Natural and Induced Alterations to Psychiatric Disor-
ders.” In Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Tempo-
rality, edited by Valtteri Arstila and Dan Lloyd, 529-56. Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press.
Ornstein, Robert E. 1980. “Two Sides of the Brain.” In Understanding Mysticism,
edited by Richard Woods, 270-85. New York: Image Books.
Sills, Helen. 2004. “The Composer as Prophet in Time and Uncertainty.” In Time
and Uncertainty, edited by Paul Harris and Michael Crawford, 149-59. Leiden:
Brill.
Smolin, Lee. 2013. Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe.
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Suzuki, D. T. 1956. Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings. New York: Doubleday.
Taylor, Jill Bolte. 2009. My Stroke of Insight. New York: Penguin-Plume.
Turner, Frederick. 1986. “Space and Time in Chinese Verse.” In Time, Science and
Society in China and the West, edited by J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F. C. Ha-
ber, 241-51. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
_____. 2010. “How Death Was Invented and What It Is For.” In Time: Limits and
Constraints, edited by Jo Alyson Parker, Paul Harris, and Christian Steineck,
339-38. Leiden: Brill.
Whitrow, G. J. 1981. “Time and the Universe.” In The Voices of Time, edited by J. T.
Fraser, 564-81. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience
Time Perception in Altered States of Consciousness

STEVE TAYLOR

A few years ago, I had a car crash. I was driving in the middle lane of a
motorway, when a truck pulled out from the inside lane and hit the side of
our car, spinning us around, and then hitting us again. As soon as the
truck hit us, everything seemed to go into slow motion. There was a very
long gap between the sound of impact and the beginning of the car’s spin.
I looked behind and the other cars on the motorway seemed to be moving
extremely slowly, almost as if they were stationery.
I felt as though I had a lot of time to observe the whole scene, and to
try to regain control of the car. I was surprised by how clear and vivid eve-
rything became, and how much detail I was taking in. There was a strange
sense of quietness too. We span around for a few seconds, before careering
into a crash barrier on the hard shoulder. Then everything seemed to
switch back into normal time again. (Luckily, my wife and I were unin-
jured.)
My altered perception of time during the seconds of the crash is a
common experience. Since I published a book about time perception (Tay-
lor 2007), people regularly have sent me accounts of accidents and other
moments of sudden shock which bring about an extreme slowing down of
time. One woman told me how she rushed to save her children from the
dangers of a nearby fire. She reported:

Time seemed to stop, enabling me to do this. I moved first one child out and
handed her over to a girl that came to help, and then I went back and woke
up my eldest, scooped up the baby and then my eldest. . . I will never forget
the moments of absolute clarity and calmness. It didn’t feel like I was even in
my own body. Whatever happened, I remain extremely grateful.

Another woman described a horrific experience when two men tried

to rape her, telling me: “I was able to defend myself and escape because
everything was so slow that I had time to react faster than the men attack-
ing me.”

13
14 / Steve Taylor

In another example, a person told me how time slowed down when

he helped an old lady who lost her balance and was about to fall over:

Instinctively I reached out and wrapped my left arm around her, but I was
off-balance and the weight of her pulled me down too. But then, between
that moment and hitting the pavement a split-second later, everything went
into slow motion and, in what seemed like a beautifully choreographed se-
ries of movements, I twisted myself underneath her so that she fell on top of
me and relaxed my body sufficiently to ensure that I didn’t break any of my
bones upon impact.

I have received similar reports about robberies and assaults, danger-

ous confrontations with wild animals, plane crashes, and natural disasters.
What the examples suggest is that time perception is not a fixed or con-
stant phenomenon. To a large extent, it relates to states of consciousness—
or more specifically, to psychological functions and processes that under-
lie states of consciousness. The main factor in these accident situations
may be that they provide a sudden and dramatic shock which “jolts” us
out of our normal state of consciousness.
In this article, I would like to summarize the main aspects of human
beings’ experience of time, including the different time perceptions we
have in different situations. After summarizing some of the ways in which
psychologists have tried to explain time perception, I will put forward my
own theory, with particular reference to altered states of consciousness. It
will become clear that what we experience as a “normal” speed of time is
simply the result of a “normal” state of consciousness. As I will show later,
there are many varieties of altered states of consciousness—e. g., flow, the
“zone” experiences of sports people, psychedelic experiences, deep states
of meditation—in which our experience of time alters drastically, in a simi-
lar way to accidents and emergencies.

Theories of Time Perception

The flexibility of time perception has been a topic of interest for psycholo-
gists ever since psychology emerged as a field of study. In his foundation-
al text The Principles of Psychology (1950), William James (1842-1910) made a
connection between the human experience of time and intensity of percep-
tion. James puzzled over the fact that time seems to speed up as we get
older, and suggested that this is because, “in youth, we have an absolutely
new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. . . but as
each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine
which we hardly note at all, the days smooth themselves out in recollec-
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 15

tion to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse” (1950,
624). He also suggested that new experiences, such as foreign travel, have
a similar time-expanding effect. As he noted, “rapid and interesting trav-
el” results in the same “multitudinous, and long-drawn-out’ time percep-
tion as childhood” (1950, 624).
Later psychologists have built upon James’ ideas and reached similar
conclusions in a more rigorous way. A connection between time percep-
tion and information processing was established by the American psy-
chologist Robert Ornstein (1969). In a series of experiments, he played
tapes to volunteers with various kinds of sound information on them, such
as simple clicking sounds and household noises. At the end he asked them
to estimate for how long they had listened to the tape and found that
when there was more information on the tape (e. g., when there were dou-
ble the number of clicking noises), the volunteers estimated the time peri-
od to be longer.
Ornstein found that this also applied to the complexity of the infor-
mation. When they were asked to examine different drawings and paint-
ings, the participants with the most complex images estimated the time
period to be the longest. Further experiments along similar lines found
that time periods are overestimated when they include more variation
(Block and Read 1978) and segmentation (Poynter 1983).
There is still a general consensus among psychologists that time per-
ception is strongly linked to information processing. Two contemporary
researchers, William Matthews and Warren Meck, have linked this to fac-
tors such as perceptual clarity and ease of information-extraction, which
lead to “vivid representations and efficient perceptual decision-making”
(2016). This further connects to recent research showing that mindfulness
meditation can bring about an “overestimation of duration,” suggesting an
expanded experience of time (Kramer et al. 2013). This applies to short
single meditation sessions and is also a long-term effect of regular medita-
tion practice (Berkovich-Ohana et al. 2011; 2012; Droit-Volet et al. 2015).
Similarly, David Eagleman and Vani Pariyadath found that novel stimuli
are perceived as longer in duration compared with stimuli that are repeat-
ed. They argue that this is due to the increased amount of energy needed
to process more novel stimuli. “The experience of duration is a signature
of the amount of energy expended in representing a stimulus, i. e., the
coding efficiency” (2009, 1841).
Other research has linked time perception to such factors as self-
reported mood and arousal. Positive affect and high arousal are associated
with a swift passage of time, while negative affect and arousal have the
reverse effect. Negative states such as boredom, anxiety, and depression
16 / Steve Taylor

seem to slow down time.1 In one study, researchers found that oncology
patients with lower-than-average levels of well-being reported a slower
passage of time (Anderson et al. 2007). In duration estimation studies, fear
and threat have also been associated with a slowing down of time (Camp-
bell and Bryant 2007).
Conversely, some studies have shown a link between high levels of
hedonic well-being and a swift passage of time. As the saying that “time
flies when you’re having fun” suggests, tasks that are engaging and enjoy-
able are reported as passing more quickly (Sackett et al. 2010) In a recent
study of how people perceived the passage of time during the UK Covid-
19 lockdown, Ruth Ogden (2020) found a link between the passage of time
and levels of social satisfaction and stress. People with a higher level of
social satisfaction, less stress, and a decreased task load reported a swifter
passage of time.
As for the actual psychological or neural mechanisms that determine
our subjective experience of time, the most widely accepted theory is the
“scalar expectancy theory,” originally developed by John Gibbon (1977).
This suggests that our sense of time passing comes from a kind of “pace-
maker” in our brains. This produces regular pulses that are counted up by
an “accumulator” and stored in our memory. At the end of a period of
time we unconsciously sense how many times the pacemaker has pulsed
and so have a rough idea how much time has passed. According to this
theory, time perception slows down when more pulses are accumulated
within a given period and speeds up when there are fewer pulses. As yet,
however, no one has identified the neural substrates of the “pacemaker-
accumulator” system, so it remains just a theory.
Dan Zakay (e. g., 2012) has suggested an additional “attentional gate”
component to Gibbon’s original theory. The attentional gate regulates the
number of signals produced by the pacemaker, and becomes wide or nar-
row in relation to the allocation of attentional resources. According to him,
this means that the more intensely we pay attention to time passing, the
slower it seems to pass. Thus, time seems to go slowly when we are wait-
ing in queues or traffic jams. On the other hand, when we are relaxing on
holiday or sitting in the garden on a Sunday afternoon, time does not seem
so important. We do not pay attention to its passing, which means a lower
number of signals from the pacemaker.

1 Droit-Volet et al. 2011; Gil and Droit-Volet 2009; Wyrick and Wyrick 1977.
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 17

Four Laws of Psychological Time

In my book Making Time (Taylor 2007), I put forward four “laws” of psy-
chological time. They are:

◼ Time seems to speed up as we get older.

◼ Time seems to go slowly when we are exposed to new environments and
experiences; inversely, time goes quickly when we are in familiar envi-
ronments and have familiar experiences.
◼ Time seems to speed up in states of absorption; inversely, it seems to slow
down in states of non-absorption, e. g., boredom and anxiety.
◼ Time often passes slowly, or stops altogether, in altered states of con-
sciousness where our normal self-system—including our normal psy-
chological structures and processes—dissolves or when its boundaries
become soft.

The first three of these laws can be explained in terms of the same
basic factor, that is, the relationship between information processing and
time perception. The fourth law stands on its own and relates to different
psychological factors.
Why, then, does time seem to speed up as we get older? This phe-
nomenon has been a topic of discussion among philosophers and psy-
chologists for many decades. One popular explanation is the “proportion-
al” theory, based on the fact that, as we get older, each time period consti-
tutes a smaller fraction of our life as a whole. This theory seems to have
been first put forward by the French philosopher Paul Janet (1823-1899),
who suggested the law that, as William James describes it, “the apparent
length of an interval at a given epoch of a man’s life is proportional to the
total length of the life itself. A child of ten feels a year as one tenth of his
whole life—a man of fifty-nine as one fiftieth, the whole life meanwhile
apparently preserving a constant length” (1950, 625).
There is some sense to this theory: it offers an explanation for why the
speed of time seems to increase so gradually and evenly, with almost
mathematical consistency. One problem, however, is that it tries to explain
present time purely in terms of past time. The assumption is that we con-
tinually experience our lives as a whole and perceive each day, week,
month, or year becoming more insignificant in relation to the whole. But
we do not live our lives like this. We live in terms of much smaller periods
of time, from hour to hour and day to day, dealing with each time period
on its own merits, independently of all that has gone before.
In my view, the speeding-up of time we experience is primarily an
effect of the relationship between time perception and information pro-
18 / Steve Taylor

cessing, as described above. The main reason why time seems to pass so
slowly for children is because of the massive amount of perceptual infor-
mation they take in from their surroundings. Young children appear to
live in a completely different world to adults. Their heightened perception
means that they are constantly taking in all kinds of details that pass
adults by—tiny cracks in windows, little insects crawling across the floor,
patterns of sunlight on the carpet. All phenomena seem to be more vivid
and fascinating to them, imbued with more presence and is-ness. And all
of this information stretches out time for young children.
However, as human beings get older, we lose this intensity of percep-
tion, as the world becomes a more familiar place. We “switch off” to the
wonder and is-ness of the world around us; gradually we stop paying
conscious attention to our surroundings and experiences. There is a pro-
cess of progressive familiarization that continues throughout our lives,
partly due to the decreasing novelty in our lives, and also due to a psycho-
logical “desensitizing mechanism” that makes our experience progressive-
ly less vivid (Taylor, 2007, 2010). The longer live, the more familiar the
world becomes and the less attention we pay to our experiences.
In my view, this is the main reason why time seems to speed up as
we get older. The amount of perceptual information we absorb decreases
every year, and time seems to pass progressively faster.
The second and third laws of psychological time can also be ex-
plained in terms of the relationship between time perception and infor-
mation processing.
Time seems to slow down when we are exposed to new environ-
ments and experiences (the second law) because the unfamiliarity of new
experiences allows the processing of much more perceptual information.
In unfamiliar surroundings, we switch out of our normal “desensitized”
mode of perception. This is one of the reasons why vacations are so enjoy-
able, and so essential. On vacation, surrounded by unfamiliarity (and in a
mode of relaxation), we often experience a state of spontaneous mindful-
ness and intensely attend to our surroundings. We rekindle the kind of
fresh, first-time vision that is common to young children. As the develop-
mental psychologist Alison Gopnik remarks, “As adults when we are
faced with the unfamiliar, when we fall in love with someone new, or
when we travel to a new place, our consciousness of what is around us
and inside us suddenly becomes far more vivid and intense, like chil-
dren’s” (2006, 211). This vivid perception allows us to process more infor-
mation, which stretches our experience of time.
The main reason why time goes quickly in states of absorption (the
third law) is because our attention narrows to one small focus and we
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 19

block out information from our surroundings. Think of what happens

when you are playing a game of chess, dancing or playing music, watch-
ing an enthralling film, or reading an engrossing book. Your absorption
becomes so intense that you cease to be aware of your surroundings and
even of your own self. You enter a state of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi 1992).
You obviously process information from the focus of your absorption (e. g.,
the film or the book), but this is a very small amount compared to what
you would experience in a normal state of diffuse attention.
It is also significant that in these moments, our minds become very
quiet. With our attention so intensely focused outside ourselves, the cogni-
tive chatter of the mind quietens, slows down, and fades away. Thus, one
of the major sources of information processing—the associational chatter
of thoughts—is massively reduced. Significantly, as Mihalyi Csikszent-
mihalyi has noted, the absence of cognitive chatter, which he calls “psy-
chic entropy,” is one of the characteristics of flow and one of the main rea-
sons why the state brings a sense of well-being. In addition, he mentions
that a speeded-up sense of time is one of the characteristics of flow. As he
puts it, “Often hours seem to pass by in minutes; in general, most people
report that time seems to pass much faster” (1992, 56).
On the other hand, time goes slowly in states of boredom or non-
absorption because our attention is unoccupied and a large amount of
thought-chatter flows through our minds, bringing a massive amount of
cognitive information. This applies to other negative states: research has
found that time appears to pass slowly, such as anxiety, pain, fear, and
threat. 2 In my view, in all of these states, the main factor is the large
amount of cognitive information that flows through our consciousness. In
states of psychological discomfort, we are unable to focus our attention
and therefore cannot enter a state of absorption

Altered States of Consciousness

As previously noted, the fourth law of psychological time is that time of-
ten passes slowly, or stops altogether, in unusual states of consciousness
where our normal self-system dissolves or its boundaries become soft.
This stands apart from the other three laws, since it deals with a much
more dramatic and significant type of experience, in which time seems to
slow down massively. This returns us to the type of experiences we exam-

2Droit-Volet et al. 2011; Gil and Droit-Volet 2009; Wyrick and yrick 1977; Ander-
son et al. 2007; Campbell and Bryant 2007.
20 / Steve Taylor

ined at the beginning of this chapter, which can be called time expansion
experiences (TEEs).
In addition to accidents and emergencies, TEEs occur in a wide range
of different situations, such as under the influence of psychedelic sub-
stances (Shanon 2001; Bayne and Carter 2018), in states of meditation and
mindfulness and other spiritual experiences, as well as in moments of
peak performance in sports, sometimes referred to as being “in the zone”
(Murphy and White 1995). In such moments, the customary self-system—
normal mental structures and processes—no longer functions. There is a
shift into a different state, where our experience of reality alters, including
our experience of time.
Although there are some altered states that cause time to pass very
quickly, such as flow, most altered states seem to feature a dramatic slow-
ing down. Flow is a relatively mild altered state of consciousness. The
states we are going to examine now are more dramatic.
I recently conducted a research study on TEEs (Taylor 2020). Follow-
ing a pilot study of 22 cases specifically linked to accidents, I collected 74
general reports and examined their causes and characteristics. I found that
40 were related to accidents, mostly involving cars, 12 were connected to
meditation or spiritual experiences, 7 happened during sports and games,
and another 7 related to psychedelic drugs. In addition, there were a few
other minor triggers, like traumatic experiences or listening to music.
Most people described their TEEs as very positive. Almost everyone
reported a sense of calmness, despite any danger they might have been
facing. Most people noted a sense of alertness or heightened awareness.
They felt that their slowed-down sense of time gave them the opportunity
to take preventative action. They reported rapid and detailed thinking,
with plenty of time to make plans and decisions. As one participant who
was in a car accident said, “My head was really clear because I seemed to
have so much time to think . . . I will always remember how much time I
seemed to have to think and work things out” (Taylor 2020, 13). Some
people also reported a sense of quietness, as if noise from their surround-
ings had become muffled.
In many cases, the sense of time expansion was highly dramatic. Sec-
onds seemed to turn into minutes, or time seemed to stop or disappear
altogether. One participant had a TEE during a hockey game. He reported,
“The play which seemed to last for about ten minutes. . . occurred in the
space of about eight seconds” (2020, 12). Another had such an experience
when she fell off a horse. “It only lasted a few seconds for me to be thrown
from the horse and hit the ground; however, the whole experience seemed
to last for minutes” (2020, 12).
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 21

Since many participants reported the sense that their TEE enabled
them to take preventive action, it is worth considering the possibility that
such experiences are a survival mechanism, a kind of adaptive trait our
ancestors developed as a way of increasing their chances of survival in
dangerous situations. It would certainly have been beneficial for early
humans—surrounded by wild animals and dangerous natural phenome-
na—to develop the ability to slow down their experience of time in emer-
gency situations.
However, one might also argue that this does not explain why TEEs
occur in non-emergency situations, such as meditation and psychedelics.
The idea that TEEs experiences are an adaptive trait incidentally also
works against the notion that they are an illusory phenomenon produced
by recollection, as has been suggested by Stetson et. al (2007). After all, it is
difficult to see any survival advantage in remembering accidents in more
detail afterwards.
As for the neuro-physiological processes involved in TEEs, the Finn-
ish philosopher Valtteri Arstila (2012) has suggested that TEES in acci-
dents may be linked to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain,
related to the fight-or-flight response. He has argued that high levels of
norepinephrine could account for characteristics of TEEs such as highly
focused attention, increased speed and accuracy of responses, and im-
proved clarity of thought.
However, the most common theme of TEEs in accidents and other
situations is calmness and a sense of well-being. This does not fit with the
fight-or-flight response or higher levels of norepinephrine. The fight-or-
flight response involves anxiety and stress, both of which are strikingly
absent in most TEEs.
In addition, we have seen that such experiences do not just occur in
accidents and emergencies but also in non-emergency situations such as
sports, psychedelics, meditation, and listening to music. With the excep-
tion of sports, none of these are situations where one would expect to find
high levels of norepinephrine. In fact, states of moeditation and other re-
laxed states—for example, listening to classical music—are usually experi-
enced as states of stillness and inner peace, in stark contrast to a fight or
flight response. So, all of this argues against a direct causal connection be-
tween high norepinephrine levels and TEEs.
Unfortunately, I cannot offer a complete or detailed explanation of
TEEs, but it seems clear that they are linked to altered states of conscious-
ness. As noted earlier, our normal time perception is related to our normal
state of consciousness. It is produced by the psychological structures and
process which operate when we are in a normal state. When we shift into
22 / Steve Taylor

an altered state, our psychological processes change, and our time percep-
tion alters. The more dramatic the altered state, the more dramatic the
slowing down of time. This is why TEEs are often linked to meditation,
spiritual experiences, and psychedelics. Accidents and emergencies clearly
have the capacity to bring about a shift into an altered state due to their
sheer shock and intensity. They can suddenly jolt us out of normal con-
sciousness.
All of the above leads to the conclusion that our normal experience of
time is neither objective nor absolute. It is simply a psychological con-
struct. What we consider a normal state of consciousness is, as James sug-
gests, “but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted
from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of conscious-
ness entirely different” (1985, 388). And this special type of consciousness
is associated with a certain special type of time experience, produced by its
own psychological structures and processes. As another contemporary
researcher of time perception, Marc Wittman (2018) has noted, since our
experience of time is closely bound up with our sense of self and our state
of consciousness, when we undergo a shift into a different state of con-
sciousness, due to unusual circumstances or triggers, then we shift into a
different timeworld.

Time and Spirituality

The relevance of all this to spirituality—including Daoism—is that spiritu-

al practice can be seen as a conscious attempt to cultivate higher states of
consciousness, in which time perception alters and often expands. Time
expansion may not be the specific aim of cultivation practices, but it is of-
ten a consequence.
A dramatically slowed-down experience of time is certainly a feature
of many spiritual experiences (Taylor 2010). As noted near the beginning
of this essay, studies of the effects of mindfulness meditation have shown
that the practice brings about an “overestimation of duration,” suggesting
an expanded experience of time (Berkovich-Ohana et al. 2011; 2012; Droit-
Volet et al. 2015). Beyond time-estimation studies, there are also many
subjective reports by mindfulness meditation practitioners that mention a
slowing down of time, as if the present moment has expanded (Kabat-
Zinn 2005).
In my view, the reason for this is that spiritual practice dismantles the
structures of our normal self-system. Since the normal self-system regu-
lates ordinary perception of time, when its structures diminish, any nor-
mal perception of time fades away too. In particular, there may be two
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 23

main aspects of our normal self-system that generate the normal experi-
ence of time. The first is a strong sense of duality between the individual
and the world, a sense of being enclosed within one’s own mental space
while the rest of the world is “out there.” In mystical experiences—and
sometimes in psychedelic and near-death experiences—this duality dis-
solves, a state associated with the transcendence of linear time. It is there-
fore reasonable to suggest that a sense of duality is associated with the
experience of linear time—that is, a strong sense of time flowing from the
past to the present and into the future.
The second aspect of our normal self-system that may produce hu-
man beings’ normal experience of time is the automatized nature of nor-
mal perception, particularly in the midst of familiar experiences and envi-
ronments. This results in a reduced amount of information processing,
leading to a speeding-up our experience of time. As noted earlier, the in-
creasing familiarity that fills our lives as we grow older may be largely
responsible for the sense that time speeds up as people age (Taylor 2007).
A more radical interpretation is to suggest that our normal experience
of fast-flowing linear time is illusory. If this experience is partly an effect
of a sense of duality, it makes sense that, as the sense of duality becomes
weaker (that is, as the self-system becomes more permeable and less sepa-
rate) time should slow down. This is what happens in TEEs, including ac-
cidents and emergencies. At a certain point, duality disappears altogether:
the self-system becomes so permeable that there is no distinction between
self and world. This occurs in mystical, near-death, and some psychedelic
experiences. Any sense of linear time dissolves, suggesting that time is
specifically a construct of the boundaries of the normal self-system, which
fades away as duality fades away and disappears as duality disappears.
The transcendence of duality is the main aim of all spiritual practices
and paths, including Daoism. And in transcending duality, we also trans-
cend time.

Bibliography
Anderson, Milton, K. Reis-Costa, and J. R. Misanin. 2007. “Effects of September 11 th
Terrorism Stress on Estimated Duration.” Perceptual and Motor Skills 104.3: 799-
802. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.104.3.799-802
Arstila, Valtteri. 2012. “Time Slows Down during Accidents.” Frontiers in
Psychology 3. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.
00196/full
24 / Steve Taylor

Bayne, Tim, and O. Carter. 2018. “Dimensions of Consciousness and the Psyche-
delic state.” Neuroscience of Consciousness 2018.1:niy008. https://doi.org/
10.1093/nc/niy008
Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva., J. Glicksohn, and Amy Goldstein. 2011. “Temporal Cog-
nition Changes Following Mindfulness, but not Transcendental Meditation
Practice.” In Fechner Day 2011: Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the In-
ternational Society of Psychophysics, edited by D. Algom, D. Zakay, E. Chajut, E.
Shaki, Y. Mama, and V. Shakuf, 27:245-50. https:/proceeding.fechnerday.com
/index.php/proceedings/article/view/423
_____. 2012. “Mindfulness-induced Changes in Gamma-band Activity: Implica-
tions for the Default Mode Network, Self-reference, and Attention.” Clinical
Neurophysiology 123.4:700-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2011.07.048
Block, R. A. and M. A. Reed. 1978. “Remembered Duration: Evidence for a Contex-
tual-change Hypothesis.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning
and Memory 4.6:656-65.
Campbell, L. A. and R. A. Bryant. 2007. “How Time Flies: A Study of Novice Sky-
divers.” Behavior Research and Therapy 45.6:1389-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.brat.2006.05.011
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1992. Flow: The Psychology of Happiness. London: Rider.
Droit-Volet, Sylvie, M. Fanget, and M. Dambrun. 2015. “Mindfulness Meditation
and Relaxation Training Increase Time Sensitivity.” Consciousness and Cogni-
tion 31.1: 86-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.10.007
_____, S. L. Fayolle, and S. Gil. 2011. “Emotion and Time Perception: Effects of
Film-induced Mood.” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 5:33.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2011.00033
Eagleman, David M., and Vani Pariyadath. 2009. “Is Subjective Duration a Signa-
ture of Coding Efficiency?” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Bio-
logical Sciences 364(1525):1841-51. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0026
Gibbon, John. 1977. “Scalar Expectancy Theory and Weber’s Law in Animal Tim-
ing.” Psychological Review 84.3:279-325. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.3.279.
Gil, Sandrine, and Sylvie Droit-Volet. 2009. “Time Perception, Depression and
Sadness.” Behavioural Processes 80.2:169-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.
2008.11.012
Gopnik, Alison. 2006. The Philosophical Baby. London: Rider.
James, William. 1950 [1890]. The Principles of Psychology. London: Dover Press.
_____. 1985 [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Hammondsworth: Penguin.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. 2005. Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through
Mindfulness. New York: Hyperion.
 The Varieties of Temporal Experience / 25

Kramer, R., U. Weger, and D. Sharma. 2013. “The Effect of Mindfulness Meditation
on Time Perception.” Consciousness and Cognition 22.3: 846-52. https://doi.
org/ 10.1016/j.concog.2013.05.008
Matthews, William J., and Warren. H. Meck. 2016. “Temporal Cognition: Connect-
ing Subjective Time to Perception, Attention, and Memory.” Psychological Bul-
letin 142.8: 865-907. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000045
Murphy, M., and R. A. White. 1995. In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports.
Hammondsworth: Penguin.
Ogden, Ruth. 2020. “The Passage of Time during the UK Covid-19 Lockdown.”
PLoS One 15.7. ISSN 1932-6203
Ornstein, Robert. 1969. On the Experience of Time. Hammondsworth: Penguin.
Poynter, William D. 1983. “Duration Judgment and the Segmentation of Experi-
ence.” Memory and Cognition 11.1:77-82.
Sackett, Aaron M., Tom Meyvis, Leif. D. Nelson, Benjami A. Converse, and A. L.
Sackett. 2010. “You’re Having Fun when Time Flies: The Hedonic Conse-
quences of Subjective Time Progression.” Psychological Science 21.1:111-17.
https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0956797609354832 PMID: 20424031
Shanon, Benny. 2001. “Altered Temporality.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8.1:35-
58.
Stetson, Chess, Matthew P. Fiesta, and David M. Eagleman. 2007. “Does Time Real
ly Slow Down During a Frightening Event?” PLoS ONE. www.doi.org/10.
1371/ journal. pone.0001295
Taylor, Steve. 2007. Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Dpeeds and
How to Control It. Cambridge: Icon Books.
_____. 2010. Waking from Sleep. London: Hay House.
_____. 2020. “When Seconds Turn into Minutes: Time Expansion Experiences in
Altered States of Consciousness.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology https://doi.
org/10.1177/0022167820917484.
Wittman, Marc. 2018. Altered States of Consciousness: Experiences out of Time and Self.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11468.
001.0001
Wyrick, Robert A., and Lynda C. Wyrick. 1977. “Time Experience during Depres-
sion.” Archives of General Psychiatry 34.12:1441-43. https://doi.org/10.1001/
archpsyc. 977.01770240067005
Zakay, Dan. 2012. “Experiencing Time in Daily Life.” The Psychologist, August
2012: 578-fd81.
 What is a Situation?1

MERCEDES VALMISA

Sometimes we “walk into a situation” without even realizing it and do not

know how to walk out of it. While we often “encounter a situation” that
we must immediately “face,” at other times we may be able to sit back and
“see how it unfolds” before taking any action. All these idioms, expressive
of our conventional understanding, suggest that a situation is something
that exists before our encounter with it; something that is out there before
we can even notice and acknowledge it; something that, in sum, possesses
a separate and independent existence with identity and boundaries of its
own.
My analysis of what a situation is leads me away from this essential-
ist commonsensical understanding toward a view that at first sight might
seem counter-intuitive, but which I expect to become self-evident for the
reader by the end of this paper. In my analysis, I will be using interpretive
keys and concepts from two main sources: the Zhuangzi 莊子 and José Or-
tega y Gasset’s (1883-1955) Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in
Metaphysics). That is, a multifarious philosophical compilation from the
Warring States (ca. 4th c. BCE) and the transcripts of a course on metaphys-
ics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20th century.2

1 I presented an earlier version of this paper at the Scott and Heather Kleiner Col-
loquium Series in the Philosophy Department at University of Georgia in Septem-
ber 2020. I thank all the participants for the engaged discussion, and the many rel-
evant questions and insights they offered.
2 The only surviving version of the Zhuangzi was edited and annotated by Guo

Xiang 郭象 in the 3rd century CE. However, its materials may have originated in
the Warring States through the Western Han period (5th c. BCE-1st c. CE). Some
scholars point out that the Zhuangzi was entirely a product of the court of Liu An
劉安, King of Huainan 淮南 (2nd c. BCE), a hypothesis I find plausible.
Ortega y Gasset taught his course on metaphysics in Madrid in 1932 and 1933 at
the tertulia of the Revista de Occidente, founded by himself in 1923, which served
the purpose of periodical publication and perpetual seminar. His metaphysics les-
sons were published posthumously in 1966.
26
 What Is a Situation? / 27

Like a Building

Let us start to shape this counter-intuitive view by reflecting on the simi-

larities and differences between a situation and a building: both are enti-
ties into which we may walk. If we turn the corner on Springs Avenue to-
ward Bufford Avenue and walk a few meters, we run into the Gettysburg
branch of the U.S. Postal Service. According to the substantialist realist
account that still guides most of our intuitions about the world—a world
composed of individual substances with independent existence, ontologi-
cally divided into subjects and objects, knowers and known, minds and
matter, etc.—the bricks that make up the space that functionally works as
the post office were firmly erected and remain relatively stable at this loca-
tion regardless of whether anyone visits, sees, or interacts with them.
Is a situation in any respect similar in its spatio-temporal and onto-
logical existence to the post-office building of the substantialist realist ac-
count? That is, how does a situation relate to time and space? Is a situation,
like a building, something that is happening out there so that I can walk
into it? Namely, has a situation an independent reality of its own regard-
less whether or not someone happens to notice it? Is a situation real in the
same way as the post office is real? I will answer this last question both in
the positive and the negative—the negative answer being most relevant
for this particular discussion.
On the one hand, a situation is like the post-office building insofar
both need to be recognized as such—i. e., given meaning—to exist. In John
Searle’s vocabulary, both the post office and a situation are not “brute
facts” but “social facts” (1995, ch. 1). Without people to agree on the identi-
ty and function of the post office building, it would just be a collection of
wood, cement, metal, clay, and other materials put together in a way that
creates empty spaces inside. Likewise, I will argue, a situation is a subject-
dependent, ontologically subjective reality, which needs to be acknowl-
edged as such in order to exist.
On the other hand, in the case of the post-office building of the con-
ventional realist account, the concrete bricks and the empty spaces they
create in a given location continue to exist no matter whether someone
notices them or not. They might not become a post office unless there is
social agreement upon it, but the materials themselves necessitate no such
recognition in order to exist out there in time and space. In this sense,
which is relevant for this discussion, a situation is very different from the
post-office building. A situation is not unless someone thinks of it,
acknowledges it, interacts with it. Despite the expression, it is not some-
28 / Mercedes Valmisa

thing we can just walk into as if it preexisted our noticing. Rather, a situa-
tion is created along with our act of noticing.
Nevertheless, were we to take issue with the conventional account
that emerges from a substance metaphysics—one that assumes the exist-
ence of individual “things” owning inherent properties and being “out
there” in time and space—the post-office building would take on a very
different look. If we understand a building through the lenses offered by
particular accounts on contemporary quantum physics and the relational
ontology systems consistent with them, our answer to the question will
differ. For example, in Karen Barad’s account (2006), primordially there
are not “things” but “phenomena”—neither individual objects nor mental
impressions but entangled material agencies, a term that points at the in-
separability of the object and the measuring agencies by means of which
the object emerges with specific boundaries and properties. Phenomena,
as opposed to individual objects, are configurations facilitated by particu-
lar practices among different agencies, both human and nonhuman, which
both produce and are produced by these practices themselves.3
The world is not independent from our experimental exploration of it;
nor are we independent from the world. There is no separation between
object and subject (building and perceiver of the building) at an ontologi-
cal level, for both emerge as distinct only as a result of particular practices
of observation and measurement.
In this relational non-substantialist account, the post-office building
emerges as a result of the specific materializations of which we are part.
And yet a building is a real physical entity—though not inherently fixed
and delineated in its boundaries and properties until a particular configu-
ration of agencies delimits and determines it. As a phenomenon, a build-
ing is both the matter and the actions of measuring, conceptualizing, using,
or interpreting (i.e., acting along with) the matter. It is neither inner nor
outer but both: a constantly fluid enacting of boundaries.
A situation is much like the building in this relational view, but a cru-
cial difference remains. The post-office building enjoys more ontological
stability than a situation; it is objectified and stabilized through obstinate

3As Barad notes, quantum physics is often romanticized as a less Eurocentric, an-
drocentric, imperializing, etc. theory that saves us from Western essentialism.
However, we must acknowledge that only some aspects within specific accounts of
quantum physics may act in this way, helping us challenge the assumed separation
between subject and object, human and nonhuman, natural and cultural, freedom
and determinism, physics and philosophy, and other binaries that have structured
Western thought (2006, 67-68).
 What Is a Situation? / 29

and enduring linguistic, sociocultural, and institutional practices in ways

that situations rarely do—as for example, through the practices of naming
buildings and locating them in maps as points of reference. Situations in
contast to buildings are more ontologically fluid and dependent on mo-
ments of condensation.
In Classical Chinese, the word that most closely approximates the
meaning of situation is shi 勢, “propensity” (see Jullien 1995). As Roger
Ames notes, shi is “an ongoing process that includes agency within it, (and
which) means at once ‘situation,’ ‘momentum,’ and ‘manipulation.’ Shi
includes all of the conditions that collaborate to produce a particular situa-
tion, including place, agencies, and actions” (1998, 227). For ancient Chi-
nese philosophers, shi was not something external to the agent or an entity
the agent might encounter independently. Rather, it was a process that
incorporated the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities and
processes as constitutive elements. In contrast to its conventional usage in
modern languages, a situation as we are going to understand it, is some-
thing made out of us as much as we are made out of it.
A situation, then, is not something externally recognizable that we
can see from a distance, not in the way that we can see the bricks that con-
stitute a building. Discussing the constitutive power of the gaze, Jean-Luc
Marion observes that the look between two people remains invisible, for it
does not belong to one pair of eyes nor the other but only exists in the rela-
tion between the two. The gaze itself “remains unable to be looked at,”
and yet it is by means of being given to the other that it appears (2001, 115).
In the same way, we can never look at a situation: we can look at agencies,
events, phenomena, or processes that are at rest or in movement; we can
look at changes that are given to us by their own appearing; we can look at
happenings and our own feelings and reactions to them, but the situation
itself remains evasive, ungraspable, invisible.
With the above discussion, we are getting at the following key fact: a
situation is not identical with the discrete phenomena and events that we
can discern in conjunction with the emergence of a given space-time. A
situation is composed of certain available spatiotemporal affordances, but
it is not reduced to them nor is it the sum of these parts. Those parts are
just like the bricks of the post-office building: materials used to flesh out
an entity that would not have a determinate meaning, identity, or bounda-
ries without its entanglement with the agent’s recognition. A situation be-
longs with us, the thinking subjective entities who conform and indeed
create it by thinking about it.
30 / Mercedes Valmisa

The Role of Attention

“Seeing” a situation hence is an exercise of introspection where we become

aware of our consciousness highlighting particular aspects of the world,
providing them with meaning, and reifying them—making them a thing.
In this way, seeing a situation is not so much looking outward as it is a
form of self-awareness. By looking out and identifying a situation, we are
looking in. And simultaneously, by looking in we discover which outward
entities have been selected as the focus of our attention (the building’s
bricks), for awareness and meaning are always of something.
In and out, self and world, agent and situation are interdependent to
the extent that no dichotomy can be established between them and no side
takes priority over the other despite their obvious asymmetry. After all, it
is the subject—a consciousness with intentionality—that creates the situa-
tion by endowing it with existence and meaning, by making it a thing over
all other possible configurations of relations that lie in the background,
available to be picked out by any given consciousness.
A situation only arises in a coexisting mode of being recognized as
such by a subjectivity. This action of recognizing is simultaneously an act
of creation: it consists of establishing a focus on a fixed set of space-time
relations. To further this analysis, we want to avail ourselves of Ortega y
Gasset’s concept of reparar (2004, Lesson II). Reparar (notice, spot, bring to
attention) is the action of becoming aware of something, bringing it to the
focus of attention by discerning and establishing it as distinct from the rest.
Reparar is to create a distinct foreground against an all-pervading back-
ground. Ortega’s notion of foreground (primer plano) becomes key for our
analysis of a situation because, at any given moment in time and point in
space, there is always much more happening than we can acknowledge at
once. With my attention (mi reparar), I give a relatively stable and definite
shape to a small set of relations that become highlighted over the extensive
background.
Let us introduce an example à la Ortega to further explain this point.
Imagine that you are a student sitting in my seminar and I am facing you
as I speak in the classroom. I suddenly raise my right hand with a water
bottle in it, asking: “What do you see?” You surely answer: “A water bot-
tle.” Nevertheless, the water bottle is just one among many of the things
that are currently visible to you in the classroom. It is only your attention
that brings the water bottle to the foreground, turning it into the protago-
nist of all the events, processes, phenomena, and actions that are happen-
ing in conjunction with this place and time (and which in turn constitute
the perceived place and time).
 What Is a Situation? / 31

In fact, while you assert that you see a water bottle, focusing all your
attention on this one object I have consciously conditioned you to privilege,
there is a moth stamping against one of the lamp lights, a door that slight-
ly vibrates because of drilling done in the hallway behind it, a student
scratching his head, another one hiding a yawn, a piece of paper flying
into the air from the teacher’s desk, lots of scribbles and arrows on the
whiteboard, and a warm light coming through the side window and fall-
ing onto the floor. None of these events, entities, and processes are worthy
of belonging to the field of the visible and noticeable in answer to my
question, “What do you see?” You only claim to see the water bottle. 4
Why? Clearly because I manipulated your attention by raising my
hand with an object in it and making this action coincide with my question.
This trick serves to demonstrate that reparar (focus attention on) makes
being seen and, by virtue of making being seen, it also makes being. This
attention is the necessary subjective element, without which a situation
cannot exist. To wit, we cannot simply walk into a situation, for the situa-
tion does not exist prior to our noticing it.

The Ontology of a Situation

What, then, exactly constitutes a situation? What is its ontological status?

We have already hinted at the fact that a situation is something that a sub-
ject creates with her attention. Ortega observes that attending to some-
thing leads to realizing or fully grasping (per-catarse) that something. In the
example above, the classroom, the door, the chairs, the desk, the other
students, the light, and the physical presence of the professor belonged to
the field of what you passively knew was there and you accounted of—
unconsciously relied on it as a background certitude requiring no attention
(contar con) (2004, Lesson III).
Such background is formed by everything that appears without our
noticing it, without demanding the slightest touch of our attention. But
everything in the background, Ortega advances, has the potential to be-
come a temporary foreground protagonist: we can always transform our
contar con into a reparar by putting our attention to work.5 This shift from a

4 See Brook Ziporyn’s discussion of “the Gestaltist premise that when some ‘one’
appears as an explicit coherence in the above sense, it appears as a figure against a
background” (2004, 46) and Hershock’s “horizons of relevance” (2004, 63).
5 Notice that Ortega does not directly discuss the ontology of situations. He is in-

terested in what it means to be alive, describing the task of the human as a task of
radical orientation. What Ortega asks his students to bring to the field of reparar
32 / Mercedes Valmisa

mere counting-on to a full realization of certain relations as appearing is

how a situation is born.
We are claiming, then, that a situation belongs to the intentional look
of the subjective agent. However, any intentional look also brings to the
foreground entities other than the agent herself. Reparar is an introspective
look upon oneself (what do I see?) that includes entities that are conceptu-
alized as not being the self (I see a water bottle). In noticing the world we
discover ourselves, and in reflecting upon ourselves we discover the
world. With Ortega, we affirm that by the time we acknowledge some-
thing (ourselves or other), the world is already out there as a background
that enables and affords any of the possible experiences and situations we
may raise out of it.
The given world does not need my attention to exist, yet it is inextri-
cably connected to me. In my switching from contar con to reparar, endless
possibilities of situation-making are afforded. Which means that things are,
but they are not this nor that. They are what Ortega calls un problema: “The
radical and irremediable fact is that living man finds that neither things
nor himself have being; that he has no choice but to do something to live,
to decide his doing at every instant or, what is the same, to decide his be-
ing, and this includes, as we have seen, the being of things.”6
Situations are not what they are simply by virtue of the pre-existing
elements that come to define them—agencies, entities, events, processes
emerging along with a particular space-time—but they are by virtue of
what they are decided to be: what a consciousness makes out of them. In
this manner, the ontological status of a situation is that of not being per se.
It has no ontology of itself.7
The Zhuangzi is a valuable source of utterances embodying this onto-
logical claim, namely that the same “ingredients,” that is, a highlighted net
of relations including spaciotemporal ones, may be constructed into dis-

from the field of contar con is their own awareness of themselves (yo) and the world
surrounding them (mi circunstancia).
6 “El hecho radical e irremediable es que el hombre viviendo se encuentra con que

ni las cosas ni él tienen ser; con que no tiene más remedio que hacer algo para vivir,
que decidir su hacer en cada instante, o lo que es igual, que decidir su ser, y esto
incluye, como hemos visto, el ser de las cosas” (2004, 224). Per convention in his
times, Ortega repeatedly uses “man” and the male pronoun to refer to human.
7 This is a claim that could be made about any given entity, the only ontology being

that of the totality of interconnections and interdependencies seen as one and sus-
ceptible to become an infinite array of relational configurations by means of
boundary-making.
 What Is a Situation? / 33

similar, even opposite kinds of situations from an evaluative point of view,

hence a situation is not per se.
One of the best-discussed stories embodying this claim features Con-
fucius with some of his disciples being forcefully restrained and besieged
between the states of Chen and Cai. The same elements (ingredients, rela-
tions) are acknowledged and brought to the foreground: there is no
cooked food to eat, they find themselves in a physical state of great ex-
haustion, they are held prisoner, and Confucius is threatened to be killed
with impunity.
However, where the disciples evaluate these elements as raising a
situation of great distress or failure (rucizhe kewei qiong yi 如此者可谓窮矣),
Confucius only sees success and good fortune (tong 通/xing 幸), the ra-
tionale being that they afford him opportunities to cultivate his moral ca-
pacity and externally perform his virtue. 8
A second claim is that, ontologically speaking, a situation both is and
is not. It is because it exists by virtue of the focus of our attention (reparar):
what we notice and how we interpret it (given that it is not per se). It is also
not because there is nothing to keep it together as a situation except for
this momentary focus of attention. Which is to say, a situation has no es-
sence nor identity, just temporarily imposed boundaries created out of
cherry-picked relations that are brought to the fore.
These are zoomed in, and highlighted, by means of obscuring their
extended nets of relations, as if we were to use a flashlight to illuminate a
circle on a paper and then endow the illuminated circle with self-identity,
essence, and independent existence. Everything that remains in the dark,
the rest of the piece of paper but also the table where the paper lies, the

8 See the anecdote in Zhuangzi 28 (Guo 2004, 28: 981-83). It appears in many differ-
ent versions in the Zhuangzi and other early texts, each framed differently to illus-
trate a different teaching (Makeham 1998). I point the reader to the version where
we can see that a situation is not determined by its elements but by how it is decid-
ed by a subjective agent.
There are many other passages that embody this claim, as the famous discus-
sion between Zhuangzi and Hui Shi over the use of a gigantic gourd in chapter 1,
the dead dialogues in chapter 6, and the deformed Shu in chapter 4. All these (and
many other) passages have in common that the same relations hold different
meanings and are qualified as opposite kinds of situations in good-bad/right-
wrong binary systems. The Zhuangzi uses this anecdotes and dialogues to show
that the binary itself, as any other system of classification, is a human projection
and delusion. Things are not per se, which does not mean that they do not exist but
that they do not have fixed meanings, essences, nor functions until they become
determined.
34 / Mercedes Valmisa

floor that holds the table, my hand holding the flashlight, etc., is not the
situation per se, and yet it is a constituting part of what we call the situa-
tion, i.e., the circle illuminated by light.
The situation, then, is and is not in a nondual manner: being by virtue
of not being, like the illuminated circle is by virtue of isolating it from and
not attending to everything that is not the circle and yet constitutes it.
Brook Ziporyn encapsulates this idea in the expressions “to be present as
X is also to be present as not-X,” “there is more to any X than is known at
any time,” and “there is an unseen back to anything” (2004, 62). 9
When discussing nonduality with my students, I show them the opti-
cal illusions of the duck/rabbit and the old/young lady (see Ziporyn 2004,
159). I explain that they can only see one figure at a time (either duck or
rabbit, young lady or old), and yet both figures not only coexist but, em-
phatically, cannot be without the other. The rabbit is constituted out of
duck, and the duck out of rabbit. The rabbit appears by virtue of our atten-
tion that isolates it as much as by virtue of our desatender (neglect, omit)
that negates the duck turning it invisible.
This implies that the rabbit is so much by virtue of what it is (a rabbit)
as by virtue of what it is not (a duck). The same happens with the constitu-
tion of a situation. The identity of a situation depends on what is brought
to discretion by our attention (reparar) against the background of every-
thing else that constitutes the situation and yet is conceptualized in a nega-
tive way as what the situation is not.

9As Brook Ziporyn points out, the other that is the self is what Maurice Merleau-
Ponty (1908-1961) called “the invisibility of every visible” (2004, 63).
 What Is a Situation? / 35

Only by negating the duck can we see the rabbit. Similarly, only by
creating a temporarily irrelevant and diffused background can we raise a
situation to the foreground. The situation is created by means of active
exclusion or, in the Zhuangzi’s terminology, “active oblivion” (wang 忘).
When we identify a situation, we exclude the potentiality of all that is not
selected as focus of our attention and neglect all other possible forms of
relations that the particular space-time in which we are inserted affords us.
And yet, the potentiality of the neglected relations is necessary for what
appears as a determinate and identified situation, and it is constitutive of
the situation as much as our look that neglects it—counting on it but not
attending to it. This actively forgotten background that enables and af-
fords for discrete entities to appear and for situations to be discerned con-
sists of an endless net of relations with no fixed boundaries that connect
every single thing with potentially any other single thing. 10
To use yet a different image we may think of a doodle of numerous
lines that intersect, each intersecting point being an entity, constituted of
relations as its primary ontology. I too am one of these points at the inter-
section of many relations. My asymmetrical power, which I share with
other human and nonhuman animals, is that I can pick out some of these
intersections and reify them, so they temporarily appear as a thing that
externally and independently lies in front of me. Yet at the same time I
obscure with my active oblivion all other intersections and the larger nets
of relations in which these are inscribed and by which they are constituted.
This temporary reification, by means of which I create a situation, this
illumination that makes visible, is interdependent with all which remains
in the dark as background. That is, all that is not the situation is also rele-
vant for the situation, and in this sense, it in fact is the situation while be-
ing conceptualized as being not. A way of describing this ontology of “in-
trinsic and constitutive relationality” (in Roger Ames’ words) is the Chi-
nese doctrine of yiduo bufen 一多不分, one is many and many is one: “It is,

10In his recent monograph (2021), Roger Ames contrasts classical Greek “one-
behind-the-many” ontology, which takes eidos as a principle of individuation, with
Chinese cosmology, which begins from the primacy of vital relationality and
where everything is relevant to everything else (ch. 4). He talks of cosmology and
becomings instead of ontology for the Chinese case, because he takes the word
ontology to imply an essentialist view of individual entities as prior to relations. I
am instead using the word ontology to simply mean “a discourse or understand-
ing on how things are constituted.” I rescue the word ontology but eliminate the
Greek foundational assumption of “on-behind-the-many” to apply it to Chinese
discourses on what and how things are, much like we can rescue the terms agency,
ethics, or subject and redefine them, seeing them evolve in usage and meaning.
36 / Mercedes Valmisa

simply put, the assumption that in the compositing of any ‘one,’ there is
implicated within it the contextualizing ‘many’” (2021, 218). The principle
of individuation is misleading: where we see one combination of relations
raising as one situation, there are in fact numerous available combinations
of relations at work, or again in Ames’ words, every focus has (and is con-
stituted by) a field.

Boundaries

This raises the question of the possibility of a situation being bounded, of

having boundaries. If a situation (via focus, attention) is partially by virtue
of what is not (via field, background), and the relational field of what is
not is limitless and unbounded, then how can a situation come to be lim-
ited, determined, and brought to presence by means of individuation?
We may borrow from Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and Félix Guattari
(1939-1992) the metaphor of a node in a field of forces or rhizome to de-
scribe how something appears as individuated while being a product of
the collective: constituted and constitutive, in equal parts, of the totality
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1980). How do these nodes in a field of entangled
forces, or maybe knots in a net, or even hot spots in an ever-expanding
continuum appear? Let us explore the arising of nodes, knots, or hot spots
that individuate a situation as a thing happening out there against an ac-
tively forgotten background as concentrations of coalescing relations.
Once again relying on Ortega, we may indulge in an ordinary-life
example. You are riding a bus back home from an excursion to the new
park in the city. You are listening to music and vaguely looking through
the window. Nothing is happening, except that so much is being given: a
teen is reading a newspaper, another is looking at his phone, the bus driv-
er keeps wiping sweat off her forehead with her sleeve, it smells like dirt
and oil, you are digesting an apple, the chair in front of you looks worn
out and discolored. And yet, nothing is happening for you: nothing is
condensed enough to constitute a situation. There is no sufficient concen-
tration in any of the described space-time relations and affordances to be
brought to the fore, to demand the passage from contar con to reparar.
Notice that these relations would be more than enough to constitute
an unforgettable, distinct, and well-bounded situation for a two-year old
riding the bus for the first or second time—but not for you. Notice also
that all these relations, including their particular intersection with you, are
more than enough to constitute an unforgettable, distinct, and well-
bounded situation for Karen who has never seen a black transgender per-
son riding her bus before—but not for you.
 What Is a Situation? / 37

Then you get a phone call, your friend asking, “What are you up to?”
You reply, “I’m on the bus riding home.” You just created the situation
“on the bus riding home” by privileging certain space-time relations in
order to bring yourself to presence along with what you deem to be your
most relevant circumstance with regard to your friend’s inquiry. In this
case, your friend’s question is the trigger to cause a condensation of cer-
tain relations that become privileged against a background turned irrele-
vant.
As you hang up the phone, the bus comes to a sudden and violent
stop. Everyone gasps and shakes in fear and disconcert, grasping handles
and seats. You look through the nearest window and see a bleeding per-
son on the ground, probably hit by the bus or by a green car stopped be-
side it. You get off the bus along with the other passengers, grab the phone,
and call back your friend: “There’s been an accident.”
Meanwhile, the sky is blue and radiant, sun rays heat up your skin, a
group of sparrows of different sizes pick crumbs from a table, a little girl
rushes down the sidewalk on her scooter wearing a helmet, classical music
sounds off a balcony, the new sandals you are wearing make your feet
hurt. The condensation of the relations that become “an accident,” howev-
er, is such that it saturates your attention and creates an irresistible and all-
excluding knot, hot spot, or node. Even the situation of “riding the bus
back home” has now become just a germ, a history, a root, or a context for
the true situation that “there’s been an accident.”
The knot appears because of our reparar, but this reparar may have
different causes: self-directed awareness (I am to observe my breath for the
next ten minutes), other-provoked awareness (What are you up to? What
do you see?), or impromptu happenings that condensate or even saturate
our attention because of their surprising, dangerous, or demanding nature
(from a burgeoning fire that must be immediately extinguished to my
daughter repeatedly and loudly requesting her snack). In this way we
vindicate Ortega’s claim that awareness and reparar are caused from en-
counters with problemas: events and phenomena that present resistance
and imperatively demand our resolution.
This is also what Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) called “the irrita-
tion of doubt” (1877, IV). It is the itchy feeling that something needs reso-
lution and forces us to struggle until it is resolved. He discusses doubt as
an unpleasantness that leads us to do anything to escape that state by
reaching a belief, possibly defined as a condensation of relations associat-
ed with a fixed meaning. This being so, the selection of matters for atten-
tion that become individuated as situations is a response to “problems” to
be resolved. This holds true as long as we understand problema in the Or-
38 / Mercedes Valmisa

tegan sense of what irritates us, because it yet needs to be decided and de-
fined—thus he characterizes life itself as an open project.
We need one extra qualification on how a condensation, node, knot,
or hot spot of relations appears to raise a situation via our reparar. As hint-
ed above, riding the bus was nothing for you, but it was a distinct and
memorable situation for the toddler and the white lady (as long as you
were on the bus), much as the accident provoked a saturation of attention
for you and the lady yet not for the toddler.
The relational affordances that we actualize and reify at any given
time as constituting a situation depend not only on what we are forced to
see by things’ resistance or imperative for resolution (their being a prob-
lem), but also by what we are trained, educated, and socialized to see—
and not to see—when we look at and around ourselves.

Much like Karen at the sight of a black transgender person on her bus,
Confucius freaked out at the sight of a someone leisurely and joyously
swimming in the massive waterfall of Lüliang. He could not conceive of
this occurring as anything other than an attempt at self-harm, unaccus-
tomed as the great master was to demonstrations of natural adaptation to
 What Is a Situation? / 39

one’s environment or acquired, non-learned virtue (Guo 2004, 19:565-58).11

Our expectations and conceptions of the normal and the good determine
what catches our attention and also how we are to interpret those con-
densed relations that obscure everything around them.

Co-Constituting

We are to consider with the Zhuangzi that our current set of expectations,
beliefs, and values is the result of previous encounters and events that
help “fully form our heart-minds” (chengxin 成心), namely making up our
minds on rights and wrongs (shifei 是非), possibles and impossibles (kebuke
可不可) (Guo 2004, 2:56). The I who creates and raises a situation is in turn
itself a product of a series of previous situations which dictate the kind of
situations it will in the future co-create. Situations and I, I and situations
co-construct one another over time. The Zhuangzi says, “Without the other
there is no I, but without I there is nothing to grasp” (feibi wuwo, feiwo suo-
qu 非彼無我，非我無所取; Guo 2004, 2:55).
Let us explore the first part of 0
claim, which I believe to be more difficult to accept than the second. In-
deed, after almost a century of social constructivism the European history
of transcendental idealism, or perhaps simply because we have access to
our consciousness, we can have a first-person experience of how our
reparar and atender makes things be and become something and, as a result,
we do not have such a hard time understanding just how we create things
(“without I there is nothing to grasp”).
But how is the other (“perceived and conceptualized as different from
I”), in this case a situation, constitutive of the I (“without the other there is
no I”)? As Roger Ames explains, not only are fields constituted by their
foci—such as history by events, families by their members, and, we may
now add, “situations by persons”—but foci are also constituted by their
fields, that is, events by history, members by their families, and persons by
situations (2021, ch. 4). So, how am I made out of things that are not I?
There are at least two relevant senses in which situations constitute
the person. The first comes from a narrative conception of the person and
can be summarized as the process of acquisition of a fully-formed heart-

11 In the story, Confucius qualifies this situation as “suicide attempt” and sends his
disciples to help, not being capable to even conceive that the swimmer is not in
need of help. He is consequently ridiculed by the adept swimmer who, without
giving it much importance, claims to know how to swim in those waters simply by
living in them. See Galvany 2019.
40 / Mercedes Valmisa

mind. This involves the creation of horizons of expectations and concep-

tions of normality, which inevitably are associated with axiological evalua-
tions of good and bad, right and wrong, possible and impossible. What I
have experienced in the past influences and acts upon what I will experi-
ence in the future and how I conceptualize it and endow it with meaning.
My horizon of expectations dictates whether something is happening,
whether something is to be seen, thought, considered, included, learned,
or known. In other words, my previous situations—all which I am not,
such as “there’s been an accident”—dictate who I become and the kinds of
situations I will co-raise in the future.12
We are the product of our histories, both actors and patients in them.
As Roger Ames remarks alluding to Alfred North Whitehead’s (1861-1947)
holistic aesthetic order,

It begins from the assumption that all of the concrete and interpenetrating de-
tails of this particular painting and its unbounded context are relevant to the to-
tality of the effect. When we move from paintings to persons, we must
acknowledge that all of the narrative details—the entire field of events of our
lives—are more or less relevant to the emerging identities of whom we are be-
coming as persons. (2021, 211)

The second sense comes from a transformational perspective or

“transformation of entities” (wuhua 物化), the notion that every entity, de-
fined as an emerging collection of interconnected relations with varying
degrees of interdependency rather than as an individual substance, expe-
riences continuous transformation along with changes in its constitutive
relations. In his analysis of the Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream (Guo 2004,
2:112), where the term wuhua appears, Dan Lusthaus claims that different
situations radically transform the subject of experience that raises and con-
stitutes those situations (2003).
The dream makes us witnesses of such transformation where an enti-
ty called “I”—an intersection between plural and changing relations—
experiences transformation between becoming a human subject named
Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly subject. Lusthaus explains that each situa-

12Unless I engage in an active self-cultivational work of self-aware deconstruction

which may counteract the effects of my socialization, as the Zhuangzi describes
with the process of “sitting in oblivion” (zuowang 坐忘; Guo 2004, 6:282-85). It is
very much aware of the absolutist dangers of socialization but also acknowledges
that there is no living without socialization and mediation. The proposal is to de-
construct the fixation of the items that have become reified as to return to them
(and to oneself) their original ambiguous potentiality of being nothing per se.
 What Is a Situation? / 41

tion carries its own distinct set of rules or, in the Zhuangzi’s words, “divi-
sions” (fen 分), as they become individuated and singled out from a back-
ground.
It is obviously not the same to act as a person or as a butterfly, but it
is neither the same to act as a writer—as I am doing right now, much
aware of my situation as I actively self-direct myself to reflect on it—or to
act as a mother—a role I am constantly forced into as I write with my
young daughter at home. The subject, which creates a situation by noticing
and bringing certain relations to the forefront, is in turn created along the
situation that gains primacy and rises. Despite her asymmetrical power to
reify relations via attention, the subject or I is just one more constitutive
element in a situation, as dependent upon the rest of elements and rela-
tions as these depend upon her reparar to become.
Hence the person changes as much as all relations change and along
with them, although this transformation is not always so radically visible
as in the boundaries between a person and a butterfly. As Lusthaus notes,
“Transformation involves radical novelty, such that it is not that a self-
same object goes from situation A to situation B, but that person A in situ-
ation A becomes something else (butterfly, natural phenomenon, etc.) in
situation B” (2003, 170).13

Normative Considerations

Why is it important to understand the ontology of a situation? To my

mind, theoretical reflection is interesting and engaging as such, a revealing
exercise that helps us see less or more than what we ordinarily see. What
makes it relevant and necessary, however, is its direct impact on doing,
interacting, performing, and behaving. Different ontologies lead us to dif-
ferent models of what it means to act and live well (with)in this world. It is
because of its guiding and normative power that I consider ontology and
other branches of theoretical speculation more than an entertaining and
eye-opening exercise: they substantiate and legitimize the kind of persons
we are to be and how we are to treat others, and therefore must be taken
seriously.

13 A critic may say that the person remains the same and only the action, role, or
attitude changes, but that would be an essentialist approach to persons and entities
as antecedent substance prior to relations for which we find no evidence to sustain.
A change in situation represents a change at the ontological level of the constitu-
tion of the subject/agent/person/I as well as the rest of its constitutive intercon-
nected relations.
42 / Mercedes Valmisa

By the time we ask a question about life we are already in it, said Or-
tega, which means that all our questions occur a posteriori. We find our-
selves betwixt and between, always late to our appointment with the
world. By the time we can inquire about who and how we are, we already
are. By the time we come up with an answer about who we are, we have
probably become something else.
At stake here is an ever-present primordial entanglement that cannot
be unknotted. Many forms of philosophical analysis attempt to isolate dis-
crete elements in complex relations in order to understand them separate-
ly and independently under the assumption that reduction to individual
parts simplifies the task of thinking and leads us to the nature of things. I
am starting from the opposite assumption: things are messy, intertwined,
embedded, entangled, interconnected, interdependent.
There are not even “things” in the substance-ontology sense of the
term, but only relations with hot spots that enjoy differing degrees of sta-
bility. We need theories that help us understand who and how we are in
this messy, entangled, interconnected, relational manner, so that this un-
derstanding can help us devise more efficacious ways of thinking, feeling,
and acting that are based upon our ontological status, on what we are. We
are in the middle of intricate nets of relations that gain and lose tempera-
ture and condensation, both by means of these relations and constituted
by these relations.
We are in and by the entanglement, an entanglement so intricate and
vast that, as the Zhuangzi says, we can never know where anything begins
nor ends, what constitutes being or presence and what constitutes noth-
ingness or absence (Guo 2004, 2: 79). The moment we identify a beginning,
a new beginning for that first beginning can be identified just by enlarging
our perspective on its constitutive field, an exercise that can be repeated ad
infinitum.14 What our focus of awareness now deems a being quickly turns
into nothing when we shift our attention to a brighter and newer stimulus,
leaving our former being into the actively forgotten background of what
eludes our reparar.
Beginning and end, being and nothing are both two and the same;
they turn into one another just like the rabbit and the duck by the simple
switching of our attention. A situation is just a focus of awareness upon
certain relations which can always be ever extended by illuminating a
larger focus or reduced by concentrating on ever-smaller relational fields.

14This insight is crucial for Kyoto School founder Nishida Kitarō’s concept of place
(basho 場所). See Nishida 2012.
 What Is a Situation? / 43

If this is so, nothing is never just what it appears to us at first sight nor is it
ultimately the meaning we ascribe to it.
The Huainanzi 淮南子 parable of the border man who lost his horse
makes us realize that we never know whether what we notice to be hap-
pening (a situation) is fortunate or unfortunate, a beginning or the end of
something, a thing or nothing (Liu 2003, 14:597-99).15 The events play out
to disprove our conventional notions of fortune, right, and good by simply
adding a bit more of awareness over context and entangled relations each
time.
In the story, a man’s horse runs across the border into a different
people’s territory, that of the Hu, from where it cannot be recovered. Eve-
ryone (renjie 人皆) pities his loss, but he responds, “How do you know this
doesn’t constitute fortune?” Several months later, the horse returns bring-
ing an excellent Hu steed along, and everyone rejoices. The man, however,
asks, “How do you know this doesn’t constitute misfortune?”
Next, his son falls while riding and breaks his thigh, to which every-
one reacts in dismay. Once again, the man wonders, “How do you know
this doesn’t constitute good fortune?” A year later, the Hu invade the area
and all able-bodied men are drafted. Nine out of ten die, but not the man’s
son, who could not serve due to his lame leg.
The story shows how fortune and misfortune are interdependent,
nondual just like the rabbit and the duck—each constituted out of the
same set of relations and available to be brought to the fore depending on
our reparar. It contrasts conventional morality and standard axiological
evaluations by teaming everyone against “the man,” who is described as
an expert in mantic arts, implying that he understood that there is always
more beyond the small frame of what appears to be in the here and now.
He knows that things are neither this nor that, but an open problem with-
out any essence of their own. They only become fixated and determined
via our focusing contextualization. In consequence, moral and critical
evaluations must vary, and he maintains an open attitude, refraining from
short-sighted extreme reactions like those of “everyone.”
Things are messy, intertwined, interconnected, entangled relations
with no fixed beginnings nor ends. However, we can and do privilege
starting points every time that we deem something so, affirm something
right, or notice that something happens—we raise a situation. That is how
we create worlds (mundos): the privileging of a knot to act as a starting

15 This
chengyu 成語 (phrase, idiom) inspired by the Huainanzi story— saiweng shi-
ma 塞翁失馬, “a man on the border loses a horse”—remains in Mandarin today,
meaning that a loss may turn out to be a gain, or vice versa.
44 / Mercedes Valmisa

point, as a source of narrative and causal meaning for a larger set of rela-
tions.
Ortega says, “World is that of which we are certain.”16 What a mag-
nificent thought! We cannot live in the messiness of our circumstances.
Without a starting point, a fixed anchor, a set of beliefs and values, a
standard against which to measure things. Reality is like moving water—
we fall, we sink, we are drawn down. Insecurity (Peirce’s “irritation of
doubt”) forces us to fabricate security: certainty, a solid stepping stone.
Ortega insists that it is our own believing in our own fabrication that saves
us from drowning, that keeps us safe. This is why against an essentially
inhabitable reality we establish a world that is habitable by virtue of our
certainty, of the trust we put into it. When we build safety nets against the
itching unpleasantness of incertitude, we create worlds that come to pos-
sess causal power by being shared by many: they all intersect yet never
fully overlap.
But what happens when we are so certain of something? When we
trust something to be so, true, and right? We become blinded by our own
comfort and unable to see, affirm, and find existential security in alterna-
tive yet equally legitimate worlds. The Zhuangzi equates the worlds we
raise through certainty, our stepping grounds for the creation of meaning,
with points in a circle.
Each point is a beginning, from which to interpret with security our
lived experience. Each point has grounds on which to be formulated, legit-
imized, affirmed, and accepted, but by the same logic each point also has
grounds on which to be falsified, negated, disproven, and rejected (Guo
2004, 2:66). Each point is a position that leads to affirming certain situa-
tions and endowing them with particular meanings via our belief—
defined as a condensation of relations associated with a fixed meaning.
This entails that each point and the situations and axiological evalua-
tions it raises have their own enabling and limiting factors. They make
certain standards emerge or submerge, be visible or invisible, possible or
impossible, right or wrong, under particular conditions. As the Zhuangzi’s
says:

Among things, there is none that cannot be seen from “that” position, and
none that cannot also be seen from “this” position. From “that” position,
[“this” position] cannot be seen. Depending from which position you ap-
proach something, you will know an aspect or another of it. Therefore, it is
said: “that” position comes from “this” position, and “this” position also ex-

16 “Mundo es aquello de que estamos seguros” (2004, Lesson X).

 What Is a Situation? / 45

ists because of “that” position. [The existence of] “this” and “that” is what we
call co-dependent origination. Although that is the case, as things live they
die, and as they die, they come to life again; things that are possible are also
impossible, and being impossible, possible they become; having reasons to
affirm is having reasons to deny, and those reasons to deny mean that there
are reasons to affirm. (Guo 2004, 2:66)17

Each one of the many possible worlds is but a tiny point in the circle
that, by its own raising, closes up and obscures the endless number of al-
ternative positions from which to look at ourselves, feel an emotion, think
a thought, react toward an event, interact with another. Each point is a
position of openness and closure at the same time.
By enabling my seeing something, it blinds me to all that, from that
position, cannot be seen. I claim to see the water bottle in detriment to the
moth, the vibrating door, the ray of light, my own body. As Dan Lusthaus
exclaims, “What limits us is ironically the very absence of limits!” (2003,
185). Now a butterfly now a Zhuang Zhou, now a rabbit now a duck, now
“this” now “that,” but never both at the same time.
We need to focus, determine, choose, and take positions. We can
make worlds thanks to these starting points we secure and occupy, but we
are equally blinded by them, since they force us into obscuring all other
possibilities that cannot be simultaneously acknowledged for my world to
make sense and function well. The normative aspect consistent with the
ontology of a situation is that there is always a plurality and heterogeneity
of values, standards, worldviews, and worlds of experience. They coexist
and are constantly available to us, but we rarely take advantage of them. 18
Most people do not even take joy in knowing that these plural and
heterogeneous worlds exist and, as a result, work hard to deny their legit-
imacy and see them enclosed behind walls to prevent them from overflow-
ing. The great María Lugones (1944-2020) repeatedly denounced this phe-
nomenon in her work, while also offering practical advice on how to travel
between worlds with a playful attitude (1987).19

17 物無非彼, 物無非是. 自彼則不見, 自知則知之. 故曰：彼出於是, 是亦因彼. 彼是, 方

生之說也. 雖然, 方生方死, 方死方生；方可方不可, 方不可方可；因是因非, 因非因是.
18 Dan Lusthaus discusses this important point while analyzing chapter 17 of the

Zhuangzi (2003, 173).

19 I heard the sad news of her death as I was completing this article in July 2020 and

could not resist the opportunity to pay homage to her, however short and simple.
46 / Mercedes Valmisa

Living Temporally

As much as we need our world to be safe and certain in order for it to be

habitable, there is no point in fixating our standards and values onto
something that is contingent and partial, namely onto something that by
definition is not and will keep changing along changes in its own consti-
tuting relations, eventually disappearing and never returning to presence
in the exact same shape (like youth, like health).
There is no point in affirming something as absolute and true just
because it is the easiest straight peek from our window. There is no point
in imposing our lived experience and situations over all other lived expe-
riences and situations that are created along with similar space-times.
There is no point in spending our life mourning for what we are not, can-
not have, is gone, or on the other side of the line of time, anticipating what
is to come, we will become, and hope to achieve. Of course, there is no es-
cape (nor need to escape) from noticing and bringing to present through
our attention, from creating entire worlds made up of situations where
everything is fixed, monolithic, uni-dimensional, and straightforward,
where what you see is what you get.
Like the Zhuangzi says, if we follow our fully-formed minds and
make them our teacher, who could ever be without a teacher (read “au-
thoritative guide”) (Guo 2004, 2:56)? Both the intelligent and the fool cre-
ate fixated worlds just by selectively foregrounding relations out of the
totality. We cannot live in nothingness: we would sink and drown, so we
make ourselves masters of our worlds. Each point, each moment, is filled
with a determinacy: my this, my right, my so. But “to claim that there are
any such things as right and wrong before they come to be fully formed in
someone’s mind, that is like saying you left for Yue today and arrived yes-
terday,” that is, self-contradiction, nonsense, or a play in words (Guo 2004,
2:56; Ziporyn 2009, 11).20
The person who refuses to inhabit just one point in the circle but relo-
cates to the center (huanzhong 環中), from which each point—position, per-
spective, worldview, set of standards—is equally accessible and easy to let
go of, does not commit to any single world. Such a person refuses to fix
the meaning of right, good, and possible, and refrains from reifying situa-
tions and endowing them with a closed meaning.
If we keep in mind the empty ontological status of the situations that
define what we are (not being per se, and being by virtue of not being), we
will find it easier not to absolutize our reduced, biased, and contingent

20 未成乎心而有是非, 是今日適越而昔至也.
 What Is a Situation? / 47

views, and to switch from one view to another as needed. The Zhuangzi
puts it most appropriately:

Therefore, the sage does not proceed from this [vicious circle of co-
dependence], but gets illumination from heaven so that his affirming “this” is
adaptive. His this is now a that, and his that is then a this. His that includes
something to affirm and something to deny, and his this also includes some-
thing to affirm and to deny.
So, in fact, does he still have a that and this? Or does he not have a that
and this anymore? When this and that do not find themselves as opposite
positions, this is called the axis of Dao. The axis obtains the position of the
center of the circle, and uses it to respond without limits. His affirming also
responds without limits, and his denying also responds without limits.
Therefore, it is said: “There is nothing like using clarity.” (Guo 2004, 2:66)21

Ontology gives us clarity. We can never illuminate the totality of the

constituting field of relations for any given focus. In this way, the position
at the center is not an absolute one in terms of knowing and seeing—as the
term “sage” may imply for the reader. Rather, it is a methodical position
that guides how to react to our own views, ideas, and feelings as they arise
and how to create paths for relativizing and enlarging our understanding
of them. This in turn informs us how to act toward any given situation and
any given other, and how to move in between worlds. 22 We humans have
an incredible capacity to create situations, not only to deal with them or to
walk into them, but to create them out of the endless indeterminacies that
are available to us at any given space-time—always at hand (a la mano),
always possible.

21 是以聖人不由, 而照之于天, 亦因是也. 是亦彼也, 彼亦是也. 彼亦一是非, 此亦一是非.

果且有彼是乎哉？果且無彼是乎哉？彼是莫得其偶, 謂之道樞. 樞始得其環中, 以應無
窮. 是亦一無窮, 非亦一無窮也. 故曰「莫若以明」.
22 The person located at the center of the circle is just occupying a position for situa-

tion-opening and boundary-creation, and he knows it. There are limits to what can
be illuminated at any single time: limits by positionality, relationality, and perspec-
tive, and even those who illuminate more cannot illuminate the entire totality of
the cosmos at once. Thinking through the image of “getting illuminated by Heav-
en,” even such major light that illuminates half of earth fails to illuminate the other
half and itself (heaven). Much as with yin and yang, the sunny side depends on the
shadowy one, and it would take a zero absolute perspective to see the whole at
once, a premise that is not given nor accepted here.
48 / Mercedes Valmisa

Bibliography
Ames, Roger T. 1998. “Knowing in the Zhuangzi: From Here, on the Bridge, over
the River Hao.” In Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, edited by Roger Ames,
219-30. Albany: State University of New York Press.
_____. 2021. Human Becomings: Theorizing “Persons” for Confucian Role Ethics. Alba-
ny: State University of New York Press.
Barad, Karen. 2006. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entan-
glement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1980. Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et Schizophrénie
2. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.
Galvany, Albert. 2019. “Panic, Parody, and Pedagogy at the Waterfall. Morality as
a Misleading Principle for Moral Action.” In Skill Mastery and Performance in
the Zhuangzi, edited by K. Lai and W. W. Chiu, 201-27. London: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩. 2004. Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Jullien, François. 1995. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China.
New York: Zone Books.
Liu Wendian 劉文典. 2003. Huainan honglie jijie 淮南鴻烈集解. Taipei: Wenshizhe.
Lugones, María. 1987. “Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception.”
Hypathia 2.2:3-19.
Lusthaus, Dan. 2003. “Aporetics Ethics in the Zhuangzi.” In Hiding the World in the
World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, edited by Scott Cook, 163-206. Alba-
ny: State University of New York Press.
Makeham, John. 1998. “Between Chen and Cai: Zhuangzi and the Analects.” In
Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, edited by Roger Ames, 75-100. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2001. De Surcroît: Études sur les phénomènes saturés. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.
_____. 2002. In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena. New York: Fordham Univer-
sity Press.
Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2006. The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Nishida, Kitarō. 2012. Place and Dialectics. Two Essays by Nishida Kitarō. Translated
by John W. M. Krummel and Shigenori Nagatomo. New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
 What Is a Situation? / 49

Ortega y Gasset, José. 2004. ¿Qué es Filosofía? Unas Lecciones de Metafísica. México
City: Editorial Porrúa.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1877. “The Fixation of Belief.” Popular Science Month-
ly 12:1-15. Accessed online at: http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html
Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.
Ziporyn, Brook. 2004. Being and Ambiguity. Philosophical Experiments with Tiantai
Buddhism. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Press.
_____. 2009. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commen-
taries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
 Time and Space

within Daoism’s Holistic Worldview

JOSEPH L. PRATT

The Daode jing offers a complete account of reality, running from an ulti-
mate emptiness, which is called Dao, to the multitude of everyday things.
Central to the Daoist account is the yin-yang dynamic, which can exist in a
state of either harmony, in which case Dao is realized, or discord, in which
case life is defined by a series of hardships. The seamless explanation en-
compasses consciousness, akin to Dao, as well as cognition and form, both
necessary for the experience of Dao. This elucidation also intertwines time
and space, which too have yin and yang characteristics and feature in
harmonious and discordant states. The yin aspect of time and space mani-
fests as the deep here and now, while the yang aspect appears as the con-
ventional past and future or near and far.
When the central yin-yang dynamic is in harmony, consciousness,
cognition, and form converge in a state of effortless action (wuwei 無為). In
this state of oneness, the here and now is realized and linear time and
space are experienced but for this deeper truth. In discord, on the other
hand, consciousness, cognition, and form struggle among each other so
that a person suffers unease and life becomes difficult. Time and space are
experienced as a conflict between the need to be present and the need or
desire to be some other place and time. Nearly all sense of the abiding here
and now is lost. The ideal state of harmony with time and space dilation
has been well-documented and is characterized by modern positive psy-
chology as the state of “flow.” The disruptive state of discord, on the other
hand, is now often misconstrued as the basic human condition.
The first part of this chapter lays out the Daode jing’s holistic account
of reality. Following the oft-cited chapter 42, it explains how reality un-
folds from ultimate emptiness first to a transcendent oneness, then to the
central yin-yang, and finally to everyday form. This seamless account is
the opposite of the modern reductionist approach to reality which can be
traced back to Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726) and his misconception of time
and space as absolute.

50
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 51

The chapter next places consciousness, cognition, and form within the
holistic context. These paragraphs show how consciousness manifests as
first cognition and then form, and these aspects can exist in a state of inte-
gration allowing for effortless action or a state of disintegration in which
case life is experienced as hardship. In connecting these three aspects, it
shows how Daoism solves the mind-body dilemma associated with Rene
Descartes and explicates the hard problem of consciousness beguiling
modern artificial intelligence research.
The third part of the chapter turns to time and space within the holis-
tic account. Time and space too are a function of consciousness and then
cognition and form. In explaining how time and space involve both the
absolute here and now and the relative past and future or near and far, it
demonstrates why Newton was wrong to regard time and space simply as
absolute but then how Albert Einstein (1897-1955) was also wrong to re-
gard them merely as relative.
The chapter concludes by tying the Daoist account of reality, includ-
ing time and space, with modern positive psychology’s well-documented
experience of “flow.” It indicates, as Daoist texts noted long ago, that a
highly conscious state with a full sense of time and space is key to success
not just in extreme activities like auto racing and rescue operations, but
also in ordinary matters like managing a hedge fund or, as the Zhuangzi
conveys, butchering an ox. This part further notes how meditation practic-
es, such as Daoist-based taiji quan and Indian yoga, raise consciousness
and thereby help practitioners gain a full sense of time and space and im-
merse themselves in the experience of flow.

Holistic Explanation

Though historical figures within the Daoist tradition have not always con-
sidered it, Daoism’s seminal texts provide a holistic explanation of reality
(Pratt and Liu 2018). The Daode jing account begins with an ultimate reality,
which cannot be described but is commonly called Dao, usually translated
as “the Way.” Dao is beyond all attributes and best characterized as ulti-
mate nothingness, emptiness, or darkness. It may also be described as the
Absolute with an upper-case “A” or the Truth with an upper-case “T,”
recognizing that both are beyond ordinary classification.
As the Daoist sages no doubt realized, a complete explanation of real-
ity must begin with the ineffable emptiness: a consideration of what lies
behind and is responsible for objects as well as time and space as we know
them. In order to experience Dao as Absolute, however, this ultimate reali-
52 / Joseph L. Pratt

ty must give rise to that which complements it. Dao must beget what has
attributes, that is, form, as well as conventional time and space.
As the text lays out, the first step in giving rise to form involves Dao
begetting the One (ch. 42). In Daoism’s holistic account, the One is a totali-
ty, or complete whole. In contrast to Dao as an ultimate Absolute with an
upper-case “A,” the One is a transcendent Relative with an upper-case
“R.” Whereas Dao is Truth, the One is correspondingly Artifice. Like Dao,
it defies simple categorization; unlike Dao, it can at least be fathomed.
In numerical terms, the One is simply the number one, recognizing
that in a holistic explanation, numbers entail both a higher qualitative as-
pect and a lower quantitative one—One as a totality and one as a basic
unit of measurement. The Daode jing appreciates that Dao and this totality
are both the same and different (chs. 10, 22). The first step of the One is
distinct from the ultimate reality of Dao but at the same time ultimate real-
ity is all that truly exists, so that the One by definition knows no separa-
tion. Because the totality yet knows no distinction, however, Dao and the
One cannot themselves create physical form, by which Dao might be expe-
rienced.
In the second step in the emergence of form, the One begets the Two,
called the yin-yang. Yin reflects the hidden Dao, while yang reflects the
apparent One. At the layer just below totality, the yin-yang Two is a fur-
ther absolute-relative or truth-artifice dynamic. Within a holistic meta-
physics, this layer of the Two is both a unity, without separation between
the two parts, and a distinction, with an ostensible separation between
them (e. g., ch. 10). In this respect, the Daoist sense of opposition differs
from the modern dialectical or dichotomous sense, where the two sides
necessarily contradict each other (but can somehow still achieve the trans-
cendent One) (Pratt and Zhao 2019). The key to the transcendent One is
complementarity, not contradiction.
In mathematical terms, this quality is the number two, appreciating
again that numbers possess both a higher qualitative value and a lower
quantitative one—the Two as a monism-dualism allowing for a full return
and the two as a number of units. Reflecting the primordial interaction of
Dao and the One, the yin-yang Two encompasses all dichotomous rela-
tionships, such as consciousness and cognition, attention and intention, or
intuition and logic. The yin-yang Two, however, is still not enough for the
full emergence of form and experience of Dao.
The final step is for the yin-yang Two to give rise to the embodied
Three, again as expressed in subtle numerical terms—the Three as a for-
mation providing for the experience of Dao and the three as a number of
units. The Three allows for common three-dimensional form, as in materi-
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 53

al objects, as well as three-dimensional abstractions, which could be called

conceptual matters.
In physical terms, the Three is a reflection that a concrete object can-
not be considered from more than three dimensions (length, height, and
width) without moving to a different scale, which would then also involve
three dimensions. In conceptual terms, the Three means that an abstract
concept always entails three dimensions (e. g., age, height, and weight, or
logos, pathos, and ethos). With the embodied form of the Three, conceptu-
al and physical forms may arise for the experience of the yin-yang as well
as the transcendent One and the ultimate Dao.
Mirroring Dao and the One, and in accordance with the yin-yang
property, the yin-yang Two is itself a yin quality, necessarily entailing and
working with the embodied Three as a yang quality. The yin-yang Two
reflects Dao in its essential hidden characteristics and follows the One,
which is a yang property. On the other hand, the Three represents the One
in its essential visible characteristics and follows the yin-yang Two, a yin
quality.
The yin-yang Two and the embodied Three comprise the manifest
layer of reality, a final tier of the absolute-relative or truth-artifice dynamic.
In the language of modern physics, the Two and the Three are energy and
matter, with vital cosmic energy (qi 氣) as central to form (xing 形). The yin-
yang Two allows for a return to the transcendent One and ultimate Dao,
while the embodied Three constitutes the ostensible separation for that
experience to be meaningful.
With the yin-yang Two and the embodied Three, or energy and mat-
ter, all forms may emerge from the granular to the galactic. As the holistic
account provides, the numbers after three constitute the variety of things,
both conceptually and materially. The numerical properties zero through
four, with four as precipitating form, represent a yin genesis which sets up
the numbers five through nine as a yang manifestation. The numerical
properties five through nine in turn correspond to the numerical proper-
ties zero through four and, as the Huangdi neijing 黄帝内經 (The Yellow
Emperor’s Inner Classic; 2nd c. BCE) conveys, constitute the five phases in
Chinese philosophy (ch. 4). As with the numbers zero through nine, and
following the fundamental yin-yang property, all numbers have both
qualitative and quantitative properties. In this way, the holistic cosmology
and metaphysics allow for an everyday reality of both absolute simplicity
and maximum complexity.
For a particular form to experience the totality of all life and ultimate
Dao, the underlying yin-yang dynamic must be in a complementary, har-
monious state (yinyang pingheng 阴阳平衡). This condition is usually re-
54 / Joseph L. Pratt

ferred to as according with Dao and could be characterized as following

the Middle Way, recognizing that this phenomenon is not simply a middle
line between two opposing sides (as some Confucianists would have it)
but a transcendent convergence leading to Dao. As the Huangdi neijing ex-
plains, for the experience of the Middle Way, the yin “unity” aspect must
be stable and the yang “distinction” aspect secure (yinping yangmi 陽平陰秘)
(ch. 3). In such a state, the yin and yang aspects—whether absolute and
relative or truth and artifice—complement, support, and attain each other
(Wang 2012, 178), and the transcendent One and the ultimate Dao can be
experienced. With this transcendent possibility, the whole is greater than
the sum of the individual parts.
For this experience to be meaningful, however, the particular form
must also be able to deviate from Dao. This condition is marked by a con-
flict, such as in the yin-yang opening and closing (yinyang kaihe 阴阳开合).
This discordant reality is, not surprisingly, referred to as “going against
Dao.” With the yin “unity” aspect unstable and the yang “distinction” as-
pect insecure, reality is experienced as a sense of alienation and insecurity.
Rather than complementing and becoming each other, the yin and yang
aspects (again, whether the absolute and relative, or truth and artifice) not
only contradict, but also chase and deplete each other (2012, 180).
In such a state, truth and artifice may devolve into a regressive con-
flict between the valid and the false (Pratt and Zhao 2019). The experience
of life can become so difficult that form as in a person hits rock bottom and
has no choice but to surrender the misguided sense of reality and return to
Dao. Though some Western philosophers, perhaps most notably Georg W.
F. Hegel (1770-1831), have posited that such contradiction can lead to the
Whole, Daoism shows that contradiction is always negative-sum; instead,
the key to the positive-sum return is complementarity (Pratt and Zhao
2019). Although form can deviate, however, nothing can separate entirely
from Dao (Zhuangzi, ch. 2). As the holistic account entails, ultimately there
is only Dao.
To sum up, ancient Daoist texts provide a complete account of reality,
from ultimate emptiness through transcendent oneness and a central yin-
yang dynamic to three-dimensional cognitive and physical formations. All
of reality is essentially archetypal but also pragmatic and exists only for
the experience of Dao. With the central yin-yang dynamic in balance, the
form may return to complete wholeness and ultimate emptiness. With the
yin-yang out of balance, on the other hand, the form experiences reality as
a series of hardships. Crucial to the experience of this transcendent Middle
Way is not simply form per se, but the consciousness and cognition that
underlie such form.
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 55

Consciousness, Cognition, and Form

Daoist cosmology and metaphysics explain how a form, as in a human

being, can become conscious and cognizant of its self as well as of the
Middle Way and ultimately Dao. Fitting consciousness and cognition into
the holistic account of reality, Dao could be characterized as an ultimate
Consciousness, while the One is a transcendent Cognition or cognitive
matter. At the next energetic layer, the yin-yang Two is a consciousness-
cognition, with cognition again being a “cognitive matter.”
At the level of actual form, the yin-yang Two is consciousness that
incorporates cognition while the embodied Three is corresponding physi-
cal matter. As this holistic explanation demonstrates, consciousness trans-
forms first into the conceptual and then the physical. The first chapter of
the Daode jing talks about how naming, a cognitive function, is the mother
of the ten-thousand things. According to the yin-yang dynamic, moreover,
the physical can transform back into consciousness, just as the cognitive
transforms back into consciousness. This process is known as transfor-
mation (zhuanhua 轉化) (Wang 2012, 11).
As this metaphysics indicates, every form, from a subatomic particle
to a planetary system, possesses both consciousness and cognition. Within
any particular form, consciousness and cognition also exist at multiple
levels. Within human beings, for example, they appear not just at the
overall level but also the molecular, cellular, and muscular levels. At the
muscular level, modern researchers sometimes mischaracterize this phe-
nomenon as “muscle memory” (Schmidt and Lee 2005). Just as the various
forms within a body constitute the whole body, the various conscious-
nesses constitute the overall consciousness.
As the Daode jing explains, memory is but a component of conscious-
ness. At the same time, different types of form have different capacities for
consciousness and cognition. Whereas a human being, for example, is far-
ther from the original Dao but can become cognizant and thus fully con-
scious of Dao, a mineral, plant, or animal is closer to the original Dao but
cannot become cognizant of Dao and experience it fully. Dao, of course,
desires to experience itself—for form to become the original consciousness
itself. That is why being human is so significant.
Akin to consciousness and cognition, attention and intention are a
second important yin-yang dimension for the experience of Dao. Dao is
ultimate Attention, while the One is transcendent Intention for that ulti-
mate Attention to be meaningful. The yin-yang Two is then an attention-
intention dynamic, and finally the yin-yang Two and embodied Three are
a third attention-intention dichotomy. The experience of Dao requires an
56 / Joseph L. Pratt

attentiveness, but for that attentiveness to be meaningful there must be an

intentionality.
At the level of yin-yang Two, the attention is a link to the transcend-
ent One and ultimate Dao. At the level of embodied Three, form is a mat-
ter of intentionality linked to the yin-yang Two as attentiveness. A. C.
Graham provides a formula for the state of total awareness, so that every
detail of a situation participates in directing a person’s response: “skillful
spontaneity is action that arises naturally from a state of total and pene-
trating attention to the situation at hand” (1989, 29). This total awareness is
the perfect attunement of a person with his or her surroundings.
Beyond consciousness and cognition as well as attention and inten-
tion, intuition and logic form a third yin-yang dimension for the experi-
ence of Dao. The first chapter of the Guiguzi 鬼谷子 (Master of the Demon
Valley) discusses the relation between wisdom and categories, which are
akin to intuition and logic. Dao itself is an immediate Intuition, while the
One is a corresponding proximate Logic or Logos. At the level of yin-yang
Two, the yin is an immediate intuition and the yang is the step-by-step
logic. Finally, at the level of form, the yin-yang Two is an intuition which
encompasses a logical component (together an inner knowing), while the
embodied Three is a logical three-dimensional reality. As the holistic ex-
planation demonstrates, intuition is primary, although for that intuition to
be meaningful, the step-by-step logic must also exist.
As explained earlier with respect to the Middle Way, the Daoist cos-
mology and metaphysics provide for the yin-yang dynamic to be harmo-
nious and thereby return to the transcendent One and attain the ultimate
Dao. In such a state, with the primary yin aspect stable and the secondary
yang aspect secure, the two sides support and become one another. This
convergence takes place at every layer of form, not just consciousness and
cognition but also consciousness and the particular form itself.
It also occurs at every scale of form, including the cellular and muscu-
lar scales in human beings. In such a state, the overall form experiences a
high degree of integration, both within and without—with the larger uni-
verse. Attention and intention merge, and a person intuits the environ-
ment accurately and processes information efficiently. In such a state, hu-
man beings become capable of skillful spontaneity. In ancient Daoist
thought, this state of effortlessly comporting oneself in the world, is
marked by fine responsiveness, skill, and enjoyment, is referred to as ef-
fortless action.
Whereas the cosmology and metaphysics of effortless action are best
expressed in the Daode jing, a key example of skillful spontaneity appears
in the Zhuangzi. Its third chapter tells the story of Cook Ding and the duke:
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 57

in response to the latter’s praise for his butchering skills, Cook Ding re-
sponds that he is “good” because of the Middle Way course (Dao), which
is “something that goes beyond mere skill.” Cook Ding then relates that to
acquire his ability he had looked at oxen for three years and was still una-
ble to see “all there was to see in an ox.” This line conveys that the Middle
Way requires more than just seeing with one’s eyes or understanding an
object analytically.
He continues that he now encounters the ox “with spirit rather than
scrutinizing it with the eyes.” Here, “spirit” could be understood as con-
sciousness, the yin property linking a person to Dao. He quiets the cogni-
tive (guanzhi zhi 官知止) and lets “the promptings of spirit begin to flow”
(shenyu xing 神欲行), relying on “heaven’s properties” (tianli 天理), which
indicate the joints and openings in the ox. He never has to cut through
coarse material, “for the joints have spaces within them, and the very edge
of the blade has no thickness at all. When what has no thickness enters
into an empty space, it is vast and open with more than enough room for
the play of the blade” (Ziporyn 2009).
Because Cook Ding goes along with emptiness and does not contest it,
his “knife is still as sharp as if it had just come off the whetstone, even af-
ter nineteen years.” As a holistic explanation provides, at their deepest
points the knife and ox are in a state of latency or nonbeing (wu 無) as op-
posed to thinghood (wu 物), and thus there is no friction or conflict be-
tween the two forms. Even with his skill, he still sometimes comes to a
“clustered tangle” in the ox carcass where it is “difficult to do anything
about it.” In such instances, he restrains himself as if terrified, until his
seeing (i. e., cognition) comes to a complete halt.
At this point, “activity slows, and the blade moves ever so slightly.
Then all at once, I find the ox already dismembered at my feet like clumps
of soil scattered on the ground. I stand there gazing at my work arrayed all
around me, dawdling over it with satisfaction.” In this particularly chal-
lenging experience, the cook goes into an even deeper state of effortless
action than usual, where the self along with time and space are altered. As
this sentence also communicates, the experience is highly enjoyable.
In his classic, Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel provides a con-
temporary account of this state. He relays the following archery lesson
with his master:

Herrigel: How can the shot be loosed if ‘I’ do not do it?

Master: ‘It’ shoots.
***
58 / Joseph L. Pratt

Herrigel: And who or what is this ‘It’?

Master: Once you have understood that you will have no further need of me.
(1953, 51-52)

In ancient Daoist thought, the “it” is consciousness as the origination

of all form and power, a universal force running throughout reality. In a
state of effortless action, a person is both accessing and experiencing this
ultimate reality.
For the Middle Way to be meaningful, there must also be the possibil-
ity for a deviation from it. In such a discordant state, the yin aspect is un-
stable and the yang aspect is insecure. The two aspects then deny and ex-
haust each other, and reality is experienced as a struggle. In discord, a per-
son perceives and thinks of the individual self as being separate and in
conflict with other forms, or bodies. In short, the person becomes self-
conscious in an unhealthy way.
Attention and intention are disrupted, so the person has difficulty
staying attentive and using intention to accord with reality. In such a self-
conscious state, moreover, the mind is considered important, but the mind
and body relationship cannot be discerned. Intuition turns into an impul-
siveness and logic devolves into a contradictory dialectics (Pratt and Zhao
2019).
Finally, the discordant consciousness and cognition manifests on not
just a corporeal but also a muscular and even a cellular level. With con-
sciousness in conflict with cognitive matter, and even with physical matter,
every task, not to mention a complex task, requires great thought and
strenuous effort and the outcome remains sub-optimal (Daode jing, chs. 3,
46, 53). The conflict can even induce mental and physical illness (Huangdi
neijing, ch. 1). The third chapter of the Zhuangzi begins by noting that the
Middle Way, described as a waterway course (ya 涯), does not prioritize
knowledge (zhi 知). The next two sentences point out how deviating from
the Middle Way is dangerous, and even more so for those who prize
knowledge (zhizhe 知者) in such a situation. The fate of this path is to fol-
low a central meridian (du 督), which allows for the preservation of the
body, manifestation of a full life, flourishing of one’s companions, and
maximization of one’s years.
In the story about Cook Ding and the duke, the former remarks that
butchers who do not accord with the Middle Way course, i. e., access the
state of effortless action, either slice the ox carcass and have to change
their blade once a year or hack at the carcass and must change their blade
once a month. On the other hand, by accessing effortless action, he has
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 59

been “using the same blade for nineteen years, cutting up thousands of
oxen, and yet it is still as sharp as the day it came off the whetstone.”
As the classics show, cognition is never simply neutral, nor is the
world simply objective. Reality depends primarily on consciousness and
only in a harmonious state is the world perceived, conceived, and acted
upon in an accurate and effective manner. In such a state, a person access-
ing effortless action accords with the Middle Way and may return to the
transcendent One and ultimate Dao. In a discordant condition, on the oth-
er hand, the person experiences the world as contradictory and frustrating.
In any activity, be it butchering or archery, the conscious person may go
within and, in doing so, reconnect with effortless action to rise above the
ostensible contest at hand. The experience of reality involves not just the
individual self (form) but also the other (forms). With the multiplicity of
forms, from the smallest to the largest, within oneself and in an environ-
ment, there is the possibility of conventional time and space. A significant
part of form, as well as either a harmonious or a discordant experience,
involves time and space.

Time and Space

In addition to explaining consciousness and cognition as well as form,

Daoist cosmology and metaphysics elucidate time and space. A temporal
dimension and spatial context are both necessary in the emergence of form,
and Daoism shows how time and space have an immediate circular as
well as a proximate linear aspect. As already noted, Dao as ultimate reality
is beyond all conventional attributes, including time and space, and could
be described as the ultimate immediate or circularity; in colloquial terms,
Dao is the Here and Now.
In contrast to Dao, the One is the transcendent proximate or linearity.
Like the One, this proximate or linearity exists beyond any sense of sepa-
rate form. Because Dao and the One are both the same and different, at the
level of the transcendent One the circular and linear are intertwined. Next,
mirroring Dao and the One, the yin-yang Two is an immediate-proximate
or circular-linear dynamic, with the yin as the immediate or circular aspect
and the yang as the proximate or linear aspect.
At the level of form, the yin-yang Two reflecting Dao is a hidden im-
mediate or circular essence, while the embodied Three reflecting the One
is a manifest proximate or linear counterpart. As this holistic explanation
shows, even at the level of form, time and space include both the immedi-
ate circular here and now leading to the transcendent One, as well as the
proximate linear past and future, near and far for that elevated experience
60 / Joseph L. Pratt

to be meaningful. Like the Dao, the circular aspect of time and space can
only be pointed to and perhaps is best understood as being in a comple-
mentary relationship with the relative aspect of time and space. In accord-
ance with this cosmology and metaphysics, the Daoist classics emphasize
staying in the moment and observing the right time to perform a given
task, rather than simply the linear passage of time (Raphals 2019).
The immediate and proximate aspects of time and space correspond
to absolute and relative dimensions. Again fitting the absolute and relative
into the holistic account of reality, Dao is the absolute, while the One is the
corresponding relative. At the next level, the yin-yang Two is an absolute-
relative dynamic. Then, at the level of form, the yin-yang Two is an abso-
lute aspect (containing both absolute and relative components) and the
embodied Three is a relative aspect.
Applying the absolute and relative to time and space at the level of
Dao and the One, the ultimate circularity of time and space is absolute,
while the corresponding transcendent linearity is relative. At the level of
yin-yang Two, the yin circular aspect of time and space is absolute, while
the yang linear aspect of time and space is relative. At the level of yin-yang
Two and embodied Three, the yin-yang Two as a yin circular aspect is a
further absolute aspect, while the embodied Three as a yang linear dimen-
sion is a further relative aspect.
Albert Einstein and other physicists were correct in that, contrary to
Isaac Newton’s original conclusions, linear one-dimensional time and
three-dimensional space are relative. Modern physicists, however, have
perhaps not yet grasped that an absolute aspect of time and space still ex-
ists, and that time and space, as with form, are layered, deriving from an
ultimate absolute.
As Daoism shows, moreover, linear time and space are not distinct
properties apart from form but instead, arise with form. Einstein and other
physicists have understood that linear time and space are interrelated
(Einstein named this phenomenon “spacetime”) and always relative to
form, but they have wrongly thought of spacetime as a separate four-
dimensional phenomenon (i. e., three dimensions of space and one dimen-
sion of time).
In a holistic account of reality, form, whether on a granular or galactic
scale, does not exist against a backdrop of “spacetime,” but with time and
space. As with form itself, moreover, time and space again are layered,
from an ultimate and then transcendent layer of reality to an intermediate
energetic layer to a manifest ostensibly material layer. Reality is one inte-
grated and essentially circular process. To the extent that Einstein thought
“spacetime” existed as a backdrop to material form and was relative as
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 61

opposed to absolute, the term “spacetime” is a mischaracterization of real-

ity. As just noted, time and space along with form are layered and always
exist together. Rather than invent another term, such as “form-spacetime,”
the holistic account simply uses the individual words respectively.
Logically speaking, a complete explanation of time and space could
not be any other way than as Daoism provides. Any other explanation of
form would leave a gap that could not be explained and then also be con-
tradictory. If one assumes a linear past-to-future sense of reality, for ex-
ample, the beginning and end of this linear time frame cannot be ex-
plained. But if one sees that the present (here and now) is all that ultimate-
ly exists, and the past and future, near and far, are only for that experience,
the beginning and end can be explained. Similarly, if one assumes a
“thing/nothing” dualistic description of reality, empty space makes no
sense; but if one assumes the two “no thing/thing” as forever interwoven
with nothingness as ultimate reality, conventional space does make sense.
The experience of time and space are a function of not just form (i. e.,
the embodied Three) but, even more importantly, consciousness and then
cognition (i. e., the yin-yang Two). First, form is primarily consciousness
and then cognition, rather than simply physical matter. Even an experi-
ence like memory involves primarily an energetic consciousness and cog-
nition, and only secondarily a material manifestation such as brain or
muscular tissue. Second, time and space are a combination of the absolute
and relative, akin to consciousness and cognition, and thus the experience
of time and space depends on consciousness and then cognition. Finally,
since linear time is relative and only an artifice, linear time and space de-
pend on consciousness and cognition. A person has an intuitive or “felt”
sense of time and space and then uses logic (or dialectics) to explain time
and space. Depending on consciousness, time may seem slow or fast,
while space appears large or small. At the same time, time and space can
be appreciated as a holistic circular-linear phenomenon or in confusion
understood as a reductionist linear reality.
People frequently report the experience of time dilation in everyday
activities such as taking a walk or reading a book. Einstein is said to have
asked his secretary to explain relativity to inquirers simply through the
following comparison: “An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench
passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an
hour” (Sayen 1985, 130). Like Cook Ding, people also regularly experience
extreme time dilation in challenging situations. In a threatening situation
like a car crash, researchers usually attribute time dilation to a neurologi-
cal process that involves the release of hormones and neurological trans-
mitters (e.g., Stetson, Fiesta and Eagleman 2007). According to this expla-
62 / Joseph L. Pratt

nation, information is transmitted through a physical process at a different

rate than usual—a so-called reptilian “fight or flight” response. Time dila-
tion is sometimes also thought to be an “artifact of memory” rather than a
trait of real-time experience (Stetson, Fiesta, and Eagleman 2007).
According to the holistic account of reality, however, the experience
of time dilation depends primarily on consciousness, though time is pro-
cessed by cognition and manifested as form. In a threatening situation, a
person may become highly conscious and thus time is experienced as
more absolute and circular than it normally would be. At such a moment
the linear aspect of time may appear to slow down or even stop. The more
conscious one becomes, the more one accesses the circular absolute aspect
of time, the more linear time may slow down. Again, the experience of
linear time is but a relative phenomenon and only for the experience of the
immediate circular aspect of time.
Many people have also reported differences in the experience of
space, sometimes including an out-of-body experience (Metzinger 2005,
57-84). Like with time dilation, these reports are consistent across histori-
cal time periods as well as divergent cultural contexts (Blanke 2004, 1114-
15). These experiences may also involve a challenging situation, as in the
previous car crash example, but are also again reported in activities like
meditation, sleep, and sports, each of which can involve a deep state of
consciousness (Metzinger 2005, 59; Alvarado 2000, 183-218). Out-of-body
experiences are normally explained as dissociative experiences arising
from different psychological and neurological factors, essentially as some-
thing made up by the brain (2000, 184).
As with the explanation of time, however, the holistic account of real-
ity shows how the different experiences of space are related to conscious-
ness and the absolute circular aspect of space. In a highly conscious state,
people become aware and connected to the absolute aspect of space. In
such a state, conventional boundaries between human and other forms
may decrease in importance or cease to exist at all. People may also have
an out-of-body experience where they become the larger consciousness
and look back at their relativistic three-dimensional form. Depending on
their cognition, they may understand the absolute aspect of space as true
and the relative aspect of space as but an artifice. Otherwise, they may re-
gard the unconventional experience of space as something the brain simp-
ly conjured up.
Time and space are a combination of both the circular absolute and
the linear relative and are ultimately a matter of consciousness. In a har-
monious condition, people can experience the linear aspect of time and
space, including the past and future or near and far, as being but for the
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 63

circular aspect, which is the immediate here and now. Attention and inten-
tion complement each other, and they have the intention to stay in an at-
tentive spot. With consciousness stable and cognition secure, they can also
intuit events accurately and processes information efficiently.
As consciousness and cognition exist also at the muscular and even at
the cellular level, people can act effortlessly and may feel as if they have
endless capacity. In such a state, time slows down, though when com-
pared to an unconscious state, it may seem to have passed quickly. Simi-
larly, space grows large but, when compared to a regular state, may ap-
pear to be small. In a state of effortless action, for example, a samurai may
distinguish the scratch marks on an opponent’s slicing sword and, based
on “muscle memory,” duck or deflect the sword before countering with an
effortless maneuver to disarm the attacker (e. g., Ueshiba 2012, 116-29).
In a discordant state the circular and linear aspects of time and space
are experienced as contradicting, chasing, and depleting each other. In
practice, people may experience this conflict as an uncomfortable tension
between a need to be in some other place and a fixation on some point in
the past or future, rather than being present to deal with an existing chal-
lenge. With attention and intention also in conflict, the mind runs off to
solve the perceived problems, or wanders off to escape the feeling of al-
ienation and insecurity.
In some cases, people may even fall into a downward spiral of think-
ing about their personal problems. In confusion, time and space are con-
sidered linear and, as Newton once concluded, this linear time and space
are thought of as absolute. People neither intuit events accurately nor pro-
cess information efficiently. Finally, because in discord the conflict takes
place at even the muscular and cellular levels, they are unable to act, either
in a temporally or in a spatially accurate manner. All action requires great
thought and effort, the opposite of effortless action, and thus becomes ex-
hausting. The unskilled swordsman cannot disarm an opponent, let alone
defend an attack against him or herself.
As Daoism’s holistic explanation of reality demonstrates, time, space,
and form are an integrated reality. Time and space arise with form and
like form have both yin and yang aspects. These aspects include the circu-
lar and linear as well as the absolute and relative. Ultimately, time and
space are the here and now; and the near and far, as well as the past and
future, exist only for this immediate experience. Though linear time and
space are usually considered as fixed constructs, time and space are often
also experienced in subtle and even transcendent ways. Western research-
ers, especially in the areas of psychology and neuroscience, have studied
positive reports of time and space that typically also involve a heightened
64 / Joseph L. Pratt

consciousness, a quiet cognition, attention and intention, and even muscu-

lar skill. This research supports, as the Daoist texts elucidate, that the full
experience of form as well as time and space is possible even in ordinary
pursuits.

The Flow Experience

The central experience of effortless action, with its altered states of time
and space, has been noted by modern scientific researchers, especially in
connection with positive psychology. In the parlance of psychology, effort-
less action is referred to as “flow.” Coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
flow has been defined as the mental state of operation in which a person
performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus,
full involvement, and enjoyment in the process (1975). The modern sense
of flow is matter-of-course in Daoism’s holistic account of reality—there
must be a Middle Way course for returning first to the transcendent One
and then to the ultimate Dao. This Middle Way sweet spot is what psy-
chologists are calling “flow.”
Csikszentmihalyi recognized that he was not the first person to de-
scribe flow, and in his seminal work on the subject even included the
Zhuangzi story about the duke and the cook as an early characterization of
the state (1990, 149-151). He named this sensation “flow” because in his
early interviews several people used the metaphor of a current carrying
them along to describe their optimal experience. The Zhuangzi explains
effortless action using the archetype of a waterway course. Dao itself, as a
dynamic Middle Way course, also depicts a flow. The concept of effortless
action further provides a transcendent sense of flow. Csikszentmihalyi
notes researchers have found that when in flow, the individual operates at
full capacity, and that the state is one of dynamic equilibrium (2014, 240).
His list of factors accompanying the experience tracks the Daoist
sense of effortless action, including shifts in time and space (2014, 240).
The experience is “remarkably similar across different leisure and work
settings,” and “reported in similar terms across lines of culture, class, gen-
der, and age, as well as across cultures” (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi
2009, 196). Flow has been noted most often in extreme activities as well as
sports and music, but also is found in simple activities like walking and
baking. Flow is experienced by not just individuals but also groups, where
it may be referred to as “group flow,” or simply “being in sync” (Pels et al.
2018).
Flow, with time and space dilation, has often been associated with
extreme activities, where serious injury or death are ever-present possibili-
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 65

ties. They provide an incentive for going into a heightened state of concen-
tration and efficiency. One of Csikszentmihalyi’s books cites rock climbing
as an example of a class of deep play flow activities (1975, 74-101). Widely
regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time, Ayrton
Senna described a flow experience of losing his individual sense of self
and his race car exceeding normal temporal and spatial limits:

I was already on pole, . . . and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two
seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same
car. And suddenly I realized that I was no longer driving the car conscious-
ly. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.
(Orosz 2010)

Effortless action is perhaps most often associated with athletic activi-

ties like archery and martial arts, as depicted by Herrigel (1953) and
Ueshiba (2012). Jackson and Csikszentmihalyi have studied the experience
of flow in conventional athletics (1999), and sports psychologists have not-
ed that the integration of the conscious and subconscious improves body
coordination and movement patterns (Palmer 2006, 45-63). Many athletes
have recounted the effortless nature of a performance while exceeding
expected performance levels. Athletes in the flow zone also report a subtle
freedom from self-consciousness and cognition. Former pro baseball
catcher Tim McCarver, who reports experiencing “the zone” when catch-
ing for record-breaking pitchers like Bob Gibson, describes this unique
lack of cognition:

Many ballplayers think too much. Players like [Bob] Gibson and [Orel] Her-
shiser seem to have a sort of paradoxical intelligence—one that allows them
not to do anything to hinder themselves. It’s a sort of intelligence you use
almost paranormally. It allows people to do phenomenal things. People who
really use their mind—they free it from impeding their activity. (Shainberg
1989)

In the story of Cook Ding, “the knife would whiz through with its
resonant thwing, each stroke ringing out the perfect note, attuned to the
‘Dance of the Mulberry Grove’ or the ‘Jingshou Chorus’ of the ancient sage
kings.” As this passage notes, effortless action is inherently harmonious,
and thus it is unsurprising that flow is commonly reported in connection
with musical performances.
Similar to what the cook experienced butchering an ox, musicians in
flow report being so totally absorbed in playing their instrument that they
lose track of time and are surprised by playing better than they thought
66 / Joseph L. Pratt

they could play (Bloom and Shutnick-Henley 2005, 24). Flow is also con-
nected to the intrinsic enjoyment of playing music. Both improvisational
soloists and ensembles may attain a state of aesthetic rapture while play-
ing or singing (Sawyer 2015, 33). Group flow occurs among collaborators
in musical performances, because on the level of not just consciousness but
also form, performers resonate with one another. One choral director de-
picts a typical group flow experience as achieving “an especially high level
of artistry, accuracy, and focus” (Walters 2016).
The Cook Ding story involves work, and Csikszentmihalyi’s book on
flow features a chapter entitled “Work as Flow.” Some researchers have
likened entrepreneurship to extreme experiences and concluded that, with
its high risks and high rewards, entrepreneurship should be “approached
as a vehicle for optimal human experiencing” (Schindehutte et al. 2006,
349). As the Zhuangzi story and modern research indicate, however, a level
of effortless action or flow is important for job satisfaction in general (Mae-
ran and Cangiano 2013, 13-26).
In the context of work, people are more likely to encounter the ideal
combination of high perceived skill and challenge than they would in lei-
sure activities (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre 1989, 817). It may well play
a central role in cultivating effortless action. In addition, the harmonious
state may also be related to producing positive-sum results for all poten-
tial business stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, community
members and customers (Pratt 2016).
In the Zhuangzi, after Cook Ding finishes the explanation of his skill,
the duke exclaims, “Wonderful! From hearing my cook’s words, I have
learned how to nourish life!” The story shows that there are different lev-
els of effortless action, and although a challenge (a particularly knotty part
of the ox) may be necessary to attain the deepest state, people can still ex-
perience effortless action in other circumstances (the parts of the ox that
are easy to cut). The holistic explanation shows why effortless action in
essence and in due accordance with the Middle Way is essential to health
and happiness, including a holistic consciousness as well as a full sense of
time and space. From Csikszentmihalyi’s standpoint as well, flow is a
basic component of positive psychology, which of course seeks to maxim-
ize human health (1975, x).
The Zhuangzi provides a simple explanation of how Cook Ding first
cultivated his state of consciousness: by practiced awareness with the ox.
Throughout China’s long history, meditation and martial arts, including
versions of taiji quan, have been practiced to cultivate effortless action and
thereby attain a high level of consciousness as well as a full sense of time
and space. In one of his books, Csikszentmihalyi has a section entitled
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 67

“The Ultimate Control: Yoga and the Martial Arts.” He concludes, “In
many respects, what the West has accomplished in terms of harnessing
material energy is matched by what India and the Far East have achieved
in terms of direct control of consciousness” (1990, 103). These cultivation
practices involve not just consciousness and cognition but also form. As he
also notes, “It makes sense to think of yoga as a very thoroughly planned
flow activity” (1990, 105).
Sports coaches and musical directors have recently studied flow in an
effort to set conditions to facilitate the state (e.g., Palmer 2006; Walters
2016), while business researchers have sought to apply it in work settings
(e.g., Eisenberg et al. 2005). Some modern athletes and business people
have even practiced martial arts or meditation to gain access to a state of
effortless action in their particular activities. In his autobiography, A Zen
Way of Baseball, co-written with David Falkner, the great Japanese hitter
Sadaharu Oh explains how studying with the legendary aikido master
Ueshiba Morihei taught him the critical ability to “wait,” which was “the
most active state of all” and actually gave him more time to hit the base-
ball (Oh and Falkner 1985, 168-69). Ray Dalio, founder, chairman and CEO
of an over $100 billion investment management firm, credits his business
success to a decades-long transcendental meditation practice, as “it helps
slow things down so that I can act calmly, even in the face of chaos, just
like a ninja in a street fight” (Clifford 2018).
To explain effortless action or flow, Western psychologists and neu-
roscientists have wrongly tried to use a reductionist model of body and
mind as well as an essentially linear sense of time and space, thus failing
to do so. Similarly, some scholars have failed to appreciate the transcend-
ent nature of effortless action (Barrett 2011, 685-86). With Daoism’s holistic
explanation, on the other hand, the sublime experience becomes clear:
people in a state of effortless action access an overarching level of con-
sciousness, of which they are a part and which permeates even their mus-
cles and cells. In this state, action is effortless, and both time and space
become holistic. Modern psychologists are right, however, that flow is es-
sential for positive physical and mental health. As Daoism indicates, ef-
fortless action with the yin and the yang aspects in a complementary con-
dition is the only way to achieve optimal health. Its cultivation can be
done through practices of meditation, taiji quan, and yoga. While many
flow-inducing practices have traditionally been associated with the martial
arts, they are yet also central to the success of athletic competitors and
business people.
68 / Joseph L. Pratt

Conclusion

Daoism’s holistic account of reality integrates consciousness, cognition,

and form as well as time and space. Time and space have both an absolute
circular aspect—the here and now—as well as a linear relative aspect—the
one dimension of time and three dimensions of space which allow the ab-
solute here and now to be meaningful. The experience of time and space
depends on consciousness, is processed by cognition, and happens
through form, at each layer of reality. In a harmonious state of effortless
action, form may return to the transcendent One, and time and space are
experienced as a deliberate spaciousness. On the other hand, in a dishar-
monious condition, existence is experienced as a struggle, and time and
space are fraught with practical and theoretical contradictions, including
how conventional linear time and space arose in the first place.
Further, as the phenomenon of relative or linear time and space de-
pends on consciousness, akin to the absolute or circular aspect of time and
space, relative or linear time and space cannot limit the experience of any
given form. As this holistic explanation provides, and modern research in
psychology substantiates, the transcendent sense of the self in a state of
effortless action, including a full sense of time and space, is available to
each individual as well as to each group, and can be cultivated and ap-
plied in all of life’s activities. This positive state, moreover, is essential to
optimal physical, mental, and spiritual health for each individual as well
as the community as a whole.

Bibliography
Alvarado, Carlos S. 2000. “Out-of-Body Experiences.” In Varieties of Anomalous
Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, edited by Etzel Cardena, Steven
Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner, 183-218. Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Barrett, Nathaniel F. 2011. “Wuwei and Flow: Comparative Reflections on Spiritu-
ality, Transcendence, and Skill in the ‘Zhuangzi’.” Philosophy East & West
61.4:679-706.
Blanke, Olaf. 2004. “Out of Body Experiences and Their Neural Basis: They Are
Linked to Multisensory and Cognitive Processing in the Brain.” British Medical
Journal 329.7480:1414-15.
Bloom, Arvid J. and Paula Shutnick-Henley. 2005. “Facilitating Flow Experiences
Among Musicians.” American Music Teacher 54.5:24-28.
 Daoism’s Holistic Worldview / 69

Clifford, Catherine. March 16, 2018. “Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio: Meditation
is ‘the single most important reason’ for my success.” www.cnbc.com 2018
/03/ 16/ bridgewater-associates-ray-dalio-meditation-is-key-to-my-success.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1975. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
_____. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
_____. 2014. Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology. New York: Springer.
_____, and Judith LeFevre. 1989. “Optimal Experience in Work and Leisure.” Jour-
nal of Personality and Social Psychology 56.5:815-22.
Eisenberg, Robert, Jason R. Jones, Florence Stinglhamber, Linda Shanock, and
Amanda T. Randall. 2005. “Flow Experiences at Work: For High Achiever’s
Alone?” Journal of Organizational Behavior 26.7:755-75.
Graham, A. C. 1989. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China.
La-Salle, Ill.: Open Court.
Herrigel, Eugene. 1953. Zen in the Art of Archery. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. New
York: Pantheon Books.
Jackson, Susan A., and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 1999. Flow in Sports: The Keys to
Optimal Experiences and Performances. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics.
Maeran, Roberta and Francesco Cangiano. 2013. “Flow Experience and Job Charac-
teristics: Analyzing the Role of Flow in Job Satisfaction.” TPM 20.1:13-26.
Metzinger, Thomas. 2005. “Out-of-Body Experiences as the Origin of the Concept
of a ‘Soul.’” Mind & Matter 3.1:57-84.
Nakamura, Jeanne, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2009. “Flow Theory and Re-
search” in The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by Shane J. Lopez
and C. R. Snyder, 195-206. New York: Oxford University Press.
Oh, Sadaharu, and David Falkner. 1985. Sadaharu Oh: A Zen Way of Baseball. Visalia,
Cal: Vintage.
Orosz, Peter. 2010. “Ayrton Senna on the Very Edge.”www.jalopnik.com/ayrton-
senna-on-the-very-edge-5452870
Palmer, Roy. 2006. Zone Mind, Zone Body: How to Break Through to New Levels of Fit-
ness and Performance—By Doing Less! Lagos: Academy Press.
Pels, Fabian, Jens Kleinert, and Florian Mennigen. December 31, 2018. “Group flow:
A scoping review of definitions, theoretical approaches, measures and find-
ings.” PLoS ONE 13.12. www.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone0020117
Pratt, Joseph. 2016. “So Said Laozi: How Daoism Explains ‘Creating Shared Val-
ue’.” www.ssrn.com/abstract=284338.
70 / Joseph L. Pratt

_______, and Chenting Liu. 2018. “道家还原论宇宙观中的谬论: 以老庄思想和《黄

帝内经》为中心的分析.” www.ssrn.com.abstract=3229541.
_______, and Yingnan Zhao. 2019. “A Daoist Critique of Dialectics and Why It Mat-
ters.” www.ssrn.com/abstract=3140946.
Raphals, Lisa. 2019. “Time, Chance, and Fate in Early Daoist Texts.” Keynote Ad-
dress at the 13th International Conference on Daoist Studies.
Sawyer, Keith. 2015. “Group Flow and Group Genius.” The NAMTA Journal
40.3:29-52.
Sayen, Jamie. 1985. Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler
and Hiroshima. New York: Crown Publishers.
Schindehutte, Minet, Michael Morris, and Jeffrey Allen. 2006. “Beyond Achieve-
ment: Entrepreneurship as Extreme Experience.” Small Business Economics
27.4-5:349-68.
Shainberg, Lawrence. April 9, 1989. “Finding the Zone.” The New York Times Maga-
zine. www.nytimes.com/1989/04/09/magazin/finding -the-zone.html.
Schmidt, Richard A., and Timothy D. Lee. 2005. Motor Control and Learning: A Be-
havioral Emphasis. Windsor, Ont.: Human Kinetics.
Stetson, Chess, Matthew P. Fiesta, and David M. Eagleman. 2007. “Does Time Real-
ly Slow Down During a Frightening Event?” PLoS ONE. www.doi.org/10.
1371/ journal. pone.0001295.
Walters, Christopher M. 2016. “Choral Singers ‘In the Zone’: Toward Flow through
Score Study and Analysis.” The Choral Journal 57.5:8-19.
Wang, Robin R. 2012. Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and
Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ueshiba, Morihei. 2012. The Secret Teachings of Aikido. Translated by John Stevens.
Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Ziporyn, Brook. 2009. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Tradition-
al Commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus

ANDREJ FECH

The writings attributed to Laozi and Plotinus were created in profoundly

different cultural and philosophical environments and several centuries
apart. Yet, the philosophical similarities between them are intriguing and
have rarely been studied. They include the centrality of the notion of the
“One,” the ineffability of its nature, the gestation of the physical world
from it, the outline of several distinct stages in this process, and, finally,
the prominence of the notion of return. It is my contention that comparing
these two thinkers is also conducive to understanding their respective po-
sitions with regard to the phenomenon of time.
When discussing the Laozi, I consider early versions of the text, dis-
covered in recent decades. The earliest was excavated in Guodian 郭店 and
presumably circulated in the southern state of Chu 楚 toward the end of
the fourth century BCE (Allan and Williams 2000, 120). Furthermore, there
are three Western Han (206 BCE-6 CE) versions, two (A and B) unearthed
at Mawangdui 馬王堆 and one belonging to the Peking University collec-
tion. They shed light on the contents and the structure of the work during
early imperial times, before it was cast into its transmitted form (Liu 2017).
Plotinus’ writings are quoted based on the edition used by A. H. Arm-
strong in his full translation of the philosopher’s works published between
1966 and 1988.

Temporality in the Laozi

Temporal characteristics play a crucial role in the Laozi. They serve as the
ultimate criterion to determine whether or not a certain phenomenon
complies with central values and notions of the text, of which the Way or
Dao is most emblematic. Thus, the all-too-brief duration of any occurrence
in the world—such as human life, natural events, specific actions, and
more—is seen as resulting from disobeying these values (chs. 9, 23, 24, 30,
and 55). Laozi 55 expresses this issue with utmost directness: “What is not
the Way comes to an early end” (budao zaoyi 不道早已).

71
72 / Andrej Fech

On the other hand, phenomena that comply with the norms promul-
gated by the text are said to last long (chs. 7, 16, 33, 44, and 59). Even the
legendary author of the Laozi, the eponymous archive keeper of the Zhou
capital, is reported in several accounts, beginning with the Shiji 史記 (Rec-
ords of the Historian), to have lived for several centuries because of “his
sanctity and of his harmony with the Dao” (Seidel and von Falkenhausen
2008, 142).1
Against this background, it is not surprising to find the Way itself
associated with permanence and endurance throughout the text. In some
cases, this idea is expressed directly, such as in chapter 16, stating: “To be
the Way is to endure” (dao nai jiu 道乃久). In others, it is implied variously,
so that the Way is called the “forefather of God” (di zhi xian 帝之先) (ch. 4)
or described as having been born “before heaven and earth” (xian tian di
sheng 先天地生) (ch. 25). In addition, chapter 14 addresses the Way’s antiq-
uity, while at the same time stressing its availability in the present mo-
ment:

Hold fast to the way of antiquity

In order to keep in control the realm of today.
The ability to know the beginning of antiquity
Is called the thread of the Way.2

Moreover, the Way is frequently discussed by means of weaving

metaphors, such as the “thread of the Way” (daoji 道紀) in this chapter.
This metaphor stresses the linear continuity of the object described (Loewe
1995, 312). Similarly, the use of reduplicative binomes with the semantic
element “silk” (mi 糸), such as mianmian 綿綿 (ch. 6) and shengsheng 繩繩 (ch.
14), also underscores the uninterrupted continuity of its existence (Chen
2006, 99, 127). Therefore, as most academic papers dealing with Daoist
concepts of time agree, the Way is eternal in its nature (Dy 1996, 255; Jhou
2020, 585). This is consonant with the observation that the Way, while be-

1 A. C. Graham assumes that Laozi’s alleged longevity was only a byproduct of the
political move carried out by his admirers to earn patronage from the rulers of the
superpower of Qin. They identified Laozi, otherwise known as the elder contem-
porary of Confucius (551-479 BCE), with the Grand Historiographer Dan 儋, who
prophesied the ascendancy of Qin over Zhou around 374 BCE, thus extending his
lifespan to several centuries (1998, 32-33). Regardless of whether or not this conjec-
ture is correct, already in the early Han, Laozi was seen as a “practitioner of lon-
gevity” (Kohn 1998, 42). Studies on some prominent disciples of Laozi support this
view (Fech 2015, 241).
2 執古之道, 以御今之有. 能知古始, 是謂道紀 (Lau 2001, 20-21.)
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 73

ing the origin of the world, “remains as a permanent background condi-

tion of existence” (Lewis 2006, 24).
At the same time, the reasons for the perpetual existence of the Way
are rarely studied. Indeed, the matter seems confusing. At first glance, the
eternal characteristics of the Way seem to be a direct consequence of it
shapeless, nameless, changeless, and motionless nature, stated among oth-
ers in Laozi 25: “It stands alone and does not change” (du li er bugai 獨立而
不改).3 However, such understanding is immediately challenged in the fol-
lowing lines, where the Way is said to “go past” (shi 逝), “go far” (yuan 遠)
and “return” (fan 反). In addition, “return” is defined as the very motion of
the Way (dao zhi dong 道之動) in Laozi 40. To resolve this contradiction, I
first discuss the two notions that are closely related to the temporal quali-
ties of the Way, namely, chang 常 and heng 恒.

Chang and Heng

The term chang figures prominently in the received versions of the text. It
appears in eighteen different chapters and is often interpreted as “eternal”
or “eternity.” Accordingly, the famous opening lines of the transmitted
Laozi say: “The Way that can be dao-ed is not the eternal Way.”4 However,
this interpretation is problematic for a number of reasons.
To start with, as the early versions unanimously demonstrate, in most
cases where the received text reads chang, the original reading was heng.
The complete replacement of heng with chang was most likely due to the
practice of observing naming taboos, in this case, the personal name Heng
of Emperor Wen (203-157 BCE). From the earliest appearances of the char-
acter heng in written sources, it seems that it originally indicated a moon
crescent (Allan 2003, 269-70; Wang 2019, 23). Given the incessant alterna-
tion of the moon’s waxing and waning, the notion seems to have signified
a constant pattern of change rather than the continued existence of any
given object. Therefore, translating it as “constant,” as commonly done,
appears appropriate.

3 In the transmitted version, this is followed by the statement about the incessant
cyclical movement of the Way: zhouxing er budai 周行而不殆 (Lau 2001, 36-37).
However, none of the three earliest versions (Guodian, Mawangdui A and B) con-
tains this sentence.
4 道可道非常道. For a list of translations and a related discussion, see Wohlfart 2001,

45-50. It is noteworthy that this interpretation of chang was promoted as early as

the “Jie Lao” 解老 chapter of the Hanfeizi 韓非子. For more, see Queen 2013, 241.
74 / Andrej Fech

In the early versions of the Laozi, heng mostly appears either as an

adjective or, more often, as an adverb (Lau 2001, 162; Liu 2006, 514-15).5 As
an adjective, heng serves as one of the few predicates of the central notions
of the Way and “virtue” (de 德). In other early cosmological accounts, the
Way—when predicated by heng—stands for a recurring pattern in the in-
cessant flux of change.6 In the Laozi, most adjective usages of heng appear
in the context of “return,” such as: “When your constant virtue is complete,
you will return to the state of uncarved wood” (ch. 28).7 Therefore, the
characteristic resistance of the “constant Way” to becoming the subject of
dao-ing as expressed in the transmitted Laozi 1, may well have to do with
heng’s association with “return.” This is to say, the “constant Way” differs
from the “common” ways that are subject to dao-ing through its constant
return to the nameless and formless.
Unlike heng, chang features in the early copies only as a noun, appear-
ing in three passages that correspond to the received chapters 16, 52, and
55 (Chen 2017, 334-35). Chang does not serve as a predicate to any other
notion and appears to be a philosophical principle in its own right. Indeed,
the text claims that even possession of the Way is predicated on whether
or not one knows chang (ch. 16). While the Laozi does not provide an exact
definition of chang, a look at other early texts reveals that this notion most-
ly referred to unvarying, regulatory principles in the operations of nature,
state or human body.8 In view of this, it appears fitting to translate chang
as “norm.” Characteristically for the Laozi, the “normative” principle re-

5
A possible exception to this is the definition of heng given in the Mawangdui
equivalent of the transmitted chapter 2: “The mutual filling of high and low, the
mutual harmony of tone and voice, the mutual following of front and back— these
are all constants.” 長短之相刑也, 高下之相盈也, 意聲之相和也, 先後之相隋, 恆也.
(Henricks 2000, 190-91).
6 For instance, the “Lunyue” 論約 (Discourse on the Quintessential) from the exca-

vated manuscript corpus Huangdi sijing 黃帝四經 reads: “Then he will observe the
constant Way of heaven and earth (tiandi zhi heng dao 天地之恒道).” Cf. Chang and
Yu 1998, 140. In this particular case, the constant Way refers to the alternating pat-
tern of wen 文 and wu 武 exhibited by heaven and earth.
7 恒德乃足, 復歸於樸. (Lau 2001, 42-43).
8 The Huangdi sijing text “Daofa” 道法 (The Way and Law) defines the “constant

chang” (hengchang 恒常) of “heaven and earth” as the “four seasons” (sishi 四
時),”day and night” (huiming 晦明) etc. For more, see Chang and Yu 1998, 104. For
the meaning of chang in politics, see the stele inscription of Qin Shi Huang 秦始皇
as recorded in the Shiji (Nienhauser 1994, 152). For chang in bodily functions, see
the Huangdi neijing (Unschuld 2016, 125).
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 75

ferred to as chang appears to be closely connected to return (Chen 2016, 3-6;

Chen 2017, 342-43).
Thus, rather than signifying temporal endurance, heng and chang em-
phasize the normativity of return. Before analyzing what return actually
entails for the Way and how it is connected to the latter’s permanence, I
turn to the Laozi’s cosmogonic accounts. There, I focus on the notion of
“harmony” (he 和). Because, together with return, it is the only notion in
the Laozi to be defined as chang. 9

Harmony

There are several metaphors describing the emergence of the physical

world in the Laozi. While the metaphor of birth is preeminent, accounts of
movement, growth and differentiation also play an important role, em-
phasizing different aspects in this complex generative process (Fech 2018,
2). In most cases, the Way is described as a caring entity providing a con-
stant nourishment and protection for the ten thousand things in a most
unassuming way (ch. 51). Due to this sympathetic attention, the develop-
ment of things follows a distinct pattern: Beginning as small, weak and
soft entities, they grow to gradually embody such characteristics as big,
strong and hard (chs. 63, 64). For the sake of convenience, I follow Angus
Graham in designating the first group of (small) qualities “B” and the sec-
ond group of (big) qualities “A” (1989, 223).
In some cases, the Laozi provides a more complex picture of world
origination. In chapter 40, for instance, the ten thousand things are held to
emerge from “being” (you 有), which, in turn, is generated by “non-being”
(wu 無).10 And, according to Laozi 42, the world emerges from the Way via
several distinct stages, referred to by the numerals “one,” “two” and
“three”:

The Way generates the One.

The One generates the Two.
The Two generates the Three.

9 All early copies of Laozi 55 define “harmony” as chang (he yue chang 和曰常). The
transmitted text reads instead “to know the harmony is called chang” (zhi he yue
chang 知和曰常). Based on the more frequent appearance of he as an independent
notion in the early copies, Liu Xiaogan concludes that it played there a more prom-
inent role than in the received text (2017, 107-09).
10 In the Guodian manuscript, the corresponding passage reads: “The things in the

world come from being, [and] come from non-being” (tianxia zhi wu sheng yu you
sheng yu wang 天下之物生於又生於亡). For more, see Bai 2008, 342-43.
76 / Andrej Fech

The Three generates the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things carry yin on their backs and embrace yang.
By blending the vital force [of yin and yang] they obtain harmony.
What is hated by the people is to be solitary, desolate, and hapless,
Yet kings and dukes refer to themselves in this way.11

The exact meaning of the three numbers has been subject to radically
different interpretations over the millennia.12 Likewise, the significance of
this passage and its relation to other cosmogonic parts of the Laozi has
been judged very differently.13 Nevertheless, the passage is informative for
several reasons.
First, there are good reasons to assume that time comes into play at
the precosmic level, prior to the appearance of the ten thousand things.14
This would be in line with several other cosmogonic accounts, both trans-
mitted and recently discovered. There, temporality, either as the “four sea-
sons” (sishi 四時) or as part of the compound “space-time” (yuzhou 宇宙)15,
appears prior to the completion of the physical world. The almost uniform
emphasis of time’s antecedence to the world goes against the popular
opinion that there was no concept of abstract time in ancient China.16 So,
while the main notion for time (shi 時) originally meant “season” or “time-

11 道生一, 一生二, 二生三, 三生萬物. 萬物負陰而抱陽, 沖氣以為和. 人之所惡, 唯孤、

寡、不穀, 而王公以為稱. (Lau 2001, 62).
12 Wang Bi discusses this passage in terms of his idea of the Way as “nothingness”

(Wagner 2003, 266-67). Heshang gong interprets “two” as yin and yang and
“three” as “heaven, earth, and man” (Erkes 1945, 196). Cf. Chan 1991, 48, 125.
13 Girardot claims that “the mode of creative function established by the harmoni-

ous interaction of duality” during the “precosmological” period depicted in this

passage constitutes the very reason for the Way’s “creative activity and enduring
presence in the world” (1989, 55). On the contrary, Perkins assumes that this line
“sits uneasily” with the other, allegedly more fundamental, cosmogonic account of
the text, in which “things emerge from dao or no-being (wu)” (2015, 217).
14
Kim, for instance, holds that “the number “three” nests in the Chinese percep-
tion of time” (2012, 40).
15 For the concept of the “four seasons” in the Guodian manuscript Taiyi shengshui

太一生水 (The Great One Gives Birth to Water) and the Huangdi sijing text “Guan”
觀 (Investigation), see Wang 2015, 7. For “time and space” in the transmitted texts,
see Huainanzi 淮南子 (He 1998, 166).
16 Accordingly, time concept in China “is always considered a property of life ac-

tivity, creativity, generation, and transformation of individual things” (Cheng 1974,

156). Moreover, time and space, alongside other aspects of the “emergent order,”
“cannot stand as universal principles, as necessary, a priori conditions that give us
a single-ordered world” (Hall and Ames 1995, 186).
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 77

liness” and entailed a specific set of actions, as in “doing something at the

appropriate time” (Allan 1998, 11-12), the Laozi and other early texts show
that ancient Chinese also conceived time as transcending the particulari-
ties of concrete life situations (Harbsmeier 1995, 49).
Furthermore, the above passage is significant for its treatment of
“harmony” (he 和) as a balanced state of the two generative forces of yin
and yang. The final sentence about what the people hate presents the rul-
ers’ practice of referring to themselves with demeaning predicates. It is
sometimes believed to have originally belonged to another chapter (Chen
2006, 238). However, to me, it exemplifies the working of harmony on the
political level. That is, a ruler, who is the embodiment of greatness and
multiplicity in a state since he rules over the “ten thousand” people, ob-
tains a balanced position by publicly associating himself with the small-
ness of the number “one,” by humbly presenting himself as solitary and
lonesome. A similar idea appears in chapters 39 and 66, which deal with
the necessity for a (sage) ruler to display humility. The latter views this
practice as a key for winning the unwavering support of the people.
In Graham’s parlance, for a head of state, “harmony” is obtainable in
the movement from qualities A (greatness) to qualities B (smallness),
which reverses the usual development pattern of things. Significantly, the
qualities in question belong to the different realms of social status (A) and
public appearance (B). This implies that none of them needs to be aban-
doned or even diminished to obtain harmony. On the contrary, by resign-
ing his position, a humble ruler would destroy the harmonious relation-
ship between his status and outer appearance. The investigation in the
previous section showed that harmony and return were the only terms in
the Laozi defined as “norm.” In the following section, I demonstrate that
there are, in fact, great similarities between the harmonizing strategies of
rulers and the return of the Way.

Return

The Laozi uses a number of terms to express the idea of return, most im-
portantly fan 反, fu 復, and gui 歸.17 The subject of the returning motion can

17The notion of return features prominently in a number of early works in a varie-

ty of meanings, as distinct from the Laozi. In the cosmogonies of the Hengxian 恒先
(Constant Primacy) and Taiyi shengshui, it relates to the “generative process” (sheng
生). Some scholars distinguish between three ways of how return and this sheng
are related. For Xing Wen (2015, 213) return is an “indispensable part of sheng,” “a
new phase of sheng,” or “a beginning of a new sheng process.” Others see in fu, at
78 / Andrej Fech

be either the Way (chs. 14, 25, 40), the exemplary human being (chs. 28, 52,
64) or the ten thousand things (chs. 16, 34). In the two latter cases, the des-
tination is usually either the Way or states associated with it. While for the
ten thousand things, return implies physical decay and death (Erkes 1945,
154), in the case of an exemplary person it mostly connotes cognition and
emulation of the Way.18 As such, return has utterly positive effects, ena-
bling one to complete the natural duration of a human life without endan-
gering it through strife and excess.19 The positive outcome of the return is
so great that it is even believed to allow a person to escape the cycles of
growth and decline—the fate of all living creatures (Kaltenmark 1968, 46;
Lau, 2001, xxiii-xxv).20
However, when it comes to the Way, it is not immediately clear how
it would engage in return, given its portrayal as the starting and ending
point of all movement. Not to mention that return here would imply that,
at a certain point, the Way becomes alienated from itself. Laozi 34 illumi-
nates this:

The Way is broad, reaching left as well as right.

The myriad creatures depend on it for life yet it claims no authority.
It accomplishes its task yet lays claim to no merit.
It clothes and feeds the myriad creatures yet lays no claim to being their mas-
ter.
Forever free of desire, it can be called small;
Yet as it lays no claim to being master when the myriad creatures turn to it, it
can be called great.

least, as it occurs in the Hengxian, the connotation of “reproduction” and “imita-

tion” (Klein 2013, 214).
18 Girardot, for instance, views return as embodied in the “stupidity” of the Daoist

sage, requiring a “mystic journey back to an individual’s fetal origins” (1983, 71).
19 In chapter 6, the emulation and possession of the Way is told to have the effect of

being “free from danger until the end of one’s life” (moshen budai 沒身不殆). Some
scholars determine the function of return as resolving abnormalities and restoring
the natural state of things (Wang 2019, 7).
20 Some passages of the Laozi seem to hint at the possibility of continuing existence

after physical death. For instance, chapter 33 speaks of longevity as the ability “to
die but not perish” (si er bu wang 死而不亡). The Xiang’er 想爾 commentary inter-
prets this sentence along the lines of rebirth and new existence (Bokenkamp 1999,
135). However, in general, the Laozi remains vague on the issue of physical immor-
tality.
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 79

It is because it never attempts itself to become great that it succeeds in be-

coming great.21 (Lau 2001, 50)

The Way here reaches both left and right, that is, it embodies oppos-
ing principles. Subsequently, the text calls it both “great” (da 大 ) and
“small” (xiao 小) depending on its relation to the world. It is great because
the ten thousand things constantly return to the Way, which the Laozi in-
terprets as their enthusiastic submission. The Way effectively becomes
their ruler and is thus an embodiment of greatness. However, it does not
make any display of great authority, demonstrating instead utter humility
by constantly dwelling in the lowest position (chs. 8, 32). This low profile
in fact constitutes the Way’s return from qualities B to A, creating a har-
monic blend between its elevated status and low appearance and earning
its designation as “great.”
Evidently, this metaphoric return does not imply any physical move-
ment of the Way. It is noteworthy that this idea could not have been for-
mulated without taking into account the world and the cyclical pattern of
its existence.22 In this manner, the Way’s enduring existence is not solely
predicated upon its primary empty and motionless characteristics but de-
pends on its ability to follow the norm of harmonizing different aspects of
its relationship to the world.
Why did the author of the text place such great emphasis on the
Way’s return? One possible answer is that return is absolutely indispensa-
ble for the Way to counterbalance its elevated position as the ruling prin-
ciple of the world. Then again, by identifying return as the Way’s modus
operandi in the world, the text renders it possible for beings whose exist-
ence undergoes cyclical motion to emulate the Way.
In this manner, any objects capable of some form of return can endure
in principle. Laozi 7 insists that the reason why heaven and earth exist
eternally is because they “do not live for themselves” (bu zisheng 不自生).
Their ability to go beyond themselves can certainly be viewed as a kind of
return. In fact, heaven and earth are among the four “great” entities
named in chapter 25, for which return is absolutely essential, the other two
being the Way and king. The harmonizing strategies of rulers facilitating

21 大道汎兮, 其可左右. 萬物恃之而生而不辭, 功成不名有. 衣養萬物而不為主, 常無欲,

可名於小；萬物歸焉, 而不為主, 可名為大. 以其終不自為大, 故能成其. The early
versions of the chapter show a number of differences to the received text, however,
the definitions of the Way’s “greatness” and “smallness” remain the same.
22 Some authors, however, suggest that this returning pattern is established already

during the precosmic stage, before the appearance of the “ten thousand things”
(Girardot 1989, 55).
80 / Andrej Fech

their power consolidation and, consequently, the indefinite extension of

their reign (ch. 54), can, in fact, be regarded as practical implementation of
this imperative.

The World of Plotinus

Considered one of the most prominent representatives of Neoplatonism,

Plotinus (205-270) was greatly influenced by Plato’s philosophy. In fact,
his endeavor is best understood as an attempt to defend Plato’s teaching
as he understood it against critical voices, specifically those of Aristotle
and the Stoics (Gerson 1996, 5-8). This certainly holds true for his main
work on issues of time, “On Eternity and Time” (Ennead III.9),23 which
provides both the author’s deliberations on Plato’s account of temporal
problems and his critique of other theories. By juxtaposing eternity and
time as well as attempting to understand the latter through the former,
Plotinus follows Plato’s famous precept that time is the moving “image of
eternity” (Timaeus 37d6-7) while also basing his considerations about tem-
poral issues on his general philosophy. Certain features stand out.
To begin, Plotinus claims that the physical world emerges as the visi-
ble image of a more fundamental intelligible reality. In his view, this intel-
ligible realm comprises three basic elements or hypostasis: the One (to hen),
Intellect (nous), and Soul (psuchē).
The One is the constitutive element of the intelligible world. The
source of everything, it is yet ineffable due to its utmost simplicity and
unity. According to Ennead VI.9, “On the Good or the One,” it is “not in
place, not in time, but “itself by itself of single form,” or rather formless,
“being before all form, before movement and before rest; for these pertain
to being and are what make it many” (Armstrong 1988, 315).
Intellect is the seat of Platonic ideas or forms. Because thinking and
being are identical in Intellect, its being is constituted by its thinking of the
ideas (Beierwaltes 1995, 25-27). In contemplating them, Intellect “intuitive-
ly” grasps them at once in their entirety, since all ideas exist within it.
However, despite the identity of thinker and thought, “the multiplicity of
the Ideas means that Intellect does not possess the total simplicity which
belongs to the One” (Kenny 2004, 313). Therefore, “plurality in unity” is
one of the main features of Intellect.

23In the arrangement of his disciple Porphyry, who divided Plotinus’ works into
six groups of nine treatises each (Enneads) (Kenny 2004, 112-13), ”On Eternity and
Time” is the last, ninth, treatise of the third group (III.9).
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 81

Soul is characterized by a greater degree of internal differentiation.

Plotinus distinguishes between several parts within it. While its highest
segment has the capacity of intellectual contemplation of what is prior to it
in the intelligible realm, its lower part, called Nature, has to rely on senso-
ry experience and visual images to somehow grasp the ideas. Physical re-
ality is created for this particular reason. “The duller children, too, are evi-
dence of this, who are incapable of learning and contemplative studies and
turn to crafts and manual work” (Ennead III.8; Armstrong 1967, 373).
Moreover, unable to contemplate ideas in their totality, Soul has, as it were,
to move from one idea to another. Thus, the “life of soul is the life of dis-
cursive reason in which soul presents one activity after another” (Smith
1996, 210).
Individual souls are connected to the hypostasis Soul and have a simi-
larly complex structure. Just as the latter, they have the potential to con-
template ideas and, ideally, even reach the experience of unity with the
One in the process called “ascension” (Bussanich 1996, 38-42). But, at the
same time, they are also exposed to the world of senses and all the poten-
tial distractions, desires and temptations coming from it (Clark 1996, 289).
In fact, matter, the material constituent of physical reality, is viewed by
Plotnius as “evil in itself” because it is deprived of being and intelligible
ideas. Body is therefore only a “shadow of being” and a “second evil”
(Corrigan 1996, 107-108).

Contemplative Return

Plotinus often refers to the emanation process beginning with the One and
ending at the level of individual souls and their experiences as descent,
which at first glance seems to indicate a linear downward movement.
However, a closer look on this series of generations shows a rather com-
plex picture, in which “turning back” (epistrephein) plays a central role. The
following passage from Ennead V.2 seems to be the most illuminating in
this respect, also highlighting the nature of the causal link between the
hypostasis.

This, we may say, is the first act of generation: the One, perfect because it
seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and its
superabundance makes something other than itself. This, when it has come
into being, turns back upon the One and is filled, and becomes Intellect by
looking towards it. Its halt and turning towards the One constitutes being, its
gaze upon the One, Intellect. Since it halts and turns towards the One that it
may see, it becomes at ones Intellect and being.
82 / Andrej Fech

Resembling the One thus, Intellect produces in the same way, pouring
forth a multiple power—this is a likeness of it—just as that which was before
it poured it forth. This activity springing from the substance of Intellect is
Soul, which comes to be this while Intellect abides unchanged: for Intellect
too comes into being while that which is before abides unchanged. But Soul
does not abide unchanged when it produces: it is moved and so brings forth
an image. It looks to its source and is filled, and going forth to another op-
posed movement generates its own image, which is sensation and the princi-
ple of growth in plants. (Armstrong 1984, 59-61)

Accordingly, Intellect is actualized only after its incipient form, which

comes about following the “overflowing” of the One, “turns back” to and
“gazes upon” it.24 Soul is also reported to originate from Intellect’s “pour-
ing forth” and is able to “look to its source”, implying the same movement
of turning back. Therefore, this (contemplative) return and not the “over-
flowing” is sometimes regarded as the “determining element” in the met-
aphysics of Plotinus (Gatti 1996, 31). Although “overflowing” and “turn-
ing back” seem to imply movement, Plotinus is adamant that the One and
Intellect are completely motionless, and that movement enters the picture
only at the level of Soul, which “does not abide unchanged” and “is
moved.”

Eternity and Time

In discussing eternity, Plotinus focuses on the first two elements of the

intelligible reality, the One and—even more explicitly—Intellect. While
eternity is not identical with Intellect, it is “something which, as it were,
shines out from the substrate” (Armstrong 1967, 305). As such, it is closely
connected with some of Intellect’s features, preeminently unity and rest.
The all-encompassing world of Intellect is characterized by the identity of
thinker and thought, a non-discursive noesis of itself. Therefore, any
movement is inconceivable for it. These features constitute eternity:

24 In Ennead V.1 Plotinus seems to be claiming that Intellect is produced as the re-
sult of the One returning to and reflecting on itself (Beierwaltes 1996, 14-16). Arm-
strong is opposed to this view, for “there can be absolutely no separation from
itself or multiplicity in the One” (Armstrong 1984, 34n1). Instead, the subject of the
sentence in question should be Intellect. Regardless of which view is correct, this
passage offers strong evidence for the importance of return in Plotinus’ metaphys-
ics.
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 83

The life, then, which belongs to that which exists and is in being, all together
and full, completely without extension or interval, is that which we are look-
ing for, eternity. (Armstrong 1967, 305)

In some passages, he further identifies the intellectual contemplation

of the One as a constitutive feature of eternity:

For that which is this and abides like this and abides what it is, an activity of
life abiding of itself directed to the One and in the One, with no falsehood in
its being or its life, this would possess the reality of eternity. (1967, 313)

At the same time, eternity is not to be equated with a long temporal

interval, since the latter already presupposes the existence of time (Smith
1996, 203). Instead, eternity has to be thought of as a timeless or atemporal
state of existence.
Given the overall metaphysical picture, which stipulates that only
Soul among the intelligible entities is capable of movement, it comes as no
surprise that Plotinus makes the latter responsible for the emergence of
time. The reason for time’s appearance is described as follows:

There was a restlessly active nature which wanted to control itself and be on
its own, and chose to seek for more than its present state, this moved, and
time moved with it; and so, always moving on to the “next” and the “after,”
and what is not the same, but one thing after another, we made a long stretch
of our journey and constructed time as an image of eternity. (1967, 339)

Accordingly, Soul’s “restlessly active nature” and the desire to “seek

for more than its present state” caused it to abandon the eternal state of
self-observation and enter into time, that is, into the intelligible realm
where ideas are not observed at once but in temporal succession. In other
words, time is caused by the discursive thinking of Soul (Smith 1996, 210).
Because Soul imbues the physical reality with temporality, time exists
on two levels: as the life of Soul and as perceived in the physical world
(Smith 1996, 210).25 However, because the emergence of natural existence
follows from Soul’s internal structure, which is timeless, the generation of
the physical world itself is not a temporal process. Soul does not “take

25Plotinus’ main criticism of the traditional theories of time was their attempt to
explain time through the motion of bodies in the physical reality. In his account,
these physical motions presuppose and take place in time, which goes back to a
higher level of reality, Soul, and its “discursive reason.”
84 / Andrej Fech

time” in creating the physical reality (Wagner 2008, 281). In this way, the
entire “descent” from the One to sensory reality is a timeless happening.
To resolve the obvious inconsistency that Plotinus views some
movements of intelligible entities as atemporal (overflowing, turning back,
descending) and some as constitutive of time (movements to the next and
after), Michael Wagner distinguishes between the vertical and horizontal
movements of Soul. Accordingly, while the vertical movement is charac-
teristic of all intelligible entities, the horizontal component constitutes a
unique feature of Soul, “generatively responsible for past and future in
regards to natural and corporeal existence” (2008, 358).
The return or ascension of an individual soul to the intelligible reality
of Intellect and even the One is a main topic in Plotinus’ work. In fact, it
might be a reflection of the philosopher’s own mystical experiences.
Porphyry reports that during the years of his studies with Plotinus, the
latter experienced union with the One no less than four times (Reale 1990,
306). Since the One and Intellect are eternal realities, the successful ascen-
sion of an individual soul has the effect of leaving time and entering eter-
nity: “when soul . . . returns to unity time is abolished” (Armstrong 1967,
345). Because eternity is a timeless state which can only be realized in the
intelligible realm, there can be no corresponding manifestation to it in the
physical world. To return to Plotinus’ biography, despite his numerous
mystical experiences, the span of his life measured 65 years which was not
very long, even by the standards of ancient Rome.

Conclusion

The above analysis has shown several similarities and differences between
the conception of time in the Laozi and the Enneads ascribed to Plotinus.
With regard to similarities, it has become clear that the two envi-
sioned time to come into play first at the prenatural stage of the cosmo-
gonic process, that is, before the emergence of physical reality. However,
while in the Laozi the most likely elements to produce time are entities as-
sociated with numbers one, two, and three, Plotinus identifies Soul as the
locus of time emergence.
Furthermore, in their temporal deliberations the two works utilize
metaphors associated with both linear and cyclical motions and spatial
characteristics. On the one hand, this goes against the persistent belief that
the Chinese time model was predominantly cyclical (e. g., Pankenier 2004,
130-31); on the other hand, it supports recent comparative investigations
into time metaphors in Mandarin and English, which suggest that the only
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 85

difference between them “lies not in their conceptualization but in the rel-
ative frequency of their use” (Link 2013, 137).
With regard to differences, the main item is their view of the tem-
poral characteristics of the highest reality. It appears that the Laozi was not
particularly interested in associating the Way with timelessness, as follow-
ing from its “empty” characteristics. Instead, the text formulates the prin-
ciple according to which the Way can endure under conditions of inces-
sant change. This principle is return and the perpetuity achieved through
it is in fact a form of continuous duration. The reason for this may have
been the “holistic” worldview of the early Chinese, who did not separate a
higher reality and the human world (Allan 1997, 22). Accordingly, even
the highest principles had practical significance for humans as objects of
emulation. While many of the formulations of the One in Plotinus can also
be applied to the Way, their temporal significance is very different. The
One in the Enneads is eternal, but it does not endure, because its eternity is
ultimately founded in timelessness.
Lastly, whereas in the Laoizi return is mainly associated with the
downward movement, Plotinus views it as the opposing ascending mo-
tion. Moreover, in the former, return can be accomplished in many differ-
ent areas, such as cosmology, politics, ethics, personal cultivation etc. In
most of these cases, personal cognitive grasp of the Way is not necessarily
part of the process. For Plotinus, on the other hand, return can be complet-
ed only as a noetic vision of the Intellect’s ideas. Even though certain mor-
al virtues are recognized as conducive to the success of this intellectual
endeavor. This shows that the scope of Laozi’s return is much wider than
it was conceived by Plotinus.

Bibliography
Allan, Sarah. 1997. The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
_____, and Crispin Williams, eds. 2000. The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the Interna-
tional Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998. Berkeley: The Society for the
Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies.
_____. 2003. “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian.”
T’oung Pao 89.4/5:237-85.
Armstrong, A. H. 1967. “On Eternity and Time.” In Plotinus, Vol. III, 291-356. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
_____. 1984. Plotinus, Vol. V. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
86 / Andrej Fech

_____. 1988. Plotinus, Vol. VI. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beierwaltes, Werner. 1995. “Einleitung.” In Über Ewigkeit und Zeit, 9-88. Frankfurt
am Main: Klostermann.
Bokenkamp, Stephen R. 1999. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press.
Bussanich, John. “Plotinus’ Metaphysics of the One.” In The Cambridge Companion
to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, 38-65. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press.
Chan, Allan K. L. 1991. Two Visions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-
Shang Kung Commentaries on the Lao-Tzu. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Chang, Leo S., and Yu Feng. 1998. The Four Political Treatises of the Yellow Emperor.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Chen Guying 陳鼓應. 2006. Laozi jinzhu jinyi 老子今注今譯. Beijing: Shangwu
yinshua guan.
Chen Ligui 陳麗桂. 2017. “Dao de yicheng ji qi yihan yanhua” 道的異稱及其意涵衍
化. In Gujian xinzhi: Xi Han zhushu Laozi yu Daojia sixiang yanjiu 古簡新知：西
漢竹書老子與道家思想研究, edited by Han Wei 韓巍, 315-45. Shanghai:
Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Chen Mengjia 陳夢家. 2016. Laozi fen shi 老子分釋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Cheng, Chung-ying. 1974. “Greek and Chinese Views on Time and the Timeless.”
Philosophy East and West 24.2:155-59.
Clark, Stephen R. L. 1996. “Plotinus: Body and Soul.” In The Cambridge Companion
to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, 275-91. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Cook, Scott. 2012. The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation.
Ithaca: Cornell University.
Corrigan, Kevin. 1996. “Essence and Existence in the Enneads.” In The Cambridge
Companion to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, 105-29. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Dy, Manuel B., Jr. 1996. “The Chinese View of Time: A Passage to Eternity.” In The
Humanization of Technology and Chinese Culture, edited by Tomonobu Imamichi,
Wang Miaoyang, and Liu Fangtong, 251-68. Washington, DC: Council for Re-
search in Values and Philosophy.
Erkes, Eduard. 1945. “Ho-Shang-Kung’s Commentary on Lao-tse.” Artibus Asiae 8.
2-4:121-96.
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 87

Fech, Andrej. 2015. “The Protagonists of the Daoist Treatise Wenzi in Light of New-
ly Discovered Materials.” Oriens Extremus 54:209-48.
_____. 2018. “Reflections on Artisan Metaphors in the Laozi: Who Cuts the “Un-
carved Wood” (pu 樸)? (Part 1).” Philosophy Compass 13.3.
Gatti, Maria Luisa. 1996. “Plotinus: The Platonic Tradition and the Foundation of
Neoplatonism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P.
Gerson, 10-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gerson, Lloyd P. 1996. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed-
ited by Lloyd P. Gerson, 1-9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Girardot, N. J. 1988. Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Lon-
don: University of California Press.
Graham, A. C. 1998. “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan.” In Lao-tzu and Tao-te-
ching, edited by Livia Kohn and Michael Lafargue, 23-40. Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press.
_____. 1989. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle:
Open Court Publishing Company.
Jhou, Nihel. 2020. “Daoist Conception of Time: Is Time Merely a Mental Construc-
tion?” Dao 19.4:583-99.
Hall, David. L., and Roger T. Ames. 1995. Anticipating China: Thinking Through the
Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Harbsmeier, Christoph. 1995. “Some Notions of Time and of History in China and
in the West.” In Time and Space in Chinese Culture, edited by Chun-Chieh
Huang and Erik Zürcher, 49-71. Leiden: Brill.
He Ning 何寧, ed. 1998. Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Henricks, Robert G. 1989. Lao Tzu: Te-Tao Ching—A New Translation Based on the
Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts. New York: Ballantine Books.
_____. 2000. Lao tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents
Found at Guodian. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kaltenmark, Max. 1968. Lao Tzu and Taoism. Translated from the French by Roger
Greaves. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kenny, Anthony. 2004. Ancient Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy, Vol.
1. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, Hongkyung. 2012. The Old Master: A Syncretic Reading of the Laozi from the
Mawangdui Text A Onward. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Klein, Esther S. 2013. “Constancy and the Changes: A Comparative Reading of
Heng Xian.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12:207-24.
88 / Andrej Fech

Kohn, Livia. 1998. “The Lao-tzu Myth.” In Lao-tzu and Tao-te-ching, edited by Livia
Kohn and Michael LaFargue, 41-62. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Lau D. C. 2001 [1963]. Tao Te Ching. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Lewis, Mark Edward. 2006. The Flood Myths of Early China. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Link, Perry. 2013. An Anatomy of Chinese. Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Liu Xiaogan 劉笑敢. 2016. Laozi gujin 老子古今. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue
chubanshe.
_____. 2017. “Jianbo ben Laozi de sixiang yu xueshu jiazhi--yi Beida Hanjian wei
qiji de xin kaocha” 簡帛本老子的思想與學術價值: 以北大漢簡為契機的新考察.
In Gujian xinzhi 古簡新知, edited by Han Wei 韓巍, 103-27. Shanghai: Shanghai
guji chubanshe.
Loewe, Michael. 1995. “The Cycle of Cathay: Concepts of Time in Han China and
Their Problems.” In Time and Space in Chinese Culture, edited by Chun-Chieh
Huang and Erick Zürcher, 305-28. Leiden: Brill.
Nienhauser, William H. Jr., ed. 1995. The Grand Scribe’s Records. Volume I: The Basic
Annals of Pre-Han China. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Queen, Sarah A. 2013. “Han Feizi and the Old Master: A Comparative Analysis and
Translation of Han Feizi Chapter 20, “Jie Lao,” and Chapter 21, “Yu Lao”.” In
Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, edited by Paul R. Goldin, 197-256.
New York.: Springer.
Pankenier, David W. 2004. “Temporality and the Fabric of Space-Time in Early
Chinese Thought.” In Time and Temporality in the Ancient World, edited by
Ralph M. Rosen, 129-46. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology.
Perkins, Franklin. 2015. “Fanwu Liuxing 凡物流行, ‘All Things Flow into Form,’ and
The One in the Laozi.” Early China 39:195-232.
Reale, Giovanni. 1990. A History of Ancient Philosophy IV: The Schools of the Imperial
Age. Translated by John R. Catan. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Seidel, Anna, and Lothar von Falkenhausen. 2008. “The Emperor and His Counci-
lor Laozi and Han Dynasty Taoism.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 17:125-65.
Smith, Andrew. 1996. “Eternity and Time.” In The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus,
edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, 196-216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Unschuld, Paul U. 2016. Huang Di Nei Jing Ling Shu: The Ancient Classic on Needle
Therapy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Temporality in Laozi and Plotinus / 89

Wagner, Michael F. 2008. The Enigmatic Reality of Time: Aristotle, Plotinus, and Today.
Leiden: Brill.
Wagner, Rudolf G. 2003. A Chinese Reading of the Daodejijng: Wang Bi’s Commentary
of the Laozi with the Critical Text and Translation. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Wang Zhongjiang 王中江. 2015. Chutu wenxian yu Daojia xinzhi 出土文獻與道家新
知. Beijing: Zhonghua chubanshe.
_____. 2019. “The Concept and Genealogy of the Ultimate Origin: An Exploration
of Constancy in the Hengxian Text of the Shanghai Museum Collection.” Jour-
nal of Chinese Philosophy 46.1-2:3-32.
_____. 2019. “Abnormalities and Return: An Exploration of the Concept Fan 反 in
the Laozi.” Religions 10:32; doi:10.3390/rel10010032.
Wohlfart, Günter. 2001. Der philosophische Daoismus: Philosophische Untersuchungen
zu Grundbegriffen und komparative Studien mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des
Laozi (Lao-tse). Köln: ed. chora.
Xing, Wen. 2015. “Early Daoist Thought in Excavated Bamboo Slips.” In Dao Com-
panion to Daoist Philosophy, edited by Xiaogan Liu, 101-28. New York: Springer.
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere

Time in Daoism and Ancient Greece

NADA M. SEKULIC

The Way (Dao) comes into being by people walking.

Things come into being by people naming. (Zhuangzi)

Daoist philosophy has always focused on studying the rhythmic cycles of

nature in time and space, believing that the deepest wisdom comes from
understanding their ongoing dynamic. Unlike ancient Greek philosophy at
the root of all Western thought, it centers more on comprehending the
cosmic processes, stages, transitions, and transformations than on estab-
lishing distinct lines and differentiating between the more static dimen-
sions of form and essence, senses and mind, chaos and cosmos, physis and
nomos.
In general, moreover, philosophers both in early Greece and ancient
China (6th-3rd c. BCE) tend to contain many religious elements, only gradu-
ally engaging with scientific evidence, applied knowledge, political debate,
and strategic application. The abstract and religious cannot always be
clearly divided, and philosophers at the time had to be both erudites and
sages, some even being considered demigods.
Comparing the philosophy of the two areas, Xu Keqian (2010) argues
that ancient Greek philosophers focused on the exploration of truth while
Daoist thinkers concentrated more on the exploration of Dao. Starting
from this point, he outlines a number of parallels and differences. Howev-
er, truth and Dao do not entirely match. In pre-Socratic thought, the word
for “truth” was aletheia, meaning “disclosure” and indicating something
unconcealed. The term may also be translated as “direct insight” into fac-
tual reality. The most appropriate match of “truth” in this sense in classical
Chinese is zhen 真 rather than dao 道, indicating that, when truth unveils
itself, consciousness and reality are indistinguishable.
It seems more appropriate to compare the term dao to the ancient
terms nous or logos, since all three refer to the universal foundation of the
90
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 91

cosmos, to the hidden structure, order, and law underlying everything.

Nous and logos indicate unity and compatibility between thought and
cosmos; they express the deep belief of the archaic Greeks ever since Par-
menides that rational thought and reality must coincide, be the same, re-
late to the same, or have a corresponding relationship—a principle fully
and with great precision formulated later by Aristotle. Therefore, in an-
cient Greece, the practice of philosophical self-cultivation was primarily
linked to logic and based on reason and dialectic or dialogue (Heidegger
1984, 5-34).
This perspective of the universe implied the idea of two planes of ex-
istence—one apparent and one hidden—but still existing, like an invisible
root, which is not self-evident. The apparent is related to the phenomenal
world of opinion, and the hidden one with the unchanging and absolute
basis of the universe that can only be reached by logic and thought. Time
in that division belongs to illusion—it is a measure of change and has
meaning only for those who experience it. For example, the time of the
great celestial cycles (the relative positions of the fixed stars and the plan-
ets) shape a different time than that of humanity, which is insignificant
and almost non-existent in relation to them. The essence of time is deter-
mined by the interrelationship of perishable things and processes.
For the ancient Greeks until Plato, time has no beginning and no end,
but appears in cycles, large and small, and is therefore like a seed from
which everything is born and disappears again. What is revealed behind it
(meta) contains the logos, the law of events expressed by the nature of logi-
cal thinking, as that which can be known in advance about the things of
the universe (tà mathémata).
For ancient Daoist thought as presented in the Zhuangzi, change oc-
curs beyond prediction and this is an inherent property of the universe. It
can be followed, but not comprehended or controlled. That is why the
process of coming to fundamental truths is connected with the task of
emptying the mind and following the natural process or becoming of
things. In this process time and its nature are revealed, that is, time as
something that is always at least partly unpredictable and in a constant
process of creation, not as something that belongs to the world of illusions.
Consequently, in the Daoist approach, the connection between
thought, truth, and reality is far more enigmatic, vaguer, and a great deal
more unpredictable. It always relates to cultivation practice and a particu-
lar way of living in the world. In Daoism, the human being should align
with Dao in order to achieve a state of oneness or some kind of insight that
goes beyond words. Reaching this level or vision, attaining the “land-
scape” of Dao as a whole, is only possible through intuition and by nurtur-
92 / Nada Sekulic

ing a certain way of life (Schwartz 1985). It is a dynamic process, a going-

along with the rhythmic, ever-changing patterns of nature rather than a
stabilizing, static inquiry, a sophisticated logical reflection, as preferred by
the ancient Greeks.
Let us say, somewhat simplified and in modern language, that the
Daoist understanding of time is closer to quantum theory than ancient
Greek thought, which requires a consistent and deductively derived logi-
cal description of the distinction between illusion and truth. This is so be-
cause in Daoist thought it is clear that time both is and is not. Its nature is
twofold, it is in constant flux of becoming and disappearing. However,
this does not make it illusory and/or distant from the truth, but only ob-
scure to human beings.
In this sense, in ancient Daoist thought, the science of being as a being
(being identical to oneself) or metaphysics in the true sense of the word is
not possible, nor can the nature and essence of time be explained from this
principle. Daoist philosophy requires the notion of becoming as something
that is not logically grounded. The usual interpretation of ancient Chinese
philosophy sees it as primitive or undeveloped-naturalistic, a notion that
goes back to Hegel and his limited understanding of Chinese philosophy,
aesthetics, and history (Sekulic 2015). In contrast, Daoists deconstructed
metaphysics and metaphysical language, which is the core of Western in-
tellectual tradition, even at the dawn of Chinese intellectual history and
can be quoted as an ancient critique of logocentrism (Burik 2006; Sekulic
1997; 2004).

Dao
Dao, both as term and concept, is crucial for understanding Daoist thought.
The polysemic and long-term use of the word make it rather intricate and
obscure it to a certain degree. The character first appears during the Zhou
dynasty (1122-221 BCE) on numerous bronze objects in an archaic bronze
script version, on records preserved on bamboo slips, as well as inscrip-
tions marking major rituals and important events. It consists of the graphs
for “head,” a stylized “eye,” and the action of “walking,” thus fundamen-
tally indicating intentional, conscious movement.
From here, the character developed multiple meanings that partially
overlap, including those used in everyday life as well as in highly sophis-
ticated philosophical discourse. In modern Chinese, its meaning is quite
pragmatic, signifying path, street, or direction of movement. However,
considering its ancient and philosophical meaning, Dao indicates the
highest harmony between humanity and the cosmos, the general underly-
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 93

ing and invisible ontological principle, as well as the method and purpose
of self-cultivation. In its earliest use, it also indicated a well-governed state,
that is, a state established on the principles of Dao, which, according to
some authors, even factually existed in the area of present-day Hunan
(Boodberg 1957, 598-618).
In terms of cosmology, Dao from an early age was connected to polit-
ical systems, since rulership had to be established on divine and cosmic
principles. Each kingdom and dynasty struggled to prove its divine origin
in its own way, and Dao in this context was a prominent feature, despite
the fact that the ideal of the Daoist sage did not necessarily imply an active
political life (Wang 2006).
In Daoist thought, Dao represents the principle of flowing, growing,
and always changing reality. It appears more as a vague symbol than a
notion or concept with a clearly defined scope and content. In fact, accord-
ing to the Daode jing, Dao is nameless and ineffable, so that the word pre-
sents merely a limited designation for something that cannot be restricted
to language. Rather, it represents the “way” as the core of reality, the truly
existing principle of maintaining and nurturing the universe. It implies the
overarching order inherent in all beings, including humans. They can un-
derstand and follow it only through a process of purposive, meaningful,
and harmonious living, always maintaining the awareness of social and
natural environment. As the Zhuangzi says, “Dao comes into being by
people walking.”
While the ancient Greeks studied change primarily in terms of place,
that is, as quantitative, the term for “change” or “becoming” (hua 化), so
important in Daoist thought, required a qualitative change. Even in mod-
ern Chinese, it still forms an element in a series of composite terms, all
closely associated with the idea of transformation. Examples include
“change” (bianhua 變化), “chemistry” (huaxue 化学), “purifier” (jinghuaqi 净
化器), “culture” (wenhua 文化), “digestion” (xiaohua 消化), and “moderniza-
tion” (xiandaihua 现代化). All these imply that numerous dimensions of life
are predicated on change and that time, as its key paradigm, relates to
qualitative transformation.
So, when Zhuangzi says that Dao comes into being by people walk-
ing, he does not mean “changing place,” but undergoing a transformation,
leaving the realm of things and names and embracing processes. Time has
a relationship to relative terms. Time is not a thing, it is constantly being
created, always partly unpredictable, which corresponds to the phenome-
nal perception of time, as opposed to the idea of time as an illusion, which
requires abstraction as a medium for understanding the phenomenal
world.
94 / Nada Sekulic

Nonbeing

A key Daoist concept that well demonstrates the difference between an-
cient Greek and Daoist ways of thinking about time in the greater cosmo-
logical context is nonbeing (wu 無), a latent, flowing underbelly of the ex-
isting world. It finds prominent expression in effortless action or “nonac-
tion” (wuwei 無為), a way of moving along with things in flow—unplanned
and unpredictable, open to changes and ongoing transformation. Its oppo-
site is being (you 有), visible and tangible existence as we know it, which
connects to “having action” (youwei 有為), that is, an intentional, analytical,
deliberate plan of doing associated with specific objects. The latter implies
an order that must be constructed and actively maintained, planned and
executed in time, establishing a matrix of control over the present that in-
volves conscious study and awareness of the past and careful planning of
the future.
Being, as much as “having action,” matches the principle that has
shaped the basic matrix of Western thinking, while nonbeing and nonac-
tion express the logic of organic, continuously emerging structures not
composed of separated parts built one by one. Biological structures are
always interacting with and dependent on the environment: their growth
is spontaneous and not necessarily related to human purposes. Joseph
Needham, a major expert on Chinese civilization in comparison to the
West, speaks of an “organismic philosophy of China” (1954).
Grammatically the term “nonaction” consists of two words, “nonbe-
ing,” which signifies absence, non-existence, and latency, plus “action”
which means “doing.” Essentially, it means “acting in nonbeing.” In con-
trast to inactivity, according to an explanation given in the Zhuangzi, it
represents a way of going with the flow, of living in close familiarity with
the natural cycles and their inherent rhythms. It indicates the use of natu-
ral patterns of timing and flowing in people’s actions, matching nature as
it acts in its own unique way. That is to say, if people act in harmony with
nature, relating to the rhythms and time patterns of the sun and the moon,
a significant part of activities necessary to achieve certain goals become
part of a temporal flow (Mair 1998).
Expressed by the principles of spontaneity and emptiness, nonaction
marks how the world was created, emerging organically through constant
change and transformation from nonbeing as the underlying ground with
no demiurge or original creator. Thus, when Laozi compares Dao with the
mother of all, he does not introduce a theistic notion but rather emphasiz-
es the biogeneric principle. When he replaces the concept of heaven, dom-
inant in Zhou thought as the potent force underlying and directing all ex-
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 95

istence, with the more amorphous Dao, he relinquishes the very meaning
of intentionality, the ultimate intention of any higher force. Everything
that exists moves in temporal cycles of spontaneous emergence and disso-
lution, making nonbeing and latency a constitutive aspect of reality.

Being

This notion is entirely alien to pre-Socratic thinkers whose central focus is

on being. Even Democritus, who accepted the existence of nonbeing,
thought about it only in terms of “empty space” while still thinking of at-
oms, the essential substances of universe, as unchangeable. The same con-
trast also applies to Western mystical teachings, which are deeply eschato-
logical and mostly theistic. Daoist mysticism aims at recognizing the mo-
ment when nonbeing connects to being in everyday life, in everything that
surrounds people, in the world of “there is” (Schwartz 1985, 199). The
world of transient things is neither less real nor does it represent a degra-
dation of spiritual principles, as it would in Western thought.
Until Plato and in particular his dialogue Timaeus, chaos and cosmos,
mythos and logos, image and abstraction were mutually interchangeable.
From then on, however, the philosophical interpretation of the ancient
Greek heritage recognized only rational thinking as generative and elevat-
ed it to the most important principle of ancient Greek thought.
According to the Eleatic school of philosophy, whose teachings di-
rectly precede Plato’s philosophy and which exerted a great influence on
all later schools, only the One exists. It is static and without motion, the
universal principle of reality that overshadows all, so that that plurality
does not really exist and spatial motion as well as temporal flow are an
illusion. They proved this with the method of logical argument, best
known for Zeno’s aporias. It is based on discovering the logical
contradictions in common sense perception, applying the reduction of the
common beliefs to a “paradox,” from para meaning “behind” and doxa in-
dicating “opinion.” In this manner, thinkers were able to deny the initial
thesis through reductio ad absurdum or demonstration to the point where it
becomes impossible. The method works with the extraction of truth by
apagogical arguments or the appeal to extremes, favoring abstraction over
sensory reality. Zeno’s arguments against motion and temporal flow are
well-known, such as the story of the race of Achilles and the tortoise.
His first argument supposes that one needs to cross a path. In order
to achieve that, it is necessary—according to the Pythagorean thesis—to go
through an infinite number of points in finite time. However, it is impos-
sible to cross an infinite number of points in finite time, and thus the path
96 / Nada Sekulic

constitutes an infinite distance. In fact, no object can cross any distance,

because the same difficulty always appears, so we must conclude, there-
fore, that no movement is possible.
In his second argument, Zeno presents a scene where Achilles and a
turtle run a race. Achilles gives the turtle a certain advantage, but by the
time he reaches the place where the turtle started, she has already moved
on to the next point. When he gets to that point, she has already covered a
new distance, no matter how small. Thus, Achilles constantly approaches
the turtle, but he can really never reach it due to the Pythagorean assump-
tion that length is composed of an infinite number of points. Therefore,
although the Pythagoreans claim the possibility of movement, they them-
selves make it impossible by their own teaching.
In the third argument against movement, Zeno argues with the Py-
thagorean understanding that an arrow in flight should occupy a certain
position in space, since a certain position in space means to be at rest. He
says, “An arrow that looks like it is flying does not actually fly, but stands
motionless, because if it were to fly, it would have to be at all times and
not be in one place.”
Even the ancient Greeks undertook many attempts to solve Zeno’s
aporia. Aristotle, for example, put forward the philosophical argument
that space and time are only potentially divisible in infinity, but are actual-
ly finite and continuous. According to him, infinity does not have exist-
ence, only potentiality. So, when we talk about time, it is potentially infi-
nitely divisible, but actually it is a continuum and its punctuated nature
relates to “momentum.”

Archimedes, as shown in this chart, derived mathematical proof

through geometric convergent sequences. To him “Achilles will catch up
with the turtle” because in each step the time it takes to catch up with the
turtle is less and less than the time the turtle is moving ahead with each
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 97

step. His algebraic solution to this problem is also based on deriving finite
convergent values in determining time and space.

In Comparison

Ever since the Eleatic school, logical experiments and proof arguments
have been part of Western philosophy. Any explanation of the cosmos has
relied exclusively on the power of logical thinking. A key question was:
How can something moving at finite speed in finite time cross infinitely
many discrete points?
Early thinkers found the solution in the sharp separation between
appearance and reality, the rational and the irrational, logos and mimesis,
chaos and cosmos, knowledge and opinion, potential and actual reality,
being and nonbeing. From this eventually came the separation of body
and mind, matter and spirit. Not yet fully formulated in Plato or even Ar-
istotle, it has remained essential to the Western identification of philoso-
phy and philosophical self-cultivation with only one side of these polari-
ties (Nietzsche 1977)
In Chinese philosophy, and especially in the Daoist tradition, this di-
vision never happened, partly because of the nature of the Chinese lan-
guage with its pictorial writing system and inherently dynamic, music-like
grammatical structures (Kohn 2021, ch. 1). Here images form an important
element of meaning and dynamics are at the very root of thinking. Chaos
and cosmos, being and nonbeing, myth and reason closely intertwine. Ra-
ther than mutually exclusive or linearly related, they complement each
other and interact in dynamic flow.
A yet different dimension of the contrast between nonbeing and be-
ing is the central focus on society versus cosmos. Ancient Greek philoso-
phy, and Western civilization in its wake, concentrated strongly on the
rational study of world, focusing on problems of human society as ex-
pressed in the notion of the state (polis), issues of rational thinking, and by
codifying education in academia.
Daoists, on the other hand, maintained a dominant focus on the cos-
mos, developing the ideal of immortality (xian 仙/仚). Immortals are people
whose path, way of thinking, and modes of life are different from ordinary
society, linked in in harmony with nature and moving in close connection
to the cosmos. According to the Zhuangzi, they live in complete spontanei-
ty and keep away from politics and social obligations. Accepting death as
a natural transformation, they show appreciation and praise for things that
others may view as useless or aimless and stridently reject standard social
values and conventional reasoning.
98 / Nada Sekulic

The word for “immortal” consists of the graphs for “person” and
“mountain,” the latter being more than a mere symbol. Mountains are sa-
cred places, and immortals are hermits, people who have retreated into
nature, gone into the mountains to grasp the inner meaning and order of
things and avoid the decline and decay that come from leading a worldly
life. Daoist philosophy is clear on this point: mortal people can transform
themselves into subtler levels of being, into vital energy (qi 氣) and pure
spirit (shen 神), and thereby become immortal.
Here the realm of the gods and the world of human beings are not
insurmountably separate and their temporalities remain linked. Transfor-
mation and holiness are immanent to the earthly world, a feature also ex-
pressed in the strong promotion of physical well-being, health enhance-
ment, and longevity—attained through the practice of a variety of tech-
niques that lead through healing and long life to the transformation into
an immortal. Time in this vision is one system: human time remains em-
bedded in cosmic time, the life expectancy of anyone can be extended in-
definitely, the spirit at the root of the cosmos is infinite, and human beings
partake in eternity at all times.
Greek philosophy, in contrast, gradually relinquished the close con-
nection to the gods, and immortality became the totally other, reflecting a
temporality that may be unlimited but has nothing in common with hu-
man time, which is always structured and always contained. With the dis-
appearance of the concept of arche, the seed of the world, characteristic of
pre-Socratic thought, it lost its organic character. Ancient sages here cher-
ished autarky (autarkeia) as a contemplative attitude towards life, but this
has nothing to do with nature or the cosmos. Philosophers are not linked
to mountains: they are part of the polis and the academia— their bodies
limited, their lives contained, their time short.

The Luoshu

Daoists express the ongoing flow and infinite transformation of life in a

variety of visual and numerical symbols. The best known among them is
the pictorial expression of the interdependent forces of yin and yang, the
energetic dynamic of the universe, known as the Diagram of the Supreme
Ultimate (Taiji tu 太極圖). This shows the unity of opposites in the cosmic
processes, the never-ceasing flow of change, the potent structure of all re-
ality. While in its best-known form only found since the 17th century (Lou-
is 2003), it appears in a more rudimentary version in a chart attributed to
the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhou Dunyi 周敦義 (1017-1073) (Wang 2005).
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 99

Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji tu Diagrams of Yin and Yang

Historically, moreover, the yin-yang diagram goes back to ancient

magic squares, a potent way of visually translating the decimal into a bi-
nary numerical system. Diagrams and charts as much as ancient talismans
were dynamic visual symbols or pictorial metaphors that contained cos-
mic potency and activated certain proportions or different dynamics of
reality in unique constellations, closely related to personal destinies as
well as collective events. They were used in divination, for medical pur-
poses, as seals, and in rulers’ insignia, inextricably linked to the develop-
ment of the Chinese script, in itself a representation of the magical, pro-
phetic, and ritualistic dimensions of life (Verellen 2006).
The most famous among all the various magic squares is the Luoshu
洛書 (Writ of the Luo [River]), allegedly transmitted to the sage-king Yu—
famous for taming the all-consuming flood—by a sacred turtle rising from
100 / Nada Sekulic

the river. The turtle, with its physical structure of flat underbelly and
round shell, in traditional China was seen as a representation of heaven
and earth (see Allan 1991), while its extended life span made it a symbol of
wisdom, longevity, and immortality.
Another origin tale also connects the Luoshu to the great flood, but in
a different manner. To stop the waters, people offered various sacrifices to
the river god, but he would not accept them. Rather, each time a turtle
would rise from the waters, and the deity only accepted the sacrifice when
a child noticed the markings on the turtle’s shell. They were:

In this square of three-times-three sections, odd numbers stand for

yang and heaven, while even numbers represent yin and earth. They al-
ternate, much like the yin-yang diagram symbolizing the continuous
change of opposites and showing the ratio of binary pairs. The four even
numbers appear in the far corners of the square, while the five odd num-
bers form a cross, with number five in the middle. They always add up to
fifteen, a core number of the Chinese calendar, which divides the year into
twenty-four solar periods of fifteen days each.
Thus, the link of the square to annual floods, divine animals, and rit-
ual sacrifices in the origin stories relates to pertinent knowledge of weath-
er, calendar, and seasonal change as well as the exploration of mathemat-
ics as magic and magic as mathematics. The number five in the central cell,
then, connects each pair of numbers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally
whose basic sum equals ten, with five marking the central pivot. In addi-
tion, each corner represents a geographical direction (north, northeast, east,
southeast, etc.)—nine always being south and one standing for the north.
Taken together, the Luoshu represents a complex mandala of spatial
and temporal proportions in the natural processes of the universe. It al-
lows extensions and permutations of numbers with repeated regularities
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 101

(Swetz 1979). Beyond its obvious ritual and magical purposes, it still is
important for the organization of space according to Fengshui and has
great relevance in applied mathematics. The well-known Pythagorean
theorem regarding the relation of the sides of a right-angled triangle, too,
is a magic square based on the number three. Known in China even earlier,
it was preceded by an algebraic and arithmetic exploration of Pythagorean
triples, developed in Greece into greater sophistication and mostly theoret-
ical proofs of geometry.
The oldest Chinese text with formal mathematical explanations is the
Zhou bisuan jing 周髀算經 (Zhou Classic of Measuring and Calculation). It
shows that Zhou-dynasty mathematicians knew of the principles of empir-
ical geometry and made use of what we call the Pythagorean theorem,
providing the oldest known demonstration of its validity (Kline 1962).
Another key feature of ancient Chinese mathematics is their development
of the binary number system, prominently applied in the Yijing, which the
17th-century thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) interpreted as
an early form of binary calculus. He noted that the hexagrams corre-
sponded to binary numbers from 0 to 111111, and concluded that the Yi-
jing proved a major Chinese accomplishment in philosophical mathemat-
ics (Strickland 2006).
To sum up, the Luoshu forms an integral part of the mathematical in-
ventions of ancient China, which also include the accurate determination
of Pi, the use of zero, the application of decimal and negative numbers, the
method of extracting square roots, and the solution of equations with mul-
tiple variables. Ancient Chinese mathematicians solved geometric prob-
lems with algebra rather than rulers and calipers as typical for Plato’s
academy with its dominant focus on geometry, also typical for mathemat-
ics in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In China, on the other hand, geometry was
secondary to, and evolved from, algebra (Temple 1986)—numbers relating
to the dynamics of time and space where geometrical forms connect to
static and stable elements.

The Five Phases

Another dimension of the magic square in ancient China is its central fo-
cus on the number five, which links it to the system of the five phases (wu-
xíng 五行). Marking the dynamic unfolding of yin and yang through time
and space, they signify the stages of lesser yang, greater yang, yin-yang,
lesser yin, and greater yin, and are symbolized by natural features that
relate to each other dynamically: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water (see
Martzlow 2016).
102 / Nada Sekulic

Change is the very essence of these phases, and the word xing literal-
ly means to progress, walk, or move forward. Rather than existing one by
one and denoting a given property or matter, they are markers of relation-
ships, of dynamic connections. Reality in this system is a “bricolage,” to
use a term coined by Claude Levi-Strauss, something created from what-
ever is available nearby, rather than an emanation of stable, solid underly-
ing perfection. It is more repetition that can be calculated than an expres-
sion of an immutable law. This also matches the nature of mathematics: in
ancient China they were primarily inductive and focused on discovering
regularities while in Greece they were deductive, oriented towards proof
and focused on theoretical issues.
The five phases soon came to epitomize the transformation of the po-
litical order, applied sporadically and more cosmologically at first, then
forming the backbone of all correlative thinking at the root of imperial and
social reality (see Graham 1986). A product of the highly unstable political
situation during the Warring States and associated with turbulent changes
and wars (Wang 2006, 5), they yet also exemplify the central focus on dy-
namic process thinking in China, the complete absence of any idea of a
static, perfect ground. Change is the basis of everything, so that both being
and nonbeing are inherent attributes of reality. Magic squares accordingly
show the power of change rather than the perfection of form.
The same pattern also applies to Chinese medicine, which—unlike in
the West, where the body consists of fixed anatomical features—sees the
human being as a flowing network of energy conduits centered on the five
inner organs that represent the five phases within the person. It also focus-
es greatly on dynamic bodily functions such as breathing, temperature
fluctuations, digestion, tissue nutrition, moisture maintenance, and the
like, seeing them as the result of energetic dynamics closely related to cir-
cadian and seasonal rhythms.
Diagnostics are based on recognizing the patterns of disharmonious
functioning of vital energy, and disorders are ideally detected before a
specific illness occurs, since disease is a physical manifestation of an ener-
gy disorder induced by external events such as trauma or internally
through genetic patterns or emotional disturbance. Thus, the organs are
agents of various bodily functions and manifestations of energetic proper-
ties rather than specific material centers recognized in Western medicine.
Transformation of one phase into another, one quality into the next, is at
the core of this system, which moves in temporal patterns and closely re-
lates to natural phenomena. Going far beyond healing and recovery, the
five phases in the human body are the core of health enhancement, lon-
gevity, and even immortality (Kohn 2006).
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 103

The Greek Cosmos

The most complete description of the ancient Greek understanding of the

cosmos appears in Plato’s Timaeus, which outlines the creation of the uni-
verse and humanity (1995). It is preceded by his interpretation of Parmen-
ides’ teaching, that is, of the Eleatic doctrine, in the dialogue Parmenides.
According to this, the thinker taught that the characteristics of being are: 1)
not generated (agenêton) and imperishable (anôlethron); 2) whole and
unique, i.e., the only thing of its kind (oulon mounogenes); and 3) unshaken
(atremes), that is, absolute now and continuous. His teachings imply that
being is one, not many; there is no emptiness in any part of it; and it can be
represented by the perfect sphere, a purely abstract form that does not ac-
tually exist anywhere in nature.
He argues that if you want to understand what being truly is—the
only thing that can be truly known—then you have to exclude all the tem-
poral and spatial differences, motion, and change that we are used to from
the perceptible world. That is, one has to get rid of all those notions central
to natural philosophy.
Characteristically, in Plato’s Timaeus, everything originates from the
One, which means that his starting point is taken from Parmenides’ teach-
ing. All manifestations of the universe are created by dividing the One,
which is full and perfect: it contains no emptiness. Whole numbers are all
powerful and held sacred. According to tradition, when the Pythagoreans
discovered that the sides of a square are incommensurable with its diago-
nal, which required the introduction of irrational numbers, they kept it a
big secret. When a disciple revealed it, he was forced to commit suicide
since the very idea of irrational numbers cast doubt on the basic principle
of understanding the universe.
Since there can be no emptiness in the universe, time and creation
must have a beginning, and worldly time is but an animated image of
eternity whose real essence is form. Even the introduction of the concept
of khora—space, interval, the shapeless shape—also described as “the
mother of all things” or the “third factor”—did not change this. Space par-
ticipates in creation together with form: the demiurge did not leave room
for the concept of nonbeing as a constitutive part of the universe.
Rather, the perfect form of the soul of the universe, the animated
demiurge, is seen as a perfect sphere, which moves circularly and uni-
formly around its axis and requires nothing beyond itself. This metaphysi-
cal description of the geometric construction of the sphere has been inter-
preted as the perfection of the form and served as a metaphor of the demi-
urge. Everything that exists is inscribed in that form. The transition of the
104 / Nada Sekulic

universe to a manifest state, which creates different geometric shapes from

the original sphere, is determined by the intention of the creator.
The theistic principle, the introduction of a creator, forms a necessary
element of this teaching, since forms are static, abstract structures that pre-
cede reality, molds into which all motion must be imprinted. Due to this
conceptual framework, the importance of change is diminished. It repre-
sents all that is perishable and decaying in the cosmos. In other words,
rather than continuous unfolding, creation is a craft business. The demi-
urge as the ultimate artisan brings forth a geometric imprint of himself,
manifest in sets of shapes, and infuses life into each of these forms as in a
mold. Once put in motion, moreover, they function as independent mech-
anisms, but only to a certain degree.
The entire manifest universe, then, was created from five basic pri-
mordial forms, mathematical shapes or convex regular solids that can
transform into one another. Whereas the Chinese model is algebraic and
relates to time, the Greek system is geometric and connects to to space.
The five elements at their root are fire, water, air, and earth, as well as the
cosmos as a whole. Mathematically they correspond to geometrical shapes
that have the same-size surface on all sides and come with three, six, eight,
twelve, and twenty faces—known as tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron,
dodecahedron, and icosahedron, respectively.
Possibly first discovered by Pythagoras, then systematically studied
by the ancient mathematician Euclid and intuitively explained in Plato’s
Timaeus (Lučić 2009, 205), these polyhedra have common properties that
set them apart from the wider polyhedral family. Their faces are regular
congruent polygon surfaces, all vertices and faces are convex and lateral,
their planes are convex polygon, and all vertices are convex. Different
combinations of golden sections can be found in their cross-sections, con-
sidered an ideal of harmony in ancient Greece. The dodecahedron (with
twelve faces) is closest in shape to a sphere and named as the divine image
by Plato: “There is another, fifth form: the god used it for arranging the
starry constellations in the skies.” In other words, it corresponds to the
firmament.
While the dodecahedron corresponds to some degree to the ancient
Chinese idea of tian 天 (sky, heaven, celestial realm), it represents more a
specific ancient attempt to deductively prove the existence of a perfect
form or an Absolute (idea) as the source of all existence. The dodecahe-
dron has twelve faces representing the zodiac and cosmic time.
Also, while in nature the tetrahedron, hexahedron, and octahedron
occur during the crystallization of minerals, the creation of a dodecahe-
dron and an icosahedron (which is a dual form of a dodecahedron), re-
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 105

quire a human hand or a transcendent Creator. That is why the dodecahe-

dron has a special place in Plato’s system: it is a moving image of eternity,
an image of time itself, the first emanating principle of the creator.

Close to the circle as a perfect form, the relationship between the two is
complex and hides the secret of the squaring of the circle and irrational
and incommensurable numbers. To find the mathematical solutions for
their relationship means to find how the creator generates the world. First
Plato then Euclid tried to explicitly connect mathematics and ontology.
They pointed out, presenting a whole system of evidence, that the basis of
the existence of beings is non-intuitive and mental.
In such a perspective, time clearly stands out as immeasurable ema-
nation—part of the world of illusions explained in the myth of the cave.
Defining time as a moving image of eternity, whose essence is expressed
in the generation of life forms from basic and regular geometric shapes,
106 / Nada Sekulic

Plato tried to synthesize atomistic and Eleatic learning as the dominant

and mutually opposite teachings of his time.

The Body in Time

Most of Plato’s Timaeus focuses on explaining the creation and functioning

of the human body, which also arises from a perfect sphere. Created in a
similar way as the universe through the demiurge, its foundation is spher-
ical, with the head as its central and most important part. Its extension into
limbs and torso is due to the fact that, unlike the perfect sphere, it is not in
a position to move evenly without resistance. Rather, it is influenced ex-
ternally and thus gets sick, declines, ages, and dies—moving along a time-
line that is both linear and downward oriented.
The body is further explained through an analogy with the net, which
traps the soul in a deceptive way: the body is like a fish-coop that prey can
enter but not escape, again emphasizing the one-way, entropy-bound na-
ture of Western temporal thinking. Plato also calls it the dungeon of the
soul. Since it works like a mechanism operated by the demiurge, it has
self-regulating properties and, once triggered, gains a certain level of in-
dependence from its creator, moving steadily and inexorably in one direc-
tion only (Wood 1968).
Plato distinguishes between the mortal and immortal parts of the per-
son. When the body dissolves at death, the soul abandons it, leaving for a
higher, purer realm, which is beyond the flow of earthly time, a timeless
state of the eternal One. He accordingly portrays life allegorically as a
large cave—dark and determined by entropy, where the play of light and
shadow is deeply illusory. Education and learning, then, cause people to
turn to their timeless and spaceless essence, leading ultimately to an exit
from the cave onto a plateau where truth manifests itself in eternal splen-
dor. Pure light, utterly revealed, and free from shadow, it shows ideas
themselves—beyond all vicissitudes of temporal existence—in a pure self-
representational glow (Heidegger 1984). The transformative path of the
soul, in other words, leads from the body and the timed to the disembod-
ied, immortal, and timeless (Saunders 1973, 232-44).
In contrast, Daoists work thorugh self-cultivation toward a refined
state, moving from grosser to subtler levels on one single energetic scale.
Rather than freeing the soul from its imprisonment in the body toward a
timeless eternity, they activate the body as a key player and supporter of
spirit, reversing entropy and moving backward in the flow of time. Much
of Daoist practice consists of using, controlling, conserving, transmuting,
and circulating the body’s natural energy flow in order to replace wear
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 107

and tear, exhaustion and depletion with refined vital energy, recovering
youthfulness, vigor, and increased vitality. In other words, it leads from
disintegration to reintegration, from degeneration to regeneration. Daoists
reverse rather than escape the timed existence of this world.
The body here is a place of microcosmic creation, representing the
entire natural world on a smaller scale and similarly populated by deities,
sacred animals, and palaces. Plato, according to the Timaeus, on the other
hand, sees it as a geometric mechanism, a “box” crafted and produced by
the demiurge. For him, the body is a cave full of illusions that can be over-
come by dialectic and logical thinking, whereas in Daoism it contains not
one but a multitude of caves and caverns, wells, streams, hollows, palaces,
and all sorts of energy passages, through which the torrents flow and the
winds bluster. It is filled with bubbling springs, hidden passages, wide
roads, shining stars, and splendid paradises inhabited by immortals and
expresses the Daoist ideal of attaining full realization through the refine-
ment and transfiguration of the body in the ultimate unity of essence, en-
ergy, and spirit.
The Daoist approach to the body in time is works with the belief that
flow can move in either direction, toward increased entropy and decline or
toward rejuvenation and higher purity. The three levels or qualities of
human existence—essence, energy, and spirit, jointly known as the “three
treasures”—naturally transmute from the subtler to the grosser in the
course of life and can accordingly also be transfigured in reverse order by
refining their circulation and recovering more original, primordial levels.
Just as in the magic square, the order of the three treasures is not linear,
but all work together and circulate around each other in a variety of ways,
allowing movement in all directions. Their main symbol is water, a key
factor in transformative change, generally considered an image of su-
preme power, beauty, enlightenment, and even immortality, since it flows
constantly, opposes nothing, and wins over everything. Like time itself, it
purifies all and has no lasting form—making it also a symbol of freedom.

Conclusion

The comparison of Daoist and ancient philosophies, mathematics, and

medicine points to some worldwide characteristics typical for the period
from the 6th-3rd centuries BCE, such as merging myth with philosophy,
magic with religion, reality with scientific interpretation. There is also a
common interest in establishing order on the basis of the principles of
cosmological harmony. The cultural differences between Daoism and
Greek philosophy are most obvious in their reading of the concept of
108 / Nada Sekulic

change, crucial for understanding both, Daoism and the perfect form that
came to define ancient philosophy with Parmenides.
As a result, explanations of the principles of how cosmos and reality
function in ancient China are inductive, while in ancient Greece they rest
on the principle of deduction and logical proof. Ancient Chinese magic
squares in comparison to the perfect sphere in ancient Greece reveal these
differences poingnantly, as does the analysis of basic mathematical differ-
ences in their interpretation—all to help explain the variant trajectories in
the development of Chinese and Western civilization.

Bibliography
Allan, Sarah. 1991. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China. Al-
bany: State University of New York Press.
Boodberg, Peter. 1957. “Philological Notes on the Chapter One of the Lao Tsu.”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20.3-4:598-617.
Božić, Milan. 2010. Pregled istorije i filozofije matematike. Beograd: Zavod za
udžbenike.
Burik, Steven Victor. 2006. “The End of Comparative Philosophy and the Task of
Comparative Thinking: The Language of Comparative philosophy, Seen
through a Comparison of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Classical
Daoism.” Ph. D. Diss., National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Clegg, Jerry S. 1976. “Plato’s Vision of Chaos.” The Classical Quarterly 26.1:52-61.
Gill, Mary Louise. 1987. “Matter and Flux in Plato’s ‘Timaeus.’” Phronesis 32.1:34-
53.
Graham, A. C. 1986. Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking. Singapore: In-
stitute for East Asian Philosophies.
Hackforth R. 1959. “Plato’s Cosmogony.” The Classical Quarterly 9.1:17-22.
Heidegger, Martin. 1984. “Platonov nauk o istini.” Luča, časopis za filozofiju i
društveni život 1.2:5-34.
Kline, Morris. 1962. Mathematics: A Cultural Approach. Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley Publishing.
Kohn, Livia, ed. 2006. Daoist Body Cultivation: Traditional Models and Contemporary
Practices. Cambridge, Mass.: Three Pines Press.
_____. 2008. Introducing Daoism. London: Routledge.
_____. 2021. Taming Time: Daoist Ways of Working with Multiple Temporalities. St.
Petersburg, Fla.: Three Pines Press.
 Magic Square and Perfect Sphere / 109

Kung, Joan. 1985. “Tetrahedra, Motion, and Virtue.” Noûs 19.1:17-27.

Legge James. 1891. The Writings of Chuang Tzu. Chinese Text Project. www.
ctext.org.zhuangzi.
Louis, Francois. 2003. “The Genesis of an Icon: The Taiji Diagram’s Early History.”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 63:145-96.
Mair, Victor H. 1998. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang
Tzu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Martzloff, Jean-Paul. 2016. Astronomy and Calendars: The Other Chinese Mathematics
104 BC-AD 1644. New York: Springer.
Miller, Harold W. 1957. “The Flux of the Body in Plato’s Timaeus.” Transactions and
Proceedings of the American Philological Association 88:103-13.
Mohr, Richard D. 1978. “The Formation of the Cosmos in the ‘Statesman’ Myth.”
Phoenix 32.3:250-52.
Needham, Joseph, et al. 1954. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. I: Introductory
Orientation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Niče Fridrih. 1984. Rođenje tragedije. Beograd: Filip Višnjić.
O’Neill, Timothy Michael. 2006. Ideography and Chinese Language Theory. Boston: De
Gruyter.
Plato. 1966. Država. Beograd: Kultura.
_____. 1995. Timaj. Vrnjačka banja: Eidos.
Pregadio, Fabrizio. 2004. “The Notion of ‘Form’ and the Ways of Liberation in Dao-
ism.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 14:95-130.
Pušić, Radosav. 2001. Kosmička šara: O starokineskoj filozofiji. Beograd: Plato.
Saunders Trevor J. 1973. “Penology and Eschatology in Plato’s Timaeus and Laws.”
The Classical Quarterly 23.2:232-44.
Schuyler, Cammann. 1960. “The Evolution of Magic Squares in China.” Journal of
the American Oriental Society 80.2:116-24.
Schwartz, I. Benjamin. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge,
Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harward University Press.
Sekulić, Nada M. 2016. “Janusovo lice mizoginije; imaginarne anatomije i političko-
simbolička značenja žesnkog tela u srednjem veku i renesansi.“ Antropologija
16.1:53-71.
_____. 2015. “Istorija i estetika zmaja - o estetizaciji nasilja i problemu orijentalizma
u Hegelovoj estetici.” InAktuelnost i buducnost estetike, edited by Zbornik
radova Estetickog drustva Srbije, 297-31. Beograd: Esteticko drustvo Srbije.
110 / Nada Sekulic

Skemp J. B.1947. “Plants in Plato’s Timaeus.” The Classical Quarterly 41.1-2:53-60.

Strickland, Lloyd. 2006. Leibniz Reinterpreted. London: Continuum International
Publishing Group.
Swetz, Frank. 1979. “The Evolution of Mathematics in Ancient China.” Mathematics
Magasine 52.1:10-19.
Temple, Robert. 1986. The Genius of China: 3000 Years of Science, Discovery, and In-
vention. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Verellen, Franciscus. 2006. “The Dynamic Design: Ritual and Contemplative
Graphics in Daoist Scriptures.” In Daoism in History: Essays in Honour of Liu
Ts’un-yan, edited by Benjamin Penny, 159-86. London: Routledge.
Wang, Robin R. 2005. “Zhou Dunyi’s Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained
(Taijitu shuo): A Construction of the Confucian Metaphysics.” Journal of the His-
tory of Ideas 66.3:307-23.
Wang, Aihe. 2006. Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Watson, Burton. 1964. Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Wolfsdorf, David. 2014. “‘Timaeus’ Explanation of Sense-Perceptual Pleasure.”
Journal of Hellenic Studies 134:120-35.
Wong, Eva. 1992. Cultivating Stillness. Boston: Shambhala.
Wood, Richard James. 1968. “The Demiurge and His Model.” Classical Journal
63.6:255-58.
Xu, Keqian. 2010. “Chinese ‘Dao’ and Western ‘Truth’: A Comparative and Dy-
namic Perspective.” Asian Social Science 6.12:42-49.
Zoran Lučić. 2009. Ogledi iz antičke geometrije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
 Resurrecting Daoist Temporalities

in the Taiwanese New Wave

WUJUN KE

Contemporary Chinese directors such as Jia Zhangke 賈樟柯, Wang Bing 王

兵, and Liu Jiayin 刘伽茵, as well as Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-hsien
侯孝賢 and Tsai Ming-Liang 蔡明亮, are often grouped together as contem-
porary Asian exemplars of “slow cinema,” an international film style char-
acteristic of arthouse and festival films. While slow cinema is frequently
discussed in relation to critical theories of duration (such as Deleuze’s
time-image and Bergson’s durational time), I aim to de-secularize discus-
sions on cinematic temporality and use a Daoist lens to excavate the signif-
icance of the Daoist references they employ. By centering spiritual tradi-
tions within films that dilate time, I follow Walter Benjamin’s call to com-
plicate notions of secular, homogenous time with messianic time. In addi-
tion, I situate the wider significance of my argument in discussions about
the “postsecular” in support of the idea that religion does not disappear
with the onset of secular modernity, but instead remains an influential
part of public life (Habermas 2008).
It is crucial to trace how spiritual traditions intervene in contempo-
rary social and economic temporalities in order to define alternatives to
the temporality of secular modernity. Secular modernity, since the advent
of nation-states, has been dominated by time that is secular, homogeneous,
chronological, and measured by the clock. Produced alongside capitalism,
it is used to regiment life for the increasingly brutal extraction of labor. In
concrete terms, modern time is divided into measurable quantities: days,
weeks, months, and years before and after the year zero. This quantitative,
chronological system grew into an official means of marking time, spread-
ing globally in tandem with European colonial ventures and Hegelian no-
tions of teleological history.
By contrast, Daoist notions of time embrace relativity and multiplicity,
positing that the world exists in continual transformation. Rather than reg-
imenting time into compartmentalized units of clock-time or a historicist
succession of past, present, and future, Daoists subscribe to a notion of

111
112 / Wujun Ke

time as unfolding in the interconnected context of the natural world, going

far beyond the limited confines of the human world. The temporality of
Daoism advocates for a return to multiplicity and contingency prior to the
Way’s distortion by the social conventions of the human world.
In this essay, I situate a post-secular approach in the context of Tai-
wan’s post-martial law period, a time of rapid neoliberal transformation
documented by Taiwanese New Wave filmmakers. I discuss Edward
Yang’s Terrorizers (Kongbu Fenzi 恐怖份子, 1986) as well as his landmark
work Yi Y 一一 (A One and a Two, 2000) plus Tsai Ming-Liang’s Stray Dogs
(Jiaoyou 郊遊, 2013), in order to meditate on how they invoke Daoist atti-
tudes towards time, process, and transformation. Each exemplifies the
New Wave style in its observational realism and focus on ordinary life. I
select these two films as exemplary of two possible directions that Daoist
images of time might take. While Yi Yi is attuned to the cyclical, nourish-
ing, self-renewing rhythms of everyday life, Stray Dogs emphasizes the
impartiality of nature and inevitability of loss. Both films resurrect Daoist
temporalities as interventions on the homogenous, empty time of late capi-
talist modernity.

Situating the Taiwanese New Wave

Laden with a multiplicity of sometimes contradictory signifiers—as a re-

pository of traditional Chinese culture, an outpost for global techno-
capitalism, a former Japanese colony, home to at least sixteen aboriginal
groups, and an island under increasing pressure from China to relinquish
its political sovereignty, Taiwan can be thought of a site of crisis, invisibil-
ity, and liminality. Located off the coast of China between the East and
South China seas, it has been subjected to multiple waves of colonization,
including by the Spanish, the Dutch, Ming loyalists, and the Japanese Em-
pire. Because of these intersecting political erasures, Huang argues, Tai-
wan embodies a structure of “negative presence,” referring to the “histori-
cal condition of subjection to multiple systems of inclusive exclusions”
(2020, 189).
Taiwan’s modern governance began when the Kuomintang (KMT)
retreated from mainland China in 1947 to take temporary refuge in Tai-
wan before, as they planned, returning to reconquer the mainland. The
KMT was extremely repressive, jailing and killing thousands of suspected
communists in what became known as the February 28 incident, launching
the “White Terror” and four decades of martial law. In 1979, President
Carter recognized the People’s Republic of China and cut off relations
with Taipei, setting a precedent for other global powers to do the same. In
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 113

the 1980s, massive protests led to the lifting of martial law and the begin-
nings of democratization. During the 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan’s adoption
of an export-driven economy, moreover, led to an intensive period of in-
dustrialization and the growth of an urban middle class.
After martial law was lifted, Taiwanese New Wave filmmakers took
advantage of the increased political openness and committed themselves
to a realist mode that portrays the impact of whirlwind political, economic,
and social developments on Taiwan’s psychic life. They also benefited
from the cosmopolitan offerings of a KMT regime that sought global legit-
imacy, the low-budget filmmaking of the Italian neo-realists, as well as
rebellious rock music from the United States. Because political ideals were
not allowed open expression in the authoritarian social environment;
however, Edward Yang has described the psychic life of his generation as
characterized by “inner rage and outward conformity” (2001, 130). This
sense of tension between inner turmoil and external placidity plagues the
protagonists in one of his landmark films, Terrorizers.
Popularized by literary theorist Frederic Jameson as a touchstone of
postmodern cinema, Terrorizers remains one of the most recognizable films
of the Taiwanese New Wave. The film is organized around at least two
unrelated storylines that intersect in unpredictable ways: a wealthy young
photographer’s voyeuristic obsessions leads him to the scene of a crime,
where he takes pictures of a Eurasian girl (“White Chick”) in the middle of
a hasty escape. Meanwhile, Li Li-Chun, a medical professional in line for a
promotion, navigates a strained relationship with his wife, a novelist bat-
tling writer’s block and domestic malaise. Each of the characters is listless,
bored with his or her life, and starved for novelty and excitement. Their
storylines intersect when the Eurasian girl makes a prank phone call, a
minor event with devastating consequences.
Frederic Jameson’s reading of Terrorizers defined the film as a Third
World national allegory situated within the postmodern world system. He
argues that Terrorizers appropriates a modernist storytelling technique,
Synchronic Monadic Simultaneity, to link storylines that have no apparent
relationship to one another. Jameson interprets this tendency as evidence
for the globalization of postmodern subjectivities, which are no longer tied
to moral categories of good and evil, but instead produced by capitalist
processes of commodification and reification. Jameson notes that, unlike
earlier films in the Taiwanese New Wave, there is an absence of worries
about the nature of Taiwanese identity in Terrorizers. Rather, he sees the
main character, Li Li-Chung, as a “quintessential loser” and an allegory for
a post-third world country that can never really join the first world, an
114 / Wujun Ke

embodiment of “fantasies about the limits to Taiwanese development in a

world system” (1995, 146).
Scholars have taken Jameson’s reading of Terrorizers to task, arguing
that such a reading fails to account for the specificity of Taiwan’s history
as well as New Wave directors’ desires to write stories grounded in local
perspectives. Liu points out that, rather than serving as allegories for Tai-
wan, many of Edward Yang’s male characters are out of step with the
country’s rapid pace of modernization and economic development (2017,
116). Wu Yuyu notes that Jameson’s focus on globalization in Terrorizers
minimizes the longer historical context in which Taiwanese New Wave
directors in the 1980s were dedicated to rewriting Taiwan’s history from
an indigenous perspective (2020, 56).
After the 1990s, indigenization was entangled with globalization and
could no longer be separated into distinct historical periods. Instead, he
argues, the film is situated in a complex, overlapping context with loneli-
ness as a consistent psychological pattern for Taipei throughout different
historical periods. Instead of attributing the characters’ psychic alienation
to the spread of postmodernism, Wu cites Wu Zhuoliu’s 吳濁流 Orphan of
Asia (Yaxiya de gu’er 亞細亞的孤兒) as a reference point for a psychic loneli-
ness that stretches back at least as far as the Japanese colonial era.
I also seek to complicate linear conceptions of history by suggesting
that traditional modes of thought, such as Daoism, continue to exist well
into modernity and post-modernity. Next, I will discuss Edward Yang’s
final film, Yi Yi (2000), as illustrative of my post-secular argument.

Yi Yi

Unlike the self-centered protagonists of Terrorizers, the protagonists of

Edward Yang’s Yi Yi are deeply sympathetic. By indulging in long takes
and leisurely pacing, the film gives its characters and viewers the time to
think and reflect, offering an experience of lived time that is deeply mun-
dane yet magical in its simplicity. Translated into English as “A One and
Two,” the title conjures the image of a conductor waving his baton before
launching into a performance. The film is an orchestral masterpiece that
weaves together many melodies of the Jian family’s life in 21st-century
Taipei.
It follows three family members: the soft-spoken patriarch N. J., the
growing teenager Ting Ting, and the budding artist Yang Yang. They live
in a small apartment with their mother and maternal grandmother, who
has an accident and falls into a coma right in the beginning of the film. The
family’s apartment—cozy, lived-in—becomes a gathering ground for fami-
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 115

ly members and the holding space for the comatose grandmother. It is in-
side, outside, and from the third-floor window of the building’s balcony
that the characters’ lives play out.
The film portrays Taipei at the turn of the millennium—in the midst
of socioeconomic change, struggling to compete in the global economy
while negotiating with traditional values informed by Confucian, Daoist,
and Buddhist thought. This negotiation is personified in N. J.’s struggles to
be honest with his clients at work under the increasing sway of the profit
motive. His struggle to preserve his integrity in dealings with a Japanese
client, Mr. Oto, is threatened by his coworkers’ desire to maximize profit
by using cheaper software produced by a copycat company in Taiwan.
This filmic sub-plot writes an alternative story of what has been called
Taiwan’s “economic miracle”—a boom period resulting from its transition
in the mid-1980s from state-led industrialization to an export-driven, glob-
alized economy. During this time of rapid change, this slice-of-life film
momentarily suspends larger historical trends and zooms into the joys and
frustrations of one Taiwanese family.
While the film traces familiar New Wave motifs of urban alienation
and loneliness, it also seeks answers to existential questions—the meaning
of life and death, the passage of time, and how spiritual traditions morph
and adapt to a materialistic society. The film makes abundant use of the
long take to highlight the understated moments of everyday life. Because
the camera lingers on the urban landscape as punctuation marks or mo-
ments of pause, it makes the viewer feel that bland, unremarkable mo-
ments in life are equally as important as the twists and turns of an action
film. While the film is not short of drama—including a murder, a suicide
attempt, a hasty marriage, infidelity, and a funeral—events are subordi-
nated to quieter moments meant to illustrate the durational flow of time.
Scenes move gracefully and music sometimes spills over the frames. Life is
constantly happening on the margins of the narrative and in still moments
between plot motion, inviting the viewer to travel into a meditative plane
by way of the mundane.
It is difficult to put into words the reasons why this film is so moving.
As A.O. Scott of The New York Times reflects, “I struggled to identify the
overpowering feeling that was making me tear up. Was it grief? Joy? Mirth?
Yes, I decided, it was all of these. But mostly, it was gratitude” (2000). Yi
Yi’s beauty seems to lie in its ability to capture something ineffable, mak-
ing the film a challenge for critics and scholars to decipher.
According to Gilles Deleuze, these strong yet unnamable feelings can
be described as affect, a kind of movement away from preconceived emo-
tions—a kind of emotional deterritorialization—and thus difficult to de-
116 / Wujun Ke

scribe in language (1986). Just as film uses visual language, narrative, and
editing to articulate what cannot be fully captured in words, I posit that
Daoist philosophy is uniquely positioned to articulate the ineffable quality
of this film, as it is characteristically skeptical of language. It also embraces
a more intuitive form of knowledge tied to a temporality that emphasizes
the process of unfolding.
Time is suspended in many ways in the film, but most significantly in
the unanchored temporality of the comatose grandmother. In the begin-
ning, Ting Ting, the teenage daughter, forgets to take out the trash. This
mistake leads to the grandmother taking out the trash, tripping on the
stairs, and falling into a coma for the rest of the film. A doctor advises the
family to speak to the grandmother every day to help her recover, and the
family members take turns speaking in front of her bed without receiving
a response. Ting Ting feels guilty over her forgetfulness having led to her
grandmother’s coma and begins to suffer from insomnia.
Near the end of the film, Ting Ting finally dozes off and enters into a
lucid dream in which her grandma gives her an origami butterfly. This
scene references Zhuangzi’s famous butterfly dream, which imparts the
wisdom that dreaming and waking, life and death, are merely transfor-
mations from one state to another:

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and flutter-
ing around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he
was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmis-
takable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had
dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Be-
tween Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is
called the transformation of things. (Watson 2013, 99)

One is not necessary more real or more significant than the other, and
one should strive to approximate the inclusive impartiality of the cosmos
and embrace transformation as it occurs. The story illustrates the Daoist
principle of the “equality of things” (qiwu 齊物)—a sense of equilibrium
and willingness to let go of attachments to temporary states of being. The
reference to the Zhuangzi serves to open up a more cosmological space that
allows Ting Ting to accept the passing of her grandmother as simply part
of the natural and inevitable transformations of life and death, just as wak-
ing transforms to dreaming and vice versa. She mysteriously finds an ori-
gami butterfly in her palm upon waking, a reminder of her dream of for-
giveness and release from her guilt.
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 117

Messianic Time

The Zhuangzian butterfly in Yi Yi stems Ting Ting’s feelings of guilt by

warping linear temporality and opening up a space for rest and contem-
plation. It also creates a thread of messianic connection between the past
and present as well as between the spiritual and secular realms.
In Ting Ting’s dream as in her waking life, the butterfly is a messianic
figure that redeems her from her mistakes and her guilt over those mis-
takes. It interrupts ordinary life and opens up a temporality of fulfilled
hope, what we might borrow from Walter Benjamin and call messianic
time. Writing at the end of World War II, Walter Benjamin celebrates the
messianic in “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”
Rejecting the Hegelian idea that history obeys inexorable laws allow-
ing for the attainment of ever-higher collective consciousness, Benjamin
highlights that the past is contingent and fleeting. History’s continuity is
that of the oppressors, while history of the oppressed is fragmented and
discontinuous. For Benjamin, it is the historian’s task to interrupt progres-
sive time by blasting moments out of the continuum of history and forcing
time to a critical stand-still. This allows us to recognize moments of imme-
diacy, what he calls “now-time” (Jetztzeit), which fulfills and momentarily
suspends the progression of history as an ongoing catastrophe.
“Now-time” serves as an alternative to linear, historicist temporality.
It is often produced by moments of interruption, unexpectedness, and
wayward-ness, and in Yi Yi, this waywardness is personified by the
youngest character, Yang Yang. Yang Yang is a misfit, constantly teased
by the older girls around him and getting into trouble at school. When his
father gifts him a camera, he begins to experiment with photography and
through this practice, develops a deeper and more philosophical under-
standing of life.
To the bafflement of those around him, he likes to take photos of the
backs of people’s heads. He explains to his father, “You can see what I
can’t see, and I can see what you can’t see, so how do I know what you can
see? . . . Aren’t we only able to see half of something?” The photos he takes
freeze a moment in time, as if literalizing Benjamin’s imperative to bring
history to a critical stand-still. Despite his young age, Yang Yang also
seems to serve as a messianic figure in the film, seizing through his camera
the essence of “a memory that flashes up at a moment of danger” (Benja-
min 1969, 255). While his practice is grounded in aesthetics rather than
politics, he aspires to show people that the social totality is composed of a
combination of partial perspectives. Using an ordinary example of the im-
possibility of seeing the back of our heads, Yang Yang raises the question
118 / Wujun Ke

of how we can say for sure that any of our singular perspective or values
are true. This movie hints that only through skepticism and openness to
unconventional framings can we open our eyes to this expansive and mul-
tidimensional world, echoing the relativism and pluralism of Daoist
thought.
People make choices and must accept the consequences of their ac-
tions, the film tells us. Those who do not accept what life throws at them
look a bit lost and silly, and no one who clings to worldly success or stabil-
ity is happy. At the end of the film, each family member arrives at a sense
of spiritual acceptance. While meeting up with his first love in Japan on a
business trip, the father N. J. reminisces over the regrets and longings of
his youth in his middle-age. He does not, however, stray into the escapist
cliché of a man undergoing a mid-life crisis.
Despite being offered a fresh start with an ex-lover, someone he
claims is the only woman he has ever loved, N. J. rejects her advances and
returns home to his wife and family. He confesses to his wife about meet-
ing his first love on the business trip, reflecting: “It’s just that I suddenly
realized, if I were to start over . . . there’s really no need.” His acceptance
of what he has experienced and lost, with no desire to start over, is an ex-
ample of following the Way. He draws a striking contrast to the characters
in Terrorizers who would love nothing more than to start over again and
again, each time without finding what they are looking for.

Modes of Duration

Malaysian-born Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang’s Stray Dogs (2013)

is most obviously notable for its excruciating, nearly 12-minute take near
the end of the film. It is considered one of the quintessential examples of
slow cinema, a group often labeled as “festival films” because they are
generally considered too austere even for arthouse distribution and exhibi-
tion. Stray Dogs illustrates key characteristics of slow cinema, including the
frequent use of the long take, undramatic or non-narrative structure, real-
ist or hyperrealist representation, and a marked stillness of the camera as
well as its content (Flanagan 2012; Lim 2014).
Flanagan in particular identifies the historical origins, from which
slowness emerges as the trauma of World War II, a feat that accords with
Gilles Deleuze’s distinction between the movement-image and the time-
image in Cinema 2 (2012). Responding to the emergence of fast-paced
commercial cinema and mass advertising, slowness became a way for art
filmmakers to depart from the dominant strategies of Hollywood contex-
tualization and to define themselves against classical narrative models.
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 119

Beyond merely contravening dominant film temporalities, however, slow

cinema can also be a means to reflect on the accelerationism of global capi-
talism and critique widespread mental habits of instantaneous gratifica-
tion fostered by contemporary media technologies.
As implied by its name, one of the main characteristics of slow cine-
ma is the “hyperbolic application of the long take” (Luca 2011, 12). This
formal property produces a mode of realism that requires observational
study rather than immediacy of action and reaction. Because deferrals of
understanding are built into the structure of the film for both the onscreen
characters and the audience, the long take could be considered a specific
manifestation of what Gilles Deleuze calls the “irrational cut.”
What characterizes a long take is not merely the time elapsed be-
tween cuts, but the deferral of rational continuities. In the archive of films
that Deleuze defines as “images of time,” these films reject a predictable
editing structure in favor unusually long takes and unpredictable linkages
from one shot to the next. Rejecting the narrative logic of classical cinema’s
privileging of movement over time, they seek to extract a direct image of
time. According to Deleuze, “It is no longer time that depends on move-
ment; it is aberrant movement that depends on time” (1986, 41).
Deleuze’s account of the time-image draws from Henri Bergson’s un-
derstanding of time as qualitative experience. In contrast to standardized
clock-time, which is homogeneous for every place on earth, Bergson’s du-
rational time theorizes heterogeneity as the ground of lived experience.
Change and continuity coexist in a vibrational universe composed of force
relations. Embracing a philosophy of intuition, Bergson affirms that tem-
poral multiplicity is lived, not thought. Bergsonian duration is an open,
relational whole, and never given or determined ahead of time. Rather
than supporting historical closure through projections about the future, it
affirms the fact that nothing is exactly what we thought it was, and noth-
ing is what we think it will be.
Contemporary scholars have been reawakened to Bergson’s ideas
through Deleuze’s primer Bergsonism (1990, orig. 1966) and his two vol-
umes on cinema. In Bergsonism, he calls for a return to Bergson—not only
to return to his ideas, but also to extend his project in relation to the con-
temporary transformations of science and society. Deleuze turned to Berg-
son to escape the Hegelianism that was prevalent in the French academy.
In contrast to the abstraction of the Hegelian dialectic, Bergson’s philoso-
phy of lived experience affirms internal difference, novelty, indetermina-
tion, and unforseeability.
In Time and Free Will (2018, orig. 1889), Bergson theorizes real dura-
tion on the phenomenological level—defined as the inner experience of
120 / Wujun Ke

time in its immediacy, independent of space and inaccessible to cognitive

consciousness. The ground of experience is qualitative richness of sensa-
tions or qualitative multiplicity, in which states of mind “overlap, merge
with one another, and add together dynamically, forming a qualitative, or
‘confused,’ multiplicity” (Guerlac 2006, 96). Thinking interiority and sub-
jective experience means that in the process of becoming, we never feel the
same thing twice.
Duration goes beyond the phenomenological, as Bergson also estab-
lishes a permeability between the realm of inner experience and the nature
of external reality. In Introduction à la métaphysique (2011, orig. 1903), he
theorizes reality not as a series of discrete states but a process of constant
change and ever-fluid movement. Reality can only be seized through intu-
ition, or “entering into” the object, rather than intellectual analysis, which
can never go beyond mental shortcuts of homogenization and quantifica-
tion.
In Matter and Memory (1991, orig. 1896), he further clarifies that the
mental utilitarianism of human consciousness performs processes of ab-
straction, solidification, and division on the “moving continuity of the real
in order to obtain a fulcrum for our action” (1991, 280-82). While useful for
calculative tasks, these mental shortcuts—homogenization, quantification,
abstraction—spatialize time into a falsely linear chronology. Similarly,
language can never quite capture the kaleidoscopic, moving continuity of
duration, in which “everything changes and yet remains” (1991, 260). For
Bergson, there is no dissociation between permanent bodies and homoge-
nous movements in space, for they are part of the same kaleidoscopic
whole. Rather than thinking about individual bodies with determinate
boundaries that move in empty space, he speaks of change as forces,
“modifications, perturbations, changes in tension or energy”—metaphors
drawn from fluid dynamics that Gilles Deleuze and XXX Foucault would
later take up in their philosophical thought (1991, 226).
While sensory-motor perception reduces reality to representations
that serve our interests and needs, attention or attentive recognition is

a turning back of the mind which gives up pursuing any useful end of the
present perception: there will be first an inhibition of movement, a pause. But
rapidly, other, more subtle movements will graft themselves onto this atti-
tude . . . whose role it is to go over the contours of the perceived object. With
these movements the positive work of attention begins, and not just the nega-
tive work. It is continued by memories. (1991, 110)
Attention is anti-utilitarian, though it also appeals to memory. An
increase of attention means a widening scope of memory images, allowing
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 121

the image at hand to become embedded in a constellation of past images.

It increases our ability to contextualize the perceived image within deeper
layers of memory images, allowing us to resolve objects with greater detail
and specificity than utilitarian, action-oriented perception. Illustrating his
ideas using the diagram of a cone of memory, whose point intersects with
the plane of perception, the present moment (represented by the point of
intersection) is the moment of useful action. The cone represents pure
memory. The more we move toward the more expanded intervals of cone
and the expanded plane of perception, the more distended our attention
and less focused we are on action. L’esprit (the mind) is in constant motion
across these levels or intervals, while the body anchors our attention to the
preservation of life.
The experience of attentive recognition requires drifting away from
the pragmatism of the sensory-motor schema, whose focus on the utilitari-
an present necessarily fashions the chaos of time into a sensible plot.
Hence, slow cinema involves the technical application of extreme long-
takes and static framing to construct an experience of attentive recognition,
an experience in which the virtual—pure memory and pure perception—is
emphasized over the actual. Only when narrative framings are abandoned
does durational present emerge, and this visualization of duration makes
viewers aware of the expansiveness of a reality without any tangible refer-
ence points. Undoing established epistemologies as well as ways of seeing,
it forces viewers to become familiar with the freedom that exists prior to
language and the vulnerability that such freedom entails.
The static long take forces us to endure through our impatience, to
experience the discomfort of real novelty, to not know in advance what is
going to happen next on screen, to become completely open to any tiny
shifts of movement, brightness, or mood in the diegesis. We are forced to
release our conventional ways of thinking and living without immediately
mapping novelty onto pre-ordained coordinates, rationalizations, or ex-
planations. Laura Kissel describes the long take as “a process of discovery,
enabled by the duration of the frame.” She compares the long take to an
investigation, and experiment, “a moment to linger on a question rather
than pursue a particular answer” (2008, 351). Because slow cinema largely
dispenses with narrative organization, we cannot fall back on the ordinary
formulas of making order out of chaos. If we are bored, it is because we
are overwhelmed and unused to being in a completely open, expansive
field with no guide posts for where to look next.
122 / Wujun Ke

Stray Dogs

I take the notion of the long take as a capacious one—beyond describing

only the length of a single shot, it can also encompass a filmmaker’s obses-
sion with time and its representation on the screen. For instance, Tsai
Ming-Liang returns to the same actors repeatedly in his films as if docu-
menting time through his feature films.
Starting in 2012, Tsai developed a slow walking performance with his
lifelong collaborator, Lee Kang-sheng, into a series of short films set in dif-
ferent cities, including No Form, Walker, Sleepwalk, Diamond Sutra, and
Journey to the West. This series of “walking meditations” features Lee
Kang-sheng dressed in a monk’s scarlet robe walking at a glacial pace in
the bustling streets of Taipei, Hong Kong, Kuching (in East Malaysia),
Marseille, and Tokyo. Scholars have made the connection between these
walking meditations and Buddhist notions of temporality, suggesting that
the protagonist is actualizing the pilgrimage of the character of the monk
Xuanzang, who made the journey from China to India to bring back Bud-
dhist sutras in the 7th century (Lim 2017).
Tsai Min-Liang identifies as a Buddhist and claims that his artistic
work “possesses a spiritual component” (Vagenas 2013). While scholars
have pointed out the Buddhist references in his work, fewer have dis-
cussed the Daoist influences in his films. I build on the discussion of spir-
ituality in his work by investigating the Daoist temporal frameworks in his
self-declared last feature film, Stray Dogs (2013), which took home the
Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2013.
The film paints a psychological and sensorial portrait of Hsiao Kang,
a single father attempting to raise his children on the outskirts of Taipei.
We see the man and his two children eating amidst weeds and on public
benches, washing up in public bathrooms, relieving themselves in tall
grass and by abandoned buildings. The father has a job holding a sign ad-
vertising luxury real estate while he and his children live in a one-
bedroom shack. After the father suffers a mental breakdown, a woman
who regularly feeds stray dogs nearby takes the children into her care.
What happens next is uncertain: the sequence might belong to a
memory, fantasy, or dream. We are inside of an apartment and it is the
man’s birthday, and his wife and children sing for him. Despite the ba-
roque lighting and dirt-streaked concrete walls, this looks like a happy
and intact family. They have a recliner, tables, chairs, and seem to live a
comfortable middle-class existence. The signs of trouble are subtle, almost
undetectable—perhaps they lie in his hidden flask of alcohol or the way
that she flinches when she sees him. These subtle details gesture toward
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 123

something sinister lurking under the surface; perhaps alcoholism or do-

mestic violence.
In the last scene of Stray Dogs, the camera holds a static shot of a man
standing behind a woman for twelve minutes in front of a landscape mu-
ral. Silence. Nothing happens for one minute, then two, then ten. Finally,
twelve minutes pass and eventually the man drinks from a flask while a
single tear rolls down the woman’s cheek. He approaches and rests his
head on her shoulder, while she stares ahead, seemingly unmoved. Even-
tually, she leaves. After a few minutes alone, he too exits the frame. This
shot is the longest in a film composed almost entirely of static long takes
and sparse dialogue.
Perhaps this scene signals the end of their marriage, but we are not
told the two characters’ personal history with one another, nor are we en-
tirely certain about the time frame when this scene occurs. If conventional
ideas about marriage and kids point to faith in a future, then the film skips
forward to the point after durable intimacy unravels along with the clarity
of chronological and causal linkages.

Disposability

In the film, three actresses play the part of a woman, but we are never cer-
tain if they play one and the same woman or several different women. She
is psychologically inaccessible and always in the midst of leaving. Aban-
doned like the stray dogs that inhabit the wilderness alongside them, the
man and his children live moment to moment, too precarious to make
plans for the future. While the film may seem to take a humanistic view of
the stray dogs and humans, evoking compassion for those society views as
disposable, Tsai himself gestures to a different conception of disposabil-
ity—one that is tied not to the capitalist economic system that generates
people as disposable, but rather the cosmic impartiality of nature that sees
all things, in a way, as disposable. In an interview with Charles Tesson,
artistic director of the Critic’s Week in Cannes, Tsai reflects,

When shooting this film, I often thought of one expression from Laozi,
“Heaven and earth do not act out of benevolence; they treat all things as sac-
rificial straw dogs” [Daode jing 5]. Those poor people and their children seem
to have been abandoned by the world, but they still have to live. On the other
hand, those who have power and influence seem to me to have forgotten
about this world. They work incessantly on never-ending construction, but
they do not know when destruction will arrive. (2015)
124 / Wujun Ke

The line he cites from the Daode jing is usually interpreted to mean
that heaven and earth follow non-human rules, i.e., they do not subscribe
to the Confucian virtue of benevolence (ren 仁). They treat all things as
“straw dogs” (zougou 芻狗), ceremonial objects used in ancient sacrificial
rites. According to Ames and Hall, “These sacrificial objects are artifacts
that are treated with great reverence during the sacrifice itself, and then
after the ceremony, discarded to be trodden underfoot” (2003, 206). While
this vision of disposability might strike modern readers as inhumane, cru-
el, or unkind, it also points to a vision of the Dao as being completely im-
partial in its treatment of all things. Because nature is indifferent to hu-
mans and human notions of morality, it treats us with the same degree of
care or carelessness as it would non-human beings. Chapter 5 of Daode jing
then goes on to discuss how the sage also treats all people with impartiali-
ty, without giving preference based on artificial codes of morality or other
social values.
By invoking the ancient Daoist text, Tsai Ming-Liang avoids a critique
of disposability based on human conceptions of social justice. As Erin
Huang notes, the film’s dispensing of narrative storytelling reminds us of
“the unassimilability of precarious lives in a conventional humanizing
framework” (2020, 194). Rather, Laozi advocates an encompassing vision
that takes the position of existential humility, being willing to accept one’s
powerlessness and surrendering to change: “In the natural cycle, all things
have their moment, and when that moment passes, they must pass with it.
There is nothing in nature, high or low, that is revered in perpetuity.”
(Ames and Hall 2003, 149). The understanding is based on the premise
that everything and everyone is disposable from the perspective of nature,
even though humans create arbitrary hierarchies of disposability based on
wealth, power, status, or prestige. Tsai gestures at how the poor are more
vulnerable and closer to this fundamental truth of our inherent disposabil-
ity, while the wealthy find ways to shield themselves from the lives of the
poor as well as their own inherent fragility.
Using the impersonal lens of the Daode jing produces a reading of
Tsai’s long take not as a humanizing shot that seeks to bestow the dignity
on oppressed people, but rather as a spiritualized image of time. The
twelve-minute take lends itself to reflections on the span of the couple’s
relationship as well as that of the cosmos, inviting viewers into the Berg-
sonian experience of attentive recognition. The two characters gazing at
the mural, mesmerized, are no longer looking at the art work itself but at
the memories and fantasies it generates, taking in the demise of their rela-
tionship simultaneously with the beauty of the artwork and the idealized
landscape it portrays. Absorbed by their reflections over the mountains
 The Taiwanese New Wave / 125

and rivers depicted in the mural, the estranged couple stand upon a post-
apocalyptic landscape of a building in ruins. As Tsai reflects:

On one whole wall of a crumbling house the familiar landscape in Taiwan is

portrayed in charcoal pencil. It is like standing in front of a mirror, looking at
the farther shore in the mirror. It is both real and surreal. It is both close at
hand and far away on the horizon. If everyone has an ideal world in their
heart, a perfect farther shore, a place deep in their soul: isn’t it right
there?”(Tesson 2015)

Through close analysis of Yi Yi and Stray Dogs as films inspired by

and speaking to Daoist worldviews, I contribute to the post-secular project
of recovering religiosities embedded in a film tradition usually analyzed in
secular terms: on the one hand, postmodernism and globalization, and on
the other, indigenization and localization. Rather than subscribe to the bi-
nary notion of one or the other, I bring attention to the role of the Taiwan-
ese New Wave directors Edward Yang and Tsai Ming-Liang in resurrect-
ing Daoist thought in moments of narrative stillness. References to Daoism
in these films serve as a tool for temporal dilation as well as ethical reflec-
tion on contemporary social problems, as well as a vantage point from
which to critique dominant temporalities and frame lived time as much
more fluid, entangled, and plural than we previously imagined. They
share the insight that lived time is never entirely colonized by hegemonic
systems, and instead, suffused with spiritual resilience and attuned to the
cyclical rhythms of more expansive and cosmological ways of thinking.

Bibliography
Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. 2003. Daode Jing: “Making this Life Significant”—
A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Book.
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Edited by Hannah Ar-
endt. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books.
Bergson, Henri. 1991 [1896]. Matter and Memory. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
_____. 2011 [1903]. Introduction à la metaphysique. Paris: Presses Universitaires Fran-
çaises.
_____ 2018 [1889]. Time and Free Will. Edited by Taylor Anderson. New York:
Odin’s Library Classics.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 [1966]. Bergsonism. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Bar-
bara Habberjam. Princeton: Zone Books.
_____. 1986. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
126 / Wujun Ke

Flanagan, Matthew. 2012. “‘Slow Cinema’: Temporality and Style in Contemporary

Art and Experimental Film.” www. ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10036
/4432.
Guerlac, Suzanne. 2006. Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 2008. “Notes on Post-Secular Society.” New Perspectives Quarter-
ly 25.4: 17-29. www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.2008.01017.x.
Huang, Erin Y. 2020. Urban Horror: Neoliberal Post-Socialism and the Limits of Visibil-
ity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jameson, Fredric. 1995. The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World Sys-
tem. Indiana University Press.
Kissel, Laura. 2008. “The Terrain of the Long Take.” Journal of Visual Culture .3:349-
61. www.doi.org/10.1177/1470412908096341
Lim, Song Hwee. 2014. Tsai Ming-Liang and a Cinema of Slowness. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawaii Press.
Liu, Catherine. 2017. “Taiwan’s Cold War Geopolitics in Edward Yang’s The Ter-
rorizers.” In Surveillance in Asian Cinema, edited by XXX, PAGE NOS. London:
Routledge.
Scott, A. O. 2000. “Of Taiwan’s Bourgeoisie and Its Affecting Charms.” The New
York Times.www.nytimes.com/2000/10/04/movies/film-festival-review-of-
taiwan-s-bourgeoisie-and-its-affecting-charms.html
Tesson, Charles. 2015. “An Interview with Tsai Ming Liang.” New Wave Films.
Vagenas, Maria Giovanna. 2013. “Filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang Says His Work
Should Be Appreciated Slowly.” South China Morning Post, August 27. www.
scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1299497/filmmaker-tsai-ming-Liang-
says-his-work-should-be-appreciated.
Watson, Burton, 2003. Zhuangzi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Wu, Yuyu. 2020. “Remapping Taipei for Jameson? Rediscovering the Indigeniza-
tion, Modernity, and Postmodernity of Taipei.” Critical Arts 34.2:55-68.
www.doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2020.1750446.
Yang, Edward. 2001. “Taiwan Stories.” New Left Review 11:129-36.
Films
Edward Yang, Terrorizers. 1986.
Edward Yang, Yi Yi. 2000.
Tsai Ming Liang, Stray Dogs. 2013.
 Ways of Time

Seeing Dao through Guénon, Teilhard,

and Suzuki

PATRICK LAUDE

Daoism presents visions of time both cyclical and linear. According to its
philosophy, the world manifests in cycles of flows and returns. The reli-
gious perspective, on the other hand, centers on a millenarian vision
where Lord Lao leads the world toward a state of cosmic and social unity
known as Great Peace. This raises first the important question of the rela-
tionship between spiritual transformation and cosmic change. At the same
time, though, this vision presupposes a prior state of degradation resulting
from the collapse of the spontaneous oneness with Dao.
Second, the more general question arises whether the religious view
of time is descending or declining to culminate in final destruction or as-
cending toward a universal apogee. These two views can be characterized
as entropic versus progressive.
Third, moreover, spiritual perception can also focus on transcending
time and reaching a timeless eternity independent from the vicissitudes of
personal life and cultural history. Many metaphysicians and mystics claim
that this transcendent sense can be accessed in the present. The two first
views are diachronic, while the third is both synchronic and trans-chronic.
The following pages explore some implications of this triad of aspects
of time in philosophical Daoism, relating them to the works of the French
thinker René Guénon (1886-1951), the evolutionist theologian Pierre Teil-
hard de Chardin (1881-1955), and the Japanese Zen philosopher D. T. Su-
zuki (1870-1966). It is significant that both Guénon and Suzuki approach
Daoism as outsiders, while their respective intellectual and spiritual per-
spectives show strong affinities with this tradition.
To begin, Guénon contemplates Daoism from the point of view of a
“perennialist” Weltanschauung, as one of the branches of the primordial
Tradition. His most extensive metaphysical contributions root his work in
Hinduism, as witnessed by his two classics, Introduction to the Study of the
Hindu Doctrines (1921) and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedānta

127
128 / Patrick Laude

(1925), while his own spiritual quest found its final abode in the Sufi path.
However, several of his books deal extensively with Daoist concepts, most
specifically The Great Triad, first published in French under the title La
Grande Triade in 1946.
Guénon’s interest in Daoism manifests in metaphysics, cosmology,
and symbolism. He sees Confucianism and Daoism as two branches of the
Chinese tradition harking back to Emperor Fuxi 伏羲 and the Yijing 易經
(Book of Changes). For him, Daoism is “Chinese esotericism,” while Con-
fucian teachings represent the exoteric side of the Chinese tradition. Pre-
cisely because of this difference, he sees Confucianism as liable to histori-
cal decline and disappearance, while Daoism remains out of touch from
temporal demise. As he says,

Confucianism, which represents only the exterior aspect of the tradition,

might even disappear should social conditions happen to change to the point
of requiring the establishment of an entirely new form; but Daoism is beyond
such contingencies. (2004, 66).

A second relevant Western thinker is the evolutionist theologian

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who much in line with Daoist thought argues
for a theology of fieri, one centered on becoming rather than on esse or be-
ing. For him a metaphysics of being prevents the very possibility of any
onto-cosmic betterment because Being is conceived as already complete,
and does not allow, therefore, for any participation or contribution on the
part of mankind and history.
Then again, D. T. Suzuki is the most celebrated early Asian expositor
of Buddhist philosophy in the West. In particular, he devoted several sem-
inal books to Zen, including Zen and Japanese Culture, published first in
1938. He studied Zen under Master Soen Shaku (1860-1919), who recom-
mended him to the German scholar Paul Carus (1852-1919) for a collabora-
tive project of English translation of Eastern classics. Thus, Suzuki pub-
lished an English translation of the Daode jing in 1913. Although none of
his writings are specifically devoted to Daoism, many include references
to it while highlighting the specifically shamanic characters of the tradi-
tion. Moreover, Suzuki contemplates Daoism from the point of view of its
convergences with, and contributions to, Zen Buddhism.
The French metaphysician, the Swiss theologian, and the Japanese
philosopher belong to the same generation of thinkers. Born in the late 19 th
century, the age of the advent of progressive positivism, they died after
World War II, which crystallized a global trauma and fostered a pessimis-
tic and apocalyptic vision of time and history.
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 129

Guénon’s Affinities with Daoism

Guénon’s interpretation of time is inspired by Hindu eschatology through

the doctrine of the cycles or yugas. He sees manifestation as entailing a
gradually widening separation from the Divine Principle, hence fall and
decadence. As time unfolds, the imperfections and oppositions grow, until
they finally lead to disintegration. This is a law of metaphysical entropy,
which means that the highest degree of reality lies in the primordial be-
cause it is still “fresh from” the Source. Guénon’s onto-cosmogenesis re-
veals affinities with the metaphysics of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Let us con-
sider, for instance, chapter 25 of the Daode jing:

There was something undefined and complete,

Coming into existence before heaven and earth.
How still it was and formless,
Standing alone and undergoing no change,
Reaching everywhere and in no danger (of being exhausted)!
It may be regarded as the Mother of all things. . . .

Great, it passes on (in constant flow).

Passing on, it becomes remote.
Having become remote, it returns. . . .

Man takes his law from the earth;

The earth takes its law from heaven;
Heaven takes its law from Dao.
The law of Dao is being what it is. (Legge 1891, 67)

In its primordial and formless aspect, Dao is identifiable with original

chaos, Hundun 混沌. It comes first in time, or rather first before time, and
everything flows from it. Legge’s “undefined and complete” translates the
two characters hun 混 and cheng 成. Hun can mean “including everything”
in a state of indifferentiation while cheng, which literally means “to com-
plete,” implies a reality that is fully formed and lacks nothing.
The second character used in the chapter to refer to chaos, right be-
fore huncheng, is 物, which means “thing, that, is substance or a form of
being.1 The Absolute manifests itself in the difference between something
and mere absence or unreality. It is the independent Ground of everything

1 Compare Frithjof Schuon’s characterization of the Ultimate as Absolute, Infinite,

and Perfect (2000, 26).
130 / Patrick Laude

that distinguishes something from nothing. As for hun, it is what Guénon

would call the All-Possibility, another term for the Infinite. It is “formless”
(Mitchell 1988) because it precedes the production of any form. By con-
trast, cheng refers to “something perfect,” whole or complete.
The four elements follow the creative energy of Dao, from the original
mystery to the universe, then to earth and to humankind. In reverse, each
needs to conform to the one preceding in the chain of being, that is “take
his law.” The word for “law” (fa 法) connotes imitation, reproduction of
patterns but also abiding by laws. The need to “follow” the law of the
higher-level entity signifies an ontological dependence. In this respect, the
last ring, the human state, differs since it is characterized by its capacity
not to follow the law it receives from the earth. While an ontological fall
manifests an increasing contingency on the part of beings, an epistemolog-
ical and spiritual decay results from human straying from the law flowing
from Dao. Legge denotes this straying through the word “remote” (yuan
遠). The character suggests a going away, a distance, but it also implies a
final return (fan 返), both containing the “walk” radical.
Another point of comparison with Guénon’s onto-cosmogony ap-
pears in chapter 42. As James Legge renders it,

Dao produced the One;

The One produced the Two;
The Two produced the Three;
The Three produced the ten thousand things.
All things leave behind them the Obscurity [from where they come],
And go forward to embrace the Brightness [into which they emerge],
While they are harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy. (1891, 85)

The two last words translate chongqi 沖氣, combining the term for
“bland,” “empty,” “vacant,” and “thrust” with that for “breath,” more
fundamentally indicating vital energy or the life force. Obscurity refers to
yin, while Brightness translates yang. The two connote non-manifestation
and manifestation, shadow and light as evident on north- and south-facing
slopes of hills. While yin and yang are principles of multiplicity, they are
so only in relation to a third element which is both principle of energy and
void.
Thus, Daoists associated the number three with the production of the
ten thousand things as the alternating and productive aspect of yin-yang
can only unfold in the Breath of Vacancy. Three is the number of becoming,
one and two being in different ways more static. One is literally not a
number—it is transcendent—while two may refer to yin and yang, as in
the duality of heaven and earth, but it may also correspond more specifi-
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 131

cally to yin and earth in so far as it is the first even number, and directly
related to four, the number of the earth and the cardinal points. Three, as
the first odd number will be paired, by contrast, with yang and heaven.
Moreover, the cyclical dimension of time is symbolically akin to the
number three, associated to the unfolding sequence of the ten thousand
things. Can this connection with time be contemplated as bound with the
metaphysical necessity of fall and decay?

A Daoist Fall?

Three, moreover, can also correlate with space. The Chinese triad of heav-
en, humankind and earth is one of the most significant examples of such a
spatial ternary. In The Great Triad, Guénon delves into the question of the
transposition of this spatial triad in the domain of time. In this scheme of
things, the present as the intermediary between past and future is analogi-
cally akin to the position of humankind in the Great Triad, located be-
tween heaven and earth.
The instantaneity of the present, then, manifests an analogy with hu-
man free will, its ability to emancipate itself from the determinations of
earth and heaven. Free choice can only be exercised in the present, while
past and future pertain to necessity, albeit in different ways. Guénon re-
lates the former to Destiny and the latter to Providence, which are respec-
tively “causal” and “final” determinations. In Hindu and Buddhist terms,
they would refer to the karmic chain or warp on the one hand and the weft
of divine or bodhisattva grace on the other hand.
Human freedom must also be correlated with qi 氣, the “space of en-
ergy” where the combination of yin and yang takes place. As Guénon
says, “The ten thousand things are produced by Taiyi 太一 [lit., the Great
One] and modified by yin and yang” (2004, 35). That is, heaven and earth
are one in the Principle of the Great One, the root state of yin and yang,
which Daoists, based on the Yijing, often also called Taiji 太極, the Great
Ultimate. Their polarization makes it possible for production to occur “in
the ‘interval’ between them.” The Daode jing proclaims,

The space between heaven and earth,

Isn’t it like a bellows?
Empty, yet never bent;
Active, yet reaching even further. (ch. 5; Kohn 1993, 14)

Likewise, humankind’s free will is a place of interaction between

heaven and earth, along the axis that joins the transcendent principle or
132 / Patrick Laude

Great Ultimate to all other domains of existence. The human state is per-
fected in the union of heaven and earth.
While the Daode jing envisions the production of the ten thousand
things as the manifestation of the creative power of Dao, it makes no ex-
plicit mention of a law of ontological entropy. One of the reasons why
Daoist texts do not dwell on the reality of metaphysical degeneracy may
lie in their contemplation of Dao from an immanent point of view, as natu-
ra naturans. Dao is an eternal principle that unceasingly produces the myr-
iad beings and forms: therefore, its activity knows no fall and no diminu-
tion. The great Daoist classics emphasize immanence and production ra-
ther than the distance and fragmentation that they entail as an “unintend-
ed consequence.”
Thus, ontological degeneration does not appear in the foreground of
Daoism, but is entailed by the consideration of its spiritual and ethical di-
mensions. In fact, the immanence of Dao paradoxically accounts for the
possibility of its loss. Its presence is sometimes characterized as small and
humble, non-acting, subtle, and imperceptible. As the Daode jing says:

The Great Dao flows everywhere,

(Like a flood) it may go left or right.
The myriad things derive their life from it,
And it does not deny them.

When its work is accomplished,

It does not take possession.
It clothes and feeds the myriad things,
Yet does not claim them as its own.

Often (regarded) without mind or passion,

It may be considered small. (ch. 34; Lin 1948)

The humility of Dao—“it can be considered humble” (McDonald 2017,

34)—means that it does not impose itself on humankind or, as James Leg-
ge says, “It does claim to be their lord.” This means in return that all be-
ings are free to divert themselves from it, even to obstruct its channels of
communication and flow.
This relates to the very opening lines of the Daode jing: “The Dao that
can be told is not the eternal Dao” (ch. 1). Particularity and multiplicity are
bound to naming, while Unity at the root of all existence is unfathomable
and unnamable. Beyond naming, desire exteriorizes people’s perception of
reality and prevents them from attaining the mystery of things. The chap-
ter lays out the very principle of the fall in the sense that it offers an un-
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 133

derstanding of how the human connection to Dao can be lost. Dao itself is
not susceptible to change, nor liable to fall, but there can be a disconnec-
tion from it that entails a lessening of its power of inner transformation.
Thus, in the same chapter, the distinction between the “wonder” (miao 妙)
of Dao and its “outcome” (jiao 徼). As the text has,

Always remain free from desires—

And you can see its wonder.
Always cherish desires—
And you can only observe its outcome. (ch. 1; Kohn 1993, 13)

Wonder and outcome refer to the kernel and the shell of Dao. Won-
der connotes subtlety and mystery, referring to the hidden essence. Out-
come, by contrast, connotes form, extremity, or limit. The first is like the
unfathomable beginning, while the second is the perceptible end.
Laozi implies that the outcome entails less being and energy than the
source, but his way of approaching this difference is mystical rather than
metaphysical. The key term here is yu 欲, which connotes desire and at-
tachment. While the Daoist perfected human being abandons desires so as
to perceive the mystery that lies beyond the limitations of objects, the man
of desire remains bound by the horizon of peripheral forms and has there-
fore no knowledge of the essence of things.
The principle of metaphysical decay, in other words, is closely in-
volved in the way that humans alert to the dangers of being separated
from original Unity, veiled from it by petty and narrow concerns and dis-
tinctions, by inordinate desires for outer phenomena. The text notes that
the origin of the universe is like a mother, from whom sons are born. The
sons’ knowledge forms part of the existential lot of humanity, but people
should “keep to the mother” if they wish to be “preserved from harm.

There was a beginning of the universe,

Which may be regarded as the mother of the universe.
From the mother, we may know her sons.
After knowing the sons, keep to the mother.
Thus one’s whole life may be preserved from harm. (ch. 52; Lin 1948)

A Daoist View of Progress

From another point of view, Daoist thought may yet also seem to propose
a progressivist consideration of reality through the concept of the trans-
formation of things. Daoism is not given to highlight the permanence of
essences, but rather emphasizes the transmuting presence of the creative
134 / Patrick Laude

principle that flows through everything. Is this akin to modern views of

becoming and a progressivist Weltanschauung?
There is probably no more strikingly representative of the latter as
evolutionist theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who argues for a the-
ology of fieri (becoming) rather than esse (being). For him a metaphysics of
being prevents the very possibility of any onto-cosmic betterment because
being is conceived as already complete, and does not allow any participa-
tion or contribution on the part of humankind and history.
By contrast, Telihard sees the Incarnation as marking the entrance
into a cycle of realization of the Spirit in and through the cosmos. Through
human thinking and realizations, history is given a revelatory meaning
and culminates in the Omega Point of a cosmic apogee of Divine Con-
sciousness. Thus, there is no real Absolute without the perfecting culmina-
tion of the universe through human and cosmic transformations.
Against a traditional metaphysics of Unity akin to Guénon’s, Teil-
hard argues for a “metaphysics of Union.” What does it mean?

In the metaphysics of esse, pure act, once posited, monopolizes all that is ab-
solute and necessary in being; and, no matter what one does, nothing can
then justify the existence of participated being.
In a metaphysics of union, on the other hand, we can see that, when once
immanent divine unity is complete, a degree of absolute unification is still
possible: that which would restore to the divine center an ‘antipodial’ aureole
of pure multiplicity. . . . The created, which is ‘useless’, superfluous, on the
plane of being, becomes essential on the plane of union.” (1974, 178)

In this view, Creation is “antipodial” because it stands at the antipode

of Divine Unity, being utterly independent from it. But it is also like an
“aureole” in the way it endows the Divine Reality with a sort of ontologi-
cal glow. The world is the aureole of God, and as such it has a necessary
function in the advent of the Truth. For Teilhard, the Absolute is in some
sense a reality in progress, a reality that is fulfilled in the end as an ulti-
mate Revelation: the so-called Omega Point. In other words, that which is
not God needs be taken in some way as a kind of second absolute, without
which there would be neither striving toward Union nor Union itself.
Now, notwithstanding its being the immanent principle of constant
transformations, Dao is also transcendent in and of itself. The idea of Dao
being augmented, perfected, or fulfilled in any way is profoundly foreign
to the Daoist philosophical outlook. Dao does not lack anything, and be-
coming or transformation is not a process through which its being would
be fulfilled.
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 135

Moreover, the very idea of a union with Dao is strictly speaking ill-
sounding in Daoist metaphysics, since union presupposes a duality that
the uniticity of Dao precludes. Besides, even from the point of view of on-
to-cosmic reality, the alternation of yin and yang is not directional: it does
not point toward an apogee, an Omega Point. This cosmic alternation re-
volves around a motionless center. It does not move away from this center
in any ascending manner, but punctuates the rhythm of cosmic existence
in a sequence of manifestation and return.
If there is a way, however, in which progress can be said to be part of
the Daoist Weltanschauung, it is in the principle of a return to Dao. This
return may be passive and necessary or active and merely possible: every-
thing flows back ultimately into Dao, while the sage returns purposefully
to it. The most conscious and effective return is spiritually driven: it results
from an inner discipline that aligns with Dao.2 But far from being a human
production, this spiritual process entails a lowering, a diminution, a non-
doing (wuwei 無為) one that gives free passage to the transforming Dao
through “fasting of the mind.”3 Daoism does not magnify human enter-
prises but favors a minimalist proximity to the rhythms of nature. It could
not be more remote from the idea of counting human ideas, sciences, and
techniques as integral elements in a development of the Absolute. The
Daoist sage is simply a kind of know-nothing who knows everything.
Even the collective dimension of a civilizational progress or apogee
does not readily appear as part and parcel of the message of Daoist classics.
Consider, for instance, how—far from being a contribution to a progress-
ing civilization—human skills are contemplated by Daoist sages as an at-
tunement to Dao, which amounts to a quasi-vanishing of the human. Thus,
Zhuangzi’s Cook Ding is not an active participant in the progress of hu-
man technology: he simply follows in the footsteps of Dao and its rhythms,
his own selfhood disappearing in the very process of the unfolding of na-
ture. Human skills are not inventions, rather, they flow from a unison with
Dao.

2 “The only real progress that can be made is in inner space, in the attainment of
enlightenment which releases from the concepts and bondage of both space and
time.” (Cooper 2010, 37).
3 Yan Hui asked, “What do you mean by the fasting of the mind?” Confucius re-

plied, “Bring all the activity of the mind to a point of union. Do not listen with
your ears, but listen with the mind (thus concentrated). (Then proceed further and)
stop listening with the mind: listen with the spirit [vital energy]” (Zhuangzi 4;
Izutsu 1983, 343).
136 / Patrick Laude

Human Straying from Dao

While wise human beings do not superimpose anything on reality and do

not try to perfect it, their unwise fellows can precipitate indeed a fall from
it with the best of intentions and most active doing. Here is a typical ac-
count of the Daoist concept of fall:

When the great Dao declined,

The doctrine of humanity and righteousness arose.
When knowledge and wisdom appeared,
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony,
There will be the advocacy of filial piety
And deep love to children.
When a country is in disorder,
There will be the praise of loyal ministers. (ch. 18; Chan 1963, 131)

Therefore, whatever increasingly lacks on the highest level is partially

compensated on a lower one, always at the cost of a greater proximity to
the principle. Goodness and piety are ethical and religious mediations on-
ly necessary because the immanence of Dao is neither recognized nor
reached anymore. The “men of old” did not need to be “good” and “pi-
ous” since their very being was in agreement, indeed in conjunction, with
Dao. In fact, all human forms and productions are just poor substitutes for
Dao and its natural manifestations.
Zhuangzi is even more explicit in describing human straying:

The men of old, their knowledge had arrived at something: at what had it ar-
rived? There were some who thought there had not yet begun to be things—
the utmost, the exhaustive, there is no more to add. The next thought there
were things but there had not yet begun to be borders. The next thought
there were borders to them but there had not yet begun to be ‘That’s it, that’s
not.’
The lighting up of ‘That’s it, that’s not’ is the reason why Dao is flawed.
The reason why the Way is flawed is the reason why love becomes complete.
Is anything really complete or flawed? Or is nothing really complete or
flawed? (ch. 2)

The first rank of men of old thought that things “had not yet begun to
be.” This is the pure non-duality of Dao, nothing “is” in the sense that
there is only being, a far cry from Teilhard’s ontology of fieri and Union.
The second stage appears when human consciousness witnesses things,
albeit without “borders” between them. Multiplicity is still lived within
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 137

unity, whereas at the precious stage pure unity was lived without any
awareness of multiplicity. The third stage entails the perception of bor-
ders. The pristine unity of things is now affected by determinations.
Here borders are ontological outlines. Humans are aware of them, but
they do not yet superimpose upon them conceptual and ethical distinc-
tions. The fourth stage involves distinctive knowledge qua rational distinc-
tions and value judgment: “that’s it, that’s not,” or right and wrong. At
this stage human epistemology divides reality along mental and conven-
tional lines. It is precisely at this moment that “Dao is flawed.”
The flow of Dao is obstructed, as it were, by the de facto absolutiza-
tion of human and subjective distinctions and differences. The subjective
perception has overwhelmed objectivity, and this substitution is clearly
signaled by the recourse to love, a form of benevolence that is here less the
inherent offspring of human nature than a moral and sentimental impera-
tive made necessary by the distinctions and disorders introduced by hu-
man categories. It is an all too human way to try to make up extrinsically
for the metaphysical sense of unity that has been lost.
The final question—“Is anything really complete or flawed? Or is
nothing really complete or flawed?”—is reminiscent, in typical Daoist
fashion and lest we start overly dramatizing the cosmic downfall, of the
fact that all these distinctions have no true reality in the sense that they do
not touch upon Dao itself. So the Daoist view of history emphasizes the
reality of a human moving away from the Principle of being and con-
sciousness that echoes some of Guénon’s views on human history.

Manifestation and History

Guénon’s consideration of the descending motion of the cycle and the
multiple disorders it entails raises two difficulties. First is the question
whether such a negative view of manifestation, and the fall it speaks of,
ignores the fact that manifestation as such is good or that it is fundamen-
tally none other than Dao. Second is the issue whether there is any form of
freedom and responsibility left for humans in this seemingly inexorable
view of the fall. The latter relates directly to Daoist historical accounts,
since they raise the possibility for humankind to either follow in the wake
of Dao or lose touch with it.
Guénon’s works address the first question in his assertion that mani-
festation, notwithstanding its negative dimension of separation from Prin-
ciple, actualizes realities, phenomena, and human productions that would
remain un-manifest without it. In this respect, it allows for the actualiza-
tion of positive possibilities. In other words, what is loss and distance from
138 / Patrick Laude

a certain point of view is development or growth from another one, and

indeed even “partial disorders . . . contribute . . . to the total order.” 4 Still,
the aspect of downfall is more significant than the aspect of growth, be-
cause loss betrays the perfection of the Origin, whereas the unfolding of
possibilities can only manifest perfection indirectly, and therefore perforce
imperfectly, if one may say so.
However, the relative positivity of manifestation is also perceptible in
terms of the return to Dao it affords. This is particularly akin to the func-
tion of virtue (de 德). Thus, we read in the Daoti lun 道體論 (On the Embod-
iment of Dao), an 8th-century exegesis of the Daode jing.

Dao is all-pervasive; it transforms all from the beginning.

Virtue arises in its following; it completes all beings to their end.
They thus appear in birth and the completion of life.
In the world, they have two different names,
Fulfilling their activities, they return to the same ancestral ground.
They are two and yet always one. (Kohn 1993, 19)

Virtue, therefore, is in a sense the redeeming essence of manifestation.

As regards the second question, Guénon clearly sees human respon-
sibility in forgetting Dao, which comes acutely to the fore with the advent
of what he calls “the modern world.” For him, something fundamental
happened in Europe by the end of the Middle Ages, crystallizing more
evidently with the Renaissance: a theocentric and qualitative universe was
gradually replaced by an anthropocentric and quantitative vision. In order
to understand Guénon’s critique of the modern world, two phases are es-
sential that he sees as determining the final stages of the cycle.
There is, first of all, the emergence of what he calls the “anti-
tradition” and then, at a second stage, the advent of what he names “coun-
ter-tradition.” When using the term Tradition, Guénon does not refer to
any particular religious tradition or even less to specific customs or con-
ventions, the latter being merely human constructs or historical accretions.
For him, Tradition is transcendent or divine, and it constitutes the univer-
sal heritage of all humankind throughout the ages. All religious traditions
are like branches of the tree of Tradition.
By contrast, an anti-traditional stamp characterizes materialism, as
well as all secularizing ideas and trends. Guénon sees those as producing a
“solidification” of the periphery of the universe. The way human beings

4“All partial disorders, even when they appear in a certain sense to be the su-
preme disorder, must nonetheless necessarily contribute in some way to the to-
tal order” (Guénon 2000, 265).
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 139

think and feel has an effect on the cosmos, while the latter determines the
human apprehension of the objective field.
The cosmic solidification is a particular mode of active participation
in the metaphysical law of entropy. In another sense, however, the human
self is a prime locus of consciousness and freedom. As he says,

The materialist conception, once it has been formed and spread abroad in one
way or another, can only serve further to reinforce the very ‘solidification’ of
the world that in the first place made it possible. (2000, 117)

This view is akin to the Daoist critique of the hardening characteriz-

ing the loss of Dao. It corresponds to Zhuangzi’s “fixed mind” in contrast
to the fluidity of the mind of the sage (Izutsu 1983, 425). A growing deaf-
ness and hardness of humankind results in an increasingly deafening si-
lence of the gods. Thus, the natural order can become the prey of human
industrial activism and exploitative desecration, the very opposite of non-
doing.
Guénon does not see anti-traditional action as the last word, however.
It is followed by a moment he characterizes as “counter-traditional.” For
him, while “anti-tradition” is a “deviation,” “counter-tradition” is akin to
a “subversion.” The former is gradual whereas the latter is sudden, when
the scales are abruptly tilted against Tradition. He notes,

“[The counter-tradition] will in the end contrive to ‘exteriorize’, if that is the

right word, something that will be as it were the counterpart of a true tradi-
tion, at least as completely and as exactly as it can be so within the limitations
necessarily inherent in all possible counterfeits as such” (2000, 261).

While anti-tradition rejects Tradition, the “counter-traditional” mo-

ment is one of parody of some of its components, for the counter-tradition
also aims at building a new world that has all the appearances of a religion
and a spirituality. As a matter of fact, its character of parody enables the
counter-tradition to make use—especially in its early phases—of “ele-
ments authentically traditional in origin, perverted from their true mean-
ing, and then to some extent brought into the service of error” (2000, 269).
This is the case with regard to spiritual elements from Asian tradi-
tions, including Daoism, which are severed from their traditional contexts
and amalgamated with counter-traditional ideas and practices. The rela-
tive fluidity of Eastern metaphysical teachings (including Daoism) makes
them particularly susceptible to such reductive and parodic misuses. All in
140 / Patrick Laude

all, Guénon sees counter-tradition as an instrument of “dissolution” that

follows the anti-traditional “solidification.”
While counter-tradition is the agent of final dissolution, the latter is
not all negative. In fact, Guénon’s view is that the final stages of the disso-
lution see a kind of “pulverization” and “volatilization” of reality, which,
beyond its destructive aspect, opens the way to “crystallization” and “sub-
limation” (Guénon 2000, 168). In his own words,

Bodies can then no longer persist as such, but are dissolved into a sort of
“atomic” dust without cohesion; it would therefore be possible to speak of a
real “pulverization” of the world, and such is evidently one of the possible
forms of cyclic dissolution. (2000, 167)

These two processes contribute to a final “rectification,” 5 a sudden

return to Reality that is not strictly inscribed in time, being like an instan-
taneous reversal of polarities. In this time beyond time, the line of demar-
cation between two cycles cannot be absolute, and it must be so since, in
spite of gaps and chasms, continuity runs everywhere through the cosmos
like a common thread. In this regard, Guénon refers at times to “seeds”
present in one cycle that will bear fruits in the next one, although the res-
toration brought about by these seeds cannot take place without “the im-
mediate intervention of a transcendent principle” which must “fix” the
positive germs of the future cycle. The way in which this “fixing” takes
place is envisaged by Guénon in light of the alchemical principles of solve
and coagula.
In their negative characters, these two principles correspond to “pre-
cipitation” and the “return to the indistinction of chaos.” What is precipi-
tated is the caput mortuum, the worthless residues that ultimately go back
to a state of chaos. However, what truly remains are the elements crystal-
lized in, and reintegrated by, the alchemical process. Thus, positively, co-
agula and solve correspond to the alchemical principles of crystallization
and sublimation. That which is crystallized, solidified in a positive sense,
is subsequently sublimated and reintegrated onto a higher ontological lev-
el, dissolved in an analogous positive sense.
Guénon asserts that negativity and subversion are always temporary
and indeed illusory. In the last analysis, the source of any error and evil is
to be found in metaphysical dualism, since the latter divides and opposes,
whereas Reality is essentially one. Beyond and even within multiplicity

5 “At the very moment when it seems most complete it will be destroyed by the
action of spiritual influences which will intervene at that point to prepare for the
final ‘rectification’” (Guénon 2000, 261).
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 141

and disorder lies the unity of the Source. In Guénon’s eschatological

scheme, this is expressed by the fact that the passage from one cycle to the
next, from an end to a new beginning, must include both discontinuity—
there is no new life without solve—and continuity—any solve entails coagu-
la.

Yin-Yang and the Alchemy of Time

Another important aspect of these considerations is the question of the

sequencing of cosmic qualities:

In the unfolding of the cosmogonic process, darkness—equated with chaos—

is “in the beginning,” whereas the light that brings order into this chaos and
out of it produces the Cosmos comes “after the darkness.” This amounts yet
again to saying that, in this particular context, yin effectively comes before
yang. (Guénon 2004, 32)

Chaos is both “formless” and “complete.” Formless, it needs the

“light” of form and order to produce the cosmos; complete, it is the essen-
tial principle of the ten thousand things. Moreover, there is need to intro-
duce another distinction, this one vertical and not horizontally sequential,
between the metaphysical yin and the cosmogonic yin. In this regard, it
can be said that the primordial chaos is formless when contemplated as
the Undifferentiated All-Possibility. Several passages from Laozi identify
it as a feminine Reality, such as the valley spirit, the mother, or the myste-
rious female.
Inasmuch as it lies beyond cosmology, this Abyssal Reality cannot be
properly considered as either yin or yang. There is a sense, however, in
which a symbolically yin marker can be applied to the Principle of every-
thing, given that its primordial reality is non-manifested and therefore
mysteriously inward and dark (xuan 玄), a term that appears, for example,
in chapter 6 of the Daode jing.

The spirit of the valley dies not, aye the same

The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth. (Legge 1891, 51)

When considered from a strictly cosmogonic point of view, the chaos

Guénon refers to may correspond to pure yin. In this case, however, the
twofold characterization of Chaos as formless and complete does not ap-
ply, since the cosmogonic chaos cannot be said to be complete as it needs
142 / Patrick Laude

its yang productive complement in the form of “the light that brings order
into this Chaos and out of it produces the Cosmos.” Moreover, in regard to
time, a consideration of Chaos as formlessness implies that the cosmogon-
ic process can be considered as a kind of progress in the sense of unfold-
ing. From the metaphysical point of view of its completeness, by contrast,
everything coming from it can only be a loss of being, i. e., a sort of decay
and entropy.
Guénon’s correspondence between the two pairs yin-yang and solve-
coagula, the first being cosmogonic and the second alchemical, is based on
an association between heaven and yang, on the one hand, and earth and
yin, on the other. Yin here implies a sort of productive condensation and
solidification, which in Chinese symbolism is associated with moisture.
Yang, in contrast, corresponds to air and dryness: it is seen as a principle
of dissolution and therefore a mode of return to non-manifestation. It is
also associated with qi (Robinet 1993, 83). That which is heavy and turbid
becomes earth; that which is light and limpid becomes heaven (Izutsu
1983, 305).
In The Great Triad, Guénon explains that the order of solve and coagula
depends on the vantage point adopted (2004, 44), that is, whether one
starts from a state of non-manifestation or a state of manifestation. In the
first case coagula comes first, as productive condensation, and solve comes
in second. However, when manifestation is the starting point, there is first
solve, then coagula.
The “manifestation” of the modern world corresponds to coagula, a
solidification. It is the result of a process of prior dissolution, identified by
Guénon with the Renaissance. This period, by a shift away from theocen-
tric to humanistic principles, paved the way for a new world founded on
the negation of metaphysical principles. Once this materialized outlook
solidified, it became impervious to the supernatural influences external to
its definition of reality.
The positive side of this solidification lies in its limitations; it creates
an impression of ordinary security: although illusory, it defines as it were
a particular “reality.” This false security dissolves with the entrance into
what could be called post-modernity. The final dissolution culminates
with the conjunction of a crystallization and a sublimation: that which is
fixed is sublimated. The best of the earth, as a crystal, is sublimated into a
new beginning, and this means passing from an old to a new state of man-
ifestation, the beginning of a new cycle.
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 143

Mountains, Rivers and the Search for the Ox

As a transition to Suzuki’s world of Zen, it is significant that the simulta-

neity of solve and coagula presents a profound similarity with the Zen par-
able of the three stages in the spiritual perception of reality, in the symbol-
ic form of “mountains” and “rivers.” In the beginning, mountains are
mountains and rivers are rivers, then mountains are not mountains and
rivers are not rivers, and finally mountains are mountains and rivers are
rivers again (Heine 2000, 301).
These three moments correspond to the conventional view, to the re-
duction of everything to the no-thingness of sūnyatā, and finally to the res-
toration of everything to its Buddha-nature. Toshihiko Izutsu has noted
that the second and third are but two faces of a same reality: “At the last
stage, ‘A is A’ is but an abbreviated expression standing for ‘A is non-A’;
therefore, it is A” (2001, 29). The emptying of emptiness is simultaneous
with the realization of emptiness. If stage two is to be what it is, stage three
“establishes itself at the same time.” The second and third stages are co-
incidental, and their sequencing can only be logical, not existential.
Such paradox of time and transcendence is also found in the Buddhist
parable of the search for the ox. It displays ten stages of enlightenment,
from an initial search to supreme awakening. In his commentary of this
visual parable, Suzuki refers to a Zen classic from the 12th century and ar-
gues that it is paradoxical to speak of stages of enlightenment, since en-
lightenment in Zen is described more as abrupt or sudden than as gradual.
There is indeed a paradox of discontinuity in continuity in the first
picture, depicting the man departing in search of the ox. Indeed, “the beast
has never gone astray, so what is the use of searching for him?” (Suzuki
2015, 153). The very notion that we must look for enlightenment means
that “as long as the man is conscious of his ‘Self’ in connection with the
prize, there is the dualistic separation of the possessor and the possessed”
(2015, 151).
Similarly, even though we look for the ox everywhere, its “horns or
rather nose is said to reach the heavens and there is nothing that can hide
him. It is we who shut our own eyes and pitifully bemoan that we cannot
see anything” (2015, 151). The problem is, therefore, spiritual or subjective,
a problem that the various stages of the training dramatize. The supreme
paradox is that the various stages are all “for nothing,” since all traveling
is ultimately the result of an illusion. There is no time, no fall, no redemp-
tion.
With regard to time, the eighth and ninth illustrations are most signi-
ficant. The plain circle in the eighth picture symbolizes emptiness, an emp-
144 / Patrick Laude

tiness that is all-creative and inexhaustible. Zen teaches that, when every-
thing has seemingly disappeared into emptiness, the mountains are not
mountains and the rivers are not rivers. The realities of our ordinary per-
ception lose their hold, as their nothingness is revealed. Flowing from the
eighth, the ninth picture shows nature as it is, not as we imagine it or dis-
tort it, “mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”
This third approach to time means transcending it, as in the unity
with Dao, which is atemporal, infinite, and eternal. While the cosmic
wheel turns in time, its axle dwells beyond, although each point of the pe-
riphery is related to the motionless mover. Daoism, therefore, is both fun-
damentally eternalist and keenly sensitive to the ways Dao plays out in
time through the ten thousand things. The unity of the whole is perceived
in time and beyond time: even decay connotes return.
By contrast, it could be argued that Zen Buddhism grasps reality in
the space of an instant. Suzuki’s meditations on satori provide us with in-
sights into this vision of time. Zen perception is instantaneous and discon-
tinuous. Time as fall and time as progress have no reality. In Zen enlight-
enment, eternity has “no time,” and the relationship between what pre-
cedes and what follows is mere appearance. What truly is can never follow
what is not.
Zen is essentially trans-temporal and with it time changes into space,
albeit not in the way of a Guénonian “catastrophe,” but rather like an
“anastrophe,” a kind of “falling upward.” In the flash of satori, everything
is given together and at once. The emphasis is not on transformation, but
on instantaneity. There is a shift from time as entropy or progress to
time—or rather no-time—as the instant of eternity.
One must be careful, though, not to understand this emphasis on
instantaneity as a negation of time. As is well known, Zen lays emphasis
on the task at hand, the practical. In this regard, one of Suzuki’s most strik-
ing statements is the following:

To Zen, time and eternity are one. This is open to misinterpretation, as most
people interpret Zen as annihilating time and putting in its place eternity,
which to them means a state of absolute quietness or doing-nothing-ness.
They forget that if time is eternity, eternity is time. . . .
Zen has never espoused the cause of doing-nothing-ness; eternity is our
everyday experience in this world of sense-and-intellect, for there is no eter-
nity outside this time-conditionedness. An “objective” eternity has no mean-
ing for us; there is no “quiet place” outside of time where we could experi-
ence it. (1956, 266)
Buddhism, weary as it is of metaphysical objectifications, leads one to
parry a kindred substantialization of eternity. When stating that “there is
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 145

no eternity outside this time-conditionedness,” Suzuki challenges conven-

tional reason in typical Zen fashion.
What can be the meaning of eternity if it is conditioned by time? Su-
zuki does not state that eternity is conditioned by time, he simply affirms
that it cannot be experienced outside of time, but on the contrary must be
actualized within and through time. This is not a doctrinal statement: the
stress lies on a spirituality that does not separate eternity from time be-
cause it teaches us how to realize it practically in the most attentive pres-
ence to our timely condition.
In other words, such a view of eternity is akin to koans such as “What
is the Buddha? Three pounds of flax!” In relating this koan, Suzuki shifts
the attention of his reader from the temptation to understand it in meta-
physical, pantheistic, terms, to a spiritually practical insight into the “in-
most recess of . . . consciousness” (1964, 79).

Time and Enlightenment

The paradoxical idea that eternity is time and time eternity is shared by
Zen and Daoism by virtue of their non-dualism. However, the concept of
eternity appears in Daoism with a different emphasis. It stresses the per-
petual non-active action of Dao ever renewing the ten thousand things. It
sees the instant as transformative. While Zen perceives multiplicity within
the unity of the Buddha-nature, as in a flash, Daoist wisdom aims at tap-
ping into unity through and within the ten thousand things that flow from
and with Dao.
Spiritually, it is significant that Daoist “fasting of the mind” and Zen
satori are characterized by different moods. The former is a forgetting of
everything that makes it possible to connect inwardly with Dao. Thus,
Laozi’s closing of apertures:

Close the mouth.

Shut the doors [of cunning and desires].
And to the end of life
There will be [peace] without toil. (ch. 52; Chan 1963, 52),

This is perhaps why Daoist meditation is less intent on visual con-

templation: “Even without peeping out of the windows, one can see the
working of heaven” (Izutsu 1983, 338). The time of the “working of heav-
en” is none other than eternal Dao; outer and inner time are not different.
“He [the sage] goes on producing within his ‘interior’ the ‘time’ [of the
world]” (1983, 346). This is because the Daoist sage is at one with the al-
146 / Patrick Laude

ternation of yin and yang. The perfect human being brings everything
back to Dao by being a pure mirror of the transformation of things. Be-
yond, however, there is not even any sense of distinction, like the “men of
old” for whom things had not begun yet.
Although the sitting meditation of zazen is also a temporary shutting
out of external perceptions, satori is like a glimpse into totality and a defin-
itive affirmation; it is a maximal opening. Suzuki sees it as affirmative and
accepting: “Though the satori experience is sometimes expressed in nega-
tive terms, it is essentially an affirmative attitude towards all things that
exist; it accepts them as they come along regardless of their moral values”
(1956, 103).
Another connected aspect of the Zen experience is its momentariness:
“Satori comes upon one abruptly and is a momentary experience. In fact, if
it is not abrupt and momentary, it is not satori” (1956, 103). It coincides
with an instantaneous perception that “rivers are rivers and mountains are
mountains.” In Daoism, by contrast, the end point might very well be that
“rivers are mountains and mountains are rivers.” This is because the main
focus is on transformation. This also accounts for the fact that eternity and
perpetuity, or eternity and immortality, are difficult, if not impossible, to
distinguish from each other.
The contrasts we have sketched should not be over-stated, however.
Kenneth Inada cautions:

These two methods are not really contradictory since Zen, for example, in-
corporates the quietistic nature in its meditative process. There is actually no
difference in the Daoist “forgetting himself” and the Zennist concept of los-
ing his self. Any devotee, either Daoist or Zennist, may spend hours “honing
up” for the final grasp of reality, but he must not waste his time in futile
“brick grinding” to produce a mirror, or in squeamish rituals upholding Con-
fucian virtues. (1988, 62)6

“Wasting time” with “doings” amounts to not understanding that

time is regained only by transcending it, by “idling away one’s time”
(Izutsu 1983, 435) with Zhuangzi by the side of the tree of nondoing.

You have this big tree and you’re distressed because it’s useless. Why don’t
you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-
Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy

6 “BothZen and Daoism have already conquered the minds of Asians (and many
non-Asians, too, for that matter) by simply rendering clear ‘some eternal greatness
incarnate in the passage of temporal fact’” (Inada 1988, 52).
 Guénon, Teilhard, and Suzuki / 147

sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it.
(Watson 2013, 6)

Bibliography
Bidlack, Bede Benjamin. 2015. In Good Company: The Body and Divinization in Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, SJ and Daoist Xiao Yingsou. Leiden: Brill.
Chan, Wing-Tsit. 1963. The Way of Lao Tzu: Tao te ching. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Cooper, Jean C. 2010. An Illustrated Introduction to Daoism: The Wisdom of the Sages.
Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom.
Guénon, René. 2000. The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times. New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal.
_____. 2004a. The Great Triad. Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis.
_____. 2004b. Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism. Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Per-
ennis.
Heine, Steven. 2000. The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Inada, Kenneth. 1988. “Zen and Daoism: Common and Uncommon Grounds of
Discourse.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 15:51-65.
Izutsu, Toshihiko. 1983. Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical
Concepts. Berkeley: University of California Press.
_____. 2001. Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Boston: Shambala.
Kohn, Livia. 1993. The Taoist Experience. Albany: New York: State University of
New York Press.
Legge, James. 1891. The Sacred Book of China: The Texts of Taoism, Part I. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Lin, Yutang. 1948. The Wisdom of Laotse. New York: Random House.
McDonald, J.H. 2017. Tao Te Ching: An Insightful and Modern Translation. Troy, NH:
Qigong Vacation.
Mitchell, Stephen. 1988. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version. New York: Harper-
Perennial.
Robinet, Isabelle. 1993. Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Schuon, Frithjof. 2000. Summary of Metaphysics and Esoterism. Bloomington: World
Wisdom.
148 / Patrick Laude

Suzuki, D. T. 1956. Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings. New York: Doubleday.

_____. 1964. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press.
_____. 2015. Selected Works, Vol. 1: Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press.
_____. 2019. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. 1974. Christianity and Evolution. New York: Harvest
Books.
Wang, Robin. 2012. Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and
Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Watson, Burton. 2013. The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press.
 Daoist Aspects of Time Perception

in Hakuin’s Zen Experiences

QI SONG1

Daoism and Buddhism both value meditation, a practice that, after the
Song dynasty, became increasingly popular also among Confucians. Alt-
hough the methods, key features, and goals differ with each group and
situation, the time and content that practitioners perceive during the pro-
cess are highly similar. Meditation is called quiet sitting (jingzuo 靜坐) or
sitting in oblivion (zuowang 坐忘) in Daoism and sitting in absorption (zuo-
chan/zazen 坐禪) in Zen Buddhism. It allows practitioners to go beyond
time and space as perceived in ordinary reality, transcend life and death,
find oneness with the universe, and experience enlightenment (wu/satori 悟)
by realizing their true original nature (jianxing/kenshō 見性) as Dao or Bud-
dha.
In the Southern School of Zen, the Sixth Patriarch Huineng 慧能 (638-
713) experienced sudden enlightenment (dunwu 頓悟), connecting to the
realm of eternity in an instant. Psychologists call this kind of transcendent
experience an “altered state of consciousness” (Ludwig 1966; Tart 1969). In
the process of practice with the goal of kenshō or “seeing one’s true na-
ture,” that is, experiencing reality as part of a greater, underlying potenti-
ality, in some cases adepts also undergo something called Zen sickness
(chanbing 禪病).
This comes with two types of symptoms: one consists of psychologi-
cal obstacles that hinder meditation; the other is a physical ailment caused
by over-zealous practice. Key concerns within Zen are accordingly how
best to overcome this, how to grasp the present moment while also con-
necting to the karmic causality of the three periods of life (past, present,
and future), and how to adjust the body during practice. Whether or not
these issues are resolved has to do with the effectiveness of personal prac-
tice and the smooth transmission of instructions.

1 Translated by Livia Kohn.

149
150 / Qi Song

Japanese Zen is the direct inheritor of Chinese Chan, transmitted first

by Eisai 栄西 (1141-1215) who established the Kenninji 建仁寺 in Kyoto, the
first Zen temple in Japan, and vigorously promoted Zen of the Rinzai (Lin-
ji 臨濟) school. Later, teachings of other schools, such as Sōtō (Caodong 曹
洞) and Ōbaku (Huangbo 黃檗), were also transmitted, leading to tripartite
division of Zen in Japan.
In the Edo period (1600-1868), a leading Rinzai patriarch emerged by
the name of Hakuin Eikaku 白隱慧鶴 (1686-1769), later mostly called Zen
Master Hakuin. His version of Zen attached much importance to historical
foundations as formulated during the Song and Ming dynasties. It also
showed a great deal of energy and vitality, overcoming the tendency to be
overly concerned with words and revitalizing a religion that had withered
due to increased prosperity and a close connection to the ruling class (see
Luo 2012).
In his spiritual autobiography, Itsumadegusa 壁生草 (Wild Ivy; see
Waddell 1999), Hakuin records his experiences of zazen and kenshō, and
investigates how his perception of time changed as he underwent the pro-
cess and experience of sitting meditation. In the following, I make time
perception the main focus of inquiry, attaching importance to textual
analysis and exploring Daoist elements as found in Hakuin’s understand-
ing of Zen, in an effort to analyze the practical significance of his methods
for modern society.

Hakuin’s Life

Hakuin was born in early 1686 in the village of Hara 原 in Suruga 駿河

county at the foot of Mount Fuji (modern Numazu 沼津, Shizuoka prefec-
ture). His surname at birth was Nagasawa 長澤 and his personal name was
Iwajirō 岩次郎. He was born in a business family, but from early childhood
showed a unique understanding of religion, supported greatly by his
mother who fervently believed in Nichiren Buddhism.
When he was eleven years old, he went with his mother to the local
Nichiren center at Shōgenji 昌原寺. Hearing a lecture about hell and its vi-
cious punishments, he became terrified and determined to find a way out
of this fate (Waddell 1999, xiv). In due course, at the age of fifteen, he be-
came a monk at Shōinji 松荫寺 and received the religious name Ekaku.
Soon he was transferred to its sister temple Daishōji 大聖寺, also in Numa-
zu, where he made the following vow: “Until this physical body has the
power to meet fire and not burn, be immersed in water and not sink, I
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 151

make endless efforts until I die.”2 From then on, Hakuin never ceased his
intense pursuit of enlightenment through deep meditation.
During the seventeen years from 1699 to 1716, he wandered widely
throughout the country, visiting numerous prefectures, practicing at thir-
ty-six different temples, and studying with many senior masters. One who
exerted great influence on his thinking and practice was Shōju Rōjin 正受老
人, originally called Dōkyō Etan 道鏡慧端 (1642-1721). He was the common-
law son of Sanada Noboyuki 真田信之, himself the feudal ruler of Shinshu
Matsudai 信州松代 (Nagano prefecture). It was under his guidance, at Ei-
ganji 英严寺, that Hakuin had his first kenshō experience, but it made him
so proud and arrogant that the master refused to issue him inka 印可, the
official certificate that recognizes the enlightened state and formalizes the
right, bestowed by the Buddha and the patriarchs, to teach disciples in his
own right. This refusal spurred Hakuin greater efforts, making him a
much more powerful practitioner in the long run and a superb teacher
when he finally received inka.
Another major inspiration was Master Hakuyu 白幽 (d. 1709), a fa-
mous hermit who lived in a cave in the Kitashirakawa 北白川 mountains
on the east side of Kyoto. Hakuin sought him out when he was suffering
from Zen sickness, and the hermit taught him a variety of Daoist methods,
from breath control to visualization of qi, collectively called “inner obser-
vation” (neiguan/naikan 內觀). This methodology made a big difference to
Hakuin. Not only did it save him from debilitating weakness and add to
his spiritual repertoire, but it also deepened his practice and gave him ex-
pertise on how best to deal with Zen sickness. Overall, the two masters
made him the great master he was and laid the foundation for his unique
teaching style and meditation methodology.
In 1718, Hakuin became the abbot of Shōinji and in due course lec-
tured at many temples in the greater Shizuoka area. In addition to visiting
numerous Zen institutions, he was also active in writing and painting. He
wrote a number of autobiographical records, which were published vari-
ously, beginning during his lifetime. His Zen paintings were often humor-
ous and numbered in the thousands: they are characterized by a strong
and unique style as well as an inherent explosive power.
In addition, because the language of Zen—being based on Classical
Chinese—was hard for ordinary Japanese to understand, Hakuin wrote a
primer, entitled Zazen to san 坐禅和赞 (Zen Meditation and Dialogue). Its

2もしこの肉身にして火も焼くこと能わず、水も漂わすことを能わざる底の力を獲
ずんば、設い死すとも休まず(Yoshizawa 2016, 28). For more on Hakuin’s life, see
Katō 1985; Rikugawa 1963; Shaw 1963, 16-19; Waddell 1999, vii-xl.
152 / Qi Song

style is easily accessible to everyone, allowing even ordinary people to

master the basics of Zen, and the book has played an important role in the
wider promotion of Buddhist practice.
After Hakuin died in 1769, Emperor Go-Sakuramachi (1704-1813) be-
stowed upon him the posthumous title Zen Master of Spiritual Prowess
and Unique Wonder. In 1884, the Meiji Emperor (1852-1912) gave him the
honorific position of National Master of the Authentic Lineage (Hakuin
1898, 1:1-2). Soon after, in the Taishō era (1912-1926), special exhibitions
about him and his work began to appear, and his popularity has contin-
ued unabated to the present day. For example, in 2016, close to the 250 th
anniversary of his death, the Rinzai temple Ōmotoyama dera 大本山寺
sponsored a series of large-scale rituals in his honor. Around the same
time, the Tokyo Museum of Art held an exhibition of his calligraphy and
painting, followed by similar events in 2018 at the Kyushu National Mu-
seum, the Shizuoka City Art Museum, the Sano Art Museum, and more.
They all show just to what degree Hakuin and his teachings are still alive
and well in modern Japan.

Kenshō

The word chan originally indicated a particular imperial sacrifice to heav-

en. With the introduction of Buddhism into China and the increased de-
mand for translations of its scriptures, many Buddhist terms were trans-
lated into Chinese. The Pali word dhyāna means meditation, contemplation,
or absorption; it was first rendered phonetically as channa 禅那, then ab-
breviated chan. Similarly, samādhi refers to a state of mind and body that is
fully concentrated, deeply entranced, and one-pointed. It was first translit-
erated as sanmodi 三摩地, then rendered ding 定, literally “stability,” based
on its meaning (Fang 1999).
The two combined to form the compound chanding. The general term
for Zen practice, it integrates the two dimensions: deep concentration is
the desired state of mind, and meditation is the prime method to get there.
However, Zen also acknowledges certain peak experiences that occur in a
state of deep mental stability. Attained through prolonged and intensive
sitting meditation, they are especially kenshō, which marks a major break-
through toward oneness with Buddha-nature, and satori, the falling-away
of body and mind in complete enlightenment.
For Hakuin, someone who has not experienced kenshō and/or satori is
not a true Zen person. As he says in the Itsumadegusa, “Someone who calls
himself a man of Zen must first of all experience kenshō and satori. If some-
one calls himself a Zen person without such experience, he just presents an
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 153

imitation in outside appearance” (Yoshizawa 1999, 128-29).3 In his single-

minded pursuit of these altered states of consciousness, Hakuin started to
explore different modes of practice when he was young, then continued
his work with different masters.
In 1707, when he was twenty-three years old and studying with Un-
anshi Yomo 云脚四方, he once passed through Banshu 播州 (Hyōgo prefec-
ture) and stayed at a small mountain temple. Seeing the running water of a
mountain stream nearby, he was deeply moved and wrote the following
poem:

From the mountain flows a stream,

On and on, without ever stopping.
If Zen mind were like this,
How could kenshō be delayed?4

This shows that Hakuin saw the persistent, ever-present Zen mind as a
necessary precondition for any kind of awakening experience. This Zen
mind needs to be ceaseless, without stopping, which means practice must
continue at all times, that zazen must become part of one’s very being and
never be interrupted.
Later in the same year, Hakuin returned to Shizuoka and practiced at
Shōinji. In November, Mount Fuji erupted—the third major eruption rec-
orded in Japanese history and the first since the Heian period—leading to
strong tremors in the temple. All the monks rushed off to safety, but
Hakuin remained in the Zendō, stable and firm in his continuous medita-
tion (Takihama 2013, 162). This anecdote illustrates his fearless spirit as
well as his willingness to risk life and limb for the sake of Zen practice—
based on both, his inherent character and his deep belief in Buddhism.
In the following year, at Eiganji in Echigo (Niigata prefecture), he un-
dertook seven days of continuous meditation and had a major kenshō ex-
perience, recorded in many of his major works. In his Orategama 遠羅天釜
(The Embossed Tea Kettle; dat. 1748), he describes just how depressed and
desperate he was before the event:

In the spring of my twenty-fourth year, I was practicing hard in the Eiganji in

Echigo. Day and night I would not rest: I forgot all about food and sleep.
Then suddenly, I felt as if I was enclosed by a huge layer of ice that extended

3 夫れ禅家者流と称せん者は、最初見性道すべし. 若し見性せずして禅人と称せば、
紛れも無き大似勢者に非ずや.
4
山下に流水有り、滾々として止む時無し. 禅心若し是の如くならば、見性豈に其
れ遅からんや.
154 / Qi Song

into infinity. Although my heart and mind, inside and out, was clean and
pure, I found myself unable to move either forward or back. Completely
stunned and utterly dazed, I had no words in my heart. I could hear the mas-
ter chanting at the communal table, but the sound seemed to be coming from
a great distance, as if carried about by wafts of air. 5 (Yoshizawa 2001, 9:427)

After experiencing this state of pervasive daze, he realized his first experi-
ence of kenshō:

After a few days, suddenly one night, when I was sitting zazen, I heard a bell
from a distance. After hearing it, I felt as if a plate of ice was smashed to
pieces or a jade pavilion was toppling over. When I came to my senses, I
realized that I was with the monk Yantou and had passed through all three
dimensions of time without any harm.
All doubts of the past disappeared like ice melting into water. I could not
help myself but had shout out loud: ”This is amazing! This is so amazing!” I
realized then that one cannot pursue enlightenment without breaking away
from all life and death.
This truth even the 1700 koans transmitted from the masters are not
enough to decipher. From then on, arrogance rose in me like a mountain as
pride surged through my being like a riptide. I felt that for two or three
hundred years, no one had been able to achieve such a joyful enlightenment
as me. 6 (2001, 9:427-28)

The monk he mentions in this record is Yantou Quanhuo 嚴頭全奯

(828-887), an eminent monk of the Tang dynasty who was killed by ma-
rauding bandits at his temple and in due course became the subject of var-
ious koans. In an earlier period of his life, when Hakuin first heard about
his fate, he was deeply disturbed that even an exceedingly moral life and
persistent Buddhist practice could not protect one from such a violent
death and fell into deep doubts about Buddhism.

5
二十四歳ノ春、越ノ英巖ノ僧舎ニ在ツテ苦吟ス. 畫夜眠ラズ、寝食トモニ忘ル. 忽
然トシテ大疑現前シテ、萬里一條ノ層氷裏ニ凍殺セラルノガ如シ. 胸裡分外ニ清潔
ニシテ、進ムコ`ト得ズ、退クコト得ズ、痴痴呆呆、只ダ無ノ字有ルノミ. 講莚ニ
陪シテ師ノ評唱ヲ聞クト然モ、数十歩ノ外ニシテ堂上の議論ヲ聞クが如ク、或イ
ハ空中ニ在ツテ行クが如シ.
6
此ノ如キ者数日、乍チ一夜、鐘聲ヲ聴イテ発転ス. 氷盤ヲ擲碎スルガ如ク、玉楼
ヲ推倒スルニ似タリ. 忽然トシテ蘇息シ来タレバ、自身直に是レ岩頭和尚. 三世ヲ
貫通シテ毫毛ヲ損セズ. 従前ノ疑惑、底ヲ盡シテ氷消ス. 高聲ニ叫ンデ曰ク、也大
奇也大奇、生死ノ出ヅ可キ無ク、菩提ノ求ムル可キ無シ. 伝燈千七百箇ノ葛藤、一
捏ヲ消スルニ足ラズ. 此ニ於テ、慢幢、山ノ如クニ聳エ、僑心、潮ノ如クニ湧ク.
心ニ密カニ謂ラク、二三百年来、予ガ如ク痛快ニ打發スル底、之レ有ル可カラズ.
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 155

This was completely resolved in this kenshō experience, when he felt

that he was able to pass through all kinds of temporal dimensions—phases
of life and death—“without any harm” and became one with Yantou. He
fully realized the Buddhist teaching of the three stages of cause and effect
and understood that Yantou’s violent death may have well been the result
of an evil deed committed in a previous life. Based on this, he understood
that Yantou’s fate was not contrary to the Buddhist dharma and fully rec-
ognized the principle of causality at work throughout the three dimen-
sions of time. As a result, he was elated and could not restrain his excite-
ment, fully realizing that one cannot be enlightened and attached to past
and future at the same time.
Hakuin also records this kenshō experience in several other works,
each time emphasizing its abrupt occurrence and sudden nature. For ex-
ample, in the Sekisho unjō 隻手音声 (The Sound of One Hand Clapping; dat.
1753), he says,

I became a monk at the age of fifteen, and between the ages of twenty-two
and twenty-three, I developed a great urgency for realization which
consumed meday and night. Then, in the spring of my twenty-fourth year, I
was at Eiganji in Echigo when I heard the bell sound in the middle of the
night, and suddenly I hit the big one. 7 (Yoshizawa 2001, 12:43)

His later work, the Itsumadegusa (dat. 1766), has another account.

Disappointed and bereft of strength, I went to hide myself away in a shrine

room dedicated to the lords of the province, vowing to fast and concentrate
single-mindedly on my practice for a period of seven days. No one in the
temple knew where I was or what I was doing, nor even the monks I had
come with. Unable to find me, they assumed I had left secretly for home.
At around midnight on the seventh and final night of my practice, the
boom of a bell from a distant temple reached my ears. Suddenly, my body
and mind dropped completely away. I rose clear even of the finest dust of the
world. Unbearably joyous, I shouted out loud: “Old Yantou is alive and
well!”
My yells brought my companions running from the monks’ quarters. We
joined hands, and they shared with me the intense joy of the moment. After
that, however, I became extremely proud and arrogant in my heart. I regard-

7
老夫初め十五にして出家、二十二三の間、大憤志を發して、昼夜に精彩を著け、
二十四歳の春、越の英厳練若に於いて夜半鐘聲を聞いて、忽然として打發す.
156 / Qi Song

ed the people I encountered as mere clods of dirt. 8 (Yoshizawa 1999, 172-73;

Waddell 1999, 26)

Hakuin attaches great importance to this first experience, which

forms an indispensable part of his autobiography. Although there are sub-
tle variations in the different accounts, written a few years apart, the over-
all description is the same.

Time Perception

The experience was out of this world, instant and sudden, overwhelming
and beyond all expectations. Although his epiphany only took a tiny in-
stant in terms of time, it made him feel that he had passed through past,
present, and future. It also led to a lasting new way of looking at the world
and resulted in long periods of reflection, stimulating modes of thinking
that were extremely rich and powerful.
In describing the momentous event, moreover, Hakuin uses the anal-
ogies of a plate of ice being smashed to pieces and a jade pavilion toppling
over. He also says that doubts he held previously were melting away
completely like ice as he experienced great enlightenment, his body and
mind were falling off, the ten directions became vast and void, and not
even an inch of the planet earth was there any longer. However, the result
of this experience did not make him a better person or allow him to enter a
higher level of practice. Instead, more obstacles arose and he became
proud and arrogant. As he says, “I regarded the people as clods.” Even so,
judging from the nature of his experience, there is no doubt that this over-
arching attitude was the result of a genuine kenshō. He further notes in the
Sekisho unjō:

At the time, there was no fear or anxiety of any kind. After a while, I don’t
know how long, I penetrated to see the true essence of my own original
nature and universal truth arose before my eyes like the bright radiance of
wisdom. I have not seen or heard anything like it again for the past thirty
years nor felt the amazing and deep joy that arises without being sought. It
may be described as being enlightened through kenshō in an instant or

8
力を落して殿の玉屋の内に隠れて、誓って七日断食接心す. 寺中、此の趣向を知
るもの無し. 同行議してひそかに帰国と為す. 満ずる夜半、遥かに鐘聲を聞いて、
身心脱落、纖塵を絶す. 歓喜に堪ず高聲に叫ぶ、岩頭老人猶お好在なりと. 同行、
寮中に在つて聞き付け、走り来たり手を把つて互いに相悦ぶ. 此より慢心大いに指
し起こつて、一切の人を見ること土塊の如し.
.
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 157

understood as a glimpse of rebirth in the Pure Land. But really: there is no

Pure Land outside the mind; there is no Buddha beyond of the self. 9
(Yoshizawa 1999, 12:37-38)

Having undergone his first major kenshō experience, Hakuin came to

the firm conviction that all paradise or enlightenment rested completely
within the person, and specifically in the heart and mind. In terms of his
time perception, first he underwent a prolonged period of zazen, where he
patiently and repeatedly worked on koans and made a great effort to re-
main awake and alert. Then the overwhelming insight, like a peak experi-
ence as described by psychologist Abraham Maslow (1964) or a mystical
experience as reported in Christian and other literature (Underhill 1911;
Bucke 1901), occurred in a single moment. He described it as coming about
abruptly, a clear case of sudden enlightenment. An epiphany that was ini-
tiated by the startling sound of the temple bell, it overwhelmed him com-
pletely and turned his world upside-down.
Then, however, a point came when he realized that he had a kenshō
experience, followed by a phase when his feelings and sense of self were
completely blurred and there was no awareness of time at all, what other
mystics have described as a state of timelessness (James 1936). He went
beyond all life and death and perceived the presence of the monk Yantou
who had been dead for many centuries, thus overcoming time. He pene-
trated the causal relationship between the different dimensions of time in
his mind and thereby understood the original nature of the Buddha’s en-
lightenment.
Making this new perspective his own, he further sublimated the time
he realized in this state of cosmic consciousness from actual time to a more
abstract, philosophical level. Since his time perception was both mystical
and abstract, yet also linked to deep emotions and altered states of con-
sciousness, it is difficult to grasp.

9此時, 恐怖を生せず, 間もなくはげみ進み待れば, いつしか自性本有の有様を立處

に見徹し, 真如実相の慧日は目のあたり（に）現前して, 三十年来未だ嘗て見ず, 未
だ嘗て聞かざる底の大歓喜は求めざるに焕發せん. 是を見性得悟の一刹那とも名づ
け, 是を往生浄土の一大事とも相伝する事にて, 自心の外に浄土なく, 自性の外に仏
なし. 一念不生, 前後際断の当位を往と云ひ, 実相の真理現前の当位を生といふ.
158 / Qi Song

To get a better understanding, let us look back at the time before

Hakuin had his kenshō experience. He had just arrived at the temple to at-
tend a series of lectures by the famous Ōbaku master Egoku Dōmyō 慧極道
明 (1632-1721. However, during discussions with him, Hakuin realized
that “he was not the enlightened man he was made out to be” (Waddell
1999, 26). As a result, he was disappointed, depressed, dejected, and con-
fused, a great contrast to the powerful focused mind of meditation he
forced himself into. This conflicting mental mode, then, set the stage for
the overwhelming connection to original nature.

Zen Sickness

Soon after, Hakuin left the area and went wandering again, to encounter
his guiding teacher, Shōju Rōjin, a disciple of Shidō Bunan 至道無難 (1603-
1676), who in turn followed Gudō Tōshoku 愚堂東寔 (1577-1661). The latter
was a leading abbot of the school’s headquarters, Myōshinji 妙心寺 in Kyo-
to, who seriously dedicated himself to rectifying and rejuvenating Zen
practice at the time (Luo 2012). Hakuin admired him greatly and endeav-
ored to follow in his footsteps as represented by his dharma heir.
When the two first worked together, the master assigned Hakuin the
famous koan known as “Joshu’s Mu” (“Does this dog have Buddha-
nature?”) to break his pervasive pride and arrogance. Hakuin appreciated
this, made good progress, and continued to follow him as his teacher.
Eventually Shōju Rōjin was able to bestow inka on Hakuin, acknowledging
him as a worthy successor of the orthodox lineage of great Rinzai masters.
His methods of pure Zen, moreover, inspired Hakuin to develop his own
system of zazen, emphasizing particularly post-satori practice for the sake
of greater and more permanent states of enlightenment.
Hakuin was twenty-four when he began to work with Shōju Rōjin.
After two years of intensive Zen practice and powerful self-denial, howev-
er, he underwent a yet different type of meditative experience, suffering
massively from Zen sickness for several years. He records its onset in his
Yasen kanna 夜船閑話 (Idle Talk on a Night Boat; dat. 1755).

After that night, when reflecting on my daily life, those two conditions of life,
activity and non-activity, had become entirely out of harmony. The two in-
clinations in me toward finiteness and infinity had become indistinct in my
mind. I could not make up my mind to do or not to do anything. So the
thought occurred to me that I would like to clothe myself in a lustrous glow
and throw off my present life and depart from this world.
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 159

Finding myself in such a state of mind, I set my teeth, fixed my eyes, and
determined to forego sleep and food [in favor of incessant practice].
But before I had spent many months in that strenuous way, my heart be-
gan to make me dizzy, my lungs became dry, and my limbs felt as cold as if
they were immersed in ice and snow.
My ears were filled with ringing like rushing waters of a swift river in a
deep canyon. My inner organs felt weak, and my whole body trembled with
apprehensions and fears. My spirit was distressed and weary and, whether
sleeping or waking, I used to see all sorts of imaginary things, brought to me
through my six senses.
Both sides of my body were continually bathed in sweat and my eyes
were perpetually filled with tears. I knew then that even if I resorted to fa-
mous teachers in every part of the country and searched for great physicians
in all parts of the world, none of the hundred medicines would be of any
avail. (Yoshizawa 1999, 4:99-100; Shaw 1963, 33-34)

This shows that Hakuin, even after finding the right teacher, still had
to face major obstacles and resolve the tension between quiet sitting and
outside activities, the different dimensions of practice represented by still-
ness and movement. To once more experience kenshō, he gritted his teeth
and pushed himself hard—in many ways too hard, leading to state of
body and mind that made practice all but impossible.
The various physical symptoms included dizziness in the eyes, ring-
ing in the ears, upset in the internal organs, coldness in the limbs, as well
as sleeplessness, apathy, and hallucinations. In many ways, it was like a
nervous breakdown, but there also seem to have been aspects of organ
failure and serious physical deficiencies—described by Handa Yōichi as
manifestations of neurasthenia and tuberculosis (2012, 50; see also Sharf
2015). In terms of the mind, his state was much like before he had his first
kenshō experience, and again he had to find a new, powerful master to pull
him out of this state.
Time perception during periods of sickness and great stress tends to
be the radical opposite of the timelessness of mystical experience. Great
emotional pressure, as during a nervous breakdown and when faced with
serious disease, is a most radical distortion of time that also impacts con-
centration and skill (Droit-Volet 2014, 486).
Psychologists in this context acknowledge sleep deprivation and the
uncertainty of disease—both part of Hakuin’s situation—as major time-
inhibiting factors, on par with are being held captive, imprisoned, or hos-
tage as well as feeling rejected, depressed, or anxious. In addition, any
form of extended waiting and sensory deprivation—in darkness or isola-
tion—can lead to a feeling of extremely slow-moving time or even
160 / Qi Song

chronostasis, the sense that time has stopped (Hammond 2012, 26-43). The
same also holds true for various psychiatric disorders, such as ADHD,
schizophrenia, autism, and even dyslexia, which all tend to slow down
time perception (Noreika et al. 2014, 531).

Daoist Aspects

When Hakuin fell into the depth of Zen sickness, no medical treatments
showed any effect. Eventually he decided to seek help from Master
Hakuyu, a hermit living in a cave in the eastern mountains of Kyoto who
was widely praised as a spirit immortal. In his Yasen kanna, Hakuin de-
scribes his first impression of the master who looked nothing like a Bud-
dhist monk:

I could see Hakuyu sitting upright with his eyes fixed straight in front of him.
His luxuriant hair reached down to his knees. His face was ruddy and
beautiful as the fruit of the jujube tree. He was wearing a large cloth as an
apron and was seated on a soft straw mat. (Shaw 1963, 35)

His cavern dwelling, moreover, was about six feet square and held
few furnishings or food, but there were three books on a small desk: the
Confucian work Zhongyong 中庸 (The Doctrine of the Mean), the Daoist
classic Laozi 老子 (Daode jing 道德經), and the Buddhist Jingang panruo jing
金剛般若經 (Diamond Sutra of Perfect Wisdom) (1963, 35). These texts are
representative of the three great religions of East Asia. They also provided
the foundation for Hakuyu’s teaching, which essentially consisted of vari-
ous Daoist methods, from breath control through qi-guiding to inner ob-
servation.
First, the master took Hakuin’s hand to feel the level of his pulses and
determined that his inner organs—the core centers of Chinese medicine
and Daoist cultivation—were out of harmony because he engaged in too
extreme asceticism. The basic Daoist teaching, which comes across here, is
that the body is the root of all spiritual development and must not be ne-
glected. On the contrary it should be cultivated or, as Hakuyu puts it, “The
man of character always looks after the needs of the body in a reasonable
way” (Shaw 1963, 38).
To cure Hakuin’s sickness, which he diagnosed as an extreme up-
ward movement of heart-fire (1963, 40), Hakuyu duly taught him basic
Daoist principles. He started with yin and yang and their continuous and
ever-flowing interchange, moved on to the five organs and their qualities,
and eventally reached the rhythmic timing of all life as manifest most ob-
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 161

viously in respiration. “The breathing which protects the body and the
blood causes them to actively rise and fall in regular motion about fifty
times a day,” the result of a total of 13,500 in- and out-breaths (1963, 36-37).
Working closely with this natural pattern, the heart beats steadily,
internal fire and water move in the right direction, and the organs can do
their work properly. As he began to work with this, Hakuin moved away
from the timelessness of kenshō and the time dilation of Zen sickness and
tuned into the natural rhythms of all existence, coming to perceive time as
a valuable substratum of organic life.
The key method he used to was basic Daoist breath control as advo-
cated already in the Zhuangzi 莊子 (Writings of Master Zhuang), which
speaks of breathing all the way to the heels (ch. 6). It was later formalized
in healing exercises (daoyin 導引), associated with the long-lived Pengzu 彭
祖 and often structured with the help of the hexagrams of the Yijing 易經
(Book of Changes)—all referenced by Hakuyu (Shaw 1963, 38, 40, 42). In
addition, the master also expounded on the teachings of internal alchemy,
working closely with the timing of the natural world in conjunction with
the rhythms of the body. He spoke of fire and water, dragon and tiger, as
well as the active increase or decrease of internal energy movement as con-
trolled by different kinds of fire (1963, 40).
The Yasen kanna further records the specific method of meditation
Hakuyu used to guide Hakuin toward a profound and efficient way of
practice that would not harm the body. It says,

If the meditator has his four elements out of harmony and feels his body and
spirit wearied with labor, he must rouse himself and develop the following
visualization to realize complete harmony.
He should see himself in an instant placing a lump of deliciously scented,
pure and clear cream—about the size of a duck’s egg—onto his head, then
feel its subtle and wondrous energy pervade and moisturize his entire being.
Sense how it flows all the way through the head and from there sinks
down to soak all the way, reaching the shoulders, elbows, chest, diaphragm,
lungs, liver, stomach, and more, until it reaches the bottom of the spine and
the buttocks, always and everywhere dissolving all congestion and blockages.
At this time, any blockages and obstructions, any feelings of hardness and
pain, all the five kinds of accumulation and six kinds of congestion in the
chest will follow the mental visualization downward, gently and softly like
water running down a hill, making a pervasive gurgling sound. As this
pervades and flows through the entire body, both legs will start to feel warm
162 / Qi Song

and moist. Eventually it reaches the feet, where it stops.10 (Yoshizawa 2000,
4:141; Shaw 1963, 43-44)

The four elements mentioned here are those of ancient India: earth,
water, fire, and air. They need to be aligned properly and activated in the
right temporal rhythm so that, when sitting in meditation and working
with the visualization one can “lower the heart-fire to collect in the elixir
field (dantian 丹田) and flow to the soles of the feet.” In other words, adepts
are to become aware of their various internal energies, especially those
connected to the heart—also the seat of spirit and consciousness—then
guide them to the lower abdomen and pelvic floor and from there all the
way down to the soles of the feet. The practice is both soft and crisp, gentle
and slow, relaxed and focused.
Hakuin applied this successfully to cure his Zen sickness and its vari-
ous physical symptoms and, in later years, created a form of Zen that ac-
tively incorporated Daoist elements. As he himself expresses it in the pref-
ace to the Yasen kanna:

This ocean of qi [qihai 氣海] and elixir field of mine—my hips, my legs, my
feet, my soles—altogether are my original face, and this original face also
contains certain kinds of sensory features such as nose and nostrils.
This ocean of qi and elixir field of mine in totality form the true home of
my original destiny, and from this true home certain kinds of information are
being transmitted.
This ocean of qi and elixir field of mine comprehensively are the Pure
Land of my mind-only state, and this Pure Land is strong and solemn.
This ocean of qi and elixir field of mine together are the Buddha Amitabha
within my body, and this Buddha teaches the dharma.
Always envision yourself returning to your original place, always return
to your original place.11 (Yoshizawa 2000, 4:86; Shaw 1963, 29)

10
行者、定中四大調和せず、身心ともに労疲する事を覚せば、心を起して応さに此
想を成すべし. 譬へば色香清浄の輭蘇、鴨卵の大ひさの如くなる者、頂上い頓有せ
んに、其気味微妙にして、遍く頭顱の間おうるおし、浸々として潤下し来て、両
肩及び雙臂、両乳、胸隔の間、肺肝、腸胃、脊梁、臀骨、次第に沾注し将ち去る.
此時に当て胸中の五積六聚疝癖塊痛、心に随て降下する事、水の下につくが如く、
歴々として聲あり. 遍身を周流し、雙脚を温潤し、足心に至て即ち止む.
11
我此の気海丹田、腰脚足心、総に是我が本来の面目、面目何の鼻孔かある. 我が
此の気海丹田、総に是我が本分の家郷、家郷何の消息かある. 我が此の気海丹田、
総に此れ我が唯心の浄土、浄土なんの荘厳かある. 我が此の気海丹田、総に此れ我
が己身の弥陀、弥陀何の法をか説くと、打帰へし打帰へし常に斯くの如く妄想す
べ.
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 163

This shows that Hakuin saw his body as symbolized by central Daoist
features such as the ocean of qi and the elixir field—major energy centers
in the abdomen. He further linked these to notions of original face, true
home, Pure Land, and Buddha. In this he integrates Daoist and Buddhist
teachings in a powerful, harmonious way and greatly enhances the im-
portance of vital energy (qi) and the physical body in Zen practice, com-
plete with an awareness of time as it flows through the body and connects
the individual to nature.
Doing so, he applies his own ingenious interpretation of both tradi-
tions to establish the connection between concepts and visions radically
different in their original context. His methodology, moreover, is based on
two concepts: first, that in essence all is one and there are no opposite
meanings; second, that all concepts and terms are abstract in nature, leav-
ing room for interpretation and unique apperception.

Integrating the Teachings

However many Daoist terms and practices Hakuin introduced into his
system, the fundamentally Buddhist nature of his teachings never changed.
As he explains in the Itsumadegusa, “I think that my way of doing things
may look quite similar to the Daoist ways and generally appear not so
much like what Buddhists prefer. Well, this is my Zen” (Yoshizawa 1999,
3:301). In this he confirms that appearances may be deceptive and, while
he introduces quite a few Daoist practices into his system, they do not af-
fect his status as a Buddhist teacher. In other words, practicing sitting
meditation with a Daoist character has no effect on the essence of its Bud-
dhist nature and ultimate goal, but on the whole creates a particular form
of Buddhism that represents his unique, new take on Zen.
How Hakuin sees relationship between Buddhism and his Zen,
moreover, is spelled out in the Orategama. When the two are criticized as
conflicting, he says,

This is nothing but a way of abandoning zazen and slandering quiet

contemplation. In general, among all the sages and wise men, anybody
possessed of wisdom both in history and today, there has not been a single
one who has not relied on contemplation and concentration (chanding) to
complete the Buddhist path. The three stages of morality (sīla), concentration
(samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā) constitute the great network that has held the
Buddhist path together since antiquity. Who would dare to despise or ignore
164 / Qi Song

them?12 (Yoshizawa 2001, 9:250)

As this demonstrates, Hakuin believed that the three disciplines of

morality, concentration, and wisdom are central elements of practice that
all Buddhist sages and wise men must undertake in the process of attain-
ing enlightenment. They form “the great network that holds the Buddhist
path together.” Meditation and focused concentration lead to the ultimate
goal and, in its specific form of Zen, to “a state of perfect vision that goes
beyond all patriarchs and transcends all traditions.” In this statement in
the Orategama he adapts a phrase from the introduction of the Song-
dynasty koan collection Biyanlu 碧巖錄 (Blue Cliff Record; trl. Shaw 1961;
Cleary 1977), compiled by Master Xuedou Chongxian 雪窦重顯 (980-1052).
That is to say, one must rely entirely on oneself and one’s own innate
qualities, getting away from the buddhas and masters of the past as well
as overcoming the power of previous models and examples. Ultimately
one must find truth in one’s own Buddha-nature while yet always contin-
uing to evolve with the times. Going beyond the patriarchs and transcend-
ing traditions is the ultimate secret of freedom of Zen masters, that is, “the
supreme great meditation” (Yoshizawa 2001, 9:250).
Hakuin does not propose the pursuit of any firm and unchangeable
inherent form of practice but favors an individual and personal evolution
that changes over time and matches the natural rhythms both as given by
the celestial bodies and manifest within one’s own self. The fact that one is
not limited by any kind of form or solidity—physical, spatial, temporal—is
the key to his way of Buddhist realization.

Conclusion

Taking all this together, Hakuin worked with several different modes of
time perception in his various Zen experiences. First of all, during kensho
time for him collapsed into a single instant and vanished completely,
opening him to the underlying cosmic reality of timelessness. Then again,
when suffering from Zen sickness, time in his experience was dilated and

12
蓋シ斯ク云ヘバトテ坐禅ヲ嫌イ, 静慮ヲ謗ルニシ非ズ. 大凡ソ一切ノ聖賢, 古今ノ
智者, 禅定ニ依ラズシテ仏道ヲ成就スル底, 半箇モ亦タ無シ. 夫レ戒定慧ノ三要ハ,
仏道万古ノ大綱ナリ. 誰カ敢テ軽忽セン. 然ルニ向キニ謂ユル禅門ノ諸聖ノ如キハ,
超宗越格, 真正無上ノ大禅定. 擬スル則ハ電轉ジ星飛ブ.
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 165

extended into long, drawn-out, and painful segments. Those two represent
extreme poles that could also be described as heaven and hell, purity and
defilement, or oneness and division.
After learning Daoist techniques from Hakuyu, Hakuin switched to a
much gentler and more fluid way of practice, leaving these extremes be-
hind and focusing more on the world of stars, nature, and humanity.
Working closely with the natural rhythms, he emphasized their manifesta-
tion within the body through breathing and energy guiding, notably in the
ocean of qi and the elixir field. He adapted his body’s patterns to natural
time structures as manifest both within and without.
His mind, too, matched this, and he engaged in repeated mental ac-
tivities as consciousness flowed all through the different parts of the body:
head, shoulders, arms, chest, inner organs, hips, legs, and feet. As he in-
corporated the Daoist way of floating energy through the body in close
alignment with natural breathing patterns, he worked increasingly with
the ongoing repetition of physical and mental processes, establishing a
smooth and harmonious movement of the mind—quite like the mountain
stream he so admired in his early years.
This integrated cycle of the mind, moreover, could be objectively
measured in time, resulting in a way of working with it that was both
productive and manifest. All this allowed Hakuin to activate a different
way of perceiving time: rather than overcoming it completely in timeless-
ness or suffering from its vagaries in extreme dilation, he went along with
it and used it as a tool to attain internal harmony and mental coherence.
Eventually, from envisioning energy flowing through the body in
rhythmic cycles, he moved on to a new level of seeing, finding the true
root of enlightenment deep within himself. Doing so, he went beyond time
as a historical marker and ancestral agent, attaining the ability to do away
with the patriarchs and traditions—a feature strongly emphasized already
by Rinzai himself.
Another effect of working with time as natural rhythms was that
Hakuin could develop a methodology of Zen practice that was accessible
to everyone and easy to teach. This is evident particularly in the Orategama
and Yasen kanna, both works that were addressed less to recluses than to
lay followers and aimed to help people in all walks of life.
For example, the Orategama contains a letter Hakuin wrote to the feu-
dal lord Nabeshima Naohisa 鍋島直恒 (1701-1749), who had grown tired of
the political infighting of his time and wished to recover both peace of
mind and physical health. He therefore asked Hakuin for advice on recu-
peration techniques. To help him, Hakuin in his letter records his own
practice experiences plus instructions on the essentials of Zen meditation.
166 / Qi Song

Similarly, the preface of the Yasen kanna contains a letter of the Kyoto
publisher Ogawa Genhei 小川源兵 on the publication of the book. It de-
scribes its contents in terms of guiding qi and nourishing vital essence with
the goal to enrich people’s defensive and protective energies and provide
detailed instructions on extending life, addressing key concerns of lay
people and making Zen practice accessible to all.

Bibliography
Bucke, R. M. 1901. Cosmic Consciousness: A Study of the Evolution of the Human Mind.
Philadelphia: Innis & Sons.
Cleary, Thomas. 1977. The Blue Cliff Record. 3 vols. Boulder: Shambhala.
Droit-Volet, Sylvie. 2014. “What Emotions Tell Us about Time.” In Subjective Time:
The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality, edited by Valtteri
Arstila and Dan Lloyd, 477-506. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Hammond, Claudia. 2012. Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception.
New York: Harper.
Handa Yōichi 半田荣一. 2012. “Hakuin no Zen shisō to Nanso no hō”白隠の禅思想
と軟蘇の法. Hikaku shisō kenkyū 比較思想研究 38:48-56.
Hakuin Ekaku 白隐慧鶴. 1898. Chokuitsu shōshū kokushi Hakuin oshō zenji 敕谥正宗
国师白隐和尚全集. Tokyo: Kōyūkan.
Fang Litian 方立天. 1999. Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu 中国文化研究. Shanghai: Fudan
daxue chubanshe.
Katō Shōshun 加藤正俊. 1985. Hakuin oshō nenpu 白隐和尚年谱. Tokyo: Shinbun
kaku shuppan.
Ludwig, Arnold M. 1966. “Altered States of Consciousness.” Archives of General
Psychiatry 15.3:225-34.
Luo Shiguang 罗时光. 2012. “You Song-Ming chan dao Baiyin chan: Shi zhi shiba
shiji zong Richang sician de bijiao yanjiu” 由宋明禅至白隐禅:10 至 18 世纪中日
禅思想的比较研究. Ph. D. Diss., Suzhou University, Suzhou.
Maslow, Abraham H. 1964. Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold.

Narushima Ryūhoku 成島柳北. 1985. Ryūkyō shinshi itsumadegusa 柳橋新誌壁生草.

Tokyo: Benseisha.
Noreika, Valdas, Christine M. Falter, and Till M. Wagner. 2014. “Variability of Du-
ration Perception: From Natural and Induced Alterations to Psychiatric Disor-
ders.” In Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Tempo-
 Hakuin’s Zen Experiences / 167

rality, edited by Valtteri Arstila and Dan Lloyd, 529-56. Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press.
Rikugawa Taiun 陸川堆雲. 1963. Hakuin oshō shōden 白隐和尚詳伝. Tokyo: Sanki-
kō busshōin.
Sharf, Robert. 2015. “Is Mindfulness Buddhist (and Why It Matters).” Transcultural
Psychiatry 52.4:470-84.
Shaw, R. D. M. 1961. The Blue Cliff Records. London: Michael Joseph.
_____. 1963. The Embossed Tea Kettle: Orate Gama and Other Works of Hakuin Zenji.
London: George Allen & Unwin.
Takihama Shōjun 瀧濑尚纯. 2013. Hakuin shujō honrai butsu nari 白隠衆生本来仏な
り. Tokyo: Heibonsha.
Tart, Charles T., ed. 1969. Altered States of Consciousness. Hoboken: John Wiley &
Sons.
Underhill, Evelyn. 1911. Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual
Consciousness. London: Methuen & Co.
Waddell, Norman. 1999. Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin.
Boston: Shambhala.
Yoshizawa Katsuhirō 芳沢勝弘. 1999. Hakuin Zenji hōgo zenshū 白隠禅師法語全集,
Part 1. Kyoto: Zen bunka kenkyūjo.
_____. 2000. Hakuin Zenji hōgo zenshū 白隠禅師法語全集, Part 2. Kyoto: Zen bunka
kenkyūjo.
_____. 2001. Hakuin Zenji hōgo zenshū 白隠禅師法語全集, Part 3. Kyoto: Zen bunka
kenkyūjo.
_____. 2016. Shinpen Hakuin Zenji nenpu 新编白隐禅师年谱. Kyoto: Zen bunka
kenkyūjo.
 Synchronicity

A Modern Interpretation of Time in the Yijing

JUAN ZHAO1

Synchronicity is a key concept developed by the Swiss analytical psy-

chologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), along others for which he is equal-
ly well known such as the personal and collective unconscious, archetypes,
individuation, and a particular take on the self. Intertwined with these
various concept—that for the most part remain within the framework of
Western thought—synchronicity is a mainstay of Jungian psychology. It
also relates closely to Eastern thinking, especially as expressed in the Yi-
jing 易經 (Book of Changes). This article focuses on the concept of synchro-
nicity and analyzes its relationship with the Yijing, then explores it as a
modern interpretation of time as understood in ancient Chinese thought,
explains it in the context of Western academic terms. Beyond this, as syn-
chronicity involves Jung’s reflection on human thought and fundamental
life issues, the analysis also opens ways of using the concept of time in the
Yijing as a principle of universal relevance in the contemporary world.

The Concept Emerges

Jung’s early works do not speak of synchronicity. Apparently, the idea

first entered his horizon when he came in contact with the physicist Albert
Einstein (1879-1955) around 1910. In 1909, Einstein left the patent office in
Bern to teach at the Physics Department of the University of Zürich. At
that time, his concept of relativity had already gained considerable influ-
ence in the scientific community and he was invited widely, including also
to Jung’s house. Einstein’s notion of the relativity and inherent continuity
of time and space in due course caught Jung’s attention. As he later notes,
“It was Einstein who first started me thinking about a possible relativity of
time as well as space, and their psychic conditionality. More than thirty
years later this stimulus led to my relation with the physicist Wolfgang
Pauli and my thesis of psychic synchronicity” (Coward 1996, 480).

1 Translated by Livia Kohn.

168
 Synchronicity / 169

The dominant understanding in Western culture since Isaac Newton

(1642-1726) was that time was linear and homogeneous, absolute and irre-
versible. With the arising of the new physics, scientists came to question
this, raising issues of time to a key position in both physics and philoso-
phy of the 20th century. Relativity and quantum theory fundamentally up-
ended the concept of time, exerting a powerful influence not only in the
natural sciences but also in the humanities and social studies. Time be-
came a key term to understand human existence and culture. Doing away
with the basic laws of cause and effect as expressed by René Descartes
(1596-1650), thinkers no longer regarded linearity and direct causation as
the touchstone of truth. Physicists, philosophers, and cultural anthropolo-
gists—who all used to treat time as objective, homogeneous, and irreversi-
ble, each from their own perspectives—now pushed its understanding to
new limits. They no longer regarded transcending time as the only way to
seek the essence of things and the absolute truth of life, but came to ob-
serve and experience various—and even contradictory—possibilities in the
flow of time.
Jung’s concept of synchronicity can be seen as the direct result of this
revolution in temporal awareness. However, it also owes a great deal to
his exploration of analytical psychology and grew on the basis of practical
experience in counseling and theoretical experimentation in psychological
analysis. As he says,

My engagement with the psychology of unconscious processes compelled me

many years ago to look around for another explanatory principle, because
the causal principle seemed to me insufficient to explain certain strange phe-
nomena of the psychology of the unconscious. That is to say, I first found that
there are parallel psychological phenomena that cannot be causally related to
each other but must connect in a different context of events. This connection
seems to me essential in the fact of the relative simultaneity, hence the term
“synchronistic.”2

In Jung’s psychoanalytical work, parallel psychological phenomena

or meaningful coincidences often stymied him. Engaging in discussions
with the missionary and China scholar Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930) and
learning from him about the Yijing, he soon came to the understanding
that Eastern thinkers did not base their science on strict rationality and
regarded coincidence rather than causality as the fundamental principle of
how the world worked. As he says himself, “The science of the Yijing is

2Eulogy for Richard Wilhelm at his memorial service, 10 May, 1930 (Wilhelm and
Jung 1962, preface).
170 / Juan Zhao

not based on the causal principle, but on a principle that has not yet been
named, because we are not aware of this principle which I have tentatively
referred to as the synchronistic principle” (1962, preface).
He continues to point out that synchronism—the term he used before
synchronicity—constituted the strength of Eastern thought, while causali-
ty formed “the modern prejudice of Westerners.” Although he clearly
passes judgment in this evaluation, the fact that he modifies the word
“prejudice” with the adjective “modern” means that he did not see this as
an inherent problem of the West but a shortcoming of the modern age,
more precisely, as the conceptual prerequisite for the development of
modern science since the Age of Enlightenment. He also, it becomes clear,
saw the two as having an equal impact: both causality and synchronism
are fundamental principles of thought and form basic factors of experience.
In 1935, in a lecture at the Tower of Dusstock Clinic in London, he
first used the word “synchronicity,” noting that “Dao can be anything; I
use another term to denote this principle, although it is quite basic: I call it
synchronicity” (Jung 1935). Still, while the concept now had a name, it re-
mained obscure for quite some time, just dentiong the summary and gen-
eralization of all kinds of supernatural phenomena and mysterious experi-
ences. It was, at this time, not yet a core concept in Jungian analytical psy-
chology.

Defining Synchronicity

This changed when Jung connected with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli
(1900-1958), who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945 for having devel-
oped the Pauli Exclusion Principle. A talented scientist and prolific writer
at an early age, praised profusely by Einstein, he was yet a difficult per-
sonality, acrimonious and highly critical. His mother had committed sui-
cide, his marriage went wrong, and after a series of setbacks, he suffered a
nervous breakdown. Finally, in 1931, he sought out Jung and underwent
treatment in analytical psychology. As Jung recorded Pauli’s dreams, Pauli
soon started to participate in their analysis, criticizing Jung’s views from a
scientific perspective and increasingly playing an active role in the devel-
opment of the concept of synchronicity. As Marialuisa Donati says, “In
fact, as a consequence of their collaboration, synchronicity was trans-
formed from an empirical concept into a fundamental explanatory-
interpretative principle, which together with causality could lead to a
more complete worldview” (2004).
The two continued to interact closely until Pauli’s death in 1958. As
documented in their work, Atom and Archetype (2001), they discussed Pau-
 Synchronicity / 171

li’s dreams as recorded by Jung in their letters and explored the relation-
ship between the inner mind and the outer world in terms of synchronicity,
archetypes, and more. Their close cooperation, especially with regard to
the notion of synchronicity, is also evident in their book, Nature and the
Interpretation of the Mind (1952). More specifically, it contains two relevant
articles, Jung’s “Simultaneous Sensing as the Law of Noncausal Associa-
tion” and Pauli’s “The Influence of the Archetypes on the Formation of
Kepler’s Natural Science Theory.”
Jung’s paper in particular is an expansion of his presentation “On
Synchronicity,” given at the Eranos Roundtable in 1951, the annual meet-
ing of inspiring minds hosted by the Eranos Foundation, based in Ascona,
and in that instance focused on the topic “Humanity and Time.” Jung
notes,
In this short presentation, I unfortunately can only give a rough outline of the
huge issue of simultaneity. For those who want to go deeper into this topic, I
would like to suggest that you look to my article on the subject soon to be
published in my and Professor W. Pauli’s book Nature and the Interpretation of
the Mind.

Published in the following year in the Eranos Jahrbuch (Jung 1952), this
article is probably Jung’s most concentrated and concise formulation of
synchronicity but, being brief and directed at a nonspecialist audience, it
inevitably simplifies certain issues. However, it also places the topic into a
wider context, especially since at the same meeting Hellmut Wilhelm
(1905-1990), Richard Wilhelm’s son, presented on the issue of synchronici-
ty from the perspective of the Yijing (1952), so that his work and Jung’s
article form a dialogue and exchange of ideas.
The expanded version in the volume with Wolfgang Pauli, published
in the same year, is more intricate. Jung here explores the difficulties and
nuances of the problem of synchronicity in as much detail as possible.
However, perhaps due to the irrational characteristics of the concept, in
many ways he makes it rather complex and creates a certain degree of con-
fusion and misunderstanding. He does not define the concept right in the
beginning but, as he says, “I would rather take a different approach and
first briefly describe the facts touched by the concept.”
After outlining these facts, he classifies them in three key categories
that form the backbone of his theoretical discussion as based on empirical
phenomena. The three are: associations of events and/or thoughts that
cannot be explained by causal associations or have explanations that are
invalid, simultaneous events, and coincidences of events and/or thoughts
that appear at the same time and can be verified later. In addition, any of
172 / Juan Zhao

these, as he emphasizes, must be relevant to the person and create a “sense

of meaning” in the mind.
As already made clear in the title of this expanded paper, he defines
the nature of synchronicity as “non-causal association,” that is, a law or
principle. As a law, it is not only about physics or psychology, but defines
the fundamental basis of human experience and knowledge. As he notes
in the preface of the book, “My concern for this issue is not only based on
scientific research, but on a study of the entire human race” (Jung and
Pauli 1952, 2). He points out that, according to modern physics, the laws of
nature are only statistical truths and the law of causality is the only cer-
tainty, valid in entire range of phenomena. Then he asks, “Does daily ex-
perience also show non-causal connections at the macro-physical level?”
Using the parapsychological experiments by J. B. Rhine (1895-1980) as
a backdrop, Jung provides powerful illustrations and concludes that under
certain spiritual conditions, time and space become relative and can even
be overcome. He also proposes a possible mental dynamic to explain how
an activated archetype can lead to the emergence of synchronicity. To wit,
when the energy of consciousness is relatively low, the energy of the un-
conscious is relatively strong, and the content of the unconscious will enter
the level of consciousness more frequently than usual. There is a certain
amount of “absolute knowledge” in the unconscious content, that is, the
content of consciousness can go beyond the limits of time and space as
shown in parapsychology. If the connection between absolute knowledge
and physical events that occur at the same time is noticed and identified,
synchronicity will be experienced.
Moving on from there, in Chapter 2 of the book, Jung describes a set
of astrological experiments. He concludes that, if the relationship between
astrological expectations and the final result is not causal, it must contain a
certain meaning. In Chapter 3, he traces the origin of synchronicity both in
Chinese and Western thinking but in the final chapter he admits that the
entire concept has not been fully proven or reliably confirmed. He still ten-
tatively proposes it on the basis of empirical observations of events that
occur outside the body and are nonlocal and notes that the relationship
between body and mind may be one of simultaneous feelings. He also
elaborates the theoretical status of synchronicity as a fourth explanatory
principle—that is, he posits the “principle of synchronicity” in addition to
time, space, and causality.
To sum up, Jung’s multifaceted discussion of synchronicity includes
the following key aspects. Two or more events are not related by cause
and effect, but have the same or similar meaning and coincide in time. Re-
lated in creative action, they are noncausal yet parallel. Synchronicity,
 Synchronicity / 173

therefore, means the coincidence of two or more thoughts and/or events

that may occur at the same time or be confirmed later as having occurred
simultaneously. They are independent of place, that is, nonlocal, and there
is no causal connection between them. The law of causality cannot explain
how they come about, but the coincidence attracts attention because the
events have the same or similar meaning. If all this holds true, the connec-
tion between the events is one of synchronicity. Four key words summa-
rize it best: time, non-causality, coincidence, and meaning. In addition, the
concept also represents an echo of the revolution in the understanding of
time in the new physics and a modern reflection of the 20th century.

The Yijing

In Jung’s lifetime, the Yijing had already been translated into English by
the missionary and sinologist James Legge (1815-1897; see Girardot 2002)
as part of his magnum opus, The Sacred Books of China (Legge 1899). How-
ever, in Jung’s view, this translation did not offer an adequate understand-
ing to Westerners. As far as we can tell, he first learned about it from Toni
Anna Wolff (1888-1953), a patient of his from 1910 to late 1911 and later,
starting in 1913, his mistress and collaborator. He may well have learned
about Eastern philosophy and religion from her father who had a keen
interest in China. While this is conjecture, by 1920, as his autobiography
shows, Jung had definitely begun to use the Yijing in his explorations of
the human mind (Rong 2009, 320).
However, his dedicated interest in the Yijing, as well as its impact on
his vision of synchronicity, is due largely to his cooperation with the si-
nologist Richard Wilhelm. Wilhelm, in China as a Protestant missionary,
had spent over ten years translating this difficult classic into German. He
worked in close collaboration with Lao Naixuan 劳乃宣 (1843-1921), a sen-
ior Qing scholar who served chief education officer of Jiangning and later
became president of Hangzhou Qiuzhi University. Lao in turn recom-
mended that Wilhelm should base his work on the exegesis by the re-
nowned thinker Li Guangdi 李光地 (1642-1718), entitled Zhouyi zhezhong 周
易折中 (Analytical Edition of the Zhou [Book of] Changes) (see Li 2012).
In order to facilitate a good understanding and easy acceptance of
the text by European readers, especially also non-professionals, Wilhelm
carefully arranged the German translation. He included not only the main
text with its different parts and various early supplements—the so-called
Ten Wings—but also important interpretations from Chinese commen-
taries. In addition, he took great care to explain just how the arrangement
of the translation worked in relation to the original structure of the Yijing.
174 / Juan Zhao

This undoubtedly made it easier for Europeans to immerse themselves in

the work and over time opened the way for them to enter more closely
into the Chinese mind (Zhouyi 2010)
The work was published in Jena in 1924 and in due course became
the blueprint for all other Western renditions. Its influence was immediate
and powerful, especially since European society at the time—in the wake
of World War I—was in the throes of strong feelings that civilization was
coming to an end, expressed powerfully by the German historian Oswald
Spengler in The Decline of the West (1922). The Chinese classic offered one
way for intellectuals to envision the reinvention and renewal of European
culture with the help of non-Western thought—in a way very similar to
the reception of the Daode jing (see Hardy 1998).
In Jung’s view, Wilhelm unlike Legge really grasped the vitality of
the Yijing and made it perfectly accessible to Westerners. Aware of his
work even before the book was published, in 1923 he invited Wilhelm to
give a lecture at the Psychology Club in Zürich. At this occasion, the two
had plenty of opportunity to discuss Chinese philosophy and issues of
religion in general as well as the Yijing in particular. This exchange made
Jung realize just how powerful the Chinese philosophical tradition was
and how much it had to offer his understanding of the world, especially in
the light of the problems imposed by the European subconscious mind
(Wei and Rong 1993, 140-152). A friendship resulted that, over the next
few years, led to the joint translation of the Qing-dynasty Daoist text Taiyi
jinhua zongzhi 太乙金華宗旨 (The Secret of the Golden Flower), which was
published in 1929 and has also had a profound impact on Western thought
(Wilhelm and Jung 1962, preface).3
So, what exactly did Richard Wilhelm teach Jung about the Yijing?
To him, the text was a book of divination and wisdom, a concentrated ex-
pression of the “Chinese mind and spirit.” This certainly echoed with Jung.
As a classic representative of Eastern civilization, complete with a long
history and wide-reaching influence, the Yijing to him was a cultural ar-
chetype, an expression of the unique potentiality of human thought. Jung
was increasingly convinced that the accidental coincidences he often en-
countered in the process of analyzing dreams were not just an issue of sta-
tistical probability, but revealed a fundamental issue related to human
thinking. The Yijing presented him with a way of understanding the world

3For a more recent English translation, see Cleary 1992; for modern Chinese, see
Wei and Rong 1993. On the textual history of the work, see Esposito, 1998; Mori
2002. For its importance in internal alchemy today, see Wang and Bartosh 2019.
 Synchronicity / 175

in terms completely alien to traditional Western models, a way that history

and experience had already proven relevant and highly effective.
Still, however much he accepted the Yijing and recognized its value,
Jung maintained his culturally determined perspective and was always
limited by his existing cognitive framework. That is to say, whether he
approved or criticized, he remained within the boundaries of analytical
psychology. As he said in a letter to B. V. Raman on the subject of astrolo-
gy, dated 6 September 1947:

As a psychologist, I am mainly concerned with the coincidence of certain as-

trological conditions and personalities. In some difficult treatments, I often
have astrological signs to get a completely different way of thinking. . . I ad-
mit that this is a very strange fact, which gives us a special care for the struc-
ture of the human spirit. (Main 1997, 81)

In Jung’s view, divination worked in such a way that, even if “there

was no event that triggered synchronicity, at least it would make events
fall in line to fulfill its purpose.” He also notes that “thinking based on the
principle of synchronicity reached its peak in the Yijing. It can be said that
it is a manifestation of the authentic Chinese way of thinking.”

Jung’s Understanding

Jung’s understanding of the Yijing is made clear in several distinct sources.

In chronological order, they are:

—his eulogy for Richard Wilhelm at the memorial service in 1930

(Wilhelm and Jung 1962, 139-51);
—his letter to B. Baur on 19 January 1934 (Jung 1973);
— his “Foreword” to the English translation of Wilhelm’s Yijing translation,
written in 1949 (Wilhelm 1950, xxi-xxxix);
—his letter to Rev. W. P. Witcutt on 24 August 1960 (Jung 1990);
—his autobiographical memoir, dated to 1963 (Rong 2009)

Among all these, the “Foreword” reflects on the relationship between

the text and Jung’s vision of synchronicity in the most concentrated and
detailed manner. Originally written in German, its English version is not
the same. While the second half is roughly identical, the first half in Ger-
man describes Richard Wilhelm’s take on Yijing divination while that in
English discusses synchronicity. Also, the English version was published
around the same time as Jung’s essays in the Eranos Jarhbuch and his joint
176 / Juan Zhao

book with Wolfgang Pauli, the three coming together to represent his out-
look.
A key feature of Jung’s “Foreword,” then, is that he engages in a dia-
logue with the Yijing as “an ancient book that purports to be animated”
(Wilhelm 1950, xxvi). Asking its judgment about its present situation, he
receives the hexagram Ding 鼎䷱ (Cauldron, No. 50), which he takes to
mean that the text considers itself a culturally determined container of
spiritual nourishment. Analyzing the various images and lines of the hex-
agram, he comes to the conclusion that “the Yijing faces its future on the
American market calmly” (1950, xxxiii).
He then proceeds to ask about his own behavior and position in this
greater context and receives the hexagram Kan 坎䷜ (The Abysmal/Water,
No. 29). The oracle gives a warning of deep and abysmal danger and ad-
vises patience and restraint, “otherwise you will fall into a pit in the
abyss” (1950, xxxv). Jung reads this less as a personal warning to stay
away from the text than as a commentary on people’s relationship to it, the
tendency to jump to conclusions when there are unfathomable depths to
be explored.

In the dreamlike atmosphere of the Yijing, one has nothing to rely upon ex-
cept one’s own so fallible subjective judgment. Ii cannot but admit that this
line represents very appropriately the feelings with which I wrote the forego-
ing passages. (1950, xxxv)

Along a different line of inquiry, Jung also expresses surprise that

“such a gifted and intelligent people as the Chinese never developed what
we call science” (1950, xxii). To him, this just shows that the foundation of
modern science in the West, that is, the law of causality, is encumbered by
limitations, one of which makes it very difficult for Europeans to under-
stand Eastern perspectives. There are fundamental divergences in the way
of thinking, most specifically the contrast between causality and synchro-
nicity—the latter most pertinently expressed in the Yijing, the most con-
centrated embodiment of Chinese thought.
For Westerners, this way of thinking has a subversive significance: it
shakes their very cognitive foundation. Jung calls this the Archimedes
Point, the transformative hinge, where it becomes clear that the law of
causality is only a relative truth and has its limitations. Not only does it
not work at all in some areas of the mind, but it is also nothing but statisti-
cal probability and therefore must face exceptions. Any laws of nature
studied under strictly limited conditions in the laboratory, even if they can
be verified repeatedly, yet never fully match in reality—each individual’s
 Synchronicity / 177

reality is full of processes that are more or less subject to chance. This
chance, this oddness, this unpredictability is what Europeans are trying to
avoid or, ideally, eliminate completely. Yet, it constitutes a matter of great
concern in the Chinese mind. As he says in his commentary to The Secret of
the Golden Flower,

The Chinese did indeed have a science, whose standard work was the Yijing,
but the principle of this science, like so much else in China, was altogether
different from our scientific principle. (Wilhelm and Jung 1962, 142)

This altogether different principle is defined in his concept of syn-

chronicity. Jung believes that in this way of thinking, “events fit in time
and space and do not just occur by chance. It contains more meaning, in a
nutshell, that is, the objective events are between each other and between
them and observation There is a special interdependent relationship be-
tween the subjective mental states of the readers” (Jung 2000, 209).
He believes that the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing represent par-
ticular life situations, complete with its specific state of mind. As he says,

Now, the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing are the instrument by which the
meaning of sixty-four different yet typical situations can be determined.
These interpretations are equivalent to causal explanations. Causal connec-
tion is statistically necessary and can therefore be subjected to experiment.
Inasmuch as in situations are unique and can nor be repeated, experimenting
with synchronicity seems to be impossible under ordinary conditions. In the
Yijing, the only criterion of the validity of synchronicity is the observer’s
opinion that the text of the hexagram amount to a true rendering of his psy-
chic condition. (Jung 2000, 209-10)

In other words, the seeker shares his state of mind by presenting a

question, then interacts with the oracle through milfoil stalks or sacred
coins, while also integrating the characteristics of his particular situation.
Time and space are relativized and subjective to spiritualization, and the
law of causality loses its validity. At this point of synchronous interaction,
mind, world, and oracle coincide: the Yijing opens the human mind to be-
ing inspired by deep meaning and engaging holistically with past, present,
and future in an experience of mutual presentation and total integration.
However, for Westerners, the fundamental understanding of life as
flowing and potentially synchronous was lost. “This way of thinking dis-
appeared from the history of Western philosophy after Heraclitus [ca. 535-
755 BCE], but there were some low echoes from Leibniz [1646-1716].” This
is why Jung associates synchronicity with Leibniz’s concept of “pre-
178 / Juan Zhao

established harmony” (harmonia praestabilita). Jung believed that this kind

of thinking “has not completely died out in the history of Western philos-
ophy. It is still alive in the fading astrology metaphysics, and it has been
preserved to this day.”
Some scholars in the West have questioned this view. Donald Phillip
Verene, for example, points out that although Jung’s concept of synchro-
nicity is mainly based on the divination system as represented in the Yijing,
this does not mean that there is no support for it in Western philosophy or
that there are no theoretical resources for it as a fundamental principle. He
believes that the theories of historical experience and personal self-
knowledge as proposed by the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico
(1668-1744) are a form of metaphysics based on the idea of synchronicity.
He also argues that his notions of language and historical cycles became
the basis of James Joyce’s (1882-1941) final work, Finnegans Wake. Vico’s
metaphysical understanding of synchronicity and Joyce’s cultural expres-
sion to him provide a resource on the principle of synchronicity in modern
Western thought that has nothing to do with divination. Verene believes
that Jung did not pay attention to this resource (2002).
As Jung reflected and criticized the law of cause and effect, he reject-
ed Western ideological resources as useless and directly turned to the Yi-
jing as a foundation stone of all ideas of synchronicity. In this endeavor he
favored an intellectual approach and did not get involved in passionate
debates. His position is thus quite different from those of early missionary
sinologists who attempted to find some dimension of divinity and confirm
the existence of God in the text of the Yijing. It is also very different from
that of professional China scholarship in the modern academic sense, since
he used the text toward his own ends and read his own visions into it.
It can even be said that the core of Jung’s focus was not the Yijing as
such or the goal of obtaining reliable knowledge about it. Nor was he pri-
marily interested in figuring out the relationship between the text and
Chinese culture and spirit. His main concern was how much proof he
could find in the text for his own ideological system, and he studied with
keen awareness the kinds of situations it described and the means it used
to resolve potential conflicts. To him, the key issue was how the life situa-
tions and advice given in the Yijing could explain and resolve the prob-
lems posed by analytical psychology. It was, in other words, only one of
many astrological and divination works, both ancient and modern, Chi-
nese and Western, that Jung engaged with in his work. However, it stands
out in that it presents one of the most mature and concentrated interpreta-
tions of psychological issues and life-situation problems in world history.
 Synchronicity / 179

Concepts of Time

How, then, does the Yijing, which to Jung represents the “authentic Chi-
nese way of thinking,” work with the issue of time? In his early work on
the subject, including his Eranos presentation, he describes the phenome-
non of simultaneous meaningful occurrences with the term “qualitative
time,” to be later replaced with synchronicity. He clarifies the distinction
between the two in a letter to André Barbault, dated 26 May, 1954.

[Qualitative time] is a notion I used formerly, but I have replaced it with the
idea of synchronicity, which is analogous to sympathy or correspondentia, or
to Leibniz’s pre-established harmony.
Time in itself consists of nothing. It is only a modus cogitandi used to ex-
press the flux of things and events, just as space is nothing but a way of de-
scribing the existence of a body. When nothing occurs in time and when
there is no body in space, there is neither time nor space.
Time is always and exclusively “qualified” by events just as space is by
the extension of bodies. But qualitative time is a tautology and means noth-
ing, whereas synchronicity (not synchronism) expresses the parallelism and
analogy between events in so far they are noncausal.
In contrast, qualitative time is a hypothesis that attempts to explain the
parallelism of events in terms of cause and effect. But since qualitative time is
nothing but the flux of things, and is moreover just as much nothing as space,
this hypothesis does not establish anything except the tautology: the flux of
things and events is the cause of the flux of things. (Jung 1990, 16)

While working with the concept of qualitative time, Jung still tried to
explain certain phenomena such as significant coincidences within the
overall framework of causality. However, once he moved on to the use of
synchronicity, it becomes clear that he abandoned this altogether and
placed all attempts at interpretation and methods of analysis within a
framework of causality into a completely different category. How this
works is shown best in the following diagram (Jung and Pauli 1952):

Space
|
|
|
Causality——————————— ————————Synchronicity
|
|
|
Time
180 / Juan Zhao

Here causality and synchronicity appear in a relatively equal position,

representing two basic laws of how the world is connected in time and
space. However, as his discussions with Wolfgang Pauli went on, Jung
absorbed some of his suggestions and revised this chart to include notions
of the fundamental energy and constancy of spacetime as well as more
abstract visions of connectivity and valuation. It then came to look like this:

Indestructible Energy
|
|
|
Constant connectivity Non-constant connectivity
Value through effect————————————Coincidence or meaning
(Causality) (Synchronicity)
|
|
|
Spacetime Continuum

Seen from this angle, if the law of causality is understood as the prin-
ciple of association between things and events, then time is composed of a
series of causes and effects. In other words, things or events occur in the
sequence of time, with the cause coming first and the result second and the
two forming a temporal chain. Her the spatial vision of sequence—
traveling from one place to the next—is the conceptual premise of the law
of causality and thus creates a particular perception of time.
In contrast, the concept of synchronicity as a way of thinking mani-
fests outside of time and space. This was further developed by Jung’s stu-
dents and followers. For example, his friend and biographer, Barbara
Hannah expanded the theory from the perspective of space and time
(1982).
Also, in 1952, Jung engaged in a dialogue with the religious histo-
rian Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) who pointed out to him that synchronicity
marks a break in time, quite like the experience of the holy in religion: here
too time, space, and causality lose their effectiveness (McGuire and Hull
1985). As time is broken, the basis of all causal connections and functions
is gone, a phenomenon Roderick Main later called the “rupture of time”
(2004).
Jung himself describes this in his memorial for Richard Wilhelm:
 Synchronicity / 181

It seems indeed as though time, far from being an abstraction, is a concrete

continuum that contains qualities or basic conditions, which manifest them-
selves simultaneously in various places in a way not to be explained by caus-
al parallelism as, for example, in cases of the coincident appearance of identi-
cal thoughts, symbols, or psychic conditions. (Wilhelm and Jung 1962, 148)

The Yijing is a great case in point for this vision, mainly because it
works with a concept of time that closely matches Jung’s synchronicity. It
presents a complete system including the seeker, his or her key question,
the formal ceremony, the text of the Yijing, its interpretation, and the ulti-
mate prediction or advice as a result of the powerful interactive process.
While it served as a mainstay of his overall theory, a way of completing
his reflections on European modernity, it also can be interpreted from
Jung’s view: by engaging his concept of synchronicity we may come to see
a new and dfferent level of what exactly time means in the ancient Chinese
text. Two points stand out: the nature of reality as unrepeatable experience
and the hexagrams as snapshots of situations in time plus their relation-
ship to the images found in dreams and the unconscious.

Reality as Experience

The way the Yijing looks at reality disfavors causal attitudes and processes.
In the ancient Chinese view, each single moment under observation is
more of a chance hit than the clearly defined result of concurring causal
chain processes. The matter of prime interest is the configuration of
thoughts and events formed by coincidental encounters at the moment of
observation rather than the hypothetical reasons that apparently account
for the situation. While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects,
classifies, and isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment encompasses
everything down to the minutest nonsensory detail, because all these dif-
ferent ingredients constitute the observed moment (Jung 2000, 207-08).
Therefore, every instance of casting the Yijing is sacred and mysteri-
ous to both the seeker and the diviner. Repeated divisions of milfoil or
throws of coins may provide different results, but this will not cause peo-
ple to lose faith in the text’s predictions. Plus, if questioned repeatedly on
the same issue, the tendency is for hexagram Meng 蒙 ䷃ (Youthful Folly)
to appear, which says right in the Judgment: “The young fool seeks me. At
the first oracle I inform him. If he asks two or three times, it is importunity.
If he importunes, I give him no information” (Wilhelm 1950, 21). In other
words, the text refuses to deal with the same question twice, making sure
people do not pester it on the same issue.
182 / Juan Zhao

While the Yijing safeguards against conflicting results, its reading

might be at odds with those of a different mode of divination, notably that
by cracks (buzhan 卜占), the most common and best-known method of the
Shang dynasty, documented in the so-called oracle bones. Here, diviners
would ask a question and, in a formal ritual, drill tiny holes in the cara-
paces of turtles or shoulder bones of cattle. Heated over a fire, they would
produce cracks that, depending on their direction and length, were read as
a yes or no response (Keightley 1978). The Yijing, in contrast, worked with
“stalk divination” (zhanzhan 筮占), the counting and dividing of milfoil.
This was more common in the Zhou dynasty, as documented in several
recently discovered manuscripts, which describe how trigrams, and not
just hexagrams, were connected to seasonal patterns and read in terms of
good or bad fortune (Cook and Zhao 2017).
On occasion someone would use both major modes of divination and
come up with conflicting results. For example, the ancient chronicle Zuo-
zhuan 左傳 (Mr. Zuo’s Commentary [on the Spring and Autumn Annals])
describes how Duke Xian of the feudal state of Jin, when he wanted to take
Princess Li as his wife, divined the outcome in both modes. The cracks
gave a negative answer, while the stalks considered the match “auspi-
cious.” The duke favored the stalks, but the diviner insisted that turtles
lived much longer than grasses and were accordingly holier: they must,
therefore, be obeyed (Duke Xi, 4th Year). In other words, when conflict
arose, the resolution was not reached by a statistical comparison of the
reliability of the two methods, but by considering the nature of the divin-
ing medium and its divine standing within the overall culture, a reasoning
quite baffling to the scientific mind.
Both the situation of the seeker and the particular presence of the di-
vining medium, therefore, are unique and unrepeatable, manifesting a
particular combination of factors and events, thoughts and emotions. They
come together at a certain point in time, create a connection, and deter-
mine what steps to take or what route to follow. Issues of why and how
and where from do not enter the picture. Immediacy and simultaneity tri-
umph over reasoning and analysis.

Hexagrams as Snapshots and Images

Every time someone consults the Yijing, the result is a hexagram, won
through the consecutive division of pile of forty-nine milfoil stalks or the
repeated toss of three coins. The process integrates the various factors of
heaven, earth, and humanity into one situation, merging the mind and the
external world, the individual and the gods or universe so they form one
 Synchronicity / 183

whole and can communicate jointly. The hexagrams as much as the com-
bined situation are based on specific terms of time and nature, and only
thereby can they obtain inherent unity. Time is a major factor in the entire
process, and the hexagram shows a great deal of relevant information in
this regard, reflecting the past, creating a vivid focus of the present, and
pointing out the direction of future developments and the best way to deal
with them.
Thus, when one throws the three coins or counts through the forty-
nine milfoil stalks, details of chance or coincidence enter into the picture at
the very moment of divination and form a part of it—a part that may be
insignificant to Westerners yet constitutes the most meaningful aspect in
the Chinese mind. For modern Westerners, it would be a banal and almost
meaningless statement, at least on the face of it, to say that whatever hap-
pens in a given moment is what happens in that instant (Jung 2000, 208).
This instant marks the quality of time in the Yijing. It is not linear and
homogeneous, has nothing in common with the absolute time of tradition-
al physics. Often, in response to a question, the text will speak of time lost
or gained, appropriate or inauspicious. It may advise the seeker to work
with time or convey information in accordance with it. It may also recom-
mend to be in sync with time, wait for the right time, and the like. While
different people and different events may receive completely different an-
swers, time in all cases has its own unique quality, closely related to the
situation as a whole.
This is highly personal time, embedded deeply in the individual and
his or her situation, complete different from scientific time that exists ob-
jectively outside of either person, thought, or event and does not change
according to any particular circumstance. Yijing time exists actively in the
seeker as a unique assembly of personal, social, natural, and cosmic factors:
it integrates the human mind and the entire world into one unified, flow-
ing, and dynamic entity.
People’s position is to be placed deeply in this time. Stated different-
ly, time here marks, or even defines, the particular situation in which they
find themselves. The question asked is not, “What is time?” but: “What
does time signify?” What exactly is the impact that time has in this very
moment? What are the temporal markers of the current situation? What
behavior or strategy best matches this time?
All these are mysteries revealed through the image of the hexagram,
a symbol that contains the will of the gods and reveals the inner workings
of heaven and earth. It is a bridge between the visible and the invisible. As
Stephen Karcher notes,
184 / Juan Zhao

Time: moment, right time, propensity. All these refer to the internal energy
or intensity of a situation, a configuration, gesture, stance, or attitude that
guides the vital movements of beings. It is the potential, the right time or
right season to discern and seize the favorable by regarding the signs of
change, signs from heaven that describe the activity of spirit or the gods who
notify and instruct us. (2003, 12)

As reality is perceived as the specific development of things at a cer-

tain moment, its organization and arrangement depend on the degree to
which people grasp this moment: understand it, appreciate its significance,
work with it, let it unfold, or hold back on it. The hexagrams of the Yijing,
marking sixty-four distinct types of moments, therefore, are snapshots that
make hidden currents visible. With their help the seeker can understand
the subtle tendencies and providential trends of heaven and earth relevant
to his or her situation in that very particular moment of time.
To Jung, the system of the hexagrams with their lines, images, judg-
ments, and readings was very much like the analysis of dreams with their
images and subtle indicators through creative imagination. As he outlines
in a letter to Reverend W. P. Witcutt (24 August 1960), they all connect to a
part of the human self or psyche that is not subject to time and space (Jung
1990, 584). Dreams to him are primarily the domain of the unconscious,
which in turn divides into the individual and the collective unconscious.
The main content of the collective unconscious manifests as archetypes,
rooted deeply in human physiological structures and deep cultural condi-
tioning. They appear in numerous archetypal images that people then see
in their dreams.
To some extent, the sixty-four hexagrams of the Yijing are similar to
Jung’s archetypal images. In both cases, the validity of any judgment or
interpretation, that is, the reliability of defining the key factors of the pre-
sent and predicting the future, lies in the coincidence between the inner
mind and the outer symbols or images. This coincidence makes time rela-
tive so that the past flows into the present, the present extends into the
future, and the future in its turn conveys information to the present. The
irreversible characteristics of past, present, and future in time conceptual-
ized as linear are eliminated completely in this system.
 Synchronicity / 185

Conclusion

Jung freely admitted that he was no China specialist and had never visited
the country. He used the translation of Richard Wilhelm to read and work
with the Yijing, relating its thought to his concept of synchronicity. For
him, the text represented more a revelation of a completely different kind
of thinking than an academic research project. He paid close attention to
its vision and interpreted it in the light of his understanding of synchronic-
ity as an alternative principle to causality. This reflects his unique sensitiv-
ity as a thinker and his intuitive ability to penetrate deeply into the text.
Since, like an Yijing judgment, his understanding was highly personal, one
cannot judge whether it is correct or accurate, but must analyze how Jung
himself came to it and what problems he saw. His views then can help us
become aware on our own understanding of what issues we have both
with working with time in a more general sense and with activating it in
our own very specific context.
Over the past century, the cultural and philosophical exchange be-
tween China and the West has increased massively, resulting in mutual
stimulation, questioning, and learning. The development of Chinese and
Western thought has become more and more constructive in relation to
each other. Thus, the Yijing has become highly meaningful in the context
of Western thought and culture, just as its concept of time has turned into
an important resource for Jung and other analytical psychologists. The
concept of synchronicity is a keystone in the larger revision of temporal
awareness in Western academic circles, a cornerstone in the overall devel-
opment of academic exchange and intellectual dialogue between East and
West.

Bibliography
Cleary, Thomas. 1992. The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life.
San Francisco: Harper.
Cook, Constance. A., and Lu Zhao. 2017. Stalk Divination: A Newly Discovered Alter-
native to the I Ching. New York: Oxford University Press.
Coward, Harold. 1996. “Taoism and Jung: Synchronicity and the Self.” Philosophy
East and West 46.4:477-95.
Donati, Marialuisa. 2004. “Beyond Synchronicity: The Worldview of Carl Gustav
Jung and Wolfgang Pauli.“ Journal of Analytical Psychology 49:707-28.
186 / Juan Zhao

Esposito, Monica. 1998. “The Different Versions of The Secret of the Golden Flower
and Their Relationship with the Longmen School.” Transactions of the Interna-
tional Conference of Eastern Studies 43:90-109.
Girardot, Norman J. 2002. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental
Pilgrimage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hannah, Barbara. 1982. C. G. Jung: Sein Leben und Werk. Fellbach-Oeffingen: Bonz.
Hardy, Julia. 1998. “Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching.” In Lao-
tzu and the Tao-te-ching, edited by Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue, 165-88.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Jung, C. G. 1952. “Über Synchronizität.“ Eranos-Jahrbuch 20:271-84.
_____. 1969 [1935]. Über die Grundlagen der analytischen Psychologie: Die Tavistock
Lectures. Zürich: Rascher & Co.
_____. 1973. Letters 1, 1906-1950. Edited by Gerhard Adler with Aniela Jaffé. Trans-
lated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
_____. 1990. Letters 2, 1951-1961. Edited by Gerhard Adler with Aniela Jaffé. Trans-
lated by R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge.
_____. 2000. The Psychology of Oriental Meditation: From the Book of Changes to Zen.
Translated by Yang Rubin, Beijing: Social Sciences Archives Press.
_____, and Wolfgang Pauli. 1952. Naturerklärung und Psyche. Zürich: Rascher & Cie.
_____. 2001. Atom and Archetype. Edited by C. A. Meier; translated by David Roscoe.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Karcher, Stephen. 2004. Total I Ching: Myths for Change. New York: Time Warner
Books.
Keightley, David N. 1978. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of
Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Legge, James. 1899. The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Li Xuetao 李雪涛. 2012. “Wei Lixian Yijing de yiben de fanyi guocheng ji diben
chutan 卫礼贤易经德译本的翻译过程及底本初探. Shijue hanxue 世界汉学 9.
Main, Roderick. 1997. Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal. London: Routledge.
_____. 2004. The Rupture of Time. London: Routledge.
McGuire, W., and R. F. C. Hull. 1985. C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters.
Paris: Editions Buchet Chastel.
Mori, Yuria. 2002. “Identity and Lineage: The Taiyi jinhua zongzhi and the Spirit-
Writing Cult to Patriarch Lü in Qing China.” In Daoist Identity: History, Lineage,
 Synchronicity / 187

and Ritual, edited by Livia Kohn and Harold D. Roth, 165-84. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawaii Press.
Rong Ge 荣格 [Carl Jung]. 2009. Rong Ge zizhuan: Huiyi, meng, sikao 荣格自传：回
忆、梦、思考. Translated by Liu Guobin 刘国彬 and Yang Deyou 杨德友.
Shanghai Sanlian chubanshe.
Spengler, Oswald. 1922. The Decline of the West. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Verene, Donald Phillip. 2002. “Coincidence, Historical Repetition, and Self-Knowl
edge: Jung, Vico, and Joyce.” Journal of Analytical Psychology 47:459-78.
Wang, Liping, and Mark Bartosh. 2019. Daoist Internal Mastery. St. Petersburg, Fla.:
Three Pines Press.
Wei Lixian 卫礼贤 [Richard Wilhelm] and Rong Ge 荣格 [Carl Jung]. 1993. Jinhua
yangsheng bizhi yu fenxi xinli xue 金华养生秘旨与分析心理学. Translated by
Tongshan 通山. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe
Wilhelm, Hellmut. 1952. “Der Zeitbegriff im Buch der Wandlungen.”Eranos-
Jahrbuch 20:321-48.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1924. I Ging: Das Buch der Wandlungen. Jena: Diederichs.
_____. 1950. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Translated by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series XIX.
_____, and C. G. Jung. 1962 [1929]. The Secret of the Golden Flower. New York: Har-
court, Brace and World.
Zhao Juan 赵娟. 2011. “Wenti yu shijiao: Xifang yixue yanjiu de sanzhong lujing”
问题与视角：西方易学研究的三种路径. Zhouyi yanjiu 周易研究 2011/4.
Zhouyi 周易. 2010. “Hanxue shi yezhong Wei shi fuzi de Zhouyi yijie yu yanjiu” 汉
学视野中卫氏父子的周易译介与研究. Zhouyi yanjiu 周易研究 2010/4.
 Immortality and Meaning in Life

A Daoist Perspective

JEFFREY W. DIPPMANN

Essentially, the problem with immortality seems to be one of inevitable bore-

dom. The problem is tedium. . . [In the end, the] seemingly positive dream of
immortality becomes a nightmare, a nightmare from which we can never es-
cape.
― Shelly Kagan, Death

Master Whitestone . . . was already more than two thousand years old. . .[and]
Pengzu asked him, “Why do you not ingest drugs that would enable you to
ascend to the heavens?”
Master Whitestone replied, “Can one amuse oneself on high in the heav-
ens more than in the human realm? I wish only to avoid growing old and dy-
ing.”
― Ge Hong, Shenxian zhuan

What if we could attain a physically immortal existence? Would it not be

desirable to do so, to extend the amount of time we have to pursue all of
our life goals, to amuse oneself on earth, to finally “have time enough at
last”?1
The philosophical and religious quest for the meaning of, or meaning
in, life has produced lively discussions on the feasibility and desirability of
an immortal existence and its relationship to time. On the surface, the
question of its appeal would seem to be nonsensical. Who would not want
to live forever? Are we not all seeking to extend our lives in one manner or
another, fearing and assiduously avoiding that moment when our con-
scious life is no more, and we face the potential abyss of non-existence?
The promise (possibility?) of immortality, in a myriad of different
guises, has animated human speculation and literary imaginations across
the world and throughout history. One simply need look to works such as
the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh, Greek mythology (in particular the story of

1 The title of a classic 1959 Twilight Zone television episode.

188
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 189

Tithonus),2 philosophical treatises from Plato’s Phaedo to Moses Mendels-

sohn’s Phaedon, early modern gothic literature (see Mulvey-Roberts 2016;
Lien 2018), Jonathan Swift’s 1726 classic Gulliver’s Travels,3 and elsewhere
to see the prevalence and sustained interest in the subject.
Indeed, even a cursory search for the theme in contemporary litera-
ture reveals a resurgence in works that either focus exclusively on the na-
ture of immortality (e.g., Robbins 1990; Magary 2011l Cross 2014) or in-
clude immortals as prominent characters. And while China has a rich his-
tory of hagiographic and literary accounts of immortals (xian 仙), that we
will explore below, we are also witnessing an upsurge in that nation’s
online serials and print works reintroducing the figure to contemporary
Chinese audiences.
Aside from the question of the soul (which is outside the scope of the
present study), most Western thinkers have focused on the issue of bodily
immortality and almost unanimously reject the idea as either untenable or
undesirable.4 At stake is the question of the tolerability of endless time in
physical form: could we actually bear to live on earth for 300, 500, 1500
years or more? Numerous objections have been raised to such a prospect,
including issues involving the loss of loved ones, 5 the raw fact of our own
death infusing life with meaning, 6 the “unnatural” or “evil” character of

2 Tithonus’ story is one of the earliest cautionary tales about the inadvisability of
immortality, in that he was granted eternal life by Zeus, but not eternal youth. Up-
on reaching old age, he was secluded in a room by his lover Eos, where he spent
the remainder of his time endlessly babbling. A modern take on this myth can be
found in the X-Files television series (“Tithonus,” season 6, episode 10, 1999).
3 Part III, chapter X has the story of the struldbrugs, an immortal but ever-aging

people living on the fictional island of Lugnagg. Like Tithonus, while possessing
immortality, they nevertheless undergo the ravages of increasing infirmity, loss of
memory, and “deformities.” Interestingly, Lugnagg is geographically located
southeast of Japan and may have been Swift’s nod to the Chinese land of immor-
tals, Penglai.
4 John Martin Fischer identifies these thinkers as “immortality curmudgeons” (2020,

89). I couldn’t have come up with a better description!

5 See Mary Shelley’s 1833 short story “Mortal Immortal,” in which the protagonist

Winzy despairs of his loneliness as one after another of his loves dies, leaving him
with “no beacon except the hope of death,” although he alone among all mortals
has become bereft of the “sheltering fold” of death. The X-Files episode referenced
above also touches on this concern. In it, the Tithonus-like character bemoans the
fact that not only has he lost his wife, but needed to return to the records office
simply to recall her very name.
6 Among others, we can cite Viktor Frankl, who argued “What would our lives be

like if they were not finite in time, but infinite? If we were immortal, we would
190 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

immortality (e.g., Lien 2018), and more. This chapter’s scope, however, is
limited and not intended to answer such questions.
Instead, the present chapter examines the issue from the question of
boredom, as famously discussed in the Oxford philosopher Bernard Wil-
liams’ essay, “The Makropolus Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immor-
tality” (1973). Animating much of the debate over the past half-century,
his principal thesis revolves around the argument that an immortal life
would be crushingly boring, given the vast expanse of time involved and
inevitable repeatability of our experiences. Along with its relevancy in
terms of perspectives on time, the question has increasingly found its way
into popular and scientific discourse both as a growing condition of mod-
ern life and our navigation through the past twelve-plus months of the
Covid-19 pandemic.7
Indeed, new studies regularly appear in the catalogs of both universi-
ty and mainstream presses, including the first collection of original essays
devoted to the topic, the Boredom Studies Reader which says on the cover,

Boredom Studies is an increasingly rich and vital area of contemporary re-

search that examines the experience of boredom as an important—even quin-
tessential—condition of modern life. . . [and this] book considers boredom as
a mass response to the atrophy of experience characteristic of a highly mech-
anised and urbanised social life. (Gardiner and Heladyn 2016)

As The New Yorker columnist Margaret Talbot puts it, “In the past couple
of decades, a whole field of boredom studies has flourished, complete with
conferences, seminars, symposiums, workshops, and a succession of pa-
pers [in academic journals]” (2020).
The present chapter addresses the question from one perspective in
the Daoist tradition and its generalized goal of becoming a xian, immortal
or transcendent, especially as portrayed in the 4th-century work Shenxian
zhuan 神仙傳 (Traditions of Divine Transcendents; trl. Campany 2002) by

legitimately postpone every action forever. It would be of no consequence whether

or not we did a thing now; every act might just as well be done tomorrow or the
day after or a year from now or ten years hence. But in the face of death as absolute
finis to our future boundary to our possibilities, we are under the imperative of
utilizing our lifetimes to utmost, not letting the singular opportunities- whose ‘fi-
nite’ sum constitutes the whole of life-pass by unused” (1957, 73).
7 Paul Thagard describes COVID-19 fatigue as “a complex of emotions that include

boredom, loneliness, sadness, frustration, anxiety, fear, anger, and resentment, all
brought on by the loss of activities and social relations produced by pandemic re-
strictions” (2020).
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 191

Ge Hong 葛洪 (283-343 CE). We will not enter into the debate concerning
the ontological “reality” or plausibility of immortality, nor whether the
immortality pursued by Daoists is “physical” or “spiritual.” Instead, irre-
spective of the veracity of Daoist claims to transcendence or immortality,
the prevalence of the literary motif and its continued pursuit by adepts
lend themselves to an examination of why immortality is an acceptable
and valued goal for Daoist practitioners.
I am neither interested in establishing that all Daoists at all times have
pursued a literal, physical immortality nor in establishing that such im-
mortality is philosophically rational or plausible. Contemporary scholar-
ship acknowledges that the tradition’s history has embraced a wide varie-
ty of beliefs, attitudes, and practices concerning the nature of death, and
any attempt to hint at an orthodox position is doomed at the outset. How-
ever, the literary trope, the hagiographic motif, has demonstrably influ-
enced Chinese culture, ranging from short stories, novels, and poetry, all
the way to contemporary television and film. Immortality cultivation
(xiuzhen 修真) themes, moreover, have resurged in contemporary Chinese
science fiction. Based on these, we will explore perceptions and outlooks
rather than realism.
Kenneth DeWoskin points to the cultural impact of hagiographic lit-
erature when he writes that “xian are described not as they actually are,
but in such a way as to make them conceivable to readers, who are mostly
mortals, interested in time, mortality, and the remaining gamut of human
issues” (1990, 79). In making the ideal “conceivable,” the stories provide us
with models of what is possible, what we can strive for, who we can po-
tentially become. To do otherwise, to lay before the reader an unattainable
or “unthinkable” future, one with no connection to their present circum-
stances or aspirations, would render the work of little sustainable worth.
While arguing against the position that adepts literally seek physical
immortality, Fabrizio Pregadio also acknowledges the role that such “ta-
les” have played in China, helping to create “an image of Daoism that was
easily understood by persons of different education and background, and
that was also tolerable by followers of other intellectual or religious tradi-
tions: after all, the tales about the immortals are only tales” (2018, 385). As
Chi-tim Lai notes, the literary “symbolic world of xian-immortality pro-
vides an individual ideal that may look fantastic and literally impossible,
yet, the symbolic xian-images are no less useful and constructive in giving
meanings to . . . life . . . and personal ideal identity” (1998, 209). Or, as Rus-
sell Kirkland puts it, the immortality model “provided fuel for centuries of
both religious and literary elaboration. . . [while the term xian came] to
192 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

denote an exemplar of spiritual qualities on a level sufficient to allow a

transcendence of human mortality” (2004, 185).

The Makropulos Case

Before looking at the nature of boredom, a summary of Bernard Williams’
essay is in order. Based on a lecture at the University of California, Berke-
ley, he published “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of
Immortality,” in his Problems of the Self in 1973. Since then, the essay has
appeared in numerous philosophical anthologies and been the subject of
dozens of articles both supporting and rejecting his basic premises.
As he states in his opening, his principal thesis is that “Immortality,
or a state without death, would be meaningless . . . so, in a sense, death
gives meaning to life” (2010, 345). His starting point is the fictional case of
Elina Makropulos, a character in a play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek
(1922), in 1925 adapted as an opera by Leoš Janáček.8 Elina Makropulos, at
the time of the action, is 337 years old: she has been 37 for 300 years. Her
extraordinary longevity has come about through ingesting an elixir of life
developed by her father, a 16th-century physician.
Having taken the elixir, she has apparently remained in the physical
condition typical of a vigorous, robustly healthy 37‐year‐old. She appears
to have no particular reason to doubt that this state will continue, provid-
ed she keeps taking the elixir every three hundred years. It quickly be-
comes evident, however, that Elina’s mental state is one of great suffering:
after three hundred years, her potentially unending life has become unen-
durable to her. Caring about nothing, finding value in nothing, incapable
of recalling the number of children she has borne, she retains the instincts
allowing her to move along from one day to the next, but those rudimen-
tary impulses are now alien to her since they preserve nothing she cares
about. In describing her existence at 337, she plaintively laments, “Every-
thing is irksome. It is tiresome to be bad and tiresome to be good. Heaven
and earth tire one. And then you find out that there truly is none. Nothing
exists—neither sin, nor pain, nor desire—absolutely nothing.”

8 The episode to which Williams refers appears in the play’s third act. Discrepan-
cies about the age of Elina Makropulos exist between the play and Williams’ re-
counting. Burley helpfully locates these in the fact that the original play identified
EM as a woman of 337, while the operatic version that Williams was apparently
familiar with placed her age at 342 (2009, 306). We will use the former throughout
this chapter.
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 193

According to Williams, “her unending life has come to a state of

boredom, indifference, and coldness. Everything is joyless . . . an endless
life was meaningless” (2010, 346), the “tedium of immortality” in the es-
say’s subtitle. Ultimately refusing to take another dose of the elixir, she
dies, and the secret formula is destroyed by a young woman. From Wil-
liams’ perspective, this is the right and proper choice, for immortality
would be unbearable. Such an existence would be intolerable for a human
being, insofar as interminable boredom would eventually set in, along
with despair.
Yale philosopher Shelly Kagan aligns himself with Williams’ basic
premises. He writes, “I find myself agreeing with Bernard Williams when
he says that immortality wouldn’t be desirable. It would actually be a
nightmare, something you would long to free yourself from” (2021).
Among other considerations, he laments what he perceives to be the seem-
ingly endless repetition of an immortal existence:

I have a friend who once claimed to me that he wanted to live forever so that
he could have Thai food every day for the rest of eternity. I like Thai food just
fine, but the prospect of having Thai food every day, day after day, for thou-
sands, millions, billions, trillions of years does not seem to me an attractive
proposal. It seems to me, rather, a kind of a nightmare. . .
Essentially, the problem with immortality seems to be one of inevitable
boredom. The problem is tedium. You get tired of doing math after a while.
After a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, whatever it is, even-
tually you are going to say, “Yes, here’s a math problem I haven’t solved be-
fore, but so what? I’ve just done so much math, it holds no appeal for me an-
ymore.”
Or you go through all the great art museums in the world (or the galaxy)
and you say, “Yes, I’ve seen dozens of Picassos. I’ve seen Rembrandts and
Van Goghs, and more. I’ve seen thousands, millions, billions of incredible
works of art. I’ve gotten what there is to get out of them. Isn’t there anything
new?” And the problem is that there isn’t. There are, of course, things that
you haven’t seen before—but they are not new in a way that can still engage
you afresh. (2012, 243)

From his bird’s eye view, Kagan appears to envision immortality as a

succession of repeated events and activities, experiences that do not
change over the course of time, thereby becoming redundant and mean-
ingless. For meaning to be present, there must be something “new” in
those experiences; in other words, change must have occurred over the
course of time. Without change, without fresh engagement, there is noth-
ing for me “to get out of them.”
194 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Boredom and Time

In contrast to its recent popularity, boredom as a subject has traditionally

received little attention among philosophers and scientists. While elements
of the concept can be traced back to Greek philosophy and medieval mo-
nasticism, the emergence of “boredom” as we now think of it appears to
have its roots in the modern, urban mechanized age (see Spacks 1995;
Swendsen 2005). As many have argued, the increasing possibility and ex-
pectation for leisure time among urbanites (at least among the elite), and
the sharp demarcation for laborers between highly structured work and
open non-work hours has contributed to a sense of free, unoccupied time,
and hence a sense of what Dickens first identified as “boredom” in his
1852 novel Bleak House. However, an exhaustive definition and analysis of
boredom’s nature lies outside our immediate concerns. Instead, for our
purposes, a few salient observations about time’s relation to boredom and
its possible causes will suffice.
From the perspective of “folk wisdom,” we all know that time drags
and strikes us as interminably long while in the throes of boredom, in
sharp contrast to how “time flies when you’re having fun.” Who among us
hasn’t lamented the slow march of clock hands as we sit through uninter-
esting shows, lectures or the increasingly ubiquitous Zoom meetings?
Charles Simic aptly captures its subjective feeling in the opening stanza of
his poem “To Boredom”:

I’m the child of your rainy Sundays.

I watched time crawl
Over the ceiling
Like a wounded fly. (2007)

Martin Heidegger, who wrote the most extensive exploration on

boredom until recent times, derived from a series of lectures delivered
1929-1930, inextricably tied the subjective sense of boredom to time. In the
following passage, his starting point is the literal meaning of the German
word routinely translated as boredom, Langweile, long time or long while:

Boredom, Langeweile—whatever its ultimate essence may be—shows, par-

ticularly in our German word, an almost obvious relation to time, a way in
which we stand with respect to time, a feeling of time. Boredom and the
question of boredom thus lead us to the problem of time. We must first let
ourselves enter the problems of time, in order to determine boredom as a
particular relation to it. Or is it the other way around, does boredom first
lead us to time. . . . Or are we failing to ask correctly concerning either the
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 195

first relation—that of boredom to time—or the second—that of time to bore-

dom? (1995, 80)

William James proposed that this occurs because segments of time

. . . shorten in passing whenever we are so fully occupied with their content

as not to note the actual time itself. A day full of excitement, with no pause, is
said to pass ‘ere we know it.’ On the contrary, a day full of waiting, of unsat-
isfied desire for change, will seem a small eternity. Tedium, ennui, Langweille,
boredom, are words for which, probably, every language known to man has
its equivalent. It comes about whenever, from the relative emptiness of con-
tent of a tract of time, we grow attentive to the passage of the time itself.
(1890, 626)

This points to two predominant causes at the root of our experience

of boredom: change and desire. James focuses on our unrequited longing
for change. Whether due to some innate quality of human nature or the
emergence of the modern age, our need for change and newness appears
fairly deep rooted. While professing that we simply want stability in our
life, a settled place that we can call home, a nostalgia for what once was,
the reality is that we often unreflectively become restless and subsequently
bored when faced with an unchanging present or future.
Recall Kagan’s lament about the lack of freshness he envisioned dur-
ing an extended period of time. Again, the past year of Covid-19 has sub-
jected many to a life of social distancing, confined to their homes, and
lacking clearly defined borders between days and experiences. As a result,
many individuals struggle with Covid fatigue and boredom. Without the
change in environment, activities, and attainable goals, people worldwide
report being disconcerted and adrift. Is today Monday, Wednesday, or
Saturday? Is it March or January, 2021 or 2020? Change allows us to de-
marcate time, thereby placing meaning and value on our activities (see
Gontcharova 2021; Wittmann 2020).
Our desire for change paradoxically runs parallel to our longing for
stability. Leo Tolstoy famously depicted boredom as the “desire for de-
sires” (Tolstoy 2004). Adam Phillips, a British psychoanalyst, examined the
phenomenon in both children and adults, and concluded:

We can think of boredom as a defense against waiting, which is, at one re-
move, an acknowledgement of the possibility of desire. . . In boredom . . .
there are two assumptions, two impossible options: there is something I de-
sire, and there is nothing I desire. . . In boredom there is the lure of a possible
object of desire, and the lure of the escape from desire, of its meaninglessness.
(1993, 76)
196 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

In his 1930 work, The Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell devotes

chapter 4 to “Boredom and Excitement.” Here he posits that boredom is a
distinctively human emotion, “essentially a thwarted desire for events, not
necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the vic-
tim of ennui [boredom] to know one day from another” (1930, 60). Shades
of Covid-19 restrictions!
And of course, we only desire that which we do not already have,
thereby necessitating change—the movement from our current state/situ-
ation to a new one in which the object of our desire has been attained.
Once Heidegger’s train has arrived, the pandemic has abated, the Zoom
meeting ends. . . our desire is satiated—for the time being. As Tolstoy ob-
served, we desire to desire. Our lack of contentment, our inability to ac-
cept the present as it is, and not how we want it to be, lies at the root of
both positively animating ambition and stultifying boredom.

Goals and Desires

Bernard Williams, then, posts that an acceptable scenario for immortality

must meet two fundamental criteria: first, the future person must be genu-
inely identical to the present individual, not simply qualitatively similar or
having several identical properties; and second, the person’s future life
must be attractive and pleasurable, in line with his or her goals.
The latter is the more problematic for Williams in that, if our goals
remain the same throughout eternity, ultimately boredom, fatigue, or de-
tachment will occur. This is “a boredom connected with the fact that eve-
rything that could happen and makes sense to a particular human being of
forty-two had already happened to her” (2010, 352). And if goals have
changed, can we then assume it is the same identical individual? Williams
says that it cannot.

Any coherent condition making immortality palatable must provide a “mod-

el of an unending, supposedly satisfying, state or activity which would not
rightly prove boring to anyone who remained conscious of himself and who
had acquired a character, interests, tastes, and impatiences in the course of
living, already, a finite life. . .
Nothing less will do for eternity than something that makes boredom un-
thinkable . . . [perhaps] guaranteed to be at every moment utterly absorbing.”
(2010, 356-57)

What gives life meaning is the activity of pursuing one’s deep, cate-
gorical desires (Williams 2010, 348). Categorical desires are not condi-
tioned by, or dependent on, one’s continued existence but constitute a
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 197

compelling reason to go on living. Such desires serve to propel one into

the future. For example, the parental desire to care for young children un-
til they can care for themselves can be categorical by providing sufficient
reason for wanting to continue living.
However, Williams also argues that categorical desires are ephemeral
and exhaustible, either through their satisfaction or by losing interest in
them. Additionally, the desire to attain and/or experience pleasure or
happiness cannot be a categorical desire in his estimation. Instead, categor-
ical desires are those that motivate a person to stay alive despite the pro-
spect of unpleasant times (2010, 354). People who lead a life full of suffer-
ing would not be motivated to stay alive by a desire for pleasure or happi-
ness if they only saw unending suffering for the future. The only way to be
immortal and not exhaust categorical desires is to have an infinite number
of disjointed lives, and not an extension of the same person—but this
would violate Williams’ first criterion, that the future person must be gen-
uinely identical to the present.
If we seek to mitigate that fate, thereby avoiding the inevitably of
boredom, we could acquire entirely new categorical desires whenever the
old ones were exhausted. However, this option violates Williams’ second
criterion, that over time the projected future-self eventually will not pur-
sue the same single project, dream, or goal he or she presently cares about.
This contingency makes it even more difficult to justify the claim that im-
mortality could be desirable: why would we wish to be immortal if that
endless life is only pursued in order to complete projects, dreams, and
goals that we currently don’t even know or care about? (Williams 2010,
357; see also Kagan 2012).
Therefore, according to his analysis, “an endless life would be a
meaningless one . . . We could have no reason for living eternally a human
life. There is no desirable or significant property which life would have
more of, or have more unqualifiedly, if we lasted forever” (2010, 357).
Such a life would lack any substantial meaning, due to the interminable
repetition of activities and experiences predicated on the sameness of
goals, categorical desires, etc. Samuel Scheffler agrees: “[When categorical
desires die, which they must] . . . one will be left with nothing but oneself,
and one will be doomed to a kind of boredom from which there is no
chance of escape in this world. . . we will be left with ourselves, and we
ourselves are, terminally boring” (2015, 94-95). A gloomy prospect indeed,
at least from this philosophical perspective.
198 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Challenges

The viewpoints expressed by Williams, Scheffler, and Kagan have not

gone unchallenged. Dozens of essays have appeared over the past fifty
years both supporting and critiquing their analysis. However, there are
two that have not been addressed and that also serve to introduce the Dao-
ist alternative.
The first centers on the bird’s eye view of immortality. Of necessity,
speculations about the prospects of immortality are just that, thought ex-
periments loosely based on philosophical and psychological principles.
Actual accounts of immortals, both Eastern and Western, are nothing more
than tales as opposed to first-hand observations (accepting Pregadio’s
characterization). The perspective, therefore, is founded on what can be
imagined or thought about. And for this exercise, Western philosophy has
taken what I view as a grand, 50,000-foot-high perspective.
Recall Shelly Kagan’s views on the relentless dreariness and monoto-
ny of an eternal life, one that would presumably be an immortality with
no fear of death—either accidental or medical, such as envisioned in Dao-
ist tales. In each instance he cites, it is clear that the source derived from
his projection of what immortality might be like. And for this, he engaged
in a thought exercise, through which he could survey a vast expanse of
time from “above,” as did Williams, Scheffler, and others. He writes,

Humans have this ability to look down on their experiences, or to step back
from their experiences, and assess them. Even now, for example, as I’m sit-
ting here typing these words, watching the screen on my computer, listening
to the birds outside my window, part of me is thinking about whether I am
getting my point across, and whether the light coming in from my window is
a bit bright, and so forth and so on.
We can all reflect on our first-order or base-level experiences, even while
we are having them . . . [In assessing your future] You’re going to take this
meta-level or higher-level standpoint, look down . . . and wonder, “Is this all
that there is to life?” (2012, 243)

The problem with the view from the heights, as I see it, is that our
perception of what is below us, or stretching in front of us in this instance,
devolves into a kind of sameness that blurs the details making the particu-
lar what it is. Your view of New York City from an airplane at 10,000 feet
bears little resemblance to the perspective you get while standing in Times
Square. The identity of the “river” that you are about to cross changes
dramatically as you consider the fact that there is no such “river” in front
of you, only a chain of individual water droplets. I will always recall my
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 199

first week in Ellensburg, WA, when a local artist assured my wife and me
that the dull brown ridges encircling the city were in actuality very beauti-
ful combinations of variegated vegetation, increasingly visible the closer
we got.
Accordingly, I think that when we “step back . . . [and] reflect on our
first-order or base-level experiences,” as well as survey 10,000-plus years,
it is all going to look very much the same. The monotony, the tedium, the
repetition identified by Kagan, Williams, and others strikes me as having
that same quality, a blurring together of the individual moments, experi-
ences, etc. that make up our daily life. Of course, eternal life will project
out as one continuous dull experience when envisioned in the abstract. But
does it indeed look that way from the ground and in the moment?
Such an accounting does not take into consideration the inevitably of
change. While we often gloss over the subtle (and not so subtle) alterations
in phenomena that occur with regularity, they nevertheless are present in
each moment and continuously render the world anew to the keen ob-
server. Kagan’s examples of Thai food, math problems, great works of art,
etc. are all portrayed as static phenomena. Once experienced multiple
times and with the potential to continue ad infinitum, they lose their appeal
since there no longer exists anything fresh or new that can engage us.
However, if, as the Daoist worldview proposes, things are in constant
flux, alternating between yin and yang, flowing through the five phases,
imperceptibly changing from moment to moment, day to day, month to
month, isn’t it just as plausible that we can discover something “new un-
der the sun” if we simply pay heed? Close attention to today’s pad thai,
even if we made it just like last week’s pad thai, yields subtle differences
brought about by the inevitably of change.
One of my favorite pieces of music is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fan-
tasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” performed by Sir Neville Marriner
and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields orchestra. Note first that Wil-
liams created a new composition based on an existing, older one. Secondly,
I have not only grown in my appreciation for that particular recording
over the past thirty-plus years, but have also discovered comparable beau-
ty in the interpretations of other conductors and orchestras. I have no rea-
son to doubt that I will have similar experiences over time and/or that
new variations on Williams’ “Fantasia” will appear.
In contrast to the view from above, the attentive view from the
ground and in the moment can yield fresh experiences and engagements
due to the constancy of change. I will grant that we rarely stop to take note
of those details, and would argue that therein lies our present state of
boredom, a state overcome by Daoist immortals.
200 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

The second challenge relates to the context, within which we moderns

find ourselves: a condition of separation from the rhythms present in, and
engaged with, nature. Urbanization, modernization, and mechanization
have all contributed to an overwhelming desire for distraction and a fast-
paced life that leaves little time for boredom to set in. In addition, the crea-
tion of cities has inevitably taken away from our ability to remain part of
the natural world: we often find ourselves confined to “concrete jungles,”
intentionally designed to look the same. Bertrand Russell identified the
malaise of contemporary life when he observed that, “the special kind of
boredom from which modern urban populations suffer is intimately
bound up with their separation from the life of the Earth” (1930, 67-68).
After once witnessing the “ecstasy” of a two-year-boy allowed to
leave London for his very first time, joyously burying his face in the wet,
muddy earth of the country, Russell reflected that

whatever we may wish to think, we are creatures of Earth; our life is part of
the life of the Earth, and we draw our nourishment from it just as the plants
and animals do. . .
Such pleasures. . . that bring us into contact with the life of the Earth have
something in them profoundly satisfying. . . The two-year-old boy . . . dis-
played the most primitive possible form of union with the life of the Earth.
(1930, 66-67)

A generation earlier, the American Transcendentalist Henry David

Thoreau, while living simply at Walden Pond, came to much the same
conclusion. There, he found that without the distractions of the city,
newspapers, factory bells, and the ticking hands of the clock, nature had a
rhythm of its own. Morning brought with it a continuous renewal, an
awakening hour that lent itself to an appreciation of the “faint hum of a
mosquito” and an opportunity to awaken and “live deliberately” with full
attention to life as it unfolded.
Desiring and pursuing the distractions of contemporary life only
leads to a slumber, from which most people cannot (or do not want to)
awaken, a “drowsiness” that robs of us of our capacity to truly be “alive.”
This slumber is the boredom of those who “give so poor an account of
their day.” We therefore must awake, for “to be awake is to be alive.” In
place of the artificial, superfluous activities of those sleepwalking through
life, Thoreau advocates that we “spend one day as deliberately as Na-
ture. . . settle ourselves . . . till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place,
which we can call reality, and say, ‘This is, and no mistake’” (1992, “Where
I Lived, and What I Lived For”). Little can be gained from a life hurried, in
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 201

constant pursuit of desires that always remain out of reach, waiting for
that which is just down the road, tomorrow.

Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the
sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but
eternity remains. . . I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is
necessary. (1992)

To be awake is to take the full measure of our time here, to note the
hum of the mosquito’s wings, the sandy bottom of the shallow stream, the
reality of simplicity and the flow of untrammeled nature. To apprehend
this truth, and our place within it, is to be alive, to have rediscovered our
roots, and ultimately to find contentment therein. 9
In the end, it appears to me, the boredom of which Williams and oth-
ers write is that of modern urban civilization, the tedious nature of seden-
tary work, and the seemingly unchanging sameness of our average day/
week/month, especially exaggerated during the year of Covid-19. Added
to that disconnect are all the distractions with which we are bombarded on
a daily, nay momentary, basis. Smart phones, computers, DVR systems
and any number of other modern “conveniences” demand our constant
attention, alternately speeding up our perception of time as we flit from
one to another, and slowing it down when we are forced to disengage
from them. What appears to have been lost is our natural footing, increas-
ingly becoming what Russell warned would be “a generation that cannot
endure boredom . . . a generation of little men . . . unduly divorced from
the slow processes of nature (1930, 65).
As he notes, however, a life at one with and in nature can be pro-
foundly satisfying and stimulating, as we return to the roots of our being
and connection with the world around us. And this is exactly the vision
brought forth in depictions of the Daoist immortal, especially the “earth-
bound.” For those choosing such an existence, life is continuously won-
drous, not something one wishes to escape, either through death or even
celestial transcendence.

9For yet another compelling vision see William Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of
Immortality from Reflections on Early Childhood (2011) and its analysis in relation to
boredom (Thompson 2019). Interesting analogies can be drawn between Thomp-
son’s insights into God as the ground of our being and the Daoist perspective on
Dao as ultimate root.
202 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

The Daoist Xian

Considerable debate continues as to the exact nature of the xian (translated

here as immortal), and whether they attain bodily immortality. It is clear,
however, that one goal for Daoist adepts involves the attainment of some
sort of immortality. Traditionally, three types of xian appear in the litera-
ture: celestial immortals (tianxian 天仙) who have already ascended into
heaven and occupy a position in the heavenly bureaucracy; earth immor-
tals (dixian 地仙), ready for ascension who yet decide to remain on earth;
and those who transcend this world through deliverance from the corpse
(shijie xian 尸解仙), leaving behind a token or substitute upon ascension.
It is important to note that etymologically, the approbation xian has
been linked to the combination of two free standing characters: ren 亻, per-
son, and shan 山, mountain. Thus, leading Daoist scholars such as Kristofer
Schipper to the interpretation that an immortal is “the ‘human being of the
mountain’ or alternatively ‘human mountain.’ The two explanations are
appropriate to these beings: they haunt the holy mountains while also em-
bodying nature” (1993, 164).
The key figures of interest here are the earth immortals, primarily as
depicted from the Han to the Eastern Jin dynasties (206 BCE-317 CE) but
also as they appear in contemporary Chinese science fiction. First, they
most closely resemble the Western characterization of immortality pre-
sented above. The “lives” of celestial immortals offer ideals that speak lit-
tle about finding meaning in life here in the world. “Deciding” to ascend
to heaven, leaving behind the mean world of an earthbound existence,
more closely resembles the characteristics of an immortal, spiritual soul
found in Western philosophical and religious traditions. And while some
theoreticians, like Kagan, will expand their critique of immortality to an
“afterlife” in heaven, most confine their arguments to the prospects of
body bound existence (2012; 2021).
Second, earth immortals are in some sense the most important of the
three types, both in classical and contemporary literature. While scholar-
ship continues to address whether Daoist immortality was ever solely fo-
cused on the refinement of a spiritualized embryonic body (Pregadio 2018),
there is little doubt that the period between the Han and Eastern Jin dyn-
asties produced a great deal of literature celebrating the daxian and extol-
ling the pursuit of earthly immortality.
Yü Ying-shih has observed that by the Han, China had undergone a
dramatic change in its
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 203

views on the life of xian immortals. In pre-Qin literature the xian is portrayed
only as a secluded individual wandering in the sky, in no way related to the
human world. But in Han literature we begin to find that the xian may some-
times also enjoy a settled life by bringing with him to paradise not only his
family but also all chattels of his human life. (1964, 119)

Likewise, Zornica Kirkova in her recent study of medieval Chinese

verse identifies a discernible shift in representation of immortals during
the same period, one that marked a move from celestial to terrestrial fig-
ures (2016, chs. 4-5). Regardless of the reasons behind such a change—
possibly related to the Han emphasis on social and familial conditions (Yü
1964, 119)—the period produced a major comprehensive hagiographic
compilation of Daoist immortals, the Shenxian zhuan, which places earth
immortals in a highly enviable and imitable position.
The collection’s compiler was Ge Hong, also the author of the famous
Baopuzi 抱朴子 ([Book of the] Master Who Embraces Simplicity), the earli-
est systematic exposition on immortality methods and defense of the prac-
tice. He offers a classification of immortals based on paths of cultivation
and achievements:

Superior practitioners who rise up in their bodies and ascend into the void
are termed celestial transcendents (tianxian). Middle-level practitioners who
wander among noted mountains are termed earth-bound transcendents
(dixian). Lesser practitioners who first ‘die’ and then slough off are termed
‘escape by means of-a-corpse-simulacrum transcendents’ (shijie xian). (Cam-
pany 2002, 75)

However, while celestial immortals occupy the highest class, Ge

Hong makes little secret that in his judgment, earthbound immortality is
both acceptable and perhaps even preferable, given the fate of new [rook-
ie?] immortals. While some ascend to heaven and others remain on earth,
ultimately:

What matters is that they have all achieved Fullness of Life, they simply
make their abodes wherever they prefer. . .
Once one’s immortality has been confirmed, one is never again concerned
about the fleeting of time. If one should return temporarily to wander on
earth or in the famous mountains, what would there be to concern oneself
about? Old Peng claimed that in heaven there were so many important gods
holding offices of high honor that the newer genii [immortals] must hold the
meaner positions. . . their lot is harder than before. He saw no point in his
striving persistently to go to heaven, so he remained among men for eight
hundred years and more. (Ware 1966, 64-65)
204 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

In an interesting side note, one highlighting the importance of eart

immortals during this period, Isabelle Robinet speculates that the three
immortal types can be viewed as “generally corresponding to the celestial,
terrestrial, and underworld realms” (1997, 46). This insight references the
notion of the axis mundi, the center post of the world present in many of
the world’s religious traditions, made famous in the pioneering work of
Mircea Eliade (1959, ch. 1).
The axis mundi, or hub of the universe, represents the vertical connec-
tion between three sacred realms. Often symbolized by trees, poles, and
mountains (such as Mt. Kunlun in Daoism, one major home of immortals),
it serves as the locus where cosmic regions intersect and where the uni-
verse of ultimate reality is accessible in all its dimensions. The terrestrial
axis is essential in bridging the gap between the celestial and underworld
realms, acting as the primary conduit for communication and intercourse.
It provides access to reality or being as it truly is. In fact, it can be viewed
as defining reality, for it marks the place where being is most fully mani-
fest. If Robinet is correct, then the terrestrial or earth immortal represents
one of the most important living links in the Daoist universe.
Xinkai Huang alludes to a similar sensibility in online fantasy litera-
ture published during the 2000s. From among eight different categories
used in the QIDIAN fantasy website system— the largest such site in the
world, boasting ten million registered users in 2010 (Huang 2011, 120nn.2-
3)—he chose to focus his research on the “Super-human perfection stories”
where the goal is “to become immortal through exercising Daoism, Bud-
dhism, or similar techniques” (2011, 123). His reason for doing so is be-
cause it is “the most popular fiction category and the selected stories were
among the most popular ones from 2004-2008 in terms of reading visits
and favorite-votes . . . The stories have many fans, who posted messages”
(2011, 124).
Apart from illustrating the continuing Chinese interest in the pursuit
of immortality, Huang’s study also buttresses my suspicion that the terres-
trial realm and its inhabitants (including those who aspire to become “su-
per-humans”) plays a critical role in the fantasy cosmology surrounding
immortality. Hence, in Untouchable Journey, “the universe where average
people are situated is the center that connects all higher universes” and
serves as the place where the main protagonists return (2011, 125).
Additional support an also be presented for this idea. Stephen
Bokenkamp, in drawing our attention to the different beings identified as
immortals (such as earthbound, celestial, and cavern dwellers below us) in
the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao) tradition, notes that they all share the
quality of having been “transferred” from their “common human state to a
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 205

more subtilized form of existence . . . There is thus not a single chasm be-
tween mortals and immortals, but a chain of being, extending from non-
sentient forms of life that also experience growth and decay to the highest
reaches of the empyrean” (1999, 22). Rather than being distinct, separate
kinds of being, they exist on a continuum that links them together in three
realms of Eliade’s schema.
The close connection of the worlds, as much as the importance of the
terrestrial realm as a communicative link between them, also appears in
China’s artistic tradition. One example is the 10th-century scroll Langyuan
nüxian 閬苑女仙 (Goddesses in the Palace Park), reprinted and analyzed by
Shih-shan Susan Huang (2012). Attributed to Ruan Gao 阮郜, the work
depicts an immortal island frequented by goddesses. Highly interesting in
its own right, of greatest importance for our purposes is the rock outcrop-
ping located in the scroll’s lower right corner. “By connecting the isle to
the land on the other side of the ocean and highlighting the isle’s accessi-
bility, the bridge-like rock formation invites and arouses further interest in
the attainment of immortality” (Huang 2012, 111-13). With the right atten-
tion, with the proper practice, we can access a world of timeless immortali-
ty to which we are already connected.
For this reason, the hagiographic models of earth immortals have the
most to say to aspirants, serving as powerful early counterpoints to the
images drawn in Williams, Kagan, and Scheffler. Despite their transcend-
ence of ordinary existence, attainment of seemingly super-human capabili-
ties, and immunity to medical and accidental death, they are in the end
humans like you and I. Numerous times Ge Hong assures us that immor-
tals are not after all “a special species” (Ware 1966, 97). Instead, even “In
the case of Old Peng [or perhaps better Laozi and Pengzu], . . . we are still
dealing with mere men, not with creatures of a different species. It was
through attaining the divine process that they enjoyed unique longevity,
not through what they were by nature” (1966, 53). Even the legendary
founder of Daoism, Laozi, “was someone who was indeed particularly
advanced in his attainment of the Dao, but . . . not of another kind of being
than we” (Campany 2002, 196).
Unlike the Biblical account in Genesis and its literary/theological de-
scendants, the root of Daoist immortality lies not in a bargain with the
devil or usurpation of divine prerogative. Immortality ultimately comes
about by utilizing what humanity naturally possesses, what Ge Hong
identifies as our “intelligence. If he can practice the same divine practices
as did Old Peng, he can achieve the same results” (Ware 1966, 54). We
must understand the process involved, put into practice specific methods
and employ our innate qualities, but those are nothing more nor less than
206 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

our mind: “Of all living things that have high intelligence, none surpasses
man” (1966, 37). No need to appeal to heaven or the gods or anything be-
yond the earthly realm: “Our endowments are part of a natural process;
they are not consignments from heaven and earth” (1966, 127).

Exemplars

To return to the observations of Bertrand Russell and Henry David Tho-

reau, perhaps a life led at one with and in nature can be profoundly satis-
fying, as we return to the roots of our being and connect with the world
around us. By rejecting the artificiality of an increasingly modernized,
“civilized” world constantly bombarding us with the urge to be enter-
tained and kept engaged in that desired something lying “out there,” just
out of reach, thinking (or being convinced by advertisers perhaps) that we
don’t have it but certainly need it, can we avoid the stultifying boredom so
vividly depicted by our “immortality curmudgeons”?
Slowing down to the pace of nature, recognizing the inevitability of
change and the great potential it contains, seeing the granularity of peb-
bles within the stream of time, attentively listening to the hum of mosquito
wings in the early morning—would these experiences not bring the con-
tinuous wonderment of Russell’s two-year old boy burying his face in
muddy grass for the first time? Rather than taking the philosopher’s view
from 50,000 feet or a million years, what would happen if we were to rest
content in each discrete moment, desiring only that which is natural and
immediately sufficient? Would an immortal life be as unthinkable and
nightmarish as Williams, Kagan, and Scheffler imagine? The answer from
the Daoist perspective is no.
The world as exciting, fresh and inviting is exactly the vision brought
forth in many immortals’ hagiographies, especially those associated with
earth immortality. While the mortal world of this earth presents its chal-
lenges, it nevertheless contains everything that can constitute a satisfying
and fulfilled life.10 For those choosing such an existence, life is continuous-
ly filled with wonder, far from something that one wishes to escape, either
through death or even celestial transcendence.
A first example comes from the Shenxian zhuan and recounts the hag-
iography of Master Whitestone (Baishi xiansheng 百石先生). He was al-
ready over 2000 years old at the time of Pengzu, another master of re-

10 For example, the late 5th-century compilation Zhen’gao 真誥 (Declarations of the

Perfected tells of the goddess Elühua, banished to “the world of stench and impu-
rity” by the “Mystical Isles” for unexpiated sins (Bokenkamp 2021, 103).
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 207

nowned longevity (Campany 2002, 172). Living a simple life in the moun-
tains, Whitestone subsisted on white stones, thus his name, and even took
meat, alcohol, and grains—proscribed in many Daoist regimens. “He was
unwilling to cultivate the way of ascending to transcendence, instead opt-
ing for nondying only, thus retaining the pleasures of the human realm”
(2002, 292).
Once he encountered Pengzu, who asked him why he did not choose
to leave the earth and ascend as a celestial. Master Whitestone replied:
“Can one amuse oneself on high in the heavens more than in the human
realm? I wish only to avoid growing old and dying. In the heavens above
there are many venerable ones to be honored, and to serve them would be
harder than to remain in the human realm” (2002, 294). Two thousand
years in, an unbearable amount of time according to our curmudgeons,
and Whitestone still took greater delight and found more pleasure in the
world of humans than that of celestials.
In a similar vein, Ge Hong’s Baopuzi speaks of venerable old masters:

Anqi, Lord Nong of Longmei, Lord Xiuyang, and Yin Changsheng each took
half doses of Potable Gold. They remained in the world for almost a thou-
sand years, and only then did they leave it . . .
Those who seek Fullness of Life merely do not wish to relinquish the ob-
jects of their current desires. Fundamentally, they are not yet overcome with
any yearning to mount into the void, nor are they convinced that flying is
always superior to being earthbound. If, by some good fortune, they can be-
come immortal and yet go on living at home, why should they seek to mount
speedily into heaven? (3.8a-8b, Ware 1966, 65-66)

The wise border guard in the Zhuangzi, who upbraided Yao for the
latter’s rejection of “long life, riches, and many sons,” also points to an
enviable existence on earth: “After a thousand years, should he weary of
the world, he will leave and ascend to the immortals” (ch. 12, Watson 1968,
130). As opposed to a perceived life of tedium, boredom, and lethargy af-
ter 337 years, the Daoist perspective imagines that perhaps, “should” the
sage grow tired of the world, he or she would ascend to join the celestials.
But that leave-taking is far from a certainty and not driven by the night-
marish vision imagined by Kagan and others.
Ge Hong’s collection also presents a snapshot from the life of Master
Horseneigh (Maming sheng 馬鳴生), a disciple of Master Anqi 安期. De-
spite having received alchemical scriptures and refined a medicine that
would allow him to rise to the celestial bureaus,
208 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Horseneigh took no delight in ascending to heaven but preferred to become

an earthbound transcendent. He traveled about through the nine provinces
for over five hundred years, no one realizing that he was a transcendent, as
he built himself a house and raised animals like ordinary people. . .
People did wonder at his nonaging however. In the end, Horseneigh did
choose to leave the earth and join the ranks of the tianxian. (Campany 2002,
324)

Returning to Pengzu, one of our curmudgeonly arguments is ad-

dressed eloquently in his hagiography. Recall Mary Shelley’s protagonist
(see note 5 above) who bewails his immortal lot as those around him die.
In the Daoist narrative, Pengzu does not fall into despair as his life pro-
gresses. Instead, he reflects:

When my age had passed one hundred, I suffered some affliction. I have bur-
ied forty-nine wives and have lost fifty-four sons, and thus many times have
I encountered trouble. The harmony of my pneumas was broken and injured,
and through cold and heat my tissues have not remained vibrant; through
my ups and downs I have dried up and withered. I fear I will not transcend
the world. (Campany 2002, 176)

And yet, nowhere in his soliloquy with an inquirer does he indicate

that he was disappointed or bored with his life. Instead, the conversation,
and record as a whole, concludes with Pengzu transmitting his practices
(and purportedly scriptures) to those wishing to follow his path. We can
also contrast this with Čapek’s (and by extension Williams’) Elina
Makropulos, who admits that she neither cares for the well-being of her
children nor indeed can she remember how many she bore, “About twen-
ty, I think. One loses count.”
In numerous Daoist narratives, immortals do not seek to remove
themselves from society, either to avoid relational complications or aban-
don the world of desires altogether. Granted, China’s historical and cul-
tural landscape is dotted with periods and individuals pursuing a life of
reclusion as a path to immortality (Berkowitz 2000, 47-63). However, a re-
curring theme (and one designed to appeal to the popular imagination),
focuses on the continued familial and social engagement of earth immor-
tals. To reiterate Yü’s observation, xian were often depicted as enjoying or
extending “a settled life by bringing with him to paradise not only his
family but also all chattels of his human life” (1964, 199). Accordingly,
both Ge Hong and his hagiographic subject Pengzu criticize those who
abandon the world in a misguided attempt to attain xian-hood. Ge Hong
cites his own teacher in rejecting reclusion:
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 209

To be immune from cold, heat, wind, and wet; invulnerable to ghosts, gods,
and demons; unaffected by weapons and poisons; and never to be involved
in the toils of grief, joy, slander, or praise: these are honorable. To turn one’s
back upon wife and children and make one’s abode in the mountains or
marshes, uncaringly to reject basic human usage and, clodlike, to become a
companion of trees and rocks, is hardly to be encouraged. (Baopuzi 3.8a, Ware
1966, 65)

Likewise, Pengzu compares the shortcomings of those seeking a se-

cluded life with the praise due to those who have truly entered the Way:

Although these sorts [those who seclude themselves] have deathless longevi-
ty, they absent themselves from human feelings and distance themselves
from honor and pleasure. There is that in them which resembles a sparrow or
a pheasant transmuting into a mollusk: they have lost their own true identity,
exchanging it for an alien pneuma. With my stupid heart I cannot bring my-
self to desire this.
Those who have entered the Way should be able to eat tasty food, wear
decent clothes, have sex, and hold office. Their bones and sinews firm, their
complexion smooth, they grow old but do not physically age; extending their
years, they long remain in the world. Cold, heat, aridity, and humidity can-
not injure them; ghosts, spirits, and sprites do not dare attack them. Neither
weapons nor noxious creatures can approach them; anger, joy, failure, and
fame cannot entangle them, yet it is they who are worthy of esteem. (Campa-
ny 2002, 177)

Many more examples could be cited of immortals not only achieving

their own goals, but also willingly bringing their wives, children, and even
livestock with them. Again, rather than being a burden or a distraction,
elements of the human realm and earthly life were embraced as meaning-
ful and to be cherished.

Comparisons and Conclusions

Why this difference in attitude/outlook/perspective between Western

curmudgeons and Daoist hagiographies? To me, it is due to the Daoist
belief that all of life is interconnected, permeated in Dao thorugh the vital
force of qi. We are not in any substantive metaphysical manner separate
from the life of the earth and the realm of humans. As documented in the
Daode jing, Guanzi, Zhuangzi, Taiping jing, and Ge Hong’s works, the fun-
damental understanding in Chinese cosmology is that all existence is con-
stituted by qi. In nearly all accounts, the loss of qi is the direct progenitor of
210 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

death. Our connection with, and reliance on, qi in harmony with heaven
and earth is the key to a long and satisfying life.
Our natural place is found right here and right now. Life, when
properly understood, is good and enjoyable, worthy of extension through
incalculable stretches of time. Our connectivity, is summed up best by
James Miller in his work, China’s Green Religion. He characterizes the Dao-
ist perspective on the human place in the world as one of “insistence” ra-
ther than “existence,” acknowledging people’s interconnectivity with
“what we moderns term nature, and also what we moderns term gods, not
as beings or spaces that exist beyond the realm of human bodies, as it were,
‘out there, but rather as subjectivities that ‘insist’ or ‘dwell within’ the
space of the body” (2017, 12).
If the world “insists” within us, and we by extension “insist” in the
world, then everything we could possibly require or need is already pre-
sent. Our deluded (dare I say, arrogant) position of existence in the world,
a world separate and distinctive from ourselves, ultimately fuels our de-
sire for more—more of what we presumably lack. Again, we only desire
that which we do not already possess. Projecting ourselves into the future,
anxiously awaiting that which is yet to come (Heidegger’s train, Kagan’s
fresh engaging experience), is both driven by our “desire for desires” and
lies at the root of our boredom. Change and eternity (the ever present now)
are already beneath our feet, within this very existence. Life—understood
broadly and free from sorrow and pain—is full of wonder when seen
through the lens of the present. Were we able to avoid physical pain and
ultimately death, as the xian do, an immortal life on the earth is not only
palatable but desirable.
Given this perspective, we are encouraged to dampen our desires
(not extinguish them) and find contentment back at our roots, returning to
Dao itself. As the Daode jing says,

Take emptiness to the limit;

Maintain tranquility in the center.
The ten thousand things—side-by-side they arise;
And by this I see their return.

Things [come forth] in great numbers;

Each one returns to its root.
This is called tranquility.
"Tranquility"—This means to return to your fate.
To return to your fate is to be constant;
To know the constant is to be wise.
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 211

Not to know the constant is to be reckless and wild;

If you’re reckless and wild, your actions will lead to misfortune.

To know the constant is to be all-embracing;

To be all-embracing is to be impartial;
To be impartial is to be kingly;
To be kingly is to be [like] heaven;
To be [like] heaven is to be [one with] Dao;

If you’re [one with] Dao,

To the end of your days, you’ll suffer no harm.
(ch. 16; based on Henricks 1989, 68)

Scholars and practitioners disagree about whether the final line here
is meant to refer to immortality (I tend to believe it does). Irrespective of
that, however, the chapter illustrates the ultimate goal of returning to the
source, the root, which is Dao. Indeed, the very movement of Dao is itself
reversal (ch. 40). While we may, in the words of Ge Hong, have the great-
est amount of intelligence among all creatures, we are nevertheless noth-
ing more than a single piece of the total. We should use our intelligence to
return to the root, not create more distance between ourselves and the
Way. Establish and fulfill our desires properly, finding contentment in that
childlike state of moment-to-moment engagement with the world.

When the world has the Way,

fleet-footed horses are used to haul dung.
When the world is without the Way,
war horses are raised in the suburbs.

The greatest misfortune is not to know contentment.

The worst calamity is the desire to acquire.
And so those who know the contentment of contentment
are always content. (ch. 46; see Ivanhoe 2003)

Etymologically, the English word “contentment” derives from the

Latin contentus, meaning “held together” or “intact, whole.” Originally
used to describe objects that hold things, it eventually evolved into an af-
fective human state, describing one who feels complete, with no desires
beyond themselves. To be content, therefore, poses the question, “How
whole do you feel as a human being?” In our context, “How close is your
relation to Dao?” If content, your desire is managed, as is your desire to
desire, that which fosters boredom according to Tolstoy. Hence, as the
Daode jing says,
212 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Those constantly without desires

by this means will perceive [Dao’s] subtlety;
Those constantly with desires
by this means will see only that which they yearn for and seek.
(ch. 1; Henricks 1989, 53)

Manifest plainness and embrace the genuine;

Lessen self-interest and make few your desires;
Eliminate learning and have no undue concerns.
(ch. 19, Henricks 1989, 71)

Desires are not inherently evil, but must be properly controlled and
utilized correctly, as we saw above with Pengzu. Yes, the world bombards
us with the five colors, the five tones, the five flavors, and so on. However,
to cut oneself off from them leads to an artificial life, one devoid of mean-
ing and value. Controlling desire, rather than being controlled by it, allows
us to appreciate the joys and amusements of life as they arrive from mo-
ment to moment, always fresh, always new, always engaging. How could
such a life be boring, whether it be for 337 years or forever?
I conclude with two final examples, neither from immortals’ hagi-
ogra-phies. Yet they put an exclamation point on the need to enjoy life,
engage the granularity of existence (or better insistence) within nature,
and take an optimistic, as opposed to curmudgeonly, outlook on an im-
mortal life
The first comes from the Zhuangzi, recounting various imperial at-
tempts to “Give Away the Throne.”

Shun tried to cede the empire to Shan Quan, but Shan Quan said, “I stand in
the midst of space and time. Winter days I dress in skins and furs, summer
days, in vine-cloth and hemp. In spring I plow and plant—this gives my
body the labor and exercise it needs; in fall I harvest and store away— this
gives my form the leisure and sustenance it needs.
“When the sun comes up, I work; when the sun goes down, I rest. I wan-
der free and easy between heaven and earth, and my mind has found all that
it could wish for. What use would I have for the empire? What a pity that
you don’t understand me!”
In the end he would not accept, but went away, entering deep into the
mountains, and no one ever knew where he had gone. (ch. 28; Watson 1968,
309-10)

The second example is Buddhist-based and comes via James Heisig.

He emphasizes that contentment within sufficiency can be found in nu-
merous places in the Buddhist canon. For our purposes, the most relevant
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 213

instance appears in an early 5th-century text, entitled Sutra on the Final In-
struction of the Buddha. It has,

Knowing how much is enough offers a comfortable, secluded spot. . . For one
who can never have enough, wealth is still poverty; for one who knows what
it is to have enough, there is wealth even in poverty. One who does not know
how much is enough is forever pulled this way and that by the desires of the
senses; one who knows finds final consolation. (2013, 117-18)

In such a manner, by diminishing the constant drive of desire that

keeps us looking for that next fresh experience and produces boredom as
we wait, perhaps we can positively envision a Daoist physical earthbound
immortality—one that would have us echoing the words of Ge Hong:
“Once one’s immortality has been confirmed, one is never again concerned
about the fleeting of time. If one should return temporarily to wander on
earth or in the famous mountains, what would there be to concern oneself
about?”

Bibliography
Bokenkamp, Stphen R. 2021. A Fourth-Century Daoist Family: The Zhen’gao, or Decla-
rations of the Perfected Volume 1. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bortolotti, Lisa, and Yujin Nagasawa. 2009. “Immortality without Boredom.” Ratio
XXII:261-77.
Burley, Mikel. 2009. “Immortality and Meaning: Reflections on the Makropulos
Debate.” Philosophy 84:529-47.
Capek, Karel. 1999 [1922]. The Makropulos Case. In His Four Plays, translated by Pe-
ter Majer and Cathy Porter. London: Methuen.
Campany, Robert Ford. 2002. To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth: A Translation and
Study of Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Cave, Stephen. 2012. Immorality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civiliza-
tion. New York: Crown.
Chappell, Timothy. 2007. “Infinity Goes on Trial: Must Immortality be Meaning-
less”? European Journal of Philosophy 17.1:30-44.
Cross, Ted. 2014. The Immortality Game. Breakwater Harbor, Del.: Breakwater Har-
bor Books.
DeWoskin, Kenneth J. 1990. “Xian Descended: Narrating Xian Among Mortals.”
Taoist Resources 2.2:70-86.
214 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Eliade, Mircea. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by
William R. Trask. New York: Harvest Books.
Fischer, John Martin. 2020. Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life. New York: Ox-
ford University Press.
Frankl, V. 1957. The Doctor and the Soul. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Gardiner, Michael E., and Julian Jason Haladyn, eds. 2019. Boredom Studies Reader:
Frameworks and Perspectives. London: Routledge.
Gontcharova, Natalie. 2021. “Congratulations, Our Sense of Time Has Been off for
a Year Now.” https://refinery29.com/en-us/2021/03/ 10332829/why-does-
time-feel-weird-covid-pandemic. Accessed March 25, 2021.
Heidegger, Martin. 1995. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude,
Solitude. Studies in Continental Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Heisig, James W. 2013. Nothingness and Desire: An East-West Philosophical Antiphony.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Henricks, Robert G. 1989. Te-Tao Ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Dis-
covered Ma-wang-tui Texts. New York: Ballantine Books.
Huang, Shih-shan Susan. 2012. Picturing the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Tra-
ditional China. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Huang, Xinkai. 2011. “To Become Immortal: Chinese Fantasy Literature Online.”
Intercultural Communication Studies XX.2:119-30.
Ivanhoe, P. J. 2003. The Daodejing of Laozi. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
James, Williams. 1890. The Principles of Psychology. Public domain. https://archive.
org/details/theprinciplesofp01jameuoft/page/n5/mode /2up. Accessed
March 15, 2021.
Kagan, Shelly. 2012. Death. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
_____. 2021. “Death.” PHIL 176. Open Yale Course. https://oyc.yale.edu/NODE
/196. Accessed March 30, 2021.
Kirkland, Russell. 2004. Taoism: The Enduring Tradition. New York: Routledge.
Kirkova, Zornica. 2016. Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality
in Early Medieval Chinese Verse. Leiden: Brill.
Lai, Chi-Tim. 1998. “Ko Hung’s Discourse on Hsien-Immortality: A Taoist Config-
uration of an Alternate Ideal Self-Identity.” Numen 45:183-220.
Lien, Fontaine. 2018. “Stigmas and Rewards of Immortality in Taoist and Gothic
Literary Traditions.” Pacific Coast Philology 53.1:68-91.
Magary, Drew. 2011. The Postmortal. New York: Penguin Books.
 Immortality and Meaning in Life / 215

Miller, James. 2017. China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable
Future. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mulvey-Roberts, Marie. 2010. Gothic Immortals: The Fiction of the Brotherhood of the
Rosy Cross. New York: Routledge.
Phillips, Adam. 1993. On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on
the Unexamined Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Pregadio, Fabrizio. 2018. “Which is the Daoist Immortal Body?” Micrologus XXVI:
385-407.
_____. 2020. “Seeking Immortality in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi Neipian.” In Dao Compan-
ion to Xuanxue 玄學 (Neo-Daoism), edited by David Chai, 427-56. New York:
Springer.
Robbins, Tom. 1990. Jitterbug Perfume. New York: Bantam.
Robinet, Isabelle. 1997. Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Translated by Phyllis Brooks.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Roth, Harold D. 1999. Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist
Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Russell, Bertrand. 1930. The Conquest of Happiness. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Scheffler, Samuel. 2015. Death and the Afterlife. Edited by Niko Kolodny. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Schipper, Kristofer M. 1993. The Taoist Body. Translated by Karen C. Duval. Berke-
ley: University of California Press.
Shelley, Mary. 1833. “Mortal Immortal.” https://www.owleyes.org/text/the-
mortal-immortal/read/the-mortal-immortal#root-2. Accessed January 13,
2021.
Simic, Charles. 2007. “To Boredom.” The New Yorker, December 10.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. 1995. Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind. Chica-
go: University of Chicago Press.
Svendsen, Lars. 2005. A Philosophy of Boredom. Translated by John Irons. London:
Reaktion Books.
Swift. Jonathan. 2003 [1726]. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Barnes and Noble.
Talbot, Margaret. 2020. “What Does Boredom Do to Us—and for Us?” The New
Yorker, August 20. https://www/newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/
what-does-boredom-do-to-us-and-for-us. Accessed January 5, 2021.
Thagard, Paul. 2020. “What is COVID Fatigue?” Psychology Today, November 12.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/202011/what-is-
covid-fatigue. Accessed January 15, 2021.
216 / Jeffrey W. Dippmann

Thompson, Jon W. 2019. “‘Intimations of Immortality’: A Response to Bernard Wil-

liams.” Religious Studies 55:245-60.
Thoreau, Henry David. 1992 [1854]. Walden and Other Writings. New York: Barnes
and Noble Books.
“Time Enough at Last.” November 20, 1959. The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Ser-
ling. Season 1, episode 8. CBS Productions.
“Tithonus.” January 24, 1999. The X-Files, created by Chris Carter. Season 6, Epi-
sode 10. Ten Thirteen Productions, 20th Century Fox.
Tolstoy, Leo. 2004. Anna Karenina. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volo-
khonsky. New York: Penguin Classics.
Ware, James R. 1966. Alchemy, Medicine, Religion in the China of A.D. 320: the Nei
p’ien of Ko Hung (Pao-p’u tzu). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Williams, Bernard. 2010. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of
Immortality.” In Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big
Questions, edited by David Benatar, 345-62. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little-
field Publishers.
Wittmann, Marc. 2020. “The Felt Passage of Time During the Pandemic.” Psycholo-
gy Today, November 6. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog /sense-
time/202011/the-felt-passage-time-during-the-pandemic. Accessed December
4, 2020.
Wordsworth, Henry. 2011. Ode on Immortality and Other Poems. Edinburgh: W. P.
Nimmo, Hayt and Mitchell. Also at https://poets.org/poem/ode-intimations-
immor-tality-recollections-early-childhood. Accessed February 3, 2021.
Yü, Ying-shih. 1964. “Life and Immortality in the Mind of Han China.” Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies 25:80-122.
 Contributors

Jeffrey W. Dippmann, Ph. D., is professor and department chair in Reli-

gious Studies and Philosophy as well as Director of Asian Studies at Cen-
tral Washington University, where he is also University Distinguished
Professor in Service. His main research interests lie in early Daoist thought
and comparative philosophy/religion. In 2001, he co-edited Riding the
Wind with Liezi: New Perspectives on the Daoist Classic with Ronnie Littlejohn
(Belmont University).

Andrej Fech, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the Department of Chinese

Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University. His research
focuses on early Chinese intellectual history, particularly Daoist thought,
excavated manuscripts, and comparative philosophy.

Wujun Ke is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Liter-

ature at the University of California at Irvine. She earned her B. A. in
Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago in 2013. She specializ-
es in contemporary Sinophone cinemas, theories of temporality, and doc-
umentary ethics.

Livia Kohn, Ph.D., is professor emerita of Religion and East Asian Studies
at Boston University. The author or editor of close to sixty books (includ-
ing the annual Journal of Daoist Studies), she spent ten years in Kyoto doing
research. She now serves as the executive editor of Three Pines Press, runs
international conferences and workshops, and guides study tours to Japan.

Patrick Laude, Ph.D., joined the faculty of Georgetown University in

Washington, DC in 1991 and is currently professor of Religious Studies at
Georgetown in Qatar. He has authored a dozen books on metaphysics and
mysticism including Shimmering Mirrors: Reality and Appearance in Contem-
plative Metaphysics East and West (2017), Divine Play, Sacred Laughter and
Spiritual Understanding (2005), and Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Ma-
harshi’s Message for the Present (2021).

217
218 / Contributors

Joseph L. Pratt, J. D., taught law and researched Chinese philosophy and
logic from 2011 to 2020 at Peking University. During that time, he also
practiced taiji quan under the guidance of Master Yang Songquan. He con-
tinues to research and write on Daoism as a holistic account of reality.

Nada M. Sekulic, Ph. D., is a Serbian anthropologist, philosopher, and

feminist at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. The author
of several books (On the End of Anthropology, The Hidden War, The Culture of
Giving Birth), she has published dozens of essays in various academic
journals. She is also a certified instructor of Wudang-style taiji quan.

Qi Song 宋琦, Ph. D., serves as lecturer at Jiangxi University of Science and
Technology and currently does research at the International Research Cen-
ter for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, where she also earned her degree. Her
academic focus is on the interaction of the three teachings in Tokugawa
Japan.

Steve Taylor, Ph.D., is senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett Uni-

versity and current chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Section of the
British Psychological Society. Among his thirteen books, published in
twenty languages, are The Clear Light, Waking from Sleep, Out of the Dark-
ness, The Calm Center, and Spiritual Science. He regularly publishes academ-
ic papers as well as articles in the popular media. His website
is www.stevenmtaylor.com.

Mercedes Valmisa, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Philosophy at Gettys-

burg College. Her book, Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (2021),
explores an extraordinary strategy for efficacious relational action devised
by classical Chinese philosophers in order to account for the interdepend-
ent and embedded character of human agency. She specializes in Chinese,
Asian, and comparative philosophy.

Juan Zhao 赵娟, Ph.D., is associate professor at the School of Humanities,

Beijing Sport University. Her research focuses on Chinese classical aesthet-
ics and art history in trans-culture. She has published close to thirty arti-
cles and two translated works in related fields.
 Index

absorption, and time, 19, 21 Bokenkamp, Stephen, 204-05

accidents, and time, 13-14, 20 Boredom Studies Reader, 190
action (youwei), 94 boredom, 10, 16-17, 188, 192-96, 199-
affordances, 29, 37-38 201, 211; see also emotions
aging, and time, 14-15, 18, 23 boundary, 28-29, 34-36, 41
alchemy, 141-42 Buddha-nature, 135, 158, 163
aletheia, 90 Buddhism, 8-9, 115, 122, 128, 131,
Ames, Roger, 28, 36, 39-40, 123 143-46, 149-65, 204, 212-13
Amitabha, 162 butterfly dream, 7-8, 38, 40, 107-08,
Anqi Sheng, 207-08 117
anti-tradition, 138-39 Cannes, 123
arche, 98 Capek, Karel, 192, 208
archetypes, 60, 168, 170, 172, 174, 184 causality, 3, 10, 169, 172, 175-76, 179-
Archimedes, 096, 176 81
Aristotle, 80, 91, 96 change (hua), 93
Armstrong, A. H., 71 chanting, 153
Arstila, Valtteri, 21 chaos, 1, 3, 129, 141
ascension, of souls, 81, 83-85 China’s Green Religion, 210
Ascona, 170 Christianity, 1, 4, 9, 157, 205
astrology, 172 chronostasis, 159
atemporality, 1, 7 cinema, 8, 111, 117-18
Atom and Archetype, 170 collective unconscious, 184
attention: 29-32, 34-38, 42; and film, Confucianism, 128, 149
120; and time, 16; recognition, Confucius, 33, 38
121; see also reparar Conquest of Happiness, 196
autarky, 98 consciousness: altered states of, 3, 17,
awareness, 3, 18, 201 19-23, 149, 152, 171-72, 177, 183;
axis mundi, 204 cognition and form, 55-59, 61;
background, 30-32, 34-37, 42 hard problem of, 51and time, 13-
Baopuzi, 203, 206 23
Barad, Karen, 28 constancy (chang), 73-74
Barbault, André, 179 contar con (count with), 32, 37
Baur, B., 175 Cook Ding, 57-58, 61, 65-66, 67, 135
Benjamin, Walter, 117 cosmogony, 4, 130
Bergson, Henri, 119-20, 124 cosmos, 129, 141
Bible, 205 counter-tradition, 138-39
Biyanlu, 163 Covid-19, 16, 190, 195-96, 201
Bleak House, 194 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, 2, 19, 64,
body: awareness of, 161, 165; and 65-67
mind, 51, 172 cultivation, 161-62

219
220 / Index

Daishōji, 151 emptiness, 2, 130

Dalio, Ray, 67 energy and matter, 53
Dao, 4, 6, 51, 71, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 127, enlightenment, 9, 149, 151
129-32, 136-39, 144-45 Enlightenment, Age of, 170
Daode jing, 4, 6, 50-52, 55-57, 71-80, Ennead: III.8, 81; III.9, 80-84; IV.9, 80;
92, 93, 123-24, 128-29, 131-33, 138, V.1, 82; V.2, 81-82
141, 160, 173, 209-12 entanglement, 28-29, 36, 42-43
Daoism, 127-28, 132-33, 136, 139, entropy, 129, 131, 138, 142, 144
144-46, 149-50 equality of things, 116
Daoist, 128, 130-31, 135-39, 145-46 Eranos, 170-71, 175, 179
Daoti lun, 138 esotericism, 128
De Rerum Natura, 4 eternity, 2, 144
death, 10, 188-89 evolution, 21, 127-28
Decline of the West, 174 experience: of immediacy, 120;
Deleuze, Gilles, 36 kenshō, 9, 149, 151-65; mystical, 2,
Deleuze, Gilles, 36, 111, 115, 118-20 157; near-death, 23; out-of-body,
Democritus, 95 62; and reality, 181-82; time
Descartes, René, 51, 169 expansion, 5, 19-23; Zen, 145-46;
desires: categorical, 196-197; and see also perception; Zen sickness
time, 196-97, 209-12; see also Fech, Andrej, 6
emotions film, 119, 191, 198
DeWoskin, Kenneth, 191 Finnegan’s Wake, 178
dhyāna, 152 fire and water, 160
dialectics, 52, 58, 61 five organs, 160
Diamond Sutra, 160 five phases, 53, 101, 199
Dickens, Charles, 194 Flanagan, Matthew, 119
Dippmann, Jeffrey W., 10 flow, 2, 19-20, 50, 64-67, 179
disposability, 123-25 Foucault, Michel, 120
divination, 175-76, 181-83 Fraser, J. T., 1
Dōkyō Etan, 151 Ge Hong, 188, 190-91, 203, 205, 207-
Donati, Marialuisa, 170 09, 211, 213
doxa, 95 Genesis, 205
duck-rabbit illusion, 34-35 geometry, 7
duration, 15-16, 118-20, 164 German, time in, 194-95
Eagleman, David, 15 Gibbon, John, 16
Egoku Dōmyō, 157 Gibson, Bob, 65
Eiganji, 151, 153 Gilgamesh, 188
Einstein, Albert, 51, 60, 61, 168, 170 globalization, 113-16
Eisai, 150 Graham, A. C., 56
Eleatic school, 95, 97 Great Triad, 128, 131, 142
elements, four, 161 Greece, 1, 7, 90-105, 188-89
Eliade, Mircea, 1, 180, 204-05 Guanzi, 209
elixir, 192-93, 206 Guattari, Félix, 36
elixir field, 9, 162 Gudō Tōshoku, 158
emotions, 15-16, 19, 115, 209-12
 Index / 221

Guénon, René, 9, 127-31, 134, 138-32, Italian Neo-realists, 113

137-42 Itsumadegusa, 150, 152, 155-56, 163
Guiguzi, 56 James, William, 14-15, 17, 22, 195
Gulliver’s Travels, 189 Jameson, Fredric, 113
Hakuin, 9, 149-65 Jancek, Leos, 192
Hakuyu, 151, 159 Janet, Paul, 17
Han dynasty, 71 Japan, 9, 114, 149-65
Handa Yōichi, 159 Jena, 173
Hangzhou, 173 Jetztzeit, 117
Hannah, Barbara, 180 Jingang panruo jing, 160
he (harmony), 73-81 Joshu’s Mu, 158
health, 2 Joyce, James, 178
heaven and earth, 72, 105, 131 Jung, Carl Gustav, 9-10, 168-85
Hegel, Georg W. F., 54, 111, 117, 120 Kagan, Shelly, 188, 193-95, 198, 202,
Heidegger, Martin, 194, 196 205, 206, 210
Heisig, James, 212-13 Karcher, Stephen, 183
heng (constant), 73-74 karma, 149
Heraclitus, 178 Ke, Wujun, 8
Herrigel, Eugen, 57-58, 65 Kenninji, 150
hexagrams, 176-77, 181, 182-71 Kepler, 170
Hinduism, 127-28, 131 khora,103
holism, 5-6 Kirkland, Russell, 191
Huainanzi, 43 Kirkova, Zornica, 203
Huang, Susan, 205 Kissel, Laura, 121
Huang, Xinkai, 204 Kitashirakawa, 151
Huangdi neijing, 54 koans, 145, 155, 157-58
Huineng, 149 Kunlun, 204
Hundun, 129 Kuomintang, 112
Hypostasis, 80, 81 Kyoto, 150-51, 158, 165
ideas (Plato), 80 Lai, Chi-tim, 191
illusion, 3-4, 140-41 Langyuan nüxian, 205
immortality, 2, 10, 97, 188-213 Lao Naixuan, 173
immortals: hagiography of, 10, 189- Laozi, 6, 8, 71, 94, 123-25, 129-33, 141,
91, 202-03, 205-07; types of, 202, 145, 205
208 Laozi, see Daode jing
Inada, Kenneth, 146 Laude, Patrick, 8
India, 161 laws, of time perception, 17-19
indigenization, 113-14 Lee Kang-sheng, 122
individuals (souls), 81, 83, 84 Legge, James, 173
information processing, 15-18 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 101, 178
inka, 151 Li Guangdi, 173
inner observation, 151 Liexian zhuan, 10
intellect, 80-84 lifetime, perspective of, 17-18
Introduction à la métaphysique, 120 literature, time in, 188-89, 194, 202-03
intuition and logic, 56-57, 58 logocentrism, 92
222 / Index

logos, 56, 90 Newton, Isaac, 50, 51, 60, 63, 168

long take, 117-18, 121 Nichiren, 150
Lucretius, 4 nomos, 90
Lugones, María, 45 nonaction (wuwei), 6, 94, 135
Lüliang waterfall, 39 nonlocal, 172, 175
Luoshu, 8, 99, 100, 101 nothingness, 4, 6, 143
Lusthaus, Dan, 40-41, 45 nous, 90
Main, Roderick, 180 Numazu, 150
Makropolus Case, 190, 192-93, 208 Numinous Treasure, 204-5
Marion, Jean-Luc, 29 Ōbaku, 150, 157
Maslow, Abraham, 2, 157 oblivion, 149
Master Horseneigh (Maming sheng), ocean of qi, 9, 162
207-08 Ogawa Genei, 165
Master Whitestone (Baishi Ogden, Ruth, 16
xiansheng), 188, 206-07 Oh, Sadaharu, 67
Matter and Memory, 120 Omega Point, 133-34
matter, as evil, 81 One: in cosmogony, 75, 131; and
Matthews, William, 15 formlessness, 80; in Greece, 80-84;
McCarver, Tim, 65 overflowing of, 81-82; union with,
Meck, Warren, 15 84
meditation, 19, 21-23, 149, 151-65 oneness, 2, 5-6, 51-52, 163
memory, in film, 121 Orategama, 153, 163-65
Mendelssohn, 189 Ornstein, Robert, 15
metaphors, 72, 156 Orphan of Asia, 114
metaphysics, 92 Ortega y Gasset, José, 5-6, 26, 30-32,
Miller, James, 210 36, 37, 41, 43
mind: formed (chengxin), 39, 46; ox, herding of, 143
fasting, 135, 145, only, 162 paradise, of immortals, 204-5
missionaries, 173, 178 parapsychology, 172
modernity, 138, 181 Pariyadath, Vani, 15
mountains, 153, 202, 203, 206 Parmenides, 7, 91, 103
Mt. Fuji, 150, 153 past, integrated, 154
muscle memory, 56 path, Buddhist, 163
Myōshinji, 158 Pauli, Wolfgang, 168, 170-71, 175,
Nabeshima Naohisa, 165 180
Nagano, 151 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 37, 44
names, 132 Pengzu, 160, 203, 205-07, 208-09
narrative, 119 perception, of time, 4-5, 14-16, 156-59
nature, 9, 81, 200-01 Phaedo, 189
Nature and the Interpretation of the Phillips, Adam, 195
Mind, 170-71 photography, and time, 117
neurology, and time, 21 physics, 1, 10, 169
New Wave, 8, 111-25 physis, 90
New York Times, 115 Phythagoras, 7
New Yorker, 190
 Index / 223

Plato, 7, 80, 90, 95, 96, 101, 105, 107, Scheffler, Samuel, 197, 198, 205, 206
189 Schipper, Kristopher, 202
Plotinus, 6, 80-84 Scott, A. O., 115
plurality in unity, 80 Searle, John, 27
poetry, and time, 194, 203 Secret of the Golden Flower, 174, 177
polis, 97, 98 Sekisho unjō, 155, 156-57
polyhedra, 104 Sekulic, Nada M., 7
Porphyry, 80, 84 self, 30-32, 34, 37, 39-41, 44-45, 143
post-secular, 111 self-cultivation, 4, 9, 151, 153, 161,
Pratt, Joseph L. 06 165
Pregadio, Fabrizio, 191, 198, 202 self-system, 17, 19-23
Principles of Psychology, 14 Senna, Ayrton, 64
probability, 175 Shang dynasty, 181
Problems of the Self, 192 Shelley, Mary, 189, 208
progress, 134-35, 142, 144 Shenxian zhuan, 188, 190, 203, 206
progressive, 127-28 shi (situation), 28
propensity, 5 Shidō Bunan, 158
psychedelics, 20, 23 Shiji, 71
psychology, 10, 14-16, 149, 159, 168- Shizuoka, 151, 153
71 Shōgenji, 150
Pure Land, 162 Shōinji, 150-51, 153
Pythagorean theorem, 101 Shōju Rōjin, 151, 158
qi, 209-210 Shun, 212
qi, flow of, 161-62 Silesius, Angelus, 4
Raman, B. V., 175 Simic, Charles, 194
reality: 135, 140-41; emergence of, 81; simultaneity, 113, 163
and film, 116, 120; and situation: and attention, 5, 30;
motionlessness, 82, 83 boundaries of, 36-39; and
reams, 107-8, 113, 170, 175, 181, 184 building, 26-29; ontology of, 32-
reductio ad absurdum, 95 36, 41-42; and self, 39-41; and
relations, 30, 33-45 worlds, 43-47
relativity, 168-69 socialization, 5
Renaissance, 138 solve-coagula, 142
reparar (notice), 30-32, 34, 36-39, 41- Song, Qi, 9
43 Sōtō, 150
return, 6, 78-80 soul (psuche): 06, 80-84; descent of, 83;
Rhine, J. B., 172 movement of, 83-84; restlessness
Rinzai, 150-51 of, 82-83; return of, 82; thinking
Robinet, Isabelle, 204 of, 81, 83
Ruan Gao, 205 Spengler, Oswald, 174
Russell, Bertrand, 196, 200, 201, 206 spirit (shen), 98
Sacred Books of China, 173 spirituality, 5, 22
samādhi, 152, 163 stability, in film, 118
Sanada Noboyuki, 151 Stoics, 80
satori, 145-46, 149 Stray Dogs, 8, 112, 118-19, 122-25
224 / Index

stress, and time, 21 timelessness, 1-4, 83

superhuman, 204, 209 Tithonus, 189
Suruga, 150 Tolstoy, Leo, 195-96, 211
Sutra on the Final Instruction of the tradition, 127-28, 134, 138-39
Buddha, 213 transcendence, 2, 23, 169
Suzuki, D. T., 9 127-28, 143-46 trigrams, 182
Swift, Jonathan, 189 Tsai Ming-Liang, 8, 111, 118, 122-25
synchronicity, 9-9, 168-85 Ueshiba Morihei, 65, 67
taiji quan, 51, 66, 67 Unanshi Yomo, 153
Taiji tu, 98 Unas Lecciones de Metafisica, 5
Taipei, 114-15, 122 Untouchable Journey, 204
Taiping jing, 209 urbanization, 201
Taiwan, 8, 111-14 utilitarianism, 121
Taiyi jinhua zongzhi, 174 vacations, 18
Talbot, Margaret, 190 Valmisa, Mercedes, 5-6
Tallis, Thomas, 199 Venice, 122
Tang dynasty, 154 Verene, Donald Philip, 178
Taylor, Jill Bolte, 3 Vico, Giambattista, 178
Taylor, Steve, 5 view, of time, 198-99
technology, and boredom, 201 virtue, 138
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 9, 127- virtues: Confucian, 115, 123, 136;
28, 133-37 Daoist, 124, 132
Ten Wings, 173 visualization, 162
Terrorizers, 8, 113, 118 vital energy (qi), 98
Tesson, Charles, 123 Walden Pond, 201
Third World, 113 wang (active oblivion), 35
Thoreau, Henry David, 200-01, 206 water, as time, 153
Timaeus, 80, 95, 103, 105 websites, and immortality, 204
Time and Free Will, 120 White Terror, 112
time: as chain, 180-81; cyclical, 124; Whitehead, Alfred North, 40
dilation of, 13-14, 17, 19-23, 159; Wilhelm, Hellmut, 171
emergence of, 75-77; time: in Wilhelm, Richard, 169, 173-75, 180,
films, 111-25; holy, 180; image of, 185
119; as image of eternity, 80; Williams, Bernard, 190, 192-93, 196-
impact of, 183; inner, 145; as 98, 205, 206
instant, 183; movement of, 9; as Williams, Ralph Vaughan, 199
life course, 115-16; linear and Witcutt, W. P., 175, 184
cyclical, 23, 77, 84-85; messianic, Wittman, Marc, 22
117-18; now, 117; perception of, Wolff, Toni Anna, 173
121; psychology of, 13-23; World War II, 117, 119
qualitative, 179; repetitive, 193, worlds, 41, 43-47
199; seasons, 77; and space, 179- Wu Zhuoliu, 114
80; spacetime, 5, 77, 179-80; Xuanzang, 122
suspension of, 116; as system, Xuedou Chongxian, 163
181 Yang, Edward, 8, 112-14, 124-25
 Index / 225

Yantou Quanhuo, 154, 157 Zeno’s aporias, 95, 96

Yasen kanna, 158, 159, 161-62 Zhao, Juan, 9-10
Yi Yi, 8, 114-17, 124-25 Zhongyong, 160
yiduo bufen (one is many and many is Zhou bisuan jing, 101
one), 35 Zhou Dunyi, 98
Yijing, 7, 9-10, 101, 128, 131, 161, 168, Zhou dynasty, 182
171-85 Zhouyi zhezhong, 173
yin-yang, 5-6, 52-54, 75-76, 131, 141, Zhuangzi, 6, 8, 26, 32-33, 35, 38-40, 42,
160, 199 44-47, 51, 54, 57-58, 64, 66-67, 85,
yoga, 51, 66, 67 93, 94, 96, 115-17, 129, 135-36, 139,
Yü Ying-shih, 202-03, 208 146, 160, 207, 209, 212
Zakav, Dan, 16 Ziporyn, Brook, 34
zazen, 149-50, 153-54, 163 Zuozhuan, 182
Zazen to san, 152
Zen: 127-28, 143-36, 149-65; mind,
153; sickness, 9, 149, 151, 158-62