The Nüwa Newsletter, Edition 2
Thought Pieces, Cultural Journalism and Extracts exploring Buddhism, Daoism and their Intersection with Western Culture.
Hello, and welcome to this edition of the Nüwa! I hope you find something that resonates with you, which you can take away and chew over. As always, it’s a pleasure to share this material with you.
Classical Philosophy As a Spiritual Exercise
Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) was one of France’s foremost intellectuals during the 20th century. He occupied the chair of History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought at the Collège de France, and much of his writing attempts to change the way we think about classical philosophy. Hadot believed that the great philosophers of antiquity have been understood anachronistically — according to the beliefs and practices of later times, as opposed to the way in which the philosophers themselves intended. In particular, Hadot argues that classical philosophy was never concerned with the kind of disembodied, speculative thought that Western philosophy later became. Instead, ancient philosophers sought to cultivate themselves in ways that would affect how they lived; philosophy was conceived as sets of spiritual exercises, practised in order to develop virtue and wisdom.
“All the ancient schools practiced exercises designed to ensure spiritual progress toward the ideal state of wisdom ...Generally, they consist...of self-control and meditation. Self-control is fundamentally being attentive to oneself... In all of the schools...philosophy will be especially a meditation upon death and an attentive concentration on the present moment in order to...live in full consciousness.”
— Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, translated by Michael Chase (1995).
Hadot’s reading of classical philosophy as spiritual exercises opens the possibility for an interesting conversation between the various schools of Ancient Greek thought and the traditions of Buddhism and Daoism. I will leave that for another time, and for now include an interesting passage from an interview with Hadot, in which he speaks about the continuing relevance of ancient spiritual exercises within modern life.
Question: “Are spiritual exercises still possible today? They were thought up in the very distant past, as responses to specific social structures and material conditions, but our current living conditions bear very little resemblance to those of antiquity. The spiritual exercises of the Stoics and the Epicureans, for example, are the consequences of the basic hypotheses of each school… Nowadays, however, we may no longer believe in these hypotheses. Is it still possible to practice the spiritual exercises of antiquity, separating them from the systems of which they were a part, and substituting our own basic hypotheses for the outmoded ones of antiquity?”
Answer: “To reply to your question… I quote the passage from the diary of Georges Friedmann which he quotes in his book La Puissance et la Sagesse: “A ‘spiritual exercise’ every day — either alone or else in the company of someone who also wants to improve himself… Step out of duration… try to get rid of your own passions.” I think this testimony suffices to prove that spiritual exercises are still being practiced in our day and age. Spiritual exercises do not correspond to specific social structures or material conditions. They have been, and continue to be, practiced in every age, in the most widely diverse milieus, and in widely different attitudes: China, Japan, India: among the Christian, Muslims, and Jews. If one admits, as I do, that the various philosophical schools of antiquity were characterised above all by their choice of a form of life, which is then justified after the fact by a given systematic construction (for instance, Stoicism is the choice of an attitude of coherence with oneself, which is later justified by a general theory of the coherence of the universe with itself) — then it is easy to understand how one can remain faithful to one’s choice of a form of life without being obliged to adhere to the systematic construction which claims to found it.”
— Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, translated by Michael Chase (1995).
A Good Student Learns the Spirit, not the Doctrine
This is an excerpt from the writings of the Ming Dynasty poet Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610). Within China, the ‘Three Perfections’ of painting, poetry and calligraphy had long been practised by striving to reproduce the techniques of past masters. However, there were also those that rebelled against what they considered to be restrictive traditionalism. Yuan Hongdao was one of these individuals. This excerpt is fascinating because it describes his meeting with Dong Qichang (1555–1636), perhaps the most influential painter of the Ming Dynasty and generally considered a staunch conservative in terms of painting style. Here, Dong Qichang demonstrates a far more subtle understanding of the relationship between the work of past masters and that being produced in the present. I include this here because I feel it has a lot to say about the way in which traditions of inner cultivation should be practised and transmitted — a middle way between dead traditionalism and empty innovation.
Once I went with my older brother to see Dong Qichang.
“There are modern outstanding artists,” said my brother, “like Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin, and Shen Zhou. Do you think they have the spirit of the ancients?”
Dong Qichang replied, “The distinguished modern artists never paint one stroke that is not like the ancients. But to be aboslutely like the ancients it to be not like them at all. It is not even painting.”
I started when I heard this, and said to myself, “That is from someone who understands.”
Therefore a good artist derives from nature, not from any one person. A good student learns the spirit, and not the doctrines. A good master takes for his master not someone in the past, but the whole glorious creation. Take, for instance, a person who considers Li Tang as his master. Does he try merely to learn the patterns and stroke techniques of Li Tang? Or should he not rather learn the spirit of Li Tang, the spirit of not wanting to be a Han, or a Wei, or a man of the Six Dynasties? This is the right way to learn. It is said one can win a victory in battle by ‘burning one’s bridges'; but can also lose it by the same method, and sometimes win by not burning them. Thus, to disobey the rules is sometimes the right way to follow the masters of the past. Many authors today condemn as new poetry whatever shows a [fresh] line that truly describes something, and when they observe the rules and patterns and borrow some superficial lines from others, they call it ‘restoration of the ancients’. This is to follow the rules, but it has not the real beauty and charm of the ancient authors. It is the method of death.
— Lin Yutang, The Chinese Theory of Art: Translations from the Masters of Chinese Art (1967).
Babbling, Rumour-Loving Birds
This is a short excerpt from the Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur, which was composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran. It’s one of the greatest mystical poems of Sufism. In the lead up to this excerpt, the birds of the world have met to begin the search for their ideal king, the Simorgh bird. On hearing that to find him they must undertake an arduous journey, the birds express reservations to their leader, the hoopoe. The Simorgh is a metaphor for God in Sufi mysticism, whilst the birds each represent a human fault that prevents the attainment of enlightenment.
The other birds in turn received their chance
To show off their loquacious ignorance.
All made excuses — floods of foolish words
Flowed from these babbling, rumour-loving birds.
Forgive me, reader, if I do not say
All these excuses to avoid the Way;
But in an incoherent rush they came,
And all were inappropriate and lame.
How could they gain the Simorgh? Such a goal
Belongs to those who discipline the soul.
The hoopoe counselled them: ‘The world holds few
As worthy of the Simorgh’s throne as you,
But you must empty this first glass; the wine
That follows it is love’s devoted sign.
If petty problems keep you back — or none —
How will you seek the treasures of the sun?
In drops you lose yourselves, yet you must dive
Through untold fathoms and remain alive.
This is no journey for the indolent —
Our quest is Truth itself, not just its scent!’
— Attar of Nishapur, The Conference of the Birds, translated by Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis (2011).
An Extract from the Classic of Clarity & Stillness (Qingjing Jing)
The Classic of Clarity and Stillness (‘Qingjing Jing’) is a Tang Dynasty Daoist text of unknown authorship, most likely dating to the 8th century CE. It combines the teachings of the Daode Jing and the Buddhist Heart Sutra. Since it was written, the Classic of Clarity and Stillness has occupied a central place within Daoism, especially within the Quanzhen school where it is considered one of the three fundamental texts alongside the Daode Jing and Yinfu Jing. It continues to be chanted today by Quanzhen renunciates. Here is a summary of the text:
“The text first describes aspects or manifestations of the Dao as divisible into yin and yang, turbidity and clarity, as well as stillness and movement. Emphasis is also placed on the tendency of the heart-mind to generate desires, attachments, and entanglements. The condition of being in desire and attachment is described in terms of poison, for this leads to dissipation of qi, confusion of the heart-mind (the seat of intellectual and emotional activity), and instability of spirit. The scripture in turn recommends the practice of observation as foundational: the adept must observe both internal and external worlds, including the self and heart-mind. This meditative observation results in the realisation that everything is empty of self-identity. Completing this, one practices the observation of emptiness (guankong), culminating in a state of complete clarity and stillness, or oneness with the Dao. This is the ontological condition of ‘constant clarity’ (changqing) and ‘constant stillness’ (changjing). One enters the Dao (rudao), awakening to the reality that this is one's original nature (benxing), one's original such-ness (ziran).”
— Louis Komjathy, Handbooks for Daoist Practice, The Scripture of Clarity and Stillness.
What follows is a commentary on two lines from the Classic of Clarity and Stillness that I often return to. The simplicity of these two lines means that you probably won’t need to read my commentary in order to understand their message. However, for those that want to penetrate some of the finer meaning and images contained within these lines, the commentary may be helpful.
夫人神好清而心擾之,
人心好靜而慾牽之。
“The human spirit is fond of clarity, but the heart-mind disturbs it.
The human heart-mind is fond of stillness, but desires lead it away.”
To understand the first line, we need to understand what is meant by ‘clarity’. The term can be approached in three ways, each of which gives a different, helpful perspective. First, we can look at the etymology of the character. It is composed of the water radical on the left, and the character for ‘green-blue’ on the right. As such, it brings to mind still pools, perhaps forest glades, or the vibrancy of running water and fresh vegetation. Second, ‘clarity’ is often represented in Daoist alchemical texts with the fire trigram (li). Clarity therefore can be understood as a kind of insight that illuminates all things. Third, when spoken about in the context of spirit, clarity takes on another, specific meaning. Within Daoism, spirit is said to be one of three components (sanbao) that sit behind the physical body, which illuminate it and dictate the way in which it functions. Spirit is the ‘highest’ of these three components, the most ethereal, and that which resonates closest to the Dao. As the mind becomes still, spirit is directly experienced within the mind’s eye as white light. However, in our daily lives the white light of spirit is ‘refracted’ into the various aspects of the mundane mind. Therefore, when we say ‘the human spirit is fond of clarity, but the heart-mind disturbs it’ we mean that when left untroubled by the workings of the heart-mind, spirit naturally returns to its original, un-refracted whiteness and radiance.
To understand the second line, we need to understand what is meany by the ‘heart-mind’. On one level, the heart-mind refers to the mundane workings of the mind and emotions. More specifically, it refers to the wushen (‘five elements of mind’), which are the shen, yi, po, hun and zhi. I won’t go into those here; information can be easily found about them online or in a Chinese medicine textbook. These are stirred into motion through desire. Without desire, they settle into a state of motionlessness, or stillness. It’s interesting to look at the etymology of the character for ‘heart-mind’ — it is a pictographic representation of a spacious container, perhaps indicating that the ideal heart-mind is open, clear and tending toward emptiness.
One of the interesting things about these two lines is that they indicate human beings are fundamentally orientated towards clarity and stillness. All we need to do is reduce desires and we will naturally draw towards them. Our natural disposition is toward a kind of tranquil, numinous understanding. This idea ties in with the teaching found within many traditions, that the path to transcendence is walked via the release of that which obscures truth. In particular, chapter one of the Daode Jing famously talks about the way in which the presence of desire affects our ability to comprehend reality:
“Constantly without desire, one observes its wonder. Constantly with desire, one [only] observes its boundary.”
Summarising The Great Discourse on Establishing Mindfulness (Maha Satipatthana Sutta)
The cultivation of mindfulness (Pali: sati) is the foundation upon which the entire Buddhist path is built. Mindfulness is so simple, yet extremely difficult to practise — it requires a radical shift in how we engage with the world. Here is a summary of the Maha Satipatthana Sutta, the most important discourse the Buddha gave on the subject. This sutta is very well-known, and forms the basis for the modern vipassana movement.
The Maha Satipatthana Sutta enumerates four forms of mindfulness of an increasingly advanced nature.
Mindfulness of body (kaya).
Mindfulness of feelings (vedana).
Mindfulness of mind (citta).
Mindfulness of mental qualities (dhamma).
The Buddha taught five methods of establishing mindfulness of body. The first two are commonly practised today. Mindfulness of breath is the most well-known and widely practised Buddhist meditation method. The Buddha suggested that this technique alone is able to lead one to final liberation. Mindfulness of body posture and actions is probably the form of mindfulness most commonly associated today with the integration of formal meditation practice into one’s everyday life. Here is Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation of the relevant sections from the sutta:
Mindfulness of breath:
"Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.' Just as a skilled turner or his apprentice, when making a long turn, discerns, 'I am making a long turn,' or when making a short turn discerns, 'I am making a short turn'; in the same way the monk, when breathing in long, discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long' ... He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'"
Mindfulness of all body postures and actions:
“Furthermore, when walking, the monk discerns, 'I am walking.' When standing, he discerns, 'I am standing.' When sitting, he discerns, 'I am sitting.' When lying down, he discerns, 'I am lying down.' Or however his body is disposed, that is how he discerns it.”
"Furthermore, when going forward & returning, he makes himself fully alert; when looking toward & looking away... when bending & extending his limbs... when carrying his outer cloak, his upper robe & his bowl... when eating, drinking, chewing, & savoring... when urinating & defecating... when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, & remaining silent, he makes himself fully alert.”
The last three methods for establishing mindfulness of body are:
Observation of the parts of the body.
Observation of the four elements within the body.
Charnel grounds contemplation.
The second form of mindfulness, mindfulness of feelings, is established through constant awareness of their pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral nature:
“And how does a monk remain focused on feelings in & of themselves? There is the case where a monk, when feeling a painful feeling, discerns, 'I am feeling a painful feeling.' When feeling a pleasant feeling, he discerns, 'I am feeling a pleasant feeling.' When feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he discerns, 'I am feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling.”
The third form of mindfulness, mindfulness of mind, is awareness of the absence or presence of the ‘three poisons’, as well as five qualities of mind conducive to jhana (meditative absorption):
“There is the case where a monk, when the mind has passion, discerns that the mind has passion. When the mind is without passion, he discerns that the mind is without passion. When the mind has aversion, he discerns that the mind has aversion. When the mind is without aversion, he discerns that the mind is without aversion. When the mind has delusion, he discerns that the mind has delusion. When the mind is without delusion, he discerns that the mind is without delusion.”
“When the mind is restricted, he discerns that the mind is restricted. When the mind is scattered, he discerns that the mind is scattered. When the mind is enlarged, he discerns that the mind is enlarged. When the mind is not enlarged, he discerns that the mind is not enlarged. When the mind is surpassed, he discerns that the mind is surpassed. When the mind is unsurpassed, he discerns that the mind is unsurpassed. When the mind is concentrated, he discerns that the mind is concentrated. When the mind is not concentrated, he discerns that the mind is not concentrated. When the mind is released, he discerns that the mind is released. When the mind is not released, he discerns that the mind is not released.”
The fourth and final form of mindfulness, mindfulness of mental qualities, is awareness of the presence/absence of:
The Five Hinderances (sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and uncertainty).
The Five Aggregates (form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness).
The Six Sense Faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, intellect).
Seven Factors of Awakening (mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquility, absorption, equanimity).
The Four Noble Truths (the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, the path to liberation from suffering).
This is a greatly simplified summary of the fourth form of mindfulness. Although the first three forms of mindfulness require relatively little familiarity with Buddhist thought, the fourth form requires a deep engagement with Buddhism in order to be practiced correctly.
I first started practising Buddhism ten years ago. When I first began, I found the plethora of Buddhist doctrines fascinating, I found the life of the Buddha inspiring, and I was guided by the many teachings he left behind that cover almost every aspect of life. Now, however, I understand that those things are quite superficial. The only thing that really matters is development of the correct qualities of mind, and mindfulness is the absolute essence of this. If you were to know nothing about Buddhism, but diligently train the first three forms of mindfulness (okay, it gets a little more complicated with the fourth), you would already be walking a very direct path to final liberation. It is easy to become lost in complex forms of meditation, esoteric practice, or intellectual speculation. I hope this short summary may remind us of the rigorous simplicity that lies at the heart of Buddhist practice.
“This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow & lamentation, for the disappearance of pain & distress, for the attainment of the right method, & for the realization of Unbinding — in other words, the four frames of reference.”
Parting Thought
外師造化,中得心源。
“Outside, I take nature as my master; inside, I follow my own heart.”
— Zhang Zao 張璪 (fl. 750 CE)
I planned to include an introduction to the Rothko Chapel, but we have reached the size limit for this email. I will include it next week! If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please give it a like and leave a comment. Of course, it would be fantastic if you could share the Nüwa with anyone you know who may enjoy it as well.
With all my best wishes,
Oscar