Transformation

 

Asian transformation

Abstract

Transformation hua 化 in certain Chinese terms (1) has two aspects, an articulation called li 理 and a force or power called qi 氣. In order for there to be change or transformation, there must be certain distinctions. You cannot have a completely homogeneous flow, but there have to be different streams or particles whose relation changes, creating also a distinction between past and present. And of course there has to be force, because without it, the articulations would remain sterile. Also, (2) transformation takes place on different levels of interpenetration tong 通, from hundun 混沌 through the initiation of actualization, a ji 機 or taiji 太極, two breaths of yinyang 陰陽, five phases wuxing 五行, up to the actualized forms xing 形, wu 物, or qi 器. This is the gradual externalization of li 理 and qi 氣. (3) From individual's pespective, the interpenetrating articulation is original knowing liangzhi 良知, and the interpenetrating power is original capacity liangneng 良能. (4) The continuation of the transformation is goodness, shan 善. A good continuator goes back gui 歸 towards the interpenetrating, roaming freely xiaoyaoyou 逍遙遊 through both the interpenetrating and actualized.

Introduction

The following will not be a serious academic presentation, but an impressionistic extraction from certain Chinese thinkers to whom I will mostly omit reference. Some of the serious scholars among you may be offended by such monstruosity or hooliganism, please forgive me.

1. Language

I will claim that everything changes incessantly. But in that case, all claims are misleading, since they will stop the change. First, they will arrest transformation temporarily: each word and sentence coagulates speech and thought into a certain form that endures, subsists. But this is common to all beings – that they coagulate being in a certain form – and is not the worst thing about language. Second, and worse, thing is that words and sentences seem to be about beings, about the world, thus distancing themselves from them, and creating a separate sphere that seems to elude the change and transformation of ordinary beings, and in turn fixing those beings in a system that defies transformation. All the words and sentences that I have used thus far, betray the thing about which they are purported to be. For example, “transformation”. By saying it, I betray what I mean by it.

But my linguistic expression itself is part of what is, and is a certain expression of the general transformation. Hence, while speaking I betray what I mean to say, and at the same time, willy-nilly, I also am truthful to what I mean, since this speaking is an expression of the same transformation that I am talking about.

Does it mean that all speaking is equal? In a sense yes, in a sense not. On the one hand, all speaking (and in general, everything there is) is an expression of transformation, and hence all expressions are equal. On the other hand, some expressions may express transformation better than others, if they are not simply facts or instances of transformation, but if they somehow do the transformation with their own means.

There is an inherent paradox in language, a tension, which is the same paradox as the one of being itself, since all being on the one hand are about other things (in their existence, they necessarily and incessantly relate to other things and express them), but on the other hand, they are “about” themselves, they are themselves a thing.

So, all expression will be double-sided.

2. Transformation, articulations and power

Transformation has two aspects, an articulation called li 理, or the „veins“ of being like veins in a stone; and a force or power called qi 氣.

In order for there to be change or transformation, there must be certain distinctions.¹ You cannot have a completely homogeneous flow, but there have to be different streams or particles whose relation changes, creating also a distinction between past and present. And of course there has to be force that impels the flow, because without it, the articulations would remain sterile.

3. Levels of interpenetration

Transformation takes place on different levels of interpenetration tong 通, from hundun 混沌 through the initiation of actualization, a ji 機 or taiji 太極, two breaths of yinyang 陰陽, five phases wuxing 五行, up to the actualized forms xing 形, wu 物, or qi 器. This is the gradual externalization or juxtaposition of li 理 and qi 氣.

Just as the formation of an embryo or the development of a seed: there are certain initial distinctions, differences, but in the beginning they are interpenetrating; there is no „small man“ inside the fertilized egg-cell of a human being, no grown plant inside a seed; and certainly not in their DNA that is functionally a 2D structure², in contrast to a 3D organism. DNA, together with other structures, forms an articulation (both spatial and temporal) for the organism, and it has to be unfolded during the creative and adaptive process of ontogenesis. The energy becomes more clear and distinguished, and the articulations also become unfolded, with more parts that are more external to each other.

4. Original knowing 良知 and original capacity 良能

From the viewpoint of the individual being concerned, we can speak about its original knowing liangzhi 良知 and original capacity liangneng 良能. The original knowing refers to the interpenetrating level of articulations, to the „root-mind“, benxin 本心. The original capacity refers to the interpenetrating level of power. The original knowing is my presence in my psycho-physical being, the ground or background of my consciousness, inside which I can focus my empirical consciousness variously to this or that. The original capacity is my power that I can direct here or there, I can grab the cup, I can walk over there, etc. All these activities channel my original capacity, they are particular directions for it.

I am just one part of interacting beings, so that in the very bottom, our original minds interpenetrate, and our original capacities also interpenetrate, the „myriad things are already in me“ 萬物備於我.

5. Return

In our ordinary existence, there is a two-way process: on the one hand, interpenetrating articulations and force is unfolded, they become differentiated, distinguished, juxtaposed. On the other hand, these juxtaposing forms remain in contact with the interpenetrating, and there is a feedback from the juxtaposed actualized forms to the interpenetrating virtual level.

Self-cultivation ( 修身、修心、養生, etc.) consists in taking this feedback to the maximum, that is, to return to the maximum of interpenetration, not only of my own consciousness and capacity, but also of all beings. This is a view sub specie transformationis or sub specie interpenetrationis. It is only when all beings are referred back to this maximum of interpenetration that they can be seen in their true differences – they are not simply brought under some universality or generality, a general notion, but they appear in their ownmost difference, the one that they embody in their very being, independently or as distinguished from the forms that this being takes or to where their knowing and capacity is channelled.

So, a good continuator goes back gui 歸 towards the interpenetrating, and by doing this, they are able to roam freely xiaoyaoyou 逍遙遊 through both the interpenetrating and actualized. The continuation of the transformation is goodness, shan 善.

1„Things have articulations, so that they do not get mixed up; if things have articulations and that avoids them being mixed up, it means that articulations are what determines the thing.“ (物有理，不可以相薄，物有理不可以相薄，故理之為物之制, „Han Feizi“, ch. 20).

2In the sense that it is read sequentially (and otherwise it forms a 3D structure). Of course the nucleotides and bonds between them are spatial, but their scale is much lower than that of a multicellular organism, and from the perspective ot that organism, it can be deemed a 2D structure.