Eastern Philosophy has always had a very similar goal to Western philosophy: that of making
us wiser, less agitated, more thoughtful and readier to appreciate our lives. However,
the way it has gone about this has been intriguingly different. In the East, Philosophy has taught
its lessons via tea drinking ceremonies, walks in bamboo forests, contemplations of rivers
and ritualised flower arranging sessions. Here are a few ideas to offer us the distinctive
wisdom of a continent and enrich our notions of what philosophy might really be. ONE: Life
is suffering The first and central ‘noble truth’ of the Buddha is that life is unavoidably
about misery. The Buddha continually seeks to adjust our expectations so we will know
what to expect: sex will disappoint us, youth will disappear, money won’t spare us pain.
For the Buddha, the wise person should take care to grow completely at home with the ordinary
shambles of existence. They should understand that they are living on a dunghill. When baseness
and malice rear their heads, as they will, it should be against a backdrop of fully vanquished
hope, so there will be no sense of having been unfairly let down and one’s credulity
betrayed. That said, the Buddha was often surprisingly cheerful and generally sported
an inviting, warm smile. This was because anything nice, sweet or amusing that came
his way was immediately experienced as a bonus; a deeply gratifying addition to his original
bleak premises. By keeping the dark backdrop of life always in mind, he sharpened his appreciation
of whatever stood out against it. He teaches us the art of cheerful despair. TWO: Mettā
(pali): Benevolence Mettā is a word which, in the Indian language of Pali, means benevolence,
kindness or tenderness. It is one of the most important ideas in Buddhism. Buddhism recommends
a daily ritual meditation to foster this attitude (what is known as mettā bhāvanā). The meditation
begins with a call to think very carefully every morning of a particular individual with
whom one tends to get irritated or to whom one feels aggressive or cold and – in place
of one’s normal hostile impulses – to rehearse kindly messages like ‘I hope you
will find peace’ or ‘I wish you to be free from suffering’. This practice can
be extended outwards ultimately to include pretty much everyone on earth. The background
assumption is that our feelings towards people are not fixed and unalterable, but are open
to deliberate change and improvement, with the right goad. Compassion is a learnable
skill – and we need to direct it as much towards those we love as those we are tempted
to dismiss and detest. THREE: Guanyin Guanyin is a saintly female figure in East Asian Buddhism
strongly associated with mercy, compassion and kindness. She occupies a similar role
within Buddhism as the Virgin Mary within Catholicism. There are shrines and temples
to her all over China; one, in the province of Hainan, has a 108 metre statue of her (it’s
the fourth largest statue anywhere in the world). Guanyin’s popularity speaks of the
extent to which the needs of childhood endure within us. She is, in the noblest sense, ‘mummy’.
Across China, adults allow themselves to be weak in her presence. Her gaze has a habit
of making people cry – for the moment one breaks down isn’t so much when things are
hard as when one finally encounters kindness and a chance to admit to sorrows one has been
harbouring in silence for too long. Guanyin doesn’t judge. She understands that you
are tired, that you have been betrayed, that things aren’t easy, that you are fed up:
she has a measure of the difficulties involved in trying to lead a remotely adequate adult
life. FOUR: Wu Wei (Chinese): Not making an Effort Wu Wei is a (Chinese) term at the heart
of the philosophy of Daoism. It is first described in the Tao Te Ching, written by the sage Lao
Tzu in the 6th century BC. Wu Wei means ‘not making an effort’, going with the flow,
but it doesn’t in any way imply laziness or sloth. It suggests rather an intentional
surrender of the will based on a wise recognition of the need, at points, to accede to, rather
than protest against, the demands of reality. As Lao Tzu puts it, to be wise is to have
learnt how one must sometimes ‘surrender to the whole universe’. Reason allows us
to calculate when our wishes are in irrevocable conflict with reality, and then bids us to
submit ourselves willingly, rather than angrily or bitterly, to necessities. We may be powerless
to alter certain events but, for Lao Tzu, we remain free to choose our attitude towards
them, and it is in an unprotesting acceptance of what is truly necessary that we find the
distinctive serenity and freedom characteristic of a Daoist. FIVE: Bamboo as Wisdom East Asia
has been called the Bamboo Civilization, not merely because bamboo has been widely used
in daily life, but also because its symbolic qualities have been described and celebrated
for hundreds of years in the philosophy of Daoism. Bamboo is, surprisingly, classified
as a grass rather than a tree, yet it is tall and strong enough to create groves and forests.
Unlike a tree trunk, the stems of bamboo are hollow, but its inner emptiness is a source
of its vigour. It bends in storms, sometimes almost to the ground, but then springs back
resiliently. We should, says Lao Tzu, ‘become as bamboo is.’ The greatest painter of bamboo
was the Daoist poet, artist and philosopher Zheng Xie of the Qing Dynasty. Zheng Xie is
said to have painted eight hundred pictures of bamboo forests and saw in them a perfect
model of how a wise person might behave. Beside one pen and ink drawing of bamboo, he wrote
in elegant script: ‘Hold fast to the mountain, take root in a broken-up bluff, grow stronger
after tribulations, and withstand the buffeting wind from all directions’. It was a message
addressed to bamboo but meant, of course, for all of us. SIX: Kintsugi Since the 16th
century, Zen Buddhist philosophy in Japan has been alive to the particular beauty and
wisdom of things which have been repaired. Kintsugi is a compound of two ideas: ‘Kin’
meaning, in Japanese, ‘golden’ and ‘tsugi’ meaning ‘joinery’. In Zen aesthetics,
the broken pieces of an accidentally-smashed pot should never just be tossed away, they
should be carefully picked up, reassembled and then glued together with lacquer inflected
with a luxuriant gold powder. There should be no attempt to disguise the damage, the
point is to render the fault-lines beautiful and strong. The precious veins of gold are
there to emphasise that breaks have a rich merit all of their own. It’s a profoundly
poignant idea because we are all in some way broken creatures. It’s not shameful to need
repair; a mended bowl is a symbol of hope that we too can be put together again and
still be loved despite our evident flaws.
We partnered with Skillshare today and they have given us an azing offer to pass on to you.
The first 500 people to sign up using the link in the description will recieve a 2 month free trial.
If you haven't heard of Skillshare before it's home to thousands of classes in Graphic design, animation, web development, music photography, design and more.
You can learn how to do just about anything. Is there a project you have been dreaming of completing but just aren't sure if you have the skills to do it?
Why not start right now and sign up at the link below.