Defending Marx 5: Marx, Spirit of the Age, Conscience of the World! (Part One)
2006/9/19 15:28:10
All worldly learning and practice do not transcend the six sense-consciousnesses. They are all entangled fabrications of the deluded cognition of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, forming these various structures and systems—like a fool talking in his sleep, pitiable and laughable. Marx was the most penetrating among those who made their craft within the six sense-consciousnesses. That he was still trapped within the six consciousnesses without knowing it is truly not his fault. Among philosophers East and West, one who surpasses him cannot be found in all of antiquity and the present.
Marx was not a Marxist—this is a great truth for all ages. Most people in the world cling to Marx's fragmentary words to either praise or condemn him—but do they truly know Marx? Marx, working within the six sense-consciousnesses, brought their enterprise to its grand consummation—he exhausted the ultimate limit of all worldly six-consciousness enterprise. Without one who thoroughly masters the learning and practice of all ages, East and West, how could anyone examine him? Even Lenin was not of his caliber, let alone the rest.
Humans cannot escape the attachment to self. Within the six consciousnesses, one must find something to cling to—be it the Dao, be it Principle, be it God, be it Truth, be it Law, be it Freedom, be it Self, be it Brahman, be it Subject, be it Mind, be it Dasein, be it Being, be it the World, be it Praxis—and so forth. To cling to one thing necessarily entails something opposed to it. Those who cling to God have the flock of rescued sheep as counterpart; those who cling to Truth have Falsehood as counterpart; those who cling to Subject have Object as counterpart. From antiquity to the present, East and West, it has always been thus.
Western learning arose from Greece onwards, and the division between subject and object is one of its great foundations. Theory, as related to its etymological root, pertains to contemplation. Contemplation is inseparable from the contemplating subject and the contemplated object. Throughout the ages, many fools have proposed the unity or merging of subject and object, truly not understanding that both subject and object are fabrications of deluded cognition entangled together. To seek unity within illusion—what fools indeed! The separation of subject and object, the unity of subject and object—all are seeking illusion within illusion. To cling to these and quarrel over them is truly pitiable.
The Great Learning says: "When you know where to stop, you have stability. With stability comes tranquility. With tranquility comes peace. With peace comes deliberation. With deliberation comes attainment." This is actually connected to Western contemplation. The Chinese love to claim superiority, all saying that Chinese learning has gongfu (realized practice), which Westerners cannot fathom. Yet whether one has gongfu or not, it is all dead labor—seeking illusion within illusion, fruitlessly grasping at emptiness.
(To be continued)
Replies
缠中说禅 2006/9/19 15:38:56
Serialized, to be continued.
缠中说禅 2006/9/20 18:01:13
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缠中说禅 2006/9/20 18:04:02
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缠中说禅 2006/9/19 15:36:50
Announcement
This is a treatise discussing Marx from a philosophical perspective, written in a semi-classical, semi-vernacular Chinese style. Most people should be able to understand it!