Defending Marx 5: Marx, Spirit of the Age, Conscience of the World! (Part Two)

2006/9/22 11:49:42

The old learning of the Eastern land ultimately traces back to the Yijing (Book of Changes). The contemplation of the Yijing takes the contemplated as its basis. Such contemplation is the origin of shamanic religion; "the unity of heaven and humanity" is its outflow. Shamanic religion is a primitive religion shared throughout the world. The ancestor worship favored by the Chinese also originates from this. From this arose Confucianism's "subdue the self and restore ritual propriety" and Daoism's "Humanity follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Dao, the Dao follows Nature." Confucianism and Daoism do not depart from the Yijing. The paradigm of the Yijing is the contemplation model of shamanic religion that takes the contemplated as its basis.

This thesis adjudicates all the old learning of the Eastern land—unprecedented and without need of precedent. Were it not for Buddhist dharma coming east, the learning of the Eastern land might have been forever trapped here. Song Neo-Confucianism, Ming Learning of the Heart-Mind, and Daoist internal alchemy all stole the superficial skin of Chan Buddhism yet achieved great transformation and flourishing—only to end up with the host and guest reversed. The pitifulness of the human heart is truly laughable. Yet this cannot obscure the great Mahayana atmosphere of the Eastern land. Chan Buddhism was magnified in the Eastern land, ultimately not betraying the bitter devotion of those ancients who walked ten thousand li to retrieve the sutras.

The contemplation model that takes the contemplated as its basis is not equivalent to a materialist thesis. If one takes God as the contemplated, how could that be materialist? The same holds for idealism. The model of theory is the model of contemplation. A given contemplation model gives rise to a corresponding theoretical tradition—this is the fingerprint of a people or an age. Idealism and materialism—crude dualist methods, inseparable from the deluded measurement of mental consciousness—are both rooted in contemplation. Without contemplation, no theory can be discussed.

The contemplation that takes the contemplated as its basis flourished not only in the Eastern land but also in ancient Greece. This method is shared by all civilizations, sharing common origins in shamanic religion—let us call it the "shamanic contemplation paradigm." Any theory that does not depart from this paradigm belongs to the offspring of shamanic religion, the foolish and benighted. All Western learning before Kant belongs to this category. Without Kant, Western learning would be an eternal long night, and Marx could never have emerged.

(To be continued)