The Essence of Eastern Philosophy Is Following Life

Mr. Feng Youlan said that Western philosophy is a philosophy of negation, whereas Eastern philosophy is a philosophy of the negation of the negation. Eastern philosophy stands to Western philosophy as an elder to a youth: it is a philosophy of a higher order. This saying is most baffling; without a certain philosophical foundation it is simply unintelligible.

Westerners are eager to create new doctrines, and every major scientific revolution began in the West. By contrast, Easterners appear very conservative, so much so that their social institutions remained stable and unchanged for more than two thousand years. Mr. Liang Shuming once said Chinese culture has two inconceivable features: one is the feudal social system unchanged for millennia; the other is a life without religion.

Mr. Lin Yutang, for his part, believed that Easterners—especially the Han Chinese—possess a kind of old-fox quality regarded as a mark of maturity, admired by all. When parents educate their children, they constantly hold up this quality as an inner standard for being a person. Hence the worldly philosophy of the old fox is greatly welcomed in China.

Is such a culture good or bad? In today's age of advanced technology and economic domination, this culture is often the object of criticism, mercilessly attacked by the elites of the new era.

In the early last century, Bertrand Russell came to China to lecture. After personally experiencing the Chinese attitude toward life, he was profoundly stirred and developed a keen interest in Eastern wisdom. In Russell's view, although China at that time was poor and wretched, bullied everywhere, the life attitude of the common folk was truly enviable.

Especially after a long stay in Western societies already frazzled by industrialization and urbanization, arriving in China and feeling the contented, joyful life of ordinary people makes one feel that clinging attachment is the very source of life's suffering.

Russell was a critic of Western culture. Western culture was chiefly shaped by Christianity; after the Renaissance, Protestantism arose, and its rationalism and critical spirit prevailed, dominating the Western spiritual world for centuries and gradually spreading worldwide thanks to its dominant position—a situation that continues to this day. Protestants' relentless dedication to their calling drove the explosive progress of Western science over recent centuries.

But does such relentless pursuit mean human happiness? Russell did not think so. More than a hundred years later, the China Russell visited is following in the footsteps of the developed Europe and America he so detested: urbanization and industrialization are in full swing, and villages are disappearing in large numbers.

Eastern spiritual philosophy has likewise retreated from the mass market to a niche market, becoming an object of study in scholars' bookrooms. These researchers no longer live the plain life traditional scholars prized; they live in gaudy cities, mix with worldly crowds, lecturing on the philosophy of Zhuangzi and Laozi while walking into a glittering material world—their words and deeds are utterly out of step. As a result, true spiritual philosophy has long since existed in name only, and spiritual leaders worthy of the world's admiration are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

We have entered a world of negation and have not yet walked out of it toward the world of negation of the negation of which Feng Youlan spoke. We rush to innovate and criticize, but lack criticism of innovation and criticism themselves. We strive and struggle, but lack serious reflection on the goals of our striving. We push forward hard, but lack true understanding of what lies ahead. We pursue happiness all the way, yet always run in the opposite direction.

When the great philosopher Schopenhauer heard that his thought was essentially a restatement of Zhuangzi, he went to great lengths to distinguish himself from Zhuangzi in order to prove he was an innovator. In his later years, Schopenhauer's favorite pastime was clipping newspapers, collecting reports praising himself and reading them through every day. By this measure he is leagues removed from Zhuangzi's realm; the inwardly strong Zhuangzi never needed such spiritual opiates to numb himself. The great Einstein seems no exception, forever defending that the theory of relativity was his own creation.

China, by contrast, has never lacked unnamed authors. Many have fled fame and gain as if from snakes and scorpions. The Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon) was certainly not written by the Yellow Emperor, but a compilation of medical thought from the Qin-Han period. The Zhongzang Jing, attributed to Hua Tuo, is not truly his work either. Archaeology has likewise shown that the Daodejing is not a work from Laozi's time but more likely a later text written under his name.

Such attitudes toward life are worlds apart. Who is happier? I believe it is the Chinese who embody the spirit of classical Chinese philosophy. Their detached breadth of heart is, on the basis of negating worldly conventions, a choice to follow nature and life. This thought of following life is precisely the essence of the whole of Eastern spiritual philosophy.

Eastern spiritual philosophy is a deliberated philosophy, a philosophy of extraordinary equanimity after comprehensively weighing life and death, fame and gain; that is why it can be called the philosophy of the negation of the negation. Du Fu's famous lines—your names and bodies shall both perish, yet the great rivers flow on forever—could only have arisen in such a cultural setting. Such rationality is a higher order of rationality than that of the Protestants. Ten thousand years hence it will still be an unshakable truth.

And Zhuangzi's thought—its greatness has no outside, its smallness has no inside—is truly sufficient to encompass every ultimate truth of the universe. In a world without limits, we have been pursuing limits and taking pride in them, complacent over the fame and gain we have won, bound by them for life. Human arrogance and folly could go no further.