The Gaze of the Other

Have you ever tried to think from his standpoint? If he thinks that way, there must be his reasons.

— Master Xuecheng

In anthropology there is the concept of "the Other." The researcher and the researched belong to two different cultures, and each is the Other to the other. Whether the Other's perspective helps one thoroughly understand a culture different from one's own has long been debated. Anthropologists have always tried their utmost to study a culture thoroughly from the Other's point of view. An anthropologist researching a subject must conduct long fieldwork. When Mr. Fei Xiaotong studied the society and culture of certain regions, each round of fieldwork took several years, even over a decade. No wonder Fei once said, with some confidence, that scholars like him appear in China at most once every fifty years.

When I was working, I had an older colleague. Once, as I was evaluating another colleague in front of him, he said to me: don't rush to judge others; understanding a person requires at least five years. Given that no one stays static and unchanging, five years to know a person is still rather short.

When I studied Buddhism at Beijing's Longquan Temple, many people mentioned to me a line the abbot, Master Xuecheng, most often said: "Have you ever tried to think from his standpoint? If he thinks that way, there must be his reasons." Those words made a deep impression on me. The overall ethos of Longquan Temple champions tolerance and reconciliation. Though I do not accept Master Xuecheng's ideas about past and future lives and rebirth, I deeply admire the tolerant ethos he promotes.

Friction between people is unavoidable. When friction occurs, and one is misunderstood and insulted, if one can do fieldwork like an anthropologist and, as Master Xuecheng urges, think from the other's standpoint, one can usually remain calm.

The sutras speak of no mark of self, no mark of person, no mark of beings, no mark of lifespan. To reach such a state, one needs the courage and spirit to consider things from a standpoint outside the self. Are our words and deeds truly problematic? Does the other's conduct have its reasons? Is another person's fiery temperament their own choice? The Dharma emphasizes dependent origination and the emptiness of inherent nature: anyone's character and habits of speech and conduct must be shaped by external causes. Have we untangled the causal relations among them?

Jung said a person's behavior is determined by four factors: intuition, sensation, feeling, and thinking. Many people may seem to us to have all sorts of problems, but these problems are not water without a source. Perhaps their roots lie in their parents' improper upbringing or the influence of social culture—factors that together make a person seem "imperfect" to us. But we ourselves, in their eyes, are equally "imperfect." If we set aside the "prejudice" deep within us and look at another person from a complete perspective, we may understand that person to the greatest degree—understand what they do and what they think.

A state such as "no-self" sounds exceedingly abstruse. But borrowing the anthropological perspective of the Other brings it somewhat closer. Before an anthropologist reaches conclusions about a region's culture, he gathers minute details from every field of that region and then analyzes comprehensively how that culture arose.