(Condensed Translation from Chinese by Sherwin Lu)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The author Mr. Yuzhong Zhai (翟玉忠) is general editor of the New Legalist website, Chinese and English sections. This is a condensed translation of an excerpt from his book in Chinese (《中国拯救世界 — 应对人类危机的中国文化》, China Saves the World – Chinese culture being the solution to current human crises)，Chapter 7 entitled “The unification of all human knowledge systems”，Section 1.
The unity of science and religion is based on their mutual complementariness. A harmonious relationship between the two aspects of human intellectual life will help bring about a harmonious and peaceful human world.
THE TEXT
(Quotations from English writings are back translations from their printed Chinese version, due to the difficulty in tracing back to their actual sources in original literature,
For exact texts please check the original. )
I. Inward exploration for knowledge
Inward exploration for knowledge had been the major way to know about the world whether in the West or in the East, until the 17th century when John Locke, in opposition to Plato and scholastic philosophers, argued for outward experiences as the most important source of knowledge. Locke was thus named as the founder of empiricism by the 20th century British philosopher Bertrand Russell.
According to Russell (History of Western Philosophy -- same below), Socrates held that the naked eye cannot recognize truth as the body and its desires can only become hindrances against recognition of truth, and that only when the soul is concentrated on itself and not disturbed by sensual feelings can the insight of human reason reach truth and beauty.
To empiricists, the body is something through which we contact the outer real world. But to Plato, the body is doubly sinful: it is a distorting medium through which what we see becomes hazy as if through a mirror; and also it is the source of human desires, that prevent us from pursuing knowledge and seeing the truth.
In the past over 2000 years, to experience and feel the Dao, or the Buddha-nature, or the grace of God through contemplative intuition has become the solid foundation for human life. To the Daoists, the Dao (道) is not something like a “road” or “objective law”. Laozi, the founder of Daoist philosophy, was himself a most dedicated contemplative, and the basic cosmic principle that he expounded could only be recognized through long-term practice of intuitive contemplation.
One dilemma humans encounter in getting to know the world is that many religion students are not contemplatives themselves while the experience of the Dao, the Buddha-nature, or God is beyond description through language or reasoning – it can only be described in abstract and vague terms. This is something like asking somebody who has never seen an antenna to describe a TV set. Hence, scholars of both the West and the East call this experience “mysticism”, even though intuitive contemplation in search of the supreme truth is as experiential as science. To call it mysticism is totally absurd. If this experience is “mysticism”, then all the practice of the Chinese in inner soul purification and its externalization in sage-kingcraft (内圣外王), in social moral and political life and even in diplomacy – all this would become “mysticism”. (The term “mysticism” will still be used in this article, however, purely for the purpose of technical convenience.)
II. Capra Bridges the Gap
American physicist Fritjof Capra, in his book The Tao of Physics published in 1975, points out the similarity between ideas in modern physics and those in Buddhism and Daoism and bridges the thousands of years long gap between religion and science, between inwardly and outwardly obtained knowledge, though still not recognized by many today.
Actually Capra is not the earliest person who recognized the closeness between modern physics and Eastern philosophy. In his book, he quoted from outstanding 20th century physicists J. R. Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg to support his arguments. He is not the last physicist, either, who wrote about this.
Ilya Prigogine, the 1977 Nobel prize winner for chemistry and founder of the theory of dissipative system, which, together with system theory, has further discredited traditional Western mechanistic and atomistic philosophy, also noticed that, compared with classic physics, contemporary Western scientific thought has come closer to Chinese philosophical thinking, so close that the foundation for an integration of the two is already there. He said: “Classical Western science and Chinese view of nature have been quite alien to each other for a long time. The former has all along focused on entities whereas the latter has been based on ‘relations’ and hence on a view of the physical world as more ‘organized’…I believe we are already coming to a new synthesis, a new induction that will integrate the Western tradition of emphasis on experiment and quantitative presentation with Chinese tradition centered on ‘spontaneous self-organization’.” (From Being to Becoming, Preface to Chinese edition, 1986.)
Capra’s great contribution lies in his placing Westerners’ reasoning talent and Easterners’ intuitive wisdom on an equal footing and in expounding the congruity between Eastern religious philosophy and modern Western physical theory in terms of the oneness of all things, the relation between time and space, the dynamics of the universe, etc.
Physicists acquire knowledge through experiments, while mystics obtain insight through contemplation. Capra holds that science and mysticism are mutually complementary and neither is dispensable.
“Inward looking” has been regarded as an important way for the discovery of the meridian phenomena in Chinese medicine. Nowadays, Chinese acupuncture is widely known and practiced all over the world. If Capra knew that the meridian theory was also born of intuitive contemplation, he would have felt ashamed to interpret Eastern culture in terms of “mysticism”.
All outstanding Daoists and Buddhists have pointed out that the Dao, or the ultimate truth, is beyond description in any language. Actually, their way of obtaining knowledge cannot be generalized as “observation”. Strictly speaking, this is also the case with quantum physics and such huge complex systems as the financial market and the political society: what the “observer” is confronted with is not a static world but a world in which the “observer” is playing a dynamic role. That is why scientists propose to use “participant” instead of “observer”. When doing experiments, physicists cannot measure the electrons without changing the latter’s state of existence. The mystics go even further – they seek the unity of “the observer” (subject) with “the observed” (object). Capra quoted from Zhuangzi (庄子) to make this point.
III. Inner Endeavor (内业) – Daily practice of the Chinese
Mysticism has been seen for the long past as a sort of transient ecstatic state of mind without objectiveness. Capra has got clear of such a prejudice and holds that both mysticism and science are purely experiential, noticing that mystic experiences can be repeated and confirmed through contemplation. For the same reason, some Buddhist scholar (南怀瑾) called Buddhism a science.
Here, Capra provides the common ground for all religions, that is, “mysticism” that can be confirmed through contemplation, experienced, and repeated. However, in different religions, mysticism has different statuses: it is at the core of Buddhism and Daoism, but not playing any leading role or even was sometimes persecuted as a heresy in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. For instance, Abe al-Mughith Hussayb ibn-mansur, who belonged to Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam, was sentenced to capital punishment for claiming to be unified with Allah when he reached the state of “fana” through contemplation. (Kathleen M. Higgins: From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World Philosophy, Chinese edition, 2003，PP. 230~231).
Because of the different basis of belief between Western and Eastern religions, i.e., faith and revelation vs. experience and reason, Buddhist and Daoist concepts of religion appear to be so alien to Westerners. In a sense, Buddhism and Daoism are closer to modern science than to Western religions.
In the long history of Chinese culture, what is called by Westerners as mysticism was part of people’s daily life and was named “inner endeavor”, a term more proper for the description of inward search for knowledge. In Guanzi • Inner Endeavor (《管子·内业第四十九》), for instance, it is said: If one’s mind is full of worries, sadness, or anger, or overexcitement, there would be no room for comprehension of the Dao. When improper desires crop up, one should suppress them; when distracting thoughts emerge, rectify them. Happiness will naturally come about without one’s deliberate maneuvering. The Dao comes by itself, and one may go along with it to achieve something. If you keep your mind in tranquility, the Dao will be with you; if you lose patience, it will leave you.” In pre-Qin classics, inner searching for knowledge is regarded as the foundation for good statecraft and, so, “inner endeavor” and “social endeavor” (内业与事业) have been a dyadic pair of concepts.
Looking inside oneself to recognize the Dao has been the root base of Chinese civilization. But, unfortunately, very little early classical literature on this has survived the long history. And about whatever is existing, no one made any systematic studies in the past two thousand years until very recently, and, even more unexpectedly, the study has been made by a foreigner, that is, Prof. Harold Roth, Professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at Brown University, U.S.A. He stresses the special importance of Guanzi • Inner Endeavor in the preface to the Chinese version of his book Original Tao: "Inward Training" and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism (Columbia University Press, 1999), saying that Inward Training [his translation of《内业》] was written even earlier than Laozi (《老子》) and was the earliest existing record of discussion on inner contemplation, which has been the theoretical basis for Daoist cosmology and psychology underlying all its classics such as Laozi, Zhuangzi (《庄子》), and Huainanzi (《淮南子》). The way of inner contemplation discussed in Guanzi, as pointed out by Prof. Roth, was later assimilated into the Daoist religion, further refined and mystified.
After comparing “inward training” with the several stages of inner contemplation in Indian religions, including Buddhism, he noticed surprising similarities between them. But he does not think that the inner endeavor through meditation recorded in early Daoist writings came from India. His reason is: In spite of essential differences between cultures, systematic deconstruction of the cognitive structure through meditation paves the way for similar experiences of tranquility and sense of oneness. This is not surprising since similar results have been discovered by neurophysiologists in their researches on meditation.
IV. The Divine Light
Indeed, inner contemplation in different cultures has some common features, first of all in its way of practice. In appearance, the inner practice in the various religions to be discussed below look quite different, but they share the essential approach, that is, to look direct into the true nature of the cosmos and human mind while in a state of tranquility achieved by purging one’s mind of all desires so as to reach a state of unity with the ultimate reality in one’s consciousness.
The English word mysticism was derived from the Latin Mysticismus, which in its turn from the Greek Myein meaning closing one’s eyes. Hence, mysticism means closing one’s physical eyes and looking in tranquility with one’s mental eye into the ultimate reality and truth of the cosmos so as to enter into unity with supreme divinity. Take for instance San Bonaventura (1221-1274), the medieval Italian scholastic theologician and philosopher. As a mystic with great influence in the history of Christianity, he insisted that the best way to know God is not to look outward but to abandon the senses and the rational and be absorbed in quiet contemplation starting with meditation.
The major schools of Jewish mysticism are Kabbalah and the 18th century Hasidim, which emphasizes the unity between man and God (Gershom Scholem: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism).
Mysticism in Islam is called Sufism. It is not a unified sect, however: it exists in both the Sunni and the Shiite branches of Islam. The purpose of Sufi practice is to achieve unity between man and Allah.
Compared with other schools, Buddhism has the largest number of ways for inner cultivation and perfection, claiming to have 84 thousand ways to tackle the 84 thousand kinds of vexations. There have been many Buddhist masters from the past to the present who have achieved this goal. Buddhism originated in India but flourished in China after Song dynasty while almost no longer existent in India. But in the last thousand years or so, Confucianist scholars generally opposed Buddhism and failed to assimilate it into the Chinese thought system. Conversely, it was the many Buddhist masters who have made important contributions to the integration between Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism.
The inner cultivation practices in different religions have another common feature, that is, their cognition of the ultimate truth lying in the merging of the contemplatives themselves into the origin of the universe – the Dao, or the intangible ultimate reality
What is the Dao? Guanzi • Inner Endeavor explains: "The Dao, being within and between all things, is the root cause for all lives and deaths, and all successes and failures. The Dao does not confine itself within specific locations, but presents itself to and stays with kind hearts. If one’s mind is not troubled by covetous thoughts, the Dao will stay there. It is not beyond people’s reach: it makes them grow; it is not aloof from them: it gives them wisdom. So, the Dao is conspicuous so that we can perceive it but also subtle so that we cannot trace it. In nature, it does not like voices and utterances and you can perceive it only by cultivating your mind in quietness. The Dao is not to be talked about in words, nor to be looked at by human eyes, nor to be listened to by human ears, but to be followed to refine one’s mental state and physical form. Ignoring it would mean death to a person or failure to an undertaking while staying with it life or success."(Trans. by Sherwin Lu)
The Buddhist Diamond Sutra gives a more succinct description of the ultimate reality: "All that has a form is illusive and unreal. When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal, then you will begin to perceive your true Buddha nature." (Chap 5)
“God” or the Supreme Being In Judaist, Christian and Islamic mysticism is more like the above-described Dao in its essential nature.
What is described as the Dao or God or the Supreme Being in any names by contemplatives in all cultures and what is recognized as the ultimate reality of the cosmos by modern physics are actually the same thing. A major trend in the development of 20th century physical science is its progressing departure from 19th century materialism in natural science. Modern quantum physics tells us that the universe is not an amalgamation of matter but the permanent dancing of infinite energy field.
Although different religions present their tenets in different languages and forms, they have too much in common in their cognition of the ultimate reality and in the way to spiritually approach that reality. Is it not the “Divine Light” dreamed about by modern Western religious pluralists? Different religions are but refractions of the Divine Light just as the rainbow is that of sunlight.
How comes that all religions are uniform in their essential nature? That is because all ethnic groups, in spite of their different cultures and beliefs, are living in the same universe. This accounts for the inevitable congruousness between their understandings of the ultimate reality, and also tells why religion and science can meet with each other in their course of theoretical development.
The purpose to point out the uniformity of all religions is not to deny religious pluralism but to show their commonness as the spiritual bridge for communication between different civilizations and the already existing condition for mankind to bring about lasting peace and sustainable development on earth.
How exciting it would be to hear the wonderful music from heaven that incorporates all religions and sciences in harmony!
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