Belief in the Yellow Emperor (literary & oral & language)

[Guest guest]

Hugo Ramiro <subincor (Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:08:09 +0100 (BST)) wrote

(I've use some citations here out of original order, for rhetorical purposes):

 

>Oral tradition is the root, foundation, base and pillar of human society.

Direct transmission is the only way. Books are beautiful things, and they

are inflexible THINGS and do not begin to compare with a living, breathing

g-d standing before you.

 

> Question - what's confusing about it other than that modern people are

trying to achieve Direct Transmission through literature?

 

Some related thoughts (apologizing if diverging from strictly TCM topics):

 

There're fascinating aspects surrounding what happens when written language

(literary tradition) emerges.

 

1) We are able to talk to each other across time and space, albeit without

that immediate presence (that I think Hugo depicts above). Or, at least we

can convey the linguistic content of communication.

 

We can see it as an enhancement to oral transmission. The latter is subject

to the phenomenon as seen in the parlor game - someone whispers something

to the next, who whispers it to the next, and so forth around the circle,

then the last version is compared with the first version, which is often

quite, humorously different. Written form helps counter this effect, its

very inflexibility provides an anchor, from which individuals, at different

times, can bring the transmission to life, by interpreting it. (The various

translations of neijing text, for instance, often read like that parlor

game.) Inflexible, but in the act of interpretation, bringing back to life,

highly flexible.

 

Clearly, recorded/written transmission needs the oral, the human touch.

Language, of which both are a form, does. Years ago I lived with a family

in Germany, and was struggling to develop my literary fluency with the

language (I could read tracts of Musikwissenschaft, whole books by Hegel,

and the librettos to Bach contatas) into a conversational fluency (I

couldn't understand the conductor on the train, or waiters at restaurants,

or read a newspaper). The 2-yo child in the family was going through the

stage: " Was ist das, papi? " (pointing to something), " Was ist das… " ( " What

is that? " ) while papi (daddy) would then give the (German) word or phrase.

Being in my mid-30s at the time, my neurolinguistic flexibility was

somewhat less than the kid's, but this kind of exercise was exactly what I

needed. And learning by imitation, in the Kneipe (pub/bar), how just the

right intonation of what actually comes out as just a sort grunt is more

communicative than the meticulously exact pronunciation (of the student).

 

On another note, musical notation enables us to have preserved, say, the

late string quartets by L. von Beethoven. Some can experience the content

by " reading " it (viewing the score), but only on the basis of equivalent

cultivation to those who can sit down with violins, viola and cello and

perform it. And with a good performance, one can share the experience of

something difficult to describe - more than emotion, transmission of human

experience, of the movement of consciousness through time and through

experience spaces which dear old Ludwig was able to capture. And, because

of the notation (together with the orally/directly transmitted performance

tradition), the musical pieces become more than his/Ludwig's own.

 

To explain, again, off in another direction: The image of a dove is used in

Christian art to symbolize the " holy spirit " , which is sometimes

(theologically) interpreted as the COMMUNICATION between the Father

Spirit/G*d and the Son (Christ/human). Altogether this is the " holy

trinity " , a sort of symbolic representation of something of the complexity

of the G*d concept in that tradition. Why the dove? Because it flies life

words between people, and with the breath/ " spiritus " . The dove appears

especially in depictions of the apocryphal event called " Pentecost " , where

supposedly Christ came back from death to a gathering of disciples, who

then were given the " gift of tongues " , i.e. the ability to be understood

in/across multiple languages.

 

(Apologizing for the Christian examples, but it's, like music and by virtue

of my education, a portal for my own particular access to the depths of

culture.)

 

In some native American symbology (and I suspect other " primitive "

traditions), the bird has related meanings. And the hawk/eagle is closest

to the Great Spirit because it flies so high. (Chinese dietary theory: the

chicken/birds are strongly Yang, of heaven.)

 

But words, writings, musical notations etc. in the end do not belong to

individuals, e.g. the authors. They have their meaning because of being

shared, transmitted. ( " Where two or more of you are gathered in my name, I

am there [presumably in the form of the 'holy spirit'] amongst you. " - from

somewhere in the Bible). The name is the word.

 

2) Cultural transformations occur with the emergence of writing.

 

" In the beginning was the Word. " (en archein een ho logos - the opening of

the gospel according to John, the metaphysician).

 

The beginning of what? Of the modern, historical, literary era of our

existence. At a period when simultaneously the Chinese, the Greeks, the

Hebrews etc. began writing stuff down in a major way (ca. mid to late 1st

millennium B.C., ignoring for the moment, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and other

precursors).

 

Strange things begin happening. Among which, eventually, the distinction

between us and the " primitive " forebearers. This process is gradual. In

that early era, the pre-literary and the numinous still permeated culture.

By our time, there's a stricter distinction, aka prejudice vs the

" primitive " . I.e. the common cartoon depiction of the dirty, long-haired,

animal-skin clad early humans.

 

3) Transformation now

 

More strange things happening now, e.g. the internet. How many of us who

here exchange these messages have ever or will ever see, hear or touch each

other? We share what someone once called the " nousphere " (or something like

that, from " nous " Greek for mind, intelligence, perception), that space of

words, of ideas. We mutually evoke the presence of HuangDi, of Zhang Ji, …

down to the mid-20th century fathers of TCM in the PRC, to Paul Unschuld

over there in Munich, Kim Taylor in Cambridge (whose mother, BTW, is/was

Chinese) etc. etc.

 

How does it relate to oral transmission when we will have (inevitably)

something like those little cubes in the Star Wars movies which contain

holographic images of dead persons communicating?

 

And again, this doesn't belong to any of us, as individuals, but lives in

each of us through sharing and transmitting it. The current fixation on

" intellectual property " is probably one of the worst distortions of the

current transformation, and, I believe, inherently self-limiting.

Extorting money and control from every living person. Extreme case:

patenting segments of the genetic code!

 

Winding down…

 

> In modern western culture, art is not valued - tools are. One can't

mention the skill of the art, since it is irrelevant. On the other hand,

their tools tell us much more about who they are, since we all know that

art is useless whereas engineering is a sign of intelligence. However,

their tools are crudely formed (from rocks, of all things), and these

'people', if we can even call them that, are obviously only worth study in

the light of the word PRIMITIVE.

 

Silicon comes from " rocks " .

 

> Many traditions will take their children early one morning to watch the

sunrise.

 

Thank you for this beautiful vignette. It conveys something about that

being-aliveness, aka being in the moment, e.g. in the qi of a treatment

encounter.

 

> The Tao De Ching clearly states that inflexibility belongs to the realm

of the dead whilst suppleness belongs to the realm of the living.

 

Tibetan Buddhism - The Great Liberation / Book of the Dead - sees it

otherwise. The liver/gan (ceasing/inverting Yin) gives us the suppleness,

and the rebirth of springtime.

 

A good place to end.