In the movie "Biography of the Patriarch Bodhidharma" directed by Yuan Zhenyang in 1994, there is such a plot that is intriguing. Bodhidharma crossed the river and came to the Central Plains. The monk Kongzhi asked Patriarch Bodhidharma about the Buddhist principles of emptiness. He asked: "The mind, Buddha and sentient beings, all are empty. The attachment to the phenomenon is emptiness, no victory or ordinary, no giving or receiving, no good or evil, everything is empty, right?"
Badara heard this and slapped it with his hand to sprint it. Kongzhi and others did not understand the meaning, so he asked the ancestor why he beat someone? The ancestor replied, "Since you say that everything is empty, how can there be pain?" Kongzhi said silently, and the ancestor said, "Look at the invisible thing, listen to the inaudible sound, and know the unaware things. This is the truth. " Kongzhi suddenly realized.
screenshot from the movie "Bodhisattva"
"Look at the invisible thing, listen to the inaudible sound, and know the unaware things, this is the truth." The problem is how to see, how to listen, and how to know?
1. We know whether things are subjective or objective.
Schopenhauer said that our consciousness has two sides, that is, one is about oneself, that is, the consciousness of the intention (consciousness of the self); the other is about other things. Such consciousness is first of all, the intuitive understanding of the external world and the grasp of the object (objective). Then, the more prominent one side of the entire consciousness becomes, the more retreat the other side. Accordingly, the less we realize ourselves at the same time, the more perfect our awareness of other things, that is, the more objective our intuitive perception.
Schopenhauer also calls these two consciousnesses a hostile relationship, that is, the more we are aware of the object, the less we are aware of the subject; and the more the subject occupies consciousness, the weaker our intuition to the external world will be and is not perfect.
The problem now comes again, because these two consciousnesses play a role in our brains at the same time, it seems impossible if we want to fully objectively understand the world.
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2 How is the pure subject of cognition formed?
Through the above explanation of subjective and objective consciousness, we came to a conclusion: When intelligence, that is, our cognition is completely separated from intention, then we can fully objectively understand the external world. But unfortunately, this is not how we understand the world in life. Why do you say that?
If you recall carefully, When we intuitively observe the world and life, what we usually see is only things in relationships. Therefore, they are observed according to their relative nature and existence. For example, when we look at houses, tall buildings, machines, and similar things, we think about the purpose of their existence and the ideas associated with these purposes; and when we look at people, we think about their relationship with us - if they have a certain relationship with us; then, we think about their relationship with each other, and we also think about whether their behavior and doing things at that moment are in line with their status and career, and we may also judge whether they are suitable for these, etc. We look at the people and things around us in an extended relationship. We can more or less advance such relationship investigations until the farthest link of this relationship chain.
If we come out of the cognitive relationship between things, then our intelligence, that is, cognition, is completely separated from intention, because intelligence is the intention to grasp the relationship between things in the cognitive form of time, space and the law of causality of . Now intelligence no longer grasps the relationship between things, then intelligence no longer serves intention.
In addition, it is precisely because of the effect of intention that our self-consciousness produces a desire or disgust towards the object. Therefore, the cognitive subject will produce emotions such as desire, passion, desire and worry. Imagine our emotional attitude towards the external object. The object is a motivational stimulus at this time. Then it is difficult for the cognitive subject to develop an objective cognition of the object at this time.
Therefore, the more we pay attention to our own consciousness, the more silent we are in the spider web of desire, and the more we are about our own relationship with others and external things, we are unable to extricate ourselves from the unbreakable and chaotic relationship network. We cannot understand the objective world more clearly. But if we no longer understand and grasp things based on the relationship between things, but based on the things themselves, then now, in addition to the relative existence of things, we also recognize the absolute existence of things. Each other quickly represents its species: therefore, we now understand the universality of existence. What we know in this way is the idea of things: but now what we speak from these ideas is a higher wisdom, not the wisdom that only knows the relationship. We themselves also emerged from the relationship during this period and thus became the pure subject of cognition.
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3, Who is purely objectively understanding the world
When intelligence is completely separated from desire, we can fully objectively understand the external world at this time. At this time, the intention became completely silent, and our hearts fell into infinite peace. At this time, the effect of intelligence brought us to the state of "saying in this way" .
Now you can recall the words of Master Bodhidharma "Look at the invisible thing, listen to the inaudible sound, and know the unaware things, this is the truth." How to look at, how to listen, how to know, I think there is an answer to this question here. When the intention is completely silent, the mind is completely in a state of tranquility, then it is when the intelligence fully objectively understands external things. In this way, we can see the invisible things and the inaudible sounds, and then we can know the unaware things. Isn’t this exactly what Buddhism calls “the view of this should be done”?
When this intelligence can completely objectively face the object, we reach a cognitive state of purely no intention. At this time, intelligence no longer serves intention, and intelligence's consciousness of itself has completely disappeared. We know that we no longer belong to this world, but it is completely an objective state of understanding the essence of the world's truth. For those who have attained enlightenment, this has reached a state of selfless . For Laozi , he knew Tao, and for Sakyamuni, he knew emptiness.
However, Schopenhauer said that there is another type of people who can also view the world objectively in this way.
He said that Only when we no longer know that we belong to this world can we understand it purely objectively; the more we are aware of things and the less we are aware of ourselves, the more beautiful everything will appear. Since all pain comes from the desire that constitutes the true self, as this side of consciousness retreats, all possibilities of pain are cancelled at the same time, so the intuitive pure objective state is absolutely happy.
American photographer Benjamin Everetsh photography works
Therefore, Schopenhauer proposed a way to rely on an aesthetic pleasure state to eliminate pessimism in intention, and this ability to create aesthetic pleasure was completely released from genius. Because they fully implement such a cognitive concept in reason— only carries the objective existence of the object.
Why do these artistic geniuses recognize the world so objectively, because when they grasp things, they completely separate their own intentions from things, and things exist only for their cognition.The characteristic of geniuses is not because of their intelligence itself, but because their intelligence has a higher degree and longer duration of centrifugal force separated from intention, so their surplus cognitive power is free, no longer just serving the will of a certain entity, but only serving to grasp the objective world.
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