Lecture in KKP002: Imagining the Creative Future - one of a series of 'thpought world' or 'paradigm' lectures designed to problematise a contemporary 'creative industries practice.

1. KKP002 The Eastern Thought World

4. Pre-Socratic
Greeks
Indigenous
Australian
Enlightenment
and Modernism
Eastern Thought
World
Authorship & IP  
Story  
The psychologised
‘self’
 
Virtue ethics  
Happiness  
Neurology  
State welfare  
Balance/harmony  
Nature/environment  
Time  

5. brahma - creator
vishnu - preserver
shiva - destroyer
sarisvati - knowledge
lakshmi - love, beauty
kali - power, transformation

6. The Vedic Calculation of Time
Satya yuga: 1,728,000 human years
Treta yuga: 1,296,000 human years
Dvapara yuga: 864,000 human years
Kali yuga: 432,000 human years
1,000 cycles of the yugas (4,320,000,000 human years) = 1 Kalpa (one day of Lord
Brahma)
Each of Brahma's nights lasts as long as his day. Life is manifest on earth only
during the day of Brahma. With the onset of Brahma's night, the entire universe is
devastated and plunged into darkness. When another day of Brahma begins, life
again becomes manifest.
Brahma lives 100 years, consisting of 360 days and nights. Brahma lives 100 x 360
kalpas (ie. 36,000 days) + 100 x 36,000 nights = 1 Mahakulpa =
311,040,000,000,000 human years.
According to the Vedic scriptures, we are now in the first day of the second half of
the life of Brahma
वेद

9. The life span of Brahma is identical with the duration of the universe. This time span, called a maha-kalpa, is also the duration of one breathing
in and out of Maha-Vishnu, the Personality of Godhead. Maha-Vishnu lies down within the ocean of causality and sleeps. He is eternal, and He
dreams the material world in His cosmic slumber. When He exhales, all the universes emanate from the pores of His skin, and a Brahma is born
within each universe. When He inhales, Brahma dies, and He sucks the universes into His mouth and destroys them. With each exhalation, the
entire process starts anew.

10. Impermanence
No Self

12. http://wayist.org/ttc%20compared/chap11.htm
道德經
Ch. 01 Sentence 1
Beck The Way that can be described is not the absolute Way; the name that can be given is not the absolute
name.
Blackney There are ways but the Way is uncharted; There are names but not nature in words:
Bynner Existence is beyond the power of words To define: Terms may be used But are none of them absolute.
Byrn The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal
Name.
Chan The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Cleary A way can be a guide, but not a fixed path; names can be given, but not permanent labels.
Crowley The Dao-Path is not the All-Dao. The Name is not the Thing named.
Hansen To guide what can be guided is not constant guiding. To name what can be named is not constant
naming.
LaFargue The Tao that can be told is not the invariant Tao the names that can be named are not the invariant
Names.
Legge The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is
not the enduring and unchanging name.
Lindauer A tao that one can tao Is not the entire tao A name that one can name Is not the entire name.
LinYutan The Tao the can be told of Is not the Absolute Tao; The Names that can be given Are not Absolute
Names.
Mabry The Tao that can be described in words is not the true Tao The Name that can be named is not the true
Name.
McDonald The way that can be told of is hardly an eternal, absolute, unvarying one; the name that can be coded
and given is no absolute name.
Merel The Way that can be experienced is not true; The world that can be constructed is not real.
Mitchell The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
Muller The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal
name.
Red Pine The way that becomes a way is not the Immortal Way the name that becomes a name is not the
Immortal Name
Ta-Kao The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the
unchanging name.
Walker Tao is beyond words and beyond understanding. Words may be used to speak of it, but they cannot
contain it.
Wayism The Tao1 that can be explained is not the eternal Tao. If it can be named it is not the eternal Name.2
Wieger The principle that can be enunciated is not the one that always was. The being that can be named is not
the one that was at all times.
World The infinity that can be conceived is not the everlasting Infinity. The infinity that can be described is not
the perpetual Infinity.
Wu Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao; Names can be named, but not the Eternal name.

13. 孔丘
Kong Qiu
551 – 479 BCE

14. Ren ("humaneness," "benevolence"),
signifying excellent character in accord with:
Li (ritual norms)
Zhong (loyalty to one's true nature)
Shu (reciprocity), and
Xiao (filial piety).
Together these constitute De (virtue)

15. "To know your faults and be able to change is the greatest virtue.“
知錯能改，善莫大焉
"With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my crooked arm for a pillow
- is not joy to be found therein? Riches and honours acquired through
unrighteousness are to me as the floating clouds.“
疏食飲水，曲肱而枕，樂在其中矣。不義而富貴，於我如浮雲。
"Knowledge is recognizing what you know and what you don't.“
知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也.
"What you do not wish for yourself, do
not do to others.“
己所不欲，勿施於人。

16. Legalism
Fa ("law or principle"): The law code must be clearly written and
made public. All people under the ruler are equal before the law.
Shu ("method, tactic or art"): Special tactics and "secrets" are to
be employed by the ruler to make sure others don't take over
control of the state.
Shi ("legitimacy, power or charisma"): It is the position of the
ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power.

17. Taoism
Tao: road, channel, path, way, doctrine, or line (cf.
'dharma').
Wu Wei: "action without action" or "effortless
doing" (cf. water)
P'u: "uncarved block", "unhewn log", or
"simplicity". (cf 'illusion')

18. Live simply.
Self-absorption and self-importance are vain and self-destructive.
The harder one tries, the more resistance one
creates for oneself.
The more one acts in harmony with the universe (the
Mother of the myriad things), the more one will
achieve
with less effort.
The differences of opposite polarities
— e.g., the differences between male and
female, light and dark, strong and weak, etc. — help us to understand and appreciate
the universe.
Humility is the highest virtue.
Knowing oneself is a virtue.
The more you go in search of an answer, the less you will understand.

19. 'Via Negativa'
We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what
is not.
Tao Te Ching

20. And if you just take the example of the ginger, when you put it
into a pot of soup, the ginger loses its distinctiveness as a piece
of ginger. However, the taste of ginger now permeates the soup.
And so Daoism tends to see potency or power 'De', of an
individual, that piece of ginger, as being much more far-
reaching, and much more integrated and much more
interdependent with the entire environment, than the necessity
of keeping its essence to itself, so to speak.
Dr Karyn Lai, UNSW
Philosopher's Zone on ABC Radio National
4 December 2010
The way of the Dao
http://tinyurl.com/6z7w7ln

21. The Four Noble Truths
1. Suffering exists.
2. There is a cause for suffering.
3. There is an end to suffering.
4. The end to suffering is the Eightfold Path.
The Eightfold Path
Panna: Discernment, wisdom:
1. Right Understanding
2. Right thinking
Sila: Virtue, morality:
3. Right speech
4. Right conduct
5. Right livelihood
Samadhi: Concentration, meditation:
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
appropriate response
Buddhism

22. All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions.
Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his
own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

23. Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it
agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make
the world.

24. Niels Bohr:
“For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory...[we must turn] to those kinds of
epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have
been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great
drama of existence.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer, describing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle:
“If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say
'no;' if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no;' if we ask
whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say
'no.' The Buddha has given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of man's
self after his death; but they are not familiar answers for the tradition of seventeenth and
eighteenth-century science."

25. 2.03 In a state of affairs objects fit into one another like the links of a chain.
2.031 In a state of affairs objects stand in a determinate relation to one another.
2.032 The determinate way in which objects are connected in a state of affairs is the
structure of the state of affairs.
2.033 Form is the possibility of structure.
2.034 The structure of a fact consists of the structures of states of affairs.
2.04 The totality of existing states of affairs is the world.
2.05 The totality of existing states of affairs also determines which states of affairs do
not exist.
2.06 The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality. (We call the
existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their non-existence a negative fact.)
2.061 States of affairs are independent of one another.
2.062 From the existence or non-existence of one state of affairs it is impossible to
infer the existence or non-existence of another.
2.063 The sum-total of reality is the world
Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

27. What the culture of Taoism and Zen proposes
is that one might become the kind of person
who, without intending it, is a source of
marvellous accidents
Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen

28. John Cage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HypmW4Yd7SY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y
Merce Cunningham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Ev9uKlKNM

30. appropriate
response
Sunryu Suzuki Roshi

31. From wonder into wonder
existence opens
Lao Tzu

32. form is emptiness and
emptiness is form
Heart Sutra

34. No Self
Logic and meaning, with its inherent duality, is a property of thought and language but not of
the actual world. The nonverbal, concrete world contains no classes and no symbols which
signify or mean anything other than themselves. Consequently it contains no duality. For duality
arises only when we classify, when we sort our experiences into mental boxes, since a box is no
box without an inside and an outside.
+++
Our problem is that the power of thought enables us to construct symbols of things apart from
the things themselves. This includes the ability to make a symbol, an idea of ourselves apart
from ourselves. Because the idea is so much more comprehensible than the reality,
the symbol so much more stable than the fact, we learn to identify ourselves with
the idea of ourselves. Hence the subjective idea of a 'self' which 'has' a mind.
+++
The negations apply, not to reality itself, but to our ideas of reality
Alan Watts, The Way of Zen