The Opening of Presence

The general scientific and common sense paradigm for modern western thought consists in the assumption of two distinct realms of experience; the so called objective world and subjective consciousness. This has been so since at least Descartes, and Descartes himself could only so persuasively present this paradigm due to the centuries of scholasticism prior to him. There, the originary vision of the Greeks had been corrupted through Latin translation and the yoking of philosophy to the service of entrenching and elaborating imperial state Christianity (as opposed to the originary Palestinian-Judaeo-Hellenistic inception). Efforts to repair the dualistic rift got underway almost immediately with Spinoza, certain of the Cambridge Platonists, even (if through a radical reinterpretation of the problem) with Kant and so to the idealisms and materialisms of the 19th century. There were as well the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche , and Von Hartmann which were neither materialist nor idealist. And so, unto the phenomenology and existentialism of the 20th…

But these great efforts remained and remain influential only among the philosophically inclined of the well educated. The common sense paradigm is still pervasively a version of Cartesian dualism. Moreover, it is a version that has forgotten that the so-called objective and scientific description of nature is in itself just one half of the sundered realm which Descartes’ pen confirmed so absolutely (even if Descartes himself wouldn’t have taken it as the last word; for Descartes did seek a resolution to the opposition between mind and matter- he just couldn’t find it). So the common sense assumption that the breaking of the world down into particles and their interaction is somehow explanatory of anything more than the best ways to get predicted results prevails as accepted wisdom (which is not worthless - science is incredibly powerful and potentially beneficial for all sorts of projects to enrich life or at least ameliorate suffering).

But what is a particle, in fact, what is motion other than a phenomenon? The notion that phenomenon necessarily means something derivative (as in, that a phenomenon is merely a second tier reality to something more real behind it) is – Heidegger tells us – a misunderstanding of what phenomenon meant for the Greeks. For the Greeks up to and including Aristotle, there was no opposition between appearance and being. Being, as phusis, was appearance. The opposition was rather between unexamined assumptions and opinions about the appearance that was being and genuine reception of the way being unconcealed itself as appearance.

There is a similarity in such an understanding between the originary Greek vision and that of Zen teachings and philosophers such as of the Kyoto school (who were themselves influenced by Heidegger). The rift that was torn so decisively by Descartes, and was set up for such a tear by Latin scholasticism, was and is based on an elevation of personal subjecthood, both to a too anthropomorphic and anthropocentric theological deity, and to an ontologisisng of the logical, linguistic subject; the ‘I’, the ego.

There are differences in emphasis between these worldviews of course, but the Greek vision of being as the emerging sway of phenomena and the Zen (and more generally Buddhist) vision of the world as the interdependent originating of dharmas (phenomena) both allow for a retaining of the primacy of experience over the formalism, intellectualism, and de-vitalising calculating doctrines of scientism(s).

For the originary vision of Greeks (according to Heidegger) Being (as phusis, the emerging sway of all things, worldly and heavenly) was unconcealing (alaetheia) apprehended as the gathering of all things or beings (logos) in presence (which is what the philosophical usage of the term ousia, mistranslated through Latin as substance originally meant).

Similarly, for Zen, all phenomena, whether called external or internal, arise as interdependent particularised forms, that are just appearances. The Being of the early Greeks and the emptiness, or sunyata of Buddhists- though seemingly in direct opposition- are both pointing to what is experienced as the world and the self as the unconcealing of reality as and to itself-

the coming to presence of what presences as appearance; phusis for the Greeks, dharmadatu (that which appears as the concatenation of phenomena) for Buddhists.

What both offer is a vision of reality that is not a thing, but a kind of revelation; the nature of reality is the unconcealing of itself to itself through itself as itself (for the Greeks, through and as human beings, for Buddhists sentient being/s)….

I like to use what I consider good (evocative) prose as allegory. I do so despite my own philosophical and literary inadequacies. And so, here’s something I want to bring into vague relation with the above;

“Many times during this past month had John Aylsford made this long detour, starting eastwards from the village and coming back by a wide circuit, and now, as on these other occasions, he paused in the black shelter of the hedge, through which the wind hissed and whistled, crouching there in the shadow as if to make sure that none had followed him, and that the road in front lay void of passengers, for he had no mind to be observed by any on these journeyings”

The first story of E.F Benson’s I read, “At the Farmhouse” is a tale set in and around a fishing village on the rugged Cornwall coast. In it, the lead character – John Aylsford – is a talented young painter who, twenty years prior to the story’s main action, came to on a holiday visit, and fell for a local Cornish girl who modelled for him. They marry and live together in her uncle’s farmhouse which he had bought, set high above the village, just inland from the cliffs. The marriage quickly descends into a living nightmare, a daily chamber of horrors. His wife becomes a violent, hateful alcoholic, her former and considerable beauty vanishing swiftly, leaving her a ghastly misshapen hag. Worse, she – like others of her infamous family – is a sorceress whose malignant powers make her an object of fear in the locale. She eventually allows him to live apart from her, down in the village. But she denies any further separation or escape and constantly harangues him. He resolves to kill her, and so ventures out one gale-blasted night to do so, and then burn the house down to cover his crime. Thus he finds himself there, in the dark shadows of the hedge by the roadside which leads to the farmhouse, contemplating his intentions.

As it turns out, his efforts are doomed. Having killed his wife, her vengeful, sorcerous spirit traps him in the burning house. One suspects that the account is given from the dreadful repetition of the entire series of events-on and on- pas the consequence of ill-chosen fate. The perpetual re-enactment depends upon a moment of unconcealing; the intent of John Aylsford as he steps out as his being from the blackness of the hedge. Perhaps, if he chooses differently....

I wish you all a very merry Christmas ( A fruitful ‘opening and unconcealing of your presence’!)