Watching the Tree: A Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Spiritual Beliefs and Universal Wisdom. Adeline Mah Yen

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СКАЧАТЬ on a shelf immediately above my desk. On a whim, I took the volume down and flipped through its pages, wondering if my former patient had described any of his experiences at the London Hospital. To my amazement and delight, I found my name mentioned in two of his letters to Maeve Brennan.

      April 10, 1961 … Everyone is very nice (my doctor, or rather, the house-doctor, is Chinese, a Miss Yen) …

      Well, now it is 9.45 and almost time for me to settle down for the night. Miss Yen came in and said the ear report was negative, so there’s no cause to worry about that. Still, there are plenty of other things, aren’t there. Miss Yen intimated that she couldn’t hear what Sir Russell said either!* She keeps asking how one writes poetry, how one manages the beats and rhymes. I say that is the easiest part. The hardest part is having something to write about that succeeds in drawing words from your inner mind – that is very important, as one can always think of subjects, but they have to matter in that peculiar way that produces words and some kind of development of thought or theme, or else there’s no poem either in thought or words.

      Philip Larkin died in 1985 at the age of sixty-three. Ours was a brief encounter and, after his discharge from hospital, I never saw him again. Looking back, his belief that the Tao Te Ching was the greatest book ever written must have influenced me subliminally over the years. It suggested the possibility that Chinese thought, if properly translated, can be of interest to other western minds besides that of one brilliant, gifted British poet. It may even have inspired me to base Watching the Tree on this very theme.

      Of all the ancient Chinese classics, the one which has been most frequently translated into foreign languages is a slim volume written 2500 years ago: the Tao Te Ching (Classic of the Tao and Its Virtue). More than forty different translations in English alone are in print. According to many sources, the author was someone named Lao Zi

(Old Master), a contemporary of Confucius. But some people doubt Lao Zi’s existence and think that the book was written by unknown authors in the fourth century BC

      Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism, was born in Ku Xian, Henan province (400 miles south of Beijing) in 571 BC His real name was Li Er. He came from a distinguished and cultured family and was employed as a curator of the imperial archives and historical documents at the royal court in the capital city of Loyang during the Chou dynasty. Confucius admired him and was said to have sought his advice around 517 BC.

      Lao Zi was married and had a son who later became a general in the state of Wei. According to legend, Lao Zi left his post in his old age and travelled west to India, leaving his writing in the hands of a frontier warden guarding the Hankukuan Pass.

      His book, the Tao Te Ching, is very short. It contains just over 5000 Chinese characters and the entire text will fit on a single sheet of newspaper. Divided into eighty-one separate, tersely worded and rhymed chapters, its concepts are subtle and profound, but its cryptic language lends itself to many different interpretations.

      The central theme revolves around the tao

, which means ‘the way’ or ‘the road’, but which is often used to indicate the order of Nature. As a philosophy Taoism deals with the unchangeable, eternal and pervasive oneness of the universe; with cycles and the relativity of all standards; and with the return to the divine intelligence of non-being, from which all being has come.

      The book begins enigmatically:

      The Tao which can be expressed is not the unchanging Tao;

      The name which can be defined is not the eternal name.

      The tao is the ancestor of all things. It is powerful but is also invisible and inaudible. It is hidden and nameless dao yin wu ming

, and operates by non-action ( wu wei), which means non-interference or letting things take their own spontaneous course: ‘Tao takes no action but nothing is left undone.’

      Lao Zi’s metaphysical concept bears an uncanny resemblance to the teachings of the Dutch philosopher Spinoza (1632–77). Like Lao Zi, Spinoza finds his God in the whole of the universe, which contains all reality. His pantheism essentially restates the same ideas as the Tao Te Ching. Rejecting the concept of a personal and emotional God, or one with human attributes who meddles in human affairs, Spinoza envisaged a higher being who acts according to the necessity of His own nature and does not interfere in the everyday life of men. Lao Zi expressed it thus:

      Hence the wise man depends on non-action for action,

       Continues teaching his ‘lessons of silence’.

       Yet the multitudinous creatures are influenced by him;

       He does not reject them.

       He nurtures them, but claims no possession of them,

       Oversees them, but does not put pressure on them.

       Accomplishes his purpose, but does not dwell on his achievements,

       And precisely because he calls no attention to his actions

       He is not banished from the completion of his tasks.

      In the Tao Te Ching, the tao is compared to water, which accomplishes much while being meek and receptive. It is all-powerful in its humility. Called by some the ‘master of camouflage’, Lao Zi taught that power can be disguised as weakness and non-violence will overcome force.

      Nothing under heaven is softer and weaker than water,

       Yet nothing surpasses it in battling the hard and strong.

      Like water, the tao affects the universe through wu wei: a non-invasive and persuasive love whose strengths are its virtue and submission. Lao Zi wrote:

      The best of the best is similar to water.

       Water aids and benefits ten thousand different creatures,

       Yet it neither tussles nor contends,

       But rests content in places despised by others.

       It is this which makes water so near to the Tao.

       Man should consider his home a good dwelling place,

       In his thoughts, he should value the profound,

       In his friendship, he should be gentle and kind,

       In his words, he should be truthful and sincere,

       In his government, he should abide by good order,

       In his affairs, he should be proficient and effective,

       In his actions, he should seize the opportune moment.

      Although many of the concepts in the Tao Te Ching reach lofty and mystical heights, their effectiveness can be understood and appreciated only through personal transformation. Lao Zi anticipated this problem:

      When a scholar of great talent hears the Tao

       He tries his best to practice it.

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