As-If Attitude

Zhuangzi was a sage who lived some 2400 years ago in China, in what is called the Warring States era. It was a time when the previous benevolent dynasty (the Zhou) had collapsed into several petty states, which for several hundred years fought among themselves, creating instability and chaos. Several sages offered their suggestions about how to return to peaceful and just times.

Probably the most well-known Chinese sage was Confucius, who advocated a ritualistic way for people to return to refined and honorable behavior. He maintained that if society's leaders practiced moral rites and modeled them for ordinary citizens, society could become more pleasant and gracious once again. 

Many people consider Confucius to have taught rote rituals, that seem artificial and hollow. Michael Puett, a Chinese scholar at Harvard, has a very different interpretation. He points out that Confucius' real intent was to conduct rituals “as-if” the repetitive (and sometimes pointless) motions that one performs could actually lead to magical or transforming results. It wasn't the belief that mattered, or its results—it was mindfully adhering to an honorable rite, that over time brought about a peaceful and ethical life. The process itself can be transforming. If we behave as-if it's true, we open to new possibilities.

A few hundred years after Confucius, Zhuangzi came onto the Chinese Warring States scene. Michael Puett describes Zhuangzi as another as-if teacher. Here's why. One of the witty and edifying stories that Zhuangzi told was how he one day awoke from a dream, during which he had imagined himself to be a butterfly. The fascinating aspect of his tale was that he wondered if he had been Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly, or if he really was a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhuangzi. What was real?

Puett points out that Zhuangzi used this riddle to teach the value of empathy. The Chinese sage suggested that we might try to imagine what it would be like to be a butterfly—as-if we could put ourself in the shoes of a butterfly. That is a huge challenge—and maybe even impossible—but it could help us find ways to begin to understand what it would be like to step into our human adversary’s sandals. We could benefit from putting effort into trying to imagine how the opponent might perceive the world—to do it as-if we could. This attempt can open us up to others' perspectives, will break us free from our narrow viewpoints, will draw us closer together, will promote respect, and thus can lead to a culture of peaceful and moral behavior. Ancient teachings coming from a very different culture and situation are still relevant today.

Misperceptions of Being Separate

There is a fundamental discrepancy between Western and Eastern perceptions of the way in which each of us exists, relative to the rest of the universe. While those of us in the West tend to view ourselves as individual entities that stand apart from creation, people in the East see themselves submerged into a unitary whole. While we in the West are comfortable with our unique separateness, those in the East take comfort in feeling connected to it all. While we prize our distinctiveness, they value their community.

This sense of distinctness and independence is strong within us Westerners. We absorb it from our culture and come to accept it as a given. The concept permeates our social and political lives. We come to see ourselves as distinctive and different individuals. We are oriented toward personal goals of success and achievement. We seek equality in personal relationships, or, alternatively, to be in a superior position in hierarchical relationships.

In contrast, people in the East do not like to stand out from the crowd. Rather than seeking personal accomplishments they value harmonious social relations. For example, there is no word for “individualism” in Chinese; the closest the language comes is the term for “selfishness.”

This significant difference between Western and Eastern perspectives is largely responsible for how a Westerner struggles with Eastern religious perspectives that describe a oneness to everything. Buddhism expresses our Western feelings of separateness from the universe as an illusion. Some in the West might talk about being “one with it all,” but that often comes from a limited, new-age interpretation.

I became a student of Buddhism a few decades ago, and have benefited from bringing meditation and mindfulness into my life, but I still struggle with understanding how I may let go of my Western image of being separate from it all. It's just too ingrained within me. It’s too easy to convince myself that I may intellectually comprehend my unity with it all, but deep in my gut I can't help but feel separate... often even isolated.

A recent idea came to me in meditation, that may help me feel more a part of it all, but it may well take a while for me to own the concept. All of my perceptions of myself or the world—my very understanding of existence—culminate in electrical signals in my brain. When I view a tree, photons enter my eye, impinge upon receptors on my retina, which send electrical impulses to my brain.  My total perception of the tree is that set of signals.

Similarly, sound wave vibrations are funneled into my ear canal, tickle three little bones in my middle ear, which induce vibrations on my cochlea, which then get transformed into other kinds of electrical signals in the brain. It's the same with my other three senses—taste, touch, and smell. All of them create certain specific electrical signals in my brain. Thus my view of the world is in reality nothing more than a complex field of neuronal impulses in my cerebral matter. It's literally all in my head.

So, am I really separate from that bird I hear singing outside? I know its song is “out there,” but my perception of it ultimately culminates in those electrical signals in my brain. That's all I really know about the bird. Even if I see what seems to be a separate feathered being perched out on that limb, that sense of vision ends up as yet another set of electrical signals. I own those signals. In a sense, that bird is now inside me... is a part of me. Is this fundamentally any different from a tingle I feel in my toe—a sensation that ends up as just another set of neuronal impulses? All I can know of either my toe or the bird's call is how my brain interprets those signals. Aren't they all a part of me? Am I not a part of it all?

Dismal Discovery

[Notice: The following story is fictional. I confess that I fabricated it. Nonetheless, something like it could happen some day—so maybe the reader could consider it as a science fiction warning to human beings: that they may be blithely headed toward catastrophe.]

In the year 2050 a spacecraft departed Earth for the planet Oasis, which orbits the star Alpha Centauri—a little over four light years distant. Back in 2025 Oasis was discovered, and it created great excitement, because it seemed almost like a twin of Earth. It was about the same size, in the same comfortable temperature zone, and exhibited an atmosphere very similar to Earth's.

Subsequent examinations of Oasis, with new telescopes and analysis tools, confirmed the theory that it was likely to harbor life. Yet no electromagnetic signals or other signs of advanced technology were detected coming from the planet. If life existed on Oasis—and all indicators suggest it might—maybe it was in a more primitive stage, and had not yet evolved very far.

By 2050 the climate of Earth had become very dangerous for its biological inhabitants. Humans had thoughtlessly continued their damaging behavior, until it was too late to rescue the planet from incurring atmospheric tipping points that flipped the environment into severe conditions. It was like returning to a climate situation of millions of years before, when hellish circumstances would have made life miserable for most of Earth’s current animals.

The spacecraft that left Earth in 2050 had no humans aboard, because their presence would have called for a much larger and complex craft—in order to include enough provisions for the 50-year journey. Thus, it was a robotic mission that arrived at Oasis in 2100. It orbited the planet, to confirm the data that had been acquired from Earth (which it did), then sent down a lander, to examine conditions on the ground.

The findings were shocking. Oasis had once been inhabited by technologically advanced beings, but all signs of that developed life had vanished ten million Earth years before. It became obvious that something on Oasis had caused all advanced life to become extinct, and now the only life forms there were extremely simple—and appeared to be once again evolving towards more complex life. Something catastrophic had happened long ago on Oasis.

When these findings were transmitted back to Earth, in 2100, it caused much anguish and soul-searching. Many decades previously, a few cautionary scientists had registered their concern that humans were transforming Earth into a polluted place that could cause many species to expire—including Homo sapiens—and that it would require millions of years for the planet to recover. Conditions on Oasis seemed to substantiate that fear. Was it now too late to rescue Earth and save many of its species—including humans?

If so, the dismal truth that had been shown by Oasis could occur on our precious planet: our damage could be complete and decisive. Earth's life forms could take a ruinous hit, and it would require millions of years for life to recover and begin again. That was devastating news for humans in 2100... they were staring into annihilation. 

For Earth-the-planet, however, the prospect was of minimal threat. The planet had been through several previous extinctions and would endure the current nasty conditions and eventually recover. There were yet hundreds of millions of years over which Earth would continue to evolve—quite likely without presence of destructive Homo sapiens.

Astral Origins

Our universe sprang into existence nearly 14 billion years ago—according to astronomy’s current understanding (the date is as yet not absolutely accepted as gospel… science often updates itself). For something like 100 million years after that Big Bang origin, the cosmos dramatically expanded, but would have been essentially invisible at the time, as it consisted almost entirely of hydrogen gas ions. Darkness prevailed and stars had not yet formed. It was a pretty bleak and lonely universe.

Then the first stars began to form some 200 million years after the Big Bang. The cosmos was still rapidly expanding at the time, but now some of that hydrogen began to clump into clouds. Gravity exerted its force and those hydrogen clouds began to compress—increasingly so, until the first stars winked on... or rather ignited, from the intense pressure. That point in time is sometimes called the “cosmic dawn.” Now starlight illuminated the nascent universe. It was no longer totally dark.

Astronomers are very curious about the birth of those first stars. If they could be observed by telescope, our knowledge of the workings of the early universe would be significantly expanded. What were they like? How large and bright were they? What happened next, in the unfolding of the universe? The answers to these questions would help validate our current understanding and models of the cosmos or show us where they may be in error and thus how to improve them.

The most powerful telescope that currently peers not quite that far back in time is the Hubble Space Telescope—the workhorse that has for 30 years shown us some amazing photos and helped confirm our existing cosmic models. Hubble reaches back tantalizingly close to the cosmic dawn, but cannot quite image those first stars.

NASA's James Webb Telescope is the next step in capability beyond Hubble, and astronomers have high hopes that this telescope will reach back to those initial stars and offer some answers to our questions. Astronomers have all their fingers and toes crossed—hoping that the James Webb scope will finally be launched this November. Its launch date has repeatedly been postponed for several years, due to design flaws and thus the program's cost is astronomically over budget. A lot of nail biting will be done by NASA employees between now and November, when it may actually be launched. A lot of money and prestige may soon be lost or, alternatively, gloriously resulting in new discoveries.

[A brief reminder: Due to the continuous expansion of our universe, these long-ago star-birth events occurred at vast distances from Earth... so vast that light (the fastest moving thing in the cosmos) takes billions of years to reach us, to allow us to see these events. So when we first view the light from these initial stars, we will be actually detecting light that shown forth from them, over 13 billion years ago. Those rays may be new to us, but they've been en route across the vastness of space for that long.]