Chapter 2: MODELS OF JOR]
2.4 interpreters' imagery
Firstly, we must ask the obvious question, if another diagram is needed, why did Baien not include such a diagram among his two hundred? Secondly, Baien is clear about the inadequacy of diagrams, and for good reason, his view of the universe was dynamic, four dimensional and very complex [see Chapter 7.2]. Baien's own diagrams cannot be ignored, but their
explanatory value can be overrated. Thirdly, ifwe make diagrams for him, there is not only the near certainty that something
will
be left out, but also the greater danger that somethingwill
be &hkd.Commentaries on the model of two people looking across from opposite banks of a river provide a good example both of what cannot be shown in diagrams, and of what might be added when others make them on Baien's behalf: There is an understandable inclination to sketch the situation on paper or on the blackboard. Whether drawn, or simply envisaged, simple diagrams of this model may be misleading.
When the model of the river bank gazers is seen as a simplistic expression of symmetry, it says little more than one might find in ancient Chinese cosmogony or perhaps in the pre-Socratic philosophers. Interpreted in this way the model is as primitive as "The way up is the way down", but without the poetry of the Heraclitean fragments. The model should not be taken as showing that two different states, A's being west ofB, and B's being east of A, for example, are one state, and that this illustrates "one is one and one". Put like this, the only differences are in the strings of words, a case of simple identity that does not parallel the necessary coexistence of the two sides of a brocade.
Ifwe were to say that the purpose of the model is to show that two descriptions of one thing is an example ofjori, not only should we be reducingjori to a triviality, but we should also charge Baien with a foolish oversight, since the number of posSIble descriptions of a situation is not limited to two.
The visual imagery does not take us w. Among other things, the model relates <concealed and manifest> to <invisible and visIble>, and drawings of the concealed and the invisible are impOSSIble. If we understood <concealed and manifest> well enough to draw a comprehensive diagram, we should not need the diagram, the reader would have already needed to study the text thoroughly before understanding it.
In a discussion ofBaien's "dialectic", Ogawa Haruhisa [1983] carefully avoids an oversimple interpretation in his sketch. He symbolises the two people standing on opposites sides of the river by distinct shapes, a circle and a triangle, emphasising that A and B must be intrinsically different for a correct interpretation.
In his sketch the oneness is indicated by a dotted line
drawn between them, but then Ogawa adds: "If we are to take A and B as placed on the left and right, this is an example of comprehending the unity ofleft and right." But left and right are not discussed in this passage. A page on which a diagram has been drawn of the river bankbe to the left and right of an observer standing on the centre of an imaginary bridge across the river. It is not left and right that are united in terms of visibility or distance, but the two
intrinsically different things that we might see, one on our left, and one on our right, as we observe the scene from a bridge. Neither the printed page nor the bridge are mentioned in Baien's text.
In the most thoughtful and scholarly accounts ofjori the temptation for the authors to draw
downwards branching tree diagrams, or at least to think in terms of them, seems to be
irresistlole. Admittedly, a branching river and a "family tree" occur as verbal images in Baien's account ofjori. He uses them to illustrate division, contrast, and common source.
The following is an example of a tree diagram translated from Shimada Kenji:
/�
/\ /\
\ A A A
( one-prim2.1-ki ) A��.
B C yin�
�
yaDg D ··· . E yin1\
H I yang/\
J K F G yin/\
L M yaDg/\
N 0yin yang yin yang yin yang yin yang
Shimada is not alone in sketching tree diagrams, Takahashi Masayasu, Yamada and others too
present us with them Miura Baien himself does not. Shimada takes his tree diagram
specifically from the following diagram, entitled "Warp, woo£: division and contrast", which has the binary branching structure that Shimada's diagram portrays [NST 55 1]:
The only terms in Baien's diagram are "one", (in the circles), and "two", (straddling the lines), which name the separate state of the one on either side. (Baien's doubts about whether to refer to these as the two
will
be discussed in Chapter 5.2.) The ones are to be paired, by their relation to the "two" between them, and by their common derivation from a single "one" in the next circle inward. But Shimada's diagram conveys more than this. In Baien's diagram there is no question of the left-hand members being consistently of one kind, and the right hand members being consistently the opposite of that kind. Indeed, none ofBaien's diagrams are of that form. The characters for "yin" and "yang" are not in Baien's diagram Shimada's addition of them might suggest that yins have something in common with each other, distinct from something the yangs have in common. However, it is important to Baien that"yin"
and "yang" in their basic sense should be interchangeable. [See Chapter 7.2]Both the tree diagram and Baien's circular diagram show binary branching, and the reiteration of binary division is an essential feature ofjori. Given that if there is anything at a1L it involves contrast, and contrast involves two things, then for each of these two to be "things" they too must involve contrast. Nevertheless, the tree cannot be substituted for the circle without significant change, or at least change that should have significance for an analysis as fine grained as Baien's. By substituting tree diagrams for circles, embellishments to Baien's theory are suggested which lead to unlicensed interpretations.
Three of these embellishments are: 1 ) the substitution of triples for pairs; 2) a hierarchy of being; and, resulting from this hierarchy, 3), the ultimate One, physically at the top of the diagram, is exalted, so that the logically indescnoable becomes the mystical.
I ) A circle does not have an apex. Literally and symbolically, apex and centre are quite different. Yamada draws a similar tree diagram to illu.strate division and contrast, and says:
[fwe take the branching of a river, or two people gazing across opposite banks as representations of the pyramid structure of existence (concepts), they are immediately intelligible. These two metaphors are Baien's favourites. [Yamada 1 982 1 85]
Overlooking the insertion in parenthesis of the term "concept" (gainen), one of Yamada's favourites, we should ask why, when a pyramid structure is so easy to draw, Baien did not seize the chance to draw "the pyramid structure of existence". The brief answer here is that a pyramid is nothing like the structure of existence portrayed in Pyramids require triangles.
Baien elaborates on his aphorism "One is one-and-one" with the simile of a piece of paper cut or tom in two: "One piece is concave, one is convex., but when joined they combine without a gap". [Preface 6] Two real opposites are united by the real �, but the one cannot be counted as a third feature of nature, it is the two, just as the two are one, so there can be no overlap. Exclusion of the number three from thejori system will be discussed further in Chapter 5.2.
2) As Yamada's phrase "pyramid structure" shows, philosophical tree diagrams of this kind convert too easily into ontological hierarchies. Originating from some such visual imagery, the term "level" is one of the most treacherous in accounts ofBaien's philosophy. Iwami Teruhiko, Ogata Sumio, Ogawa Haruhisa, Shimada Kenji, Taguchi Masaharu, Takahashi Masayasu and Yamada Keiji, seven taken alphabetically among a very short list ofleading Baien scholars, are all very different from one another in their approach to Baien. But all alike are prone to talk in terms of "hierarchies" or "levels". We might modify Baien's "I do not bend my knee to the ancients because I understand how to seekjori" with a less bold stand, and refuse to bow to any hierarchical model ofBaien's system that does not help us to understandjori. Baien is emphatic that the "ones" of "one and one" have the same status as the "one" in which they combine. He says in
It is not that first there was the One primal lei and afterwards all the ten thousand things of heaven and earth. The One primal lei, like all the things of heaven and earth, has no beginning and no end ... ["Ki and Object" I 75 1]
These scholars cannot have missed that point, so we must conclude that they have not noticed the implications of their imagery and terminology in this case. Division of one into two is not enough to put the one metaphorically above the two. The metaphor of "higher and lower" for ''better and worse" is certainly entrenched in the languages and cultures of Europe, China and Japan. (Its universality would need to be determined by an anthropological study, refuted if an exception were found, supported if good reasons could be given for it, such as that physically higher positions are strategically more powerful, improving survival chances.)
So far in this discussion I have referred to "trees" that branch downwards, but the term "tree" would be more apt for a diagram that fans upwards from a base. The metaphor of "deep and shallow" may well be as culturally widespread as that of "above and below", and in this lower and higher are reversed in value, "deep" is better than "shallow". Likewise, if we were to use words like ''basis'', "foundation" or "ground" for the "one" that is divided, we should not mean by this that it is "inferior" in any but the literal sense of the word. A tree standing upright is
3. There is a further hazard
with
the downward branching tree model, that it might lead to taking the hierarchy too seriously, especially for those who seek a mystic message as the reward for their study of a philosophical text. Yamada himself is certainly not such a person, but he sees Baien as seeking to provide a mystic message: "When we reach the highest one, fundamental existence, that is, the One lei, the process ofunderstanding is complete." [Yamada 1982 1 87] This is a misleading way ofrepresenting Baien's objective.
The essential of the ultimate "One primal lci" is a basic assumption surviving from the early to the final version of However, although begins with it, "There is something that is not easy to name", the following comments are relegated to an "Appendix" to the Preface of the final version The "gen" is the "gen" "deep"
-p;,
, but here it means "unfathomable", referring to something so deep that it is inexpressible by language. In "Appendix X" Baien says:Some-one asked me, "If it is already unfathomable, then why do you talk about it?
I replied, "So I can show it by speaking."
Then I was asked "Then why do you call it unfathomable? If the unfathomable is unfathomable, what is the use of talking about it? And if the unfathomable is not unfathomable, is not all this a waste of your effort?
I replied, "That is why I call it "gen''''.
I take this to mean that there comes a point where it is futile to ask further questions, because there is nothing further to say. Saying that nothing can be said about "gen" is indeed saying something about it. In this sense, "nothing can be said aboat gen" is necessarily false.
Wittgenst�in's "Whereof one cannot speak., thereof one must be silent" has become a cliche, but Baien's reasons for saying a
similar
thing are quite different: ontologically, everything that is real is a member of a jori pair; epistemologically, we can only apprehend reality by seeing jori pairs. The gen is the ultimate "one" that is differentiated by thejori system, but it cannototherwise be grasped.
Baien is much more interested in what � be grasped, he does not encourage mysticism. Without judging the success of the enterprise, there can be no doubt that the goal of the difficult intellectual task that resulted in the final version of was to seek the principles of at work in the universe, and not the oneness in which differentiation
dissolves. Little more can be said about these principles of differentiation until we have examined the role oflanguage in the theory ofjori.