Music of silence.
Excerpts from a very interesting, rather mind-bending, little book I'm reading at the moment, François Jullien's In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics.
~
In my view, we can never be too conscious of the originality and uniqueness of this Chinese psychology of blandness, this refusal to allow any single trait affirm itself to the detriment of another: in short, this esteem for completeness by determinacy. No single aptitude, whatever it might be, should monopolize the personality as a whole, and it is less a matter of energetically pushing a situation in a given direction than of exploiting it by molding oneself to it. The idea is not a no-holds-barred offensive in which all efforts are directed toward a single goal, but an individual's openness, which moves in harmony with the fluctuations of the world and makes it possible to partner them freely. Instead of a situation where a particular exertion causes all inner resources to contract and gush forth before our eyes, these inner resources remain in a state of repose, maintaining their equilibrium and blending into blandness.
This lesson of the bland, the insipid, also applies to political life. Traditionally, Chinese literati, by virtue of their vocation, expect to assume an official position; the only alternatives are either to engage in or to retreat from political life. And since nothing in the personality of the Sage is overdeveloped, since he never feels himself to be predisposed more toward one particular stance than another - and is therefore open to all eventualities - he can enter into public life or retreat from it with as much flexibility as possible, as the moment requires. One could well declare this to be opportunism, and, in effect, it is opportunistic. But it is essential not to misread its underlying ethic: any virtue to which we attach ourselves or that we consider more important than any others, however valuable, constitutes an inner fixation that will block the renewal of our personality, calcify our subjective dispositions, and sterilize our nature. In contrast, the blandness of the Sage makes it possible for him to embrace all virtues without being subjugated by any one in particular and to remain ready, throughout the inevitable fluctuations in political life, to face calmly and serenely the most pressing issues of his day. Like Heaven, he may well seem to change often, but he never deviates from his course.
[...]
Early Chinese thought pushed the opposition between the physical phenomenon of an emitted "sound" (sheng) and its capacity for harmony, or "tone" (yin), even further, in that it treats these two elements as a pair, like other oppositions: before-behind, high-low, great-small. It is in light of this type of contrast that the following aphorism (later to become a proverb) yields its meaning: "The great harmonic - sound at its most subtle," an all but paradoxical aphorism, which, in cutting short all musical effusiveness and so all harmonic loss, enriched the meaning of music.
That which cannot be heard through listening is what is meant by "sound at its most subtle." "The great harmonic" refers to sound that cannot be heard. As soon as sound is produced, a schism is introduced; and once there is a schism, one note exists while another exists not, and one loses command of the whole. That is why when the sound is produced, it is not "the great harmonic."
In the realm of vision as well, "the great harmonic" is without particular "form" (as a unique actualization); rather, it encompasses within itself all possible concretizations. The same holds true for the musical notes of the scale, for colors, and for flavors. One flavor can be more marked, but only at the expense of another; and at the moment when one musical note is sounded, it excludes all other notes. Here we recognize the adage "Omnis determinatio est negatio [Every delimitation is a negation]." Conversely, the "formless" and the "toneless" possess the ability to "communicate with all things" and to "reach all destinations." True harmony can only exist in a state prior to all differentiation, because it begins by leading us step-by-step down the ladder of wisdom...
~
In my view, we can never be too conscious of the originality and uniqueness of this Chinese psychology of blandness, this refusal to allow any single trait affirm itself to the detriment of another: in short, this esteem for completeness by determinacy. No single aptitude, whatever it might be, should monopolize the personality as a whole, and it is less a matter of energetically pushing a situation in a given direction than of exploiting it by molding oneself to it. The idea is not a no-holds-barred offensive in which all efforts are directed toward a single goal, but an individual's openness, which moves in harmony with the fluctuations of the world and makes it possible to partner them freely. Instead of a situation where a particular exertion causes all inner resources to contract and gush forth before our eyes, these inner resources remain in a state of repose, maintaining their equilibrium and blending into blandness.
This lesson of the bland, the insipid, also applies to political life. Traditionally, Chinese literati, by virtue of their vocation, expect to assume an official position; the only alternatives are either to engage in or to retreat from political life. And since nothing in the personality of the Sage is overdeveloped, since he never feels himself to be predisposed more toward one particular stance than another - and is therefore open to all eventualities - he can enter into public life or retreat from it with as much flexibility as possible, as the moment requires. One could well declare this to be opportunism, and, in effect, it is opportunistic. But it is essential not to misread its underlying ethic: any virtue to which we attach ourselves or that we consider more important than any others, however valuable, constitutes an inner fixation that will block the renewal of our personality, calcify our subjective dispositions, and sterilize our nature. In contrast, the blandness of the Sage makes it possible for him to embrace all virtues without being subjugated by any one in particular and to remain ready, throughout the inevitable fluctuations in political life, to face calmly and serenely the most pressing issues of his day. Like Heaven, he may well seem to change often, but he never deviates from his course.
[...]
Early Chinese thought pushed the opposition between the physical phenomenon of an emitted "sound" (sheng) and its capacity for harmony, or "tone" (yin), even further, in that it treats these two elements as a pair, like other oppositions: before-behind, high-low, great-small. It is in light of this type of contrast that the following aphorism (later to become a proverb) yields its meaning: "The great harmonic - sound at its most subtle," an all but paradoxical aphorism, which, in cutting short all musical effusiveness and so all harmonic loss, enriched the meaning of music.
That which cannot be heard through listening is what is meant by "sound at its most subtle." "The great harmonic" refers to sound that cannot be heard. As soon as sound is produced, a schism is introduced; and once there is a schism, one note exists while another exists not, and one loses command of the whole. That is why when the sound is produced, it is not "the great harmonic."
In the realm of vision as well, "the great harmonic" is without particular "form" (as a unique actualization); rather, it encompasses within itself all possible concretizations. The same holds true for the musical notes of the scale, for colors, and for flavors. One flavor can be more marked, but only at the expense of another; and at the moment when one musical note is sounded, it excludes all other notes. Here we recognize the adage "Omnis determinatio est negatio [Every delimitation is a negation]." Conversely, the "formless" and the "toneless" possess the ability to "communicate with all things" and to "reach all destinations." True harmony can only exist in a state prior to all differentiation, because it begins by leading us step-by-step down the ladder of wisdom...