“In order for the notion of ‘body’ to take on substance here, it would have been necessary to envision a counterpart for it. But here the ‘actualized form’ is that which arises out of the flows of energy that permeate particular concretions, without any break in the sequence or intrusion from without. In this transition from non-existence to the existence of an individual person, the Western notion of the body does not figure – cannot figure – because the perspective remains that of a homogeneous and continuous process.”(François Jullien – Vital Nourishment – Departing from Happiness Chapter 6).
“I can doubt that I have a soul, but can I doubt that I have a body? François Jullien asks. “Can I doubt that which ‘body’ designates as a fundamental, primary notion, based on a perception that is, in principle, the most immediate and general of all, at once internal and external, and about which everyone therefore agrees without a moment’s hesitation?
Yes and no. The issue here is that when it comes to translate the three Chinese interrelated terms for denoting what we in the West simply call “body,” none of them fits, because in the West “body” arises as the opposite of “soul,”and Jullien has already shown that “ancient China had no need for a “soul.”
Xing refers primarily to the actualized form; shen to the personal entity, the individual self; and ti to the constitutive being.
Jullien writes: “Let us begin, therefore, with the simple fact that there are several interrelated terms for denoting what we in the West simply call ‘body’ (soma, corpus). Let us explore the subtle differences between them.These Chinese words intersect in meaning but do not precisely coincide. Each implies a particular perspective, and these perspectives coexist side by side. None is subordinate to any of the others, and no term subsumes them all: xing refers primarily to the actualized form; shen to the personal entity, the individual self; and ti to the constitutive being. None of these terms coincides completely with the Western notion, because each echoes certain other words, and certain pairings of the three terms help to clarify their meanings. Thus ‘actualized form’ is understood in relation (a relationship of both opposition and complementarity) to the transcendent-animating dimension (shen) that precedes all actualization. The ‘personal entity’ goes with the function of moral consciousness and knowledge of the heart-spirit (xin) that governs it; the ‘constitutive being’ has breath-energy (qi) as its partner, being the materialization of the latter by way of condensation. On the one hand, these paired terms form, as before, poles (of intensive content) rather than specifying descriptive determinations.On the other hand, when I speak of subtleties of meaning, it is because the semantic alternatives are sometimes barely distinguishable; the boundaries blur, or the components of the couple become interchangeable, suggesting shifting notional landscapes in which neither member of the pair monopolizes the meaning and no axis structures it.”
In other words, Jullien concludes: “What is meant by “body” remains a diffuse notion in classical Chinese, and its configuration varies. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that in order to translate the modern European term it was necessary to fix a more neutral and rigid meaning a compound word that detaches its two terms from their semantic moorings: ‘body’ is usually rendered as shen-ti (the constitutive being as a personal entity, the individual self).”
In Zhuangzi, it is xing, or the actualized form, that usually carries the sense of “body”
Jullien, however, adds: “In Zhuangzi, … it is the other of these neighboring terms, xing, or the actualized form, that usually carries the sense of ‘body’ (when I say ‘my body’; for example, wu xing, ‘me, (my) ‘actualized form’). But the term’s meaning covers a broad spectrum, and because it has no strict limits, the notion of body thereby seems to be graduated. On the one hand, it is verb-like, connoting action (in the sense of giving form to and actualizing; compare xing xing: ‘to give form to form’, to ‘bring it out’). On the other hand, used as a noun, it retains the idea of concrete, particular actualization. In this respect, it contrasts with the stage in which something is invisible because it is not actualized. Here, it characterizes the progressive (de), absolute capacity of the repository of things (the dao) – in alternation with death, individual life is described as a coming-and-going ‘from the nonactualized to the actualized form’ as well as ‘from the actualized form to the nonactualized form’. In other words, for Zhuangzi, what we call the body was first and foremost a “process” rather than a “thing,” we could say a process of actualisation.
“Conceived globally, what I would call my ‘body’ thus becomes here, in the language of Zhuangzi, the particular actualization, subject to continuous modification, which, as such, constitutes me fully and form my only possible identity. Both before and after this stage of actualization, all identity falls apart: the ‘fundamental’, that which belongs to the foundation of things (the dao), is the stage of the diffuse-confused and therefore also of the abyssal ‘blur’ or ‘vagueness’ of dissolution and the ‘return’ to the undifferentiated.”
“That is why Chinese thought has no ontology: it has no world of concrete essences.”
This apprehension of the “body” as a process of actualisation leads Jullien to assert: “That is why Chinese thought has no ontology: it has no world of concrete essences. It possesses neither an individuating soul nor an opposing concept of matter.” Here Jullien is using the word ‘on-tology’ in its strict Greek sense of the foundation of being (on). In China, what we would call “matter” is a process of materialisation. So Jullien can say: “It does have, though, ‘materialization’ by way of continuous concretion (under the yin factor), as well as ‘animation’, which dispels its opacity and unfolds it (under the factor yang). Like the external world, I am shaped and kept alive by this tension between self-compensating opposites. The actualization that constitutes me (xing) is thus conceived entirely in terms of the process of concentration-emanation that brings it about. Not only does it give me density and alertness, but it also makes me opaque and brings me clarity. In doing so it forms and transforms me. Here, my ‘nature’ is indeed the entire vital being heaven bestows on me before anything is added to it by my subjective affective reaction (qing). Thus no dualism is possible here: forming a pair with the more subtle and quintessentialized stage of energetic breath (jing), the individuated formation that constitutes me in a more physical sense ‘takes root’ and ‘is vitalized there’.”
This is why Zhuangzi claims that he did not have to mourn the death of his wife
If the human body is a process, interacting with all other processes interpenetrating each other, death is but a phase – the deactualization that followed the actualization – and there is no reason to shed tears over it. Do we shed tears when the seed dies while giving birth to the green shoot on its way to actualize the bush or the tree? Zhuangzi therefore describes the process on naturalist grounds as follows: “From the mixture within the haze, by modification, there came breath-energy (qi); from the breath-energy, by modification, there came this actualized form (xing), and from this actualized form, by modification, there is culmination in death.” So, Jullien can conclude: “We have here the actualized form, or, better, the actualizing form (xing, the only word that could correspond to “body”), originating directly in the cosmic breath. It is the individuating concretion of this energetic breath and, as such, prior to the particular advent of life … Furthermore, in order for the notion of ‘body’ to take on substance here, it would have been necessary to envision a counterpart for it. But here the ‘actualized form’ is that which arises out of the flows of energy that permeate particular concretions, without any break in the sequence or intrusion from without. In this transition from non-existence to the existence of an individual person, the Western notion of the body does not figure – cannot figure – because the perspective remains that of a homogeneous and continuous process.”
“It should be clear why using the notion of ‘body’ would be restricting. It misses the processive dimension”
What ancient China is offering us is, from the standpoint of the West, a different paradigm, where what constitutes “me” is a process of actualization of my whole vital being. This, Jullien says, “becomes especially evident if I translate, as literally as possible, the way I ‘practice’ or ‘put to work’ my actualized form (wei xing). This can have no other meaning than maintaining or feeding my life: for, as it happens, ‘to toil to enrich myself’ to the point of amassing inexhaustible riches ‘remains outside’ this (good) ‘putting to work’ of the ‘actualized form’ that I am. Similarly, to ‘worry night and day’ about achieving honors is to ‘remain at a distance from it’. Likewise, ‘concern’ about extending my life for fear of death ‘remains far away’.’ It should be clear why using the notion of ‘body’ would be restricting. It misses the processive dimension, that of a global development that incorporates and is conditioned by the moral attitude, as is proper to vital nourishment. Not only does my ‘actualized form’ (xing) ‘fail to be born’ (or ‘to live’) “without the dao, as it is said, but also it is ‘by causing this actualized form (xing), which constitutes me, to exist (fully)’ that ‘I can unfold my life most completely … As long as I cease to see myself as a soul and a body, each establishing its own register, and instead regard myself as a processive actualization or formation, organic and ‘functional’, which is animated and deployed to a degree proportionate to the decantation and de-opacification that takes place within me … My being may allow itself to become totally materialized by things and thus become a reified thing, or else it may free itself from these obstructions and focalizations of the vital and thus reestablish communication both within itself and with the world, reinciting and breathing new life into itself.”
Source:
François Jullien – Vital Nourishment, Departing from Happiness (2007)
