The Eastern Worldview — Revised

This article discusses the Eastern worldview shared by Eastern religions such as Taoism and Buddhism.

The Western cultures rely on logic and reasoning very much. Logic and reasoning are the cornerstones of Western thinking, and indeed, the entire Western civilization. Particularly, if you ever studied philosophy in a U.S. college, you would deeply understand what I mean. Studying Western philosophy means delving deeply into words, into logic, and sometimes lost in reasoning out the deeper meanings to be conveyed. As one of my friends jokingly put it, “studying philosophy is unhealthy.”

Unlike their Western counterparts, Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism are quite different – perhaps the opposite. They don’t rely on logic that much. There is no mind-boggling logic as seen in Western philosophy texts. Eastern philosophies, instead, rely more on intuition to get to the deeper meaning behind the logic and language. Logically faulty is not necessarily faulty altogether. Two logically contradictory statements are not necessarily one right and the other wrong. It might be, to the Eastern minds, both are right, or both are wrong. But is this possible?

In fact, Eastern worldview is complicated. The main difference from its Western counterpart is its emphasis on the interrelations between objects such as the sun, the earth, the moon, humans, animals, and plants – everything – rather than on the objects themselves and the attributes associated to these objects. In other words, the East believes that all phenomena in this world are the joint contribution of those interactions between seemingly disconnected objects. And it is because of these interrelations and interdependence that the Eastern minds believe that logic alone does not prove or disprove anything – the context from which the logic is drawn must also be taken into account.

Therefore, good or bad is not absolute; it depends on contexts. Same for right and wrong, light and darkness, or wealth and poverty. So while in Christian point of view (which represents largely the Western thinking) God is absolute goodness, in Eastern philosophies God is irrelevant of goodness or badness. It is both – it encompasses everything. It is neither – it doesn’t take a stand for or against anything, for if it does, it fails to encompass the other side, and thus not omni-. In Eastern philosophies, anything claimed absolutely good or bad is not the truth. Taking a stand is not the truth. To the Eastern minds, the world is not governed by an absolute goodness; it is governed by a neutral thing called Tao.

The Tai Chi symbol explains Tao beautifully. Tao is this void Oneness above two opposing energy or forces – the dualities. As represented by the two swirls of the Tai Chi symbol, the dualities seamlessly mingle with each other. They change from one to the other seamlessly and constantly, and they exist only because of each other. The duality, in fact, is the base of our brain’s logical thinking. It is this curious Tao that’s beyond our logical thinking and brain’s capacity.

So, those who have studied Zen/Chan and are logically bewildered by any of its statements or teachings shall not feel surprised anymore. And those who are logically puzzled by the fact that Zen/Chan is said to be taught beyond words shall not feel surprised anymore. After all, this Oneness, Middle Way, or Tao – whatever you might call it – is the ultimate Eastern worldview and reality. There is nothing in the universe that is not Tao. This is equivalent to saying, if you like, that there is nothing in the universe that is not created and sustained by God.