Stephen C. Angle, Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University, USA “Kalmanson takes her long-standing commitment to comparative or crosscultural methodological interventions to the next level. This is philosophy at its finest—creative, nuanced, accessible, and meaningful.” Sarah A. Mattice, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of North Florida, USA “This wonderful book lives up to the ambition of its title. Kalmanson draws on linguistic and practice-based resources in ancient Chinese philosophy to breathe new life into current existentialist thinking.” Graham Parkes, Professorial Research Fellow of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria Engaging in existential discourse beyond the European tradition, this cross-cultural study brings existential practices from Asian philosophies to reassess questions of life’s purpose, death’s imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. LEAH KALMANSON is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Drake University, USA. P H IL O S O P H Y Cover image by Christopher Chiavetta, Green Key, 2019 (acrylic on paper, 12” x 12”). Photo courtesy of Alyss Vernon, Olson-Larsen Galleries (West Des Moines, Iowa). LEA H K AL MAN SO N The investigation begins with 20th-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryŏp, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts potent energy outward throughout the entire karmic network, enabling the transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a look at Asian sources more broadly. From Buddhist merit-making ceremonies to Confucian/ Ruist methods for self-cultivation, and from the ritual memorization of texts to Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This “speculative existentialism” counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action—not a how-to guide for living, but a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share. CROSS - CULTURAL EXISTENTIALISM “Kalmanson’s book exemplifies what is best about the new wave of cross-cultural philosophizing. She elegantly and insightfully weaves sources from Korea and China together with others from Europe and North America to challenge, enrich, and ultimately re-direct existentialism.” CROSS CULTURAL EXISTENTIALISM On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought ISBN 978-1-350-14001-1 9 0 1 0 0 Also available from Bloomsbury Academic www.bloomsbury.com 9 781350 140011 LEA H KA LMA NSON Cross-Cultural Existentialism 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 1 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Also available from Bloomsbury Comparative Philosophy without Borders, edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber Comparative Studies in Asian and Latin American Philosophies, edited by Stephanie Rivera Berruz and Leah Kalmanson Differences in Identity in Philosophy and Religion, edited by Sarah Flavel and Russell Re Manning Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy, by Takeshi Morisato Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses, edited by Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew Whitehead 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 2 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Cross-Cultural Existentialism On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought Leah Kalmanson 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 3 19-08-2020 17:29:05 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Leah Kalmanson, 2021 Leah Kalmanson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p.vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image by Christopher Chiavetta, Green Key, 2019 (acrylic on paper, 12” x 12”). Photo courtesy of Alyss Vernon, Olson-Larsen Galleries (West Des Moines, Iowa). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kalmanson, Leah, 1977- author. Title: Cross-cultural existentialism : on the meaning of life in Asian and Western thought / Leah Kalmanson. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Expanding the scope of existential discourse beyond the Western tradition, this book engages Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life’s purpose, death’s imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by European existentialism in theory, the book explores concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative existential writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout the entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a study of East Asian traditions more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Song-dynasty Chinese views on mental cultivation, Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This ‘speculative existentialism’ counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a howto guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020020646 (print) | LCCN 2020020647 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350140011 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350140028 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350140035 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Existentialism. Classification: LCC B819 .K235 2020 (print) | LCC B819 (ebook) | DDC 181–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020646 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020647 ISBN: HB: ePDF: eBook: 978-1-3501-4001-1 978-1-3501-4002-8 978-1-3501-4003-5 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 4 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Contents Acknowledgments vi Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 1 Meaningful Dilemmas: Existential Inquiry in the Western Tradition 2 The Creation of New Values, Part I: Karmic Transformations 3 The Creation of New Values, Part II: Cosmic Correspondences 4 Rituals for Existential Re-habituation Conclusion: Return to Inner Experience 1 Notes References Index 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 5 17 41 69 95 129 143 168 182 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the advice, critical feedback, and support of the members of my writing group, Aaron Creller (University of North Florida), Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island), and Sarah Mattice (University of North Florida). Their positive influence on the manuscript cannot be overstated; all deficiencies are my own. I would like to thank Drake University for granting the sabbatical leave that enabled this project in its early stages. I would also like to thank my parents, Neil and Mary Kalmanson, who were so excited to hear I was working on a book that they began telling people about it before I’d actually written anything, which prompted me to get started. Finally, I am grateful beyond words to my husband Christopher Chiavetta, who was never bothered by the piles of books on the kitchen table or the Chinese-language flash cards taped to the walls, and who provided the artwork that I am so proud to have on the cover. Image Acknowledgment Cover image by Christopher Chiavetta, Green Key, 2019 (acrylic on paper, 12 x 12 inches). Photo courtesy of Alyss Vernon, Olson-Larsen Galleries (West Des Moines, Iowa). 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 6 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism The sovereign desire of beings is what is beyond being. Anguish is the feeling of danger related to this inexhaustible expectation. —Georges Bataille1 Sometimes it boggles the mind that death is still a mystery. If philosophical “progress” is judged by traction gained on that particular problem, then we cannot be said to have gotten very far. Yet our impending mortality never fails to stir up opinions. Of course, we can ignore the question of death, or call it absurd, or accept the inevitable and move on—but any serious inquiry into the meaning of life must give due credit to the persistent uncertainty of our final destination as a motivating factor behind common existential concerns. As will be evident in what follows, my own concerns tend toward ultimate questions: the origins of existence, the nature of sentient life, the mystery of death. Facing the sheer quantity of all these uncertainties, my work in the present book grows out of a strong belief that effective existential philosophy must be a practice as much as it is a theory. This belief is not unique—European existentialists on the whole take seriously the idea that their philosophies are meant to be lived. However, as seen in Pierre Hadot’s (1922–2010) research on ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, academics today have lost the specific techniques for philosophical practice that were once central to the discipline.2 In a telling comment, Hadot concludes his discussion of Greek and Roman “spiritual exercises” by saying: “Not until Nietzsche, 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 1 19-08-2020 17:29:05 2 Cross-Cultural Existentialism Bergson, and existentialism does philosophy consciously return to being a concrete attitude, a way of life and of seeing the world.”3 Undoubtedly the attention to concrete experience and everyday life is a key feature of existential philosophy, but I find little evidence of explicit instructions for “spiritual exercises” in the style of the ancient Greeks and Romans in existential writings.4 As a result, without a repertoire of practical strategies for existential re-habituation, certain dilemmas of Western thought repeatedly reemerge at crucial junctures in philosophical studies on the question of meaning in life. In particular, a problematic understanding of subjective interiority—the inner life of the mind—remains influential, despite explicit theoretical moves taken in existential thought to reject, subvert, or circumvent subject–object dualism and the metaphysical picture of the self that accompanies it. For this reason, the present exercise in cross-cultural existentialism looks to East Asian discourses that approach the phenomenon of subjective interiority differently. Such traditions not only include robust theoretical articulations of the nature of inner life but also offer a range of practical techniques for mental cultivation, self-transformation, and existential realization. Some of these techniques, such as meditation, have already received attention in contemporary cross-cultural philosophical literature; but many of the practices that we will explore have not been taken up within philosophy and certainly not within existentialism, such as Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and divination via the Yijing (᱃㏃) or Book of Changes. Along with such practices, we find what has been called a “microcosm-macrocosm” model of the relations between humans and their environments.5 This model assumes that fundamental structures are isomorphic across myriad phenomena, from the smallest scale to the largest, such that transformations at one level can potentially reverberate up and down by means of corresponding systems. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 2 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 3 As such, this model reframes the distinction between the inner mind and the external world and thereby undermines a number of binaries that have long shaped Western thought, such as realism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and materialism and vitalism. More provocatively, it challenges assumptions about the dividing line between the natural and the so-called supernatural—a line that either explicitly or implicitly limits what contemporary existentialism will entertain as a reasonable or plausible answer to the question of meaning in life. In other words, when we ask about what is really meaningful, a lot depends on what we mean by reality. Chapter 1: Is Anything “Really” Meaningful? This book entertains a simple but provocative question: What if mental experience is not unique to the brain or otherwise housed “within” the skull? Reading a wide array of texts in East Asian philosophy, we find the pervasive assumption that mental energies reside both inside and outside the body, that such energies can interact with each other, and that they in turn can interact with other types of energies in the material environment.6 How might these assumptions about the character of mental life affect existential inquiry? As noted above, most contemporary philosophers reject the idea of a metaphysical subject—historically, phenomenology and existentialism in Europe, as well as analytic philosophy in the Anglo-American world, all arose as reactions against metaphysical speculation. For example, phenomenology attends to the minutia of immediate experience without making claims as to the nature of the “self ” or the metaphysical status of the subject. Likewise, contemporary analytic philosophy looks into the relationship between the mind and the brain from numerous perspectives, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and the more recent field of neurophilosophy. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 3 19-08-2020 17:29:05 4 Cross-Cultural Existentialism None of these discourses on either side of the continental–analytic divide conceive of mental experiences as the kinds of energies routinely mentioned in East Asian traditions. The present project exploits the simple fact that, in rejecting the metaphysical subject, Western philosophy has mostly rejected one or more of its own versions of that subject (i.e., Plato’s rational charioteer of the body, the Christian soul, Descartes’s “thinking thing,” and so forth). What if we return to speculative philosophy for the sake of considering views on mental life that do not reduce to one of these Western versions? The investigation begins in the first chapter with a recent debate between two prominent American philosophers over the question of meaning in life, in which underlying assumptions about the subject– object divide show up particularly clearly. Their disagreement concerns whether, objectively speaking, existence has meaning, or if instead meaningfulness is merely a quality of subjective experience. As we will see, these are the only two options entertained: either meaning exists “out there” somehow, independently of us; or meaning is a figment of our minds. The first position seems to commit us to a degree of realism or perhaps religion (i.e., the idea that meaning exists on its own, like a Platonic form or a God-given fact), while the second seems to resign us to nihilism in the end (i.e., the world at large, regardless of the human experience of it, remains meaningless). The remainder of the chapter contextualizes this dilemma within the history of realist–idealist debates in Western thought. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we see philosophy stumped again and again by the limits of subjective experience, unable to speculate about what might lie beyond, whether this refers to metaphysical realities or simply the nature of objects presumed to be external to the mind. We trace the impact of this dilemma on twentieth-century existential philosophy, from the work of Simone de Beauvoir, to the related writings of phenomenologists, and through recent critics who have proclaimed phenomenology dead. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 4 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 5 In particular, emerging fields such as speculative realism, new materialism, and object-oriented ontology all criticize, in different ways, the phenomenological picture of subjective interiority.7 Many of these recent turns in continental philosophy and critical theory are indebted to the speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947),8 whose work, as Steven Shaviro points out, has been overshadowed by that of the existential phenomenologist Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), in terms of influence on twentieth-century and contemporary continental thought.9 The “speculative existentialism” developed in this book is inspired by these recent critical turns in Western discourse but generally seeks to ground itself in close readings of Asian philosophical material with a minimum of comparative exposition. As said above, by “speculative,” I mean that this work pushes back against the resistance to metaphysics characteristic of contemporary phenomenology and existentialism. But, I should also clarify, so-called metaphysics itself is a category constructed by and within the parameters of Western intellectual history, and so the extent to which the East Asian material this book will engage should be called “metaphysical” is debatable.10 Rather than argue over the use of the term, I aim instead to read East Asian philosophical claims about the nature of reality in their own words, with reference to the original languages wherever possible,11 in order to see how these claims can change our understanding of the practices central to human meaning-making. In particular, by enabling us to challenge assumptions about the parameters of subjective experience, East Asian discourses help us redefine “speculation” itself not as the interior ruminations of a subject looking out on the world but rather as a dynamic activity that transforms both selves and their environments. Eiho Baba has recently argued that the word usually translated as “perception” (zhijue ⸕㿪) in Song-dynasty (960–1279) Chinese texts “is not a passive ‘seeing’ as it were, of a predetermined reality, but a participatory determination, 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 5 19-08-2020 17:29:05 6 Cross-Cultural Existentialism if not artistic production of the world through cultivated skills of appreciation and realization.”12 As this shows, the Chinese terminology helps to push the notion of speculation in a dynamic direction—rather than reflecting states of mind, modes of awareness, or theoretical attitudes, the Chinese terms for knowing and perceiving all indicate the creative, mutually transformative interplay between human consciousness and the world. A “speculative existentialism” is a trans-egoic activity, not only an intellectual theory. Chapters 2 and 3: On the Question of Meaning-Making in East Asian Thought Issues of translation and terminology figure prominently in any cross-cultural philosophical venture. Before the terms “philosophy” and “religion” were translated into Asian languages, early encounters with European Christians show East Asian scholars and officials attempting to classify foreigners according to local categories.13 They drew on precedents related to discourses surrounding the reception of the Indian dharma or “teachings” in China vis-à-vis the indigenous traditions of daojia/daojiao (䚃ᇦ/䚃ᮉ), or Daoism, and rujia (݂ᇦ), or the “scholarly lineage” that has come to be called “Confucianism” in the West. Confucianism is a misleading term that suggests the historical figure of “Confucius” (Kongzi ᆄᆀ, 551–479 BCE) was the founder of a religious, or perhaps philosophical, movement. In fact, the tradition known in Chinese as rujia well predates the life of Kongzi, and Kongzi himself denies being an innovator.14 Rather, he was a member of the “lineage” or “family” (jia ᇦ) of the ru (݂), a term better translated as “scholar” or “literati.” The ru were members of China’s educated elite: they were most often employed as educators or government officials, they were versed in classic philosophical 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 6 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 7 and literary texts, and they were qualified to preside over various state rites and civic ceremonies as well as the rituals performed at ancestral shrines. Throughout this book, I use the alternative English terms “Ruism” and “Ruists” to refer to the tradition and its members. This use of Ruism also better conveys the sense in which the standards of practice for the “scholars” or “literati” might be applied cross-culturally. The historian Clinton Godart has commented: “When speaking about ‘Asian philosophy,’ the burden of proof is placed on the Asian traditions. Questions are posed such as ‘was Confucianism philosophy,’ not ‘was Hegel a Confucianist’ or ‘did he complete the Way?’ Thus Westernization has created a cultural imbalance of categories and representations.”15 My terminological choices in this book are often aimed at correcting this imbalance. For example, it may sound strange to ask whether Hegel was a “Confucianist” but less so to ask whether he was a good “scholar” by Ruist standards. In this sense, along with Ruism, I use the term “dharma” to speak broadly of Buddhism and its teachings related to enlightenment or awakening (“buddha”16 means “awakened one”). In general, I will be treating both Ruism and dharma as flexible categories whose standards for practice can be applied across cultures much as we already apply the standards definitive of “philosophy” and “religion.”17 This captures the precise sense in which my work is in “cross-cultural existentialism.” Compared to other fields within philosophy, existentialism has been marked by diverse voices, including scholarship in the African diaspora, such as Black existentialism and Africana critical theory, as well as in Latin America, and in Asia. My commitment to a methodological intervention via Ruist and Buddhist scholarly practices is indebted to this boundarypushing and boundary-crossing heritage of existentialism as a field. With all this in mind, I seek in the second chapter to understand the provocative existential writings of the twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Wonju (1896–1971), dharma name Iryŏp,18 who asserts that meditative concentration is not simply a 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 7 19-08-2020 17:29:05 8 Cross-Cultural Existentialism private affair but instead conducts a potent energy throughout the entire karmic network in which all beings are located, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential condition. To understand what she could possibly mean will require philosophical speculation. The key point—the reason why this existential project must be speculative—is that a cluster of broadly Buddhist and Ruist theoretical assumptions about the nature of mind and reality underlie Iryŏp’s understanding of the efficacy of her meditation practices. I would do a disservice to her thought were I to pluck such practices out of this theoretical context and thereby avoid engaging her own philosophical sensibilities.19 Buddhist views on emptiness and impermanence have already inspired a number of major works in comparative philosophy on existential themes, especially through engagement with the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).20 That said, in order to contextualize Iryŏp’s account of the trans-egoic power of meditation, the second chapter pursues an alternative but complimentary track, taking inspiration not from the Buddhist analysis of emptiness but from everyday practices related to the production and exchange of karmic merit via various ritual enactments. A study of this karmic economy helps to explain the exchange of energy underlying Iryŏp’s seemingly fantastical account of enlightened beings as creators of worlds and her conviction that the “inner” experience of the meditator’s mind reverberates well beyond the bounds of the body.21 In the end, we find that her provocative views on meditation require a broader look at the relation of Buddhism to other philosophical traditions in East Asia, especially Song-dynasty Ruist thought, which began in China and spread as a scholarly movement into Korea and Japan. As will become clear, my book is ultimately about the radical existential vision of Ruism, a tradition that has, in general, received less attention than Buddhism in comparative existential work. And, accordingly, in this book I approach Iryŏp as a Ruist thinker as much 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 8 19-08-2020 17:29:05 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 9 as a Buddhist, although this may at first seem counterintuitive, given her progressive politics and feminist commitments. But Iryŏp is a syncretic philosopher, whose deep ties to Christianity (her father was a Methodist preacher) give her a unique perspective on the philosophies of East Asia as well as the religious crises that inform European existentialism. And syncretism is a key feature of the three major East Asian traditions in general—Buddhism, Ruism, and Daoism—which are marked by a long history of mutual influence and accommodation. Given all this, Iryŏp’s idiosyncratic take on Buddhist philosophy, which cannot be understood apart from the broader East Asian philosophical assumptions that inform it, is a productive starting point for this existential investigation. Next, in the third chapter, I reexamine Iryŏp’s account of meditation in light of East Asian theories on the cosmology and ontology of qi (≓), which has roots in China’s earliest literature but comes to the fore as a subject of philosophical speculation among the Ruists of the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties. A qi-based philosophy offers a plausible framework for explaining why Buddhist practices are existentially transformative and, ultimately, how activities at the microcosmic level of human awareness (e.g., meditation) have efficacious reach into the surrounding community, environment, and even cosmos. The term qi (≓) has been translated into English variously as “vital stuff,”22 “psychophysical stuff,”23 and “lively material.”24 As theorized by the Song and Ming philosophers, anything that exists is some form of qi, whether it is condensed and palpable, as in physical objects, or dispersed and ethereal, as in the spiritual energies of the human mind. The study of qi was simultaneously the study of the corresponding term li (⨶), which refers to the “structures,” “principles,” or “patterns” observable in qi’s actions and tendencies.25 Through their investigations into qi and li, the Song–Ming philosophers posed questions such as: Given the 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 9 19-08-2020 17:29:06 10 Cross-Cultural Existentialism creative potency of qi, why does it configure itself into the world as we know it, as opposed to other possible configurations? Does a certain order (li) govern the behavior of qi? If so, how do we apprehend and enact this order? Some philosophers assert that li has no independent existence but only describes the tendencies inherent in qi itself. Others seem to suggest that li is a governing principle that does exist on its own and can be studied as such. Many others take a position somewhere in between, speaking of the mutual dependence of the two terms. As the famed Song-dynasty scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200) says, “In the cosmos there has never been any psychophysical stuff without structure nor any structure without psychophysical stuff.”26 Above all, li refers to the correspondences that obtain between various microcosmic and macrocosmic levels of reality. Zhu Xi himself took inspiration from the opening passage of the Daxue (བྷᆨ) or “Great Learning” section of China’s classical text the Liji (⿞䁈) or Book of Rites, which gives a clear picture of the mutually transformative relations between microcosmic and macrocosmic structures: The ancients, in wishing to illuminate luminous power in the world, first brought good order to their own states. Wanting to bring good order to their states, they first regulated their households. Wanting to regulate their households, they first cultivated themselves. Wanting to cultivate themselves, they first corrected their minds. Wanting to correct their minds, they first made their intentions sincere. Wanting to make their intentions sincere, they first extended their knowledge. Extending knowledge consists in investigating things. Investigate things, and knowledge is extended. Extend knowledge, and intention becomes sincere. Make intention sincere, and the mind becomes correct. Correct the mind, and the self is cultivated. Cultivate the self, and the household is regulated. Regulate the household, and the state is brought to good order. Bring good order to the state, and the whole world will be at peace. From the ruler down to ordinary people, all must regard the cultivation of the self as the root.27 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 10 19-08-2020 17:29:06 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 11 A structural isomorphism is evident between these different levels named in the Daxue, which reflects what sinologist Jana Rŏsker has described as “the structural compatibility of mind and the external world.”28 In other words, there is a basic compatibility between the heart-mind (xin ᗳ) of the sage and conditions in the surrounding environment, both social and physical. An individual is certainly impacted by her environment, but at the same time she can exert a strong and charismatic influence over the world around her. The recursive behavior of qi, or its ability to interact with itself in its different phases to produce increasingly complex manifestations of structure (li), is the key feature that enables the Daxue’s program of personal, social, and environmental cultivation. In Ruist terms, the sage (shengren 㚆Ӫ) is the person who has put in the time and effort toward self-cultivation that enables her influence over surrounding conditions. Self-cultivation is often described as a process of manipulating the qi of the heart-mind to achieve stillness (jing 䶌), numinosity (ling 䵸), and spiritual clarity (shenming ⾎᰾).29 In contrast, petty or “small” people (xiaoren ሿӪ) fail to attain access beyond the perspective of their own limited awareness. They barely understand themselves, let alone the outside world and other people; their qi remains turbid and cloudy. The general framework of qi-philosophy provides crucial context for understanding Kim Iryŏp’s views on meditation discussed in the second chapter. As Kim claimed, meditation is not simply a private experience but an efficacious practice that conducts transformative energy into the surrounding world. Here, her language seems to reflect overarching East Asian views on qi as much as her Buddhist training. In fact, the three philosophical traditions of Ruism, Daoism, and Buddhism converge on a key point that has far-reaching implications for our existential engagement with the question of meaning-making: namely, these traditions all agree that a creative power issues forth from the well-cultivated heart-mind of a sage or enlightened being. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 11 19-08-2020 17:29:06 12 Cross-Cultural Existentialism At this point we can better appreciate the resources that the Chinese tradition brings to the project of speculative philosophy: if we are looking for a mode of speculation that grants us access to reality beyond the constraints of the ordinary subjective perspective, then this intermixing of internal and external—this resonant attunement of mind-qi through the apprehension of li— is speculation par excellence. Issues such as solipsism, subjective idealism, and other apparent dilemmas of subjectivity, which have so frequently thwarted philosophical and existential inquiry in the West, may turn out to be—no offence—only a function of limited (xiao ሿ) thinking. Power, Structure, and Meaning In the engagement with Buddhism and Ruism in the second and third chapters, we look not only for theoretical insights but for concrete practices aimed at enacting this transformed and transformative sage-consciousness under real-world conditions. In addition to the terms qi and li above, a third Chinese philosophical concept becomes important for articulating these practices: de (ᗧ), often defined as “virtue” or “power,” is associated with forces of nature and the momentum of natural cycles, the human capacity for radical self-transformation, and the moral charisma of exemplary political leaders. The relation of structure (li) to power (de) in Chinese thought points toward potential interventions in contemporary continental philosophy and critical theory, which have what we might call a deflationary account of subjective agency. In other words, the subject is fully an effect of social power, produced and sustained through a network of interlocking structures. The philosopher and sociologist Maurizio Lazzarato succinctly expresses this general trend in his recent study of capitalism and the construction of subjectivity: 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 12 19-08-2020 17:29:06 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 13 It is never an individual who thinks, never an individual who creates. An individual who thinks and creates does so within a network of institutions (schools, theaters, museums, libraries, etc.), technologies (books, electronic networks, computers, etc.), and sources of public and private financing; an individual immersed in traditions of thought and aesthetic practices—engulfed in a circulation of signs, ideas, and tasks—that force him or her to think and create.30 This constructivist account of subjectivity is indebted to thinkers such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, who themselves owe much to Friedrich Nietzsche’s hyperbolic declarations that the subject is a fiction and all so-called truth claims are power-grabs in disguise.31 Many feminist philosophers aligned with the continental tradition (and I count myself here) have wondered whether selves entirely constituted by power relations are not thereby determined by those relations. Various creative solutions have been suggested32 (and Butler’s own account of agency grows more robust over time), but still the possibilities for self-determination in the constructivist framework all seem like small cracks in the wall of the larger and dominating power structures that determine subjective life. Reflecting on this situation, Foucault develops toward the end of his career an interest in Hadot’s work and the forgotten practices of Western philosophy mentioned above, especially Stoic and early Christian practices of self-cultivation. As he writes: “Perhaps I’ve insisted too much on the technology of domination and power. I am more and more interested in the interaction between oneself and others in the technologies of individual domination, the history of how an individual acts upon himself, in the technology of self.”33 In this later work, we see a more optimistic and possibly liberatory side of social constructivist theory—we are not simply at the mercy of larger social forces but can play an active role in the construction of both self and society. Exploring this liberatory potential, Foucault investigates Stoic techniques for self-reflection, self-assessment, and self-control, 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 13 19-08-2020 17:29:06 14 Cross-Cultural Existentialism hinging on various uses of meditation, abstinence, fasting, and so forth. He comments: “In the culture of the Stoics, their function is to establish and test the independence of the individual with regard to the external world.”34 Here, in this moment of optimism, we again see familiar philosophical territory—i.e., the split between inner experience and outer world. In Foucault’s studies of both Stoic practices and Christian ones (such as confession and self-renunciation), we see this conflict between inner and outer, or between spirit and matter, marking an uneasy relationship between the rational soul and the world and the body that it occupies. Indeed, all such Greek, Roman, and Christian practices give us a picture of the self that is indebted to the very metaphysics of (spiritual) subject and (material) object that existential philosophy rejects. Overall, if we are looking for a systematic account of daily practices, both personal and social, that relate to enacting the vision of trans-egoic meaning-making expressed in existential theory, we will not find it within existential writings themselves. My turn to East Asian sources, then, marks a sharp exit from the binaries that covertly, or overtly, shape discourse about the human condition in continental philosophy and critical theory. Nietzsche’s call for the creation of new values still echoes—he was always optimistic about the constructive force of his philosophy—but no one has yet agreed upon what this value-creation requires.35 I want to take thinkers such as Foucault, Butler, and especially Nietzsche out of their home territory and resituate them in qi-based philosophy, where the operation of structure and the efficacy of self-cultivation speak to the fundamental permeability of “inner” and “outer.” Chapter 4: Building a Qi-Based Existential Vocabulary Although this is not a book about Friedrich Nietzsche, his ideas appear at key junctures throughout the work. As we investigate the 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 14 19-08-2020 17:29:06 Introduction: Toward a Speculative Existentialism 15 sage’s power to forge new values—values that are not simply the projections of subjective meaning onto the world—I remain indebted to Nietzsche and to cross-cultural philosophers who have engaged him.36 The great comparative philosopher of Nietzsche, Graham Parkes, tells us: One can love the world if, like Zarathustra, one has experienced it as all entwined and “perfect”—when as a streaming of will to power one streams with the “streaming and counter-streaming, and ebb and flood” of the ocean of energies that is the world as will to power; when like the Confucian thinker Mencius one has “cultivated one’s flood-like energies” so that they “fill the space between heaven and earth” and harmonize with “the Way” of the world; when like the Daoist sage one has accumulated one’s powers (de) and emptied one’s mind so that one’s activity flows from the Way of heaven and earth and the myriad processes; or when one reaches that “fundamental level,” as Nishitani puts it, “where the world moves at one with the self, and the self moves at one with the world.”37 Amplifying these resonances between Nietzsche’s work and a range of East Asian philosophies, the fourth chapter looks to build, in a broad sense, a qi-based existential vocabulary. Mindful of Nietzsche’s call for a new health—“the great health”38—speculative existentialism investigates concrete techniques for “daily renewal” (rixin ᰕᯠ) and “ceaseless vitality” (shengsheng bu xi ⭏⭏н᚟), seeking to move past the old existentialist values of anxiety, absurdity, and alienation, to imagine new ones, rooted in the daily discipline and balanced nourishment of philosophical practice. The small set of terms I select—namely, solicitude (you ឲ), seriousness (jing ᮜ), stillness (jing 䶌), sincerity (cheng 䃐), and spontaneity (ziran 㠚❦)—would certainly not be labeled “existentialist” anywhere within East Asian traditions themselves. But, in turn, each idea helps us to reframe the vocabulary of Western existentialism: solicitude instead of anxiety, seriousness instead of 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 15 19-08-2020 17:29:06 16 Cross-Cultural Existentialism absurdity, stillness instead of alienation, and sincerity and spontaneity in place of authenticity and freedom. Through this exercise, I do not seek to answer Western existential questions so much as to gain new perspective on the habitual modes of thinking that sustain those lines of inquiry and consider possibilities for re-habituation. Indeed, all of the terms I choose are associated with one or more practices, be these scholarly methods, contemplative techniques, or closer to what Western discourses would call religious rituals. In the end, my goal is not to articulate speculative existentialism as a how-to guide for meaningful living but rather an existential methodology that takes seriously the power of self-cultivation and, accordingly, recognizes the necessity of committing daily to the practices that develop such power. By the time the book concludes, we find that we have slowly redefined the contested category of “inner experience.” Rather than the phenomenological interiority indebted to a range of metaphysical and anti-metaphysical positions, a qi-based philosophy explains inner experience in terms of turbid and calm mental energies, which are not categorically differentiated from bodily forms and physical matter in general. The deepest sense of “inner experience,” on a qibased model, refers to the capacity of the heart-mind to relax into its primordial and undifferentiated state through various scholarly, ritual, and contemplative practices. By relinquishing accumulated mental structures, the heart-mind refreshes itself and replenishes its fundamental creative potency, making possible an existential re-habituation that speaks to the productive power of speculative thought. 9781350140011_txt_print.indd 16 19-08-2020 17:29:06