Blog post: Nearing, Seeing

[hilary]

On my ‘day off’ a couple of weeks ago, I went and wandered round the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, going whereever I felt drawn. Presently I found myself up on the second floor, in front of a huge wooden carving of a seated Guan Yin. There she is in her perspex box, faded cracking wood and bright eyes, hand raised in blessing.

Most statues in museums feel like – well – statues in museums. Guan Yin felt like Guan Yin, and I spent a long time standing and gazing up at her. Then a couple passed by and I stepped to one side out of their way – and then a French family came in. The smallest child, a boy of maybe three, ran straight to Guan Yin and stood at her feet, calling out, ‘Regarde! Regarde!’ (‘Look! Look!’)

The story tells how after a good life, Guan Yin was crossing the threshold of heaven when she heard a cry of suffering from the world, and turned back in compassion. She became the ‘goddess of mercy’, who always hears those who call: her name, 觀音, literally means ‘observes the sounds’ or ‘listens to the cries’. Guan, 觀, is the name of Hexagram 20, Seeing.

The Zagua describes how*Hexagrams 19, Nearing and 20, Seeing form a pair:

‘What is right for Nearing and Seeing: someone reaches out, someone seeks.’

Nearing and Seeing are two aspects of a single relationship, and the boundaries between them blur; the Zagua doesn’t even make any very clear distinction to say which hexagram might mean reaching out or seeking. In fact, Seeing seems to be one of those hexagrams that tacitly includes its pair: between actions, attention opens out a space for seeing where truth can be ‘like a presence’. In Hexagram 19, that presence Nears: it can be seen welling up in the yang lines of the hexagram

, and gazing down in the Chinese character (above). Guan Yin’s name shows that she Sees, and she also Nears and looks down over the world.

‘Regarde! Regarde!’

 

[lucia]

This is slightly off at a tangent so forgive but in the literature on the history of museums there is some fabulous stuff about the arguments that took place regarding who could and couldn't have access and therefore SEE the artefacts.

In fact public access only developed after the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th and early 20th century. In part because Thomas Cook (yes the travel company so famous now) originally started to rescue drunks and introduce them to the idea of temperance. One idea was to take them to SEE 'cultured' things in the hope that it would have an effect and elevate their minds. The British Museum tried to hold out against public access on the grounds that "the public" were beyond redemption and wouldn't know how to behave in their hallowed halls!

And the artefacts of Pompeii were only avaiable to be seen by male academics because females who were academically inclined may be damaged or corrupted! (all by seeing ha ha)

The 19/20 idea above made me think of bringing something into your field of vision. Indoeuropean languages are almost dominated by visual metaphores and somewhere in my boxes of nonesense I have the most amazing Australian PhD thesis that argues that this in turn has impacted on how we approach things.

just musing......

Lucia

 

[pocossin]

On my ‘day off’ a couple of weeks ago, I went and wandered round the Ashmolean . . .

I am all for bringing things into one's field of vision Have you seen Powhatan's mantle at the Ashmolean?

http://mccandlessa.people.cofc.edu/Photos/RoyalBritain2006/photos/photo118.html

This object was believed to represent the Tree of Life:

http://vismath.tripod.com/gor/index.html
The Soft Logic of Thomas Harriot by Ted Goranson

Harriot used paths on the Tree to represent unknowns -- a technique suppressed in his posthumous algebra. Goranson connects this to 'soft logic' or the 'situational logic' of Jon Barwise. I believe this soft logic to be a logic of divination.

 

[lucia]

Another completely unrelated to China thought that came to mind is the Sanskritic concept of Darsan (sorry no diacritics on my puta). Darsan signifies the relation of approach between deity and devotee.

The deity 'gives' darsan and the devotee 'receives' it, it is done by way of a physical approach and an exchange through the eyes. Sometimes, in Indian oleographs - those technicolour street level pictures that are so popular in India - it is illustrated by drawing little lines between the eyes of the devotee and the deity.

Lucia

 

[Sparhawk]

The 19/20 idea above made me think of bringing something into your field of vision. Indoeuropean languages are almost dominated by visual metaphores and somewhere in my boxes of nonesense I have the most amazing Australian PhD thesis that argues that this in turn has impacted on how we approach things.

just musing......

Lucia

Curious, whose PhD? A concept that sounds a little oxymoronic, IMO. I'm sure "whoever" read Saussure's works on linguistics and semiotics and how languages form. As far as I know, it isn't a chicken/egg situation of what came first, where we have these Indo-European languages and we "are this way" as a result. Language didn't predate us. I believe we "are this way" first and created languages that reflect that and evolved in tandem over time. The thinking processes of Far Eastern and Indo-European peoples are different in such a deep way that it is reflected in their languages. Which is why it is so difficult to "translate" (not "transliterate") ancient classical works such as the Yijing into Western/Indo-European languages: As opposed to alphabetical languages, in classical Chinese, the message is almost always greater than the sum of its written characters.

 

[meng]

The smallest child, a boy of maybe three, ran straight to Guan Yin and stood at her feet, calling out, ‘Regarde! Regarde!’ (‘Look! Look!’)

Nice.

As a young Catholic child, I never felt much connection with Mary. I figured, how warm and motherly could a middle aged virgin be?

But as young man, I was entirely taken by Guan Yin. Around the same time I had a vision of Avalokitesvara, before learning who he was, the male counterpart of Guan Yin.

There's a beautiful, weather beaten statue of her on someone's property, which I pass when taking the middle way. I don't like to stop and stare, lest someone suspect me of being a thief, as it's a fairly remote dirt road, and passing strangers are watched. But no matter where I see her, she enraptures me. Sometimes I have to stop and stare, and inside shout Regarde! Regarde!

 

[lucia]

Curious, whose PhD? A concept that sounds a little oxymoronic, IMO. I'm sure "whoever" read Saussure's works on linguistics and semiotics and how languages form. As far as I know, it isn't a chicken/egg situation of what came first, where we have these Indo-European languages and we "are this way" as a result. Language didn't predate us.

sorry Luis it is the way I wrote........ of course Sausure's work on langue and parole is the foundation for loads of contemprary academic thinking through semiotics right up to Foucault and dear old Derrida, Deleuze and Gautteri and so on but I didn't mean to imply the connection was causal.

The PhD thesis has actually been published as a book and is about photography film and vision.. He was either at Sidney or ANU I believe. I don't remember the title but if I come across it I will pass it to you because it is absolutely amazing and very thought proovoking. He looks at the development of dominant ideas of the visual in the day to day ie television and so on - not the content but the ways of looking.

In japanese art for instance, they didn't share our ideas of framing and perspective and what was outside the so called frame was as important as inside. But like it or not the telly and film and even the square frame of the computer etc have come to dominate and therefore that has had an impact both on metaphorical language and thinking - literally how we see things. Of course his argument is much more complex than that and I am dragging this up from ancient memory.

It is precisely because of what you say about translation that I was careful to say Indoeuropean. I speak very basic Mandinka for instance - trying to express ideas in terms of "translating" is agony for me because they just don't "peg" if you know what I mean.

He isn't, and neither am I, particularly arguing universals (in fact I wasn't arguing full stop ) but he does argue that with ideas about framing, perspective and more AND the visually dominant metaphors that have developed further and further in Indoeuropean languages, which are themselves dominant in publishing, film etc we have pushed ourselves down a visual alley we find it hard to escape from. We've closed the doors to other ways of looking/seeing if you like.

I was just musing on ideas of approach/vision sorry.........

another nice read although a little old now is Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By

Lucia

 

[Sparhawk]

sorry Luis it is the way I wrote........ of course Sausure's work on langue and parole is the foundation for loads of contemprary academic thinking through semiotics right up to Foucault and dear old Derrida, Deleuze and Gautteri and so on but I didn't mean to imply the connection was causal.

Ah, understood.

In japanese art for instance, they didn't share our ideas of framing and perspective and what was outside the so called frame was as important as inside. But like it or not the telly and film and even the square frame of the computer etc have come to dominate and therefore that has had an impact both on metaphorical language and thinking - literally how we see things. Of course his argument is much more complex than that and I am dragging this up from ancient memory.

Chuckles! The "paint-within-the-lines syndrome" we are hammered down in kindergarten... Sounds like an interesting read, indeed.

It is precisely because of what you say about translation that I was careful to say Indoeuropean. I speak very basic Mandinka for instance - trying to express ideas in terms of "translating" is agony for me because they just don't "peg" if you know what I mean.

Exactly, like trying to "properly translate" the Orisha's stories... Apropos, there's a very nice article in the latest Parabola Magazine titled "My Heart Stands in the Hill" by Neil Rusch that talks about /Xam San people of Southern Africa (now extinct) with accounts translated in a beautiful way, not because they make grammatical sense (very little, as a matter of fact) but because it fires images and associations in your mind you wouldn't otherwise. Here is an excerpt:

The Origin of Death

Dictated in 1875, in the /Xam Katkop dialect, by Díä!kwain. The storyteller begins with an incantation in which he makes a plea to the moon to give him its face so that he too might "again living return."

"For on account of these things, the Moon became angry with the hare; that the hare should have spoken in this manner, while the hare did not say: 'Yes, my mother lies sleeping; she will presently arise.' If the hare had assented to the Moon, then, we who are people, we should have resembled the Moon; for the Moon had formerly said, that we should not altogether die. The hare's doings were those on account of which the Moon cursed us, and we die altogether...."

------------

"Therefore, the Moon spoke, he said: 'You who are people, you shall, when you die altogether dying vanish away. For I said, that you should when you died, you should again arise, you should not altogether die. For I, when I a dead, I again living return. I had intended that you who are men, you should also resemble me and do the things that I do; that I do not altogether dying go away."​

 

[hilary]

I am all for bring things into one's field of vision Have you seen Powhatan's mantle at the Ashmolean?

http://mccandlessa.people.cofc.edu/Photos/RoyalBritain2006/photos/photo118.html

This object was believed to represent the Tree of Life:

http://vismath.tripod.com/gor/index.html
The Soft Logic of Thomas Harriot by Ted Goranson

Harriot used paths on the Tree to represent unknowns -- a technique suppressed in his posthumous algebra. Goranson connects this to 'soft logic' or the 'situational logic' of Jon Barwise. I believe this soft logic to be a logic of divination.

Yes, but I'll have to drop by for another look. I don't enjoy the Ashmolean quite so much since its revamp and modernisation - there was something special about an almost-empty building where the little type-written labels in the display cases have probably been there since about 1915. But it's good serendipity territory.

Another completely unrelated to China thought that came to mind is the Sanskritic concept of Darsan (sorry no diacritics on my puta). Darsan signifies the relation of approach between deity and devotee.

The deity 'gives' darsan and the devotee 'receives' it, it is done by way of a physical approach and an exchange through the eyes. Sometimes, in Indian oleographs - those technicolour street level pictures that are so popular in India - it is illustrated by drawing little lines between the eyes of the devotee and the deity.

Lucia

Have you read this on LiSe's site?

LIN: The character is composed of a man bending over (1), with a vertical eye (2): a slave, vassal or officer (GSR 377). Bending makes your eye vertical. And three mouths or objects (GSR 122). If they are objects, the meaning is class, to classify, quality, area, small, content, conceal. If they are mouths, it indicates a number of people one cares for. But they also resemble Ding (population, attendants or sound of wood-chopping) GSR833, L-LY64. Another old form of Lin shows connecting lines between the eye and the objects (a).

Wonderful.

...As far as I know, it isn't a chicken/egg situation of what came first, where we have these Indo-European languages and we "are this way" as a result. Language didn't predate us. I believe we "are this way" first and created languages that reflect that and evolved in tandem over time. The thinking processes of Far Eastern and Indo-European peoples are different in such a deep way that it is reflected in their languages.

Debatable - like chickens and eggs. Language certainly predates you and me - and how would you or I think if we'd been brought up speaking Chinese as a first language? Differently, I imagine.

 

[Sparhawk]

Debatable - like chickens and eggs. Language certainly predates you and me - and how would you or I think if we'd been brought up speaking Chinese as a first language? Differently, I imagine.

I believe you took my words too literally... When I said "us" I didn't mean it as you and me, that "us," in the present, is at the tail end of that evolution; I meant it as "us, Indo-European types with a historical lineage that goes back to its earliest recognizable homogeneity..." And yes, it has been proven that Chinese people "think differently", specially where it has to do with abstraction and math and that difference is linked to the way their language is structured. When Chinese do math, different parts of their brains fire up in scans from Western minds. The studies and the proving conclusions are not that old, perhaps a year or two old...

 

[meng]

We go awry to think humans are the first to invent language, unless language is defined in extremely narrow terms. I like the language of moon and rabbits, and it's very obvious the rabbits like it too.

But I admit, it leaves me slack jawed and dumb when someone defines meaning according to a word meant to describe it.

Words come from it, and do not fathom it.

 

[hilary]

I believe you took my words too literally... When I said "us" I didn't mean it as you and me, that "us," in the present, is at the tail end of that evolution; I meant it as "us, Indo-European types with a historical lineage that goes back to its earliest recognizable homogeneity..."

I know . The point I was making - or failing to make - is about the nature of that Indo-European homogeneity thing we have going on. Where do you locate it? You seem to be looking for it somewhere before our language was formed - but wouldn't that mean it was a racial, not a cultural feature? (Unless you can demonstrate how culture exists before language - have fun with that.) And I don't buy the notion of racially different brains. If I'd been raised with Chinese as my first language, I assume my brain would light up in the Chinese way when doing maths, don't you? (If my brain ever lit up at all when confronted with maths, that is.)

 

[maremaria]

Interesting posts everyone !

A confusing association which has stuck into my mind re 19 and 20 is the words under-stand. I know it’s the opposite of Over-see but in those two hexs, I see all the senses not just seeing. ... or it is another hex ?

 

[meng]

I know of no better hex than 19 for under-stand. It's interesting, and it clearly fits with Hilary's blog about Kuan Yin, as she is above all things, understanding. But she is also 20, overseeing those who look up to see her, moving over the earth. She is the moon.

Trigram-wise, the lake is under the earth, as though cradled by the earth, in 19 - under-standing. But there is also the element over overseeing, as the earth oversees the lake. The lake is lower than the earth, all around supported by the earth.

20, wind blowing over the earth, isn't (under)standing but overseeing, a comprehensive view.

19/20 as deity makes much more sense to me than either one or the other.

 

[maremaria]

both create the basis for a holistic view of things /approach

When I get either 19 or 20 the first question I ask my self is " where should I stand?", where to position myself in order to see what I have to see. up there, down there ?

But i don't want to derail this thread. Will open another one soon.

 

[Sparhawk]

Good morning. Back in front of the screen...

I know . The point I was making - or failing to make - is about the nature of that Indo-European homogeneity thing we have going on. Where do you locate it? You seem to be looking for it somewhere before our language was formed - but wouldn't that mean it was a racial, not a cultural feature? (Unless you can demonstrate how culture exists before language - have fun with that.)

Well, I'm sure you are aware that what you are asking is the subject of countless boring volumes and PhD dissertations. A mighty task to compact a short, coherent answer... Not sure how to address your point until I figure out what bothers you about the concept I presented. May I presume that perhaps it is due to the inherent fragmentary nature of European cultures, being Europe a relatively small territory with many, very discernible, and proudly so, cultural insularities? I'll try.

Let me start saying that the intention is not to "bag" presently different cultural treats and clearly discernible languages into the Indo-European proverbial sack and leave it there as proof of "cultural similarities." That would be silly. It is, however, to present a historically proven, common language provenance (the roots of many words, the creation of alphabets, etc.), for the disparity and atomization we appreciate in the present, which is what it appears to be said in the PhD dissertation Lucia was talking about and, from what I gather, it was implied within that "we/us=Indo-Europeans," think, abstract and visualize the way we do because of how OUR languages, written and verbal, evolved over time. That the usage of "alphabets" have shaped our minds over time. (something I actually agree with) When I questioned what Lucia posted is because I misunderstood the "sequence" of the events presented. In her initial post, as she later acknowledged, a first read would seem to say that "language came first" and "we were shaped by it". My counter was: "NO, language cannot predate a people; language is the product of a people" (something so obvious that is funny to assert in writing...) The corollary is that, at some point in ancient history, when the need to record IT, begot "writing," a choice was made (perhaps not altogether conscious; who knows...) by "we/us=Indo-Europeans" --already very fragmented by that time, of course--, to invent standard systems to pictorially represent specific and common phonetics, easily recognized later, to transmit and re-form spoken words without vocalization: "alphabets". The actual invention of alphabets talks about the minds of the inventors and their people. The historical and geographical branching between the need to record "sound bits" (a brilliant development otherwise) instead of pictorial concepts and ideas, so well done in ancient Chinese, for example, IS what attest about the difference in the way ancient, isolated cultures, evolved in their mental processes.

You said:

You seem to be looking for it somewhere before our language was formed - but wouldn't that mean it was a racial, not a cultural feature? (Unless you can demonstrate how culture exists before language - have fun with that.)
​

Languages, as people, and with people, migrate. In that migration, they interact with other languages and other people, and they breed new languages and new people (just think about the British Isles in the last 2000 years...). Our current species, Homo Sapiens, didn't just pop-up in different places in the globe at the same time. There is a common source for them. In their migrations and propagations, discernible groups settled down and established civilizations where languages further evolved in a more or less orderly fashion within their fragile insularities, all the while acquiring new words while trading with and/or conquering neighboring territories. It is that ancient seed, roughly located between the Tropic of Cancer and the N50 parallel and between the E30-E80 meridian, that gave birth to what is called Indo-European languages and where alphabets were first invented.

I actually believe that languages, at their inception, were both cultural as well as racial constructs. Current ease of communication and "political correctness" seem to blur and/or taboo such an idea. However, one only has to think about "isolated people+time+language" to know exactly what happens. Following that thought, one can see what's happening with current openness and instantaneous communication between all corners of the globe, and easily extrapolate that in a few hundred years (granting there are Homo Sapiens standing on Earth and that there is global communication) not only there would be very few discernibly different languages but that the lingua franca of that time would be almost completely foreign to us in the present, the product of evolution and assimilation of different parts from different languages.

BTW, there is no need to demonstrate that culture predates language. Language is the evolved product of a culture.

And I don't buy the notion of racially different brains. If I'd been raised with Chinese as my first language, I assume my brain would light up in the Chinese way when doing maths, don't you? (If my brain ever lit up at all when confronted with maths, that is.)

Perhaps you are comparing, or equating, brains, the organ, with mind and the way it processes information. Well, yes, all Homo Sapiens share the same organ. No, not all Homo Sapiens process information in exactly the same way. You are talking about "racial differences" when, IMO, the focus should be on "isolation" and evolution within said isolation. Visual differences, which include cultural traits, what is commonly called "race," as in "2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics" is the product of that isolation and should be secondary to the actual cause: "lengthy evolution within relative isolation."

I must find that study I mentioned and post a link here... It isn't like there are subtly minute differences in the way math and abstractions are processed. Completely different parts of the brain are used for the same purpose and such difference can be traced back to language and its representation.

 

[meng]

 

[Sparhawk]

Cool! Is that a carved Guan Yin? Such a random place makes it fascinating.

 

[meng]

I believe it's just cast masonry, Luis. I could only shoot from outside the wire fence. I got permission from an older kid who lives there, but I didn't ask to enter inside the fence. Always get a nice dose of peace when passing by. It really is the middle way, in-between the long walk and shorter walk, which I find pleasurably significant.

 

[maremaria]

I like that she is looking at the empty bench next to her. Feels like an invitation "i'll stand by you" says to the ones sitting there...

( sorry, I'm spending much time studying drawings and images )

 

[hilary]

"NO, language cannot predate a people; language is the product of a people" (something so obvious that is funny to assert in writing...)

BTW, there is no need to demonstrate that culture predates language. Language is the evolved product of a culture.

And yet these tremendously obvious things are exactly what I was questioning. Maybe culture is the evolved product of a language; maybe our idea of ourselves as a 'people' is also the product of a language.

Or maybe not - and maybe this is all exactly as useful as the chicken/egg debate. But it's interesting to be aware of the extent to which our way of thinking and seeing is the product of our language; helps to challenge the idea that it's easy or straightforward to know the absolute truth.

Dear Maria, why on earth are you worried about derailing the thread?

 

[meng]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/10/monkey-language.html

"Hack hack hack pyow hack hack" might not mean much to human ears, but to a putty-nosed monkey it means, "I'm adult male X; I have just seen an eagle; I will now move away," according to a new study showing that primates can combine individual calls to express different meanings.

"For one thing, they say, there's no syntax – a basic requirement of language. Without combining words and then being able to switch combinations to change meaning, goes the argument, what animals use is more like a code than a language."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08monkey.html

 

[bradford]

I think Guan being used with Yin as an object supports my polysemy theory.
I suppose people with synesthesia see cries, but most of us hear (or feel) them.
We need a word that is broader than seeing to translate Guan in Guan Yin, but
one that doesn't contradict or diminish the "observe" meaning.
I would suggest "attends the cries"

 

[Sparhawk]

And yet these tremendously obvious things are exactly what I was questioning. Maybe culture is the evolved product of a language; maybe our idea of ourselves as a 'people' is also the product of a language.

That last bit would be perfect for the current immigration debates in the US... Ok, I've exposed what I believe is correct. I will not assume you have a diametrically opposing opinion. What's yours? Where do you think language comes from?

Or maybe not - and maybe this is all exactly as useful as the chicken/egg debate. But it's interesting to be aware of the extent to which our way of thinking and seeing is the product of our language; helps to challenge the idea that it's easy or straightforward to know the absolute truth.

Hmmm... True.

Dear Maria, why on earth are you worried about derailing the thread?

Uh? I actually think Lucia presented something interesting and apropos to the thread and I replied to what I understood of it, even if I was initially mistaken in what I thought the dissertation spoke about.

 

[meng]

I would suggest "attends the cries"

Works for me.

I think hardly anyone feels really understood by anyone. Being understood by "she who attends the cries" brings deliverance. It's not a crippling sympathy or an excuse provider. Someone seeking an excuse wouldn't be inspired by her anyway. But someone seeking understanding would.

The feel or sense I get from the male counterpart, Avalokitesvara, whose image is always present on my bedroom wall, is not like that of Guan Yin. He is unmoved and constant, and transcends dualistic thinking. I never know what to say to him, except an occasional thank you.

 

[lucia]

The Origin of Death

Dictated in 1875, in the /Xam Katkop dialect, by Díä!kwain. The storyteller begins with an incantation in which he makes a plea to the moon to give him its face so that he too might "again living return."

Luis that is lovely and reminds me of the jeli or griot stories my BF occasionally tells me if I pester him enough or if I’m sick. But I couldn’t see the rest of it because the page you linked to is subscription-based.

Have you read this on LiSe's site?

Hilary
Quote:
LIN: The character is composed of a man bending over (1), with a vertical eye (2): a slave, vassal or officer (GSR 377). Bending makes your eye vertical. And three mouths or objects (GSR 122). If they are objects, the meaning is class, to classify, quality, area, small, content, conceal. If they are mouths, it indicates a number of people one cares for. But they also resemble Ding (population, attendants or sound of wood-chopping) GSR833, L-LY64. Another old form of Lin shows connecting lines between the eye and the objects (a).

Wonderful.

How could I miss it – how silly of me Duh! But I guess it makes sense if you think about it as even before the spread of Buddhism and Hinduism there must have been plenty of traffic between E and S Asia as there was between S Asia and S E Africa although the latter hardly gets a mention.

As far as I know, it isn't a chicken/egg situation of what came first, where we have these Indo-European languages and we "are this way" as a result. Language didn't predate us. I believe we "are this way" first and created languages that reflect that and evolved in tandem over time.

I think the problem of chicken/egg language/culture is the Cartesian influence on the way "we" look at things and a concept of time that is linear and teleological . Our very frame of analysis, is of course, culturally influenced. How about they are just mutually implicated?

I know . The point I was making - or failing to make - is about the nature of that Indo-European homogeneity thing we have going on. Where do you locate it? You seem to be looking for it somewhere before our language was formed - but wouldn't that mean it was a racial, not a cultural feature? (Unless you can demonstrate how culture exists before language - have fun with that.) And I don't buy the notion of racially different brains. If I'd been raised with Chinese as my first language, I assume my brain would light up in the Chinese way when doing maths, don't you? (If my brain ever lit up at all when confronted with maths, that is.)

Absolutely….. the idea of cultural homogeneity just doesn’t pan out – and part of that thinking came from the idea that everyone just sat about twiddling their thumbs until we came along and “discovered” them. See, for instance, a very old book, by Eric Wolf – Europe and the People without History. (He’s being ironic….) Likewise for “nations” that were so often represented as “naturally” developing from “tribes” see Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities (or better still see my Mandinka partner for a great rant about the latter); and here is a link to a great poem by Daniel Defoe with regard to the “English” (see post number 5 and 6)

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=9366&highlight=true+born+englishman

Luis, I found the study you refer to in Newsweek. It reminded me of something I posted about a year or two ago: Vygotsky’s idea that mind extends beyond the skin. That a child develops with a sort of two-way traffic between external influences and situations and internal mental formation (simplifying massively here). He first developed his ideas on his work with brain-injured people who were then able to re-develop damaged cognitive abilities in new parts of the brain. This is an extremely interesting idea that opens the door for much more nuanced thinking and, of course, enables us to include in that, ideas that go way beyond the so-called rational – think I ching for instance! As for “race” you don’t have to submit to the lunacies of so-called political correctness (a term originally invented by the political “right” to challenge the Civil Rights movement) to know that it is heavily contested even on a biological level. There can be wider variants within so-called races than between them – even in the realm of disease proclivities such as sickle-cell it is not genetically organised in that way. A similar argument was put forward last year about Chinese dyslexics on the grounds that Chinese is a visual, memory, learnt language while aurally learnt alphabetised languages were not. But that has already fallen flat with studies of English-speaking dyslexics that show that for them, dyslexia is also a visual issue. The point is that there is no one “cause” for dyslexia. I agree with Hilary’s suggestion: if you were raised in China from babyhood, your brain would light up differently too. And I have to say, the “Chinese” have never been “isolated” never mind the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism which is quite old no? The history of anthropology which is a fascinating history has unfortunately impacted (with a massive time lag) on popular thinking. Contemporary anthropology, which is so so interesting in it's debates, has yet to escape (very much) the confines of journals and small print run books. Interestingly anthropology and photography were invented at the same time - oh the roving eye of the camera.

I think Guan being used with Yin as an object supports my polysemy theory.
I suppose people with synesthesia see cries, but most of us hear (or feel) them.
We need a word that is broader than seeing to translate Guan in Guan Yin, but
one that doesn't contradict or diminish the "observe" meaning.
I would suggest "attends the cries"

Yeah, I like that too. Never mind that polysemy is both a great word and a very useful concept but your post bought me back to India again (with a little prod from Meng’s posting) and Asoka’s pillars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillars_of_Ashoka

back to Hilary……..

Nearing and Seeing are two aspects of a single relationship, and the boundaries between them blur; the Zagua doesn’t even make any very clear distinction to say which hexagram might mean reaching out or seeking. In fact, Seeing seems to be one of those hexagrams that tacitly includes its pair: between actions, attention opens out a space for seeing where truth can be ‘like a presence’. In Hexagram 19, that presence Nears: it can be seen welling up in the yang lines of the hexagram, and gazing down in the Chinese character (above). Guan Yin’s name shows that she Sees, and she also Nears and looks down over the world.

Buddhism of course, didn’t develop in a vacuum, and when it comes to studying Buddhist symbols (as in Asokan pillars for instance) polysemy is the way to go…….

Those pillars made me think again of Nearing and Seeing

More musings…………

Lucia

 

[lucia]

Here's another, better link for those Asokan pilars:

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html

Lucia

 

[hilary]

Ack, just as this is getting superbly interesting, I find I have 11 hours' work scheduled for the day. Ungh. Grmph.

Luis, my point was that I was cheerfully derailing 'my own' thread... and who said they had to run on rails anyway? Rambling in the long grass is much more fun.

 

[lucia]

And another rather nice link for Asoka and his 50ft high pillars:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/acRBNzquSrOA5ZYNmLWA_g

Interesting comment by Amartya Sen - here's a little bit of it:

Ashoka… Shok is grief in Sanskrit. Ashoka is griefless, so there is a kind of commitment to happiness. We don’t know if he was born with that name or not; he may have been called just that – my name, Amartya, means immortal – I know that’s not true. In his case, it might have been more true!

Love it........

Lucia

 

[lucia]

Sorry folks now I'm button twiddling again.....

On another page of the same BBC site lo and behold.................. Ting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/9ncaOZABRHO5tcKeacBlJQ

meanwhle "Race" from a geneticist................

The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise."
-- Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

One of the important geneticists of the 20th century, Stanford’s Italian-born population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza summarized his work in Genes, Peoples, and Languages, which challenged the concept of classifying human populations into races in the same way that birds and other species are classified. Cavalli-Sforza was one of the first to suggest that the genetic history of the human species might be viewed by examining the genetic variation present in modern populations.

Lucia