Kuan Yin explains it all: Love and my Theory of Knowledge.

I’ve been trying to finally write down my view on epistemology (theory of knowledge) for a long time but I have had a hard time to get a good example in order to show, more than tell, what I’m rambling about.

I thought of dancing first, but then I realized that I had to strip a lot of thing from this concept in order to make it fit, although some day I plan to make a demonstration (I’m using the examples thou). Then I thought of dominoes, but I’m still working on that one for some other madman’s rambling.

Finally, Kuan Yin was merciful enough to give me a good example (thanks to Campbell too, who actually wrote about it in Myths to Live by).

Campbell tells us that one day (and please check the book if you want to read it whole, this is just a summary of Campbell’s summary), an astonishingly young woman came to a remote village in China, near the Yellow River, where people never heard of religion before. She carried a basket full of fishes which she sold in the town’s market and then disappeared, this happened for a few days and the young men all over town had taken note of this mysterious, beautiful young woman. One morning, some of them stopped her and pleaded with her to marry.

She replied “I’m just one woman, I can marry all of you”, following with: “If one of you can recite by heart the Sutra of the Compassionate Kuan Yin, he is the one I shall choose”. They had never even heard of such a thing, but that night they studied the Sutra. The following morning they were thirty.

Now, getting back to epistemology, this could be defined as “material knowledge”. Corresponding to Jung’s earth/sensorial psychic trait, the young men of the village where learning about the girl using her senses: seeing her come and go with her basket, no interaction had been previously established, so only senses had been used in “learning” this young woman. Also, reciting the Sutra means only repetition, there’s no more interaction with it than just getting to know this thing in his material part: it’s letters, words and phrases. In dance, we learn of it using our senses by seeing people dance, touching your dancing partner, listening to music.

To these thirty men, the young woman said “If any one of you can explain the Sutra, he is the one I shall wed”. Only ten came back.

These men studied this Sutra, they analyzed it, broke it down in parts to be tested, compared, you name it. This is “intellectual knowledge”, the air/intellect Jungian trait. In dance, you learn this trait while learning the steps of the dance, this is what professional dancers do when learning a choreography, but there’s more to dance, and Bodhisattvas, than a ritual (as Kung-Tse would say) and that’s the difference between good and great.

“If any one of you can in three days realize the meaning of the Sutra, he is the one I shall marry surely”, with this, the young woman dispatched the remaining men once again.

Now, these men knew the Sutra and its explanation (how it works, I assume a literary analysis). Why would she ask them to realize it’s meaning? Isn’t knowing this thing what’s important?

Well, no.

While material and intellectual knowledge are based on the thing itself (like the water that fills the lake, very Yang-like), there’s more to it. The following are, by some reason, types of knowledge that most Occidentals either take for granted or just take as “non-sense”, this is knowledge that comes from around the thing itself, by it’s sole existence and interaction with the rest (like the basin that makes up the lake, very Yin like).

The first one has to do with the relation of this one thing with the rest of the Ten Thousand Things, what is its place and how it correlates with everything else, ergo, meaning. Now, the context in which the thing is evaluated gives different answers to this question, like the meaning of WWII has when viewed from different angles and times: it’s not the same for a German in the first years of Blitzkrieg, or in 1945, when they ran out of supplies; or for a Jew before and after the creation of the Ghetto; or for an American before Pearl Harbor or after they came into Berlin in Sherman tanks.

This is “intuitive knowledge” the fire/intuition trait of Jung. Fire you ask? Just let me tell you that in the I Ching, Fire is also called “lo Adherente” (Clinging, Adherent), and you can only adhere if there’s something else to cling to. In dance, You may now the dance and its moves, but are the partners that give it meaning, its definitively not the same see two long-time dance partners how know each other for a long time, than two people that might be great dancers by themselves, but have just met.

Finally, only one men realized the Sutra’s meaning, his name was Mero (Meru?). The beautiful woman smiled and said “I perceive that you have indeed realized the meaning of the blessed Sutra of the Compassionate Kuan Yin, and do gladly accept you as my husband. My house you will find this evening at the river bend, and my parents there to receive you”.

Mero found a little house at the shore. In its entrance, an old man and woman greeted him saying “We have been waiting for you a long time” and led him to their daughter’s room. The room was empty (a great metaphor, see below), and through the window he saw the footprints of a woman’s feet in the sand, which he followed, to find in the water’s edge two golden sandals. He turned around and the house was gone, and in that moment he suddenly knew: the young woman had been the Bodhisattva herself, “and he comprehended fully how great is the benevolence of the boundlessly compassionate Kuan Yin”.

As I’m writing this, I’m also learning, I just realized something.

The final type of knowledge has been around since the beginning of the fable. It has been implicit in all the narration and thus, it has never been treated openly until now. After all these obstacles Mero finds the young woman’s room empty, now it’s time to remember how this story came to be: Mero was in love with the young woman and asked for her to marry him, but when he finally achieves its objective he finds the room empty, whatever he wished for was not there. He sees footprints in the sand outside the house (his “prize”), and remembering/learning what his feelings were originally and now, he goes after the young woman. This is the last type of knowledge: emotional knowledge. If intuitive knowledge has to do with the thing’s relation with everything else, emotional knowledge has to do with the meaning of the thing within itself. Dancing with a friend is one thing, but with a lover is a whole different ballgame…

To end this rambling, as an Oroboros, emotional knowledge is the Alpha and the Omega of the fable, and being this a “self-development” one, it has a linear progression, so it needs some further explanations.

First, this fable points the interesting fact that the same knowledge that is finally attained is the on that drives the plot from the beggining. The knowledge is there, but it requires the rest of the types to finally “get it”. This is what Jung says about individuation and what the Arcana of the “Wheel of Fortune” refers to.

Second, these types of knowledge are not mutually-exclusive: you may be an excellent dancer, but with no soul; know the steps, but fumble with a new partner; suck at it but have memorable dances with a loved one.

That’s it, the fun’s over.

KX.