Why Learn Classical Chinese?
Originally published November 1, 2021.
What follows is just a little rumination that I wrote almost 10 years ago, which I just happened to come across in the bowels of my computer. I still find it valid today, and maybe you find it interesting or take it as yet another tiny nudge to look into my offerings, from the free two-month “Introduction to Classical Chinese” to my two-year intensive Triple Crown training program, which starts every other year in September. I invite you to check out my WEBSITE: TRANSLATINGCHINESEMEDICINE.COM.
Here we go:
While I was in the midst of preparing a lecture on the Dàodéjīng for my university students, I once again got the difficulty rubbed in my face of how to teach this foundational text to an audience that is, for the most part, not able to read it in its original language. Is it even possible to communicate anything meaningful about it in English? Isn’t it like describing a banana to a penguin in Antarctica? You be the judge….
Why learn to read classical Chinese?
I am convinced that classical Chinese has a way of accessing the deeper truths in nature, in heaven and earth, and in the human condition, that no modern language could ever express. It has a way of playing with layers of meaning in each character, with dimensions and relationships, of evoking feelings and connections between overlapping and actively interacting fields of reference. I am further convinced that we, by studying it and reading it, can slowly begin to acquire the ability to perceive the world in such a non-rational, non-linear, heart-centered mode that we can then apply to whatever aspect of truth we are interested in, whether it be medicine, aesthetics, gardening, wood-working, or parenting. When we translate Zhuangzi’s stories that celebrate the happiness of the fish or poke fun at the concept of usefulness of crooked trees and non-honking geese for humans, a simple short story of a few lines can stimulate us to go deeper and deeper and ever deeper – and when we return to it a decade later, deeper yet. Once we open ourselves up to this kind of thinking, its ramifications cannot but pervade every aspect of our lives, making us question our common-sense judgments and assumptions about the meaning of things, the way things “should be.”
I promise you this: Once you have embarked on this journey of learning classical Chinese, you will never experience your encounters with the world around you in the same way, whether your child throws a tantrum and breaks down in tears in your arms, the milk boils over on the stove, rush-hour traffic forces you to slow down, a snow storm leaves you snowed in without power for days, or your garden is overrun by stunningly beautiful dandelions. You may just slow down to smell the roses. Stop and listen. And embrace the transcendent beauty of the present moment.
And this ability to perceive the hidden deeper nature or truth of things or situations, their xìng 性, and to allow yourself to be guided by the dào 道and ultimately witness its manifestation in powerful dé 德 (“virtue-power”), this is precisely the skill needed for the mastery of any art, including the art of medicine. What is medicine, after all, if not the intention of promoting life by strengthening our patients’ bodies (heart, mind, soul, and everything else) and helping them avoid or heal from dis-ease as the manifestation of a disconnect with their own hearts, by guiding them back to their heavenly nature, their xìng 性, and helping them find their dào or, from another angle, their mìng 命 (“destiny” or “Golden Path”)? We have all observed the manifestation of this perceptive mode in the acupuncturist’s skill in manipulating the Qì with the needle, the herbalist’s instant recognition of the necessary formula and modification, the face reader’s knowledge of the patient’s biography and potential, the cosmologist’s ability to relate the present microcosm to the universe at large, and so on. And as teachers, this is what we need to cultivate, in ourselves and our students and the world around us.
