A meditation on a simple Chinese proverb:
The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of their meaning. Once you've got the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
(Chuang-Tzu)
This is an interesting proverb to meditate on. At first I did not see the correlation or analogy he was making. But I broke it down through dialectical determinism or simply by the understanding of circuit.
"Once you've got the meaning, you can forget the words." - So he is saying that the word is a symbol, it is a means to an end. The word is the hollow shell that you use to arrive at the center, the meaning. The word is a certain level of abstraction, we seek to experience the actual event, that which created the necessity for the word.
So now how does this relate to a fish trap and catching fish or any other animal? Lets find the positive and the negative in this event. The desire or end goal (synthesis) is sustenance/food/energy. How do we actually experience this achievement or realization. We do so through the fish. the fish trap (like the word in the proverb) is a means to an end. So the fish trap must be the negative and the fish must be the positive.
When we have created the circuit, i.e. we have caught a fish or obtained a synthesis, what use is the fish trap? Yet the fish also dissolves, it returns to the zero dimension where it exists again only as an idea or essence. The poles have balanced each other out and dissolved, there is harmony and balance in this moment.
It's interesting also, because you could look at it like this: we use our ingenuity, the Mind which would be the positive pole to create a trap which becomes the negative, which in turn induces the animal to become the positive pole. And before the Mind is invoked it would be considered as being in the zero dimension or in a state of balance. We invoke it on our 'conscious' level which is where it takes the position of the positive pole. And the cycle goes on from there. Alpha/Omega/Alpha. Rest/Action/Rest. Synthesis/(Thesis-Antithesis)/ Higher Synthesis.
Everything can seemingly be broken so easily while also being applied to daily life. We should be teaching our third graders this stuff.
