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• A Chinese model of cognition:
the Neiye, fourth century B.C.E.

by
Fabien Simonis

• Department of History
McGill University, Montreal
February 1998

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and

Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the degree of Master of Arts

•••• ©Fabien Simonis, 1998

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•

To my family,

•
 ii

•
Abstract 1 Résumé

HA Chinese model of cognitive activities: the Neiye. fourth century

BCE."
This is an attempt at construing descriptions of cognitive
activities found in the Neiye, an early Chînese text (fourth century
BCE) preserved in the Guanzi compilation. Through the notions of
metaphor and cognitive model, and by means of hermeneutic
principles developed by George Lakoff and other theorists, 1
scrutlnlze the text, trying to unravel the peculiar understanding of
the cognitive functioning of the body upon which it is predicated. 1
focus on four words: xin (heart), shen (spirit), qi (breath), and qing
(emotions). As a result of this enquiry, the physicality of cognitive
activities in the Neiye stands out clearly. The importance of the body
in cognitive activities should appear as clearly in translations if we
want to get closer to the Chînese understanding of their own writings
instead of reading them through categories which only make sense in

•
our own constructed reality, our Lebenswelt.

hUn modèle chinois des activitiés cognitives: le Neiye (quatrième

siècle av. J.-C.)"
Cette étude tente d'interpréter les descriptions d' activités
1

cognitives que l'on retrouve dans le Neiye, un texte chinois ancien (4e
siècle av. J.C.) préservé dans la compilation du Guanzi. Par les notions
de métaphore et de modèle cognitif, et à l'aide de principes
herméneutiques développés notamment par George Lakoff, j'analyse
ce texte en détails, en tentant de découvrir sur quelle compréhension
du fonctionnement cognitif du corps il se base. Je concentre mon
attention sur quatre termes: xin (cœur), shen (esprit), qi (souffle),
et qing (émotions). Au bout de l'enquête, l'aspect physique des
activités cognitives apparaît dominant. L'importance du corps dans la
cognition devrait aussi ressortir dans les traductions si l'on v eut
s'approcher de la compréhension que les Chinois avaient de leurs
propres écrits plutôt que de lire ces derniers à travers le prisme de

•
catégories qui ne font sens que dans notre construction particulière
de la réalité, notre Lebenswelt.
 iii

•
Preface

1 first encountered the Neiye in a seminar with Professor Robin

D. S. Yates. at McGill university. Back then, we painstakingly read
about half of the text, often wondering how to interpret numerous
outlandish passages. Indeed, even with the help of Professor Yates's
remarkable knowledge of classical Chïnese and Guo Moruo's erudite
annotations, the feeling of difference was still so pronounced tbat we
gave up trying ta understand several passages of this difficult text.
It is ooly later that 1 became really interested in the fascinating
craft of hermeneutics and the possibilities it opened for students of
other cultural realities. In history and the humanities in general,
there has a been a clear move, in the last decades, away from what is
known as Hintellectual history" and "history of ideas." If 1 chose i 0
this study to go against the trend and focus on a single text, however,
it is not to claim the superiority of one type of history ovec another,

•
but at once to develop a deeper understanding of a text important in
the formation of early Daoism, and to reach a certain mastery over
two concepts useful for aIl hermeneutic endeavors: the notions of
"metaphor" and ﾷｾ｣ｯｧｮｩｴ ve model." This study will therefore appear to
many as a perhaps overly ambitions attempt at applying to an
ancient Chinese text hermeneutic principles derived from a field w i th
which sinologists rarely have any contact: cognitive science.
My advisor, Professor Yates, between bis numerous trips
abroad, managed to provide me with stimulating criticism, both
general and on details of my interpretation. Despite the little time he
had to spare, he managed to be sa thorough in bis (two) ceading(s)
that 1 was unfortunately unable to follow on Many interesting leads
he gave me. The numerous flaws which undoubtedly remain in the
following pages are mostly attributable to my lack of diligence in
following his insightful advice. 1 was aIso unable to give enough
thought to Many comments made by Professor Roger T. Ames, who
accepted to be the external reader of this thesis. 1 could not address

•
all his thoughts in this context, but 1 will consider them as invaluable
suggestions for further research. In my quest for the meaning of the
 iv

•
Neiye? 1 also benefitted from Many discussions with my father,
discussions which were only loosely related to the topic deve loped
ｨ･ｲ ｾ but which contributed to developing the flexibility of mind and
the distrust of common sense necessary to conduct this kind of study.
1 also want to thank my friends, especially Saejung and m y
sister Caroline, who both put me up (and put up with me) while 1
was writing this paper. Unfortunately, 1 don't think any of them will
ever read this preface, let alone the chapters that follow! Sometimes,
however, 1 could not help thinking of academic pursuits as but
flickering glimmers shedding elusive light on non-existent territories.
ln these moments of disaffection, my friends were always able to
reinstate in me the impression that 1 was going towacds rather than
away from .

•
 v

• Abstract / Résumé
Table of Contents

Preface .ili

Introduction: Studying ｾ ｯｴｨ･ｲ realities." 2

Chapter 1: A hermeneutic strategy for cross-cultural studies:

interpreting metaphors and cognitive models 12

1- The Lebenswelt : an anti-foundational view of reality 13

A. The notion of Lebenswelt 14

B. The persistent difficulty of interpreting alien categories 15

•
c. The relations between language and reality: non-arbitrary
meanings in non-foundational realities 16

D. The notion of metaphor: a window into alien categories 19

II- U nderstanding and construing metaphor 21

A. Poetic and rhetorical metaphors: ad hoc figures of speech 21

B. The semantic deviance of poetic metaphors 21

C. Construing metaphors 22

1. Paul Ricœur: "What meaning does a metaphor express?" 22

2. Taking metaphors literally (1). Donald Davidson:

"Under what circumstances are metaphors true?" 23

3. Taking metaphors literally (2). Samuel Levin: "What

conceptions do metaphors imply, and what are the
epistemological consequences of accepting these
.
concepbons r. . .25

•
 vi

•
4. Lakoff and Johnson: metaphorical ｾｯｮ｣･ｰｴｳ in our
understanding and experiencing of the world 27

S. The delicate notion of literality 29

6. AlI reading involves construal 32

111- Accessing the ancient Chinese Lebenswelt : analyzing

Chînese terms as metaphors 33

Chapter 2: What it implies to see the he art as the locus of

conSClOUS
. acu·VI'u'es .37

1- The importance of not neglecting the meaning of xin 37

A . The diftierences be tween .

Xln, t" and'"mInd"
"hear, .38

B. A difficult phrase: xin zhi xing ＨＯｾ ｾ JfIJ ) 40

C. The dangers of "psychologizing" ancient Chinese texts 41

D. A first step towards avoiding "psychologization":

•
taking terms literally 45

11- The consequences of ascribing conscious activities to xin 46

A. Introduction 46

B. Approaching the Lebenswelt of the authors of the Neiye:

the general consequences of ascribing cognition to the heart....47

Chapter 3: The physicality of cognitive activities in the Nejye 51

• -b:- ｾＩ .'
1- QI ｾ ,da0Z!!. and Xln IL.,\ ....•..••...••••.••.••••.•••.••.•.••••.•....•.••.•......•.••••..•... 51

A. More than simple breathing techniques 51

B. Dao in the Neiye: what it is and how to attain it 53

C. Xin in the Nejye: a concrete location in the body 55

11- The physicaIity of cognitive practices in the Neiye 58

A. Two important passages 58

• B. Seeing the internai logic of cognitive models 59

 vii

•
111- The heart in its natural form as the only access to dao 64
• ｾ､Ａ •
IV- Jlng:t!j:r as a bodily state 67

V - Countering the stirring effects of the senses and

emotions on the heart 68

A. The importance of escaping Westem folk psychology:

external stimulations as stirring q i and the heart 68

B. Guan T C'offices" 1 senses): a political metaphor 70

C. Qing 1i (reactions to the outside world 1 erootions):

a tricky metonymy 71

VI- Xin zhi xing ［Ｈｾ｜Ｎ ..t.JftJ : the proper configuration of the heart 76

Chapter 4: The mind-body problem, higher levels of consci-

ousness in the Neiye, and early Chïnese mysticism 80

1- Irrelevance of the mind-body problem in early

Chinese thought 80

• A. The problem with the mind-body problem

B. Beyond "the mind": towards a more suitable understanding

of cognition and perception in the N eiye
80

83

11- The difficulty of ｳ ｨ ･ ｾ ｡ ｮ ､ its meanings in the Neiye 85

A. The oddity of shen in Western categories 85

B. The primary and metaphorical senses of s he n :

adj usting our definition of category 86

C. Shen in cognitive models 87

D. S he n as a lexicalized metaphor: following

perceived homologies 88

E. Shen in the Neiye: a ghost or a metaphor? 91

111- Conceptions of body, cosmos and knowledge:

how they May he related 94

• A. The body as a naturai metaphor? 94

 viii

•
B. Early Chïnese mysticism 97

Conclusion 10 1

Appendix 1: passages in Chinese 109

Bibliography 111

•
• The most dangerous delusion of all is tbat tbere is only one
reality.
-Paul Watzlawick CHow Real is Real?
Confusion. DjsinformatiQn. CommunicatiQn
(New York: Vintage Books, 1977), p. xi.)

Ruman beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor

aione in the world of social activity as ordinarily
understQod, but are very much at the mercy of a particular
language wbich bas become the medium of expression for
their sQciety. It is quite an illusion to imagine that 0 ne
adjusts tQ reality essentially without the use of language
and tbat language is merely an incidental means of solving
specifie problems of communication or reflection. The fac t
of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent
unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

•
[...] We see and hear and otberwise experience very largely
as we do because the language babits of our community
predispose certain choices of interpretation.
-Edward Sapir (In David Mandelbaum
(ed.), Selected Writin&s of Edward Sapir in
Lan&ua&e. Culture and PersonaUty
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
CalifQmia Press, 1951), p. 162.)

•
 2

• Introduction

Studying "other realities"

AIl social scientists, in one way or another, study reality:

historical, social, cultural, linguistic, etc. It now seems obvious,
however, tbat what we once naively called "reality" is far from being
as absolute and "real" as we once thought it to be. Indeed, in sucb
various fields as communications, philosophy, cognitive sciences,
linguistics, anthropology, and even history, the existence of a
44plurality of worlds" is increasingly recognized, and thinkers are no
longer reluctant to accept the notion of "multiple realities." This,
while it constitutes an obvious progress in our general
understanding of human societies, also poses an intricate and delicate
hermeneutic problem to students of specifie instances of these "other
realities." It is banal to remark that we tend to interpret these

• realities through our own terms and categories, but once aware of
this, how can we not only extricate ourselves from the influence of
our own categories, but also, more importantly, have access to
categories developed in other societies and linguistic communities?
In ancient Chinese studies, interpreters are constantly faced
with utterances that make sense in a partly unfamiliar reality. As
Angus Graham, one of the most brilliant students of ancient Chinese
thought, once put it, "[t]hat people of another culture are somehow
thinking in other categories is a familiar idea, aimost a commonplace,
but one very difficult to pin down as a topic for froitful discussion."l
Needless to say, tbis has not changed in the last decade: students of
ancient Chinese thought are still looking for good methodological tools
to tackle the elusive but fundamental problem of understanding the
categories used by Chinese thinkers.
This study is an effort to develop some of the conditions
necessary for a "fruitful discussion" to take place around the problem

•
"Relating Categories to Question Fonns in Pre·Han Chinese Thought", i n
his Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophiea) Literature
(Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986), p. 360.
 3

• of Chinese categories. The problem 1 intend to address, however., is

not that of grammatical categories and syntactic structure - as
Graham does in his article whose first sentence we just quoted -, but
that of the conceptual categories through which the ancient Chinese
understood and experienced the world they lived in. Graham aptly
called these ··the metaphors at the roots of conceptualization. uz What
is loosely called the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" states that "language
functions. not simply as a device for reporting experience, but also,
and more significantly, as a way of defining experience for i ts
speakers."3 Whorf and Sapir themselves, however, warned that there
was no simple correspondence, no generai correlation, between the
structure of a language and the culture of those who speak it.4
Agglutinative languages or languages with declensions, for example,
cannot be correlated with any specifie cultural pattern.
According to Harry Hoijer,

the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis [...] includes in language both i ts

•
structural and its semantic aspects. [...] The structural aspect of
language, which is that MOSt easily analyzed and described,
includes its phonology., morphology, and syntax, the numerous
but limited frames into which utterances are cast. The semantic
aspect consists of a self-contained system of meanings,
inextricably bound to the structure but much more difficult to
analyze and describe.s

2 ··Introduction", in Studies. op. cit., p. 2.

3 Harry Hoijer, "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis", in Harry Hoijer (ed.),
Lanluale in Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 93.
Emphasis added. Idea originally from Sapir, uConceptual Categories i n
Primitive Languages," Sciences 74 (1931), p. 578.
4 Edward Sapir, "Language," in Ben G. Blount (ed.), Lanluale. Culture.
and Society A Book of Readipis. second edition (Prospect Heights, Ill.:
Waveland Press, 1995), p. 59. Reprinted from the EncyclQpaedja of Social
Sciences, Edwin A. SeligmaD (editor-iD-chief), vol. 9, 1933, pp. 155-69.
Whorf notes that "the idea of ｾ｣ｯｲ ･ｬ｡ｴｩｯｮＧ between language and
culture, in the generally accepted sense of correlation, is certainly a
mistaken one." C'The Relation of Habituai Thought and Behavior lo
Language", in Ben G. Blount (ed.), LaDluale. Culture apd Society (text

•
originally published in 1941», p. 77.) See note 36 of the present study
for longer excerpts from Whorf's work.
5 Hoijer. loc. cit.• p. 95.
 4

• In this study, 1 will not analyze the general structure of the ancient
Chinese language, but some of its detailed semantic content. There i s
one main reason for this choice: in specifie texts, coneeptual
categories give the interpreter more valuable clues on what a
reasoning or a description means than generic roles which obtain for
aH texts written in one language. And since this study is about a
specifie text and not about the shaping power of language on "the
Chinese world view," 1 will abstain here from speculating on the
influence of grammar and syntax on Chinese thought. 1 will instead
try ta develop an understanding of what the terms the aneient
Chinese employed ta refer to certain things indicate about what they
thought reality was, and how this understanding can give us better
access ta the meaning of the text studied.
We could compare this endeavor to that of a cognitive
anthropologist. Cognitive anthropology has recently developed
systematic attempts at understanding other sets of categories, how
they are built, how they change, how they are part of people's lives,

• how they mold their world view and influence theic practices, etc.

The cogmtlve antbropologist studies how people in social

groups conceive of and think about the objects and events
which make up their world - including everytbing from
physical objects like wild plants to abstract events like social
justice. Such a project is closely linked to psychology because
the study of how particular social groups categorize and reason
inevitably leads to questions about the basic nature of sucb
cognitive processes.6

What we consider as "reality" partly depends on the way we "carve"

the world along certain lines, and on the structure of our cognitive
models. A cognitive model is a way of organizing knowledge b y
connecting various concepts together. It is called cognitive to
emphasize ilS mental nature: cognitive models exist in our minds.
Despite their mental nature, cognitive models manifest
themselves in the words we use. Indeed,

• 6 Roy D'Andrade, The Developmept of COlpjtjve AptbropololY

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 1. Emphasis added.
 5

• language is not merely a more or less systematic inventory of

the various items of experience which seem relevant to the
individual, as is so often naïvely assumed, but is aIso a self-
contained, creative symbolic organization, which not only refers
to experience largely acquired without its help but actually
defines experience for us by reason of its formai completeness
and because of our unconscious projection of its implicit
expectations into the field of experience. In this respect
language is very much like a mathematical system which, also,
records experience in the truest sense of the word, only in i ts
crudest beginning, but, as time goes on, becomes elaborated
ioto a self-contained conceptual system which previsages aU
possible experience in accordance with certain accepted formai
Limitations. [...] [Meanings are ] not so much discovered in
experience as imposed upon it, because of the tyrannical hold
that linguistic fonn has upon our orientations in the world.7

Language, therefore, is far from being a '·mind-free" system of signs

• used for representing objective reality. Although it does not

determine our understanding and experiencing of the world, through
its semantic content and conceptual categories, it influences and
directs our understanding and experiencing into prescribed channels.
In this study, 1 will focus more specifically on the semantic
content of the cognitive models and categories found in descriptions
of cognitive activities. By "cognitive activities," 1 Mean the process
which leads to knowledge. There are good reasons to speak of
"cognitive activities" instead of "thought processes". Like cognitive
activities, "thinking" could be defined as a process leading to
knowledge. But thought always implies ratiocinative effort. So 1 take
cognitive activities to be more encompassing, in that, in addition to
conscious reflection, they also include snch methods as trances 0 r
inner cultivation techniques, which hoId non-intentionality to be the
key to knowledge.
From one culture to another, cognitive activities are understood
and experienced quite differently. These different conceptions are

• 7 Edward Sapir. uConceptual Categories''. p. 578. Emphasis added.

 6

• centered on a certain understanding of the cogmtIve functioning of

the ｢ｯ､ｹｾ of where and how cognitive activities take place. Obviously,
since neurobiological functions do not vary more than marginally
from one people to another, the Uwhere and how" are in lact
basically the same everywhere, but looking at the "facts", in this case,
greatly hinders our attempt at cross-cultural understanding. Indeed,
in different cultural traditions and societies, cognitive activities are
ascribed to different parts of the body, and therefore believed to b e
explicable in very different ways. They are therefore understood,
experienced and described in specifie ways. Thus, even if one day
we were able to describe cognition and mental activities in purely
neurobiological tenns, our knowledge would still be of little help to
explain culturally constructed accounts of cognitive activities.
In a11 traditions, the categories used to describe cognitive
activities are among the Most difficult to unravel, not only because
they are complex, but also because they are intimately related to the
most fundamental cultural and philosophical assumptions of a gi ven

• social group. This makes them largely untranslatable into foreign sets
of categories. They consequently pose a formidable challenge to
exegetists. Thus, passages in ancient Chinese texts which describe
cognitive activities and ioner cultivation practices8 are often
perplexing, because of the difficulty of knowing how these accounts
relate to real experiences and a certain understanding of the world.
In fact, we often calI these passages "esoteric" simply because we fail
to understand them through the proper categories.
This study is primarily devoted to the development and
application of a hermeneutic strategy aimed at understanding
8 Throughout this study, 1 will use "'inner cultivation" instead of the more
common ··self-cultivation." Roth, who originally spoke of upsychology
and self-cultivation" C"Psychology and Self-Cultivation in Early Taoistic
Thought", Harvard Journal of Asialie Studjes 51.2 (1991), pp. 599-650;
hereafter ··Psychology"), has, in recent articles, expressed hi s
preference for "inner cultivation" ("Redaction Criticism and the Early
History of Daoism", Early China 19 (1994), p. 4; hereafter "Redaction
Criticism"), and "'self-transformation" C"The Inoer Cultivation Tradition
of Early Daoism", in Donald S. Lopez. Ir. (ed.), Relirions of China i n

•
Practjce (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 124; hereafter
"Inner Cultivation"), bath of which better correspond to the practices
described in the Neiye. the text we will study, than the former two terms.
 7

• descriptions in mystical texts. l will apply this approach mainly (0

one text: the Neiye, a collection of rhymed verse probably written in
the fourth century BCE and thought by many to be the oldest extant
Chinese ﾷｾｭｹｳｴｩ｣｡ｬＢ text. 9 The detailed analysis of this particular text
will make the argument gain in intensity what it loses in scope. The
approach developed in this study attempts to get closer to the w a y
its authors 10 understood the world in which they lived. We should b e
able, using this hermeneutic strategy, to unravel the particular
understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body upon which
the N ei ye is based, which should make it easier to unders tand the
general meaning of this texte
The Neiye is preserved as section 49 of the Guanzi. a collection
of texts compiled over several centuries during the Warring States
(426-221 BCE) and early Han (206 BCE - 6 CE) periods, named after
Guan Zhong (d. 645 BCE), once chief minister of the state of Qi)1 Guo
Moruo has ascribed the Neiye to the Jixia scholars Song Xing and Yin
Wen, but, although this view is still widespread, it seems to be based,

• ln Graham's words, on ＧｾｦｬｩｭｳｹＢＬ

9
even indeed "dubious" evidence. 12

Graham. Disputers, op. cit., p. lOO-lOS. Two characteristics of the Nejye

are usually adduced to justify such an early dating: the mention 0 f
··flood-like vital energyn (haoran zhi qi [a; hereafter, letters in square
brackets refer to Appendix 1. where Chinese characters are
reproduced]). like in the Mencius. also written in the fourth century
BCE; and no mention of Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, developed later i n
the tradition. Roth believes there is another good reason to give the
Nej ye an early date: ··it contains very little advice to the mler and does
not set its prescriptions on self-cultivation in the context of governing
effectively". whereas the political inclination of laler texts on in ne r
cultivation is salient (Roth, Upsychology", p. 611).
10 The authorship of the Neiye is discussed in the next paragraphe
11 Originally ascribed to Guan Zhong [b]. the text was in fact written )ater.
Nonetheless, a large part of the material contained in the Guanzj was
probably written in Qi [cl and developed around a core of texts probably
produced at the end of the fourth century BCE and compiled in the
middle of the third century BCE. The extant text was compiled by Liu
Xiang at the end of the first century BCE (W. Allyn Rickett. Guanzj;
Poljtical F&Qoomjc. and Pbilosophjcal Essays frQm Sady Chjna
(Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1985), p. 15). Roth.
Upsychology", p. 609.

•
12 Pisputers. p. 100; same author. uHow much of Chuang Tzu did Chuang Tzu
write?" in Studjes. op. cit., p. 317. W. Allyn Rickett, in his Kuan-Tzu; A
Reposjtory Qf Early Cbjnese Tboulht. vol. 1 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
 8

• ｒｩ｣ｫ･ｴｾ the [rrst scholar to have produced an English version of it,

translates it as "The Inner Life," but scholars now prefer the title
"Inward Training."13 For the sake of convenience, 1 will simply use
the Chinese title Neiye throughout this study, and speak of its
hauthors" ｾ which should not be seen to imply that the Neiye was
wri tten by several persons since we are ignorant about this matter.
Because it was written early in the tradition, the Nej ye is an
excellent text to begin an inquiry into the Chinese conceptual
categories pertaining to cognitive activities. Harold D. Roth, who caUs
it ha manuai for the theory and practice of self-cultivation/'14 has
convincingly demonstrated that the Neiye was a key text in the early
history of Daoism, in that the Meditative practices described in Many
later texts seemingly followed the path traced by the Nej ye,
consistently using the same terms to describe similar techniques of
inner cultivation. IS Such texts visibly carry the marks of their origin,
University Press. (965), similarly disagrees with Guo Moruo's
ｨｹｰｯｴｨ･ｳｩ ｾ and quotes. two Japanese scholars who he says refuted it (p.

•
(57). In fact, every serious Western student of the Nei ye of whom 1 k 0 0 W
seems to have made a point of criticizing Guo's argument. No ooe,
however, has been able to identify the "real" author(s) of the Neiye
with any precision. and scholars still do not agree about the exact 0 ri g i 0
of this early text. Guo's original proposai was presented in his Qiorcoor
shidai [dl ("The age of the green bronze") (Shanghai: Xinwen, 1951),
reprinted in his complete works, Guo Moruo Quan j i [el, lishi b i a 0 ｛ｦ｝ｾ
vol. l, pp. 547-572.
13 Graham. Dis 17 u te rs. p. 100; Roth, "Psychology", p. 611.
14 Ibid.• p. 611.
15 "Ali three Guanzi texts [the Neiye. the Xinshu shan & [g], and the Xioshu
xiilLare parts of a philosophical lineage that is related to both the Laozi
and the 'Syncretist' chapters of the Zhuangzi and leads directly to th e
Huainanzi. Future studies will no doubt demonstrate that the 'Yellow
Emperor' texts from Mawangdui are part of the same lineage It is this
Iineage that the early Han historians cali 'Daoism'." ("Psychology". p.
628. Romanization adapted.) Roth has studied some of these texts in other
articles: "Redaction Criticism", loe. Cil.; and "Who Compiled the Ch uang
Tzu?", in Henry Rosemont, Jr. (ed.), Chinese Texls and Philosophi ea '
COOlexts: Essays Dedicated to Auaus C. Graham (LaSalle, Dl.: Open Court,
1991), pp. 79-128. For studies on the Silk Manuscripts, see Robin D.S.
Yates, Five Lost Classics: Tao. "uana-LaQ. and vin-vanl in "an China
(New York, Ballantine Books, 1997); Randall P. Peerenboom, Law and
MQrality in Ancient China: Tbe Silk Manuscrjpts Qf Huanl-Lao (Albany.

•
N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1993); Jan ｙｮＭｨｵｾ ''The Silk Manuscripts on Taoism,"
T'ouoi paQ LXIll.l (1977), pp. 65-84.; Tu Wei-Ming. "The 'Thought of
Huang-Lao': A Reflection Qn the Lao Tzu and Huang Ti Texts in the Silk
 9

• but, taken as the starting point of an analysis, because of their

greater complexity, they would undoubtedly prove comparatively
more difficult to understand than the Nejye. Once we understand the
origin of the conceptions described in later texts, it is easier to
analyze the way in which certain terms were subsequently adapted,
enhanced with new meanings, and used in different historical
contexts. Since new interpretations are constantly being developed
for words used in a tradition, a certain mastery of the categories
found in the Neiye will by no means account for the novelties and
developments of every sort that took place subsequently.
Nonetheless, it seems obvious that an understanding of their origins
can contribute to our comprehension of their later occurrences.
In the fonrth century BCE, when the Neiye was written, the
main categories of the cognitive functioning of the body had not ye t
been the object of extensive critical discussions by many thinkers,
and certain accounts found in the Neiye, notably those on the
functioning of the heart (xin), seem to have been among the first of

• their kind.l 6 Of course, parts of the accounts found in the Nejye are
undeniably legacies from the past, but even tbough the Neiye does
not constitute the "pure" origin of a tradition, it remains a short, early
text which, because it contains the principal elements of a certain
understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body, can be more
easily studied than later, more complex texts that draw upon it. 1 n
other words, understanding ancient Chinese accounts of cognitive
activities is easier if we can study them near their beginnings.
However early a text one studies, however, several
hermeneutic problems remain. It is difficult to make sense of another
philosophical tradition without an extensive knowledge of its

Manuscripts of Ma-wang-tui," Journal of Asjan Studjes 39.1 (1979), pp.

95-110.
l6 According to D.C. Lau, the fourth century BCE u can he looked upon as a
watershed in the history of Chinese thought in the ancient periode 1 t
marks the discovery of the human heart or mind. [...l By the middle 0 f
the fourth century B.C., at the latest, philosophers discovered the
complex phenomenon of the human heart and became fascinated by it. "

•
Mencius (New York, Hannondsworth: ｐ･ｮｧｵｩｮｾ 1970), p. 45. A study of
the Nejye's accounts of the functioning of the heart constitutes a major
part of this paper.
 10

• conceptual categories. of how they molded people's understanding

and experiencing of the world. how they were formed and used. and
how they changed through time. In order to understand descriptions
of cognitive activities, we have to understand, more th an
superficially, the categories used to describe them and the
functioning of these categories within larger networks of categories.
This small group of conceptual categories and their relations to each
other is commonly called a cognitive schema, or "cognitive model."17
These models organize our knowledge of some aspect of the world.
We use them to comprehend our experience and reason about it.I 8
Because the elements of most cognitive models are treated as
Hobvious facts of the worldn and used unconsciously and effortlessly,
a great deal of information about them needs not be made explicit,19
which, needless to say, poses a great challenge to interpreters.
Ancient Chinese accounts of cognitive activities are obviously
based on cognitive models different from the common Western folk
model of the mind. We have to avoid the temptation to ｾｲ｡ｴｩｯｮｬｺ･Ｂ

• and ";psychologize" Chinese texts. Not that the ancient Chinese were
irrational or non-rational, but their reason made use of categories
different from ours, based on other cognitive models. This demands
that we penetrate the ancient Chïnese world view and the
conceptions which underlay the use of various terms within it. This,
in turn, requires a solid grasp of the way categories and concepts are
constructed. This is what my approach is aimed at developing.
1 will expIain the main lines of this hermeneutic strategy in the
first chapter. The writings of George Lakoff and other cognitive
scientists will be particularly useful. 1 will give a central place in this
study to the notion of metaphor. 1 indeed believe that methods used
to construe metaphors cao also be used to unravel cognitive modeis.
In chapter 1, 1 will expIain how we can combine various ideas and

17 Roy D7 Andrade, "A Folk Model of the Mind," in Dorothy Rolland and
Naomi Quino (eds.), Cultural Models in LaD&U3&e and Tbou&bt
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 112.

•
18 George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More Iban Cool Reasoo. A Field Guide to
Poetic Metapbo[ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 65.
19 D'Andrade, loc. cit., p. 113.
 11

•
concepts developed by cognitive scientists and students of metaphor
to fonn a renewed, more systematic hermeneutic strategy sensi ti ve
to cross-cultural investigations and deep differences in categories
and cognitive models. In chapter 2, 1 will propose a few preliminary
reflections on what it could have entailed to believe that cognitive
activities took place in the "heart." 1 will then tum to the Neiye for a
detailed analysis of its descriptions of cognitive activities. Chapter 3
is mainly devoted to a study of the use of xin , qi and qing in the
Neiye, and underscores the inherent physicality of cognition in this
text. [ will try to determine how these words were related to 0 ne
another, and how they functioned together in the cognitive model of
cognitive activities. 20 This will take us to chapter 4, where the reader
will find a few reflections on the general consequences of accepting
this kind of analysis of the Nejye. In tbis chapter, among other things,
1 will try to demonstrate the importance of escaping the terms of the
"mind-body problem" when analyzing ancient Chïnese texts,
especially "mystical texts". A study of the uses of shen in the Neiye

•
should make this clearer. The conclusion will assess the value of the
understanding developed in the previous chapters, and the potential
for further research of the hermeneutic approach developed in this
study.

20 1 justify this selection in more detail at the end of chapter 1. For now, i t
suffices to say that 1 chose these terms because they are, in one way 0 r

• another, incompatible with the categories Western texts use to describe

cognitive activities and mystical practices.
 12

• A
Chapter 1

hermeneutic strategy for cross-cultural studies:

interpreting metaphors and cognitive models

Recent publications in cognItIve sciences have underscored the

importance of culturally constructed categories and cognitive models
in the way the world is understood and experienced. 21 AU students of
ancient Chinese texts have been confronted with tbis thomy pro blem
of translating and interpreting problematic tenus that do not fit
neatly into our linguistic and conceptual categories. In bis recent
translation of Sunzi's Art of Warfare. Roger T. Ames aptly
summarized the problem:

For us, sorne characters May integrate what might as weIl

be a curious, often unexpected, and sometimes e ven

•
incongruous combination of meanings that lead us m 0 st
directly to a recognition of difference. For example, the
character shen does not sometimes mean uhuman
spiritualityU and sometimes udivinity." It always means

21 See, inter aUa, Gilles Fauconnier, Mental Spaces (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 1985); Jerry Fodor, The Laoluale of Thoueht (New York: Crowell,
1975); Willett Kempton, The folk Classification of C,ramics: A Stydy 0 f
Co&njtjve Prototypes (New York: Academie Press, 1981); William Labov,
"The Boundaries of Words and Their Meaniogs," in Joshua Fishman (ed.),
New Ways of Aoalyzjne Varjatjon in Ene1isb (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 1973), pp. 340-73; George Lakoff and Mark
Johnson, Metaph0tS We Liye By (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1980); Ronald Langacker. Foundatjons of CQenjtjve Grammar, vol. 1
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986); Robert 1. Levy, Tahjtjans·
Mjnd and Experjence jn the Society Islands (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1973); Hilary Putnam, Mjnd. Lanluaee. and Real Hy.
Philosophjcal Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1975); Eleanor Rosch, UNatural Categories,n Copitiye PsycbololY 4
(1973): 328-350; same author, 66Human Categorization," in Neil W a r re n

•
(ed.), Studjes jn Cross-Cultural PsycboloJY (London: Academie, 1977), pp.
1-49; aod Eleanor Rosch and B. B. Lloyd, Coenjtjon and Catelorjzation
(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1978).
 13

•
both and? moreover? it is our business to try and
understand philosophically how it can Mean both}2

This problem, the nrecognition of difference", is obviously related to

our difficulty of understanding Chïnese categories. The work of
reconstruction and imagination required to develop sucb a n
understanding can be rewarding, but also at times frustrating, for
one rarely knows how to tackle the problem of construing sets of
categories different from ours. Our goal in this chapter is to lay the
foundations of a more systematic strategy aimed at understanding
how and why certain difficult terms Mean what they Mean.

1. The Lebenswelt : an anti-fQundational view of reality.

One recent innovation in Chinese textual studies in the West i s
the adoption of uform and redaction criticism", two hermeneutic
methods originally developed by biblical exegetists.23 Harold D. Roth

•
has recently made profitable use of these methods in bis discussion
of the position of the Neiye and the Xjnsbu xia in the early history of
Daoism. 24 In bis words, using these two approaches is an attempt to
U

bring consistent methodological rigor to the logic of deriving

historical evidence from the literary fonn, composition methods, and
redaction strategies."25 Roth's argument on the dating of the two texts
is impressively convincing and, methodologically speaking, indeed
more rigorous than that usually found in sinology.

22 Sun-Tzy. The An of Warfare (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), p. 72.

See chapter 4 of the present study for a criticism of Ames's belief th at
the term shen always has these two meanings.
23 See Rudolf Bultmann, Hjst0tY of the SYDQptjC Tradition (New York:
Harper and Row, 1963); R. Bultmann and Karl Kunsdin, Form Crjtjcism:
Two Essays 00 New Testament Researcb (New York: Harper and Row,
1964); Edgar V. McKnight. What js FQrm Crjtjcjsm? (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press. (969); Norman Perrin, Wbat is Redactjon Critjcjsm?
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969); and J. Rhode, Redjscoyerip& t b e
Teacbjol Qf the Evap&elists (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968).

• 24
25
"Redaction Criticism" .
Ibid., p. 2.
 14

• Now that tbese two metbods are available to sinologists,

however, 1 believe tbat it would be at least as profitable for them to
develop methodologically rigorous tools in order to understand the
contents of the ancient texts they study. Inspiration in developing
such tools could come from recent reflections on a classic
philosophical problem: the relations between language and reality.
Granted, efforts to retrieve the original meaning of texts are by no
means innovative, but 1 believe that such hermeneutic endeavors
have been reinvigorated in the last decades by developments in
cognitive sciences, especially ethnolinguistics. Used along such
methods as form and redaction criticism, ideas and notions deri ved
from cognitive sciences can prove helpful in interpreting difficult
texts.

A. The notion of Lebenswelt.

Michael LaFargue's book on the Daodçjin&26 is a recent attempt
at re-interpreting the meaning of this classic by means of both 6'form

• and redaction criticism" and a reflection on linguistic hermeneutics .

Among the few sinological works which have so far used fonn and
redaction criticism, LaFargue's is the Most thorough. 27 LaFargue also
seems more aware than Many scholars that any hermeneutic
endeavor necessarily involves a reflection on the relations between
language and reality. LaFargue bolds tbat what we caU "reality" is not
"out there", but in fact a '6creation of the mind."28 What we think is
reality is only what he caUs our Lebenswelt (life-world), a notion
originally developed by German phenomenologists. Our Lebenswelt
is the world as we perceive and conceptualize it. Moreover, this
world is

26 Tao apd Metbod. A Reasoped Approacb Jo the Tao Te Chini (Albany, New
York: SUNY Press. 1994).
27 See also William Soltz, Ｇｾｨ･ Religious and Philosophical Significance of
the 'Hsiang erh' ÙlO Tzu in the Light of the Ma-wang-tui S Bk
Manuscripts," Bulletin of tbe Scbool of Qriental and Aftican Studjes 45.1
(1982): 95-117; and Victor Mair, Tao Te Chinl: The Classjc Book 0 f

• 28
Inteacity and the Way (New York: Bantam, 1990).
Tao and Merbod, pp. 14 and 17.
 15

•
too massively and pervasively present to our
consciousness and beyond ils control to be actually
regarded as not part of "the real world," as a mental
creation or projection. (...] Inevitably, when we speak of
something being "part of objective reality," the ｾｯ｢ｪ･｣ｴｩｶ
reality" we actually have in mind is the Lebenswelt we
live in. 29

From this, LaFargue derives that '''the original meaning of a text'

consists in what it says about (...] the Lebenswelt of the text's
author(s). "30 Insofar as the world of which these ancient texts speak
is the world as their authors understood and experienced it, it is
consequently necessary, in order to understand these texts, to
become conversant with the Lebenswelt in which tbey were
developed.

B. The persistent difficulty of understanding alien categories.

Because it assumes that other cultural traditions may ha ve

• developed categories and cognitive models3l different from ours, this

non-foundational approach to meaning and "reality" seems best
suited to undertake cross-cultural studies. However, as already
mentioned in our introduction, once one is aware of this possible
plurality of worlds, one important problem remains: how is it
possible to gain access to these "other worlds"? LaFargue, content
with having developed a useful hermeneutic principle, does not
attempt to solve this problem. The difficulty, then, remains: we are
so powerfully in the grip of our concepts and categories, so much
under the illusion that they exist objectively, that it is one of the
most difficult and delicate tasks of students of other cultures to make
sense of cognitive models allen to their own. No matter, then, how
aware we are of the mere existence of other life-worlds and the
necessity to engage in a critical understanding of the conceptions
which underlie our categories, we will still overlook important

29 Ibid.• p. 17.

• 30
31
Ibid., p. 19.
See p. 4 of the present study for a definition of this notion.
 16

•
category differences simply because of our failure to put certain
terms in the models in which they malee sense.
The fact that other human groups use other categories is no t
just a linguistic epiphenomenon. Semantically, these categories are
linked to a particular world view. They condition the w a y
experiences are conceptualized and the world constructed and gi ven
meaning to. Understanding cognitive activities as they were
conceptualized in an ancient Chinese text, then, is no easy task. It is
already difficult enough to became aware of our own categories to
avoid naively projecting them on Chïnese texts. The problem
becomes more daunting when we have to understand the internaI
consistency of Chinese categories from inside their Lebenswelt.

c. The relation between language and reality: non-arbitrary

meanings in a non-foundational reality.
If we accept that meanings and categories are not formed
randomly, that they correspond, at least partially, to the way the

• world is understood and experienced, it is possible to form a partial

solution to the problem of alien cognitive models. LaFargue's words
in his explanation of the relations between language and reality can
once again prove usefuI:

Language is often phenomenologically concrete. That is, i t

is indeed at least partially representational, but what il
represents is phainomena, reality-as-experienced by the
speaker. The spealeer's reality May be different from
reality as we experience il, or as our theories or heliefs
picture it}2

Accounts, then, are molded by certain experiences, but important

though this principle May be, il still does not solve the problem of
knowing how speakers of other languages construct their Lebenswelt
and how the conceptual categories of other languages function.
As mentioned above, recent writings in cognitive sciences
provide interesting and important leads towards a possible answer to

• 32 Tao and Method, p. 34.

 17

• this problem. George Lakoff shows in his wide-ranging book Women .

.Fire. and Dan&erous ｔｨｩｮｾｳＳ
certain ｰｲｩｮ｣ ｰｬ･ｳｾ
that categories are formed according to
which. as one would expect, are not arbitrary:
"Our bodily experience and the way we use imaginative mechanisms
are central to how we construct categories to make sense of
ex perience. n34 More precisely:

Thought is embodied, that is. the structures used to pu t

together our conceptual systems grow out of bodily experience
and make sense in terms of it; moreover, the core of 0 u r
conceptual system is directly grounded in perception, body
movement. and experiences of a physical and social character.
- Thought is imaginative, in that those concepts which are not
directly grounded in experience employ metaphor, metonymy,
and mental imagery. [...] This imaginative capacity is also
embodied - indirectly - since the metaphors, Metonymies, and
images are based on experience, often bodily experience,3s

Lakoff' s formulations will be crucial to this inquiry into the

• categories of Chinese cognitive activities.

In line with the anti-positivist trend in linguistics and
philosophy, LaFargue and Lakoff unsurprisingly tell us that our
language is not a tool of pure representation of the objective world.
ln language, indeed, we find constant manifestations of the culturally
produced· character of thought, perception, categofÏzation, an d
conceptualization. However, some of these categories and conceptions
are so deeply entrenched in language that they shape the way w e
understand and experience the world.
It should be clear, here, that 1 am not trying to defend or orient
the discussion towards Benjamin Whorf's hypothesis on "the shaping
power of language on consciousness." This hypothesis is complex and
has been simplistically dismissed as a claim tbat "language
determines thought," which was clearly not Whorrs original idea,36

33 Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Hereafter W omen.

34 Ibid., p. xii.

•
35 Ibid.• p. xiv. Emphasis in the original.
36 Indeed, Wharf makes this clear in several passages: "Concepts of ｾｴｩｭ･Ｇ
and •matter' are not given in substantia11y the same fonn by experience
 18

• As mentioned in the introduction, this problem of the relations of

language and thought includes both a structural and a semantic
aspect, and 1 chose, in this study, to focus on the latter. Although
Hoijer considers the semantic aspect of language much more difficult
66

to analyze and describe" than the structural one,31 1 believe it is

easier to prove that a set of semantic categories, and the cognitive
models in which they make sense, contribute more directly to
shaping one's understanding and experiencing of the world than the
structural features of a language do. Thus, without having to
understand the roots of certain cognitive models, we can assume that
one will look at the world in ways partly molded by them.3 8
Once again, this idea is insufficient to approach and understand
the categories and cognitive models used in texts written in a
different cultural tradition. Understanding the Lebenswelt described
in these texts requires a sophisticated interpretive strategy. Indeed,

to ail men but depend upon the nature of the language or languages
through the use of which they have been developed. They do not de pend

• so much upon ANY ONE SYSTEM (e.g., tense, or nouns) within the
grammar as upon the ways of analyzing and reporting experience
which have become fixed in the language as integrated 'fashions 0 f
speaking' and which eut across the typical grammatical classifications.
so that such a 'fashion' May include lexical, morphological, syntactic,
and otherwise systematically diverse means coordinated in a certain
frame of consistency." c-'The Relation of Habituai Thought", p. 83.
Ernphasis in the original.) By the same token, "there are connections
but not correlations or diagnostic correspondences between cultural
norms and linguistic patterns. [...] There are cases where the 'fashions
of speaking' are closely integrated with the whole general culture,
whether or not this be universally true. and there are connections
within this integration. between the kind of linguistic anal yses
employed and various behavioral reactions and also the shapes taken b y
various cultural developments. (...) These connections are to be found
not so much by focusing on the typical rubrics of linguistic.
ethnographie. or sociological description as by examining the culture
and the language (always and only when the two have been together
historically for a considerable time) as a whole in which concatenations
that run across these departmental lines May be expected to exist, and, i f
they exist. eventually to be discoverable by study. (Ibid., p. 84.)
31 "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," loc. cit., p. 114.
38 People can leam new languages. and. to sorne extent. be taught ne w
categories. which proves that language is not determining. However.
leaming new categories (especially those which use words that exist i n

•
our language but make sense in other cognitive models) is often the
Most difficult part of leaming languages. which seems to suggest 0 ur
deep adherence to our own categories.
 19

•
neither mere empathy nor critical awareness of our categories is
sufficient to understand these invisible but fundamental cultural and
philosophical assumptions.
A large part of the difficulty of understanding certain words is
that they only make sense within complex socially and culturally
constructed cognitive models. For ･ｸ｡ｭｰｬ･ｾ as Lakoff ｲ･ｭ｡ｲｫｳｾ
HTuesday"

can be defined only relative to an idealized model that

includes the natural cycle defined by the movement of
the ｳｵｮｾ the standard means of characterizing the end of
one day and the beginning of the ｮ･ｸｴｾ and a larger
seven-day calendric cycle-the week. In the idealized
ｭｯ､･ｬｾ the week is a whole with seven parts organized in
a linear sequence; each part is called a day ｾ and the third
[sic] is Tuesday.39

These models are adhered to largely unconsciously and rarely made

•
･ｸｰｬｩ｣ ｴｾ although they can he by someone who attempts to. In order
to understand descriptions of cognitive activities in ancient Chinese
ｴ･ｸ ｳｾ we have to understand the categories used to describe them
and the functioning of these categories within larger networks 0 f
｣｡ｴ･ｧｯｲｩｳｾ or cognitive models. In the following ｣ｨ｡ｰｴ･ｲｳｾ we will try
to retrace the cognitive models upon which our four Chinese words
pertaining to cognitive activities Ｈｸｩｮｾ ｱｩｾ shen and qing) were
predicated.

o. The notion of metaphor: a window into allen categories.

1 think it is possible to have access to a Lebenswelt and its
categories through the study of certain terms as metaphors. Since the
li terature on metaphor is sa abundant and ｶ｡ｲｩ･､ｾ however ｾ one ha s
to he cautious in using this notion.4o The rest of this chapter is
39 Lakoff, op. cit., p. 68. Emphasis in the original.
40 1 have found certain aspects of ail of the following works relevant, but,
for reasons of space, 1 will only use a few: John L. Austin, Philosophical
Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961); M. Beardsley, "The

• Metaphoric Twist," Phjlosophy and Phenomeoololical Research 22

(1962): 293-307; Donald Davidson, UWhat Metaphors Mean," Critical
 20

• devoted to explaining which aspects of present theories of metaphor

can be used to develop an approach to texts written in another
Lebenswelt than ours, and to analyze Chinese descriptions of
cognitive activities.
The text will be divided into sections centered on a recent
theorist of Metaphore The remainder of this chapter will bring six
important notions into focus and try to determine how these notions
can be brought to bear on our interpretation of the Neiye. Tbese six
notions are: the semantic deviance (or impertinence) of metaphors,
the process of construal necessary to understand metaphors, the
possible ways metaphors can be considered literaI and even Utrue"
(and the problem with the literaI meaning theory of metaphor), the
collateral cognitive content of metaphors (i.e. the conceptions which
underlie them), ｾＧｭ･ｴ｡ｰｨｯｲｩ｣｡ｬ concepts" (those wbich underlie
seemingly "ordinary" linguistic expressions), and finally the notion of
literality. These should give us the toois we need to decipher the
categories and cognitive modeis which underlie ancient Chinese

• accounts of the functioning of cognitive activities. At the end of this

section; 1 will explain why l selected the four words (xin
shen ｾ Ｄ and qing'rj )
le,,, ,
qi ｾ
which constitute the object of this study. 1t
is important to note from the outset that not a11 the language used in
the Neiye to reter to cognitive activities is metaphorical. What this

Ioquiry 5 (1978): 31-47; same author, InQujdes joto Trutb and

1n terpretatj 0 0 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); Paul DeMan, uThe
Epistemology of Metapbor," Cnlica' luqn j ry 5 (1978): 13-30; Jacques
Derrida, "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy:' ｾ
Literary HjstQry 6 (1974): 5-74; L. Gumpel, MetapbQfS Reexamjn ed
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1984); George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson, op. cit.; George LakQff and Mark Turner, op. cit.; Samuel
R. Levin, Metapborjc Worlds ConceptjQnS Qf a RQmantjc Nature (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988); same author, ｾ
Semaotics of Metapbo[ (Baltimore: Jobns Hopkins University Press,
1977); E.R. Macconnac, A CO&njtjye Tbeor.y of MetaphQr (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 1985); Paul Ricœur, The Rule of Metapbo[ (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1977); same author, "The Metaphorical
Process as Cognition. Imaginati on, and Feeling," Cntiea' 1 n Qu j r y 5
(1978): 143-59; John Searle, ｾＧｍ･ｴ｡ｰｨｯｲＮＢ io A. Onony (ed.), Melaphor and

•
ThQu&ht (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 92-123;
Michael Shapiro (ed.), Lanluaie and Politjes (New York: New York
University Press, 1984).
 21

• chapter intends to demonstrate is that methods used to interpret

metaphors cao also be used profitably to unravel the meaning of
what are only partIy metaphorical cognitive models. Moreover, the
Chinese tenus we will he discussing are not poetic and rhetorical
metaphors. They are in fact part of the ordinary language the ancient
Chinese used to describe cognitive activities, but 1 believe these
words can nonetheless be construed using theories originally
intended to interpret poetic metaphors. Let us now see how this cao
be the case.

II. ｕｮ､･ｲｳｴ｡ ｩ ｾ and construin& metaphors

A. Poetic and rhetoricai metaphors: ad hoc figures of speech.

How can ordinary language be analyzed as metaphorical?
Scholars and lay persons commonly understand metaphors as figures
of speech, linguistic devices which poets, writers and orators use to
express a thought or an argument through imagery instead of so-

• called Hliteral language." This type of metaphor Uoperates a

confrontation between two more or less kindred objects or realities,
omitting the explicit sign of comparison."41 As a figure of speech, a
metaphor is intended to ubring to light the elements common to the
two compared objects, [...] evoking multiple affinities, thereby
triggering echoes of aesthetic, intellectual and moral value."42 These
metaphors are easy to identify: they are figures of speech that are
used ad hoc, in specifie contexts; they are not part of ordinary
everyday language.

B. The semantic deviance of poetic metaphors.

AlI works on poetic and rhetorical metaphors have been
concerned with discovering a way to make sense of them. For Most
theoreticians, indeed, the MOSt problematic aspect of metaphors is

41 Henri Morier, Dictionnaire de poétique et de rhétorique (Paris: Presses

universitaires de France, 1981), pp. 670-671. Similes differ from
metaphors in that they use the sign of comparison explicitly, as i n

•
"brave as a lion." A way of expressing this same idea metaphorically
would be to say that someone is a lion.
42 Idem.
 22

• their referent: indeed if we were to take a metaphor in i ts

conventional, ｾ ｬｩｴ･ｲ｡ｬＢ
9

sense, we would fail to grasp its intended

meaning. Metaphors as figures of speech ace most commonly found
in poetry, but tbey ace also widely used in daily life, in expressions
like ｾ ｹｯｵ are killing me with kindness". In this sentence, the w 0 rd
"killing" is imaginatively (metaphorically) but not literally applicable
to the situation described. Taking "killing" in its literaI sense of
"taking someone' s life" would be failing to see the meaning of the
metaphor.
In other words, tbis type of metaphor states one ｴｨｩｮｧｾ but
requires the reader to understand another. In that they speak of
something in a manner that goes beyond conventional notions of ho w
the world is constituted, metaphors constitute a semantically deviant
language.43 Between a metaphor

and the world as we ace accustomed to think about i t

there is a mismatch, a lack of fit or correspondence.

•
Unlike ordinary expressions, therefore, whose meanings
need merely to he grasped to be understood, metaphors
require first to be construed before understanding can
be achieved.44

The problem, then, is to know how to consteue metaphors and make

sense of them.

c. Construing metaphors.
1. Paul Ricœur: "What meaning does a metaphor express 1"
Severa! thinkers have come up with theories designed to tackle
the semantic challenge of metaphors. Paul Ricœur bas elaborated
sorne of the most complex theories and methods available on the
consteuai of metaphors. Reflecting upon the split reference and
semantic ambivalence of metaphors, he developed the following
interpretive strategy, which needs to be quoted at length because of
its complexity:

• 43
44
Samuel Levin. MetapbQriç Worlds, op. cir., p. xii.
Ibid., p. l. Emphasis added.
 23

• We can start with the point that the meaning of a

metaphorical statement tises up from the blockage of a n y
literaI interpretation of the statement. In a literai
interpretation, the meaning abolishes itself. Next because
7

of this self-destruction of the meaning the primary

7

reference founders. The entire strategy of poetic

discourse plays on tbis point: it seeks the abolition of the
reference "by means of self-destruction of the meaning of
metaphorical statements, the self-destruction being made
manifest by an impossibLe literai interpretation.
But this is only the first phase or rather the negative
7

counterpart of a positive strategy. Within the perspective

7

of semantic impertinence the self-destruction of meaning

7

is merely the other side of an innovation in meaning a t

the level of the entire statement an innovation obtained
7

through the Utwist" of the literai meaning that constitutes

living metaphor. It is this innovation [...l that constitutes
living Metaphore But are we not in the same motion given

• the key to metaphorical reference? Can one not say that

by drawing a new semantic pertinence out of the ruins of
the Literal meaning the metaphoric interpretation also
7

sustains a new referential design [... ]?45

7

In other words, according to Ricœur, the process of construal of a

metaphor consists in identifying its metaphorical referent after
having gone beyond its literaI meaning, wbich abolishes itself
because of its semantic deviance. Many, however, disagree w i th
Ricœur s view, claiming that metaphors shouid be taken... literally.
7

2. Taking metaphors literally (1). Donald Davidson: "Under what

circumstances are metaphors true?"
Donald Davidson one of today's Most eminent philosophers of
7

language, could not be clearer than when he asserts tbat "metaphors

mean what the words, in their most literaI interpretation, Mean, and
nothing more. u46 He considers metaphors as blatantly false sentences,

• 45
46
The Rule of Metaphof, p. 230. Emphasis added.
"What Metaphors Mean", p. 32.
 24

• but he claims that in order to construe them, instead of trying to

discover their metaphorical referent, one should try to find 0 u t
under what circumstances they would be considered true. Davidson' s
truth-conditional interpretation of metaphors is undoubtedly related
to his attempt at developing a systematic semantic theory which
wou Id allow one to attribute specifie meaning and truth-value to a11
linguistic utterances.
This is an easy way out of the semantic challenge of metaphors:
for Davidson, they simply fail to meet certain truth conditions and
must therefore be interpreted in a special way, but their semantics is
not a problem. Interpreting a metaphor would then simply consist in
knowing under what conditions a speaker would hold it to be true. In
this context, "the aim of interpretation is not agreement but
understanding."47 Samuel Levin adds that, for Davidson, Ua metaphor
incorporates no collateral cognitive content which it is the business of
analysis to read into or out of it; it 'means' simply and strictly what i t
says."48

• For Davidson, therefore, linguistically and semantically,

metaphorical expressions are not different from other forms of
expression, in that, like the latter, they trigger a process of
conceptual elaboration which pushes the reader to trace relations,
resemblances and analogies which will in the end generate meaning.
It is the patent falsity or absurdity of metaphors that should trigger
a process of construal. Contrary to Ricœur, then, Davidson insists th a t
this process does Dot consist in identifying the metaphorical meaning
of a terme For him, it a relatively open-ended process in which a
reader discovers a more literaI meaning that grows out of the
wording of the metaphorical expression.
1 will retain from Davidson the fact that the aim of
interpretation is understanding, not agreement. However, Davidson's
truth-conditional theory of meaning is overly grounded in the belief
in the existence of a single Uliteral" reality, which goes'against the
very foundation of this study: the existence of a plurality of worlds

• 4ï
48
Donald Davidson, 1n qui [i e s. p. xvii.
Metapborjc Worlds, p. 12.
 25

• and realities. As we will see in the next sections? metaphors are not
simply "false??? and "literai language?! is not as literai as Davidson
seems to irnply. Yet, metaphors need to be construed. Davidson is still
right that metaphors should trigger a process of conceptual
elaboration, but this process should not be intended simply to go
around the supposed falsity of these metaphors. Metaphors have a
'''collateral cognitive content?? which is incumbent upon us to
understand. This is what the process of construal of metaphors
should be aimed at. This principle is crucial for understanding terms
from another tradition. In order to understand such terms as xin, qi ,
shen and qing, which are not congruent with our categories, we need
to trigger a process of construal; we have "to trace relations,
resemblances and analogies which will in the end generate meaning."
Let us DOW see how we can elaborate on these basic principles.

3. Taking metaphors literally (2). Samuel Levin: "What conceptions

do metaphors imply and what are the epistemological

•
consequences of accepting these conceptions1"
Samuel Levin concurs with Davidson that metaphors should b e
taken literally. But instead of concerning himself with the truth value
of metaphors? he mainly sees them as expressions of feelings,
espeeially those of poets: "It is only by taking those metaphors
Iiterally that we stand sorne chance of approaching to an
understanding of the feelings that they are intended to express. "49
Levin's approach, however, differs from Davidson's in important
ways. Indeed, Levin claims that, by asserting simply that metaphors
are patently false (which is necessary in bis truth-eonditional theory
of meaning), Davidson obscures the specifie way in which metaphors
are false. Sorne false sentences can be false because of their
propositional falsity (that to which they refer does not obtain), but
this is not the case with metaphors. The absurdity of metaphors "is a
function of their semantics. nso
Levin's analysis of metaphors, more than linguistic, is
coneeptual. For him, a metaphor incorporates "collateral cognitive

• 49
50
Ibid.. p. xiii.
Ibid.• p. 14.
 26

• content which it is the business of analysis to read iota or out of it."51

The respects in which bis approach differs from other theories of
poetic metaphor, then, is in "its taking the metaphoric expression
Iiterally and in accepting the epistemological consequences that
ensue from adopting this approach." 52
Levin' s approach is important for our investigation in that it is
based on the question UWhat conception does the metaphor imply?"
instead of the traditional "What meaning does the metaphor
express?" In this, he is opposed to both Ricœur and Davidson. In Most
theories of metaphor, the key to meaning is thought to reside in the
relationship between what is said and what is ｭ･｡ｮｴｾ but for Levin,
the key is the relatioDship between what is said and what is
thought. 53
This is a crucial observation for those interested in cross-
cultural understanding: in order to understand metaphors, we should
not try to make what they state compatible with the normal (noo-
deviant) world, but instead try to modify our conception of the world

• and find out how to conceive of the state of affairs that the
metaphor, taken literally, purports to describe. This will constitute
an important aspect of our approach. When we look at the Nej ye, w e
will try to interpret the text as literally as we cao, and accept the
epistemological consequences of this reading. 54
However, 1 believe that the question "what conceptions does
the use of this term imply?" should not be cODfined to metaphors.
Indeed, it is not only poetic metaphors that have a "collateral
cognitive content" which needs to be construed. Let us DOW turn,
then, to thinkers who have studied a deeper kind of metaphor, aD d
have demonstrated that metaphors were much more pervasive in aIl
language than we previously thought. This will also lead us to
developments on the tricky concept of li terality .

51 lbid., p. 12.
52 lbid., p. 4. Emphasis added.

•
53 lbid., p. ix.
54 But see below for important warnings about the delicate notion of
Iiterality.
 27

• 4. Lakoff and Johnson: metaphorical concepts in our under-

standing and experiencing of the world.
In his interest in conceptual metaphors, Samuel Levin displays
sorne similarities with the approach developed by George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson in their oft-cited book Metaphors We Live By. Lakoff
and lohnson's concem, however, is not only with poetic metaphors.
As the title of their book indicates, they are more interested in
understanding these metaphors and metaphorical concepts which
shape the way we understand and experience life. Indeed, they claim
that

[t]he essence of metaphor is understanding and

experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. [...l
We shaH argue that [...l human thought processes are
largely metaphorical. This is what we Mean when we s a y
that the human conceptual system is metaphorically
structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic
expressions are possible precisely because there are

•
metaphors in a person' s conceptual system. Therefore,
whenever in this book we speak of metapbors [...l, it
should be understood that metaphor means metaphorical
concept. 55

In the above passage, "'understanding" and uexperiencing" are

important words. The conceptually metaphorical linguistic
expressions studied by Lakoff and Johnson are not simple figures of
speech, easy to identify because they are used ad hoc to respond to
the needs of a specifie contexte They are constantly expressed in our
everyday language; tbey appear natural because of underlying
metaphorical concepts of wbich we are unaware and that we most
often do not question.
Metaphors of this type are by no means easy to identify. An
example will help. The metaphorical concept "argument is war"
consists in understanding and experiencing argument as war, and in
referring to it as sucb. Sucb expressions as "bis claims are

• 55 Op. cit., p. 5-6. Emphasis added on "understanding

rest of the emphasis in the original.
and experiencing";
 28

• indefensible," or "1 never won an argument with him" are

expressions of this concept, and, although part of the lexicon of
English, they are metaphorical insofar as arguments and wars are in
fact two distinct realities. In this case, the source domain of war is
mapped on the target domain of arguments, projecting the
terminology and the logic of the former on the latter:

ARGUMENT is partially structured. understood. performed,

and talked about in terms of WAR. The concept is
metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically
structured, and, consequently, the language is
metaphorically structured. [...l The language of the
argument is not poetic , fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literai.
We talk about arguments tbat way because we concei ve
of them that way -and we act according to the way we
conceive things. S6

This is the meaning of the sentence "metaphors as linguistic

expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a

• person's
concepts
conceptual
expressed
system. uS7 These conceptual
unconsciously in everyday
metaphorical
language
··metaphors we live by." They do not constitute semantically deviant
language. Since we conduct argument as if it were war (winning 0 r
are

losing arguments, seeing our interlocutor as an opponent, attacking

the other' s position and defending our own, using strategies,
sharpening our arguments before the rhetorical battle, etc.), when we
speak of argument in terms of war, there is indeed no mismatch
between our words and the woeld. And yet the language we use is
implicitly metaphorical, because it is based on the metaphorical
concept "argument is war," in which one conceptual domain (war) is
mapped on another.
Although metaphorical concepts are implicit, they can still b e
identified. People conduct their life according to certain metaphorical
concepts which they are largely unaware of, but their language
reflects this conceptual system:

• 56
-57
Ibid., p. S. Emphasis added.
Ibid.• p. 6.
 29

• Since metaphorical expressions in our language are lied to

metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use
metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of
metaphorical concepts.S8

In other words, although we cannot observe these metaphorical

concepts directly, we can infer them from tbeir effects.s9 The notion
of metaphorical concept and the possibility of detecting them
through their linguistic expressions will be important parts of our
approach. Another important lesson to be retained from Lakoff and
Johnson is tbat seemingly ｾ ｬｩｴ･ｲ｡ｬＢ ｴ･ｲｭｳｾ because of their Ucollateral
cognitive content" are sometimes deeply metaphorical. The notion of
literality can therefore prove tricky in cross-cultural investigations.

5. The delicate notion of literality.

That sorne literaI language is predicated upon metaphorical
concepts does not Mean that ail "literai language" is in fact
metaphorical. For Lakoff, Johnson and Mark Turner, "literality" is a

• problematic notion. They prefer to speak of Ｇｾｳ･ｭ｡ｮｴｩ｣ autonomy":

An expression in a language is sernantically autonomous if

it is meaningful completely in its own terms. It follows
that any expression that is semantically autonomous does
not derive any of its meaning from metaphor.60

They give the example of the concept of a dog, sorne aspects of which
(physical traits like a dog's leg, nose and tail) are conventionally
understood without metaphor, "that is, without reference to a
completely different conceptual domain."61
However, much seemingly literaI language is grounded on
metaphorical concepts. This goes against the claim of what Lakoff
and Turner caU the '6literaI meaning theory."62 The general thrust of
this theory is that uall ordinary, conventional language (called
58 Ibid.• p. 7.
59 Lakoff and Turner. op. cit.• p. 66.
60

•
Ibid.. p. Ill.
61 Ibid.• p. Il 2.
62 Ibid.. p. 114-128.
 30

• Hliteral language") is semantically autonomous that it fOTIns the basis

7

for metaphor, and that metaphor stands outside of it."63 This claim
implicit in the writings of Ricœur and Davidson, is based on an
7

objectivist view of reality. In this view, the world (objective reality)

exists independently of human conceptualization and unders tanding.
It is '''mind-free.'' Therefore,

conventional expressions in a language designate aspects

of an objective, mind-free reality. Therefore, a statement
must objectively be either true or false, depending 0 n
whether the objective world accords with the statement.64

It is in this perspective tbat Many scholars, like Ricœur, Davidson

and Levin, have seen metapborical language as

expressions that evince a degree of linguistic deviance in

their composition. It follows from tbis deviant character
that the "claim' made by such expressions is bizarre,

• absurd, ridiculous,
contrasensical. "65
false, outlandish, oon- 0 r

However, we get a clear demonstration from the wrltlngs of Lakoff,

Johnson and Turner, that "our ordinary everyday language is
ineradicably metaphoric. [...l Conventional metaphorical tbougbt and
language are normal, not deviant. "66
For Donald Davidson, as we have seen, to construe a metaphor
is to paraphrase it in "literaI language" to make its truth-claim
correspond to a ....reality" assumed to be universal and mind-free.
From Davidson's position, metaphors are to he decoded in order to
reveal the literaI concepts that the author is trying indirectly to
express. In ligbt of Lakoff, Johnson and Tumer's findings, Davidson's
view is not acceptable. Let us take two ordinary statements: "he b ad
a head start in life", and "he bas no direction in life." Although tbey

63 Ibid.• p. 114.
64

•
Ibid.• p. 117.
65 Metaphorjc Worlds. op. cit., p. 1.
66 Lakoff and Turner. op. cit.. p. 124.
 31

• are not deviant expressions, these two expressions are nonetheless

based on a metaphorical concept: "life is a joumey." It is very
difficult to understand their meaning without a grasp of their
metaphoric grounding. Moreover, because they are ordinary literai
language, they can both be deemed true or false, but tbis is ooly the
case if one conceptualizes life as a journey. A Davidsonian paraphrase
would deprive these two statements of their metaphorical grounding
and thereby also fail to include all the inferences of the metaphor:
that striving to achieve objectives in Iife is seen as walking forward
on a path; that sorne more privileged people, through education or
money, can have "a head start" in this quest; that people with no
specifie objectives are seen as having "no direction" instead of being
considered stable. etc. In this metaphoric conceptualization, the
image of a journey is mapped onto the domain of life. This
understanding cornes only with the metaphor, and cannot b e
replaced by a literaI paraphrase.67
Once we do away with the common notion of literality as

• referring to the objective world, however, we face the problem of

knowing on what, if not on "mind-free" extemal reality, metaphors
are based. In a metaphor, one conceptual domain is understood in
terms of the other, the logic of the source domain being mapped onto
the logic of the target domain.68 The source domain of the metaphor
is semantically autonomous, that is, meaningful in its own terms.
Semantically autonomous terms, concepts and structures, however,
are not mind-free. They are in fact grounded in "the habituai and
routine bodily and social patterns we experience (...] and routinely
Iive,"69 in "patterns of what we take to be habituai and routine
67 See ibid., p. 120-1, for a similar argument about other expressions and
metaphorical concepts.
68 Ibid.• p. 103.
69 Ibid.• p. 113. On the same page, Lakoff and Turner give the following
example: "When we understand death as night. we are drawing on a
semantically autonomous conventional understanding of the source
domain. night. That understanding is grounded in what we experience
night to be, namely, dark. cold, foreboding, and so on. And what we
experience night to be depends upon both our sensory apparatus and

•
what we have learned about night from our culture. Of course. a
scientific understanding of night in terms of the rotation of the earth
away from the sun is completely irrelevant here. It is only the
 32

• experience, both biological and social, that we know unconsciously

and in rich interactional detaiI, because we live these patterns. ''10
Thought is embodied and imaginative. In other words, metaphors are
predicated upon our experience of reality as it is conceived in a given
Lebenswelt. Affinities between two domains are not a given: it is
within a particular conception of reality that we perceive them. For
this reason, all reading involves construal in light of a particular
world view.

6. AlI reading involves construaL

Lakoff, Johnson and Turner' s theory of metaphor is essential to
cross-cultural studies. For native speakers of a language,
understanding linguistic expressions based on metaphorical concepts
is perfectIy natural, because the conceptions which go with these
expressions are built into the native speaker's conceptual system. AlI
speakers of English, for example, would understand without
explanation the meaning of such an expression as '101 attacked his

• argument." Similarly, no native speaker would be perplexed upon

hearing a sentence like u;his theory is shaky" (in which theories are
spoken of as buildings). These expressions, however, would not be
self-explanatory for one who does not share the same metaphorical
concepts. Why, indeed, should it be natural to think that arguments
and war are so nearly equivalent that we cao speak of both in the
same terms? However familiar it is for us to understand, describe,
and even experience argument as war, we have to assume that, for
people who do not share our peculiar cultural habits, a process of
construal would be necessary in order ta make explicit the
metaphorical concepts underlying certain of our seemingly Uliteral"
expressions .7 1

commonplace experience of night as we ordinarily talte it to be that

matters."
70 Ibid.• p. 59.
71 Learning to understand these metaphors naturally would be part 0 f
what Michael LaFargue. using Jonathan Culler's theory (Structuralju

•
Poetjcs; Structuralisme LiD&,uistics, and the Study Qf Li teratu re. ｉｴｨ｡｣ ｾ
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), caUs "competence" in a language .
(Tao and Metbod.. pp. 36-38.)
 33

• For Samuel Levin, who disagrees with giving such expressions

as "1 tried to undermine bis argument" the status of metaphor on the
grounds that. it is ordinary literaI language, only metaphors require
construai. Donald Davidson, on the other hand, is aware that ail
words trigger a process of conceptual elaboration which pushes the
reader to trace relations, resemblances and analogies which will in
the end generate meaning.

That is, words evoke in the mind much more than th e y

strictly designate. What is meaningful are not the words,
the mere sound sequences spoken or letter sequences on a
page, but the conceptual content that the words evoke.
Meanings are thus in people' s minds, not in the words 0 n
the page. [...] Because of the nature of language, all reading
is reading in.7 2

A process of construal is necessary for aIl language, but it becomes

especially important when it cornes to understanding texts written in

• a different tradition. Words do not malee sense in and of themselves .

They make sense within conceptual schemas (or cognitive models),
sorne of which are metaphorical. As we have seen, what is evoked b y
words depends largely on our bodily and social experience, and no t
on a pre-existing objective reality. This is important in a cross-
cultural hermeneutic endeavor, where construal is constantly
needed.

III. Accessing the ancient Chinese Lebenswelt : analyzing Chinese

terms as metaphors.
This process of construal should be triggered by a recognitIon
of difference: the author of a text seem to understand (and therefore,
Most likely, experience) the world according to unfamiliar concepts.
Certain terms which seem at odds with our own categories constitute
a window through which we can gain access to the Lebenswelt of an
author, because they give access to the metaphorical concepts and
the cognitive models according to which an author understands and

• 72 Lakoff and Turner, op. cit., p. 109.

 34

• experiences the world. In ligbt of thïs, our recurrent question., "how

to have access to an alien set of categories?", can now be stated
somewhat differently: how can we identify these terms whicb gi ve
us access to a "reality'" different from ours? Since we cannot analyze
aIl the terms which appear in a text, we have to find a way of
selecting the most revealing among them for analysis.
The first step in choosing these terms involves the notion of
deviance, that we have criticized but which can nonetheless pro ve
indirectly useful. Of course., we cannot consider this notion as only
pertaining to poetic and rhetorical metaphors whose literaI meaning
does not obtain in the worId. Indeed, the terms we are trying to
understand here are not poetic metaphors, but mostly terms that
refer to concepts and categories which writers naturally used to refer
to their Lebenswelt. For them, these terms were neither deviant nor
metaphorical. Obviously, these four terms are not deviaot in Chinese.
When ancient Chinese thinkers discussed the existence of guishen
and wondered how to reach a shen-like understanding of the world,

• explained how to harmonize xin, keep control of qing, and nurture

the qi, these discussions were not metaphorical. These words, indeed,
might simply have been part of a common vocabulary used in a
certain Lebenswelt to refer to reality as it was thought to existe
Therefore, we will consider these terms deviant, Dot relative to
Hreality," but in comparison with the categories of the English
language. This., of course, is not to say that English sets a standard
that other languages can be proven to deviate from. To dismiss this
ambiguity, we will hereafter refer to these "divergent terms" simply
as "unusual terms." These terms are those which, in the words of
Ames, "integrate what might as weIl be a curions, often unexpected,
and sometimes even incongruous combination of meanings that lead
us most directly to a recognition of difference.''73
Shen, in that it refers at once to spirits and human spirituality,
constitutes an obvious choice. It is Ames's desire that we try to
understand philosophically why this terro means what it means}4

• 73
74
Sun-Izy. p. 72.
See the passage quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
 35

• We shouid have the same desire to explain how and why (if at aIl)
xin combines two meanings that correspond to two words and
categories (heart and mind) in our vocabulary and conceptual
system. Qing is aIso unusuai in that it seems to refer both to
"erootions" and ｾ ｲ･｡ｬｩｴｹＬＢ Iargely incompatible in our conceptuai
system. Finally, qi, which overiaps what we calI the materia! and the
spiritual reaIms, has always posed problems to translators and
interpreters and will therefore also be important to analyze. These
unusuai terms, because they correspond to key categories and
concepts? will help us to understand ancient Chïnese accounts of
cognitive activities.75
Seeing these terms as (cross-culturally, not semantically)
"unusuaI" will heip us trigger a process of construal which will give
us sorne access to the ancient Chïnese world view. It will b e
important, in this process, to construe both the cognitive models
upon which these terms are predicated, and the metaphorical
concepts which underlie certain seemingly literaI accounts of the

• functioning of cognitive activities. We will see that the meaning of

even the most literaI expressions bas a collateral cognitive content
which needs [0 he understood. In most cases, this larger
understanding. will grow out of the literaI meaning of the se
expressions. Indeed, the meaning of seemingly simple terms is 0 ften
grounded in elaborate conceptions, which it is important not to
overlook when engaging into an interpretive process. What requires
construal is not only obviously deviant metaphors, but also, and
perhaps above aIl, the conceptions which underlie the ordinary use
of certain terms. Borrowing Levin's question, we will have to wonder
what conceptions the literai use of certain terms implied, and we will
have to accept the epistemological consequences of living in a world
where these terms are used literally.76 It is equally natural (or

75 This is done in the spirit of François Jullien's Ustrategy of comparison":

··Si une tactique est ici nécessaire, c'est qu'il convient (...] de réussir tout
d'abord à repérer, au sein du contexte culturel envisagé. telle
représentation particulière qui puisse devenir efficacement révélatrice

•
de sa propre tradition." ｃｾﾫｃｨｩｮ･ﾻＭﾫｏ｣ ｩ､･ｮｴﾻＺ Questions de
comparaison", Études chiDoises. VO:2 (FaU 1988), p. 31.)
16 This is not exactly what Levin does. Indeed, he does not claim that
 36

• unnatural) to speak of cognitive activities in terms of shen, qi , qing ,

and xin as it is to think of them in terms of "mind" and "body."
Carving reality in such a different
consequences, upon which we have to reflect.
way undoubtedly has

Finally, when necessary, we will have to discover the

metaphorical concepts which underlie the use of certain expressions
which the authors of a text took for granted but that we have to
interpret before we cao understand them. As we have learned from
Lakoff, Johnson and Turner, metaphors are not intrinsically deviant
nor easy to identify. In order to understand the Neiye. it is essential
to understand by which metaphors its authors lived by. This strategy
will help us bath to criticize our own categories and to unravel
Chinese categories. This should contribute to a better understanding
of descriptions of cognitive activities which use a curious mixture of
terms often difficult to understand. This approach will give us access
to many things usually foreclosed by other hermeneutic methods.
In the next chapters, in my analysis of the four terms xin, qi,

• qing , and shen, 1 will assume that words are not applied to realities
arbitrarily, and that they can give us access to a world as it was
understood and experienced. It is also important to note that these
terms do not have a dictionary-type definition which our approach
will help us to reach. Therefore, the conclusions reached in this s tud y
apply mainly to the Nejye, although they could undoubtedly b e
extended to other texts with a few minor modifications. But because
of the scope of textual analysis it would require, this is obviously
beyond the scope of this study.

metaphors could correspond to any real world. He simply wants the

reader of poetry to imagine a world where the metaphors used by a poet
wouId be true, and to accept the consequences of this, which is supposed
to allow one to understand the feelings expressed by the poet. Si nce
poetic metaphors are semantically deviant, the result of this conceptual
effort will be an imaginary, impossible world. The metaphors we are
studying, however, are not semantically deviant, rhetorical metaphors.
In arder to understand cross-culturally divergent terms, we have to
imagine a world in which these terms would make sense, but instead 0 f

•
an imaginary world, we will try to conceive of a Lebenswelt, a world i n
which the terms we are studying describe reality. This will give us a
better access to the meaning of the texts written in this Lebenswelt.
 37

• Chapter 2

What it implies to see the heart as the locus of

conscious activities.

1. The importance of not ｮ･ｾｬ ｣ｴｩｮｾ the ｭ･｡ｮｩ ｾ of xin.

In this chapter, we will make a few observations about the
possible implications of believing that the heart is the seat of
cognitive activities. Clearly, xin is not a metaphor: its meaning is
independent of any reference to another conceptuai domain. It is a
semantically autonomous term which seems to Mean simply Uheart."
The cognitive modeis in which this term makes sense, however, are
very different from those in which the English "heart" makes sense.
Indeed, as we have seen in the last chapter, even semantically
autonomous language is not mind-free. Therefore, beyond the literaI
translation "heart" that we have to give to xin, we have to move one

• step forward and wonder what the semantic boundaries of this terrn
were in the ancient Chinese Lebenswelt, and in what cognitive
models it made sense. This difference in cognitive models shouid b e
seen as having consequences on the way activities involving xin
were understood and experienced.
Our goal in this chapter will be to perceive and appreciate the
inherent physical aspect of cognitive activities as described in the
Neiye, but also to see how a certain understanding of the cognitive
functioning of the body centered on the activities of the heart made
certain practices readily conceivable and others more difficult to
imagine. The insights gained by the application of the strategy
developed in chapter 1 should provide us with the means to make
better sense of some seemingly recondite passages of the Nejye. This
should be seen as no less than an attempt to gain access to important
parts of the Lebenswelt the Nejye refers to.
1 will argue that our failure to understand this text is largely
due to our not taking ioto account the implications and consequences

• of ascribing cognitive activities to the heart. We will be able to reach

 38

• such an understanding by discovering the conceptions that lie behind

the regular use of certain uunusual tenns." 1 think that what obscures
this understanding is the translation of xin as anything other than
simply "heart." We have to translate such a key term literally, and,
furthermore, we have to accept the consequences of this li teral
rendering. Only then can we have access to the cognitive models and
the metaphorical concepts which are essential to reach a good
understanding of the practices described in the Nei ye.
Granted, the Chinese notion of xin is different from our notion
of heart as an organ, Indeed, judging from ancient Chinese Medical
texts, it is obvious that xin has a broader sense than simply the
discrete organ that appears in Western anatomy textbooks. Indeed,
"just as the Five Viscera or pathways of vital energy are more
inclusive than just the physical organ from which each takes its
name, the xin means not just the physical heart but the entire
sphere of vital energy that flows through and includes it."77 However,
it seems important to use "heart" as a starting point and only then to

• see what in xin differs from this familiar category, instead of

obscuring any possible comparison by translating xin as something
other than heart.

A. The differences between xin , heart, and mind.

Although this is not evident at first sight, xin is one of these
terms which diverge the most from our familiar categories.
Admittedly, the English lexicon includes "heart," and, accordingly, this
should be the most obvious rendering of xin. "Heart", however, ha s
important connotations which it does not share with xin : we
primarily relate the heart to love, feelings, emotions, even sometimes
to the irrationality traditionally associated with emotions. In our
categories, the heart seems to possess an agency opposed to that of
the brain or the head. Of course, in fact , emotions, love and
Hirrationality," although they might have physical effects on the
heart, all originate in the brain and the central nervous system, but
for most of us this is counter-intuitive: we are so used to speaking of

• 17 Roth, ｾＧｉｮ ･ｲ Cultivation", p. 126.

 39

• the heart as the seat of emotions that, however hard we think, in 0 u r

Lebenswelt, the heart IS the seat of emotions. This case is similar to
the example quoted in note 69 above: like our conventional concept
of the night, our folk understanding of the heart is based, not 0 n
scientific facts, which are irrelevaot, but on our commonplace
experience of the heart and what we have learned about it frorn our
culture.
In Western languages, "heart" does not refer solely to the organ
located in the chest and responsible for blood circulation. It makes
sense in a cognitive model in w.hich the mind is clearly distinct from
the body, in which the (rational) rnind is in the head and the (non-
rationallirrational) body speaks through the beart. We are in fact so
deeply immersed in this cognitive model tbat it seems to be part of
the very structure of things. This conception is what underlies such
expressions as "1 listened to my heart," or "Reason tells me this, but
my heart tells me that," the meaning of both of which would be quite
difficult to render in classical Chinese, in which "heart" is part of

• different cognitive models. That we see the heart as responsible for

emotions affects the way we understand and experience life: we can
say that one is a "slave to his/her emotions" because we naturally see
emotions as impeding reason. Sorne of us consequently try to restrain
our emotions when we have to make a serious decision. "The heart
has an agency opposed to that of the mind" is certainly a complex
metaphor we live by. It is systematically linked to other such
metaphorical concepts as "the heart is the seat of emotions", "the
heart is opposed to reason" ,78 "the real self is the rational self" ,79 etc.
"Heart," in common English, makes sense in a cognitive model which
includes these metaphorical concepts.
Kin also means "heart," but its connotations (the cognitive
models in which it makes sense) are different from those of the word

78 Which manifests itself in the following expressions: UListen to reason,

not to your heart''. ule cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas",
etc.
79 ... rau are a slave to your emotions", "you can control your emotions··,

•
etc. These two sentences imply that someone can control emotions
through reason, as if emotions were Dot as much a part of oneself as
reasoo.
 40

• Hheart." Because the ancient Chînese assumed that xin referred not
only to the heart as a physical entity but also to the seat of what we
term the mind. scholars often prefer to render it as Ｂｨ･｡ｲｴＭｭｩｮ､ｾ
sometimes even simply as "mind." But this is but a superficial
0 r

translation which hardly helps us to unravel the complex

metaphorical concepts which account for the differences between xin
and heart. Through an investigation into the uses of xin in the tex t
we have chosen to study, we will he able to answer certain crucial
questions about the meaning of this important terme It is important
to understand that xin and the tenns used along with it were no t
used fortuitously: they referred to the reality of the Lebenswelt of
the authors of the Neiye. The use of a character can give us access to
the authors' conception of reality and to the way they understood the
practices they describe. But we will only proceed to this analysis in
chapter 3. Let us first tuen to a discussion of what is to be avoided
when we construe the term xin in the Neiye.

• B. A difficult phrase: xin zhi xing (IL" :t1frJ )

A number of passages in the Neiye which involve xin seem, if
not cryptic, at least difficult to interpret. Since we often do not h a v e
the proper tools to interpret certain "outlandish" passages, we often
deem them esoteric. It is undeniably somewhat perplexing, for
example, to look at an expression like xin zhi xing 80 theough 0 u r
categories. If we translate xin as mind, we obtain "the shape (or the
fonn) of the mind," which does not make obvious sense in the
theories of psychology with which we are familiar. Opting instead for
"heart" to translate ｸｩｮｾ the phrase then reads "the shape of the
heart", which is more literai. but still seems to make little sense in a
text related to cognitive activities. On the (unspoken) grounds that
the phrase makes no sense in our categories, we are then tempted to
consider it as an esoteric saying which refers to something specifie
which only initiates could comprehend. 1 believe, however. that the
difficulty we have to undeestand this passage in fact lies in our
failure to understand the cognitive models in which the term xin

• 80 Reading xi ng as xing • ils equivalent in ancient cbaracters (16.1a).

 41

• makes sense. As long as we have not tried to make sense of it in light

of other cognitive models, we cannot say that this expression makes
no obvious sense or that it is esoteric.

c. The dangers of "psychologizing" ancient Chinese texts.

Michael LaFargue rightly refuses to calI a passage esoteric or
mysticai when it is simply difficult to understand. Instead, he argues
that ｾ ｭｹｳｴｩ｣｡ｬ texts" are often experientially evacative, and that the y
make sense in the author's Lehenswelt ,which is consistent with th e
observation made in chapter 1 that the meaning of a tenn is related
to our bodily, social and cultural experience of it. Considering this,
LaFargue notes, the interpreter's task is ta became competent in the
language used to describe this Lehenswelt, and then read the text in
light of this newly acquired competence. LaFargue's point is crucial,
but however crucial it may be, it is insufficient. Indeed, despite his
awareness of the difficulties of cross-cultural interpretation,
LaFargue cannot help importing psychological terms into the "Neiye"

• even if these terms are obviously not part of the Lehenswelt of its
authors. Of the first passage in the Neiye in which xin zhi xing
appears, LaFargue gives the follawing translation:

Always: [fan]
The mind's Fonn [xin zhi xing ]
is self-sufficient, reaching fullness by itself [zi chang zi ying ]
self-producing, self-perfecting. [zi he zi cheng]
What we lose it by: [qi sua yi shi zhi]
It is always sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire for profit. [hi
yi you le xi nu yu li ]
If we are able to get rid of sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire
for profit, [neng qu you le xi nu yu li ]
then the mind toms back to completeness. [xin nai fan ji ]
What profits the mind's feelings: Peacefulness brought on by
rest. [hi xin zhi qing, li an yi ning ]
No trouble, no confusion, [wu fan wu luan]
then Harmony will perfect itself. [he nai zi cheng ]81

• 81 LaFargue, Tao and Method, op. Cil., pp. 181·182.

 42

• LaFargue explains self-cultivation in the Neiye as being a quest for a

certain "state of mind." He assumes, moreover, that xin ,hi xing is
part of the author's "theory of psycbology"82 and concretely refers to
ｾＧ｡ｮ ideal state of mind/' ....concretely identical with the peaceful s tate
of rnind spoken of in the rest of these stanzas. "83 Without claiming
anything to this effect, LaFargue, then, seems to assume that he can
explain the Neiye by means of sucb words as "mind", "emotions",
'''feelings'', "theory", ""psychology", "ideal", etc., all words heavily
charged with connotations which make sense only in our complex
culturally constructed cognitive model of psychology. Granted, b y
considering certain terms as experientially evocative, LaFargue
manages to make sense of numerous expressions used by adepts of
meditation to evoke their experiences of understanding dao, but he
goes too far and applies this principle of interpretation (that certain
terms are experientially evocative) on too many Chinese terms, to
the extent that they seem experientially evocative... of our own
(more real) terms and categories!

• LaFargue claims, in his introductory chapters, that his

hermeneu tic framework will allow him to go back to the original
meaning of texts. He tries to go back to the experiences evoked in
the Neiye, but, by considering these experiences without regard for
the particular way they are described, he makes a hermeneutically
far-reaching mistake. Indeed, he describes these experiences in
Western terms and categories, as one would if one were to
experience them today, with, needless to say, a completely different
understanding of them. By projecting this understanding back onto
the text in his translation, instead of going back to the original
meaning of the text, he in fact manages to obscure our understanding
of it. More precisely, he veils the physical aspect of cognitive
activities under a blanket of terms drawn from our terminology of
"folk psychology."

• 82
83
Ibid.• p. 182.
Idem.
 43

• ｴ･ｲｭｾ
Chad Hansen has repeatedly warned us, sometimes in ironie
against the danger of "psychologizing" ancient Cbinese
documents:

We assume a similar psychologicaI theory because we c an

hardly imagine believing other than what Indo-European
culture has always believed. These evident eternal truths
must be universai and obvions truthS. 84

Hansen has, 1 believe, convincingly demonstrated that the ancient

Chinese had a very different view of the functioning of "the mind."8s
Arguing, along with many recent writings in philosophy of mind, tbat
"folk psychology is theory-Iaden" ,86 Hansen rightly remarks tbat i t
would be a mistake to take it as a background assumption tbat texts
developed independently from Indo-European influences would
adopt the same categories.
As noted in ehapter 1, it is equally natura! to speak of cognitive
activities in terms of shen, qi , qing and xin as it is to think of them

• in terms of Hmind" and "body." Carving reality in such different w a ys

undoubtedly bas consequences, upon wbich we have to reflect.
Although there is certainly no "psyehologieal theory" in the Neiye,
there is undoubtedly a model of understanding of the cognitive
functioning of the body whieb cannot be dismissed simply as
""experientially evocative."
Harold D. Roth is quite enlightening about what he eaUs "the
physiological basis of self-eultivation in the Chinese tradition":87

84 A paoist Them:)' of Chinese Tbou&ht (New York, Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1992), p. 18. Emphasis in the original.
85 ｓ･ ｾ inter aUa, A naQist TheQ[y Qf Chinese Thou&ht, op. cit.; "Qing
(EmQtions) in Pre-Buddhist Chinese Thought" in Joel Marks and Roger
T. Ames Ｈ･､ｳＮＩｾ Emotions in Asian Thou ,hl (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995),
pp. 181-211 (hereafter uQing"); and ULanguage in the Heart-Mind," in
Robert E. Allinson (ed.), Understapdi o , tbe Chinese Mind The
Philosophieal Ro0ts (Oxford, New York: Oxford, University Press, 1989),

•
pp. 75-124.
86 A'Qing'" p. 182. Indeed, almost no language is mind-free!
87 Upsychology", p. 612.
 44

• one of the most ancient assumptions about hum a n

psychology in China is that the varions aspects of human
psychological experience are associated with or ev e n
9

based upon certain physiological substrates or conditions.

9

[...l If psychological experiences - especially the exal ted

and desirable ones traditionally through meditation - are
based upon physiological conditions, then it is possible to
attain these states through exclusively physiological
means snch as dietary contro1 the consumption of certain
9

physical substances, and even carefully re gu la ted

physical exercise. 88

What Roth Cails to do, however, and this minor oversight ha s

important consequences, is to adjust bis translations of certain
passages to the understanding of the body suggested by the
existence of these practices.
Roth certainly does not project Western categories on the Neiye
as LaFargue does, but he still chooses to translate xin as umind,"

•
claiming that to translate it as "heart" ufails to convey adequately the
broad range the term has in classical Chinese" and that "in the
9 9

technical literature xin

9 was understood more as a physicalist
metaphor rather than as a physical organ." In other words, "we need
not translate it [xin ] as 'hearf in order ta be faithful to the
implications of the originat which are, after aIl, more abstract th an
our own notion of the physical."89
Following the same reasoning, if we translated such a sentence
as "tbis will never get into my brain" (uttered by a desperate student
who has been studying for an examination for two days but cannat
digest the material) into classical Chinese, we would be likely to end
up with a sentence whose literaI translation back ioto English would
be "this will never get into my heart." To explain this oon-literal
rendering of the English ioto Chinese in the tust translation, we couId
follow Roth and argue that "brain" is in fact a physicalist metaphor
which refers to the mind and its activities, and tbat since for the
ancient Chinese these activities took place in the heart, we w e r e

• 88
89
Ibid., pp. 602-603.
Ibid., p. 600, note 2.
 45

• justified to translate it as xin to convey the implications of the

English original. However by doing S07 we would completely obscure
y

the fundamental difference tbat exists between ascribing co gnitive

activities to the heart and ascribing them to the brain (or the mind).
1 think that translating xin as "mind" has the same effect of
obscuring fundamental cognitive models. By the non-literai
translation of a single word, Roth (and many less enlightened others)
semantically severs the physical practices which he discusses from
their basis in the Chïnese understanding of the functioning of the
body. in which the heart plays a crucial role.

o. A first step towards avoiding "psychologization": taking terms

literally.
The main reason why our interpretive ventures are frustrated
by expressions like xin zhi xing is tbat our approach simply leaves
no room for them to make sense. Kin zhi xing will seem irremediably
cryptic as long as we insist on interpreting it through the familiar

• spectacles of the categories of "folk psychology." As we noted above,

however, a more literai translation ("the shape of the heart") still
does not make much sense in English, and it remains to be explained
how one can speak of a heart with a shape in relation to cognitive
activities and "emotions." If we assume that a texl makes sense to its
authors, we have to explain how it does. A literai rendition of ke y
terms is ooly a first step towards understaoding. It has to b e
supplemented by further construaI.
Since xin zhi xing appears in a passage about cognitive
activities, we have to conclude that the meaning of this expression
was grounded in a certain conception of the cognitive functioning of
the body, with the heart as its main actor. If we understand this
conception in the Nej ye, it will help us to comprehend how i ts
authors understood and experienced the body. This will in turn shed
light on what made the practices described in the Neiye conceivable
and more easily understandable. Our attention should first b e
attracted by the fact that xin is said to have a shape. Kin zhi xing is

•
undeniably an "unusual expression" which differs from our familiar
categories. Indeed the "mind" does not have a shape in any concrete
7
 46

• way, and has nothing to do with the heart. Furthermore 9 in our

cognitive model of folk psycbologY9 the shape of the heut seems to
have no connection with either emotions or cognitive activities.
This, needless to say, is insufficient to deem tbis expression
meaningless. It is important to recognize that the application of
certain terms to certain realities is not trivial. Cognitive models are
deeply rooted in the mind, and for those who do not purposely
reflect on their own language, they are reality. It is not fortuitous 9
then, that xing can be used aIong with xin : there was an analo gy
between the two. What remains to be discovered is the conception
(underlying the analogy) which allows one to speak of the "shape of
the heart. n If, through a process of construal, we discover this
conception (provided that it exists, but I strongly believe it does)9 i t
will be possible to make sense of such an expression as xin zhi xing
without considering it as an esoteric saying which only initiates can
understand, or as a metaphor which ultimately refers to Western
experiences and categories.90

• II. The consequences Qf ｾｄｩ｢ ｛｣ｳ｡

A- Introduction.
conscious activjties to xin.

The point of departure of tbis interpretive analysis was to

translate xin literally as "heart and to analyze the cognitive models
U

and metaphQrical concepts upon which it was predicated. But as w e

have seen, this concem for literality is only a first step. Indeed, as
emphasized in chapter 1, we also have to try to imagine a world in
which xin was believed to he the seat of cognitive activities. In that
it seems to refer to both the heart and the "mind," xin is at odds with
our understanding of "beart" in English. How differently would we
experience, understand and describe inner cultivation practices if we
believed that what we were trying to "cultivate" was not the mind,
but the heart in the Cbinese sense? What experiences would be made
conceivable by this belief, which are not envisageable when body
and rnind are clearly distinguished, as in Indo-European traditions?
What are the textual traces of this different understanding of the

• 90 We will go back to this peculiar phrase at the end of next chapter.

 47

• body? How can we understand better the texts written by au thors

whose Lebenswelt was one in which the heart was the seat of the
'''mind''? AlI these open-ended questions are crucial if we want to
understand the text we are reading.
ln our investigation, we will have to bear in mind one of
LaFargue's principles conceming the relation between language and
reality:

Language IS often phenomenologically concrete. That is, i t

is indeed at least partially representational, but what i t
represents is phainomena, reality-as-experienced by the
speaker.91

The descriptions of experiences of inner cultivation in the texts we

are studying are "phenomenologically concrete." Sorne of these
accounts even correspond directly to what the writers of these tex ts
thought was taking place in the body during these experiences. They
reflect one of the ways in which cognitive activities were once

• understood and experienced.

LaFargue notes that, sometimes, the terms used in the Neiye
are evocative of certain "states of mind,"92 which, as noted above, is
symptomatic of our tendency overly to "psychologize ancient Chinese
texts." 1 will argue, instead, that every time the term xin is used in
the Neiye, the authors were in fact referring directIy to what they
thought was taking place inside of the heart and the body as a result
of practicing inner cultivation.

B- Approaching the Lebenswelt of the authors of the Nejye: the

general consequences of ascribing cognition to the heart.
For unknown reasons, the ancient Chinese believed that xin
was the seat of consciousness (emotions, thought, feelings, etc.). This
belief became such common "knowledge" that all known ancient
Chinese texts give primacy to xin as the seat of cognitive activities.93

91 TaQ and Metbod. p. 34.

• 92
93
Ibid.• pp. 210-220.
It is useless to speculate about the reasons why cognitive activilies were
 48

• In fact 7 even in systems in which every organ was thought to play a

roIe in human consciousness, the heart was still seen as the mler of
the bodY7 playing the main role in cognition.94
The consequences of ascribing cognitive activities to xin tend
to go largely unnoticed. Sorne perhaps see this ascription as a simple
mistake due to ignorance of modern biology, or vaguely as a
manifestation of Uthe Chinese world view." In both cases, that the
Chinese believed the heart was responsible for consciousness seems
uncannY7 but inconsequentiat just a matter of using one word where
we would use two (heart and mind).
In fact 7 ascribing cognitive activities to the heart was not an
inconsequential ··mistake," but a very important assumption with
far-reaching epistemological consequences which deserve serious
consideration. It made one understand and experience these
activities very differently than one who thinks of the mind as a non-
physical entity or believes that the brain is responsible for hum a n
consciousness. This different understanding and experiencing

• becomes apparent in descriptions of these activities. It is these

consequences which, to my knowledge, have largely gone unnoticed,
or at least have never been deemed important in translations.
We have to make an imaginative effort to approach the
Lebenswelt of the ancient Chinese as described in the Nejye. We
have to consider, for example, the likely possibility that since
cognitive activities were thought to take place in the heart (a

first ascribed to xin. There was iodeed never a moment w h e n

imaginative human beings applied a first layer of language 00 hitherto
unmediated experience. The texts we have aU date back to a time wh e n
xin was accepted by all to be respoosible for consciousness. However.
the primacy of xin as a category should not be seen as chronological.
but as conceptual. The use of xin is a first conceptual layer wbich opens
other possibilities. and. without foreclosing them. makes others more
difficult to develop.
94 Sucb a system is described in the "nanld; Nejijnl. a Han compendium of
medical texts. See Manfred Porkert's The TbeoretjcaJ FQundatiops 0 f
Ch;nese Medicjne (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1974) for details about
the role each organ plays in this system. It seems. bowever. that the
ascription of certain conscious activities to other organs than the h eart

•
is a late development. Indeed. systematic correlative thinking applied to
the functioning of the body only appeared in the Han dynasty, wh e 0
the "nanldj Neiiipi was compiled.
 49

• physieal location in the body), the body was always seen as

somehow involved in these activities. Blood and ubreath,"9S whieh
were known, and undoubtedly feh, to circulate in the chest (theough
and around the heart), were also naturally linked to cognition, whieh
was in tuen seen as depending on the circulation of these fluids in
the body.96 Moreover, certain emotions which manifest themsel ves
by an inerease of heart rate and an acceleration of the breath, like
anger,91 were probably interpreted as a direct obstacle to cognitive
funetions. Similarly, heartbeats would he somehow related to

95 The digraph xueqi [hJ (blood and qi ) appears often in ancient Chinese
[exts. While xue refers to blood. it is not always clear what q i
designates. It could simply correspond to the human breath. but i ts
semantic scope often seems to make it mean a sort of life-inducing
matter-energy taking the forOl of a f1uid circulating in the body alo n g
wi th x u e. ei ther through the same channels or through other cha n ne 1s .
This second interpretation does not exclude the interpretation of qi as
"breath" (seen as the air which we inhale and exhale. but which ca n
also circulate within the body). We will go back to this notion in the
next chapter.

•
96 So far. we are very close to what Roth noticed about the physiological
basis of the practices described in the Neiye. See the passage from Roth's
"Psychology" quoted above (page 43-4, note 88).
91 See Paul Ekman. Universals and Cultural Differences in Facial
Expressions of EmotiOns (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971);
Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and P. Ellsworth, EmQtions in the Hu man
ｾ (ElmsfQrd, N.Y.: PergamQn Press, 1972); and Paul Ekman, Robert W.
Levenson, and Wallace V. Friesen, "Autonomie NervQus System Activity
Distinguishes among Emotions:' Science 221 (1983): 1208-10. Ekman and
his associates did extensive cross-cultural research tQ identify the
physiological correlates of emotional concepts. They distinguished
seven basic emotions which correlate universally with certain facial
expressions and with autonomous nervous system activity. One of these
"universal emotions" was anger. This a1lows us to say that the way anger
is conceptualized is embodied in the nervous system. This, of course,
should not be taken as meaning that anger consistently forros a
category which functions according to the same models as ours. As
Catherine Lutz (Unoatural Emotions, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988) and Many others have demonstrated, emotions, and
especially the specifie way we divide emotions into categories and gi ve
them meaning, are by nQ means conceptualized in the same way
everywhere. However, the study done by the Ekman group and, fo r
example, George Lakoff and Zoltan Kôvecses's study on anger suggest
that emotional concepts are I6correlated with bodily experience."
(George Lakoff and Zoltan Kovecses, "The Cognitive Model of Anger

•
Inherent in American English," in DorQthy Rolland and Naomi Quinn
(eds.), Cultural Models in Lanluale and Tboulbt (Cambridge: University
Press, 1987), p. 221.)
 50

• cognitive activities, in tbat everytbing tbat causes excessive

heartbeats could be seen as an impediment to the proper functioning
of the heart. If we were to describe this conception in our
vocabulary. we would say that, for the ancient Chinese, the activities
we caU "mental" were indeed very Uphysical"!
In the next chapter, we will see how physical, by our standard,
cognition was in the Neiye, and how the ascription of cognitIve
activities to xin contributed to making mind and body ｾ ｦｬｵｩ､ＮＢＹＸ
Michael LaFargue, as we have seen, approacbes the ｄ｡ｯ､･ｪｩｮｾ and the
Neiye with good hermeneutic principles, but he seems to assume that
once one is aware that the ancient Chinese Lebenswelt was different
from ours, one can have ready access to this Lebenswelt through
empathic imagination. This is not sufficient: to get closer to the
meaning of a text, it is also crucial to study the language it uses and
the conceptions which underlay it. This is what we will DOW tum to.

•
98 Hidemi Ishida, &6Body and Mind: the Chinese Perspective", in Livia Kohn
(ed.), Taojst Meditation and Loo&evity Techniques (Ann Arhor: Center
for Chinese Studies. the University of Michigan. 1990). pp. 41-71.
 51

• Chapter 3

The physicality of cognitive activities in the N e i ye.

In light of last chapter's observations, it seems that the type of

meditation described in the Nejye was based on a peculiar
understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body, in which
breathing techniques were given a role different from the one i t
plays in our cognitive models. This chapter is devoted to the analysis
of how cognitive activities were understood by the authors of the
Neive in light of a few key-terms used in this text. We will start our
exploration from the notion of qi.

1- Qi ｾ , dao if '
andxin IL' .
A. More than simple breathing practices.
One passage indicates that the authors of the Nejye likely

• practiced a fonn of breath-control meditation:

In this Way [of breatbing]: you must coil, you ID us t

contract, you must uncoil, you must expand, you must b e
firm, you must he regular [in this practice]. Hold fast to
this excellent [practice]; do not let go of il. 99

99 Roth, ulnner Cultivation'\ p. 132. Fan dao, hi z,hou hi mi. hi kuan hi shu,
hi jian hi gUe Shou shan wu she... (16.3b) [il. Rickett gives an utterly
different interpretation of this passage: Ult is ever so that the Way is
certain to be dense and close, broad and expansive. strong and firme
Preserve the good and never let it go" (Kuan-tzu. p. 164; hereafter, aU
references ta Rickett are to this book). When 1 refer to passages fra m
the Nejye, 1 will choose the translation that 1 consider closest to m y
interpretatian. If none seems suitable, 1 will give my awn rendering.
For every passage, 1 will also refer to Roth's and Rickett's translations
for comparisan. Rath's Most recent published translation is in U1n n e r

•
Cultivation". The references in brackets (16.xx) are to the Sjbu cour kau
version. The pinyin version is given in the notes and the passages
recapied in Appendix 1.
 52

• Roth sees in this passage "the earliest reference to the practice of

breath-control Meditation in the Chinese tradition."loo However, he
presents the practice of regular breathing as "a method of Meditation
for calming the mind and reaching the Tao inherent within,"IOI
which obscures the particular understanding of qi and xin upon
which these practices are based. Regular breathing cannot be fully
understood without a certain idea of the functioning of cognition
within the body. It is necessary to regularize qi, not only because
regular breathing leads to relaxation and greater clarity of mind, but
also because of the particular relationship between q i and heart in
cognitive activities. Roth is undoubtedly aware of tms, but the simple
fact that he translates xin as mind makes it unclear to his readers.
The practices described in the Neiye were aIl aimed a t
developing (or reverting back to, see section. III of this chapter) the
physical conditions which allowed the heart to fulfill its cognitive
functions propedy. Under ideal circumstances, the heart should b e
able to reestablish a permanent contact with dao , thereby gaining a

• complete understanding of the world. These ideal conditions were

several: the fluids of the body (blood and qi ) had to be regulated,
emotions and the senses had to be brought under control, and the
heart had to become unstirred (jing. ).1 02 These all imply sorne kind
of physical preparation of the body and the heart for cognition, and
the breathing techniques described in the Neiye are directly linked
to this physicality of cognitive activities.
In this chapter, 1 will try to explain how cognitive practices
(including breathing techniques) were understood by the authors of
the Neiye. Doing so will require us to explore several important
notions, their meaning and their link to the general cognitive model
of cognitive activities in the Neiye. Let us first see what exactly is
dao in this texte Understanding what the goal of cognitive activities
is could help us understand the process which leads to it.

100

•
Ibid., p. 619.
101 Idem. Emphasis added.
102 See section IV of this chapter for more on this interpretation of j i n g.
 S3

• B. Dao in the Neiye: what it is and how to attain it.

In his celebrated Disputees of the Tao, A.C. Graham
remarks that

the crucial question for aU of them (Chinese tbinkers of

aptly

the Warring States] is not the Western philosophers'

'What is the truth?', but 'Wbere is the Way [dao ]7', the
way to order the state and conduct personal life)03

It is indeed well-known that Chinese thought was more concerned

with the behavioral implications of knowledge than with its
correspondence to reality, which drove Chad Hansen to translate dao
as Hguiding discourse."lo4 In the Nejye, however, dao seems to b e
more elusive than any '·discourse" could be. Instead of a discourse,
dao, in the broadest terms, should he interpreted as a practically
oriented grid of understanding which allowed one to understand the
world and know how to act in it. For sorne thinkers, dao was indeed
close to a discourse, but for others it meant an "intuitive grasp of the

• w ho le" , 1os an all-encompassing insight on things which allowed one to

face aIl situations in the proper fashion, the "proper fashion" being
one that extended life and brought about arder and harmony in
personal life and the polity.
In the Neiye, grasping dao did not involve studying the classics
or the thought of the ancients uoder the guidance of a master as i t
did in Ruist (Confucian) teachings. The correct "grid of
understanding" could only he reached through certain Meditation
techniques, predicated upon a certain understanding of the cognitive
functioning of the body. When one grasped dao durably, the entire
world naturally made sense. This understanding of the world,
however, was not merely contemplative. Indeed, a stable grasp of

103 Op. cil., p. 3.

104 A Daojst Tbeory. passim. This strong connection between knowledge and
action by no means indicates that Chinese thinkers did not distinguish
them. but that they generally thought of knowledge as articulated w i th
subsequent action. For them. knowledge was sought as a basis for action

•
rather than for its own sake.
lOS Benjamin 1. Schwartz, Tbe World of Thoulht in Ancjeot Chjna
(Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). p. 250.
 S4

• dao led to a permanent understanding of how things should stand

in the world. When this stability was reached, the world acquired
order, naturally making sense in the heart of the adept of meditation.
This synoptic intuition oriented with action is expressed in
various ways in the Nejye. In the first few lines, it is said that if one
achieves "complete virtue" (cheng de ) - a quality reached through
stabilizing qi - "the myriad things to the last one will be grasped."106
Below this, another passage asserts that for one whose heart i s
rectified inside, "aIl things attain tbeir proper measure."107 Both
passages clearly refer to the understanding of the world reached b y
one able to cultivate his heart and body.108 It is important to note
that nothing is said about the grasping of the essence of things. For
one who understands, things simply acquire their proper place in the
cosmos. Dao, however, is described as highly fugitive. Someone May
reach a fleeting grasp of it (providing him with momentary insights
on the world), but in general dao was considered so unstable that it
tended to elude when one tried to catch or find it: "Dao is wh a t

• fuifills the form [of the heart]. Yet people are unable to stabilize it. [t
goes but does not retum. It cornes but does not stay (she )."109 In this

106 Roth, p. 129. Wan wu bi de (16.1a) li], emending b i . from guo ｾ

following Wang Niansun, in accordance with a similar passage from the
,

Xinshu xia (13.5b). (Guo Moruo, Guanzi Jjiiao [k], Hsbj bj an [f], vol. 7, p.
123. Ali the textual emendations are from this volume of the Guanzj
J ii i ao, hereafter yzu. Cf. Rickett, p. 158.
107 Rickett, p. 162. [Zheng xin zai zhong,] wan wu de du (16.3a) [1]. Cf. Roth,
p. 131.
108 It is interesting to note that no word in the Nejye is ｾｳｵ fo r
"understanding" per se. The word closest to "understanding" is de (to
acquire, ta get, to grasp). When the proper conditions were fui llled,
when body and heart were in a certain state, the world naturally made
sense. In the passages quoted, it is always said that the world will acquire
order (in the mind of the practitioner), or that things will each get their
place and measure. but not that one will "know" zhi ｾ dao or the
world. In fact, zhi seems tao intentional to apply 10 the type 0 f
understanding described in the Nej ye.
109 1 will explain below why 1 include uof the hean" ioto the translation. Fu
dao zhe, suo yi chong xing ye, er ren bu neng gu. Qi wang bu fu, qi lai
bu she .. (16.1b) [ml. Like me, Roth seems to believe that xing is short
for xin zhi xing , but he translates xin as mind: "The Way is what

•
infuses the structures (of the mind), yet men are unable to secure it. 1t
goes forth but does not return, it cornes back but does not stay" (p. 130).
Cf. Rickett, p. 159.
 55

• passage, dao is likened to a fluid which flows through the heart but
does not settle into it. The same is said of jing" (essence): when the
heart is ding ｾ
place (she ｾ
(stable, fixed), it "cao thereby become the dwelling
) of the essence."110

c. Xin in the Neiye: a concrete location in the body.

These two passages, and many more analyzed below, should
also attract our attention because they consistently refer to xin as an
entity with a location inside of the body, through which certain fluids
flow and in which they can settle. Kin as she (dwelling place, abode)
refers to the place where jing will stop, provided that this place is
properly cleaned: "Respectfully clean its abode (she ), and the
essence Uing ) will then come of itself."lll ln this and other instances,
the heart is described as she , which normally refers to a staging
place, where travelers rest and dwell temporarily. Like dao, jing is
difficult to stabilize. In the text, jing and dao are both difficult
guests, who require particular conditions in arder to stay in place.

• In another instance of she in the Nejye, it is said that jing will

she (settle [in the heart]) only if one eats the right amount of food
(not too much, not tao titde): "The mean between gorging and
abstention - This is called the perfection of harmony. It is here th a t
the essence dwells (she ) and knowledge is born."112 Metaphorically,
she is the place where something remains settled, in a stable
condition. The staying over of jing or dao in the heart is what al10ws
one to reach understanding of the world. In this sense, the heart is

110 "Ke yi wei jing she ., (16.2a) [n]. 1 am adding "can" to Rickett's
translation (p. 160). Roth gives: "you can thereby make a lodging place
for the vital essence" (p. 131).
III Rickett. p. 162. "Jing chu qi she. jing jiang z.i laitt (l6.2b) [0]. Cf. Roth, p.
131.
112 Rickett. p. 167. "Chong she zhi jian. ci wei he cheng. jing zhi suo she. e r
zhi zhi suo sheng n (16.4b) [pl. There are ｴｨｲ･ ＢＬｾｴｨ･ｲ instances of she
in the "Nej ye." In one case. it is used for she;-3 (to discard): Us ho u
shan wu she .. (see note 99 above ri)). S he also appears twice in 0 ne
passage describing the wholesome aspect of iODer cultivation practices.
In the first instance. one is told that it is hannful to think (si ,,!... )

•
without rest (she ). The next string of words wams that failure to s tart
restraining one's emotions and cultivating oneself early will make life
(sheng ｾ ) leave its dwelling place (she) (l6.4a-16.4b).
 56

• obviously a concrete part of the body. wbich is not the case wi th

··mindn more than metaphorically.
In these passages. the concept of heart is partially understood
through the conventional metaphor: "the heart is a dwelling place. n in
which a source domain (dwelling places) is mapped ooto a target
domain (the heart). It seems that in this understanding. dwelling
somewhere is staying there for a period of time in a restful manner.
This metaphor does not display a high degree of structural
elaboration at the conceptual level, but it is consistent with the view
of important elements (dao and jing ) of cognitive activities as
moving about the body, like travelers, until they find a clean and
comfortable place to dwell (the heart). Incidentally. it is notable that
nothing in the Neiye asserts tbat Uthe mind is in the heart." It only
speaks of the heart as the seat of the process which leads t 0
understanding the world.
In the Neiye, xin has a physical location; it is not an abstract
entity: fluids flow through it and it is contained in the human chest.

• This is an important part of the cognitive model in which this word

makes sense. In addition to those quoted above, Many passages
similarly point to the fact that xin is a spatial location. and therefore
cannot be translated as "mind" without distorting the original
meaning of the texte In these passages, xin either is a location, 0 r
has a location. Let us first look at the passages in wbich xin is a
location. The following passage speaks of dao : "How compact! 1 t
resides, then, in the heart. "113 A few characters lower in the text: "It
is ever so that the way has DO fixed place. Yet it will peacefully settle
in a good heart. "114 ln these two instances, xin is a location, more
precisely something which cao hold something else (dao, in this case)
within it. Two more passages include zai xin, which also indicates
that xin is a location. 1 15

113 Rickett, p. 159. uCu hu. na; zai yu xin " (l6.1b) [q]. Cf. Roth, p. 130.
114 Rickett, p. 159. Faindao wu SUD. shan xin an chu (16.2a) [r]. Chu ｾ
emended from ai • to preserve the rhyme with suo f1X and the last
characters of the n two strings of words. (Following' 'Wang Niansun,
ozu.

•
Tao Hongqing and Guo Moruo; p. 124-5.) Cf. Roth, p. 130.
115 The first instance is '''Ping zheng shan xiong. lun xia zai xin" (l6.4b) [s].
Emending [un mi ｾ >ê >&t) 1t
to lun qia ,following Guo Moruo
 57

• In the same way that xin is a location, xin aIso has a location.
In ail the occurrences of xin followed by a location, xin is either ,ai
zhong (3 tirnes), yu zhong (once), or zai yu zhong (once), where
zhong could be translated as ｾＧｴｨ･ middle" [of the chest?], "the
inside," or "the core." It could aIso simply mean "within," or "inside."
Each passage in which xin is said to he "in the middle" (within) also
mentions a quality of xin : quan (complete; twice), ding (stable),
zheng (right), and ,hi (orderly) (once each).l16
Zhong is also used in discussions of the conditions necessary
for unhindered cognition to take place, which shows its intimate link
with xin

If youe core is not unstirred, your heart will not b e

orderly_ [...] Preserve [it] within, and there will he no
miscalculations. Do not let things disorder the senses; do
not let the senses disorder the heart. This is called
obtaining [dao ] within.I 17

•
(QZU. p. 137). Rickett:When imperturbability and correctness dominate
the breast and blend together in the heart..." (p. 166). The second
passage containing lai xin is Uling qi lai xin, yi lai yi shi " (16.5a) [t],
for which Rickett has "In the heart the subtle breath of Iife sometimes
cornes and sometimes disappears" (p. 168). Cf. Roth. p. 134.
116 Ding xin lai lhong (l6.2a) ru]. Zhi xin lai yu zhong (I6.2b) [v]. Zheng xin
zai zhong (16.3a) [w]. Xin quan yu zhong (l6.3a) [x]. Quan xin zai zhong
(I6.3b) [y].
117 My translation Zhong bu jing, xin bu zhi. [...] Zhong shou bu te
Jt
[ofTlitting yi 1ft as an interpolation from the line above (Wang
Niansun. QZ.lL p. 130)] • bu yi wu luan guan, bu yi guan luan xin. Shi we i
zhong de (l6.2b) [z]. Rickett: uIf the self (sic) within is not quiescent,
the heart will not be weil regulated [...] Preserve it within and there will
be no miscalculations. Do not let things confuse your senses. Do not let
the senses confuse the heart. This is called obtaining fulfillment
within" (p. 161). 1 take de to refer to grasping dao in light of ail the
other occurrences of de in the Nejye. In several instances, the text
insists on obtaining something which is essential for understanding the
world. but also elusive and unstable. This elusive thing can be the
"ideal" condition of the heart (Hu hu hu ru jiang bu de (l6.1b) [aa]); dao
(Bi dao bu yuan, min de yi sheng (l6.1b) [ab]; xi" xin jing yin, dao nai
ke de (I6.2a) [ac]; Ren zhi suo shi yi si, suo de yi sheng. Shi zhi suoshi yi
bai, suo de yi cheng ye (l6.2a) [ad]; de dao lhi ren (l6.5a) [ae]); ··unity"
(De yi zhi li [...) yi yan de er tian xia tu (l6.2b) (af]); shen (spirit) (S hi
zhi bi [uan, de zhi bi zhi (l6.2b) [ag)); jing (essence) (De zhi er wu she,

•
er mu bu yin, xin wu ta tu, Zheng xin zai ,hang, wan wu de du. (16.3a)
[ah]); or qi (Neng wu qiu zhu ren er de ,hi ji hu? (l6.4a) [ai)). 1 n
another instance, de does not have an abject: yi yan de er tian xia f u
 58

• It is important to ｮｯｴ･ｾ
or ｮ･ｩｾ
once ｡ｧ ｩｮｾ
it does not refer to ｾＧｴｨ･
that when the Neiye uses zhong
mind within the body," but to the
heart (contained in the chest) as the (physical) organ which
understands the world. This is not a metaphor of the body as
container of the mind and should not be understood as such only
because this metaphor seems natural to us.
More passages hint at the physical character of xin. Several
verbs are used which seem to indicate that various entities come to,
arri ve at or stop in the heart, also implying that they are usually in
motion. ｵｔｨ･ｲ ｦｯｲ･ｾ this qi cannot be stopped by force, but can b e
calmed by inner virtne."118 We also have: "In general, dao has no
location. Yet it will settle in a good heart. When the heart is uostirred
Uing ... ) and qi regulated (li j { ), dao cao stop (or cao he made
to stop)."119 ln this passage, 1 translated jing, usually rendered as
"'quiescent" or "tranquil", as "unstirred", whicb, in addition to evoking
mental quiescence, aiso reminds the reader that the fluids which
flow through the heart have to he disciplined in order for the heart

• to function properly.

II. The physicality of cogmuve practices in the Nei ye.

A. Two important passages.
According to the last passage quoted,120 the process of grasping
dao seems intimately linked to the flow of various fluids inside of
the body, more specifically in the region of the heart. Another

(l6.2b) [aj]. Il is striking that in ail these cases. obtaining (de) whatever
is obtained leads to an advanced understanding of the world. De has a
great cognitive importance. An English parallel would be 661 get it."
where 66it'· would he the general enlightened outlook on the world that
the authors of the Nejye seemed to have been looking for. However.
whatever was obtained was more than an outlook: it was also the
configuration of the body which led to this ｯ ｵ ｴ ｬ ｯ ｾ
118 My translation. following Roth in rendering de ｾ as "inner power"·
Shi gu ci qi ye, bu ke zhi yi li, er ke an yi de (16.1a) [ak). Ci Jft. emended
fr?m mi,! bt . in accordance ｷｾｴｨ a similar structure below (following
DIng Shlhan; 0ZlL p. 121). Cf. Rickett. p. 158. and Roth. p. 129.
119 My translation. Fan dao wu SUD, shan xin an chu (see note 114) [r]. Xin
jing qi li, dao na; ke ,hi (16.1b) [al]. Cf. Rickett. who sees the regulation

•
of qi as a consequence of the heart's being "quiescent" (p. 159); and
Roth. who translates li!l as Ｇｾｳｴｲｵ｣･､ (p. 130).
120 See previolls note for the Chinese texte
 59

• passage simiIarIy underscores the importance of internaI fluids in

cognitive processes: "When the four limbs bave become correct and
the blood and qi have become unstirred Uing )..."121
These two passages indicate that, for dao to provide
understanding of the world to the heart, qi and the heart must b e
brought to a certain physical state of harmony and regularity.
Knowing that qi is a fluid and the beart an entity with a location,
these two passages unmistakably underscore the importance of
physical preparation in the success of cognitive activities.
So interpreted, the first of these two passages certainly makes
more sense than in Michael LaFargue's translation: iiAlways: Dao bas
no [fixed] place; it will peacefully seule in a good mind. The mi nd
still, the qi right, the Dao cao stay."122 In this rendering, we Iose the
sense that xin (translated as umind") is a physical entity which mus t
undergo a process of cultivation before it can host dao. Moreover,
the wording (li lt rendered as "right") makes it difficult to see that
qi refers to a fluid and li to a patterning of its flow. As a matter of

• fact, LaFargue does not take qi to refer literally to a fluide Instead,

he asserts that in this passage, qi "is used to describe a mental state
one should try to bring about [...l in order to get a hypostasized
mental quality dao to come and stay."123 Using such an abstract
language conceals the inherent physicality of cognition as described
in the N eiye.

B. Seeing the internai logic of cognitive models.

In fact, LaFargue' s difficulty to produce a good rendition of q i
might he ascribed to the inherent elusiveness of the term itself.
Indeed, qi can refer not only to the breatb, but also to a fluid of
various concentrations thought and felt to circulate in the cosmos and
inside of the body. Moreover, without any anatomie knowledge of the
breathing system, it was not natural for the ancient Chïnese to make
a clear distinction between the air that one inhaled and the various
feelings, pulses, tickles and pains one felt within the chest. AIl of
121 Si ri ji zheng, xue qi ji jing (l6.4a) [am]. Cf. Rickett, p. 165; Roth, p. 132..

• 122
123
Tao and Metbod, p. 183. Romanization adapted.
Ibid., p. 191. Romanization adapted.
 60

• these might have been interpreted as manifestations of the

movements of qi inside of the body. Qi, then, refers to a large arr a y
of phenomena that no one-ward English translation could encompass.
Seeing it as an experientially evocative term should only be a first
step towards understanding the semantic content of the term in the
Chinese language. Indeed, qi is based on a certain bodily experience,
but it cannot be interpreted solely in light of it. LaFargue is
admittedly right that the notion of qi is experientially evocative and
refers to a phenomenologically concrete reality, but his
interpretation fails to account for the consequences of the belief in
the existence of qi on experiences of inner cultivation. The notion of
qi was never questioned by the ancient Chinese; it was an integral
part of the their reality, of their Lebenswelt.
This is why qi cannat be interpreted simply in terms of ｾ ｳｴ｡ ･ｳ
of mind" without obscuring the Chinese understanding of it. Once the
Chinese started using qi as a category, it became more than an ad
hoc metaphor of Hmind sets": it became part of an internally

• consistent understanding of the functioning of the body, and

experiences inevitably became guided by this understanding. The
metaphors used in the Neiye are not superficial: they are metaphors
which were once lived by.
We encounter the same problem of interpretation with other
terms, also related to the way one grasped dao. Indeed, if the result
of grasping dao is relatively clear, the process which leads to it is
less so. One passage quoted above speaks of dao coming, but not
remaining, or "staying over" (she ).124 Below tbis, we find another
passage aIready cited: "In general, dao has no location. [Yet] it will
peacefully settle in a good heart. When the heart is unstirred and q i
regulated, dao can then stop."12S
However, other passages indicate that it was not clear exactly
what had to stop or dwell in the heart for cognitive activities to reach
their ultimate "result. In several passages, indeed, it is jing (essence),
not dao, which seems to lead to knowledge and sagehood.l 26 Qi is

•
124 See note 109.
125 See note 119.
126 Fan wu zhi jing (...) Cang yu xiong zhong, wei zhi sheng ren. (16.la [an];
 61

• also said to play the same role.l 27 What adds to the problem is that
the meanings of jing and qi seem intimately Iinked. Jing is
mentioned in the first sentence of the Neiye, but the following Hnes,
though they seem to discuss the same topic, use the term q i
instead. 128 In fact, further below, it is made explicit that jing is none
other than the jing of qi : UBy essence is meant the essence of qi."129
According to this and other passages, we have to conclude that jing
is the Most refined form of qi and is a fluid. Sometimes, the text
even uses shen or shenming to describe what happens when one
reaches dao. 13o In one ｩｮｳｴ｡ｮ｣･ｾ however. it is made clear that
although it May seem so, it is not a numinous force which exerts its
agency in cognitive processes, but jingqi, refined qi. 131 In all these
cases, what brings about understanding of the world is a flowing
substance, unsteady but which can be settled.
It is important to note that the same metaphors (fluidity,
elusiveness, difficulty to stabilize) are used to describe dao, jing, qi,
and shen. This indicates that those who wrote the Neiye conceived of

• these four tenns in close association.

LaFargue believes that tbey are "experientially evocative terms
referring to what is essentially a single state of mind. "132
Notwithstanding the use of "state of mind", there is another problem
in LaFargue's understanding of the Neiye. He simply looks for the

see Rickett, p. 158; Roth, p. 129). Ding xin zai zhong [...] ke yi wei jing she
(16.2a [ao]; see Rickett, p. 160, Roth, p. 131) Another long passage h a vin g
to do with jing starts with Jing cun Û sheng ... (l6.3a [ap]; see Rickett, p.
ＱＶＳｾ Roth, p. 129).
127 See the passage which stans with Tuan qi ru shen... (I6.4a [aq); see
Rickett, p. 164-5; Roth, p. 132).
128 Shi gu ci qi... (l6.1a). See note 118 [ak].
129 Jing ye ,he, qi zhi jing zhe ye (16.2a [ar]; Rickett, p. 160; Roth, p. 131).
130 fing ran er zi ,hi shen ming zhi ji. (16.2b [as]; Rickett, p. 161; Roth, p.
131). fou shen zi zai shen, yi wang yi lai, mo neng si zhi, de zhi hi ,hi,
shi ,hi bi Juan. (16.2b [at]; Rickett, p. 161-2; Roth, p. 131). In the same
passages, jing is mentioned as what brings about arder and
understanding (16.2b; Rickett, p. 162; Roth, p. 131). This passage goes 0 n
to speak of the means to develop understanding, but shifts the discussion
from shen to jing.

•
131 Fei gui shen ,hi li ye, jing qi zhi ji ye (l6.4a [au]; Rickett, p. 165; Roth, p.
132-3).
132 Tao and Metbod, p. 184.
 62

• literaI referent of these metapbors answering the question Uwhat

9

does the metapbor refer to?U, without considering tbat these

metaphors could also imply a certain conception which bas to b e
taken into consideration in a translation aimed at understanding a
text.
Implicitly, LaFargue considers the terms used in the Neiye as
u
4-dead metaphors, simple imagery that can be understood solely
through discovering what they referred to in the ureal [literaI,
scientific] world." By using such terms as "states of mind", LaFargue
seems unaware that the terms used by the authors of the Neiye
might have had an effect on the way they understood and
experienced their body and the activities related to it. By Dot
considering sufficiently seriously the internaI consistency of the
mode1 which combines these elements, he neglects the cognitive
content of these terms.
In other words, LaFargue neglects the way (admittedly)
experientially grounded descriptions are predicated upon deeper

• unstated cognitive models. If one wants to unravel certain difficult

passages in the Neiye, tbese cognitive models are more important to
understand than the experiences on which they were first grounded.
Indeed, accounts of the cognitive functioning of the body are
grounded, not only in experiences, but also in a certain
understanding of the world. LaFargue's dismissal of many cognitively
charged terms as merely "experientially evocative" is symptomatic of
a common problem: our difficulty to distinguish objective reality and
the linguistic symbols we use to refer to it, the tendency to think that
things are what they are called in our native language. This might
explain why LaFargue does Dot believe that the terms used in the
Neiye are part of a "systematic psycbological theory." Of course they 9

are 00t,133 but tbey are certainly part of a relatively consistent

understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body.

133 It would have been difficult to find a more flawed expression to project
on the Ne i ye. First of ail, the text is obviously not aimed al conslructing a
system. Confucius does not have any systematic understanding 0 f

•
cognition either; a system implies a conscious reflection on the
functioning of something, including ail details and eliminating ail
inconsistencies. Secondly. the term "theory," in that it most often refers
 63

• Clearly, then, for example, "'xin jing qi li " [al in the appendix] is
not a metaphorical phrase applied temporarily to a mental
experience understood as a mental experience and translatable ioto
the language of mental experiences. The language used to describe
experiences in the Nejye is a trace of the way these experiences were
once understood. They were directly mediated by a certain
understanding of the body, and this understanding allowed for
certain techniques to be used to reproduce the "bodily states"
thought to give access to dao. These techniques were directly based
on a physical understanding of cognition. We could translate th e
bodily states brought about by these techniques in terms of brain
and central nervous system activity, or find them an equivalent in
terms of our "states of mind", but this would obscure the specifie
experiences through which these states were attained, and the
specifie way in which the ancient Chinese understood these
experiences.
Consequently, it becomes somewhat misleading to consider the

• practices described in the Nejye simply as "breathing techniques." 1 n

fact, the ｴ･｣ｨｮｩｱｾ･ｳ described in the Nejye aim at controlling, not
breathing, but qi , which referred to the breath, but also to a fluid
(maybe thought to be the air one inhaled) circulating in the body.
The breath-control techniques described in the Nejye aim at making
qi stable, regular, harmonious in its flow through the chest and the
heart. This was a difficult undertaking because qi could be stirred
easily, mostly through external stimulation, which, through the
senses, triggered emotions and feelings, i.e. excessive reactions to
the external world. For dao to stop in the practitioner's xin , qi had
to flow harmoniously and create no obstacle to the perfect
functioning of the heart. The problem, then, was to make q i
unstirrable, through disciplining it by means of breathing exercises.
Many clues seem to lead to the conclusion that the condition in which
qi was disciplined, which made the heart able to grasp dao , w a s
to a system of ideas based on general principles independent of the
particular things to he explained, is very difficult to apply to a n y

•
Chinese philosophical exposition. Finally, since what is spoken of in the
Nejye is mainly based on an understanding of the cognitive functioning
of the body, "psychological" is hardly an apt word.
 64

• considered as a "natural'7 one 7 as one that adepts

instead of striving for it through conscious means.

III. The heart in its naturaI form as the only access to dao.
could revert to

The Nei ye alludes to techniques aimed at stabilizing dao in the

heart the locus of cognitive activities. If the heart was given so
7 much
importance, it is because it was thought to be the only part of the
body which could give one access to a genuine understanding of the
world; it was the only organ able to grasp dao. Indeed,

How silent! no one hears its sound. [...] How obscure! No

one sees its forro. [ ] Its fonn cannot be seen 7 its sound
cannot be heard. ( ] Dao is something that the mou th
cannot express, that the eye cannot see and that the e a r
7

cannat hear. 134

Speech and the senses could be used as cognitive instruments i fi

most situations, but not to grasp or express dao. Only one part of the

• body had this superior cognitive ability: the beart, which aIone had
the power to reach an understanding of things without using words
or human-made (artificial and reductionist) cognitive devices such as
language and intentional thought.
Such an understanding of the world was made possible by the
belief that the heart, in the best conditions, was naturally in contact
with dao. This cao be observed in nurnerous passages. In se veral
instances, dao, jing, qi, jingqi, shen or shenming are said to come "of
themselves n (zi ).135 However difficult guests they May be, they came
naturally when the proper conditions were fulfilled. AIl through the
texl, ··zi" is used ta show that these conditions are natural, Le., that

134 Ji hu, mo wen qi yin (emending mou" toji ｾ = ｾ . following

Wang Niansun; ozu, p. 124) [...] Ming ming hu, bu jian qi xing. [...] Bu
jian qi xing. bu wen qi sheng (16.lb) [av]. Dao ye ,he. kau zhi suo bu
neng yan ye. mu zhi sua bu neng shi ye, er zhi suo bu neng ling ye. suo
yi xiu xin er zheng xing (16.2a) [aw]. Rickett. p. 159-60; Roth, p. 131.
135 ••• ze yin ran er zi Uri shen ming zhi ji (16.2b [as]; Rickett, p. 161; Roth, p.
131). You shen 1..; zai shen (I6.2b rat]; Rickett, p. 161; Roth, p. 131). Jing

•
chu qi she. jing jiang z.i lai (16.2b [0]; Rickett. p. 162; Roth, p. 131). Jing
cun z.i sheng (16.3a Cap]; Rickett. p. 163; Roth. p. 129). Jie shi zhi qi. b i
jiang z.i zhi (l6.4b [ax]; Rickett, p. 166).
 65

• they prevail when nothing is disturbed or impaired by sucb obstacles

as violent emotions, sensory stimulation or purposive action.
Not only did certain things come of themselves when the right
conditions were fulfilled, but the heart itself, when not stirred, was
naturally in the right condition: "Always, the shape of the heart is
naturally replete and naturally full, naturally born and naturally
perfected. "136 Similarly, a long passage notes that in the right
conditions, dao naturally cornes to the heart: ''Do not push it! do no t
pull it! And its blessings will retum on their own. And that Way will
come to you on its own to rely on and take counsel with. [...l When
the rnind [xin : heart] can adhere to tranquillity Uing: unstirred], the
Way will become stabilized on its own."137
Donald Munro has remarked that the Daoists' pursuit of dao
represented, to some extent, a conscious effort of emulation of it. 138
However, although the practices described in the Nejye seem to
require great discipline, those who wrote this text, however a w are
they were of the difficulty of their methods, did not consider the

• process of inner cultivation as a strain imposed upon oneself in order

to grasp dao. The process was instead seen as one of reverting to a
lost natural state of permanent contact with dao. This state of
conscious contact with dao was potentially attainable by all those
who had enough discipline not to let their heart be stirred b y
emûtions and external stimuli. Dao was bard to stabilize in one' s
consciousness, but nonetheless present everywhere, but it couId b e
stabilized in human consciousness only when the heart was not
s tirred.
This seems consistent with severa! passages in the Neiye which
emphasize the proximity of dao and the fact that aIl things live
according to dao without knowing it: "The Way is not distant; the

136 Fan xin zhi xing: zi chang zi ying, zi sheng zi cheng (l6.1a [ay]; Rickett,
p. 158). This could alternatively be translated as "the heart fulfills and
completes itself, begets and perfects itself."
137 Roth, p. 134 (words in square brackets mine). Wu yin wu tui. lu jiang zi
gui. Bi dao zi lai. ke jie yu mou. [...] Kin neng zhi jing, dao jiang zi di n g

•
(l6.5a) [ba]. Cf. Rickett, p. 168.
138 The Concept of Mao in Eatly China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press. 1969), p. 141.
 66

• people get it for sustenance. The Way is not separate; the peop le
follow it for harmony. "139 Similarly: ｾ ｄ｡ｯ fdls the world and is
everywhere" yet people are unable to distinguish it."140 It is"
however, only seemingly paradoxical that dao is at once ubiquitous
and difficult to retain in the heart. Reaching awareness of dao is
very difficult" but one cannot escape its cule. What makes human
beings susceptible of losing (awareness of) dao is the very fact that
they possess awareness of the world. The external stimulations of the
world are what make one divert oneself from awareness of dao.
ｔｨｵｳｾ people do not lose dao ｾ but only awareness of it.l 41
This is coocurred by a few instances of fan (reverting to).
Goly when certain conditions were satisfied could one revert to one's
true nature: ｾ ｏｮ･ who is intemally unstirred and externally reveren t
will be able to revert to bis natural course of life" and bis natural
course of life will theo be secured."142 Another passage gives a
similar message: "If you cao get cid of sorrow, joy, happiness, anger,
and desire for profit, the heart will revert to a calm state."143 Lower,

• one is said to revert to dao and ioner power.l 44 Fan became a key-
word in later Daoist ioner cultivation practices.

*
139 Roth, p. 130. Bi dao bu yuan, min de yi chan. Bi dao bu li, min yin yi h e
(16.1 b) [bb]. Emending ,hi ｾ ta he ｾ • ta preserve the rhyme w i th
li (following Guo Moruo, yzu, p. 126). Cf. Rickett, p. 159.
140 My translation. Dao man tian xia, pu ,ai min suo, min bu neng ,hi ye
(16.3a) [bc]. Cf. Rickett, p. 162.
141 More on this apparent paradox in chapter 4.
142 My translation. Nei jing wai jing. neng fan q; xing. xing jiang da ding
(I6.4b) [bd]. Cf. Rickett, p. 166. Translating xing ｾ as "natural course 0 f
Iife" to highlight the processual aspect of xing lost if we render it as
"nature." and to underscore the proximity of xing with sheng
(life). See Graham, "The Background of the Mencian Theory of Human
Nature", in his Studies. p. 7·66.
143 My translation. Neng qu you le xi./J: yu li, x;n nai fan ji (I6.lb) [bel.
The most common meaning of ji ｾ is "complete," but it can also
mean "to subside," "to stop," "to calm down," as in this instance. Here,
therefore. fan ji means reverting back to the state of something th at
has subsided, which 1 chose to translate rather loosely as "a calm state. tt
Note that ji in tbis sense was primarily applied to liquids before b e i n g

•
extended to other things, which is consistent with seeing the heart
where fluids circulate. Cf. Rickett, p. 158-9.
144 Fan yu dao de (l6.3b) (bf]. Rickett. p. 164; Roth, p. 132.
 67

• Although once the heart was in a certain condition, everything

was supposed to work naturally, reverting to the correct form of the
heart seerned by 00 rneans easy. Several conditions had to b e
satisfied: ioner bodily fluids (blood and qi ) had to be regulated, the
heart and the chest unstirred Uing), and emotions and the senses
restrained. These aIl imply sorne kind of physical preparation of the
body and the heart for cognition, and the way the Nejye describes
breathing practices is directIy linked to this physicality of cognitive
activities. We have already examined in some detail the passages of
the Neiye related to the ficst of these conditions. The following
sections are devoted to analyzing the remaining two.

IV- Jing as a bodily state.

Understanding cogmtlve actlvltles as directIy related to the
cognitive functiooing of the body leads us to translating jing. usually
rendered as "quiescent", as Uunstirred," which underscores the fluid
and physical connotations that the terrn seems to have in the Neiye.

• As we have seen, the text speaks of several conditions that have to

be satisfied for the heart to reach the right outlook on the world.
First. internaI bodily fluids must be weIl regulated, which i s
expressed in various ways, sometimes using jing. Secondly, the
stimulation of emotions and the senses on the heart had to b e
controlled, because of the stirring effect they were thought to ha ve
on the fluids circulating in the body and the heart. Finally, the form
of the heart had to be replete and correct, which a1so implied a
regulation of fluids.
Considering this, in all its occurrences in the Neiye, it seems
more appropriate to interpret jing, not primarily as a state of mind,
but as a '''state of heart," as it were. Jing was thought to be a physical
condition which led to a clear outlook on the world. This physical
condition, more precisely, was the stable condition in which internaI
bodily fluids flowed freely and harmoniously inside of the body,
more particularly inside of the chest and the heart. Only when q i
was regulated and the heart and bodily qi unstirred could one reach

• a clear understanding of the world. This most certainly had an

experiential basis: jing refers to a state in which the inside of the
 68

• body feels motionless, peaceful, undisturbed by

stimulations. By translating it as "quiescent," we get a good
external

psychological equivalent of jing, but we lose its physical connotation.

v. Countering the stirring effect of the senses and emotions on the

heart.
A. The importance of escaping Western folk psychology: external
stimulations as stirring qi and the heart.
It is necessary to remain equally prudent with the two words
guan and qing , commonly translated as "senses" and "emotions."
These terms are misleading because emotions and the senses are
central to the cognitive model of Western folk psychology. They are
therefore loaded with connotations which mold our understanding of
seemingly similar terms in othee languages. What do "emotions" and
"the senses" mean in ancient Chinese texts? What was their
relationships to other elements of the ancient Chinese cognitive
model of cognitive activities? How were their effects on cognition

•
viewed? What assumptions are behind the use of guan and qing ?
Ancient Chinese texts constantly remind us that sens ory
stimulation and emotional reactions have to be diminished, or a t
least brought under control, for xin to function properly. We could
interpret this necessity as the need to tacIde the physical challenge
that the senses and emotions pose to the proper functioning of the
mind. However, since xin is a place where physical cognitive
processes take place, it is difficult to translate it as mind without
overly psychologizing it and obscuring the physiological basis of
inner cultivation practices. We have seen how the heart, in the Nejye,
is thought to function naturally only when the fluids that flow
through and around it (in the chest) are regulated and harmonized.
In this context, "emotions" and the stimulation provided by th e
senses were seen, not as bodily obstacles to cognition, but as
undesirable stimulations which stirred the heart. Emotions and
external stimulation through sensory perception could thus be seen
as disturbing the unstirred state necessary for the heart to fulfill i ts
natural cognitive faculties.l 4s

• 145 See sections B and C below.

 69

• Under ideai circumstances, the heart, unhindered, possesses an

all-encompassing understanding of the world and its situations.
However, this very external world that sorne ancient Chïnese wished
they uoderstood was a1so what made their heart move away from i ts
natural state. In other words, xin seems to be obscured by that which
it tries to understand. Constaotly receiviog stimulation from the
world through the senses, qi and xin were so moved that they could
not revert to their original unstirred state.
Considering that sensory stimulation and emotions could s tir
one's qi, it appears naturai that the techniques described in the Neiye
were aimed at regularizing the flow of qi inside of the chest through
controlling the breath. On the other hand, simply saying that breath-
control leads to relaxation, and therefore to clarity of mind, wouId b e
neglecting the internaI consisteocy and Iogic of the Chinese authors'
own understanding of their ioner cultivatioo practices. Michael
LaFargue grounds sorne of his interpretations of the Neiye in bis own
experience of Taijiquan. What he felt then, he claims, helped him to

• understand ancient Chînese practices. However, as he aptly notes in

his introduction, "the speaker's reality may be different from reality
as we experience il, or as our theories or beiiefs picture it. "146
Following this principle, the way LaFargue experiences and
understands qigong is undoubtedly different from the way the
ancient Chinese experienced and understood practices related to the
discipliniog of qi. LaFargue's translation of the Neiye is a reflection
of his own understanding, expressed in the language of our
categories and the concepts which underlie them.
The ioner logic of the Chïnese text should not be erased in the
translation process for the sake of clarity. Instead, we have to
wonder what was the collateral cognitive content of these terms,
what conceptions underlay their use. In the Nejye, cognitive
activities are understood and experienced as intimately involving the
body, but, and it is important, oot a body opposed to anything close
to our notion of mind. The notion of xin in the Nejye is in fact very
far from our notion of mind. Since wbat is described io this text i s

• 146 Tao and Metbod. p. 34. Emphasis added.

 70

• the physical state of the heart, translating xin as mind, as LaFargue

and Roth do, cannot but obscure the meaning of the passages
concemed. In fact, the preparation that the heart has to undergo
before it can act as the dwelling of jing or dao seems to be almost
impossible to understand if not in physical terms. Translating xin as
mind is a misleading first step with numerous consequences.

B. Guan ｾ C·offices" 1 senses): a political Metaphore

The ancient Chinese word for usenses" (guan ) is problematic. 1
believe it would he wrong to translate 6·bu yi wu [uan guan bu yi p

guan luan xin "147 as "'do not let external things disrupt your senses,
do not let the senses disrupt your mind."148 This seems too close to a
mi nd-body dualism in which the body disturbs the proper
functioning of the mind.
It would seem more acceptable to render the passage as "Do not
let extemal things disorder the senses; do not let the senses disorder
the heart." First of aIl, translating xin as heart would underscore the

• physical aspect of the Chînese understanding of their own practices .

Similarly, rendering luan
connotation of the terme Luan
IL
as Uto disorder" highlights the political
is indeed a political metaphor; i t
refers to political unrest, or disorder. When astate is Luan, it means
that sorne forces within it are not properly placed and thereby create
tumulte This seerns to be the reason why the Neiye makes abundant
use of l uan and its counterpart zhi ("to order", when it has an object;
....orderly", when intransitive) in relation to the heart. Translating luan
as udisorder" in the above passage helps to convey the meaning of
this metaphor: when the heart is [uan (unruly, tumultuous, riotous,
disorderly), it means that sorne movements in it are not orderly,
order being the condition in which the heart is able to unders tand
the world without the help of the senses.
In fact, guan itself is a political metaphor: although commonly
translated as "senses", it also (and primarily) means "offices," and, b y
extension, those in charge of offices: "officiaIs." It is therefore not

• 147
148
16.2b [z]. See note 117.
This is Roth· s translation (p. 131). Cf. Rickett. p. 161.
 71

• surpnslng that Juan and zhi were used in conjunction with it. For a
state to be orderly, its officials, the u eyes and ears" of the mler, could
Dot be allowed to become unroly and transmit false information to
the sovereign, who depended on them to keep the polity orderly.
This metaphorical presentation of the senses is important to
understand their role in cognitive activities. In the Neiye. this
political metaphor is not conceptually very elaborate. In many later
texts, however, the source domain of government would continue to
he mapped on the source domain of the body, the latter being
increasingly likened to the state in its structure and functioning, with
xin seen as the roler of the body.149
Two passages clearly indicate that the functioning of the he art
and that of the senses are intimately linked: "If you can be rectified
and unstirred, you will be able to remain stable. With a stable heart
within your ears and eyes will be sharp and clear."IS0 Similarly: "If
my heart is orderly, my senses will then also be orderly. If my heart
is calm, my senses will then also he calm. What orders them is t b e

• heart; what caIrns them is the heart. "151 Therefore, the adept is not
powerless in the face of external stimulations provided by the world:
by cultivating his heart, he could bring bis senses under control.

Qing ｉｾ
c. (reactions to the outside world 1 emotions): a tricky
metonymy.
Emotions, which couid aiso contribute to disordering the heart,
are not presented metaphorically in the Nei ye, but tbey can still b e
interpreted using the hermeneutic framework defined in chapter 1.
The ancient Chinese seem to have agreed with us in ascribing
erootions to the heart. Where they differed from us was in their aiso
ascribing cognitive functions to this part of the body that we

149 Nathan Sivin caUs ideas of Nature, state and the body in later texts ··so
interdependent that they are best considered a single complex. n UState,
Cosmos, and Body in the Last Three Centuries B.C.", Haryard Journal Q f
Asialie Studies 55.1 (1995), p. S.
ISO Neng zheng neng jing, ran hou neng ding. Ding xin zai yu zhong, er m u
cong ming (16.2a) [hg]. Cf. Rickett. p. 160; Roth. p. 131.

•
151 Wo xin zizi, guan nai zhi; wo xin an, guan nai an. Zhi zhi zhe xin ye, an
zhi zhe xin ye (16.3a) [bh]. Note the political metaphor zhi jlJ . Cf.
Rickett, p. 162.
 72

• commonly consider irrational and emotive. Since in the Chînese view

both emotional responses and cognitive processes were supervenient
upon the same location, it is understandable that it was deemed
necessary to curb the former to allow the latter to function properly.
One passage of the Neiye clearly indicates the disordering
effect that uemotions" were thought to have on the cognitive
functioning of the heart.

It is ever so that the shape of the heart is naturally

replete and naturally full, naturally born and naturally
perfected. That by which we Iose it is necessarily sorrow,
joy, happiness, anger, and desire for profit. If you cao get
cid of sorrow, joy, happiness, anger, and desire for profit,
the heart will revert to a calm state.l 52 As for the heart' s
'6emotions" (qing ), they are benefited by calmness and
rest. No worries, no disorder, then harmony will perfect
i tself. "153

•
In this passage, we find familiar elements: the naturai state of the
heart can be disturbed (here by emotions); it is possible to revert
(fan) to this state;· harmony will be naturally (zi) perfected if one
creates the proper conditions for it. But more importantly, this
passage tells us that the proper form of the heart (xin zhi xing ) can
he lost through the stimulation provided by '6emotions" )54

152 See note 143 above for an explanation of this reading of ji ｾ .

153 Fan xin zhi xing, zi chong li ying, li sheng zi cheng. Qi suo yi shi zhi, b i
yi you le xi nu yu li. Neng qu you le xi nu yu li, xin nai fan jl. Bi xin z h i
qing, li an yi ning. Wu fan wu luan, he nai li cheng (l6.1a-b) [bi]. Cf.
Rickett. p. 158-9.
154 Another passage expresses the same thing: Fan ren zhi sheng ye, bi yi qi
guano fou ze shi jl. nu ze shi duan. You bei xi nu, dao nai wu chu (16.5a)
[bj]. which Rickett translates as uIt is ever so that the life of man
depends on his having contentment. Through sorrow he loses hi s
guiding thread; through anger. he loses the beginnings [of virtuel.
When sorrow and melancholy. joy and anger exist. the Way then has no
place (p. 167-8)." For this passage, Roth gives the following: "The
vitality of people inevitably comes from their peace of mind. Wh e n
anxious. one loses this guiding thread; when angry. one loses this basic

•
point. When one is anxious or sad, pleased or angry, the Way has n 0
place to settle" (p. 133). In this case, emotions clearly keep one fro m
reaching the stability of heart necessary to grasp dao.
 73

• "Emotions,f9 however, were not seen as bodily hindrances

anymore than the senses were. To my knowledge, all extant ancient
Chinese texts which speak of cognition remark that anger and other
excessive emotions obstructed the proper discerning functions of the
heart and could therefore lead to unconsidered action, hence the
need to restrain them. In the Neiye in particular, it was understood
that anger and various excessive emotions, by stirring the heart,
made it difficult for it to reach what we would calI the "clarity of
mind" necessary to understand the proper course of action. This was
probably confirmed in practice by a11 those who, letting their he art
be physically overwhelmed by these emotions, acted in an
unconsidered manner, for how could a stirred heart conceive of the
proper course of action to be taken?
Since emotions had such an effect on action, in a culture like
that of the ancient Chinese in which knowledge was so closely
associated with action, it became even more important to control
them. The heart, indeed, was thought to function properly only wh e n

• its fluids could flow freely and harmoniously. An emotion like anger,
which manifests itself by fast heartbeat, higher body temperature
and faster circulation of the blood, must have been experienced as a
powerful impediment of internaI bodily fluids on the functioning of
the heart. Indeed, for the ancient Chinese, "emotion was an integral
aspect of the body's most basic functions."ISS One way to counter the
effects of anger and other emotions on action was to find a means t 0
control ioner bodily movements in order to make the heart unstirred,
and ideally unstirrable. If the heart could only function properly in
this way, it is then no wonder that

Mencius, like Confucius and like Many of his own

contemporaries - both Confucian and non-Confucian
remains profoundly concemed with the attainment of an
attitude of inner peace, serene courage, and equanimity

•
155 Nathan Sivin, "Emotional Counter-Therapy," in his Medicine.
Philosophy and Reli&ion in Ancien! China. Researcbes and reflectjons
(Variorum. 1995), p. 1.
 74

• in the face of the anxiety-ridden

lives.l s6
world in which he

This attitude of inner peace was not desirable only because the se
thinkers had to forget about the daunting world in which they li ved
in order to think more clearly, but also because this attitude was
necessary to ensure the proper functioning of their heart. This
daunting world, indeed. had stirring effects on the he art, which made
it necessary to develop techniques to make it stable, unstirrable.l s7
It is essential to understand that in the ancient Chinese
Lebenswelt, emotions and the senses were thought to have a harmful
effect on action because they stirred inner bodily fluids, thereby
obstructing the proper functioning of the heart, not because they
kept a pure mind from reaching pure knowledge. What emotions and
the senses disturbed was the functioning of a part of the body, the
heart. Anger and other excessive emotions were seen as direct
obstacles to the development in the heart of the superior level of

•
awareness which made it possible to understand ethical principles 0 r
develop the sprouts of moral behavior in the heart.
This seems to confinn Hansen's hypothesis about the meaning
of qing ("emotions") in pre-Buddhist China. As Hansen remarks, the
two main meanings of qing given in a typical Chinese-English
dictionary seem incongruous: on the one band, we have "emotions";
on the other, we find something like "circumstances," or "the fact of
the case." As Hansen notes, "on its face, this admixture is puzzüng."IS8
This incongruity of the "two meanings" of qing should trigger a
process of consteuaI: we bave to consider qing as another one of
these "unusual terms" to he analyzed according to the strategy
developed in our first chapter. Hansen, baving already gone far into
this investigation, concludes that qing in pre-Buddhist China should
aiways be translated as "reality responses" or "reality inputs."
Warning the reader about the danger of assuming tbat qing
156 Schwartz, op. cit., p. 269.
157 This is probably the meaning of Mencius's insistence on bu dong zh i

•
:cin, which D.C. Lau aptly translates as 66the heart which cannot b e
stirred." Op. cit., p. 76.
158 Hansen, "Qing", loc. cit., p. 182.
 75

• corresponds to our conception

following comments:
of emotions, Hansen

Qing sometimes approximates general sensory input. 1 t

makes

plays a different theoretical role however. Sorne qing are

7
the

inputs that trigger basic sensible distinctions. This inpu t

from the world is the distinguishable [as opposed to th e
essential]. It has not the logical fonn of a picture but of a
field for discrimination. It is not data, information, 0 r
facts, not is it a map of reality. [...] Qing are prior to the
shape-recognition training tbat accompanies language.
Qing in SUffi are aIl reality-induced discrimination or
7 7

distinction-making reactions in dao executors. 1S9

In other words, and more briefly put, qing are ureactions to reality
rather than reality itself."16o
ln general, 1 agree with Hansen's analysis but 1 believe it could
7

be improved in one way. Indeed by assuming that qing always bas

7

•
the same meaning 1 think Hansen makes the same mistake as Ames
7

when he claims that aIl occurrences of shen Mean the same thing.l 61
Of course, 1 am not claiming in disregard of Hansen's cogent
7

argument, that sometimes qing means "reality inputs" and

sometimes "emotions." Considering the contexts in which qing
appears in the Neiye and other ancient texts, however, it seems that
it does not a/ways Mean simply "reality response." If qing indeed
referred to "aIl reality-induced discrimination or distinction-making
reactions in dao executors," it would be difficult to understand wh y
sorne texts speak of eliminating (qu i ,in the Nejye) them in order
to unders tand the world and the course of action adequate to it. 1 n
the passage from the Neiye translated above, qing is explicitly
defined as "sorrow, joy, happiness, anger, and desiring for profi t,"
said to be the reason why the natural forro of the heart is IOS1. 162 This
passage gives no indication that qing could Mean "reality inputs."
159 Ibid.• p. 196.
160 Ibid.• pp. 197-8.

•
161 The passage where Ames makes this claim is quoted at the beginning 0 f
the first chapter of the present study.
162 See note 153 above. See below for a more detailed analysis of the
 76

• 1 believe, however, that the meaning of qing in this passage is

based on its primary meaning as "reality input." "Reality responses"
are responses of the heart to external stimuli and perception. Reali ty
inputs can refer to reality as it appears before any naming takes
place, or, in a more sophisticated wording, to 44apprehensible reality-
based criteria for shared, objective naming,"163 but it must have
meant something eise considering that it was so often used to refer
to such things as anger, sorrow and desires, thought precisely to
obstruct this grasping of reality beyond names.
In fact, 1 think that qing referred not only to the genuine
criteria which allowed one to name things properly, but aIso, more
generally, to reality inputs in general and the effects they had 0 n
the heart. Qing as "emotions" was originally a metonymy in which
the effect stood for its cause. Like metaphor, metonymy is also a
mapping, but not across conceptual domains. It is used primarily for
reference within one domaine
The external world provides constant stimulation, to which

• humans react variously. "Reality inputs" trigger such effects as anger,

hate, joy, etc. Emotions - responses to the external world -, like the
senses, were thought to stir the heart and hinder its proper
functioning. For a long time, qing possessed this meaning (the effects
of "reality inputs," to use Hansen's terminology) and was part of the
lexicon used to refer to both "erootions" (metonymically) and
"reality-induced criteria for objective naming" (literally). With the
spread of Buddhism in the fust centuries CE, the former sense of qing
became integrated ioto a cognitive model in which it played a role
closer to what we refer to as emotions in Indo-European languages,
and emotions thereafter became the primary meaning of qing.

VI. Kin zhi xing ｉｾ｜ ＮＺｬｾｊ : the proper configuration of the heart.
At the beginning of chapter 2, we briefly discussed the unusual
expression "xin zhi xing "(the form of the heart), promising to come
back to it later. We are now ready to suggest an explanation for it.
Contrary to what LaFargue asserts, xin zhi xing does not refer to '4a

• 163
meaning of xin zhi xing
Hansen, "Qing". p. 197.
in this passage.
 77

• hypostasized ideal mental state,n but. li teraIly and more simply, to

the physical configuration of the heart as it should erist under the
best circumstances, the circumstances in which extemal stimulations
do not stir the heart's fluids, making it unable to reestablish
conscious contact with dao. Speaking of xin as having a shape is
incongruous ooly if we translate xin as "mind," a term which refers
to an entity which, at best, is ooly superveoient on a physical
location, and at worst simply an irnmaterial substance.
In light of the foregoing aoalysis, there seems to be 00 reason
to believe that, in the Neiye, xin was not simply seen as a material
part of the body, playing specifie cognitive roles within it. In the
Neiye like in many other ancient Chïnese texts, it is said that the
earth gives human beings a foon (xing M ), while heaven gives them
qi l or jing" ' a rarefied substance thought to provide life: "It is
ever so that in the life of man, Heaven produces bis essence and
earth produces his form. Tbese combine in order to make man."164
Since xin is not one of these rarefied substances, and given tbat it is

• part of the body, it is not strange that it might, li terally, have a

shape! It is uncanny only if one persists in translating it as "mind." 1 n
fact, 1 believe that, in more than one passage, xing in the N eiye, e ve n
when it stands on ilS own, refers to the form of the heart. These
passages would malee more sense if one were to take them, either as
a synecdoche for xin zhi xing , or at least as having to do with the
human body, of which xin is part.
Rickett translates xing in one passage as "your form": ｾ ｂｹ
enlarging the heart, you will become daring. By expanding the breath
of life, you will broaden [your thinking]. Your form will be at rest and
not subject to change",165 where ＧｾｯｲｭＢ refers to the bodily foon. 1
believe it refers instead to the proper configuration of the heart and
its qi. 166 The use of an (at rest) to refer to xin finds parallels in
several other passages, notably one quoted above: "When my heart i s
164 Fan ren ,hi sheng ye. tian chu qi jing. di chu qi xing. he ci yi wei r en
(l6.4a-b) [bk]. Rickett. p. 166.
165 Rickett. p. 167. nDa xin er gan, kuan qi er guang. qi xing an er bu yi "

•
(l6.4b) [bl].
166 The heart and the qi are alsa said ta have such a fonn in 16.3b: xin qi l.hi
xing... [bm].
 78

• ｣｡ｬｭｾ my senses are also calm."167 Lexically speaking, then, this

passage does not differ from other passages referring to xin and qi.
It ispossible to take qi • in the above-quoted sentence in its usual
meaning of "their", a possessive pronoun which stands for the heart
and q i. After these changes, the passage would read: "their fonn is a t
rest and does not move/' which wouId be entirely consistent with the
physicality of the practices described in the Neiye.
If one were to take this instance of xing as meaning Ubody", the
passage would become obscure, especially since the following lines
refer to onels reactions to the external world, which is usually the
function of the heart. In fact, the entire passage, including the lines
just quoted, pertains to the heart. Let us look at Rickett's almost
literai translation:

You will be able to preserve unity [removing "with

nature"] and get cid of ail hazards. On seeing profit, you
will not be enticed. On seeing harm, you will not b e

•
frightened. Being relaxed and humane, YOll will find
happiness in yourself alone. This is called setting in
motion the breath of life. 168

This passage is clear in the context of a physical understanding of

cognition where external things have the stirring effect of qi on the
heart can be mastered through a control of qi. If the heart and qi are
properly disciplined, one is no longer enticed nor scared by externat
stimulation and does not have to rely on others for happiness. It is
impossible to go back to the original experience which gave birth to
this understanding, but, through this passage, we can at least detect
its logic and internaI consistency.
Clearly, not ail instances of xing in the Neiye refer to the form
of the heart, but another one seems easier to understand if xing is
taken as an abbreviation for xin zhi xing , or at least as referring,
among other things, to the form of the heart: UAs for dao, it is what

167 See note 151 above.

•
168 Rickett, p. 167. Neng shou yi er qi wan ke, jian li bu you, jian haî bu ju .
Kuan shu er ren, du le qi shen, shi wei yun qi (I6.4b-5a) [bD]. Cf Roth,
p. 133.
 79

• makes the fonn [of the he art] replete, yet people cannot malee i t
stable. It goes but does not retum, it cornes but does not settle."169
Considering that this passage immediately follows the one w hich
starts which fan xin zhi xing, it could represent a continuation of il.
Moreover, like in the previous passage, this one mentions xing along
with chang if. (replete). Furthermore, after the character ye, the
text goes on to express how elusive dao is and how difficult it is to
make it stop. This seems to refer to cognitive pursuits, to the ques t
for dao which only seules in a heart whose form is correct and
naturally replete. It is ooly hypothetical that xing in this passage is
an abbreviation of xin zhi xing ,but it would make sense in light of
other passages which use similar terms in relation to similar topics.
The Chïnese language, then, possessed such words as emotions,
desires, the senses, the body, knowledge, and even, with a little effort
of imagination, the "mind" (xin ). In translating Chinese texts, it might
be useful to use terms that are familiar to the reader, but if it is no t
explained that these terms should be understood according to a

• different understanding of the body and human consciousness, what

the reader will understand might in fact have little to do with what
the Chinese text has to say. Indeed, taking words literally is useless
without a process of construaL If we want to understand these terms
as they were conceived of in the Chïnese Lebenswelt, it is crucial to
understand that they will not malee sense in our cognitive models. l t
is crucial to make efforts to cid ourselves of the terms of the mi nd-
body problem when analyzing ancient Chinese texts.

• 169 Fu dao zhe. suo yi chang xing ye, er ren bu neng gu. Qi wang bu fu, qi lai
bu she (16.lb) [ml. See note 109 above.
 80

• Chapter 4

The mind-body problem, higher levels of

consciousness in the Neiye, and early Chinese
mysticism.

1- Irrelevance of the mind-body problem in early Chinese ｴｨｯｵｾｨｴＮ

A- The problem with the mind-body problem.
As we have seen, the ancient Chinese view of mental activities
was very far removed from the Platonic system in which a
cognitively active soul was trapped in a debasing body, responsible
for restlessness, sexual desire, distraction, erootions and illness. 1 n
Platonic dualism, the proper cognitive functioning of the soul i s
hindered by physical anchoring in the body, which Eliot Deutsch caUs
"a complaint which relates the awareness of the possibility of, and
difficulty in attaining, pure rational consciousness."170

•
Distancing ourselves from this familiar conception, we have to
accept the consequences of the Chînese belief that the heart was the
seat of cognitive activities. In Chinese accounts, the challenges that
emotions and the senses posed to proper cognitive activities were not
physical impediments to the free functioning of the mind-soul,
because the concepts of mind and body were not part of the Chinese
Lebenswelt. Although somewhat unclear, the following lines are an
attempt to express this crucial point:

170 "The Concept of the Body", in Thomas P. Kasulis, Roger T. Ames and
Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Self as Body in Asian Them:)' and Practjce
(Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1993), p. 6. For recent perspectives on the
mi nd-body problem and ilS place in contemporary debates in cognitive
sciences and artificial intelligence research, see, inter aUa : David
Braddon-Mitcheli and Frank Jackson, Philosophy Qf Mjnd and COlnitioD
(Oxford: BlackweII, 1996); Daniel C. Dennett, Conscjousness Explajned
(Boston: Back Bay Books, 1991); Gerald Edelman, Briabt Air Brilljant
Fife: On the Matter Qf Mjnd (Basic Books, 1992); Michael E. Levin,

•
Metaphysjcs and Ibe Mjnd-Body Problem (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1979); Richard Wamer and Tadeusz Szubka (eds.), Tbe Mind-BQdy
Problem. A Gujde IQ the CuITent Debate (Oxford: BlackweIl, 1994).
 81

• The various energies of body and mind are extremely

closely interrelated. Together they constitute the blood,
energy [qi], and mind circulation essential to all human
beings. Body and mind are ultimately one. This does not
mean that they are not clearly differentiated. Rather, i t
means that the mind [...] pervades the whole body
without inclining toward one part or another. Body and
mind are ultimately one and ideally function as one single
unit; yet as abstract forces they are quite distinct. 17 1

[ would.. however, disagree with Ishida that the rnind and cognitIve
activities pervaded the whole body: before Han systematizations of
the functioning of the body, the heart was still seen as the main locus
of cognitive activities,172 and even if qi was thought to flow through
the whole body, it became linked to cognitive activities only when i t
flowed through the chest, in, around, or near the heart. The qi which
flowed through the heart had to remain unstirred for the heart to
have a clear understanding of the world. This, of course, required

• that aIl qi in the body be regulated, but this was necessary simply
because of the main demand of regulating qi in the chest and the
heart. In no case did it Mean that ..the mind pervades the whole
body.n
1 wouid further contend that mind and body "as abstract
forces" were not distinct. What is clearly distinguished in certain
texts is what we would calI "physiological" and "mental" functions of
the body. Martha Chiu;s dissertation on mind and body in ancient
Chinese medicine is helpful, but il wrongly claims that the Huangdi
Neijing proposed "answers to the mind-body problem." 1 would not
disagree that it displayed certain suggestions and assumptions
conceming the problem of human consciousness, but certainly not in
the terms of our Western mind-body problem.

171 Hidemi Ishida. loc. cit., pp. 67-68.

172

•
In such systematic visions of the human body as the one developed i n
the Huanldj NejiiDI. other uorbs" (zang ) than the heart are also said to
play roles in cODscious activities. See Porkert. op. cit.
 82

• Reacting against the commonly heard assumption that in

Chinese thought mind and body are one 9 Martha Chiu rightly suggests
that

without a doubt 9 there are passages which show that the

Nei ching 9S authors noticed and found ways to talk about
a wide range of what we would consider 'mental 9
activities; and these are distinguishable from passages
where clear-cut 'physical' activities like eating, digesting 9
and breathing are discussed. 173

Granted, the ancient Chinese made a difference between "mental" and

'''physical'' functions 9 but these two were clearly not conceived of as
working according to the ontologically different principles of body
and mind. Thus, what Martha Chiu caUs Chinese answers to the mind-
body problem are simply different ways chosen by the authors of the
Huangdi ｎ･ｩｪ ｮｾ to refer as precisely as possible to certain functions
of the human bodY9 which included, in our terminology, mental and

• physical functions. It does not mean that ancient Chinese thinkers

gave a monist answer to the mind-body problem, but rather that the
mind-body problem did not occur to them.
lshida' s article is similarly confusing, for it struggles to identify
and explain "the Chinese perspective on body and mind'9 while the
ancient Chinese did not have notions of body and mind similar to
ours on which they could have a perspective. By interpreting Chinese
texts through the prism of the mind-body problem, one cannot but
obscure the Chinese understanding of their own writings. This leads
to such disconcerting and paradoxical conclusions as "body and mind
are one but as abstract forces they are clearly distinct." This
illustrates the pitfalls of labeling variegated concepts of one language
with terms belonging to alien cognitive models. This leads to
disregard for the logic and internaI consistency of Chinese cognitive
models.

• 173 Martha Chiu "Mind, Body, and Illness in a Chinese Medical Tradition,"
9

Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University, 1986, p. 165.

 83

• What makes "body" and "mind" problematic concepts to use in

an interpretation of ancient Chinese texts is the fact that emotions,
feelings, perception, cognition, etc., were all thought ta b e
supervenient on the same location: xin, blood and qi , ail ta some
extent physical, visible, and tangible. For the pre-Buddhist Chinese,
human cognitive activities could not take place without a "physical"
support, because they had no notion of an independent, immaterial
mind responsible for cognition.
For example, if the senses impeded on cognitive activities i t 9

was only insofac as the extemal stimuli that they provided could s tir
the heart. This should be taken literally, in that excessive sensory
stimulation made blood and qi restless, which made it impossible for
the heart ta distinguish things clearly and to grasp what was
necessary to decide on the proper course of action. Only an unstirred
Uing ) heart could stabilize dao. The challenge posed by the senses
was therefore not conceptualized as a bodily hindrance ta pure
mental activities (like in classical dualist accounts), but as an

• irregularity, or lack of harmony, in the flow of bodily fluids .

There were no perceived "interactions" or "relations" between
body and mind because there were simply no such concepts as body
and rnind separated by an ontological gap. It would even b e
technically incorrect to say that for the Chinese "the mind is in the
heart," because the notion of a mind separated from a location di d
not exist for the ancient Chînese. The heart was seen as the organ of
cognition, without any sucb concept as mind.

B. Beyond "the mind": towards a more suitable understanding of

cognition and perception in the Neiye.
It is interesting, then, to try to refonnulate in other terms the
Chinese conception of human consciousness, emotions, cognition,
perception, etc. Ta understand this conception, it is insufficient to say
that body and mind were on the same level of reality, along a scale of
more or less dense or rarefied matter .1 74 According to common

•
174 This is the option taken by Roger T. Ames in many of his writings, most
notably (with David L. Hall) Thjokjo& Tbrou&b Confucius (Albany, N.Y.:
SUNY Press, 1987); and the sagacious "The Meaning of Body'\ loe. cil.
 84

• definitions, the mind refers to a large scope of faculties, including

consciousness, volition, perception, feelings, thought, etc. In 0 ur
models, these are all assumed to be more or less immaterial
phenomena. In view of recent writings in cognitive sciences and
anthropological studies which point to large cross-cultural differences
in the construction of these activities, we cannot assume that, for the
ancient Chinese, despite that all these terms did not form such a
concept as "mind," they were still ail situated at the immaterial end
of a scale of materiality. Separated from a unifying concept of "mind,"
they must each he treated separately and not necessarily equated ta
the phenomena we calI "mental." Similarly, they cannot he separated
from such things as the senses, ordinariIy considered to be bodily
functions. In the absence of the term "mind" and mental functions ta
regroup aU these phenomena, conceptual frontiers and category
boundaries are blurred.
Recent writings in philosophy of mind have clearly shown th a t
one need not conceive of all "mental" phenomena as belonging to the

• same kind of reality)75 In other words, we are making a mistake if

we assume that the concept of "mind" is a natural category which
refers to things as tbey exist in nature. It is possible, through tbis
notion, ta understand texts that malee use of it, but reading Chinese
texts as directly referring to "the mind" would be making dangerous
hermeneutic assumptions. ConverseIy, we would make a similar
mistake if we tried to translate the Western notion of mind in such
terms as qi, xin, and shen, because these terms belong to a different
understanding of human consciousness and the body, and are
therefore incompatible with the language of our mind-body problem.
These terms should fust be understood according to tbeir 0 W n
internaI consistency and interrelations before being translated into
ours.
When one slarts tbinking about cognition as it w as
conceptualized in ancient Chïnese thougbt, beyond the fact that
cognition takes place in the he art, it is fust striking tbat there seems
to exist two distinct levels of consciousness. Kin, in its general

• 175 See note 170 for a short list of these works.

 85

• functioning, is the seat of consciousness and perception. However

stirred the heart may be, however, it is always able to perceive the
external world. This perception might be distorted and give one
misleading ideas about the proper course of action to adopt, but i t
remains true that one does not need to be aware of dao in one' s
heart to be able to perceive the world and act in it. In addition to this
common perception and understanding, however, a second level of
consciousness is also possible. It also takes place in the heart, but i t
only occurs when the heart is unstirred and leaves room for
something else than ordinary perception. This state of fullness and
calmness results from an elimination of the external stimulations
which confuse the heart and make humans incapable of grasping th e
ways of the world. This second level of consciousness is often
referred to as shen (numinous»)76 Rumans are conscious even when
they do not possess a shen -like understanding of the world, bu t
after the arrivai of shen , consciousness reaches a superior level: that
of understanding how the world is and should be. Shen is one of the

• most problematic terms of the ancient Chinese language pertaining to

cognitive activities.

II. The difficulty of shen ｾＧｦ -}. and its meanings in the Neiye.
A. The oddity of shen in Western categories.
S hen in ancient Chinese texts is one of the words Most 0 fte n
used to refer to cognition. As Roger T. Ames remarks in a passage
previously quoted, it is one of these words which "integrate [...] a
curious (...] combination of meanings":

the character shen does not sometimes Mean "human

spirituality" and sometimes "divinity." It always means
both and, moreover, it is our business to try and
understand philosophically how it can Mean both)'7

176 For a detailed justification of this rendering of shen • see Willard J.

Peterson. UMaking Connections: 'Commentary on the Attached

•
Verbalizations' of the Boole of Change." Harvard Journal of Asialie
S tud i es 42.1 (1982): pp. 103-4.
177 Sun-Izu, p. 72. Emphasis added.
 86

• It is ｾ･ｵｲｴ as Ames notes, that shen bas no equivalent in Western

psychological categories. According to Roth, it is 660ne of the most
elusive concepts in early Cbinese thougbt."178 ln that it seems to
mean two things which are apparently unrelated in our categories,
like xin, it is an uunusual tcrm" which sbould attract our hermeneutic
attention.
However, while 1 agree with Ames's caU for philosophical
understanding of the meanings of shen, it is my contention that this
quest for meaning will be misleading if one starts, as he does, with
the premise that shen 66always means both n divinity and human
spirituality. Indeed, 1 think that a large part of the problem Ames
describes is not only related to the difficulty of understanding alien
ｴ･ｲｭｳｾ but more fundamentally to understanding that sorne of these
terms are in fact metaphorical.

B. The primary and metaphorical senses of shen : adjusting our

definition of category.

• Shen ｾ we can infer from its ｲ｡､ｩ｣ｬｾ originally referred to

spiritual or numinous phenomena. The primary nuclear sense 179 of
shen is therefore not human spirituality, but something like
"divinity" or 66(ancestral) spirit." When shen bas to do with "human
ｳｰｩｲ ｴｵ｡ｬｩｴｹｾＢ it is in a metaphorical sense, derived from its primary
meaning. As far as 1 know, shen in fact never means both 66spirit"
and "human spirituality"! When Mozi, for example, discussed the
existence of guishen , he was referring to spirits, and nothing eise. On
the other hand, in the discussions of chapter 7 (Jingshen ) of the
Huainanzi, shen has very Uttle to do with ancestral spirits.
Although less explicitly than Ames, Roth seems to embrace a
similar notion of category: 66If pressed to find a common characteristic
in these various usages [of shen] 1 would answer that tbey ail share

178 "The Early Taoist Concept of Shen : A Ghost in the Machine'!". in Kidder
Smith Jr. (ed.). Salebood and Systematizio& Tbou&bt in Wardn, States
and Han China (Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College. Asian Studies

•
Program. 1990), p. Il. Hereafter, "Ghost".
179 John Austin. op. Cil., p. 71. George Lakoff (Womep) prefers to speak of
Uprototypical meaning" instead of primary nuclear sense.
 87

• sorne degree of sentience."180 As a matter of fact, Roth's answer is not

wrong: he points to an important connotation of the character in i ts
primary meaning which made possible its subsequent metaphorical
extension. However, his interpretation is based on a very persistent
Western philosophicaI assumption: that "categories [in this case shen]
are defined only by properties [sentience] that all members [the
occurrences of shen in ancient Chïnese texts] share."181 This is what
Lakoff caUs the uclassicaI theory of categories."182
Unconsciously adhering to this "theory," Ames assumes that
shen always combines in one category defined by properties shared
by a1l its members what, for Western thinkers, would fonn two
distinct categories: "divinity" and "human spirituality." In fact, l think
that shen as "spirit" and shen as the superior fonn of human
consciousness cannot be treated as equal members of an
hornogeneous category. Shen is a highly polysemous term, and can
ｩｮ､･ ､ｾ as Roth ｮｯｴ･ｳｾ be considered elusive.

• c. Shen in cognitive models.

Once ｡ｧ ｩｮｾ resorting to Lakofrs ideas will be helpful here.
Lakoff's main thesis is ·'that we organize our knowledge by means of
structures called idealized cognitive models, [...l and that category
structures and prototype effects are by-products of that
organization."183 What cognitive apparatus does the human mind use
to categorize? Importantly for our analysis of shen, Lakoff makes the
following claim about cognitive models:

Polysemy arises from the fact that there are systematic

relationships between different cognitive models an d
between elements of the same model. The same word is
often used for elements that stand in such cogniti ve
relations to one another.184

180 "Ghost·'. p. Il.

181 Eleanor Rosch, "Natural Categories:' IDe. cit.• p. 335.
182 Women, passim.

• 183
184
Ibid.• p. 68.
Ibid.• p. 13.
 88

• This is exactly the case with shen: in one cognitive model, it refers to
spirits, in another one, linked to the Ïtrst in a way we will try t 0
elucidate below, it pertains to human perception and cognition. To
express these two different meanings, the ancient Chïnese language
uses the same word, in the same way as we use the word "to see" to
refer to both "seeing with the eyes" and "understanding" without
thinking that this word always has both meanings.
How, then, do the two meanings of shen "stand in cognitive
relations"? According to Lakoff, one of the four principles which
structure the construction of cognitive models is "metaphoric
mapping": 185

Metaphoric models are mappings from a propositional 0 r

image-schematic model in one domain to a corresponding
structure in another domain. The CONDUIT metaphor for
communication maps our knowledge about conveying
objects in containers onto an understanding of
communication as conveying ideas in words.l 86

• Sorne elements of the primary nuclear sense of shen ("spirit")

correspond and are linked to the other domain of meaning of s he n
(superior human consciousness) in a metaphorical way.

o. Shen as a lexicalized ｾ･ｴ｡ｰｨｯｲＺ following perceived homologies.

In its primary nuclear sense, shen refers to "spiritual" matters,
not to the cognitive functioning of human beings. When it refers to
the latter, it is in a metaphorical sense. This type of metaphor,
however, is special. It is not a simple rhetorical figure which omits
the sign of comparison. It is in fact a lexicalized metaphor, a
catachresis. A catachresis is a "metaphor by default," so to speak: it is
a metaphor because it refers to certain realities in tenns of another
kind of reality, but only by default ,because it fHIs a linguistic void;

185 Ibid., p. 68. The other three are upropositional structure", Uimage-
schematic structure:' and "metonymic mapping."
[86 Ibid., p. 114. Emphasis added. According to the conduit metaphor, "the

•
rnind is a container, ideas are entities, and communication involves
taking ideas out of the mind, putting them in words, and sending them ta
other people" (Ibid., p. 450).
 89

• it is used where no other term could aitematively he used. Shen ,

indeed, was not used as an alternative for other words equally
suitable to describe the functioning of cognitive activities. It was
lexicalized and became the naturai word used to designate certain
cognitive phenomena. It is still a metaphor, however, by virtue of its
primary nuclear sense ＨＧｾｳｰｩｲ ｴＢＩＬ which does not pertain to h uman
cognitive activities.
Now, describing a perceived reality with a metaphor is possible
only if the (semantically autonomous) source domain of the metaphor
contains homologies with the target domain described. Metaphors
follow homologies. New experiences and new cultural developments
frequently make it necessary to enlarge the resources of a language,
but never by an arbitrary addition to the materials already present;
in Many cases, the development of a language consists of a
metaphorical extension of old terms and meanings. Once a metaphor
is lexicalized, however, it tends to blend into our common language so
weB that we eventually become unaware of its metaphorical origin

• and the homologies that made the metaphorical application possible

to start with. It is the case in English with many expressions sucb as
"his theory is shaky," for example. In this case, we "forget" that the
term shaky is applicable to theories only if one (metaphorically)
considers theories as buildings or as structures. ·'Theories are
buildings" is, in Lakoff and Johnson's words, a metaphor we live by.
A metaphor highlights some elements common to t W 0
apparently unrelated objects. However, as mentioned in chapter 1,
these elements do not exist prior to observation; they are not present
in the objective world, waiting to he noticed. As we have seen, e ven
semantically autonomous language is not mind-free: its meaning and
the cognitive models to which it is linked only exist in a Lebenswelt.
The primary meaning of a word is literaI, but only in relation to b 0 W
reality is perceived by a given group. In addition to lexicalization,
therefore, another reason why it might be difficult to unders tand
that certain terms are metapborical lies in our failure to make sense
of the homologies which allowed a metaphorical meaning to b e

•
created in a given Lebenswelt. Indeed, sorne homologies are difficult
to conceive of, because they simply do not exist in our Lebenswelt.
 90

• Shen, originally referring to Sptnts, started al one point to b e

applied to human perception and cognition, and later became
lexicalized in this role. Similar to "shaky", while applied to theories,
continues to refer also to buildings, shen retained its original
meaning of "spirit" in parallel with its new metaphorical meaning. 1 n
other ｷｯｲ､ｳｾ when shen was applied to human cognition, it did not
represent a complete semantic shift, but simply the addition of a ne w
(metaphorical) meaning to its primary nuclear sense.
Such semantic extensions are not trivial. Indeed, as ail
metaphorical constructions, they follow perceived homologies,
analogies with the world as it is understood, perceived and
experienced. If there was nothing in common between the t w 0
realities referred to by the same term, the metapbor wouId bave no
relevance. Catachreses (lexicalized metaphors) retain trace of the
homologies which made their semantic extension possible, and it is
through these traces (or connotations) tbat it is possible to
understand them. By identifying sucb homologies, we cao see the

• relevance of applying such terms as shen to human co gniti ve

activities. What Roth saw as the common characteristic of ail
occurrences of shen - "a certain degree of sentience" - is one such
important homology.
To understand ancient Chinese texts, it is essential to recognize
that certain terms such as shen are metaphorical, and further to
understand the rules according to which these terms underwent a
semantic shift which made them applicable to new realities. We have
to understand how the cognitive functioning of the body was
riletaphorically constructed. Only tben can we reach the philosophical
understanding desired by Ames and students of classical Chinese
philosophy. Trying to translate it into deceptively more li teral
language would be a mistake. In fact, the main reason why it is so
difficult to translate shen in our language is that it has metaphorical
meanings and connotations wbich disappear in a translation.

•
 91

• E. S hen in the Nei ye: a ghost... or a metaphor?

In his article on shen in the Guanzi and the Huainanzi,187
Harold D. Roth, borrows Gilbert Ryle's famous phrase Ｇｾｧｨｯｳｴ
machine/'188 originally intended as a critique of Cartesian dualism.
in the

According to Ryle, dualists make a Ucategory mistake" by ascribing

mental activities to a mind different in substance from the body. The
debunking of the dualistic response to the mind-body problem is
what leads Ryle ironically to calI the mind a '6ghost in the machine."
The issue in which Roth is interested is the role shen plays in the
functioning of the human mind and human consciousness in relation
to the compIex physiological processes of the human body. He
wonders if shen, in the role it plays in the body, could not b e
something like a Ughost in the machine." Roth remarks that, in the
Neiye, shen seern:; to be a upsychological concept" related to a
·'physiological concept" (jing ; vital essence), but that the precise
relationship between them is not detailed.I 89 He concludes that in the
Neiye "[t]he ghost and the machine still seem to be separate, even

• th 0 U gh somehow interrelated."190
One interesting detail which Roth does not make explicit,
however, is that, contrary to the Western view in which the "ghost"
(the mind or the sou1) is entirely responsible for all human conscious
activities and the machine is lifeless without a Ughost" dwelling in it,
in the Chinese view, the machine is alive and can perceive the
external world without the help of Any "ghost." The machine (the
body), before hosting a ghost, already possesses a consciousness of its
own. The ghost therefore cannot be completely equated with the
mind, as in Ryle's interpretation. It has to be explained differently,
independently of our mind-body dualism.
In fact, in this texl, it is by no means clear that shen is a real
entity which acts in the human body to provide it with a higher level
of awareness. It might simply be a metaphor unsystematically used
to highlight the similarities between numinous things and the level

187 See note 178 for complete reference.

188

•
The Concept of Min d (London: Hutchison, t 949).
189 uGhost", p. 18.
190 Idem.
 92

• of consciousness that one can develop in the heart by praCtIClng

ioner cultivation. Shen appears in six passages in the Nejye. Several
of them seem to suggest that shen ooly refers to the superior level
of consciousness which gives access to dao. In one of these passages,
a sage is defined as one whose chest is the dwelling of an essence
(jing) which can aIso take the fonn of spirits:

The jing of things is what gives them birth)91 1t

generates the five grains below and becomes th e
constellated stars above. When flowing between hea ven
and ･｡ｲｴｨｾ we cali it the spirits [guishen -. #
J. When
stored within the chest of a man. we caU him a sage. 192

Below, another passage indicates that being shen is being able to see
a unity in things and follow their changes. 193 This seems to
correspond to the higher level of awareness which allows one' s
actions to comply with the rhythms and patterns of dao. Another
passage suggests the same thing, and is understandable in light of

• our analysis of the physical functioning of cognitive activities: "By

concentrating your vital energy as if numinous, the myriad things
will aIl be contained within yoU."194 In this passage, ru indicates that
shen is not to be interpreted literally as a spirit coming into the

191 LaFargue, op. cit., p. 187. Romanization modified.

192 Roth. p. 129. Liu yu tian di zhi jian. wei zhi gui shen (I6.1a) [bol. The
second part of the passage is Roth's translation,_ except for one thing: for
guishen, Roth gives '4daemonic and numinous:' but l prefer to translate
it as a noun. Rickett translates guishen as ..the spirit" (p. 158), whereas
LaFargue gives "spirit" (p. 187), but l don't see how the singular could
be warranted as a translation of these two graphs.
193 Yi wu neng hua. wei zhi shen (16.2b) [bp]. "One who cao transform
while seeing the unity in things, we cali "numinous" (Roth, p. 133). This
passage does not explicitly speak of '''seeing'' things. It uses the noun y i
(one) as an ergative verb in its putative function, which means
something like '''to consider things as one", or literally one-ing them."
l6

"Seeing the unity in" still conveys the general meaning of the Chinese
originaL Cf. Rickett, p. 161.
194 Roth. p. 132. Tuan qi ru shen. wan wu hei cun (l6.4a) [bq], in which tuan'-
stands for zhuan ｾＭ = zhuan , (following several scholars; yzu, p.
135.) This means ＢＧｾ｡ｴ by making qi take a certain fonn or circulate in a

•
certain way through the body, one could reach a superior level 0 f
consciousness, allowing one to see all things in light of dao. Cf. Rickett,
p. 164.
 93

• body to provide it with illumination. Here, in fact, shen is only a

simile (which explicitly uses a sign of comparison, in this case ru ),
bringing into light the analogies that exist between shen and the
level of consciousness in which one is aware of dao.
The same thing applies to another passage, where shen is
equated with jing (essence) like in the first passage quoted in the
last paragraph: "There is a numen (shen).f ) residing on its own
[within]; one moment it goes, the next it cornes, and no one is able to
conceive of il. If you lose it you are inevitably disordered (luan Il, );
if you attain it, you are inevitably well-ordered (zhi >IJ ).
Diligently
cIean out ilS lodging place (she ｾ , i.e., the heart), and [its] vital
essence will come on its own (zi lai ｾ $ ):'195 This seems to confirm
Roth's assertion that in the Neiye, the relations between shen and
jing are not clearly specified. In fact, it almost seems that shen is
used in the Neiye as an ad hoc metaphor to evoke the experience of
superior consciousness.
This fonn of consciousness is also alluded to in the other t w 0

• passages of the Neiye in which shen appears. In one, shen ming zhi ji
is said to "know ail things" (zhi wan wu ).196 Shenming , in the Xunzi,
is precisely said to refer to this ultimate level of consciousness which
allows one to understand dao. 197 It seems to have referred to the
coming of spirits in the ancestral tablets, which was thought to
produce a luminosity. Shenming refers to the state of "illumination"
(not to be taken in a Buddhist sense) reached by one who intuitively
understands the world. 198 This extreme Ｈ ｪ ｩ ｾ ) level of consciousness
is also alluded to in a passage which clearly states that it should not
in fact be attributed to the spirits, but to (the utmost refinement 00
one's vital essence: "If you think about it and it still is not

195 Roth, p. 131; words in square brackets his. You shen zi zai. yi wang yi lai.
mo zhi neng si. Shi zhi bi Juan. de zhi bi zhi. Jing chu qi she. jing j i a n g
zi lai (I6.2b) [br]. Omitting shen ｾ as a later addition, to preserve the
rhyme between zai ｾ , lai $. ,si ｾ , and zh i 3é .Cf.
Rickett, p. 161-2.
196 16.2b lbs).

•
197 Edward J. Machle, "The Mind and the 'Shen-Ming' in Xunzi," Journal 0 f
Cbipese Pbjlosophy 19 (1992): 361-386.
198 Idem.
 94

t. J.; ]
• comprehended, [you May believe] the spmts [gui shen
make it comprehensible. Yet [it is comprehended] not through the
power [li iJ ] of the spirits, but through the utmost [development]
of your own essence Uing {I ] and breath of life [qi • ]."199
will

It is no wonder, then, that, in the Neiye, "the ghost and the

machine" which Roth mentions were still separate: shen in the Nejye
is mainly a metaphor! Like ail metaphors, it follows percei ved
homologies between a source domain and a target domain, described
metaphorically: he who, through physical practices, clarifies bis he art
and thereby reaches a superior level of understanding of the world is
cornpared to the spirits. l believe that, in this case, the spirits are not
really inside of the body, but that the tenn shen is used to compare
the Ievel of consciousness reached by the practitioner of in ner
cultivation to the level of spirits, whose consciousness is unimpaired
by the physical stirring of the q i in the body and the he art.

11- Conceptions of body, cosmos and knowledge: how they may b e

•
related .
A. The body as a natural metaphor?
This could Iead us to an investigation of how the conception
that a civilization had of the body found parallels in its conception 0 f
the cosmos. A dualist conception in which body and soul (or mind)
forrn [wo distinct essences seems more likely to exist along a dualist
conception of the world, divided into phenomena and transcendent
essences. In such a conception,

The highest cnd of knowledge [...] is the discovery and

contemplation (theoria) of what is in itself perfect, self-
evident, and infallible. (...] The soul, being the same in
kind as the permanent principles that order the cosmos,
has access to them through reason and revelation, and
thus has a claim to knowledge. It is through the disco very
of the underlying order that the universe becomes
intelligible and predictable for the human being.200

•
199 Rickett. p. 165. Si lhi er bu tong. gui shen jiang tong lhi. Fei gui s he n
zhi li ye. jing qi zhi ji ye (l6.4a) [bt]. Roth, p. 132-3.
200 Ames, SUD - tz u. pp. 46 and 49.
 95

• Body and soul dualism gave humans "the possibility of standing

outside and taking a wholly extemal view of things."201
A number of writings in anthropology and sociology remark
that the body is often used as a "naturaI symbol,"202 a source of
metaphors which humans use to conceptualize reality. Mary Douglas

is interested in the biological and somatic foundations of

our social construction of reality, and it is her view tbat in
order to unlock many social structures, symbolic codes,
and meaning systems, mucb more attention needs to b e
paid to the concept of the body.203

According to another scholar, "we must remember that philosophies

and world views of man and bis nature are commonly predicated
upon an often unstated metaphysic of the human body."204 A passage
from Lakoff quoted above suggests something similar:

- Thought is embodied , that is, the structures used to put

•
together our conceptual systems grow out of bodily
experience and make sense in terms of it; moreover,
the core of our conceptual system is directIy grounded
in perception, body movement, and experiences of a
physical and social character.
- Thought is imaginative , in that those concepts which
are not directIy grounded in experience employ
metaphor, metonymy, and mental imagery. [...l This
imaginative capacity is also embodied - indirectly

201 Ibid.• p. 50.

202 Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols. Exploratjons in CosIDololY (New York,
Pantheon Books, 1970). See a1so Roger T. Ames and David Hall, op. cit.;
Roger T. Ames, uThe Meaning of Body"; Eliot Deutsch, "The Concept 0 f
the Body", loc. cit.; Wimal Dissanayake, "Body in Social Theory," i n
Thomas P. Kasulis, Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), op. cit.•
pp. 21-36; Roy Porter. '·History of the Body," in Peter Burke (ed.), ｾ
Perspectives 00 Hjstorjcal Writjnl (University Park. Penn.:
Pennsylvania Stale University Press. 1991), pp. 206-232; Anthony
Synnott, The Body Social. Symboljsm. Self and Socjety (London and New
York: Routledge. 1993); Bryan Turner, Tbe Body and Society Ex;ploratjoos
jD Social Tbeory (New York: Basil Blackwell. 1989).

• 203
204
Wimal Dissanayake, lac. cit., p. 24.
Roy Porter. lac. Cil., p. 224.
 96

• since the metaphors, Metonymies, and images are based

on experience, often bodily experience.20S

Regardless of the truth value and the notion of causality

implied by these bypotheses, it is certainly interesting tbat the w a y
the ancient Chinese conceptualized the body and its functioning
found parallels in the way tbey conceived of the cosmos.2 0 6 Of course,
l am not defending tbe overly reductionist position which would
suggest that Chinese conceptions of the cosmos were all grounded 0 n
a certain understanding of the functioning of the body. But the Mere
awareness of this possibility allows us to notice things that usually go
unnoticed about the (undoubtedly complex) relations between
conception of the body and conception of the cosmos.
Since the ancient Chïnese did not think that a "sour' w as
responsible for cognitive activities, for them, knowledge did not ai m
at achieving pure extemal contemplation, nor did cognitive activities
consist in freeing the soul from its bodily fetters. Instead of

•
transcendent knowledge, the ancient Chinese sougbt a more practical
understanding of the world, not aimed at reaching a propositional
truth about things, but at mastering a "discourse" (or a grid of action-
oriented understanding) which would provide guidance in the world.
This is what Ames and Hall calI Chinese "this-worldIiness."

205 Op. cit., p. xiv. Emphasis in the originaL

206 These paralleis became systematic at the end of the Warring States
period and the beginning of the Han, with the development 0 f
correlative thinking, the body being more and more considered
structurally isomorphic with the cosmos and the state. For accounts from
different perspectives on this systematic Iink between state, body and
cosmos, see Sivin, "State, Cosmos and Body", loc. cit.; Livia Kohn "Taoist
Visions of the Body," Journal of Chinese Phjlosophy 18 (1991): 227-252;
John S. Major, Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thouabt Chapters Th ree.
Four. and Pjve of the H"ainanzi (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New
York Press, 1993); Robin D. S. Yates, UBody, Space, Time and Bureaucracy:
Boundary Creation and Control Mechanisms in Early China," in 10 h n
Hay (ed.), Boundanes in China (London: Reaktion Books, 1994), pp. 56-80;
Marc Kalinowski, "Les justifications historiques du gouvernement idéal
dans le Lü Shi Chunqiu," Bulletin de J'École française d'Extrême-Orient

•
Lxvm (1980): 155-208; same author, "Cosmologie et gou vernemen t
naturel dans le Lü Shi Chunqiu," Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-
Orient LXXI (1982): 169-216.
 97

• The ancient Chinese conception of the body was somehow

related to this pragmatic orientation of Chinese philosophy and i ts
non-essential conception of knowledge. As noted in chapter 2,
Chinese thought was more oriented towards the grasping of a dao
than towards knowledge of an objective truth. [n the same way as
human beings were not seen as consisting of two distinct principles
(body and soul). knowledge in ancient China was not seen as the
knowledge of essences graspable by the mind or the soul. On the
contrary.. metaphors used in the Neiye indicate that the Neiye's
Lebenswelt was a world in which things were thought to flow, in
which understanding was fleeting, in which nothing was completely
stable. This holds true for both the world in general and the body' s
inner reaches.

B- Early Chinese mysticism.

HMystical" is often confused with such terms as Ucryptic",
"occult" or Uesoteric," all thought to refer to practices that are difficult

• to understand. irrational, or simply outlandish. Speaking, then, of

"Chinese mysticism" cao he misleading. However, it is not only the
possible misuses of the term "mysticism" that are problematic, but
aiso the meaning of this term in Indo-European religious traditions.
For now . 1 will adopt a broad definition of mysticism, which excludes
the usual spiritual or deistic element found in current definitions.
Someone who engages in mystical practices, tbus, will be considered
as Ha person who seeks, by self-surrender, to reach a superior level
of understanding inaccessible by purposive means."207
Chinese conceptions of the body aIso bad a strong impact on the
way cognitive activities were understood and experienced, as the
nature of ancient Chînese mysticism seems to demonstrate. The
important role of breathing techniques in the Nejye can be explained
considering that the heart was thought to be the seat of
consciousness and that cognitive processes were intimately linked to
the flow of qi inside of the body and the heart, to the internaI state

207

•
Partly inspired by the definition of "mystic" found in The Oxford
Djctjonary and Thesaurus. American Edition (New York., Oxford: Oxford
University press, 1996), p. 986.
 98

• of the body. This meant tbat in order to develop a clear

understanding of the world and the actions to be taken in it, it was
cecessary to work on internaI bodily fluids. Qi was thought to refer
to both the breath and to internaI bodily fluids. What we wouid tend
simply to calI ·'breathing techniques," therefore, were in fact
predicated upon the belief that controlling the breath (qi ) was
controlling bodily qi , which contributed to making the heart
unstirrabie. It was the physicai states induced by breath-controi
(calmness, slow heart rate, feeling of distance from the world) that
were thought to lead to a superior level of consciousness.
This is why we need to be cautious with '·mysticisrn." Indeed,
what the Neiye describes is different from Western mysticism. Early
Chinese mysticism was not about contemplating and merging into
ultimate reality by eliminating one's body and the feuers it imposed
to the mind in its quest for superior tru th .208 It was aimed a t
reaching a superior Ievel of consciousness, mostly through physicai
practices. Normal consciousness and perception could still exist, but

• to them was added a superior level of understanding developed

through physical discipline. The superior level thereby reached was
seen as a more naturai state of the heart, one which allowed one to
understand the world clearly.
It is possible, through our modern knowiedge of cognitive
activities, to gain sorne insight on the experiences which gave birth to
certain accounts and understandings of mystical activities. It is
insufficient, however, only to understand these techniques through
the neurobiological states to which they Iead, because these
experiences cannot but be mediated.209 More important to

208 Cf. Livia Kohn, Early Chjnese Mysticjsm, Phi1osophy and SQtetiolo&y i n
the Taoist Traditjon (Princeton, N.J,: Princeton University Press, 1992).
209 For an example of knowledge of the brain and the nervous system
applied to the interpretation of mystical experiences, see Julian M.
Davidson, ""The Physiology of Meditation and Mystical States 0 f
ConsCÎousness." in Deane N. Shapiro and Roger N. Walsh (eds.),
MeditatjQn· Classjc and Cootemporar,y Perspectjyes (New York: Aldine,
1984), pp. 376-395. See aIso Robert K.C. Forman, UIntroduction: Mysticism,

•
Constructivism. and Forgetting," in Robert K.C. Forman (ed.). ｾ
PrQblem Qf Pure CQgscjousoess Mystjcjsm and Phjlosophy (New York,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 3-49.
 99

• comprehend is the nature of the practices which led to higher forms

of consciousness, and how these practices were experienced and
understood to do so. Believing, for example, that cognitive acti vities
were largely physical, undoubtedly oriented the way the simple
Hbreathing techniques" described in the Neiye were understood and
experienced.
In order to understand these experiences better, we have to
understand what approaches and beliefs underlay them. Accounts of
these experiences are often experientially evocative,210 but, above aIl,
they give access to certain conceptions. They are often fac more than
just evocative, for their meaning relies on certain conceptions.
Without an understanding of these conceptions, we cannot claim to
approach the original meaning of the texts. Of course, understanding
the conceptions which underlie the accounts found in these texts will
not give us access to the meaning of all the esoteric terms used in
them, but it will be possible, through them, to derive at least a
general understanding of the practices described.

• In Iight of modern knowledge of neurobiology, we know that

cognitive activities in fact never took place in the heart. If some
people in ancient China believed that this was the case, however,
their practices must have undoubtedly reflected this belief. The type
of meditation which existed in ancient China might have led its
practitioners to the same physical states as those who practiced
forrns of meditation grounded in completely different
understandings, but what is important is that these physical states
were not understood in the same way. This is why 1 consider
misguided Whalen Lai's attempt at reinterpreting the Neiye as a
yogic text. 211 By projecting Indian concepts on the Nejye, Lai
demonstrates how easy it is to obscure the original meaning of a text
by reading it through inadequate tenses. His attempt is misleading
because it starts with the assumption that all Meditation practices
are the same and that all texts which refer to them cao b e

210 See chapter 2 for a criticism of a hermeneutic endeavor which, founded

•
on this premise, forgets to look for the internai consistency of another
frame of understanding in which lexts make sense.
211 "The Integration of the Gods," Taojst ResQurces, 1:1 (1988), p. 1-11.
 100

• understood in the same terms, as making sense in the same

hermeneutic and cognitive framework. This error should be avoided
as much as possible.

•
 101

• Conclusion

This study has been at once an attempt at renewing traditional

approaches to ancient Chinese texts and a tentative analysis of one of
these texts, the Neiye. l tried to reach an understanding of how the
authors of the Neiye conceived of the cognitive functioning of the
body. l have found current approaches somehow misguided because
of the assumptions on which they implicitly rest. This is true despite
a strong will to neutralize these assumptions when looking at texts
written in a different cultural and phiIosophicaI tradition. Even wh a t
1 take to be the best interpretation of the Neiye available today, that
of Harold D. Roth. can be misleading, because it considers the term
xin simply as a "physical metaphor" of the mind, without fully
drawing the consequences of ascribing to it consciousness and
cognitive activities. Drawing these consequences, however, seems
crucial to gain access to the meaning of the text as it was understood

• by its authors.
The method described in the first chapter of this study, applied
and developed in the following chapters, provides tools to avoid
being trapped in our own cultural and philosophical assumptions and
to make it easier to draw nearer to the way the authors of ancient
texts understood their writings. Of course, once one bas these tools in
hand, much room remains for errors of interpretation, and this study
is undoubtedly not without flaws. However, l believe l have
managed to shed sorne light on the Neiye, simply by accepting th e
consequences of the use of certain terms in certain contexts.
The notions of metaphorical concept and cognitive model, and
the possibility of detecting them through their linguistic expressions
were important parts of our approacb. By analyzing terms that
diverge from our categories as part of larger cognitive models, b y
constantly wondering what conceptions underlay a world in which
these terms were used, we were able to develop a better
understanding of these terms and the texts in which they were used.

•
We detected certain important conceptions and categories through
the terms in which they manifested themselves, after which we had
 102

• ta interpret them. This process of detection and construal is

necessary, [ believe, to understand sucb ancient texts as the Neiye.2 12
We cannot assume that ancient Chinese texts whicb discuss
such familiar topics as the quest for knowledge to display
philosophical concems similar to ours and to see the world through
our categories. We have to assume, on the contrary, that the
categories through which the authors of the Neiye understood and
experienced the world were different, and that we have to disco ver
them in order to penetrate the meaning of their accounts. This
reqi' ｾ ＮＭｾ a hermeneutic effort.
One of the guiding principles of hermeneutics is that in order to
understand meaning of an utterance, one has to understand its
context. This context is partly socio-linguistic. In order to understand
an utterance, one has to be as conversant as possible with the
Lebenswelt in whicb it was made. This requires not only a critical
work on our own categories, but aiso an effort to gain access to the
categories and metaphorical concepts which underlie utterances

• made in other cultural and philosophical traditions.

In such an interpretive endeavor, the principle of humanity,
which assumes that an utterance which seems outlandish must b e
true in different systems of thought and language, is necessary, but
insufficient. It is too superficial to give access to foreign categories.
Exegetists need more systematic hermeneutic principles. Moreover,
we should not be speaking, as Donald Davidson does, of the truth of
utterances, but of their meaning, of the internaI consistency of
cognitive models in which they make sense.
Chad Hansen is right about the necessity to construct a
systematic hermeneutical framework to read classical Chinese
philosophy,213 but he seems to assume too much about the
212 For example, they cannot he found explicitly, neither in general works
such as Schwartz, op. cit.; Graham, Djsputees; Hansen, A Daojst Theory;
nor in more specifie works about the body in Chinese thought such as
Kasu lis, Ames and Dissanayake, op. cil.; Chiu, op. Cil.; Ishida, loe. cir. ;
Kristofer Schipper, The Taojst Body (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of Califomia Press, 1982); Roth, several articles; and Yuasa
Yasuo, The Body. Self-Cultjvatjon and Kj-EnerlY (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY

• 213
Press, 1993).
See the first chapter of his DaojsE Theory of Chjnese Thoulbt.
 103

• consistency of Chïnese thought, and, although he reaches interesting

resuIts, he cannot really account for the physicality of cognitive
activities in certain texts. Metaphors of cognition have to be studied
more analytically, using a more flexible conceptual apparatus than
Hansen's. Although we did not use Hansen's approach, we
nevertheless reached conclusions similar to his on certain points (see
the section on Uemotions" in chapter 3, for example). However, some
of the understandings developed in tbis study were only possible
because we did not assume that all Chïnese texts must be seen as
aimed al a rational understanding of the world. There is still room in
our hermeneutic strategy for mystical texts and practices. They m a y
be strange and difficult to understand, but we have to assume,
before stripping them of their mystical content, that they can make
sense as mystical texts.
Building a general interpretive framework through which aIl
texts cao be read is insufficient. An approach based on the notions of
metaphor and cognitive models seems more fcuitful in that it can

• contribute to digging up the information needed to understand

unfamiliar categories. Starting from particular words and what th e y
reveai about a given Lebenswelt , 1 believe 1 managed to reach a
clearer understanding of certain apparently obscure passages in the
Neiye. 1 reached conclusions close to Hansen's on emotions in pre-
Buddhist thought, but through a simpler investigation.214 1 aIso tried
to show that it would be more likely for someone who did no t
believe in the existence of a mind having a different essence from
the body, to have a different epistemology, not based on knowledge
of essences.
If it can be shown that an epistemology based on essences as
opposed to illusions (or appearances), or on reason as opposed t 0
emotions, is strongly linked to a dualism between body and mind, i t
will come as no surprise that a culture which does not think in terms
of body and mind similarly will not think of knowledge as a
214 Of course, having read his article before writing my own conclusions, 1
benefitted from his conclusions in developing mine, but 1 still believe

•
that the notion of primary meaning and its metonymical extension
helped to go further than Hansen on interpreting qing in Chinese pre-
Buddhist texts.
 104

• knowledge of essences, nor will it ascribe cogD1uve activities to a

mind anchored in a debasing body. However obvious this May no W
seem in view of the number of tirnes it has been explicitly remarked
in sinological ｬｩｴ･ｲ｡ｴｵｲ･ｾ 1 cannot help but believe tbat the
consequences of this are still too often overlooked, and that 0 u r
familiar notions based on mind-body dualism still underlie 0 u r
hermeneutical endeavors in ways which keep obscuring the different
world view of the ancient Chinese.
The reading apparatus used to decipher ancient Cbinese texts i s
too often bound to distorting the meaning of these texts because of
the hidden assumptions that fonn an integral part of il. 1 bope 1 b a v e
ｭ｡ｮｧ･､ｾ in tbis ｳｴｵ､ｹｾ to demonstrate tbat the terms of the mind-
body problem could not be applied to ancient Chinese texts, and tbat
xin in the Neiye could therefore not be translated as Ｇｾｭｩｮ､Ｂ without
obscuring the specifie understanding of the cognitive functioning of
the body described in this text.
We should be wary of attempts at interpreting ancient Chinese

• texts through categories foreign to them. Classical Chinese has words

that seem to correspond to our categories, but tbese words make
sense in different cognitive models than ours; they are integrated in
other networks of significance. Translating xin as mind makes the
cognitive models on which it is based difficult to access, if not simply
incomprebensible. Explanations of the meaning of xin are too often
oriented towards a comparison with our own categories and not often
enough towards an explanation of xin in specifically Chinese
cognitive models. It is these models, however, tbat we have to
understand in order to grasp the meaning of texts and get closer to
how the ancient Chinese understood and experienced the ｷｯｲｬｾＮ This
is what we tried to accomplish in this study. This allowed us, for
example, to develop insights about how the authors of the Neiye
thought breathing techniques could make one reach a clearer vision
of the world.
If we aim at a genuine understanding of ancient Cbinese texts,
it is feuitful to try to understand the categories and concepts which

• underlie them. Clearly, the metaphor of the heart as the seat of

conscious activities is incompatible with mind-body dualism, a
 105

• fundamental metaphor which underlies the categories of W es tern

folk psychology. Ancient Chinese thinkers did not conceptualize
experience according to these categories and therefore should not b e
construed in tbese tenns if we find a better way of interpreting
them.
Xin is nothing like an abstract mind. In the ·'Neiye", it should
always be translated as "heart", and nothing else. AlI occurrences of
it make sense if we use heart as a translation, whereas "mind" would
often obscure the original understanding which appears in the texte
By translating xin as "mind" in passages which talk about anger or
the senses as obstacles to proper cognitive activities, we obscure the
more literaI sense of the texte "Heart-mind" is too vague, a catch word
vague enough at once to refer to something familiar and to allow us
not to reflect on the meaning of xin. 21S
What we seem to have in the Nejye is not a mind, but a body
one part of which (the heart) gives people consciousness of their
surroundings. According to the Neiye, the heart shouid not malee any

• purposive interpretive effort. Instead, it should be left undisturbed,

naturally attuned to the rest of the world. The heart is aiways
conscious of something, but in certain conditions of regularity and
calm, this consciousness is more accurate, which Ieads to the right
course of action.
The vocabulary used to describe meditation techniques in the
Neiye suggests that they are based on a regulation of the flow of
fluids in the human body. No matter whether these fluids were
objecti vely observable or not, they were thought to exist in reali ty
and the text speaks of ways to discipline them. 216 These methods

215 Note. on the other hand. that Uheart-mind U

might be still be the Most
appropriate rendering of xin in post-Buddhist texts. Indeed, after th e
Han, under Buddhist influence, xin acquired a meaning closer to
"mind" than to Uheart." In the Song, therefore. certain conceptions
surrounding xin (such as its physicality) were no longer alive. 0 r
rather no longer ··lived by." Similarly. shen • qing and qi were also
integrated into new cognitive models. developing new meanings in ne w
contexts. For example, for a goad study of the developments of the
meaning of shen after the Han, sec Lo Yuet Keung, '7he Destiny of shen

•
(soul) and the genesis of carly Medieval Confucian metaphysics (221-587
A.D.)." Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan. 1991.
216 Of course. as already remarked. human biological functions do not vary
 106

• were designed to counter the stlmng effects that emotions and the
senses could have on the heart as the organ of cognition, not on the
mind.
It is difficult to imagine this Lebenswelt in which the organ
responsible for cognition is more of a sensory organ than an abstract
notion of mind. l think, however, that it is possible through a
systematic enquiry into the conceptions which underlay the use of
such terms as xin , qi , shen , and qing. l am not suggesting, of
course, that language is deterministic, and that using these terms
determined the way knowledge and cognition were conceived of,
understood and experienced in ancient China. Even a superficial
analysis of ancient Chinese thought would immediately belie thi s
claim. The Mere fact that the Chinese used the term xin to descri be
the seat of cognitive activities did not have a determining effect 0 n
the way they subsequently conceptualized epistemological problems.
The point, indeed, lies, not in the existence and common use of one
terrn, but in the systems of understanding in which this terro was

• placed .
What 1 am suggesting, then, is that if we understand and accept
the epistemological consequences of seeing the heart as the seat of
cognition, we cao understand certain texts better. If it is true that
such terms as xin do not determine the way conscious activities are
conceptualized, it is nonetheless undeniable that they open different
possibilities (conceptually and practically) than the notion of umind".

more than marginally from one people to another: regardless of 0 u r

world view and no matter what cultural constructions orient 0 u r
experiences, what takes place in the stomach when we digest, or in the
brain and the nervous system when we ufeel", Ｇｾｲ･ｦｬ｣ｴＢ or h a v e
"emotions", al ways obeys the same neurobiological ru les. One could say
that what was taking place inside the body of those who practiced the
techniques described in the Neiye were undergoing certain "objective"
experiences, grounded in certain brain states and a hormonal state 0 f
the body at a certain point. Very importantly, however, each culture has
reached answers of its own to interpret these activities. These ｾ ｯ｢ｪ･｣ｴｩｶ･
experiences" in fact only acquire meaning in a certain Lebenswelt.
which it is important to grasp if we want to understand the description
of these experiences. Seeing the world as functioning in a certain way

•
influences experiences. One will not see Meditation in the same way if
the umind" is physical as when the soul is thought ta be separable fro m
the body.
 107

• The use of xin makes certain conceptions possible that would b e

difficult to imagine in the framework of a mind-body ､ｵ｡ｬｩｳｭｾ
as the importance of breathing techniques.
Whatever we think of the problem of priority and causality of
such

language over world view ｾ what we just expounded provides good

reasons to distance ourselves from a "psychological" reading and
rendering of certain Chinese texts. Without pronouncing ourselves 0 n
the problem of the shaping power of language on thought and
personality across ｣ｵｬｴ ｲ･ｳｾ we cao still see that it wouId b e
impossible to create such a vision as mind-body dualism at the
beginning of the ancient Chinese tradition. Language is not
deterministic, but its state at a certain point in ｴｩｭ･ｾ or as it appears
in one particular ｴ･ｸ ｾ can reveal a great deal about the worldview of
certain authors. ｌ｡ｆ ｲｧｵ･ｾ however right he is in bis general
principles about the relationship between language and reality,
makes a mistake by considering this relationship too superficially,
without envisaging that language is a deep part of the worldview. 1

• agree that Many terms and expressions in the Nei ye and the
ｄ｡ｯ､･ｪｩｮｾ have a phenomenological reference, and that they are
experientially evocative, but this does not keep the authors to
consider these experientially evocative tenns as part of a general
understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body. 1 would not
calI this general understanding a theory, even less indeed a theory of
psychology, but it seems consistent enough not be seen only as
piecemeal references to dispersed experiences.
Language, however, is not a catalogue of a certain worldview; it
goes far deeper than terminology and taxonomy. Categories shape the
way one understands the world. Many have rightfully claimed that
Whorfs hypothesis on the shaping power of language on
consciousness was exaggerated and not accurate. However, realizing
this should oot lead us to the other extreme. Language does have a
shaping power over consciousness, especially when we do not reflect
upon the categories which underlie it. In other words the world does
not exist objectively out there, ready to be grasped by a languages

•
that naturally correspond to it. The concepts and categories of
different languages are often incommensurable, which iodicates that
 108

• not a11 cultures have the same Lebenswelt and the same beliefs
about the world. Such fundamental categories as xin structure, orient
and limit our representation of reality. The vocabulary of Western
Hfolk psychology" has the same effect, and this terminology is sa
firmly entrenched in our minds that it gives us the illusion of existing
objectively. Like xin for the Cbinese, the vocabulary of folk
psychology molds the way we experience and understand human
conscious activities.
This does not Mean, however, that one cannot understand
another Lebenswelt. In fact, this study started with the bellef that
one could have access to another Lebenswelt by being aware of
certain facts about language and categories. The fact that reality is
not "out there" should not lead one to complete relativism about
access to meanings developed in other traditions. AlI languages work
by dissimulated tropes and figures. Our purpose in this study was
not, however, to underline the fictionality of all language and the
inaccessibility of meaning, but to try ta understand better what the

• metaphoricity of language meant and what this understanding can

contribute to cross-cultural interpretation.
Neither was 1 attempting to point out that our language, being
metaphorical, is not pure, and that we should therefore work 0 n
identifying these metaphors and replace them by more Hobjective"
language. Of course, becoming aware of some of our assumptions in
arder to develop a more critical outlook on reality is important, but i t
seems impossible to get rid of the metaphoricity of language without
getting cid of language altogether. We cannot go to the deepest
reaches of Chinese language to have complete access to their world
view, but we cao keep digging, striving to reach insights useful to
understanding the fascinating worldview of the ancient Chinese.

•
 109

•• •
AppendixI

Passages in Chïnese

•
 110

••

•
 111

• ａｌ ｉｎｓｏｎｾ
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