The roots of NowHow are deep in the cultural soil of East Asia, which nurtured early Chinese life coaches, Canjeez, Sengai, Zenguy, the Way of the Way, and the Way of Tea. (We haven’t yet considered the tea connection with NowHow; maybe we can look at that theme more closely on another occasion.)
Zenguy asserts that NowHow has been central to East Asian thought since the days of those early Chinese life coaches. (I write that in order to shift accountability for this claim away from me. You can assume that Zenguy said this once when he’d had too much to drink and is currently unavailable for comment.)
How to engage with now is important because either I am going to change something, or something is going to change and I am going to have to cope with that change. Both forms of change are experienced “now”.
Various early Chinese life coaches were clearly interested in the theme of “change”. They even wrote a book about it: Yi Jing (or I Ching).
Rather than The Book of Changes, Zenguy asserts that in English, this book should actually be called The Book of Change. But again, he is currently unavailable for comment.
One of the key insights of Dao De Jing is that whenever “nothing” becomes “something”, “nothing” has undergone a change.
“Anything” or “everything” is the set of all the “somethings” in the world. (“Nothing” is actually one of those “somethings”; maybe we can look at that theme more closely on another occasion.)
NowHow is all about mastery of change. It’s about how to make the best use of now. Or to be more precise, NowHow is about how to think about how to make the best use of now.
“The best use of now” is an object of attention (木: tree). “Think about” is engagement with an object of attention (想: think about). And “how” is a way (道: head-in-motion: path: process). To make headway you need power (道徳: path-virtue) and also tools (道具: path-items).
A great deal could be written (and already has been written) about the nature of “virtue” in East Asian thought. A perceived emphasis on functional utility is one reason why I tend to think of 徳 as a form of power (heart-in-motion) rather than a quality associated with being “good”.
That said, aspects of being conventionally “good” do contribute to forward movement along an East Asian path, and so heart-in-motion power is by no means 100% utilitarian.
The notion of virtue is a fascinating arena for cross-cultural comparison. Let’s consider a passage from the Bible: Proverbs 4:20-27.
“My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them written in your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”
I feel less confident about the intention of some of these words than I do when I see early Chinese thought encoded in Canjeez. Perverse, corrupt, and evil are all bad “somethings” that are perceived to exist in the human world. Standing in contrast to them are two good “somethings”: “life” and “health”.
We can see the “is/is not” to which Dao De Jing draws our attention:
We know what good is
That’s how we know not-good
Except that in the quoted Bible passage, “not-good” seems to be the default position from which “good” is distinguished. “Good” is associated with “life” and “health”.
I think most people would agree that these are “good” destinations. So how should I engage with “now” on the path to those destinations?
The very first step is to guard my heart, for everything I do flows from it. We have already encountered a very similar idea in East Asian thought: “The heart creates everything.”
I need to get my heart into shape so that I can write certain words in it. This would suggest that my heart needs to be pure. We have already looked at a “pure heart” idea, too: 真心, which combines with 真相 (truth) to make a perfect “think about”.
The first step in “thinking about” is to observe (目: eye) an object of attention (木: tree).
In the Bible passage, we are instructed to pay attention to “what I say” and to tune our ear to “my words”. Let’s get the Mindfield out of storage.
Two rows in particular are in play: the middle row and the bottom row. We just fixed our heart (right end of the middle row). That’s now in good shape to react to data that the eye, which stands for all sensory perceptions, gathers about the tree, which stands for an object of attention.
On this occasion, the object of attention is “what I say” and “my words”. I must not let them out of my sight. I must keep them written in my heart. If I can find them, those words “are” life and health. After writing them in my heart, I need to be able to find them, and so I must be able to recall where they are. This is the function of memory, the mirror in the bottom row.
If I can find the words, I can tune my ear to them. That brings in the rest of the bottom row. The ear (middle) is tuning into the words (left) that my inner voice is reading out loud from what is written in my heart (right). In order for me to be able to hear those words properly, they must be free of perversity and corruption.
In addition to purity of heart (reactor core), my mouth (media interface), too, must be in great shape.
But that’s not all. I must let my eyes look straight ahead. We’re back in the middle row now, but we got here from the bottom row.
Heart, mouth, ears, and now eyes are aligned and I am primed to give careful thought to the paths for my feet. The key aim, now that I’m in the top row, is to keep my feet out of the potholes of evil on the road ahead.
I must not be distracted left or right. I must fix my gaze directly before me. Then I can avoid putting my foot in a pothole of evil.
The implication seems to be that if I establish the right mindset, I’ll be able to stay on the right path.
Write “right path” in Canjeez, and you get 正道, an East Asian path of righteousness.
The brief comparison above suggests that East and West cite some of the same components in understanding the right way to walk.
But the Western way is walked in the shadow of a second tree whose fruit we were once forbidden to eat: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Until we ate that fruit, we didn’t know that good and evil existed. Very Dao De Jing:
“Is not” is where we start
“Is” is what we make of it
This is all food for thought on the road ahead. Keep those eyes peeled, though.