When the many are reduced to
one, to what is the one reduced?
(Koan)
First
reaction
Nothing?
Exploration
Many reduced to one suggests simplification. What can one be reduced to?
If you reduce one, do you have nothing? What is nothing? Is it the absence of
substance? Of being? Of doing? Of having?
Is this a process of subtraction? Of removal?
Is simple necessarily without complexity?
Does the question ask whether we see the whole or just the parts?
Can the intellect apprehend the whole?
To what? Is this asking for some manner of definition?
'What' is always asking for an object, a symbol, a reference - can the question
be said to have meaning?
Possible meaning
Taoist cosmology sees the human being as passing through a series of
stages:
Emptiness/wholeness
Differentiation
Complexity
We start life as a
baby and are complete in ourselves. We have no concept of self and no sense of
this or that, here or there, mine or yours.
Such distinctions come later. At first, we are complete. We are both empty and
whole.
Differentiation occurs when we begin to split things up.
This process can continue indefinitely, with countless measurements,
subdivisions and categories.
By dividing the world, we become alienated from our original selves.
The complexity of our perception is misleading. We cannot see the whole by
examining the part.
Zen and tao students must move past the conventions of words and thoughts and
return to a condition of undivided wholeness.
They strip away accretions, thoughts, opinions, possessions and accomplishments.
The journey is towards wholeness and emptiness. One and nothing.
Page created 19 May 2005