Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism

Yesterday I met a boy who missed his father.  He said that his father spends all his time at work and never helps around the house, and that his mother works, too, but then also has to do all the housework.  He explained that his father is gone almost every night drinking with his friends.  He said that his mother and father do not seem to know each other, and also that his father does not really know him, either.  "My mother is lonely," he said.  "And I think that maybe my father is lonely, too.  But I do not really know my father.  He is an absent man."

The boy told me that one time, when he actually got to talk to his father, he had asked his father about why he was never at home, and his father said: "That's my job.  I am the man of the house.  Someday you will understand; you will be like me, too."  The boy told me that he hoped he would not be like his father.  He said that he did not want to live in a world where men are absent fathers and women are silent sufferers.  He said that he was trying to break free of the stereotypes of male and female within his own mind and that, lately, he had been watching Li Yugang.  

More specifically, the boy explained that he had been watching the video you view above: about a boy who learns to become a woman.  He said that this video taught him a lesson about how to be more human, less rigid, more sensitive, more himself.  I was surprised to hear him say more himself.  But he made it clear to me: "I never want to be the man my father wants me to be.  In my heart and mind I want to be more flexible, more vulnerable, more malleable, more adaptive, more compassionate, more....fluid." 

I liked his metaphor of fluidity.  It reminded me of Buddhism and Process Philosophy, with their teachings about the impermanent nature of life.  All of life, they say, is flowing and changing.  Maybe we are, too.  Perhaps this is part of the lesson we can all learn from Li Yugang.

Li Yugang is one of the most important artists in China today.  With his capacity to enter into female roles, he offers a contemporary expression of an older custom: that of men assuming female roles in the Dan tradition of Peking Opera.  And, indeed, he performs Peking Opera.  This capacity to assume roles bespeaks a deeper and equally important issue: the pliability, the flexibility, of human consciousness itself.  

From birth so many of us are brought up to divide the world, and perhaps to divide ourselves as well, into two basic options: "male" or "female."  Not all cultures have seen things quite this simply; there are cultures in which third and fourth genders are also recognized.  But the truth of the matter is each one of us carries a more fluid consciousness, a consciousness that can be -- and sometimes is -- more flexible, more chamelion-like.  It changes color and texture and tonality according to different circumstances.  It is capable of taking on the perspectives of others and, in a certain sense, becoming them, in an act of imagination and empathy. 

At least this is how we in the JJB community see things.  Influenced by the philosophy of Whitehead we see consciousness -- and still more deeply the whole of experience, most of which is subconscious -- as fluid and complex, richly textured and pliable.  We can become different people in different contexts, and in this becoming we are different people.  We don't just possess fluidity, we are fluidity.  Our consciousness is more like a river than a rock.

Indeed our consciousness is a river that is forever nourished by other rivers.   Whitehead's point is not just that we can imagine their points of view, it is also that other people flow into us.  Recall Whitehead's idea that, at every moment of our lives, the many become one and are increased by one.  The "many" include the people in the world around us whoever they are: young and old, familiar and strange, friend and foe.  They are outside our bodies, but they are inside our experience.  And in being inside our experience we are affected by their feelings and share their moods.  We are changed by them.

Part of the social value of Li Yugang, then, is that in his art he presents this possibility to us, thus functioning as, in Whitehead's words, a lure for our own feeling.  We are lured to recognized the complexity and richness of our own lives, to see that we need not pigeonhole ourselves or others into conventional boxes which so often to harm to the world.  Is Li Yugang male or female?  In some contexts "he" is male and in others "she" is female.  This has nothing to do with Li Yugang's sexuality.  We need not know how Li Yugang's life is expressed in that way.  But we do know that in the art, as seen in the video above, we are reminded that we, too, are gender-inclusive, if only we have hearts to feel and imaginations to wonder.  

昨天我遇到一个想念自己父亲的男孩子。他说他的父亲每天把时间都花在工作上，从来不做家务活，他的母亲也有工作，但是还要承担所有的家务活。他还解释说父亲几乎每天晚上都要出去和朋友们喝酒应酬，给外人的感觉是父亲和母亲之间不是很了解，仿佛自己的父亲也不真正地了解自己。“我的母亲很孤单，”他说，“我想我的父亲也很孤单。但是我并不真正地了解父亲，他是一个经常不在家的人。”

这个男孩子告诉我有一次他在和父亲聊天的时候问父亲为什么经常不在家，父亲说：“那是我的工作，我是这个家的男人。有一天你就会明白的；你也会像我一样。”男孩子告诉我他不希望将来和父亲一样，他说自己不想生活在男人不回家而女人只能默默承受的世界里。他说试图在自己的脑海里打破对于男人和女人的传统看法，最近，他在看李玉刚的节目。

男孩为他最近一直在看的上面视频里的节目做了一些解释：上面的视频里面一个男人尝试着表演一个女性的角色。他说这个视频让他了解了怎样才能更能体会人性化的感觉，少一些古板，多一些真情实感，更多地体会自我。当我挺到他说更多地体会自我的时候我感到很惊讶。在我的心里我想变得更灵活、更容易受到影响、更容易改变、更习惯适应、更富有同情心……更愿意重塑自我。

我喜欢他对于重塑的表述。让我想起了佛教和过程哲学中关于人自然本性的非永恒性知识。生命中的一切都在不断地发展变化，也许我们也是，也许这就是我们可以从李玉刚身上学到的。

李玉刚是当今中国最重要的艺术家之一。通过自己扮演女性角色的能力，他把传统京剧里旦的角色用现代的形式表现出来。而且，他确实在表演京剧艺术。这种扮演角色的能力让我们注意到了一个更深层次也同样重要的问题：人的意识本身具有的塑造性和灵活性。

从降生在世界上我们基本上了解的是两个世界，同时我们也被分到这两个世界之中，那就是：“男性”或“女性”。不是所有的文化都如此简单地看待问题；在有些文化之中也承认存在第三性和第四性。但实际上我们每一个人都有更加灵活的意识，这种意识可以——有的时候就是——更加灵活，更加？。在不同的情境下改变颜色、质地和色调。也能够汲取他人的想法，在一定意义上通过想象和认同感来变成对方。

我们至少在这个网站上按照这个方法来看待问题。在怀海德的影响下我们看到了意识——更深层次的是经历的全部——像可塑造性和复杂性，结构多样性和多变性。我们在不同的背景环境下可以变成不同的人，在这种变化过程中我们本身就不一样了。我们不仅具有可塑造性，我们本省就是可塑造的。我们的意识和一块岩石比起来更像是一条河流。

实际上我们的意识是一条河流，这条河流永远被其他的河流孕育滋养着。怀海德的观点不仅是我们可以从他们的角度想象，同时别人也融入到我们的思想之中。体会怀海德的思想，在我们生命中的每时每刻，多数人可以变成个体，同时也以个体的形式在提升。这个大多数包括了在我们身边世界各个角落的人：年轻和年老的，熟悉和陌生的，朋友和敌人。他们虽然和我们不是同一人，但是他们却在我们的经历之中。同时我们也受到他们自身感受的影响，我们分享他们的心境。他们改变了我们。

李玉刚社会价值的一部分，是通过他的艺术形式为我们展示了这种可能性，用怀海德的话说，让我们的感觉有了新的变化。我们被这种艺术形式吸引了，意识到了我们生命中的复杂性和多样性，了解到我们不需要把自己或别人归结到传统的条条框框中去，那些条条框框经常是不和谐的因素。李玉刚是男性还是女性？在一些情境下他是男性，在其他情境下她就变成女性。这与李玉刚的性别没有关系。我们没有必要知道李玉刚是用怎样的方式来表达自己的生活状态的。但是我们确实了解到了上面视频里所表达的艺术，我们同时也意识到，如果用心去感受，去想象，我们也可以体会到每个性别的魅力所在。