Observing China: The Chan Method and the Anxiety of Knowing Without Speaking by Yan Lianke
Translated by Carlos Rojas
In discussions about China and its citizens, people often describe seeing a dark lake beneath a magnificent rainbow. The rainbow illuminates everything, inspiring everyone to compose poetry and sing songs in praise of it. At the same time, however, everyone is also painfully aware that beneath the rainbow the lake is slowly draining—as though the lake’s embankment were riddled with holes about to collapse, unleashing a catastrophic flood. Moreover, in these contemporary discussions, it is as though the flood has already arrived, and the impending catastrophe can be clearly seen, felt, and heard. However, if you ask any Chinese person whether the nation is currently in a state of crisis, he will simply smile and reply like a Buddhist master,
There are large and small roads, and there are sunny and cloudy days.
—And what do you think China will be like tomorrow?
My family still has rice.
—What national issue concerns you the most?
Look at how sturdy that stone next to you is.
—And what disappoints you the most?
The moon has already risen, and I need to return home.
In this way, questions are asked and responses are proffered. You may feel the speaker hasn’t responded to anything at all, but he would claim that each of his responses has a clear referent. When you look more closely, you realize that these responses are but mist-filled kōans, as the speaker expresses his meaning without making any specific points.
This is the situation in contemporary China. In restaurants, taxis, tea houses, cafés, and other sites where people can meet and talk about things, virtually everyone is interested in national affairs. Just as passengers on the Titanic could clearly see the iceberg in the ship’s path, everyone in China is aware of the impending crisis—including why it exists and how it could be resolved. It is as though everyone were the legendary Han dynasty statesman and fortune teller Zhuge Liang. However, if you ask these same people to state their opinion in a different context—for instance, in a classroom, if they are professors; in their writings, if they are intellectuals; or in a meeting, if they are Party members and patriotic cadres—they inevitably adopt a very different tone. We could, therefore, conclude that their hypocrisy and duplicity are best suited for a schizophrenic practice of laughing when on stage and crying when off stage. Indeed, when walking home alone, they invariably begin to curse the nation, the government, political leaders, and anyone else with whom they don’t get along.
Inspired by Lu Xun’s famous eponymous story, we use the phrase “Ah Q spirit” to explain this sort of self-mockery, and inspired by the Boxer Rebellion, we use “Boxer spirit” to refer to Chinese people’s practice of shifting from arrogance to humility, just as we use “self-protection” to describe the people’s efforts to resolve their day-to-day needs in an environment of terror. There are countless principles that could be used to demonstrate someone’s integrity, honesty, and hopelessness, thereby earning them sympathy and understanding. However, once we begin to peel away this veneer of emotion, understanding, and rationality, we discover that the notions of an Ah Q spirit, Boxer spirit, and practices of self-protection are simply insufficient to explain the current situation. Ah Q and the Boxers would always shout when confronting reality, but now everyone is silent. As for a practice of self-protection, it produces only silence and lies, as people invariably sacrifice others to protect themselves.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution represented the pinnacle of the practice of pursuing self-protection in an environment of terror, as people either deliberately exposed others or else chose to remain silent to protect themselves. Scandals flourished like mushrooms in the sun after a rain or spring willows along a river, while the east and west wind were subject to critiques and compliments on behalf of the revolution. Today, however, people are concerned that the situation may revert to the Cultural Revolution, for which there are already countless omens. At the same time, others doubt this would even be possible, given the decades of reform and the emergence of the internet, which allows users to learn about the world. Accordingly, we now find that on one side there is silence, while on the other side there is sound; on one side there is quiet observation, and on the other side there is open discussion. Those who choose silence are particularly attuned to when and how they should remain silent, while those who choose to speak are similarly attuned to when and how they should speak.
The author as a young man. Courtesy of Yan Lianke.
Moreover, in the current post-Covid era, Chinese people are often more focused on observing China’s distinct reality, and consequently virtually no one remains trapped in a state of terrorized self-protection. People are no longer limited to having an Ah Q or Boxer spirit; instead, they have learned their new skills. They have mastered the school of Buddhism known as Zen in Japan and Chan in China—which includes the precepts of knowing without speaking, speaking without exposing, and using mountains as lakes and mulberry trees as locust trees. Throughout contemporary China, this has yielded a widespread, enlightened, but also deeply mysterious Chan practice that everyone recognizes but no one truly believes.
Unsurprised by favor or disgrace, one calmly watches blossoms bloom and wilt in
front of the courtyard.
Unconcerned with whether to stay or leave, one casually follows the clouds in the
sky as they clump and unfurl.
This is contemporary Chinese people’s complacency and self-praise, as they know without speaking, or speak without communicating. It is as though everyone were a legendary Daoist master like Laozi, Zhuangzi, or Tao Yuanming.
In the eighth century CE, a figure named Mazu appeared among China’s Chan Buddhists and established a practice known as “gradual cultivation with sudden enlightenment, and sudden enlightenment but with gradual cultivation,” and its tenet was “touching like the Way, while letting the mind be cultivated.” Raising eyebrows, darting eyes, laughing, chortling, thinking, staring, answering without questions, and questioning without needing answers—all for the sake of Buddhist matters and Chan practice. One of the key manifestations of this sort of Chan practice is enlightenment, and more specifically a post-enlightenment state of “not speaking”—because if one speaks, it will not be for the sake of Chan and enlightenment. The result is like a truth that everyone recognizes and understands—but if that truth is spoken aloud, it becomes merely a type of common sense, and not a basic truth. Often, when young monks ask their master about self-cultivation, the master simply gazes back at them and laughs: “Look at how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” The young monks gaze up at the sky, then look down at the ground, whereupon they have an epiphany. When asked what they have understood, the young monks reply, “The universe is but grain and grass.” If they were to answer otherwise, it would indicate that they have not yet achieved enlightenment, but instead must continue to ask questions. In that case, the master would kick and slap them, whereupon they would suddenly understand the sublime significance of “not speaking.”
In 1920, Bertrand Russell visited China, and people attending his lectures often asked him, “What is truth?” This question inevitably left Russell angry and depressed, given that he could not easily answer it. When Russell later met Hu Shi at Peking University, Hu Shi told him, “If you listen to my discussion of Chan, you’ll be able to answer your questioners.” With this, Russell learned the significance of the Chan principle of not speaking.
Keeping silent is a kind of Chan epiphany, but it is also a kind of Chan practice. Contemporary China is pervaded by this practice of “seeing but not speaking.” Cadres, intellectuals, scientists, and soldiers, and even students and peasants, and taxi and delivery drivers—it sometimes seems as though literally everyone knows contemporary reality’s fundamental problem, yet no one is willing to state it out loud. Portentous national problems and social issues relating to economics, politics, international relations, and culture—if you listen to the orations of a typical Beijing taxi driver, it is as though Russell were patiently explaining what truth is. You have no choice but to acknowledge that Beijing taxi drivers are society’s most perceptive interpreters, but after you pay your fare and get out of the car, the driver will remark, “Earlier, I was just babbling, but now I’m telling you that I didn’t say anything at all!” At this point, you will realize that the taxi driver is but one of Mazu’s Chan disciples.
It is said that there are very few Chinese who do not have opinions about national affairs or the future of the world—including America and Europe, as well as Asia’s Japan and Korea, not to mention Elon Musk’s futurology. For instance, if you ask a Chinese person a specific question about China, such as why the price of gas has risen, they will claim it is the result of an American plot. However, if you ask them instead to discuss the universe, satellites, and Starlink, they will simply say, “The universe is but grass and grain.” This response is philosophical and mysterious, while also being closely linked to issues of individual survival in contemporary China, such as securing food, clothing, housing, and employment.
As for what tomorrow may bring, many people who have considered this question would note the countless fissures that have formed in the lake’s embankment. When people worry about the nation, they worry about their own situation, and when they become anxious about their own situation, they become anxious about the nation. For numerous historical and contemporary reasons, this kind of worry and anxiety makes virtually everyone fall into a Chan game of not speaking, in which the entire nation ultimately reaches a consensus. Unemployment has become so serious that the nation’s Bureau of Statistics doesn’t dare to calculate unemployment figures, or else it calculates the figures but doesn’t announce them. However, when the Bureau announces that it will no longer announce the unemployment figures, people around the country simply laugh—as the practice of not speaking has already become a national game. As the real estate crisis has already become a national calamity and the Evergrande Group has become a black hole that has swallowed nearly a trillion yuan in investments—these are unspeakable bell tolls, as the populace merely shouts and cheers.
Not long ago, the city of Nanyang in Henan Province held a Midi Music Festival, as countless young people (some claim there may have been over a hundred thousand) poured in from around the country, trudging through rain and knee-deep mud to dance wildly on-site—as though this entire event had, at some point, become simply a Chan game within an epiphany of raising eyebrows, moving eyes, laughing, and chortling.
A cellphone video becomes a filthy performance stage where billions can laugh and chortle while experiencing emptiness and delusion.
To care about daily necessities such as salt and oil, one must first love the nation.
To worry about employment and the future, one must first care about what contemporary Chinese call “lying flat” (similar to what Americans now call “quiet quitting”), after which one will not care about anything.
If one’s heart is full of anger and restlessness, one should express it by thinking about whether to get married and have children.
All thought and attention involve standing in the present and gazing out at an uncertain past and future while also looking abroad. Patriotism must be loudly summoned and cannot be invoked with mere sighs and tears. Intellectuals treat silence as a sign of pride, and they view critique as a sign of idiocy. Authors and artists simultaneously created a kind of stupidity, while recognition of society and politics becomes a kind of nobility and success. Civil servants and intellectuals—their intelligence, wisdom, and emotion are replaced by a Chan practice of not speaking. The entire nation and its people are engaged in a practice of self-cultivation to achieve enlightenment, as they gradually become Buddhist masters. It seems that virtually everyone on this ship can see the iceberg up ahead, but because of their Chan practice and enlightenment, no one shouts out in warning, “Iceberg! Iceberg!”
The music is still playing, the lights are still shining, and the passengers are still toasting one another. Meanwhile, the danger represented by the iceberg up ahead is merely a laboratory for Chan techniques and Chan cultivation. Therefore, workers, peasants, merchants, scholars, and soldiers, reformers and dissidents, revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries—which is to say, everyone who could be called clear-headed—are all simply watching and waiting. They are all thinking without speaking, knowing without saying, and are engaged in an uneasy game of not speaking. They all believe they are among those who will survive the collision with the iceberg and that it is others who will perish. Therefore, they continue to dance their Chan dances as the music plays on.
To transform anxiety into enlightenment and unease into a state of not speaking—this is contemporary China’s most anxiety-producing anxiety and its most unsettling unsettlement. Throughout the nation, people are playing Chan games and are enlightened figures engaging in the Chan practice of not speaking. Everyone is also watching wide-eyed as the Titanic cruises inexorably toward the iceberg, but they also appear completely oblivious to this reality. Not long ago, I returned to my family’s home village and was discussing contemporary China’s rural society with a handful of villagers in their 60s and 70s. One of the villagers was a former soldier who had seen Titanic, and he interjected, “Why didn’t anyone speak up? If someone had spoken up, the ship might have collided with the iceberg more slowly. And if it had collided more slowly, then as it was sinking, those who could escape would have quietly disembarked, while those left on the ship would have been ordinary people like us. Boom! Bang! When the ship collided with the iceberg, most of us left on board would have fallen into the ocean and drowned, but those who managed to survive the collision—those who were rescued and taken ashore—should kneel and thank all of those who had disembarked first.”
Yan Lianke is a Chinese author and novelist and is also a professor of Chinese literature at Renmin University in Beijing and IAS Sin Wai Kin Professor of Chinese Culture at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the winner of the Franz Kafka Prize and a two-time finalist for the Booker International Prize.
Carlos Rojas is a professor of Chinese cultural studies at Duke University.