How Cao Xueqin Subverts Buddhism

Digging through a crazy phrase - and finding The Monk of Emotion

How Cao Xueqin Subverts Buddhism

We’ve reached the first of many very difficult phrases. This one is built up in the Buddhist religious tradition, but actually contains a twist.

The phrase is:

因空見色，由色生情，傳情入色，自色悟空

Notice that this phrase consists of four lines of four characters each.

Years ago, when I first started learning Chinese, my introduction to Chinese teacher taught us that Chinese people seem to love having four characters together. It’s actually one of the defining characteristics of the language. Four character phrases make up the bulk of the seemingly infinite number of Chinese idioms — though, of course, not all four character phrases qualify as “idioms.”

It’s a poetic way of writing in a language that has a long and very rich poetic tradition. And, of course, that means this sort of phrase is really hard to translate.

Now, for this to make sense in English, we need to know who is doing what. Our Taoist Kong Kong is the one going through this — and, as you may remember from yesterday’s text, this transformative process leads him to rename the book and pass it to the next editor.

David Hawkes translates the passage like this:

As a consequence of all this, Vanitas, starting off in the Void (which is Truth) came to the contemplation of Form (which is Illusion); and from Form engendered Passion; and by communicating Passion, entered again into Form; and from Form awoke to the Void (which is Truth).

Like I said yesterday, Hawkes is correct that 色 is the same thing as रूप, which is best translated as “form” or “material appearance.” Though he’s a bit wordy, I think he’s on the right track.

Gladys Yang and her husband translate the passage like this:

Since all manifestations are born of nothingness and in turn give rise to passion, by describing passion for what it is manifest we comprehend nothingness.

The problem here, of course, is that this is just a blanket statement with no context. If you look at the original text, you’ll see that it’s Kong Kong the Taoist who is doing all this contemplating and comprehending: “從此，空空道人因空見色，由色生情，傳情入色，自色悟空，遂改名情僧” and so on. In other words, the reason why Kong Kong changes his name to the Monk of Love (情僧) is because of this process of self-enlightenment that he went through.

This is my translation:

From then on, Kong Kong saw form in emptiness, felt emotions through that form, brought those emotions into form, and then realized emptiness from that form.

“From then on” might be rendered as “at that point.” The truth is that either reading can be thought of as correct. And, yeah, that means that time kind of has no meaning in the first chapter of 紅樓夢 — a problem that is just as confusing to native speaking readers as to the rest of us.

But the real question here is not how to translate this passage. Rather, it’s why Cao Xueqin wrote all of this in the first place. And this is where it gets interesting.

To understand what in the world is going on here, you’ve got to understand the role that “material form” plays in Buddhism.

Remember when I quoted the Heart Sutra yesterday?

色即是空，空即是色

You might have missed this part, since it was hidden in my translation notes. This sentence means something like “Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.” What this actually means is that all worldly phenomena — 色 or रूप — are inherently empty. They are devoid, illusory, and have nothing to do with the essence of existence.

This also sounds like a Taoist concept in a way, right? The way that cannot be named is consistent way, and on and on with one paradox after another until you give up and decide to watch television instead.

Now, in that passage cited above, we’ve got a phrase that mimics the Heart Sutra passage almost word for word:

因空見色，自色悟空

If Cao Xueqin had only written this part, without all that stuff in the middle, we’d basically have the same “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” statement. Kong Kong would perceive (見, or see) this “form” from emptiness (因 here needs to be “from,” not “because”), and then would “realize” (悟) that emptiness through (自) form.

Or, to put this in plain English: Kong Kong would contemplate nothingness, and would then understand the physical world around him. And, because he saw the physical world around him, he would realize all the emptiness of it. Pretty Buddhist stuff, right?

The key here is the middle section:

由色生情，傳情入色

From that form, or substance, emotion (情) arises in Kong Kong. And then he takes that emotion and projects it (傳) back into form.

If we stick it all together, we have Kong Kong going through the normal path of enlightenment, right? He sits around thinking of nothing all day (literally), and starts to perceive that the real world is just a bunch of nothing anyway. However, that experience with the real world causes him to start feeling passion, emotion, love, lust, anger — all of that stuff that most of us in the real world feel and think and know. And then he’s able to channel all of that back into form, which then leads him to transcendence or enlightenment in the end.

If you’re like me and think too much about this, you’re probably still confused about “傳情入色.” I mean, how do you project emotion back into form?

Think about it for a second. One way you can project, or transmit, or deliver something to someone else… is to write it down.

You could say that “傳情入色” is actually the act of writing this book itself. In other words, Cao Xueqin might be telling us here that his novel is his embodiment of the emotions and feelings that he’s always had.

And, in the end, this takes us back to that strange dance between 真 (reality) and 假 (fiction) that we started off with, right? As we’ll see soon, this concept of “truth” and “lies” is really at the heart of the book.

I’d argue that 真, or truth, for Cao Xueqin is 情, or emotion. What he’s telling us here is that the emotions are the thing that actually is real. It’s the reality that lies behind the fiction, which is why the true nature of his 色 (form) is imbued with 情 (emotion).

Again, I’m not a Buddhist scholar — but my understanding is that the opposite of “form” (रूप) in Sanskrit is “emptiness” (शून्यता). Of course, this is a simplification, since the goal is not to see one as being the opposite of the other, but rather to see how the terms are united.

By sticking “emotion” in the middle of this formulation, Cao Xueqin is really attacking the very heart of Buddhism. For Cao Xueqin, the crucible of meaning — the essence of meaning, the purpose of life, whatever you want to call it — is not letting go and giving in to emptiness. Rather, the point of it all comes through the feelings you have.

And that is why the Taoist priest changes his name to 情僧, or the Monk of Feeling. It’s because he’s learned that the emotions — the feelings, the 情 — is the purpose of life.

This isn’t orthodox Buddhism — not even close.

This is one of the reasons why 紅樓夢 is so difficult to translate into English — and is also one of the reasons why our existing translations are so inadequate. You can’t simply skip over phrases like 因空見色，由色生情，傳情入色，自色悟空 with a single line and pretend that you know what’s going on. To truly understand the novel, you need to understand the subversive nature of Cao Xueqin, who comes off as extremely skeptical of the value of religion in general throughout the entire book.

And now you know why I’ve created a blog instead of just publishing a new translation.

What did I get wrong? What do I not understand correctly? Please let me know in the comments!