Rousseau once said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” We can rephrase this statement as we are born free, but conditioned when we live in society.
I remember the immense joy I had when I bought my first PlayStation 2 console years ago. I was still in high school. One day, I was strolling around in a somewhat shabby mini-mall in my home city, Xi’an. That marketplace was usually frequented by students, where you could find those small shops seated next to each other, some without a signboard. You could get all sorts of digital products from there, such as headphones, cassette players, VCD sets, sound systems, PC equipment, and so on.
I was attracted by a shop owner playing games with a controller. After a few minutes of exchange and trying the game myself, I decided to get one of these consoles.
So, after about less than 7 months of living frugally and saving as much as I could, I got myself the console. I cannot remember how many games I’ve purchased from that owner, yet I still can recall the vivid image of me pulling out all my saved changes from my schoolbag and giving them to him.
How is this experience relevant to cultural conditioning? Of course, it is related. That console was a source of joy for my friends and me back then. After some years of having it, every time I think of playing games or talking to people about consoles, the name PlayStation has become an auto-suggestion.
X-box? “No way, I’d stick to my PlayStation.”
“Nintendo Switch or Steamdeck? Different playing experience.”
”PlayStation is better.”
So, obviously, I’ve become conditioned. With this kind of conditioning, I’ve also become attached. Attachment is the sort of thing that makes you think you’d be satisfied and happy when you’re in possession of something. And that something doesn’t have to be physical.
My experience of being conditioned by PlayStation was a happy one. Yet still, the satisfaction and enjoyment from it make me programmed. And it isn’t a private thing. The experience of conditioning has been there throughout history.
How conditioning feels
Confucius was planning to give his books to the Zhou Imperial Archives. And his disciple, Zilu, said to him, “I have heard that there is a keeper of the archives at the capital. His name is Lao Tzu. He has retired and is living at his home. If you want to entrust your books for safe-keeping, why don’t you go and give them to him?”1
So Confucius went to see Lao Tzu, but Lao Tzu did not accept the books. Then, Confucius spread the classics before him and tried to explain them to Lao Tzu. Before he finished, Lao Tzu interrupted, “You are trying to cover too much material. Tell me the essence of your ideas.”
“The essence is in the teachings of humanity and justice,” said Confucius.
“May I ask, are humanity and justice a part of the nature of man?”
“Yes,” replied Confucius, “A gentleman’s character is not complete without the principle of humanity, and his life is not correct if he does not follow the principle of justice. Humanity and justice are truly a part of the nature of man. What else can they be?”
“May I ask what you mean by humanity and justice?” said Lao Tzu.
“To share the happiness with others and to love all mankind without partiality is the essence of humanity and justice,” said Confucius.
“You talk like the many prophets these days. Isn’t it abstruse to talk of love for all mankind? Impartiality implies the recognition of partiality. If you want the world to find its lost shepherd again, remember that there is already a constant law governing heaven and earth, the sun and the moon are shining in the sky, the constellations are in their proper places, and trees grow and prosper.
“Why don’t you just follow the natural bent of your character and the laws of Tao? Why do you create such a commotion, holding the banner of humanity and justice like one who has lost his son and is beating a drum to look for him? I am afraid you are disturbing the nature of man.”
Fasting of the heart as deconditioning
When Confucius gets occupied with absorbing the knowledge of government systems, the teachings of past kings, and the idea of rituals, he has been conditioned to believe that these knowledge systems can help him realize his political ambitions.
When he starts preaching about humanity and justice, he is working on a project of social programming. This programming can produce political and social effects on individuals in a society.
Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and Taoism in general, are critical of the Confucian ideas of humanity and justice (benevolence and righteousness). They do so not because of a lack of appreciation for these values but to offer caution about solely relying on ideas to navigate the human world.
When we depend on specific ideas and belief systems, even though they may be the applaudable and worthy intellectual labor of some great philosophers or religious teachers, we are getting ourselves conditioned.
If we live a life not according to our inborn nature and not by doing things naturally but in correspondence to the guidebook offered by those ideas, we are being programmed.
Ideas, concepts, and perspectives are only partial captures of reality itself. And the elements of reality are evolving and moving all the time. They can help us get close to reality, yet we’ve got to experience and touch it ourselves.
That is why Chuang Tzu talks about the “fasting of the heart-mind” (xinzhai 心齋)2 — a spiritual practice to empty the self, not harbor any subjective opinions, to rid of the influence of narratives, and to be aware of whatever comes into the mind. And most importantly, it’s a practice to challenge anything inside the mind.
For clarity can hardly be obtained through identifications with one or two specific value systems or ways of looking at the world. They are helpful but insufficient. Therefore, arriving at clarity is also the spiritual practice of deconditioning. All we need is conscious observation of what is happening inside and around us and a drive to understand.
You may say that’s impossible, and how can you live like that? It’s simple but can be challenging. Anytime you have a strong opinion about something, you can observe how you interact with that particular thought or idea. Are you in control of how you respond to it? Or are you being controlled by it?
This is where the practice of “fasting of the heart-mind” comes in.
It suggests that only when you are empty, like being in an empty room, can you truly see things, become flexible, and understand the many possibilities of reality itself. Then, you are truly free.
Cultural conditioning and political programming are occurring everywhere, all the time. Sometimes, we are unconsciously reacting to their forces. But more often than not, we are acquiescing to their impact because we fear not belonging. Unfortunately, the sense of belonging is another facet of conditioning.
Therefore, real contact with reality requires breaking the barrier imposed by the familiar self to see and understand. In my case, it reminds me to get detached from PlayStation. It allows me to experience the fun of Steamdeck. And it cautions me that an illusion could capture me if I’m not observing.
To be truly free is to learn to dis-identify, detach, unlearn, and de-familiarize with all the things that stand in the way of becoming liberated.
That is the use of wu-wei in spiritual cultivation. As Lao Tzu said,
The student of knowledge works on learning day by day;
The student of Tao practices dissolving day by day.
By continual dissolving
One reaches the state of wu-wei. (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 48)
In a sense, practicing wu-wei also means forgetting and resolving our obsessions and attachments. That’s liberation.
Chuang Tzu has another way to put it, “The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap… Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.”3
To forget the familiar self is scary, but it is a necessary step to have real contact with the changing reality. From my experience, to be conditioned to something I do not resonate with, I am trapped in an illusion. And nothing compares with the inner joy of being able to detach and forget.
Next in this series:
The story is from “The Way of Heaven,” Chapter 13 of Chuang Tzu’s works. For this post, I used Lin Yutang’s translation. Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of Laotse (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2009), 260-261.
“Do not listen with ears, but with the mind. Do not listen with the mind, but with the spirit. The function of the ear ends with hearing; that of the mind, with symbols or ideas. But the spirit is an emptiness ready to receive all things. Tao abides in the emptiness; the emptiness is the fast of mind.” This is a crucial passage from Chuang Tzu on spiritual practice. See Fung Yu-lan, “The Human World” in Chuang Tzu: A New Selected Translation with an Exposition of the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing, 2016), 49.
Burton Watson, “External Things,” in The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 233.
There are many aspects that I like about this piece - your reference from childhood, Chuang Tzu’s 心齋 and the fish trap story, Lao Tzu’s idea of wuwei through the art of subtraction.
You are right, we are conditioned since young and unconsciously. Our likings, fear, desires, stored anxiousness. Even if we don’t remember, our body keeps the score.
Powerful reminder to wake up!
P.S. I am visiting Chongqing this 新年, only my second trip to China. Hoping I can visit Xi’an next time, sooner than later.