Preface of Pure Reason
Liu Tian
Chef Curator of 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art in 2022
The project is called “Jingyin” (净因) because it originated from the pedestal of a stone pagoda from Jingyin Temple, which was built at the end of the Five Dynasties and is housed in the Hangzhou Museum’s collection. The main body of the original pagoda, the statues and scriptures inscribed on it, as well as the temple itself (located on the west side of the Old Renheshu Road at HEHUACHITOU), have all disappeared, except for the octagonal base of three layers with the “Nine Mountains and Eight Seas” patterns like Mont Sumeru which can still be seen chiseled around the top layer of the earth lining. Now, the base is displayed in the open air at the foot of Wushan Hill in the center of Hangzhou, on the North Exhibition Hall Square outside of Hangzhou Museum.
The term “Jingyin” (literally means pure cause [hetu]) is derived from Buddhist doctrine, as opposed to the cause of contamination and its consequences - such disturbances, fears, and worries are in our generation. In the poem “After returning to the mountain, for Master Zhan” by Meng Haoran of the Tang Dynasty, he writes: “Rarely could the heart go through all the motions, but the ruggedness lies in the dust... If we are enlightened by the subtleties of Dharma, we will be able to cultivate the pure cause.” We are all living in the midst of the chaotic web of world events, and at the same time, we are thrown down the long genealogy of history, entangled with the information and energy around us. How can we sow “pure cause” when we are in the midst of chaos? Such confusion and question is the reason for our adopting Immanuel Kant’s “pure reason” as the homophonic translation for “净因” and attempting to respond in a more conflicting way to the general curatorial theme of Aristotle’s “theoria” (meditation / contemplation / theory), which originates from ancient Greece.
Kant calls a priori knowledge “pure”, which is unadulterated by any experience. At the same time, he is committed to both the exclusion of unreliable a posteriori experience and the phenomenal world in order to seek the self-sufficient foundation of human reason. This “architectonic” is further integrated into the “practical critique of reason” of human activity. However, is this attempt at a perfectly self-consistent path of thought itself, namely one of what he calls “transcendental illusions”, just like the vacant base of the main body (the pagoda) at hand?
In addition, there is often a deeper and subtler wisdom in human practice than in the causality of thought and language. Taking “fiber” as a metaphor, we may ask ourselves: Should we aim to “disentangle” and “unravel”, or to “unsuspend” or even to “liberate”? In Mazu Daoyi’s answer to the question “What is monasticism?”, he uses a double negative which goes beyond logic: “The Way cannot be cultivated. If one says that he has attained the Way because of cultivation, even so, the Way will still be broken, and one will be equal to the realm of sravaka. If one says that he does not cultivate (the Way), he would be no different from a mortal.” (Quotations from the Ancient Sonshukus) Seemingly illogical, but so as not to fall into words, seemingly total abolition, but by no means immovable - this is echoed in all creative acts, as in the essential paradox contained in the practice of the artist: the attempt to create something out of nothing in subtlety, the expectation of something that has not yet sprung up. This state of existence, with its compounding negativity, is forcibly named “theoria” in the concept of this Triennial.
The base (foundation) is not the main body, for the main body it supports is already vacant, and at this moment, the only remaining base is blank space for imaginative projection and construction. In fact, it is precisely because of its vacancy that it is not bound to a tangible existence. The Vajra Sutra says: “All appearances are illusory”, and “One should be free from attachment to worldly material things in order to achieve profound enlightenment.” This is actually a return to the original meaning of “pure cause” in a deeper sense, which is also worthy of consideration by those of us mortals who are involved in the “plastic art”.
In this connection with the base of the pagoda, I repeatedly felt the changes of the sunlight when I visited the site, bright or gloomy, and each time I looked at it, I felt something new, and the joy of enlightenment came over me. At this moment I am in a bit of a trance, and with emotion, I cannot help but recall the scene described in the Southern Song Period's (Xianchun) Lin’an Zhi (Records about Lin’an from the Xianchun Reign [1265-1274]), Volume 82, “The stone pagoda of Jinyin, in front of the seat of government, was originally one of the twin pagodas of the Jinyin nunnery, on which were carved Buddha images and scriptures. It is now behind a private house, obscured by wind and rain, with a peaceful light like a lit lantern.”
