Centeredness: The Core of Chinese Tradition

The concept of the middle or center played a pivotal role in various aspects of Chinese tradition, from geopolitical concepts to epistemology and social practice. Confucianism required “holding on the middle” (zhi zhong), Taoism preached “guarding the middle” (shou zhong). Since the middle in question refers to the dispersed dynamic structure, it is preferable to speak of centering or centeredness of various processes: cosmogonic, social, spiritual etc. In China, centering corresponded to the focus and the source of the world cycle, which brought together centripetal and centrifugal vectors of the world sphere’s rotation. This centeredness preceded subjective existence and, being the hidden source of the world process, predetermined the world's harmony. The term centering-harmony (zhong he) became China's most general formula of reality. It designates not a universal “measure” of things, but the mutual penetration of polar principles, generating the power of life. Therefore, centrality became a fundamental category of Chinese politics and strategy while the main condition for achieving it was a sort of heightened sensitivity or spiritual enlightenment. The secret of the effectiveness of the centered structure lies not just in the timely alternation of rest and movement but in the coincidence of both exactly at their limit: the absolute stillness, thanks to the encompassing integrity of the world focus, turns into the edge of movement. This superimposition of extremes is the main principle of the “cycle of the Great Way”, to which Chinese applied the epithet “refined” or “marvelous” (miao). This indefinable coincidence of being and doing, real and illusory, nature and culture, conscious and unconscious was doomed to remain the deepest secret of the tradition. The dominance of the logical-discursive model of reality in the Modern era inevitably led to the catastrophic breakdown of the Chinese tradition. But in the modern informational civilization, which gives priority to human communication, the Chinese principle of centrality regains great relevance and value.

Middle, focus, centeredness, circularity, semblance, non-duality, hiddenness