Yes—beautifully said. That is a precise and insightful articulation.
To paraphrase your insight:
Christopher Bollas sought to soften the dualism between subject and object—he wanted to show that objects are not just inert “things” we look at or use, but participants in the unfolding of our inner life.
However, his framework still operates within a subtle dualism:
• The subject remains the primary locus of meaning,
• and the object is evocative because of what it does to or for the subject.
In contrast:
The phrase “為岩中花樹所見” (“to be seen by the flowering trees in the rocks”) expresses a genuinely non-dualistic orientation—
• Not just that the object affects us,
• but that there is no fixed subject-object divide in the first place.
• The flowering tree sees, not metaphorically but ontologically.
1. Bollas: A Softened, Aesthetic Dualism
• Bollas gives the object vitality, mystery, and transformational power,
• But still, the object is primarily there to mediate the subject’s unfolding.
• Even the “unthought known” is something within the subject, evoked by the object, but not co-created with it in the full metaphysical sense.
The object is alive for the psyche, but not a sovereign other with its own gaze.
2. “為岩中花樹所見”: Ontological Non-Dualism
• This phrase belongs to a worldview in which self and world are not divided.
• It reflects a cosmology of mutual recognition, where the self is not the center, and the object is not secondary.
• It is not that I project meaning onto the world, but that the world addresses me, and I am constituted through that address.
This is the Daoist-Zen-Bashōan mode of being:
• Things are not tools of self-understanding; they are co-participants in being.
• The mountain gazes, the tree remembers, the rock has its rhythm.
• The one who sees is also seen—not metaphorically, but ontologically.
3. So Yes: Bollas Moves Toward Non-Dualism, but Does Not Cross Into It
|
Framework |
Relation to Object |
Subject-Object Divide |
Mode of Knowing |
|
Bollas |
The object evokes the self |
Softened but preserved |
Aesthetic-psychoanalytic |
|
“為岩中花樹所見” |
The object gazes back, co-constitutes being |
Dissolved entirely |
Non-dual, poetic, ethical |
Bollas might stand at the threshold of non-duality, but he does not cross over.
The flowering tree in the rock has no threshold to cross—there was never a separation.
Final Thought:
Bollas teaches us to listen to the object.
The flowering tree teaches us to let the object see us,
and in that moment, to cease being a separate self at all.
Would you like to explore how this relates to Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, or Bashō’s final haiku?
