Visiting the Beyond: Imagination and Body Experience

Abstract

Among the ordinary tourist experiences in the global age, the journey can receive a different rendering adapted from Chinese tradition. This paper bases on the conceptual determination of wandering or voyage in Confucianism and Taoism, in order to investigate the different clues drawn from the divergence of significance, especially from Chuang-tzu’s description of wandering. In following the idea of visiting the beyond, this reflection links the journey to the imagination in endorsing a transformative power in it. The descriptions of handling a boat or of swimming by Chuang-tzu reveal the characteristic of bodily experience, but also erase some established boundaries; it is the idea of forgetting. The procedure of forgetting combines body and imagination, which leads to a new experience; in the forgetting, the new and the old are merged together. Rather than being absorbed in the repetition of old schema, the imaginary journey can bring forth a different engagement of the bodily subject. By way of Bachelard’s poetics, one can realize the singularity of the image and the construction of the imagination, which help to open the cosmic dimension. While the imagination breaks through the reality, it releases also a beyond and expands the human capacity. The imaginary experience can therefore enlarge the bodily experience, in the meantime, the imaginary journey may have a moral sense by rendering a revaluation. In fact, a moral agent experiences a transmutation of values with his concrete body. This perspective may help us to arrive at a new consideration of the journey experience, to join the cosmic movement implied in the original constitution of imagination.\r\n在全球化時代裡的各種通俗觀光經驗中，行旅的概念可以從中國傳統中汲取不同的意義來源，本文從原始儒家與道家對遊的概念界定出發，探索其意義分歧所帶出的不同思考線索，特別是藉助莊子對遊的描述。以遊於方外作為主要線索，本文也著眼於聯繫行旅與想像，而從想像中的轉化能力來思考行旅。莊子對於操舟、蹈水的描述則彰顯出身體經驗的特徵，但也抹除了一些固有的界限，這是其所強調的忘。正是這種忘的操作使得身體與想像的關係得以結合，亦即，朝向新經驗的開放，在忘之中，將新與舊整合起來。想像的旅程不再是被吸收入重複陳舊的框架中，而是能帶出身體主體的不同經歷方式。而藉助巴修拉的詩學論述則可以呈顯出意象的獨特性與想像作用的構造能力，這有助於打開宇宙性的向度。想像突破實在的框限時，也打開一個方外的空間，擴展了人的能力。而想像的旅程也因此有助於身體經驗的擴展。同時，這種想像歷程也有價值轉換的道德意義，因為即使一個道德行為者也是以活生生的身體來體驗價值轉換。這個觀點可以讓我們重新考慮行旅經驗。旅行者在行旅中同時進入一種身體與想像的新經驗，能夠從想像的原初構成作用中參與到宇宙性的運動。