The Blank Diagram: "The One Cannot Be Drawn"
This page appears at the beginning of the final revision of Gengo, in the first volume, Honsō. Gengo consists of five series in eight volumes. Baien placed this blank page before all the other diagrams.

The four-character phrase on the page means: "The One cannot be drawn". or, more freely:“Wholeness cannot be represented as a diagram.”
This short statement strongly recalls Proposition 7 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:

7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Baien's blank page may be understood as a visual counterpart to this proposition. It does not explain the whole; rather, it silently indicates that the whole exceeds every possible representation. In the first draft of Gengo, which Baien wrote in his thirties, the work begins with the thought: “There is something that cannot be said.”

The blank page in the final revision therefore seems to be the mature form of the same insight.
That is the reason why it is a blank sheet. As opposed to Proposition 7, the empty page put as the first of the other diagrams. His first draft of GENGO, which written in his 30 years old, begin with "There is something that cannot be said."
The black, short, and thick lines in "Diagram of Divisions and Correspondings" as follows are represent duality. All "一" ( 1 of the kanji number ) shows the wholeness that wraps what is inside.

keii-boutai-zu

The Diagram of Division and Correspondence.

The short, thick black lines in the following diagram represent duality. They indicate the act of division, opposition, and correspondence.

Each small circle contains the character 一 (one). This 一 does not mean a numerical one in the ordinary sense. It means a whole, or a unity, that embraces what is contained within it.

For this reason, I propose the English title as a system of division and unification:

Holonic Dual-Path System

Baien specifies that this diagram has both the power of division and the power of unification. Each 一 contains lower-level 一s, and is itself contained within a higher-level 一. In this structure, every part has the same existential dignity as the whole. This idea is remarkably close to the concept of the holon, later proposed by Arthur Koestler. A holon is both a whole in itself and a part of a larger whole. Baien had already incorporated this kind of holonic structure into his duality system as far as his thought could reach. Although Gengo remained unfinished, its basic design had already been completed.

"荒海や佐渡に横たう天の川"

I found a blog that introduced some translations.

-Across to Sado
stretches the milky way

-stormy sea:
stretching over Sado,
Heaven's River

-the rough sea--
flowing toward Sado Isle
the River of Heaven

-The rough sea--
Extending toward Sado Isle,
The Milky Way.

-A wild sea,
And stretching out towards the Island of Sado,
The Milky Way.


"Wholeness" considered by BAIEN is very similar to the concept "Absolutes Nichts" of philosophy of Kitaro Nishida. Miura Baien in Edo Japan, Nisida Kitarou in modern Japan, and Matsuo Bashou, who was born 80 years earlier than Baien, had no direct connection. But each expresses the spiritual characteristics of Japanese culture.

Among them, Miura Baien built his idea as a general system theory, which has a consistent structure from beginning to end. It can say that he made outstanding achievements not only in the Japanese spirit history but also in world history. The above meanings that clearly show Japanese spiritual traditions also show in each of the small circles in this diagram.
All small circles mean, "Wholeness is impossible to draw." And each of those wraps dividing groups of the inside, and all contacts each other by that wholeness. The diagram above is the most basic template of GENGO.

Let's Click!!

go to next diagram
back to the opening page


inserted by FC2 system