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COPYRIGHT 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.
Preamble
Delicately and with a voluptuous spiral movement the leaf from the tall beech tree detached itself from its branch and landed on the flaming bed made by its companions.
That autumn, that morning, while I was observing this unique event, I began to reflect on the emotion I felt in its probably universal connotation. Like aesthetic feeling, a great many concepts affect living beings in the deepest part of themselves, and come from the depths of the cognitive processes, those determinants that are innate dispositions to feel and know. Those depths have a reality and a meta-historical, infra- and extra-verbal dimension.
When people talk about the reasons and extent of reciprocal East-West influence, the integration of certain ways of thinking and acting in relation to the arts, of social, philosophical or religious systems, there is clearly a mutual awakening of latent dispositions, as naturally as warmth and light are felt when coming close to a flame. Indeed, supposing that we make our choices 'freely', is it not true to say that we choose quite spontaneously what seems beneficial for us in the period of deprivation and maturation we are going through? As regards concepts and behaviour, would we be open to what does fit in with either a need or a prospect of greater well-being? Even cultural or religious constraints introduced after bloody conquests ended by being assimilated eventually via those of their components that responded to a certain expectation or encountered receptive inclinations on the part of individuals who integrated and then transformed them.
To tell the truth we could have avoided those contemporary questions and remained in the context of intense emulating exchanges if since the Greeks of the Portico many centuries had not rolled by before we discovered a certain freedom to think, express and act. In addition the fact that distances have been cancelled out or are quickly crossed now puts us within reach of all the marvellous experiences and creations achieved and transmitted through human beings, wherever they are. Thus we are today becoming aware of multicultural influences of every kind, whether intellectual, artistic or religious, that are likely to reveal us more effectively to ourselves by increasing our ability to perceive. In practice this occurs by awakening innate potential within our cognitive organization and not by adopting mental habits.
Would we be indefinitely condemned to express our surprise at obvious cultural facts such as the parallel development, in faraway regions and different ages, of the same questions and comparable systems of thought? For instance, is it so surprising to discover that, from the third to the 12th century, Asia was one of the principal centres of culture, that phenomenology and cognitive psychology developed...
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