The Asian Mind Today
In: Worldview, Band 16, Heft 1, S. 8-11
There is no such thing as a typical Asian or Oriental .mind any more than there is a typical Western mind. The phrase is only a shorthand way of stating that, if we wish to understand a people, we must take seriously the internal dimension of mind and feeling as well as external factors such as pontics, economics, kinship and social structures, diplomatic relations and military affairs. We are all what we are—psycho-physical-spiritual beings—mortals endowed with memory, intelligence and sexuality, trying to make some sense out of our transitory existence in this mysterious universe. Yet different cultural traditions have developed their own characteristic way of apprehending the meaning of life, nurtured and preserved by respective languages, customs, myths and religions.