Tapping Time: Tea as an Instrument of Perception | Guo Xing Fashi's Jungian Psychology × Chan Buddhism Dialogue

Chapter Two.  To objectify what is inherently subjective

第二章   測時：嘗試客觀那必然主觀的

Time is often understood as something objective. We all share the same twenty-four hours in a day, yet our experience tells a different story: a minute can feel endless in boredom and vanish in an instant when we are deeply present.

Tea reflects this tension between the objective and the subjective.

A tea leaf carries traces of terroir, cultivation, craftsmanship, aging, and brewing methods. These material conditions can be studied and compared, providing a basis for objective evaluation. Yet the experience of tea; its aroma, flavor, texture, and aftertaste, remains deeply personal. No matter how refined our vocabulary becomes, taste can never be fully separated from individual perception.

However, we continue to talk about tea.

Perhaps the purpose of tea evaluation is not to reach a single correct judgment, but to build a shared language for subjective experience. In doing so, we seek not only to understand tea, but also to discover others who perceive it in similar ways.

This dialogue between the objective and the subjective echoes both Jung's notion of synchronicity and the Chan understanding that distinctions between self and world are ultimately provisional.

These events explore tea as a medium through which such tensions become perceptible; it is a way of sensing time that is at once measurable and deeply personal, shared still irreducibly subjective.

時間，通常被認為是客觀存在的。客觀之處在於我們都擁有一天24小時；然而，每個人對每段時間的體感卻可以截然不同—— 百般聊賴時，一分鐘也如斯漫長；全神貫注時，光陰卻在眨眼間飛逝。

茶，亦體現著類似的主客張力。

茶湯，承載著風土、耕作、工藝、貯藏與沖泡的痕跡。這些物質條件可被研究、被比較，為茶的客觀評鑑提供了基礎。然而，品茶的體驗—— 其香氣、滋味、口感與回甘的強弱 ——終究只屬於個人。不管形容詞如何精妙，以人為主體的嗅覺與味覺感知終究無法脫離那不可共享的、屬於單一人的覺察。

然而，我們仍不斷交換品茶的心得感想。

或許品茶的目的，從來不是要論證出唯一正確的結論，而是要建構一套表達主觀經驗的共通語言。如此，我們不僅試圖理解茶本身，也在尋找那些以相似方式感知茶湯的同道，並為這份共鳴而欣喜。

這場客觀與主觀之間的對話，呼應了榮格的共時性概念，也呼應了禪宗所言：自我與世界之間的分別，終究只是暫時的理解。

以下活動旨在探索茶如何作為一種同時主觀又客觀的媒介。

透過茶，主客間的張力更形彰顯；它既是量化的，亦是個人的；既是共享的，亦是不可化約的。

June 24 · Guo Xing Fashi & Jörg Rasche's Jungian Psychology × Chan Buddhism Dialogue

From 1900 to 2100

Through tea, sound, and contemplative practice, we explore how memory endures, how perception takes shape, and how awareness transforms our experience of the world.

What emerges when the depth psychology of the West encounters the contemplative wisdom of the East?

Join Venerable Guo Xing, Head of the Chan Hall at Dharma Drum Mountain, and Jörg Rasche, Jungian analyst and musician, for a dialogue on consciousness and the unconscious, dreams and symbols, meditation and self-transformation.

The evening opens with an immersive sound experience curated by sound artist Lin Wan-Qian, inviting audiences into a space of deep listening before the dialogue begins.

In a world marked by fragmentation and uncertainty, rediscovering how to listen to ourselves, to one another, and to the wisdom that echoes across cultures and through time, may become a source of strength.

Limited seating available,

First come, first served.