Western society can be said to believe thoughts and behaviors are ephemeral things that are generated and fade away within the mind.
Asian society believes that the mind and body are inextricably intertwined. Anything that happens to the mind must have some related effect on the body, and anything that happens to the body must have some related effect on the mind. According to that way of thinking, a trait like greed would have an influence on the body, and not just the mind.
Keeping those ideas in mind, please inspect the statues in the following picture, which are statues of the Chinese “God Of Greed”.
Most Westerners would attribute the exact look of the statues to an artistic decision. Some artist made a personal decision about what they felt a “God Of Greed” would look like, then created the statues to conform to that personal vision.
An Asian person though, because they were raised in a culture that believes the mind and body are inextricably intertwined, would claim the statue looks the way it does because that is how greedy people look.
How exactly do the statues of “The God Of Greed” look?
The heads of the statues are tilted backwards,
which makes the face of the statues look upwards.
The statues have pig like ears,
and pig like noses.
The mouths of the statues are turned down at both ends,
and some of the upper front teeth are are protruding from the mouth.
The Chinese statue of “The God Of Greed” looks like an ugly fat pig, doesn’t it?
In a way it is understandable why Westerners would want to believe that thoughts and behaviors are generated within and only affect the mind. What person who exhibited greedy behavior would want to believe they look or are on the way to looking like ugly fat little pigs?
How could it be proven that the Chinese statue of “The God Of Greed” is an accurate depiction of the appearance of greedy human beings, and not the personal vision of some artist who created the statues?
That would be easy. All the interested person would have to do is find people who were generally accepted to exhibit greedy behavior, then compare how they look to the statue. Some confirmation of what is claimed in this blog entry can probably immediately provided to most people.
In your own personal experience, aren’t most greedy people fat? The statue of “The God Of Greed” is fat. There is one characteristic of greedy people you have verified resembles the statue and you have not even started comparing the statue to real people yet.