romanization as Chuang-tzu) was, after Laozi, one of the earliest
thinkers to contribute to the philosophy that has come to be known as
Daojia, or school of the Way. According to traditional dating, he was
an almost exact contemporary of the Confucian thinker Mencius, but
there appears to have been little to no communication between them.
He is ranked among the greatest of literary and philosophical giants
that China has produced. His style is complex—mythical, poetic,
narrative, humorous, indirect, and polysemic.
Zhuangzi espoused a holistic philosophy of life, encouraging
disengagement from the artificialities of socialization, and
cultivation of our natural "ancestral" potencies and skills, in order
to live a simple and natural, but full and flourishing life. He was
critical of our ordinary categorizations and evaluations, noting the
multiplicity of different modes of understanding between different
creatures, cultures, and philosophical schools, and the lack of an
independent means of making a comparative evaluation. He advocated a
mode of understanding that is not committed to a fixed system, but is
fluid and flexible, and that maintains a provisional, pragmatic
attitude towards the applicability of these categories and
evaluations.
The text through which we know his work was the result of the editing
and arrangement of the Jin dynasty thinker and commentator Guo Xiang
(Kuo Hsiang, d. 312 CE), who reduced what had been a work in fifty-two
chapters to the current edition of thirty-three chapters, excising
material that he considered to be spurious. Zhuangzi's version of
Daoist philosophy was highly influential in the reception,
interpretation, and transformation of Buddhism in China.
1. Historical Background
According to the great Han dynasty historian, Sima Qian, Zhuangzi was
born during the Warring States (403-221 BCE), more than a century
after the death of Confucius. During this time, the ostensibly ruling
house of Zhou had lost its authority, and there was increasing
violence between states contending for imperial power. This situation
gave birth to the phenomenon known as the baijia, the hundred schools:
the flourishing of many schools of thought, each articulating its own
conception of a return to a state of harmony. The first and most
important of these schools was that of Confucius, who became the chief
representative of the Ruists (Confucians), the scholars and
propagators of the wisdom and culture of the tradition. Their great
rivals were the Mohists, the followers of Mozi ("Master Mo"), who were
critical of what they perceived to be the elitism and extravagance of
the traditional culture. The recent archaeological discovery at Guo
Dian of an early Laozi manuscript suggests that the philosophical
movement associated with the Daodejing also began to emerge during
this period. Zhuangzi's brand of Daoist philosophy developed within
the context defined by these three schools.
Scholars are increasingly beginning to recognize the connection of
Daojia with the culture of the state of Chu in the southern part of
China around the Yangzi River valley. In recent years, the diversity
of regions and cultures in early China has increasingly been
acknowledged. Most interest has been directed to the state of Chu, in
large part because of the wealth of archaeological evidence that is
being unearthed there. According to Sima Qian, Zhuangzi was born in a
village called Meng, in the state of Song; according to Lu Deming, the
Sui-Tang dynasty scholar, the Pu River in which Zhuangzi was said to
have fished was in the state of Chen which, as Wang Guowei points out,
had become a territory of Chu. We might say that Zhuangzi was situated
in the borderlands between Chu and the central plains—the plains
centered around the Yellow River which were the home of the Shang and
Zhou cultures. Certainly, as one learns more about the culture of Chu,
one senses deep resonances with the aesthetic sensibility of the
Daoists, and with Zhuangzi's style in particular. The silks and
bronzes of Chu, for example, are rich and vibrant; the patterns and
images on fabrics and pottery are fanciful and naturalistic.
If the traditional dating is reliable, then Zhuangzi would have been
an exact contemporary of the Ruistthinker Mencius, but there appears
to have been little to no communication between them. There are a few
remarks in the Zhuangzi that could be alluding to Mencius' philosophy,
but there is nothing in Mencius that shows any interest in Zhuangzi.
The philosopher Hui Shi, or Huizi ("Master Hui," 380-305 BCE), was a
close friend of Zhuangzi, although not a follower of Daojia. There
appears to have been a friendly rivalry between the broad and
mythic-minded Zhuangzi and the more shortsighted paradox-monger,
Huizi. Despite their very deep philosophical distance, and the
limitations of Huizi, Zhuangzi expresses great appreciation both for
his linguistic abilities and for his friendship. The other "logician,"
Gongsun Longzi, would also have been a contemporary of Zhuangzi, and
although Zhuangzi does not, unfortunately, engage in any direct
philosophical discussion with him, one does find an occasional wink in
his direction.
2. The Zhuangzi Text
The currently extant text known as the Zhuangzi is the result of the
editing and arrangement of the Jin dynasty thinker and commentator Guo
Xiang (Kuo Hsiang, d. 312 CE). He reduced what was then a work in
fifty-two chapters to the current edition of thirty-three chapters,
excising material that he considered to be spurious. His commentary on
the text provides an interpretation that has been highly influential
over the subsequent centuries.
Guo Xiang divided the thirty-three chapters into three collections,
known as the Inner Chapters (Neipian), the Outer Chapters (Waipian),
and the Miscellaneous Chapters (Zapian). The Inner Chapters are the
first seven chapters and are considered to be the work of Zhuangzi
himself. The Outer Chapters are chapters 8 to 22, and the
Miscellaneous Chapters are chapters 23 to 33. The Outer and
Miscellaneous Chapters can be further subdivided. Much modern research
has been devoted to a sub-classification of these chapters according
to philosophical school. Kuan Feng made some scholarly breakthroughs
early in the twentieth century; A. C. Graham continued his
classification in the tradition of Kuan Feng. Harold Roth has also
taken up a consideration of this issue and come up with some very
interesting results. What follows is a simplified version of the
results of the research of Liu Xiaogan.
According to Liu, chapters 17 to 27 and 32 can be considered to be the
work of a school of Zhuangzi's followers, what he calls the Shu Zhuang
Pai, or the "Transmitter" school. Graham, following Kuan Feng,
considers chapters 22 to 27 and 32 not to be coherent chapters, but
merely random "ragbag" collections of fragments. Liu considers
chapters 8 to 10, chapters 28 to 31, and the first part of chapter 11
to be from a school of Anarchists whose philosophy is closely related
to that of Laozi. Graham, again following in the tradition of Kuan
Feng, sees these as two separate but related schools: the first he
attributes to a writer he calls the "Primitivist," the second he
considers to be a school of followers of Yang Zhu. Liu classifies
chapters 12 to 16, chapter 33, and the first part of chapter 11 as
belonging to the Huang-Lao school. (Graham refers to the supposed
author of these chapters as the "Syncretist.") Graham finds the
classification of chapter 16 to be problematic.
In the following chart the further to the right the chapters are
listed, the further away they are from the central ideas of the Inner
Chapters:
The Inner Chapters School of Zhuang Anarchist chapters Huang-Lao school
1. Wandering Beyond 17. Autumn Floods 8. Webbed Toes 11. Let it Be,
Leave it Alone
2. Discussion on Smoothing Things Out 18. Utmost Happiness 9.
Horse's Hooves 12. Heaven and Earth
3. The Principle of Nurturing Life 19. Mastering Life 10. Rifling
Trunks 13. The Way of Heaven
4. In the Human Realm 20. The Mountain Tree 11. Let it Be, Leave it
Alone 14. The Turning of Heaven
5. Signs of Abundant Potency 21. Tian Zi Fang 15. Constrained in Will
6. The Vast Ancestral Teacher 22. Knowledge Wandered North (16?.
Mending the Inborn Nature) (16?. Mending the Inborn Nature)
7. Responding to Emperors and Kings 23. Geng Sang Chu
24. Xu Wugui 28. Yielding the Throne 33. The World
25. Ze Yang 29. Robber Zhi
26. External Things 30. Discoursing on Swords
27. Imputed Words 31. The Old Fisherman
32. Lie Yukou
3. Central Concepts in the "Inner Chapters"
The following is an account of the central ideas of Zhuangzi, going
successively through each of the seven Inner Chapters. This discussion
is not confined to the content of the particular chapters, but rather
represents a fuller articulation of the inter-relationships of the
ideas between the Inner Chapters, and also between these ideas and
those expressed in the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters, where these
appear to be relevant.
a. Chapter 1: Xiao Yao You (Wandering Beyond)
The title of the first chapter of the Zhuangzi has also been
translated as "Free and Easy Wandering" and "Going Rambling Without a
Destination." Both of these reflect the sense of the Daoist who is in
spontaneous accord with the natural world, and who has retreated from
the anxieties and dangers of social life, in order to live a healthy
and peaceful natural life. In modern Mandarin, the word xiaoyao has
thus come to mean "free, at ease, leisurely, spontaneous." It conveys
the impression of people who have given up the hustle and bustle of
worldly existence and have retired to live a leisurely life outside
the city, perhaps in the natural setting of the mountains.
But this everyday expression is lacking a deeper significance that is
expressed in the classical Chinese phrase: the sense of distance, or
going beyond. As with all Zhuangzi's images, this is to be understood
metaphorically. The second word, 'yao,' means 'distance' or 'beyond,'
and here implies going beyond the boundaries of familiarity. We
ordinarily confine ourselves with our social roles, expectations, and
values, and with our everyday understandings of things. But this,
according to Zhuangzi, is inadequate for a deeper appreciation of the
natures of things, and for a more successful mode of interacting with
them. We need at the very least to undo preconceptions that prevent us
from seeing things and events in new ways; we need to see how we can
structure and restructure the boundaries of things. But we can only do
so when we ourselves have 'wandered beyond' the boundaries of the
familiar. It is only by freeing our imaginations to reconceive
ourselves, and our worlds, and the things with which we interact, that
we may begin to understand the deeper tendencies of the natural
transformations by which we are all affected, and of which we are all
constituted. By loosening the bonds of our fixed preconceptions, we
bring ourselves closer to an attunement to the potent and productive
natural way (dao) of things.
Paying close attention to the textual associations, we see that
wandering is associated with the word wu, ordinarily translated
'nothing,' or 'without.' Related associations include: wusuo (no
place), wuyou (no 'something'), and most famously wuwei (no
interference). Roger Ames and David Hall have commented extensively on
these wu expressions. Most importantly, they are not to be understood
as simple negations, but have a much more complex function. The
significance of all of these expressions must be traced back to the wu
of Laozi: a type of negation that does not simply negate, but places
us in a new kind of relation to 'things'—a phenomenological waiting
that allows them to manifest, one that acknowledges the space that is
the possibility of their coming to presence, one that appreciates the
emptiness that is the condition of the possibility of their capacity
to function, to be useful (as the hollow inside a house makes it
useful for living). The behavior of one who wanders beyond becomes
wuwei: sensitive and responsive without fixed preconceptions, without
artifice, responding spontaneously in accordance with the unfolding of
the inter-developing factors of the environment of which one is an
inseparable part.
But it is not just the crossing of horizontal boundaries that is at
stake. There is also the vertical distance that is important: one
rises to a height from which formerly important distinctions lose what
appeared to be their crucial significance. Thus arises the distinction
between the great and the small, or the Vast (da) and the petty
(xiao). Of this distinction Zhuangzi says that the petty can not come
up to the Vast: petty understanding that remains confined and defined
by its limitations cannot match Vast understanding, the expansive
understanding that wanders beyond. Now, while it is true that the Vast
loses sight of distinctions noticed by the petty, it does not follow
that they are thereby equalized, as Guo Xiang suggests. For the Vast
still embraces the petty in virtue of its very vastness. The petty,
precisely in virtue of its smallness, is not able to reciprocate.
Now, the Vast that goes beyond our everyday distinctions also thereby
appears to be useless. A soaring imagination may be wild and
wonderful, but it is extremely impractical and often altogether
useless. Indeed, Huizi, Zhuangzi's friend and philosophical foil,
chides him for this very reason. But Zhuangzi expresses disappointment
in him: for his inability to sense the use of this kind of uselessness
is a kind of blindness of the spirit. The useless has use, only not as
seen on the ordinary level of practical affairs. It has a use in the
cultivation and nurturing of the 'shen' (spirit), in protecting the
ancestral and preserving one's life, so that one can last out one's
natural years and live a flourishing life. Now, this notion of a
flourishing life is not to be confused with a 'successful' life:
Zhuangzi is not impressed by worldly success. A flourishing life may
indeed look quite unappealing from a traditional point of view. One
may give up social ambition and retire in relative poverty to tend to
one's shen and cultivate one's xing (nature, or life potency).
To summarize: When we wander beyond, we leave behind everything we
find familiar, and explore the world in all its unfamiliarity. We drop
the tools that we have been taught to use to tame the environment, and
we allow it to teach us without words. We imitate its spontaneous
behavior and we learn to respond immediately without fixed
articulations.
b. Chapter 2: Qi Wu Lun (Discussion on Smoothing Things Out)
If the Inner Chapters form the core of the Zhuangzi collection, then
the Qi Wu Lun may be thought of as forming the core of the Inner
Chapters. It is, at any rate, the most complex and intricate of the
chapters of the Zhuangzi, with allusions and allegories, highly
condensed arguments, and baffling metaphors juxtaposed without
explanation. It appears to be concerned with the deepest and most
'abstract' understanding of ourselves, our lives, our world, our
language, and our understanding itself. The most perplexing sections
concern language and judgment, and are filled with paradox, sometimes
even contradiction. But the contradictions are not easy to dismiss:
their context indicates that they have a deep significance. In part,
they appear to attempt to express an understanding about the limits of
understanding itself, about the limits of language and thought.
This creates a problem for the interpreter, and especially for the
translator. How do we deal with the contradictions? The most common
solution is to paraphrase them so as to remove the direct
contradictoriness, under the presupposition that no sense can be made
of a contradiction. The most common way to remove the contradictions
is to insert references to points of view. Those translators, such as
A. C. Graham, who do this are following the interpretation of the Jin
dynasty commentator Guo Xiang, who presents the philosophy as a form
of relativism: apparently opposing judgments can harmonized when it is
recognized that they are made from different perspectives.
According to Guo Xiang's interpretation, every thing has its place,
its own nature (ziran); every thing has its own value that follows
from its own nature. So nothing should be judged by values appropriate
to the natures of other things. According to Guo Xiang the vast and
the small are equal in significance: this is his interpretation of the
word qi in the title, "equalization of all viewpoints". Now, such a
radical relativism usually has the goal of issuing a fundamental
challenge to the status quo, arguing that the established values have
no more validity than any of the minority values, no matter how
shocking they may seem to us. Thus, its effect is usually one of
destabilization of the social structure. Here, however, we see another
of the possible consequences of such a position: paradoxically enough,
its inherent conservativeness. Guo Xiang's purpose in asserting this
radical uniqueness and necessity of each position is conservative in
this way. Indeed, it appears to be articulated precisely in response
to those who oppose the traditional Ruist values of humanity and
rightness (ren and yi) by claiming to have a superior mystical ground
from which to judge them to be lacking. Guo Xiang's aim in asserting
the equality of every thing, every position, and every function, is to
encourage each thing, and each person, to accept its own place in the
hierarchical system, to acknowledge its value in the functioning of
the whole. In this way, radical relativism actually forestalls the
possibility of radical critique altogether!
According to this reading, the Vast perspective of the giant Peng bird
is no better than the petty perspectives of the little birds who laugh
at it. And indeed, Guo Xiang, draws precisely this conclusion. But
there is a problem with taking this reading too seriously, and it is
the kind of problem that plagues all forms of radical relativism when
one attempts to follow them through consistently. Simply put, Zhuangzi
would have to acknowledge that his own position is no better than
those he appears to critique. He would have to acknowledge that his
Daoist philosophy, indeed even this articulation of relativism, is no
improvement over Confucianism after all, and that it is no less
short-sighted than the logic-chopping of the Mohists. This, however,
is a consequence that Zhuangzi does not recognize. This is surely an
indication that the radical relativistic interpretation is clearly a
misreading. No intelligent radical relativist could fail to see this
most obvious and direct consequence of their position. And the level
of Zhuangzi's intelligence clearly is above the ordinary.
Recently, some western interpreters (Lisa Raphals and Paul Kjellberg,
for example) have focused their attention on aspects of the text that
express affinities with the Hellenistic philosophy of Skepticism. Now,
it is important not to confuse this with what in modern philosophy is
thought of as a doctrine of skepticism, the most common form of which
is the claim that we cannot ever claim to know anything, for at least
the reason that we might always be wrong about anything we claim to
know—that is, because we can never know anything with absolute
certainty. This is not quite the claim of the ancient Skeptics.
Arguing from a position of fallibilism, these latter feel that we
ought never to make any final judgments that go beyond the immediate
evidence, or the immediate appearances. We should simply accept what
appears at face value and have no further beliefs about its ultimate
consequences, or its ultimate value. In particular, we should refrain
from making judgments about whether it is good or bad for us. We
bracket (epoche) these ultimate judgments. When we see that such
things are beyond our ability to know with certainty, we will learn to
let go of our anxieties and accept the things that happen to us with
equanimity. Such a state of emotional tranquility they call
'ataraxia.'
Now, the resonances with Zhuangzi's philosophy are clear. Zhuangzi
also accepts a form of fallibilism. While he does not refrain from
making judgments, he nevertheless acknowledges that we cannot be
certain that what we think of as good for us may not ultimately be bad
for us, or that what we now think of as something terrible to be
feared (death, for example) might not be an extraordinarily blissful
awakening and a release from the toils and miseries of worldly life.
When we accept this, we refrain from dividing things into the
acceptable and the unacceptable; we learn to accept the changes of
things in all their aspects with equanimity. In the Skeptical reading,
the textual contradictions are also resolved by appealing to different
perspectives from which different judgments appear to be true. Once
one has learnt how to shift easily between the perspectives from which
such different judgments can be made, then one can see how such
apparently contradictory things can be true at the same time—and one
no longer feels compelled to choose between them.
There is another way to resolve these contradictions, which involves
recognizing the importance of continuous transformation between
opposites. In the tradition of Laozi's cosmology, Zhuangzi's worldview
is also one of seasonal transformations of opposites. The world is
seen as a giant clod (da kuai) around which the heavens (tian) revolve
about a polar axis (daoshu). All transformations have such an axis,
and the aim of the sage is to settle into this axis, so that one may
observe the changes without being buffeted around by them.
Now, the theme of opposites is taken up by the Mohists, in their later
Mohist Canon, but with a very different understanding. The later
Mohists present a detailed analysis of judgments as requiring
bivalence: that is judgments may be acceptable (ke) (also, 'affirmed'
shi) or unacceptable (buke) (also 'rejected'fei); they must be one or
the other and they cannot be both. There must always be a clear
distinction between the two. It is to this claim, I believe, that
Zhuangzi is directly responding. Rejecting also the Mohist style of
discussion, he appeals to an allusive, aphoristic, mythological style
of poetic writing to upset the distinctions and blur the boundaries
that the Mohists insist must be held apart. The Mohists believe that
social harmony can only be achieved when we have clarity of
distinctions, especially of evaluative distinctions: true/false,
good/bad, beneficial/harmful. Zhuangzi's position is that this kind of
sharp and rigid thinking can result ultimately only in harming our
natural tendencies (xing), which are themselves neither sharp nor
rigid. If we, on the contrary, learn to nurture those aspects of our
heart-minds (xin), our natural tendencies (xing), that are in tune
with the natural (tian) and ancestral (zong) within us, then we will
eventually find our place at the axis of the way (daoshu) and will be
able to ride the transformations of the cosmos free from harm. We will
be able to sense and respond to what can only be vaguely expressed
without forcing it into gross and unwieldy verbal expressions.
Put another way, our knowledge and understanding (zhi, tong, da) are
not just what we can explicitly see before us and verbalize: in modern
terms, they are not just what is 'consciously,' 'conceptually,' or
'linguistically' available to us. Zhuangzi also insists on a level of
understanding that goes beyond such relatively crude modes of dividing
up our world and experiences. There are hidden modes of knowing, not
evident or obviously present, modes that allow us to live, breathe,
move, understand, connect with others without words, read our
environments through subtle signs; these modes of knowing also give us
tremendous skill in coping with others and with our environments.
These modes of knowing Zhuangzi callswuzhi, literally 'without
knowing,' or 'unknowing,' which Hall and Ames render as 'unprincipled
knowing.' What is known by such modes of knowing, when we attempt to
express it in words, becomes paradoxical and appears contradictory. It
seems that bivalent distinctions leave out too much on either side of
the divide: they are too crude a tool to cope with the subtlety and
complexity of our non-conceptual modes of knowing. Zhuangzi, following
a traditional folk psychology of his time, calls this capacity
shenming: "spirit insight."
When we nurture that deepest and most natural, most ancestral part of
our pysches, through psycho-physical meditative practices, we at the
same time nurture these non-cognitive modes of understanding, embodied
wisdoms, that enable us to deal successfully with our circumstances.
It is then that we are able to cope directly with what from the
limited perspective of our socialized and 'linguistic' understanding
seems to be too vague, too open, too paradoxical.
c. Chapter 3: Yang Sheng Zhu (The Principle of Nurturing Life)
This chapter, like the Anarchist chapters, deals with the way to
nurture and cultivate one's 'life force' (sheng, xing) so as to enable
one to live skillfully and last out one's natural years (qiong qi tian
nian). There is a 'life' within one that is a source of longevity, an
ancestral place from which the phenomena of one's life continue to
arise. This place is to be protected (bao), kept whole (quan),
nurtured and cultivated (yang). The result is a sagely and skillful
life. We must be careful how we understand this word, 'skill.'
Zhuangzi takes pains to point out that it is no mere technique. A
technique is a procedure that may be mastered, but the skill of the
sage goes beyond this. One might say that it has become an 'art,' a
dao. With Zhuangzi's conception, any physical activity, whether
butchering a carcass, making wooden wheels, or carving beautiful
ceremonial bell stands, becomes a dao when it is performed in a
spiritual state of heightened awareness ('attenuation' xu).
Zhuangzi sees civic involvement as particularly inimical to the
preservation and cultivation of one's natural life. In order to
cultivate one's natural potencies, one must retreat from social life,
or at least one must retreat from the highly complex and artificially
structured social life of the city. One undergoes a psycho-physical
training in which one's sensory and physical capacities become honed
to an extraordinary degree, indicating one's attunement with the
transformations of nature, and thus highly responsive to the
tendencies (xing) of all things, people, and processes. The mastery
achieved is demonstrated (both metaphorically, and literally) by
practical embodied skill. That is, practical embodied skill is a
metaphor representing the mastery of the life of the sage, and is also
quite literally a sign of sagehood (though not all those who are
skillful are to be reckoned as sages). Thus, we see many examples of
individuals who have achieved extraordinary levels of excellence in
their achievements—practical, aesthetic, and spiritual. Butcher Ding
provides an example of a practical, and very lowly, skill; Liezi's
teacher, Huzi, in chapter 7, an example of skill in controlling the
very life force itself. Chapter 19, Mastering Life, is replete with
examples: a cicada catcher, a ferryman, a carpenter, a swimmer, and
Woodcarver Qing, whose aesthetic skill reaches magical heights.
d. Chapter 4: Ren Jian Shi (The Realm of Human Interactions)
In this chapter, Zhuangzi continues the theme broached by the last
chapter, but now takes on the problem of how to protect and preserve
one's life and last out one's years while living in the social realm,
especially in circumstances of great danger: a life of civic
engagement in a time of social corruption.
The Daoists, and Primitivists in general, are highly critical of the
artificiality required to create and sustain complex social
structures. The Daoists are skeptical of the ability of deliberate
planning to deal with the complexities of the world within which our
social structures have their place. Even the developments of the
social world when left to themselves are 'natural' developments, and
as such escape the confines of planned, structured thinking. The more
we try to control and curtail these natural meanderings, the more
complicated and unwieldy the social structures become. According to
the Daoists, no matter how complex we make our structures, they will
never be fully able to cope with the fluid flexibility of natural
changes. The Daoists perceive the unfolding of the transformations of
nature as exhibiting a kind of natural intelligence, a wisdom that
cannot be matched by deliberate artificial thinking, thinking that can
be articulated in words. The result is that phenomena guided by such
artificial structures quickly lose their course, and have to be
constantly regulated, re-calibrated. This gives rise to the
development and articulation of the artificial concepts of ren and yi
for the Ruists, and shi and fei for the Mohists.
The Ruists emphasize the importance of cultivating the values of ren
'humanity' and yi'appropriateness/rightness.' The Mohists identify a
bivalent structure of preference and evaluation. Our judgments can be
positive or negative, and these arise out of our acceptance and
rejection of things or of judgments, and these in turn arise out of
our emotional responses to the phenomena of benefit and harm, that is,
pleasure and pain. Thus, we set up one of two types of systems: the
intuitive renyi morality of the Ruists, or the articulated structured
shifei of the Mohists.
Zhuangzi sees both of these as dangerous. Neither can keep up with the
complex transformations of things and so both will result in harm to
our shen and xing. They lead to the desire of rulers to increase their
personal profit, their pleasure, and their power, and to do so at the
expense of others. The best thing is to steer clear of such
situations. But there are times when one cannot do so: there is
nothing one can do to avoid involvement in a social undertaking. There
are also times—if one has a Ruist sensibility—when one will be moved
to do what one can and must in order to improve the social situation.
Zhuangzi makes up a story about Confucius' most beloved and most
virtuous follower, Yen Hui, who feels called to help 'rectify' the
King of a state known for his selfishness and brutality.
Zhuangzi thinks that such a motivation, while admirable, is ultimately
misguided. There is little to nothing one can do to change things in a
corrupt world. But if you really have to try, then you should be aware
of the dangers, be aware of the natures of things, and of how they
transform and develop. Be on the lookout for the 'triggers': the
critical junctures at which a situation can explode out of hand. In
the presence of danger, do not confront it: always dance to one side,
redirect it through skilled and subtle manipulations, that do not take
control, but by adding their own weight appropriately, redirect the
momentum of the situation. One must treat all dangerous social
undertakings as a Daoist adept: one must perform xinzhai, fasting of
the heart-mind. This is a psycho-physical discipline of attenuation,
in which one nurtures one's inner potencies, until one achieves a
heightened sensitivity to the tendencies of things. One then responds
with the skill of a sage to the dangerous moods and intentions of
one's worldly ruler.
e. Chapter 5: De Chong Fu (Signs of the Flourishing of Potency)
This chapter is populated with a collection of characters with bodily
eccentricities: criminals with amputated feet, people born with 'ugly'
deformities, hunchbacks with no lips. Perhaps some of these are
moralistic advisors, like those of chapter 4, who were unsuccessful in
bringing virtue and harmony to a corrupt state, and instead received
the harsh punishment of their offended ruler? But it is also possible
that some were born with these physical 'deformities.' As the
Commander of the Right says in chapter 3, "When tian (nature) gave me
life, it saw to it that I would be one footed." These then are people
whose natural capacity (de) has been twisted somehow, redirected, so
that it gives them a potency (de) that is beyond the normal human
range. At any rate, this out of the ordinary appearance, this
extraordinary physical form, is a sign of something deeper: a potency
and a power (de) that connects them more closely to the ancestral
source. These are the sages that Zhuangzi admires: those whose virtue
(de) is beyond the ordinary, and whose signs of virtue indicate that
they have gone beyond.
But what goes beyond is also the source of life. To hold fast to that
which is beyond both living and dying, is perhaps also to hold fast to
something that is beyond human and inhuman. To identify with and
nurture this source is to nurture that which is at the root of our
humanity. Thus to go to that which is beyond is not necessarily to
become inhuman. Indeed, one might argue that it is to create the
possibility of deepening one's most genuine humanity, insofar as this
is a deeper nature still.
f. Chapter 6: Da Zong Shi (The Vast Ancestral Teacher)
The first part of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of the
zhenren: the "True Man," the "genuine person," or "genuine humanity."
It begins by asking about the relation between tian and ren, the
natural/heaven and the human, and suggests that the greatest wisdom
lies in the ability to understand both. Thus, to be forced to choose
between being natural or being human is a mistake. A genuinely
flourishing human life cannot be separated from the natural, but nor
can it on that account deny its own humanity. Genuine humanity is
natural humanity.
There are several sections devoted to explicating this genuine
humanity. We find that the genuinely human person, the zhen ren, is in
tune with the cycles of nature, and is not upset by the vicissitudes
of life. Thezhenren like Laozi's sage is somehow simultaneously
unified with things, and yet not tied down by them. The zhenren is in
tune with the cycles of nature, and with the cycles of yin yang, and
is not disturbed or harmed by them. In fact, the zhenren is not harmed
by them either in what appears to us to be their negative phases, nor
are their most extreme phases able to upset the balance of the
zhenren. This is sometimes expressed with what I take to be the
hyperbole that the sage or zhenren can never be drowned by the ocean,
nor burned by fire. However, followers of what has come to be known as
"religious" Daoism would, I believe, probably take these statements
more literally.
In the second part of the chapter, Zhuangzi hints at the process by
which we are to cultivate our genuine and natural humanity. These are
meditative practices and psycho-physical disciplines—"yogas"
perhaps—by which we learn how to nourish the ancestral root of life
that is within us. We learn how to identify with that center which
functions as an axis of stability around which the cycles of emotional
turbulence flow. By maintaining ourselves as a shifting and responding
center of gravity we are able to maintain an equanimity without giving
up our feelings altogether. We enjoy riding the dragon without being
thrown around by it. Ordinarily, we are buffeted around like flotsam
in a storm, and yet, by holding fast to our ancestral nature, and by
following the nature of the environment—by "matching nature with
nature"—we free ourselves from the mercy of random circumstances.
In this chapter we see a mature development of the ideas of life and
death broached in the first three chapters. Zhuangzi continues musing
on the significance of our existential predicament as being
inextricably tied into interweaving cycles of darkness and light,
sadness and joy, living and dying. In chapter two, it was the
predicament itself that Zhuangzi described, and he tried to focus on
the inseparability and indistinguishability of the two aspects of this
single process of transformation. In this chapter, Zhuangzi tries to
delve deeper to reach the center of balance, the 'axis of the way,'
that allows one to undergo these changes with tranquility, and even to
accept them with a kind of 'joy.' Not an ecstatic affirmation, to be
sure, but a tranquil appreciation of the richness, beauty, and
"inevitability" of whatever experiences we eventually will undergo.
Again, not that we must experience whatever is 'fated' for us, or that
we ought not to minimize harm and suffering where we can do so, but
only that we should acknowledge and accept our situatedness, our
thrownness into our situation, as the 'raw materials' that we have to
deal with.
There are mystical practices hinted at that enable the sage to
identify with the datong, the greater flow, not with the particular
arisings of these particular emotions, or this particular body, but
with what lies within (and below and above) as their ancestral root.
These meditative and yogic practices are hinted at in this chapter,
and also in chapter 7, but nothing in the text reveals what they are.
It is not unreasonable to believe that similar techniques have been
handed down by the practitioners of religious Daoism. It is clear,
nonetheless, that part of the change is a change in
self-understanding, self-identification. We somehow learn to expand,
to wander beyond, our boundaries until they include the entire cosmic
process. This entire process is seen as like a potter's wheel, and
simultaneously as a whetstone and as a grindstone, on which things are
formed, and arise, sharpened, and are ground back down only to be made
into new forms. With each 'birth' (sheng) some 'thing' (wu) new
arises, flourishes, develops through its natural (tian) tendencies
(xing), and then still following its natural tendencies, responding to
those of its natural environment, it winds down: enters (ru) back into
the undifferentiated (wu) from which it emerged (chu). The truest
friendship arises when members of a community identify with this
unknown undifferentiated process in which they are embedded,
"forgotten" differences between self and other, and spontaneously
follows the natural developments of which they are inseparable
"parts."
g. Chapter 7: Ying Di Wang (Responding to Emperors and Kings)
The last of the Inner Chapters does not introduce anything new, but
closes by returning to a recurring theme from chapters 1, 3, 5, and 6:
that of withdrawing from society. This 'withdrawal' has two functions:
the first is to preserve one's 'life'; the second is to allow society
to function naturally, and thus to bring itself to a harmonious
completion. Rather than interfering with social interactions, one
should allow them to follow their natural course, which, Zhuangzi
believes, will be both imaginative and harmonious.
These themes resonate with those of the Anarchist chapters in the
Outer (and Miscellaneous) chapters: 8 to 11a and 28 to 32. These
encourage a life closer to nature in which one lets go of deliberate
control and instead learns how to sense the tendencies of things,
allowing them to manifest and flourish, while also adding one's weight
to redirect their momentum away from harm and danger. Or, if harm and
danger are unavoidable, then one learns how to minimize them, and how
to accept whatever one does have to suffer with equanimity.
4. Key Interpreters of Zhuangzi
The earliest of the interpreters of Zhuangzi's philosophy are of
course his followers, whose commentaries and interpretations have been
preserved in the text itself, in the chapters that Liu Xiaogan
ascribes to the "Shu Zhuang Pai," chapters 17 to 27. Most of these
chapters constitute holistic developments of the ideas of the Inner
Chapters, but some of them concentrate on particular issues raised in
particular chapters. For example, the author of Chapter 17, the Autumn
Floods, elaborates on the philosophy of perspective and overcoming
boundaries that is discussed in the first chapter, Xiao Yao You. This
chapter develops the ideas in several divergent directions:
relativism, skepticism, pragmatism, and even a kind of absolutism.
Which of these, if any, is the overall philosophical perspective is
not easy to discern. The author of chapter 19, Da Sheng, Mastering
Life, takes up the theme of the cultivation of the wisdom of embodied
skill that is introduced in chapter 3, Yang Sheng Zhu, The Principle
of Nurturing Life. The author of chapter 18, Zhi Le, Utmost Happiness,
and chapter 22, Zhi Bei You, Knowledge Wanders North, continues the
meditations on life and death, and the cultivation of meditative
practice, that are explored in chapter 6, Da Zong Shi, The Vast
Ancestral Teacher.
The next group of interpreters have also become incorporated into the
extant version of the text. They are the school of anarchistically
inclined philosophers, that Graham identifies as a "Primitivist" and a
school of "Yangists," chapters 8 to 11, and 28 to 31. These thinkers
appear to have been profoundly influenced by the Laozi, and also by
the thought of the first and last of the Inner Chapters: "Wandering
Beyond," and "Responding to Emperors and Kings." There are also
possible signs of influence from Yang Zhu, whose concern was to
protect and cultivate one's inner life-source. These chapters combine
the anarchistic ideals of a simple life close to nature that can be
found in the Laozi with the practices that lead to the cultivation and
nurturing of life. The practice of the nurturing of life in chapter 3,
that leads to the "lasting out of one's natural years," becomes an
emphasis on maintaining and protecting xing ming zhi qing "the
essentials of nature and life's command" in these later chapters.
The third main group, whose interpretation has been preserved in the
text itself, is the Huang-Lao school, an eclectic school whose aim to
is promote an ideal of mystical rulership, influenced by the major
philosophical schools of the time, especially those that recommend a
cultivation of inner potency. They scoured the earlier philosophers in
order to extract what was valuable in their philosophies, the element
of the dao that is to be found in each philosophical claim. In
particular, they sought to combine the more 'mystically' inclined
philosophies with the more practical ones to create a more complete
dao. The last chapter, Tian Xia, The World, considers several
philosophical schools, and comments on what is worthwhile in each of
them. Zhuangzi's philosophy is here characterized as "vast," "vague,"
"outrageous," "extravagant," and "reckless"; he is also recognized for
his encompassing modes of thought, his lack of partisanship, and his
recklessness is acknowledged to be harmless. Nevertheless, it is
stated that he did not succeed in getting it all.
Perhaps the most important of the pre-Qin thinkers to comment on
Zhuangzi is Xunzi. In his "Dispelling Obsessions" chapter,
anticipating the eclecticism of the Huang-Lao commentators of chapter
33, he considers several philosophical schools, mentions the corner of
'truth' that each has recognized, and then goes on to criticize them
for failing to understand the larger picture. Xunzi mentions Zhuangzi
by name, describes him as a philosopher who recognizes the value of
nature and of following the tendencies of nature, but who thereby
fails to recognize the value of the human 'ren'. Indeed, Zhuangzi
seems to be aware of this kind of objection, and even delights in it.
He revels in knowing that he is one who wanders off into the distance,
far from human concerns, one who is not bound by the guidelines.
Perhaps in doing so he corroborates Xunzi's fears.
Another text that reveals what might be a development of Zhuangzi's
philosophy is the Liezi. This is a philosophical treatise that clearly
stands in the same tradition as the Zhuangzi, dealing with many of the
same issues, and on occasion with almost identical stories and
discussions. Although the Daoist adept, Liezi, to whom the text is
attributed lived before Zhuangzi, the text clearly dates from a later
period, perhaps compiled as late as the Eastern Han, though in terms
of linguistic style the material appears to date from around the same
period as Zhuangzi. The Liezi continues the line of philosophical
thinking of the Xiao Yao You, and the Qiu Shui, taking up the themes
of transcending boundaries, and even cosmic realms, by spirit
journeying. The leaving behind and overturning of human values is a
theme that is repeated in this text, though again not without a
certain paradoxical tension: after all, the purpose of such journeying
and overturning of values is ultimately to enable us in some sense to
live 'better' lives. While Zhuangzi's own philosophy exerted a
significant influence on the interpretation of Buddhism in China,
theLiezi appears to provide a possible converse case of Mahayana
Buddhist influence on the development of the ideas of Zhuangzi.
The Jin dynasty scholar, Guo Xiang, is the most influential of the
early interpreters. His "relativistic" reading of the text has become
the received interpretation, and his own distinctive style of
philosophical thinking has in this way become almost inseparable from
that of Zhuangzi. The task of interpreting Zhuangzi independently of
Guo Xiang's reading is not easy to accomplish. His contribution and
interpretation have already been discussed in the body of the entry
(See sections above: The Zhuangzitext, and Chapter 2: Qi Wu Lun
(Discussion on Smoothing Things Out) ). The Sui dynasty scholar, Lu
Deming, produced an invaluable glossary and philological commentary on
the text, enabling later generations to benefit from his vast
linguistic expertise. The Ming dynasty Buddhist poet and scholar, Han
Shan, wrote a commentary on the Zhuangzi from a Chan Buddhist
perspective. In a similar vein, the Qing dynasty scholar, Zhang
Taiyan, constructed a masterful interpretation of the Zhuangzi in the
light of Chinese Buddhist Idealism, or Weishilun. Guo Qingfan, a late
Qing, early twentieth century scholar, collected and synthesized the
work of previous generations of commentators. The scholarly work of
Takeushi Yoshio in Japan has also been of considerable influence. Qian
Mu is a twentieth century scholar who has exerted considerable efforts
with regard to historical scholarship. Currently, in Taiwan, Chen
Guying is the leading scholar and interpreter of Zhuangzi, and he uses
his knowledge of western philosophy, particularly western
epistemology, cosmology, and metaphysics, to throw new light on this
ancient text.
In the west, probably the most important and influential scholar was
A. C. Graham, whose pioneering work on this text, and on the later
Mohist Canon, has laid the groundwork and set an extraordinarily high
standard for future western philosophical scholarship. Graham,
following the reading of Guo Xiang, develops a relativistic reading
based on a theory of the conventional nature of language. Chad Hansen
is a current interpreter who sees the Daoists as largely theorists of
language, and he interprets Zhuangzi's own contribution as a form of
"linguistic skepticism." Recently, there has been a growth of interest
in the aspects of Zhuangzi's philosophy that resonate with the
Hellenistic school of Skepticism. This was proposed by Paul Kjellberg,
and has been pursued by other scholars such as Lisa Raphals.
5. References and Further Reading
* Ames, Roger, ed. Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1998.
* Chuang Tzu. Basic Writings. Translated by Burton Watson. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1964.
* Chuang Tzu. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Translated by
Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
* Chuang Tzu. Chuang-Tzu The Inner Chapters: A Classic of Tao.
Translated by A. C. Graham. London: Mandala, 1991.
* Chuang Tzu. Chuang tzu. Translated by James Legge, Sacred Books
of the East, volumes 39, 40. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891.
* Cook, Scott. Hiding the World Within the World: Ten Uneven
Discourses on Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of New York Press,
2003.
* Coutinho, Steve. Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy:
Vagueness, Transformation, and Paradox. London: Ashgate Press,
forthcoming, December, 2004.
* Fung, Yu-Lan. Chuang-Tzu: A New Selected Translation with an
Exposition of the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang. 2nd ed. New York: Paragon
Book Reprint Corporation, 1964.
* Graham, Angus Charles. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science.
London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978.
* Graham, Angus Charles. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical
Argument in Ancient China. La Salle: Open Court, 1989.
* Graham, A. C. "Chuang-tzu's Essay on Seeing things as Equal."
History of Religions 9 (1969/1970), pp. 137—159. Reproduced in Roth,
2003.
* Graham, A. C. "Chuang-tzu: Textual Notes to a Partial
Translation." London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982.
Reproduced in Roth, 2003.
* Hansen, Chad. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A
Philosophical Interpretation. New York, Oxford University Press, 1992.
* Ivanhoe, P. J. & Paul Kjellberg, ed. Essays on Skepticism,
Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1996.
* Kaltenmark, Max. Lao Tzu and Taoism. Translated by Roger
Greaves. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969.
* Kjellberg, Paul. Zhuangzi and Skepticism. PhD dissertation,
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1993.
* Lawton, Thomas, ed. New Perspectives on Chu Culture During the
Eastern Zhou Period. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1991.
* Li, Xueqin. Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations. Translated by
Kwang-chih Chang. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
* Liu, Xiaogan. Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters. Translated by
Donald Munro. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 65. Ann
Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan, 1994.
* Mair, Victor H., ed. Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
* Mair, Victor. ed. Chuang-tzu: Composition and Interpretation.
Symposium issues, Journal of Chinese Religions 11, 1983.
* Mair, Victor. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and
Parables of Chuang Tzu. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
* Maspero, Henri. Le Taoïsme. Vol. II, Mélanges Posthumes sur les
Religions et l'histoire de la Chine. Paris: Civilisations du Sud
S.A.E.P., 1950.
* Roth, Harold. "Who Compiled the Chuang-tzu?" in Chinese Texts
and Philosophical Contexts. edited by Henry Rosemont. La Salle: Open
Court, 1991.
* Roth, Harold. A Companion to A. C. Graham's Chuang Tzu: The
Inner Chapters. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003.
* Wu, Kuang-ming. The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the
First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1990.
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