The Book of Chuang Tzu (Penguin) Read online

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  THE BOOK OF CHUANG TZU

  MARTIN PALMER is Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture (ICOREC). A student of Chinese for over twenty years, he has translated many Chinese classics and folk religion texts, as well as having commented upon the major religious traditions of China in print and also on radio and television. As Director of ICOREC he works as a religious adviser to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) around the world, directing religion-based environmental programmes. Currently he is working with the China Taoist Association on a project to protect the main Taoist Sacred Mountains of China.

  ELIZABETH BREUILLY is a member of ICOREC. She specializes in educational books and in assisting faith groups in articulating their fundamental teachings clearly to non-specialist audiences.

  CHANG WEI MING, a practising lawyer, was Martin Palmer’s first teacher of Chinese. Her interest in Chinese philosophy has been an abiding passion for many years.

  JAY RAMSAY has collaborated with Martin Palmer on a number of translations of Chinese texts, bringing his gifts as a poet to bear upon the translations. He is the founder of the Chrysalis poetry project.

  The Book of Chuang Tzu

  Translated by MARTIN PALMER

  With ELIZABETH BREUILLY, CHANG WAI MING and JAY RAMSAY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  First published by Arkana 1996

  Published in Penguin Books 2006

  3

  Copyright © ICOREC, 1996

  Illustrations copyright © Circa Photo Library, 1996

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the translators has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

  to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

  re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

  prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

  which it is published and without a similar condition including this

  condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  For Vicky with all my heart

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction

  1 Wandering Where You Will

  2 Working Everything Out Evenly

  3 The Nurturing of Life

  4 Out and About in the World

  5 Signs of Real Virtue

  6 The Great and Original Teacher

  7 Dealing with Emperors and Kings

  8 Webbed Toes

  9 Horses’ Hooves

  10 Broken Suitcases

  11 Leaving the World Open

  12 Heaven and Earth

  13 Heaven’s Tao

  14 Does Heaven Move?

  15 Rigid and Arrogant

  16 The Deceived and Ignorant Ones

  17 Season of Autumn Floods

  18 Perfect Happiness

  19 Grasping the Purpose of Life

  20 The Huge Tree

  21 Tien Tzu Fang

  22 The Shores of the Dark Waters

  23 Keng Sang Chu

  24 Hsu Wu Kuei

  25 Travelling to Chu

  26 Affected from Outside

  27 Supposed Words

  28 Abdication

  29 Robber Chih

  30 The Lover of Swords

  31 The Old Fisherman

  32 Lieh Yu Kou

  33 Governing the World

  Index

  Preface

  Translating an author as rich, diverse and as intense as Chuang Tzu is an immense undertaking. There are few full translations of Chuang Tzu, so I felt that there was space for another, especially one aimed at a more popular market. For this reason, there are one or two ways in which this translation differs from others.

  Firstly, I have adopted a simplified form of romanization of Chinese names. There are two commonly used systems: Wade-Giles and Pinyin. The differences can be seen in the way they spell the capital of China: Peking (Wade-Giles) or Beijing (Pinyin). In many instances, Pinyin gives a more accurate phoneticization of the Chinese – as in ‘Beijing’. But in Pinyin, ‘Chuang Tzu’ becomes ‘Zhuang Zi’ – which is not as close to the original as the Wade-Giles. In using Wade-Giles, I have opted for a more familiar system for the average reader. However, to help the flow of reading, I have dropped the diacritical marks, and capitalized all parts of the name. Thus, in chapter 5, I have changed the name of the man with the terrible appearance from Ai T’ai-t’o to Ai Tai To. In chapter 4, the minister, Ch’u Po-yu, becomes Chu Po Yu. I hope purists will forgive me this in the interests of greater ease for readers.

  Secondly, I have dropped some of the more obscure names which are given and only make a great deal of sense if one is able to see the puns in Chinese. For example, the last paragraph of chapter 18 in the Chinese contains detailed names for every bug and insect. I have dropped all but the most necessary because they get very confusing!

  Thirdly, in the first seven chapters, we have marked out the text to show that it does not flow sequentially. The first seven chapters in particular contain self-contained stories and discussions. Trying to read Chuang Tzu sequentially is a mistake. The text is a collection, not a developing argument. In the first seven chapters, we have indicated this with clear breaks.

  Approaching a text as ancient and as fascinating as Chuang Tzu, any translator needs all the help possible! Having translated a number of ancient Chinese texts in the last few years (The Tao Te Ching, the I Ching) I feel relatively at home in the linguistic and cultural world of China between the sixth and third centuries BC. But I was delighted to have three guides who either in part or in whole had made the journey into the Chuang Tzu and lived to tell the tale. In confirming or debating my own translations, I turned to these three other translators for inspiration or for argument. The three translators are, first and foremost, the excellent translator of the first seven chapters, Fung Yu-Lan, professor of Chinese in the USA and China during most of this century. His excellent translation A Taoist Classic Chuang-Tzu is published by the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, from an original edition first published in 1931. It is masterful.

  The second translator, who has translated the whole text, is Burton Watson of the Columbia University translation program. His The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, published by Columbia University Press in 1968 and still in print, is a joy to read. Clear and informative, it provides the most readable translation I have come across. I owe a great debt to Burton Watson, even if at times I differ from some of his usage and interpre
tations.

  Finally, that master of translation – not necessarily for the ease of his translation but for the depth of his work – James Legge. Produced in the 1880s, his The Writings of Kwang Tze is a rich resource for any translator. It is to be found in volumes 39 and 40 of Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Muller, Oxford University Press, 1891.

  Apart from these books, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to colleagues. The Taoist scholars at the White Cloud Temple in Beijing, home of the China Taoist Association, taught me a great deal about how to read Chuang Tzu. To my old friend and first mentor in Chinese, Chang Wai Ming, I owe more than I can say. Over twenty years ago she taught me to love and enjoy the Chinese language and culture and I have never looked back. Her intensity of love for her own culture and language is truly infectious.

  Jay Ramsay cannot read a word of Chinese – thank goodness! He thus makes a perfect sparring partner. As a poet he has a sense for English which challenges and thrills me as a writer. As someone who has entered into the Chinese world through the translations we have done together, he has a sense of Chinese symbolism and literature which is quite extraordinary. I owe him a great deal for making the most of my turns of phrase.

  Elizabeth Breuilly is really the main other translator. Like Jay she knows no Chinese but she has a rigorous and vigorous understanding of English. She took sheets of barely legible scrawl sent back from all round the world – I translate as I travel – and turned it into readable English. She has given untold hours to this, as has Jo Edwards, who put most of it on disk. I cannot say how grateful I am to both of them for their work and for enjoying the old rogue Chuang Tzu as much as I have.

  Martin Palmer

  August 1995

  Introduction

  When the School of Taoism first began to look for its roots, sometime around 100 BC, it identified three great founder teachers. These were, and still are, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu.

  Taoism is the search for the Tao, the Way of Nature which, if you could become part of it, would take you to the edge of reality and beyond. One of the core teachings of Taoism is that:

  The Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao.

  The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.1

  In the light of this, perhaps it should not cause too much surprise to discover that, of these three founder-figures, only one can be definitely rooted in a given time and place! For Lao Tzu may well never have existed, and even if he did, he certainly didn’t write the Tao Te Ching, the book usually ascribed to him as author. Lieh Tzu may also be a fictional figure. Again, even if he did exist, the book which bears his name contains few of his actual words and was probably composed some six hundred or more years after his supposed lifetime.

  Which leaves us with Chuang Tzu. Of all the figures whom Taoism claims as its own from the extraordinary period of intellectual ferment of the sixth to third centuries BC, only Chuang Tzu emerges from the mists as a discernible figure. And the figure who does emerge is one of the most intriguing, humorous, enjoyable personalities in the whole of Chinese thought and philosophy.

  The only ‘historical details’ we have of Chuang Tzu’s life come from the first great historian of China, Ssu Ma Chien (died c. 85 BC). In his Historical Records, he tried to trace the histories of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. He virtually gives up on Lao Tzu, lamenting that he found it almost impossible to discover any facts or details about him.

  With Chuang Tzu he had more success. He says that Chuang Tzu was born in the town of Meng, which is thought to be somewhere in the present-day provinces of Anhui or Henan. His personal name was Chuang Chou, and it is as Chuang Chou that he is usually referred to in the book which we know as Chuang Tzu. The title ‘Tzu’ found in the names of the three founder-figures is an honorific title meaning ‘Master’. In the text as translated here I have changed ‘Chuang Chou’ to ‘Chuang Tzu’ to avoid confusion.

  Ssu Ma Chien goes on to say that Chuang Tzu worked as a minor official at Chi Yuan, which can be translated as ‘The Lacquer Garden’. Quite what this means is unclear. Was this just a name of a place, in the same way that Salford means ‘The Ford by the Willows’, or was it actually an area of natural beauty? As with so much in the early histories of Taoism, we don’t know.

  The historian says that Chuang Tzu lived at the same time as Prince Hui of Liang (370–319 BC) and Prince Hsuan of Chi (319–301 BC). He also says that Prince Wei of Chu (338–327 BC) visited him. This puts him firmly into the last half of the fourth century and leads Needham to give his dates as 369–286 BC.2 For once, we can be fairly sure about the approximate dates of such a figure.

  Ssu Ma Chien continues his account by noting that Chuang Tzu was noted for his erudition, which was eclectic but rooted in the sayings of Lao Tzu, of which more later. He says that, because of this, Chuang Tzu’s writings were largely imaginative or allegorical – a fact which is most definitely borne out by even a cursory glance at his book. It is also noted that his surviving writings in the first century BC were over 100,000 words in length.

  Ssu Ma Chien then discusses three specific chapters of the book, chapters 31, 29 and 10, in that order, and claims they were written explicitly to refute the arguments of the Confucians and to ‘glorify the mysteries of Lao Tzu’. It is then noted that some of the characters in his writings are figments of his imagination but that such was his erudition and skill in public debate that not even the greatest scholars of his time could defend themselves against his pitiless attacks on both the Confucians and the followers of Mo Tzu. Ssu Ma Chien goes on to state that Chuang Tzu’s writings and teachings were like a tidal wave which swamped everything and could not be stemmed, and his work so free-flowing that no ruler has ever been able to encapsulate it or harness it to specific statecraft – unlike the Lao Tzu, which has often been subtitled ‘A Manual of Leadership’.

  To illustrate this and to highlight Chuang Tzu’s own sense of personal freedom from the niceties of power or the temptations of title – a theme which he often explores – Ssu Ma Chien relates a story which is actually recorded in the book itself:

  Someone offered Chuang Tzu a court post. Chuang Tzu answered the messenger, ‘Sir, have you ever seen a sacrificial ox? It is decked in fine garments and fed on fresh grass and beans. However, when it is led into the Great Temple, even though it most earnestly might wish to be a simple calf again, it’s now impossible.’ (Chapter 32, this translation)

  In the version told by Ssu Ma Chien, Chuang Tzu goes on:

  Go away! Don’t mess with me! I would rather enjoy myself in the mud than be a slave to the ruler of some kingdom. I shall never accept such an office, and so I shall remain free to do as I will.

  This exchange captures to perfection the spirit of Chuang Tzu which emerges from his writings. For unlike the Tao Te Ching, which tells no stories, contains no anecdote or personal details about anyone, the Chuang Tzu is full of stories, personalities, characters and incidents. It is a bag of tricks, knaves, sages, jokers, unbelievably named people and uptight Confucians! And through it strides the occasionally glimpsed figure of Chuang Tzu himself, leaving a trail of humour, bruised egos and damaged reputations.

  There are two particular insights which the book affords us of the personality and personal history of Chuang Tzu himself, which bring him vividly to life in a way unusual for philosophers. The first is his great friendship and rivalry with the philosopher Hui Tzu. The two represented different strands of philosophy but were close enough to enjoy the delights of sparring. In particular, Hui Tzu took exception to one of Chuang Tzu’s key points, that meaning depends entirely upon the context and that there is no such thing as a ‘fact’ which stands apart from the context of the speaker. The most famous example of this comes at the end of chapter 17:

  Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were walking beside the weir on the River Hao, when Chuang Tzu said, ‘Do you see how the fish are coming to the surface and swimming around as they please? That’s what fish really enjoy.’

 
‘You’re not a fish,’ replied Hui Tzu, ‘so how can you say you know what fish enjoy?’

  Chuang Tzu said: ‘You are not me, so how can you know I don’t know what fish enjoy?’

  Hui Tzu said: ‘I am not you, so I definitely don’t know what it is you know. However, you are most definitely not a fish and that proves that you don’t know what fish really enjoy.’

  Chuang Tzu said: ‘Ah, but let’s return to the original question you raised, if you don’t mind. You asked me how I could know what it is that fish really enjoy. Therefore, you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. And I know it by being here on the edge of the River Hao.’

  The intensity of this friendship of rivalry is poignantly captured in a story told in chapter 24:

  Chuang Tzu was following a funeral when he passed by the grave of Hui Tzu. He looked round at those following him and said, ‘The man of Ying had on the end of his nose a piece of mud as small as a fly’s wing. He sent for the craftsman Shih to cut it off. Shih swirled his axe around and swept it down, creating such a wind as it rushed past that it removed all trace of the mud from the man of Ying, who stood firm, not at all worried. The ruler Yuan of Sung heard of this and called craftsman Shih to visit him.

  ‘ “Would you be so kind as to do this for me?” he said.

  ‘Craftsman Shih replied, “Your servant was indeed once able to work like that, but the type of material I worked upon is long since dead.”

  ‘Since the Master has died, I have not had any suitable material to work upon. I have no one I can talk with any longer.’

  This sad story brings me to the second detail which we can glean about Chuang Tzu from the book. Unlike perhaps our standard vision of the philosopher-sage of Taoism, whom we associate with remote mountains and an ascetic lifestyle, Chuang Tzu was married and brought up a family, though one does get the impression that, perhaps luckily for them, the bulk of the responsibility for rearing the children fell to his wife. These details come out in a story told in chapter 18: