The Book of Chuang Tzu (Penguin) Read online

  Chuang Tzu’s wife died and Hui Tzu came to console him, but Chuang Tzu was sitting, legs akimbo, bashing a battered tub and singing.

  Hui Tzu said, ‘You lived as man and wife, she reared your children. At her death surely the least you should be doing is to be on the verge of weeping, rather than banging the tub and singing: this is not right!’

  Chuang Tzu said, ‘Certainly not. When she first died, I certainly mourned just like everyone else! However, I then thought back to her birth and to the very roots of her being, before she was born. Indeed, not just before she was born but before the time when her body was created. Not just before her body was created but before the very origin of her life’s breath. Out of all of this, through the wonderful mystery of change she was given her life’s breath. Her life’s breath wrought a transformation and she had a body. Her body wrought a transformation and she was born. Now there is yet another transformation and she is dead. She is like the four seasons in the way that spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other. She is now at peace, lying in her chamber, but if I were to sob and cry it would certainly appear that I could not comprehend the ways of destiny. This is why I stopped.’

  What is so wonderfully typical of these stories is the way Chuang Tzu uses incidents around him to deliver himself of a philosophical reflection or comment. Unlike the Tao Te Ching, which simply gives a saying or proverb and then comments upon it in a somewhat dry fashion, Chuang Tzu teaches through narrative, humour and detail. At times when translating this book, I was swept along by the desire to find out what happened next, or what point he was going to draw out of some incident. It must also be one of the few books written well over two thousand years ago that can make a translator burst out laughing aloud!

  All of which brings me to the vexed question which has dominated the study of Chuang Tzu for centuries. Which parts of the book can be ascribed to Chuang Tzu himself and which come from different, later pens? The custom in many cultures of the past was to ascribe a book to a great figure from the past. By doing so you were not necessarily trying to claim that they had written every word. But neither were you too worried if people thought so, so long as they read it! Indeed Chuang Tzu himself comments upon the tendency to claim that one’s own words are those of some great figure of the past as a way of gaining an audience. He saw nothing inherently wrong in this (see the opening of chapter 27).

  So it was that around sayings or writings of a key figure, other writings which were felt to complement or expand those of the Master would be gathered. Eventually these would be edited and the entire collection known as the writings of, for example, Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu. A similar process took place in Judaism at roughly the same time. Thus, for example, the five books of the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) were ascribed to Moses, despite the fact that they record his death!

  That this happened to the book we know as Chuang Tzu is without doubt. We even know who did the final editing job which produced the text as we have it with three sections. It was Kuo Hsiang, who died in 312 AD. He divided the text into three parts:

  Chapters 1–7: The Inner Chapters. Traditionally believed to have been written by Chuang Tzu;

  Chapters 8–22: The Outer Chapters. Traditionally seen as being the product of the Yangist school of philosophy.

  Chapters 23–33: Miscellaneous Chapters. A catch-bag of odds and ends.

  It is thought that Kuo Hsiang edited his text down from a collection of fifty-three chapters, so what we have is a reduction from an even wider collection of material.

  Almost from Kuo Hsiang’s time onwards, the debate has raged about which bits Chuang Tzu wrote and which bits he did not. It has become customary to hold chapters 1–7 as being from Chuang Tzu. Yet some would maintain that when Kuo Hsiang spoke of ‘Inner Chapters’, he wasn’t giving them any greater authority, but simply stating that their titles came from their content, whereas the next fifteen chapters take their titles from the first words of each chapter – from their outer skin as it were.

  It is interesting that of the three chapters which Ssu Ma Chien specifically highlights in his life of Chuang Tzu, written some two hundred years after Chuang Tzu and some four hundred years before Kuo Hsiang, one appears in the miscellaneous section and two in the Outer Chapters. None appears in the Inner Chapters. This alone should caution us against making easy or simplistic judgements based upon the present order of the chapters. Personally speaking, having now worked my way through the whole text in Chinese, I would find it very hard to cut up the book into bits that are obviously from Chuang Tzu himself and bits that are obviously not. Rather, I believe that we have a great deal of material which comes from Chuang Tzu or which was directly inspired by Chuang Tzu’s life and teachings. For example, the story of Chuang Tzu and the fish comes from chapter 17 and the tale of passing Hui Tzu’s grave comes from chapter 24. Neither of these are allowed as authentic Chuang Tzu chapters by certain purists, yet they breathe the very spirit of Chuang Tzu just as much as, for example, the famous ‘butterfly passage’ of chapter 2.

  There is a considerable industry in the remote and dustier shelves of Chinese studies, which engages itself in detailed and unending debate about which sections are genuine or not. But ironically, it seems that the author can speak more clearly to us if we do not concern ourselves with his existence or his authorship. For in the end, it really does not matter which bits come from the pen or life of Chuang Tzu and which are additions. The book simply should not be viewed as one consistent discourse. It is a catch-bag, an anthology of stories and incidents, thoughts and reflections which have gathered around the name and personality of Chuang Tzu. Trying to read the book through logically will only produce faint, ghostly laughter. And the one who will be laughing at you from afar will be the spirit of Chuang Tzu. For if there is one constant theme in the book, it is that logic is nonsense and that eclecticism is all, if you wish to open yourself to the Tao and the Te – the Way and the Virtue of all.

  The Book of Chuang Tzu is like a travelogue. As such, it meanders between continents, pauses to discuss diet, gives exchange rates, breaks off to speculate, offers a bus timetable, tells an amusing incident, quotes from poetry, relates a story, cites scripture. To try and make it read like a novel or a philosophical handbook is simply to ask it, this travelogue of life, to do something it was never designed to do. And always listen out for the mocking laughter of Chuang Tzu. This can be heard most when you start to make grand schemes out of the bits, or wondrous philosophies out of the hints and jokes. For ultimately this is not one book but a variety of voices swapping stories and bouncing ideas off each other, with Chuang Tzu striding through the whole, joking, laughing, arguing and interrupting. This is why it is such an enjoyable book to enter, almost anywhere, as if dipping into a cool river in the midst of summer.

  So you will find no great theories set out in this Introduction as to what Chuang Tzu means. Rather I want to try and set him, his terminology and some of his ideas into context and at times draw out certain comparisons with our own times.

  To begin with, we must avoid calling Chuang Tzu a Taoist. He wasn’t. There were no ‘Taoists’ in his day. There were thinkers who explored the notion of the Tao – the Way of Nature which, if you could become part of it, would carry you in its flow to the edge of reality and beyond, into the world of nature. Most of the great philosophers of the time struggled with the notion of the Tao, not least of them Kung Fu Tzu (better known in the West as Confucius). As is obvious from the number of times he crops up in the Chuang Tzu, Kung Fu Tzu was fascinated by the Tao. Indeed, he appears more often in the Chuang Tzu than either Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu himself – albeit often in the role of a butt for Chuang Tzu’s humour. But the point remains that, in his own writings, Kung Fu Tzu talks more about the Tao than the Tao Te Ching does, page for page.

  What marks out the three books of the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu from, for example, the writings of Kung Fu Tzu is their insistence on experiencing the Tao as a path to w
alk, rather than as a term to be explained. Experience is all.

  For example, take the story which Chuang Tzu tells in the first half of chapter 17, concerning the Lord of the Yellow River and the god of the North Ocean, Jo. The Yellow River has flooded because of the autumn rains, and the god of the Yellow River believes he is the greatest, mightiest being in the world – until he flows into the North Ocean. Then he realizes that he is puny in comparison to the North Ocean.

  Jo of the North Ocean replied, ‘A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao because he is constrained by his teachings. Now you have come out of your banks and seen the Great Ocean. You now know your own inferiority, so it is now possible to discuss great principles with you.’

  In other words, the god Jo of the North Ocean can now begin to teach the Lord of the Yellow River because the Lord has experienced the limits of his own knowledge.

  This approach – that the Tao which can be talked about is not the true Tao – marks out those writers whom later generations titled as Taoists. It is captured in the famous phrase ‘wu-wei’, which I have usually translated here as ‘actionless action’. This is beautifully captured in what seems to be a direct quote from Chuang Tzu found in chapter 13:

  Chuang Tzu said,

  ‘My Master Teacher! My Master Teacher!

  He judges all life but does not feel he is being judgemental;

  he is generous to multitudes of generations

  but does not think this benevolent;

  he is older than the oldest

  but he does not think himself old;

  he overarches Heaven and sustains Earth,

  shaping and creating endless bodies

  but he does not think himself skilful.

  This is what is known as Heavenly happiness.’

  Further on in the same chapter he spells out wu-wei even more clearly:

  ‘Heaven produces nothing,

  yet all life is transformed;

  Earth does not support,

  yet all life is sustained;

  the Emperor and the king take actionless action,

  yet the whole world is served.’

  Wu-wei also encompasses the approach of Chuang Tzu to official status and power. He rejects anything which elevates one aspect of life over another. To him, all are equal, and he brings this out in various ways, such as the stories of Robber Chih. For example, at the end of chapter 8 he tells of Po Yi, a former king, who abdicated in favour of his brother and later died of starvation rather than serve an unjust ruler. For this he was held up by Confucians and others as a model of righteousness. Robber Chih, an invented figure, is used by Chuang Tzu at various places through the book as an example of utter greed, cruelty and ruthlessness. Yet in this text Chuang Tzu puts the two men side by side:

  Po Yi died for the sake of fame at the bottom of Shou Yang mountain, Robber Chih died for gain on top of the Eastern Heights. These two both died in different ways but the fact is, they both shortened their lives and destroyed their innate natures. Yet we are expected to approve of Po Yi and disapprove of Robber Chih – strange, isn’t it?

  The term ‘innate nature’ is a key one in Chuang Tzu. ‘Hsing’, as it is pronounced phonetically, is used throughout the text to indicate that which is naturally the way a given species or part of creation either simply is in its givenness, or how it reacts to life. In contrast to this innate nature, this hsing, which I sometimes have put as true nature, Chuang Tzu presents the artifices and ways of ‘civilization’ as contrary and destructive to the innate nature. Thus at the start of chapter 9 we have:

  Horses have hooves so that they can grip on frost and snow, and hair so that they can withstand the wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water, they buck and gallop, for this is the innate nature of horses. Even if they had great towers and magnificent halls, they would not be interested in them. However, when Po Lo [a famous trainer of horses] came on the scene, he said, ‘I know how to train horses.’ He branded them, cut their hair and their hooves, put halters on their heads, bridled them, hobbled them and shut them in stables. Out of ten horses at least two or three die…

  The potter said, ‘I know how to use clay, how to mould it into rounds like the compass and into squares as though I had used a T-square.’ The carpenter said, ‘I know how to use wood: to make it bend, I use the template; to make it straight, I use the plumb line.’ However, is it really the innate nature of clay and wood to be moulded by compass and T-square, template and plumb line? It is true, nevertheless, that generation after generation has said, ‘Po Lo is good at controlling horses, and indeed the potter and carpenter are good with clay and wood.’ And the same nonsense is spouted by those who rule the world.

  From that point on in chapter 9, Chuang Tzu launches into one of his characteristic attacks on the way in which the people’s true innate nature has been lost and broken. He pictures a perfect world when all were equal and none had any sense of being greater or lesser. They just followed their innate nature. He then depicts the fall from this age of primal, innate, natural living:

  Then the perfect sage comes, going on about benevolence, straining for self-righteousness, and suddenly everyone begins to have doubts… If the pure essence had not been so cut about, how could they have otherwise ended up with sacrificial bowls? If the raw jade was not broken apart, how could the symbols of power be made? If the Tao and Te – Way and Virtue – had not been ignored, how could benevolence and righteousness have been preferred? If innate nature had not been left behind, how could rituals and music have been invented?… The abuse of the true elements to make artefacts was the crime of the craftsman. The abuse of the Tao and Te – Way and Virtue – to make benevolence and righteousness, this was the error of the sage.

  Chuang Tzu sees all attempts to impose ‘civilization’ upon the innate nature of the world, and especially on the people, as a terrible mistake which has distorted and abused the natural world – the world of the Tao, the flow of nature. And so he stands firmly opposed to all that the Confucians stood for – order, control and power hierarchies. This is why the Book of Chuang Tzu was always ignored or despised by Confucians and why it, along with other such ‘Taoist’ classics, was never formally counted as being amongst the Classics of Academia in Imperial China. This man is a subversive, and he knows it! The Chuang Tzu is a radical text of rejection and mockery aimed at the pretensions of human knowledge and powers.

  This rejection of the constructions of meaning which we place upon the world and which we then assume to be ‘natural’ is central to Chuang Tzu as it was to Lieh Tzu as well. They are perhaps the first deconstructionists. Let me give you an example from Lieh Tzu. In chapter 8 of Lieh Tzu we are introduced to a gentleman by the name of Mr Tien. He is about to set off on a long journey so invites his friends and relatives to come for a farewell banquet. As the dishes of fish and goose are brought in, Mr Tien looks benignly on them and says, ‘How kind Heaven is to humanity. It provides the five grains and nourishes the fish and birds for us to enjoy and use.’

  In response to this quaint piece of anthropocentrism, everyone nods in agreement, except for a twelve-year-old boy, the son of Mr Pao. He steps forward and says,

  ‘My Lord is wrong! All life is born in the same way that we are and we are all of the same kind. One species is not nobler than another; it is simply that the strongest and cleverest rule over the weaker and more stupid. Things eat each other and are eaten, but they were not bred for this. To be sure, we take the things which we can eat and consume them, but you cannot claim that Heaven made them in the first place just for us to eat. After all, mosquitoes and gnats bite our skin, tigers and wolves eat our flesh. Does this mean Heaven originally created us for the sake of the mosquitoes, gnats, tigers and wolves?’

  Here is the authentic voice of the Taoist. Here is the debunking of human pretensions and the
re-assertion of the natural as the highest order. Here is the Tao of Chuang Tzu in the mouth of a twelve-year-old.

  By stressing the abuses that have happened to our innate natures, Chuang Tzu constantly calls us to look with our heads on one side at what is ‘normal’. He uses humour, shock tactics, silly names, the weirdest characters (such as Cripple Shu or Master Yu) and totally unbelievable scenarios (such as the ‘willow tree’ incident in chapter 18) to make us look again at what we hold to be true. He uses contradiction to explode convention. Take these exchanges from chapter 2:

  There is the beginning; there is not as yet any beginning of the beginning; there is not as yet beginning not to be a beginning of the beginning… I have just made a statement, yet I do not know whether what I said has been real in what I said or not really said.

  Under Heaven there is nothing greater than the tip of a hair, but Mount Tai [the greatest of the mighty sacred mountains] is smaller; there is no one older than a dead child, yet Peng Tsu [who, according to mythology, lived thousands of years] died young.

  So where does all this leave Chuang Tzu in his understanding of life and his relationship to the rest of creation – the ‘Ten Thousand Things’, as it is put in Chinese? The next line in this quote from chapter 2 spells it out. If Chuang Tzu could conceivably be imagined uttering any kind of credal statement, perhaps this would be it:

  Heaven and Earth and I were born at the same time, and all life and I are one.

  This is the understanding that Chuang Tzu wishes us to return to.

  The uselessness of language is the other key point of Chuang Tzu’s discourses. He wants us to break beyond words and to realize how they imprison us. This is captured in a quote from chapter 2 which echoes the opening of the Tao Te Ching:

  The great Way is not named,