#81 Chuang Tzu – The Tao of Nature

A few months back Man versus Ideas encountered Taoism* for the first time. Now it’s back, thanks to noted Chinese sage and/or butterfly Chuang Tzu.

“But I could not tell, had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu?”

Much of the book is restating the core ideas of Taoism, which is what a religious text ought to do. And, as discussed previously, the main point of Taoism is that you should do nothing. Nature is as it is. The best thing is not to act at all; if that fails, you want to do as little as possible, working with the grain and force of the world to reach your goal with the minimum intervention. Take this analogy of the butcher Ting

“[The cook Ting, discussing how to cut up an animal, said] I see the natural lines and my knife slides through the great hollows, following the great cavities, using what is already there to my advantage… This knife of mine I have been using for nineteen years, and it has cut thousands of oxen. However, its blade is as sharp as if it has just been sharpened.”

Chuang Tzu is a more naturalistic writer than Lao Tse, and doesn’t express himself in short, mystic packets of poetry. He is much more into parables, where the principles of the Tao are explained with reference to things in the real world.

Partly as a result of this, the book is also more explicit about the things that Taoism doesn’t really see as worthwhile.

“A great deal of knowledge is needed to make bows, crossbows, nets, arrows and so forth, but the result is that the birds fly higher in distress… Everything in heaven is in a state of distress, because of this pursuit of knowledge.”

This is a fairly logical conclusion to draw if you think that life should be devoted to ensuring balance and getting things as close as possible to their natural state. But it is quite deeply at odds with our thinking in the modern world, where knowledge is a tool we can use to correct our mistakes – which prefers to shore up our lives rather than find the point on which they naturally (and precariously) balance.

Then there’s this moment of realisation from a student.

“I’ve been getting worked up and bothered [over nothing]! You seek compliance with the heavenly, whereas I have sought compliance with humanity.”

As I mentioned last time, there is no sense of salvation or making a better world in Taoism. Reaching a state of balance is purely personal, and if you don’t sort it out yourself, there will be no day of judgement when you are held to account for your failing. This is fairly alien to anyone brought up in an Abrahamic religion, where god and his rules aren’t exactly optional. One of the consequences of this insularity is that Chuang Tzu actively discourages his readers from trying to spread the word, saying “One who tries to share his happiness with others is not a sage.”

When I was talking about Confucius, I mentioned how he seemed to embody humanist ideals, but still got thought of as a religion. The same might be said of Taoism – there is no divine law, no superintendent in the sky who will set things right. It is a philosophy for finding equilibrium, no more. As a non-believer, I’m not sure whether I find this encouraging (see – we can live without religion) or discouraging (see – it doesn’t make any difference).

One other point worth mentioning – Chuang Tzu and his followers were clearly in dispute with the Confucians. At various points in the book, Confucius turns up as one of the characters in the story, behaving like the dumb sidekick in a comedy double act. So you get a lot of passages like this:

“Confucius asked Master Sang Hu, ‘I have been exiled from Lu twice, a tree was toppled on top of me in Sung, all records of me have been wiped out in Wei, I was impoverished in Shang and besieged in Chen and Tsai. I have had to endure so many troubles. My friends and acquaintances have all wandered off and my followers have started deserting me. But why is this happening?’ ”

But then again, not everyone can be fair and balanced…

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* After some agonising, I’ve decided to stick with the traditional Wade-Giles Romanisation of Chinese names. This isn’t right, but I haven’t got the skills to correct every name that I come across. But if I was doing this properly, Tao should be Dao, Lao Tse should be Laozi and so on.