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 walk, 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
