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!’
Chuang Tzu was dying and his followers wanted to provide a glorious funeral. Chuang Tzu said, ‘I will have Heaven and Earth as my shroud and coffin; the sun and moon as my symbols of jade; the stars for my pearls and jewels; all the forms of life as my mourners. I have everything for my funeral, what is there missing? What more could I need?’
His followers said, ‘We are worried, Master, that the crows and kites will eat you.’
‘Above ground I shall be eaten by crows and kites,’ said Chuang Tzu, ‘and below ground by worms and ants. Aren’t you just being rather partisan in wanting to feed only one of these groups, so depriving the others?
‘Trying to use what isn’t equal to produce equality is to be equally unequal. Trying to prove something by something uncertain is only certain to make things uncertain. The person whose eyesight is clear and thinks he understands is victim to these sights, whereas the one who is guided by the spirit perceives the reality. That there is a difference between what we see with our eyes and what we know through our spirit is a wisdom from long ago. But the fool relies upon his eyes and loses himself in what is merely human, and everything he does is just a façade – how sad!’
CHAPTER 33
Governing the World
There are many ways of running the world, and each of those who use a particular one considers theirs to be so good as to be incapable of improvement. In the past, this was known as the way of the Tao, but where is that now? I say, ‘There is nowhere where it is not.’ You say, ‘Where does the spirit come from? Where does enlightenment emerge from?’ ‘The sage brings them to be and the king completes them, and the origin is the One.’
The one who is not cut off from his primal origin is known as the Heavenly man.
The one not cut off from the true nature is known as the spiritual man.
The one who is not cut off from the truth, is known as the perfect man.
The one who views Heaven as the primal source, Virtue as the root and the Tao as a gate, and sees change and transformation as natural, such a one we call a sage.
The one who makes benevolence the model for kindness, righteousness the model for reason, ritual the model for behaviour, music the model for harmony, who is content in benevolence and pity, we call such a one a nobleman.
This is how the people should be governed: laws should be seen as defining difference, and their titles as indications of status. Comparison should be used to provide evidence and enquiry to establish decisions, so that they can be numbered one, two, three, four and so on, and thus give the hundred ranks their ranking. One should be observant in business, and should ensure adequate food and clothing, and that the cattle are fed and cared for and the grain stored. One should be concerned for the old, the infirm, the orphans and the widow.
The people of the past were so thorough! They were equals in spirituality and enlightenment, they were as all-seeing as Heaven and Earth. They tended all the forms of life and unified the whole world. Their care reached all people, they clearly perceived the roots of all things and they were attentive to even the smallest details. Their influence extended to the six directions and the four quarters, so that small and great, coarse or fine, there was no place that they were not. Their insights, as discernible in their laws and practices, were passed down from age to age in their codes and in the Histories. In Tsou and Lu122 there are scholars, gentlemen of the girdled class who can understand what is to be found in the Book of Poetry and the Book of History, in the Rites and the Music.
The Book of Poetry has the Tao of the will, the Book of History has the Tao of events, the Rites has the Tao of conduct, the Music has the Tao of harmony. The Book of Changes has the Tao illustrating the yin and yang and the Spring and Autumn Annals has the Tao of titles and procedures. These teachings are found across the face of the whole world, and in China they are mentioned by many of the hundred schools of philosophy of the Tao.
Everywhere under Heaven is in great disarray, the worthy ones and the sages have no light to shed, the Tao and Virtue are no longer united, and the whole world tends to see one aspect and think that they have grasped the whole of it. They can be compared to the ear, the eye, the nose and the mouth. Each has its own light to shed but you cannot interchange their functions. Likewise, the hundred schools of philosophy have their points and each has its time of usefulness. Though this is true, nevertheless not one of them covers the whole truth, just like the scholar who lived in one corner. He tried to judge whether Heaven and Earth are
