Kapiolani
Community College Horizons 2003
Kapiolani
Community College
Horizons 2003
“The Inner Chapters” of the Zhuangzi are filled with many stories,
experiences, and insights of wisdom that Zhuangzi has provided to the public
in his life. Many stories are tragic, humorous, and at times very sad. However,
every story has its place, bringing out the best or worst of human emotion.
Every story mentioned in the “Inner Chapters” is meant to teach
the reader by someone else’s experience. The story from chapter 20 of
the Zhuangzi is a prime example on how one person can learn from another’s
mistake, or experience.
The story begins with Zhuang Zhou entering a hunting field, searching for game
in order to satisfy his hunger. A magpie swept across Zhou’s forehead
and drew his attention to it, and he pursued the bird into a different section
of the field. Upon finding where the magpie had settled down, he noticed that
one insect was being hunted by another, and that insect was being hunted by
the magpie. When he realized that the smaller animal was about to be eaten
by the other, he quickly ran away from the scene. In doing so, he escaped a
gamekeeper who was about to chase him away from the restricted preserve Zhuang
had entered. Zhuang, in return, escaped the larger predator that was about
to come after him.
This story, like many other stories that involve Zhuangzi, has a number of
morals and philosophical ideas accompanying it. This story in particular, has
both a negative and positive outcome. Truthfully speaking, what one gets out
of the story is in the eye of the beholder, or reader.
Zhuang Zhou originally left his home in order to satisfy his hunger, which
is something any living creature would do in order to survive. However, when
out on the hunt, he became easily distracted by a remarkable looking bird,
which sparked many emotions of curiosity and bewilderment. Acting on his fascination
with the bird, he strayed from his original task to find a meal, to investigate
where the magpie would land. One could easily say that human curiosity is responsible
for the irrational behavior of someone whom needed to eat. It can also be debated
that he was pursuing the magpie out of greed, be it to eat the bird or to simply
let others marvel at his trophy. Had he been more aware of his surroundings
and not been as distracted by the magpie, he would have realized where he strayed.
When Zhuang Zhou saw the chain of events in front of him, and realized that
he could possibly be next, he escaped just in time to flee from the gamekeeper.
His observation of his surroundings led him to understand the sequence. The
fact he was able to become self-aware of his own personal endangerment, caused
him to flee in time. Though most predators are able to acknowledge their own
personal safety, they don’t take a step back to contemplate on what’s
going about them. Just as humans are faulty and easily strayed from their main
task by a distraction, they are also quick to realize their own mistakes and
compensate.
What one can learn from this story is that people can easily be persuaded away
from their true task, only to realize that they’ve strayed too far, and
can make the attempt to get back on track before its too late. People are easily
persuaded by their own interests and forget what their original intention was.
It can be easily debated whether or not pursuing those interests is what living
is all about, however.
A prime example of Zhuang Zhou’s story coming to life is in the modern
day conflict with Iraq and Middle Eastern countries. It isn’t so much
of a sequence of events, where one predator is going after the other, but rather
constant distractions. The U.S. was interested in finding nuclear weapons in
Iraq and went in to search for them, yet Korea, whose nuclear capabilities
were in plain view, was ignored. It indeed does look like one predator is distracted
by hunting the other while its prey is forgotten. Hopefully the U.S. will be
able to become self aware in time to protect itself as well.
I chose to write about Bian the wheelwright (Zuangzi, Chapter
13). and the discourse that occurs between him and Duke Huan, who is reading
at the top
of the hall, while Bian is chipping away at a wheel on the other end. Bian
questions the duke about what he is reading, and Huan replies that he is reading
the words of a sage.
“Is the Sage alive?” inquires Bian.
“He’s dead,” answers the duke.
“In that case what my lord is reading is the dregs of the men of
old,” comments
Bian.
The Zhuangzi contains many stories about great craftsmen such as the story
of the cook Ding carving the ox. When his lord Wen Hui commends him on the
height of his skill, the servant replies that he has left skill behind him,
saying, “What your servant cares about is the Dao.”
Similarly in the story of Bian and the duke, Bian speaks of a spontaneous indescribable
knack that he has for the making of wheels.
“When I chisel a wheel, he says to the duke, “if the stroke is too slow,
the chisel slides and does not grip; if too fast, it jams and catches in the
wood. Not too slow, not too fast; I feel it in the hand and respond from the
heart, the tongue cannot put it into words, there is a knack in it somewhere
that I cannot convey to my son, and which my son cannot convey from me.”
It appears in both stories that to Zhuangzi, the truly great man is not the
man who has, by a lifetime of study and practice, accumulated a great fund
of virtue and merit, but the man in whom Dao acts without impediment. The people
who know what they really are doing, like Bian and the Cook, do not precede
each move by weighing arguments. They let their focus roam freely and forget
themselves in total absorption of the moment. In this way they spread their
attention over the whole situation, and the trained hand acts spontaneously
and with precision, going by “what is inherently so,” something
which is completely impossible to someone who is applying and thinking out
rules. What Zhuangzi is telling us is that the fundamental mistake is in supposing
that life brings us problems that must be formulated into words so that we
can envisage alternatives and find reasons for preferring one over the other.
He is telling us that by the habit of distinguishing alternatives – self
and others, right and wrong, benefit and harm – and the use of reasoning
to judge between them, mankind has stunted his spontaneous abilities, while
all other things move spontaneously and on a course proper to them.
Zhuangzi’s stance of antirationalism derides all claims that reason can
give us certainty. He is saying the only assurances we have or should want
are these unanalyzed knacks and skills and organic processes, or whatever we
do confidently without knowing it. In any case, the man who has attained zhi
(wisdom) has learned this spontaneous aptitude or obedience to Dao, and is
no longer governed by merely external standards.
It appears to me that both the wheelwright and the cook are working in a wu
wei fashion, the true character of which is not mere inactivity but perfect
action because it is action without activity. In other words, it is not action
carried out independently of tian and earth and in conflict with the dynamism
of the whole, but in perfect harmony with the whole. It seems spontaneous and
effortless because it is performed “rightly” in accord with our
nature and our place in the scheme of things. There are no conditions or limits
placed on this by our own desires or actions.
One could argue it took Confucius eighty years to find this spontaneity in
himself and, by my reckoning, many years of the practice of li (ritual propriety),
having worn out the bindings of his copy of the Yijing three times. Confucius
has a whole set of rules to follow, whereas Zhuangzi makes only brief mention
of breathing techniques to be used in meditation. Zhuangzi, of course, was
known to have made fun of Confucius, and I guess that’s what I like about
him, he always goes immediately to the heart of things.
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