Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social ReformerZhuangzi
Religion
Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer
Zhuangzi
Ethics -- China; Philosophy, Chinese
He who would attain to TAO must get rid of the thought of "charity and
duty," of "music and ceremonies," of body and mind. The flowers and the
birds do not toil, they simply live. That is TAO. And for man a state
of indifference and calm, the ἀταραξία not of the sceptic but of the
mystic, a passive reflecting of the Eternal, is the ideal end. "The
perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses
nothing. It receives but does not keep. And thus he can triumph over
matter without injury to himself." (See p. 98.)
It would of course be presumption to attempt to assign a meaning to
TAO, and still more to discover an equivalent in Western thought.
But it may be lawful to say that Heracleitus often speaks of Λόγος
as Chuang Tzŭ speaks of TAO. It is Necessity (ἀνάγκη), or Fate
(εἱμαρμένη), or Mind (γνώμη), or Justice (Δική). In nature it appears
as balance and equipoise; in the State as Law; in man as the universal
Reason, which is _in_ him but not _of_ him. Sometimes it is identified
with the mysterious name of Zeus, which may not be uttered;[49]
sometimes like the Ἀνάγκη of the Greek poets, it is supreme over gods
and men. If it is hard to say what is the relation of TAO to God, it
is not less hard to define the relation of Λόγος to Zeus. To speak of
Chuang Tzŭ and Heracleitus as pantheists is only to say that, so far
as we can translate their language into ours, that name seems less
inappropriate than Theist or Deist. But it is doubtful whether the
distinction between Pantheism and Theism would have been intelligible
to either philosopher, and certain that if they could have understood
it, they would have denied to it reality. Both held the immanence of
the Eternal Principle in all that is. Both taught that the soul is an
emanation from the Divine, and both, though in very different degrees,
seem to teach that a life is perfect in proportion as it becomes one
with that from which it came, and loses what is individual in it.
[49] _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ lxv.
In Chuang Tzŭ, as in all mystics, there is an element of antinomianism.
That "good and evil are the same," may contain a deep truth for the
sage, but "take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong" (p. 31) is,
to say the least, dangerous teaching for the masses. The mystic's
utterances will not bear translation into the language of the world,
and to take them _au pied de la lettre_ can hardly fail to produce
disastrous results. This is why antinomianism always dogs the heels of
mysticism. And this may perhaps help to explain the debased Taoism of
to-day. But of this I know nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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