"The Book of Chuang Tsu"
Very little is known about the supposed figure name Chuang Tsu and that very little is woven into legend. It is said that he lived in the 4th Century BC during the "Warring States Period" in China, a time paralleling the philosophical apex of Chinese Thought. A mystic and a revolutionary, his fables and humour are imaginative and poetic, reflecting a brilliant and original mind.
Influenced by Shamanistic thought and starkly opposed to his Monistic and Confucian context he developed the doctrines of what later came to be known as "Taoism" with rigourous logic. He advocated relativity with regard to all standards and values and stressed that the debunking of human pretension and the re-assertion of the 'natural' as the highest order -"He used contradiction to explode convention." What marks out his work from other thinkers of his time such as Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius) is his insistence on experiencing the Tao as a path to walk, rather than as a term to be explained. Experience is all.
While only the first seven chapters of "The Book of Chuang Tsu" are accepted by scholars as being definitely the work of Chuang Tsu, another twenty six chapters are of questionable origin. Ultimately the book reads like a travelogue, a catch bag, and anthology of stories and incidents, thoughts and reflections which have gathered around the name and personality of Chuang Tsu. An original man. A thinker who broke all the conventions of his time and entered a new stream of thought. "He is truly one of the most original and enjoyable thinkers the world has ever seen".
"What is, is, what is not, is not.
The Tao is made because we walk it,
things become what they are called.
Why is this so? Surely because this is so.
Why is this not so? Surely because this is not so.
Everything has what is innate,
Everything has what is necessary.
Nothing is not something,
nothing is not so.
Therefore, take the stalk of wheat and a pillar
a leper, or a beauty like Hsi-shih,
the great and the insecure,
the cunning and the odd:
all these are alike to the Tao.
In their difference is their completeness;
in their completeness is their difference."
"Heaven and Earth and I were born at the same time, and all life and I are one."
"Calm, detachment, silence, quiet emptiness and action-less action - these are what maintain heaven and earth, the Tao and the Te."
"We can point to the wood that has been burned but when the fire has gone we cannot know where it has gone."
"With regard to what is right and what is wrong. I say not being is being and being is not being...Forget about life, forget about worrying about right and wrong. Plunge into the unknown and the endless and find yourself there!"
"The great way is not named,
The great disagreement is unspoken,
Great benevolence is not benevolent,
Great modesty is not humble,
Great courage is not violent.
"The way" that is clear is not "the way",
Speech which enables argument is not worthy
Benevolence which is ever present does not achieve its goal
Modesty if flouted, fails,
Courage that is violent is pointless."
"The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others. If you look to yourself first and find that there are troubles what use will you be if you try to sort out a dictator?
Do you know where knowledge comes from, or how Virtue (a persons inherent nature) is ruined? Knowledge comes from argument and Virtue is ruined by fame. Struggling for fame, people destroy each other, and knowledge is used for argument. Both of them are used for evil and you should have nothing to do with them."
*Quotes: "Chuang Tsu - Inner Chapters" {Chapter 2 & 4} (Translated by Gia-Fu Fend and Jane English).
*Picture: Eric Lyleson
