Zhuangzi (Chang-Tzu), Chinese Philosopher, Outline and Notes

Zhuangzi

shwong - zee

• (Chang-Tzu)
• another important Daoist thinker though he would not have called himself that
• his highest ideal was tian (heaven, nature)
• contrasts tian with Ren (humanity, benevolence, brotherly love)
• sees tian as natural, ren as artificial
• Dao – the way the world is/goes
  • *in the west, we tend to think of this in static terms, but the Daoist sees it as activity/process
  • the way things go
  • the path – the way humans ought to live
  • the Dao is experience/intuition unshaped by conceptualization
  • conceptualization is artificial – we look for patterns, regularities, and all of this is mind-imposed
  • trying to intellectualize is like trying to stuff it into a cubbyhole
• The Sage
  • sort of wanders aimlessly

• Songzi is not conventional, ch. 1 “the whole world would praise him and he would not be encouraged.”
• “But name is only the guest of reality” - reference to the rectification of names (Kongzi)?
  • Kongzi – names must accurately describe reality
  • a name is not reality because it doesn't really stay
  • pointing out the inadequacy of language and descriptions
    • these come and go
  • names don't live here
  • names are not essentially tied to reality
  • How does language grab onto the world?
    • do things like tables have essences (essential/necessary) natures
    • there is some necessary feature present in all tables that makes the term table apply to all of them now, forever and always
  • naming = conventional activity
    • and the reality that you think you have depicted by naming is just manufactured by you
    • so what you think of reality is just a mess of words
    • this is artificial, unnatural
  • “table” *quotes indicate just talking about the word, not the object
    • “table” is a general term, a property word
    • descriptive
    • it applies to more than one object → there are tables all over the world, in the past, present and future
    • the same as other tables – becomes a familiar object because we compare it to other tables in our experience
    • problem: when thinking of objects falling into various categories, it is easy to overlook individual differences
    • I call this object a table – I categorize it, including it in a class with all other tables, and doing that overlooks what is unique about it
    • that is, the experience of this individual particular table is taken the same as experiences with other tables
    • nothing is ever experienced twice
  • if we could get past the labels, we would appreciate the uniqueness of each experience in each moment → this is reality
  • language that gives us sameness, familiarity, is not reality; language obscures reality
  • you are opposing a familiarity on reality
• this is perhaps a reason why the Dao is ineffable
• your experience of reality is limited by your ability to name
• Allegory of the Butterfly: (last paragraph of Ch. 2) “the transformation of things”
  • Who am I really?
    Butterfly?
    Or Zhuangzi?
  • Possible interpretation:
    • 1. there is one primary/privileged entity that goes through these changes
      • some one thing persisting through changes → entails a continuity
      • which one is primary, 'more real', the human or the butterfly?
      • Many commentators think this is what is going on here
    • 2. there is no persisting individual
      • neither the butterfly nor the Zhuangzi is primary
      • there is no continuity; he is trying to see a continuity that is not present
      • how does one account for sameness of substance through change
      • there is no identity
      • each one is autonomous
      • I really am the butterfly, then I really am the Zhuangzi
      • nonetheless: What is presupposed by the question --
      • something persists through the change – one of these perspectives is privileged/primary
      • suspicion – the Daoist wishes to reject these presuppositions
        • nothing persists
        • there is no primary entity
        • neither privileged perspective
      • it's not so much that Zhuangzi remembers being the butterfly, or otherwise, if there is no subject of change, then what is changing?
        • the butterfly is not changing
        • Zhuangzi is not changing
      • in a sense, one denies change, but there is a constant newness (this is not necessarily a contradiction)
      • there is change, in the sense that there is a succession of discrete events
        the world is constantly new
      • there is no change, no enduring entity which goes through these changes
      • so the world is constantly new and always changeless
    • the Dao is something
    • both of these are the case – everything is constantly new, yet there is no enduring entity to experience the change
  • now, this is supposed to be a guide to virtue
    • How does this help us live?
    • We are constantly becoming new; whatever it is you are now, that is just what you are
    • in ethical terms:
      • you are not limited by your past
      • you are whatever you are now
      • you are not imprisoned by your past
    • so, the sage is someone not fettered by their past – completely free in the moment
    • how is spontaneity possible unless the past is not binding
    • spontaneity = not being tied to your past
    • the Daoist sage is newborn in each instant
  • this is to experience ziran – 'self-so' – to be what you are; you never owe anything
• The “Zero” Perspective
  • not taking any perspective as being privileged
  • the empty center – the empty space in the center of the wheel
  • when the wheel is rotating, the spokes are changing but the hub remains the same
• personal identity – the sameness of a person through change
  • first I was a small boy, then I was a teenager, now I am middle age
  • Zhuangzi is discouraging this view, that there is an enduring entity through change
  • I exist in this moment – be completely what you are now because that is all there is
  • You then and you now is not exactly being you now, because it is the past
• Ethical sense: do not let the past be your master
  • be ziran (self-so)
• Ram Das – book “Be Here Now”
  • be what you are now because that is really all there is

• The Happy Fish: happiness is complete absorption in one's environment
  • wandering (floating) in the water
  • be who (what) you are in the moment
  • be where you are in the moment instead of someplace else
  • this includes thinking yourself in different circumstances
  • mental activity disrupts this in human beings

p. 228 – character Kongzi, on fasting

• emptiness is a fasting of the mind
• Hui says: “I was filled of Hui. Now, it's as if Hui never existed.”
  • Does this suggest Daoism embraces a doctrine of “no-self,” like what we will find in Buddhism?
    • Buddhists think there is no self
  • NO, and here's why:
    • it's as if Hui never existed; if Hui designates the self
    • so 'as if' implies that Hui did exist
  • p. 216 – “we can't see the form of the self. It has essence (qing) underlying truth/fact of a thing vs. its reputation”
  • Hui is a name; Hui is speaking of himself as a name
    • it is your handle in social relationships; name can be a reputation
    • idea is to lose sight of yourself as form, in terms of your “social persona”
  • reinterpreted: 'I was filled with thoughts of myself as a socially defined individual, now it's as if that social persona no longer exists'
    • suppose you are an actor, and you get so wrapped up in your role that you forget it is a role
  • Hui is no longer mindful of Hui
    • of his nature as socially defined, or as he is in terms of his social relationships
• Acting naturally/spontaneously vs. being self-conscious
  • when I think too much about how I appear to others, it takes away from my ability to act naturally
  • in this case, I cannot be spontaneous, authentic, self-so
• and...there must be a self; hence self-so, authentic, spontaneous
  • but you are no longer interfering with your own nature by being too conscious of it
• Insofar as the self is socially defined – we must get past that social awareness of ourselves [self-consciousness] in order to be self-so, at ease, authentic, spontaneous
• maybe Kongzi believed that through cultivation of ritual, one may master ritual and become spontaneous – maybe Zhuangzi and Kongzi had the same end in mind, different means
• 
  
  
• this is a virtuous teaching, and virtue is associated with power – perhaps his understanding of power is economy of effort – wu-wei; getting a lot done
• *a relationship is about having an experience together