Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism P2.Ch05V The Birth of a New Ego

  SUFISM AND TAOISM: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts

by Toshihiko Izutsu 1983

First published 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo
This edition is published by The University of California Press, 1984,
Rev. ed. of: A comparative study of the key philosophical concepts in Sufism and Taoism. 1966-67.

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Contents

Preface by T. Izutsu

Introduction

Part I - Ibn 'Arabi

1 Dream and Reality

II The Absolute in its Absoluteness

III The Self-knowledge of Man

IV Metaphysical Unification and Phenomenal Dispersion

V Metaphysical Perplexity

VI The Shadow of the Absolute

VII The Divine Nam es

VIII Allah and the Lord

IX Ontological Mercy

X The Water of Life

XI The Self-manifestation of the Absolute

XII Permanent Archetypes

XIII Creation

XIV Man as Microcosm

XV The Perfect Man as an Individual

XVI Apostle, Prophet, and Saint

XVII The Magical Power of the Perfect Man

Part II - Lao-Tzii & Chuang-Tzu

I Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu

II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics

III Dream and Reality

IV Beyond This and That

V The Birth of a New Ego

VI Against Essentialism

VII The Way

VIII The Gateway of Myriad Wonders

IX Determinism and Freedom

X Absolute Reversai of Values

XI The Perfect Man

XII Homo Politicus

Part III - A Comparative Reftection 

I Methodological Preliminaries

II The Inner Transformation of Man

III The Multistratified Structure of Reality

IV Essence and Existence

V The Self-evolvement of Existence

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V The Birth of a New Ego

We have seen in what precedes how futile and absurd, in the view of

Chuang-tzii, is the ordinary pattern of thinking typified by the

this-is-'right' -and-that-is-'wrong' kind of discussion. What is the

source of ail these futile verbalizations? Chuang-tzii thinks that it is

to be found in the mistaken conviction of man about himself,

namely, that he himself has (or is) an 'ego', a self-subsistent entity

endowed with an absolute ontological independence. Man tends to

forget that the 'ego' which he believes to be so independent and

absolute is in reality something essentially relative and dependent.

Relative to what? Relative to 'you' and 'them' and ail other things

that exist around himself. Dependent upon what? Dependent upon

Something absolutely superior to himself, Something which

Chuang-tzii calls the Creator, or more literally, the Maker-of-

things.1 Chuang-tzii describes this situation through a parable of

'Shadow and Penumbra'. 2

Penumbra3 once said to Shadow: 'I notice you sometimes walking, but

next moment you are standing still. Sometimes I notice you sitting,

but next moment you are standing up. Why are you so fickle and

unstable?

Shadow replied: It seems tome that (in acting like this) I am simply

dependent upon something (i.e., the body). But that upon which I

depend seems to be acting as it does in dependency upon something

else (i.e., the Creator). So all my activities in their dependency seem

to be the same as the movements of the scales of a snake or the wings

of a cicada.4

How should I know, then, why I act in this way, and why I do not act

in that way?

Chuang-tzii deprives the 'ego' at a stroke of its seeming self- "

subsistence and self-sufficiency. But such a view goes naturally

against the everyday belief and conviction of man about himself.

For according to the everyday view of things the 'ego' is the very

basis and the core of man's existence, without which he would lose

his personality, his persona! unity, and be nothing. The 'ego' is the

point of co-ordination, the point of synthesis, at which all the

disparate elements of his personality, whether physical or mental,

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The Birth of a New Ego 333

become united. The 'ego' thus understood is called by Chuang-tzii

the 'mind'. 5

I think it proper to introduce at this point a pair of key terms which

seem to have played a decisive rôle in the formation of the main

lines of thought of Chuang-tzii conceming the nature of the mind:

tso ch'ih6 lit. 'sitting-galloping' and tso wang1 lit. 'sitting-forgetting'.

The first of them, tso ch'ih, refers to the situation in which the

mind of an ordinary person finds itself, in constant movement, going

this way at this moment and that way at the next, in response to

myriad impressions coming from outside to attract its attention and

to rouse its curiosity, never ceasing, to stop and rest for a moment,

even when the body is quietly seated. The body may be sitting still

but the mind is running around. It is the human mind in such astate

that the word hsin (Mind) designates in this context. It is the exact

opposite of the mind in a state of cairn peaceful concentration.

It is easy to understand conceptually this opposition of the two

states of the mind, one 'galloping around' and the other 'sitting still

and void'. But it is extremely difficult for ordinary men to free

themselves actually from the dominance of the former and to realize

in themselves the latter. But in truth, Chuang-tzii teaches, man

himself is responsible for allowing the Mind to exercise such a

tyrannical sway over him, for the tyranny of the Mind is nothing else

than the tyranny of the' ego' - that false 'ego' which, as we have seen

above, he creates for himself as the ontological center of his person-

ality. Chuang-tzii uses a characteristic expression for this basic

situation of man: shih hsin or 'making the Mind one's own

teacher' .8

The 'ego', thus understood, is man's own creation. But man clings

to it, as if it were something objective, even absolute. He can never

imagine himself existing without it, and so he cannot abandon it for

a moment; thus he makes out of his Mind his venerated 'teacher'.

This Mind, on a more intellectual level, appears as Reason, the

faculty of discursive thinking and reasoning. Sometimes Chuang-

tzii calls itch'êng hsin or'finished mind' .9 The 'finished mind' means

the mind which has taken on a definitely fixed form, the mind in a

state of coagulation, so to speak. It is the Reason by whose guidance

-here again we corne across the expression: 'making the Mind the

teacher' - man discriminates between things and passes judgments

on them, saying 'this is right' and 'that is wrong', etc., and goes on

falling ever deeper into the limitless swamp of absurdities.

Everybody follows his own 'finished mind' and venerates it as his own

teacher. In this respect we might say no one lacks a teacher. Those

who know the reality of the unceasingly changing phenomena and

accept (this cosmic law of Transmutation) as their standard (of

334 Sufism and Taoism

judgment) are not the only people who have their teachers. (ln the

above-mentioned sense) even an idiot has his own teacher. lt is

impossible for a man to insist on the distinction between 'right' and

'wrong' without having a 'finished mind'. This is as impossible as a

man departing (from a northern country) to-day and arriving in the

country of Yüeh (in the southern limit of China) yesterday! 10

Thus we see that all the pseudo-problems concerning the 'right' and

'wrong' or 'good' and 'bad', whose real nature was disclosed in the

preceding chapter, arise from man's exercising his own 'fi.nished

mind'. The Mind, according to Chuang-tzu, is the source and origin

of all human follies.

This idea of the Mind is shared by Lao-tzu, although his approach is

a little different from Chuang-tzu's. That the idea itself is basically

the same will immediately be perceived if one reads carefully, for

example, Ch. XLIX of the Tao Tê Ching. Interestingly enough,

Lao-tzu in this passage uses the term ch'ang hsin, 11 i.e., 'constant or

unchangeable mind'. The term reminds us of Chaung-tzu's ch'ëng

hsin 'fi.nished mind'. By ch' ang hsin Lao-tzu designates a rigidly

fi.xed state of mind deprived of all natural ftexibility, or as he likes to

say, the state of the mind that has lost the natural 'softness' of an

infant. As the passage quoted shows, this unnatural rigidity of the

mind is typically manifested in the distinguishing and discriminating

activity of the mind which perceives everywhere 'good' and 'bad',

'right' and 'wrong' and regards these categories as something objec-

tive and absolute.

For Lao-tzu, it is not simply a matter of one's becoming partial,

prejudiced, and bigoted. In his view the exercise of this fonction of

the mind affects the very core of human existence. lt is a question of

the existential crisis of man. Man stands in a woeful predicament

because he is - almost by nature, one would say - so made that he

directs the activity of his mind toward distinguishing and dis-

criminating things from one another.

The 'sacred man' has no rigidly fixed mind of his own. He makes the

minds of all people his mind. 12 (His principle is represented by the

dictum): 'Those who are good 1 treat as good. But even those who are

not good 1 also treat as good. (Such an attitude 1 take) because the

original nature of man is goodness. Those who are faithful 1 treat as

faithful. But even those who are not faithful 1 also treat as faithful.

(Such an attitude 1 take) because the original nature of man is

faithfulness.'

Thus the 'sacred man', while he lives in this world, keeps his mind

wide open and 'chaotifies' 13 his own mind toward all.

The ordinary men strain their eyes and ears (in order to distinguish

between things). The 'sacred man', on the contrary, keeps his eyes

and ears (free) like an infant. 14

'W ·11···

The Birth of a New Ego 335

Lao-tzu sometimes uses the wordchih 15 , 'knowing', to designate the

discriminating activity of the mind here in question. But caution is

needed in understanding this word, because for Lao-tzu it is not the

act of 'knowing' itself that is blameful; its blamefulness is con-

ditiàned by the particular way in which 'knowing' is exercised and

by the particular objects toward which it is directed.

The kind of' knowing' which is wrong in the eyes of Lao-tzu is the

same distinguishing and discriminating activity of intelligence as the

one which we have seen is so bitterly denounced by Chuang-tzu.

Unlike Chuang-tzu, however, who develops this idea on a logical

level as a problem of dialectics, taking his examples from the discus-

sions on 'right' and 'wrong' as he observes them among the Dialecti-

cians of his day, Lao-tzu is prone to consider the disastrous effects of

this type of 'knowing' on a more practical level. He draws attention

to the evaluational attitude which is the most immediate result of

the 'distinguishing' activity of the mind. Here the this-is-' right' -

and-that-is-'wrong' is nota logical problem. lt is a matter of practi-

cal evaluation. And as such it is directly connected with the concrete

facts of life. 'Knowing' understood in this sense, is denounced

because it disturbs the minds of the people in an unnecessary and

wrong way. And the disturbance of the mind by the perception of

values, positive and negative, is regarded by Lao-tzu as wrong and

detrimental to human existence because it tempts it away from its

real nature, and ultimately from the Way itself. In the following

passage, 16 the wordchih, 'knowing', is evidently used in this sense.

If (the ruler) does not hold the (so-called) wise men in high esteem,

the people will (naturally) be kept away from vain emulation. If (the

ruler) does not value goods that are hard to obtain, the people will be

kept away from committing theft. If (the ruler) does not display

things which are liable to excite desires, the minds of the people will

be kept undisturbed.

Therefore, the 'sacred man' in governing the people empties their

minds, 17 while making their bellies full; weakens their ambitions 18

while rendering their bones strong.

In this way, he keeps his people always in the state of no-knowledge 19

and no-desire, so that the so-called 'knowers' 20 might find no occa-

sion to interfere.

The baneful influence of the discriminating activity of the Mind is so

powerful that even a modicum of it is liable at any moment to make

man deviate from the Way.

If 1 happen to have even a modicum of'knowing', 1 would be in grave

danger of going astray even if 1 am actually walking on the main road

(i.e., the Way). The main road is level and safe, but men tend to

choose narrow by-ways. 21

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336 Sufism and Taoism

However, it is not 'knowing' itself that is so baneful; the quality of

'knowing' depends upon the particular abjects on which it is exer-

cised. The 'knowing', when its usual tendency of turning toward the

outside and seeking after externat abjects is curbed and brought

back toward the inside, transforms itself into the highest form of

intuition, 'illumination' (ming).

He who knows others (i.e., external objects) is a 'clever' man, but he

who knows himself is an 'illumined' man. 22

It is significant that here we corne across exactly the same word,

ming 'illumination', which we encountered in the Chuang-tzu. 1t is

also very significant that in the passage just quoted the 'illumina-

tion' is directly connected with man's knowledge of himself. 23 It

evidently refers to the immediate and intuitive knowledge of the

Way. It is described as man's 'self-knowledge' or 'self-knowing',

because the immediate intuitive grasp of the Way is only obtainable

through man's 'turning into himself'.

Certainly, according to the view of Lao-tzü and Chuang-tzü, the

Way is all pervading. It is everywhere in the world; the world itself is

a self-manifestation of the Way. In this sense, even 'externat' things

are actually manifesting the Way, each in its own way and own form.

But man alone in the whole world of Being is self-conscious. That is

to say, man alone is in a position to grasp the Way from inside. He

can be conscious of himself as a manifestation of the Way. He can

feel and touch within himself the palpitating life of the Absolu te as it

is actively working there. He can in-tuit the Way. But he is unable to

in-tuit it in externat objects, because he cannot go into the 'inside' of

the things and experience their manifestation of the Way as his own

subjective state. At least the first subjective persona! encounter

with the Way must be made within himself.

For this purpose the centrifugai tendency of the mind must be

checked and turned to the opposite direction; it must be made

centripetal. This drastic turning of direction is described by Lao-tzü

as 'closing' up all the openings and doors' of the body. By obstruct-

ing all the possible outlets for the centrifugai activity of the mind,

man goes down deep into his own mind until he reaches the very

existential core of himself.

This existential core of himself which he finds in the depth of his

mind may not be the Way perse, because after all it is an individual-

ized form of the Way. But, on the other hand, there is no real

distinction or discrepancy between the two. Lao-tzü expresses this

state of affairs symbolically by calling the Way perse the Mother,

and the Way in its individualized form the Child. He who knows the

Child, knows by that very knowledge the Mother herself.

In the passage which 1 am going to quote,24 the importance of the

The Birth of a New Ego 337

'closing up of all the openings and doors' is emphasized as the sole

means by which man can corne to know the Child, and through the

Child, the Mother. And the ultimate state thus attained is referred

to by the term 'illumination'. It may be pointed out that the Child

(tzu )25 which in this understanding represents an individualized

duplicate of the Mother (mu), 26 is nothing other than what Lao-tzü

calls elsewhere Virtue (te) - or perhaps more strictly, an individual

embodiment of the Way having as its existential core the creative

and vital force, which is the Way itself as distributed among the 'ten

thousand things'. As we shall see la ter, this creative and vital force

of each individual, existent as an individual determination of the

Way, is called by Lao-tzü 'Virtue' .27

All things under Heaven have a Beginning which is to be regarded as

the Mother of all things. 28

If you know the 'mother', you thereby know her 'child'. And if, after

having known the' child', you go back to the Mother and hold fast to

Her, you will never fall into a mistake till the very end of your life.

Block the openings, shut the doors (i.e., stop the normal functioning

of the sense organs and the usual centrifugai activity of the Mind),

and all through your life you (i.e., your spiritual energy) will not be

exhausted.

If, on the contrary, you keep the openings wide open, and go on in-

creasing their activities till the end of your life, you will not be saved.

To be able to perceive the minutest thing (i.e., the supra-sensible

thing, which is the Child of the Way within yourself) is properly to be

called Illumination. To hold on to what is soft and flexible (i.e.,

abandoning the rigidity of the Mind enslaved by the 'essential' dis-

tinctions among things and accepting 'softly' ail things in their real

state of mutual transformations) is properly to be called strength.

If, using your externat light, you go back to your internai Illumina-

tion, you will never bring misfortune upon yourself. Such an (ulti-

mate) state is what is to be called 'stepping into the eternally real' .29

The 'closing up all openings and doors' means, as 1 have indicated

above, stopping the functioning of all the organs of sense perception

in the first place, and then purifying the Mind of physical and

material desires. This is made clear by our comparing the passage

just quoted with XII which reads:

The five colors (i.e., the primary colors: white, black, blue, red and

yellow) make man's eyes blind. The five musical notes make man's

ears deaf. The five fl.avors (i.e., sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter)

make man's taste dull. (Garnes like) racing and hunting make man's

mind run mad. Goods that are hard to obtain impede man's right

conduct.

Therefore the 'sacred man' concentrates on the belly (i.e., endeavors

to develop his inner core of existence) and does not care for the eye

338 Sufism and Taoism

(i.e., does not follow the dictates of his senses). Verily he abandons

the latter and chooses the former.

The 'sacred man' cares for the belly and does not care for the eye,

because he is aware that the centrifugai activity of the Mind does

nothing other than lead him away frnm the Way. The Way is there in

his own 'inside' in the most concrete and palpable form. The further

one goes toward 'outside', the less he is in touch with the Absolute.

What one should try to do is to 'stay at home' and not to go

outdoors.

Without going out of the door, one can know everything under

Heaven (i.e., the reality of all things). Even without peeping out of

the window, one can see the working of Heaven. The further one

goes out, the less one knows.

Therefore the 'sacred man' knows without going out. He has a clear

view of everything30 without looking. He accomplishes everything

without acting. 31

The passages which have now been quoted from the Tao Tê Ching

concern the epistemological aspect of the problem of the Way; the

problem, namely, of how and in what way man can 'intuit' the

Absolute. The answer given by Lao-tzu is, as we have seen, that the

only possible way for man to take in order to achieve this aim is to

obstruct totally the centrifugai tendency of bis own mind and to

replace it by a centripetal activity leading ultimately to

'illumination'.

Lao-tzu, however, is not so much concerned with the epis-

temological process itself by which man cultivates such an 'inner

eye' as with the result and effect of this kind of intuition. Indeed, he

usually starts his argument precisely from the point at which such a

process reached completion. Two things are his main concern. One

is the practical and visible effect produced by the illuminative

intuition on the basic attitude and behavior of man. How does the

'sacred man' act in the ordinary situations of social life? That is one

of bis primary problems. This problem will be dealt with in a later

chapter devoted to a discussion of the concept of the Perfect Man.

The second of Lao-tzu' s main problems is the metaphysical struc-

ture of the world of Being, with the Way as the very source and basis

of all things. Here again the epistemological aspect of the problem is

either almost totally discarded or simply hinted at in an extremely

vague way. Lao-tzu is more interested to describe the ontological

process by which the Way as the absolutely Unknown-Unknowable

goes on making itself gradually visible and determined until finally it

reaches the stage of the infinite Multiplicity of the phenomenal

world. He also refers to the backward movement of all things, by

which they 'return' to the original state of absolu te Unity.

T

The Birth of a New Ego 339

What is remarkable about this is that all this description of the

ontological process is made from the standpoint of a man who has

already experienced 'illumination', with the eye of a man who

knows perfectly the secret of Being. Chuang-tzii is different from

Lao-tzu in this respect. He is vitally interested in the process which

itself precedes the final stage of 'illumination' and by which the

latter is reached. Chuang-tzu even tries to describe, or at least to

indicate by means of symbolic descriptions, the experiential content

of 'illumination' which he knows is by its very nature ineffable. The

rest of the present chapter and the next will be concerned

specifically with this aspect of the problem, which we might call the

epistemological or subjective side of the Way-experience.

At the outset of this chapter, I drew attention to two cardinal

concepts relating to the subjective side of the Way-experience,

which stand diametrically opposed to each other: tso ch'ih 'sitting-

galloping' and tso wang 'sitting-forgetting'. In the preceding pages

we have been examining mainly the structure of the former concept.

Now it is time we turned to the latter concept.

A man in the state of 'sitting-forgetting' looks so strange and so

different from ordinary men that he is easily recognizable as such by

an outsider-observer. In Bk II of his Book, Chuang-tzu gives a

typical description of such a man. The man here described is Nan

Kuo Tzu Ch'i, or Tzii Ch'i of the Southern Quarter. He is said to

have been a great Sage of Ch'u,32 living in hermitic seclusion in the

'southern quarter'. For Chuang-tzu he was surely a personification

of the very concept of the Perfect Man.

Once Tzu Ch'i of the Southern Quarter sat leaning against a

tabouret.. Gazing upward at the sky, he was breathing deeply and

gently. Completely oblivious of his bodily existence, he seemed to

have lost ail consciousness of 'associates' (i.e., oppositions of 'I' and

'things', or 'ego' and the 'others').

Yen Ch'eng Tzu Yu (one of his disciples), who was standing in his

presence in attendance, asked him, 'What has happened to you,

Master? Is it at ail possible that the body should be made like a

withered tree and the mind should be made like dead ashes? The

Master who is now leaning against the tabouret is no longer the

Master whom 1 used to see leaning against the tabouret in the past!'

Tzu Ch'i replied, 'lt is good indeed that you ask that question,33 Yen!

(1 look different from what 1 have been) because 1 have now lost

myself. 34 But are you able to understand (the real meaning of) this?

Following this introductory remark, the great Master goes on to

describe for the bewildered disciple the state of' having lost the ego',

telling him what is actually experienced in that state. As a result, we

have the very famous vision of the Cosmic Wind, one of the most

1

1.

1;

1

1

1

340 Sufism and Taoism

beautiful and forceful passages in the whole book of Chuang-tzu.

The passage will be given in translation in the following chapter.

Here we have onlv to note that the Master's words: 'I have now lost

myself', refer to other than the state of 'sitting-forgetting'

or 'sitting in oblivion' as opposed to the 'sitting-galloping'.

But what exactly is 'sitting in oblivion'? How can one experience

it at all? This is something extremely difficult-or more properly we

should say, almost absolutely impossible - to explain in words.

Chuang-tzu, however, tries to do so.

In Bk VI he gives his own definition of 'sitting in oblivion'. The

passage reads as follows.

What is the meaning of 'sitting in oblivion'?

It means that ail the members of the body become dissolved, and the

activities of the ears and eyes (i.e., the activities of ail the sense

organs) become abolished, so that the Ihan makes himself free from

both form and mind (i.e., both bodily and mental 'self-identity'), and

becomes united and unified with the All-Pervader (i.e., the Way

which 'pervades' ail). This is what 1 call 'sitting in oblivion' .35

Externally, or physically, all the parts of the body become 'dissol-

ved' and forgotten. That is to say, the consciousness of the bodily

'ego' is made to disappear. lnternally, all mental activities are

'abolished'. That is to say, there no longer remains the conscious-

ness of the inner 'ego' as the center and all-unifying principle of

man's mental activity. The result of this total 'forgetting' of the

inside and outside of the 'I' is called by Chuang-tzu hsÜ,36 the Void,

or a spiritual-metaphysical state in which there is nothing what-

soever to obstruct the all-pervading activity of the Way.

The word 'Void' must not be understood in this context in a

purely negative sense. It does have a positive meaning. And in its

positive aspect, the Void must be connected with the concept of the

All-Pervader which appears in the passage just quoted.

1 have translated the Chinese expression ta t'ung, lit. 'great perva-

sion', as the All-Pervader following the interpretation given by

Ch'êng Hsüan Ying, who identifies ta t'ung with ta tao, the 'great

Way', and says: 'ta t'ung is the same as ta tao; since the Way

pervades all things and enlivens them, it is in this sense entitled to be

called All-Pervader' .37 This interpretation seems to be right, but it

must be supplemented by an understanding of another aspect of the

matter, namely, that in the experience of the spiritual state here in

question, all things in their infinite multiplicity interpenetrate each

Jther freely, without any obstruction, and that the man who has lost

his 'ego' rediscovers in this experience his 'ego' in a totally different

form, reborn as what we might call the Universal, Cosmic, or·

Transcendental Ego which transforms itself freely into all things

that are transforming themselves into each other.

The Birth of a New Ego 341

Such must be the real implication of the use of the particular

expression ta t'ung in place of the more usual word tao, the Way.

The point is brought to light very clearly by Kuo Hsiang who

explains this passage by saying: 'in the "inside" the man has no

consciousness of his own bodily existence; in the "outside" he has

no awareness of the existence of Heaven and Earth. It is only in such

a state that he becomes completely identified with the (cosmic)

process of Change (i.e., "transformations") itself without there

being any obstruction at all. Once in such a state, there can be

nothing he does not freely pervade.' 38

Chuang-tzu himself expresses the same idea in a far more laconic

way:

Being unified, you have no liking. Being transmuted, you have no

fixity. 39

In the light of the explanation that has been given in the preceding,

the meaning of this laconic expression can easily be clarified as

follows. Being completely unified and identified with the Way itself,

the man can have no likes and dislikes. The man in such a spiritual

state transcends the ordinary distinctions between 'right' and

'wrong', 'good' and 'bad'. And since he is now identical with the

Way, and since the Way is constantly manifesting itself in myriad

forms of Being, the man himself is 'being transmuted' from one

thing to another, without there being any obstruction, as if he were

moving around in the great Void. He is not actually in the 'void',

because there are things throbbing with all-pervading Life, appear-

ing and disappearing in infinitely variegated forms. The point is,

however, that in this metaphysical Void these things no longer

present any obstacles to his absolute freedom. For he himself is, in

this state, completely identical with every one of these things,

participating from within in the cosmic flux of Transmutation; or

rather he is the cosmic Transmutation itself. This is what is meant by

the expression: 'you have no fixity' 40 'No fixity' means boundless

flexibility and absolute freedom.

It will be clear from what has preceded that the hsü is both the

metaphysical Void and the spiritual Void. In truth, this very distinc-

tion between 'metaphysical' and 'spiritual' is in this context some-

thing artificial, because the state in question refers to a total and

complete identification of man with the All-Pervader. Theoreti-

cally, however, there is some point in making such a distinction. For

when the question is raised on a more practical level as to what

concretely one should do in order to become so completely

identified with the Way, we have to have recourse to the idea of

making the mind 'void'. Only when one has succeeded in making

342 Sufism and Taoism

the mind completely 'void', does one find oneself in the very midst

of the metaphysical Void. This part of Chuang-tzu's teaching takes

on the form of practical instruction regarding the proper method by

which man can hope to attain to such astate. This method is called

by him 'fasting' or the purification of the Mind.

The purification of the Mind constitutes the pivotai point in the

development of man from the state of an 'ordinary' man to that of

the Perfect Man. An 'ordinary' man can never become a Perfect

Man unless he passes through this turning point. The significance of

this experience will be clear if one remembers what we have seen

above concerning Chuang-tzu's characteristic expression: 'making

the Mind one's own teacher' .41 Man naturally tends to ding to his

Mind - and Reason - and thinks and acts according to its dictates.

Whatever the Mind tells him to believe is absolutely true, and

whatever it commands him to dois absolu tel y good. In other words,

man venerates his own 'ego' as his 'teacher'.

In the light of this observation, the 'purification of the Mind'

means precisely that man should abolish this habit of the 'venera-

tion' of the Mind, that he should cast away his own 'ego'. And that

will mark the first step toward his being transformed into a Perfect

Man.

In an imaginary conversation which Chuang-tzu fabricates with a

view to endorsing his thesis, Confucius -who is here ironically made

into a Taoist sage - teaches his disciple Y en Hui how to proceed in

order to succeed in purifying the Mind.

ln this dialogue, Yen Hui is represented as a zealous disciple who

has desperately strùggled to know the right way to become a Perfect

Man, but in vain. As the final resort, he turns to Confucius and

humbly asks for instruction. The following is the passage.42

Yen Hui:

Confucius:

1 cannot proceed any further. May 1 venture to ask

you to tell me the proper way?

Fast, first. Then 1 will teach you. Do you think it easy

(to see the Truth) while maintaining your Mind? If

anybody does think it easy, the vast and bright

Heaven will not approve of him.

The word translated here as 'fast', chai,43 means the act of 'fasting'

which man practises in the period immediately preceding sacrificial

ceremonies in order to put himself into the state of religious 'purity'.

In the present context, Confucius uses the word not in this original

religious sense, but figuratively in the sense of the 'fasting of the

Mind', that is, the 'purification of the Mind'. Yen Hui, however,

does not understand this, and takes the word in its usual sense. He

imagines that Confucius means by the word the observance of the

T

The Birth of a New Ego 343

ritual fasting which concerns eating and drinking. Hence the follow-

ing ridiculous reply he gives to the Master:

Yen Hui:

Confucius:

Yen Hui:

Confucius:

My family is poor, so much so that 1 have neither

drunk liquor nor eaten garlic and onions for the past

several months. Cannot this be considered fasting?

What you are talking about is the fasting as a ritual

proceeding. That is not the fasting of the Mind.

May 1 ask what you mean by the fasting of the Mind?

Bring all the activity of the Mind to a point of union.

Do not listen with your ears, but listen with the Mind

(thus concentrated).

(Then proceed further and) stop listening with the

Mind; listen with the Spirit (ch'i). 44

The ear (or more generally, sense perception) is

confined to listening45 (i.e., each sense grasps only its

proper objects in a physical way).

The Mind is confined to (forming concepts) corres-

ponding to their external objects.46 The Spirit, how-

ever, is itself 'void' (having no definite proper objects

of its own), and goes on transforming limitlessly in

accordance with the (Transmutation of) things (as

they corne and go). The Way in its entirety cornes

only into the 'void' (i.e., the 'ego-Jess' Mind). Making

the Mind 'void' (in this way) is what 1 mean by the

'fasting of the Mind'.

As 1 pointed out before, hsü, 'void', is a key term of the philosophy

of Chuang-tzü. It represents in this context the subjective attitude

of man corresponding to the very structure of the Way which is itself

a Void. This latter point is very much emphasized by Lao-tzü, as we

shall see in detail in a later chapter which will be devoted to a

discussion of the metaphysics of the Way. Here we are still mainly

concerned with the subjective aspect of the matter. The main idea is

that when a man 'sits in oblivion' with his mind completely 'void',

into this ego-less 'void' all things corne exactly as they are, as they

corne and go in the cosmic process of Transmutation. In su ch astate,

his mind is comparable to a clear mirror which reflects everything

without the slightest distortion or disfigurement.

All this is of course a matter which must be directly experienced;

a mere conceptual understanding is of little help. Yen Hui whose

mind has already been fully ripened - in the anecdote we are now

reading - for this kind of persona! transformation, becomes sud-

denly 'illumined' by the teaching of his Master, and makes the

following observation about himself.

Yen Hui: Before Hui (i.e., 1) received this instruction, Hui was

really nothing but Hui (i.e., 'I' have been my small

'ego', nothing else). However, now that 1 have

11,

11

344

Confucius:

Sufism and Taoism

received this instruction, 1 have realized that from the

very beginning there never was (an 'ego' called) Hui.

Is this state worthy to be considered the 'void' (which

you have just spoken of)?

So it is, indeed!

Then Confucius contrasts this state with the state of 'sitting-

galloping', and goes on to describe the former by comparing it to a

firmly closed empty room which mysteriously and calmly illumines

itself with a white light of its own.47

Look into that closed room and see how its empty 'interior' produces

bright whiteness. Ail blessings of the world corne in to reside in that

stillness.48

If, on the contrary, (your Mind) does not stand still, you are in the

state of what 1 would call 'sitting-galloping'.

But if a man turns his ears and eyes toward the·'interior', and puts his

Mind and Reason in the 'exterior' (i.e., nullifies the normal function-

ing of the Mind and Reason), even gods and spirits corne to reside

freely (in his ego-less 'interior') not to speak of men. This is the

Transmutation of ten thousand things.49

The last sentence represents one of the cardinal points of Chuang-

tzu' s metaphysics. The peculiar meaning of the key term hua has

been explained above. What is important here to note is that in the

passage just quoted, the hua, Transmutation, is evidently described

as a subjective state of man, as something that occurs in his

'interior'. Rather, his 'interior' is the Transmutation of the ten

thousand things, that is, of all the phenomenal things and events of

the world. The man in the state of perfect 'sitting in oblivion' does

experience subjectively, as his persona! experience, the Transmuta-

tion of all things.

The whole matter may be reformulated more theoretically in terms

of the process of the spiritual development of man toward

illumination.

In ordinary human experience, the constant flux and reflux of

infinitely changing phenomena are in the position of the Lord. They

positively act upon man, influence him, push him around, and bind

him up. In such a situation man is a servant or slave. His mind

becomes tom asunder and runs in all directions in pursuit of

chameleonic forms of things and events.

Once man frees himself from this bandage and transcends the

common pattern of experience, the scene before his eyes takes on a

completely different appearance. The kaleidoscopic view is still

there. The things and events still continue their changes and trans-

formations as before. The only essential difference between the two

The Birth of a New Ego 345

stages is that in the second all these things and events that go on

appearing and disappearing are calmly reflected in the polished

mirror of the man's 'interior'. The man himself is no longer involved

in the hustle and bustle of incessantly changing phenomena.

The man at this stage is a cairn observer of things, and his mind is

like a polished mirror. He accepts everything as it cornes into his

'interior', and sees it off, unperturbed, as it goes out of sight. There

is for him nothing to be rejected, but there is nothing wilfully to be

pursued either. He is, in short, beyond 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and

'wrong'.

A step further, and he reaches the stage of 'undifferentiation',

where, as we saw earlier, all things become 'chaotified'. On this level

there still are things. But these things show no limits and borderlines

separating them 'essentially' from one another. This is the stage of

the cosmic Transmutation. lt goes without saying that in its subjec-

tive aspect, the Transmutation represents a spiritual stage of the

man himself.

As a result of the 'fasting of the Mind', the man is now completely

'ego-less'. And since he is 'ego-less' he is one with the 'ten thousand

things'; he becomes the 'ten thousand things'. And he himself goes

on changing with the infinite change of all things. He is no longer a

cairn 'observer' of the changing things. He is the subject of the

Transmutation. A complete and perfect harmony is here realized

beween the 'interior' and the 'exterior'; there is no distinction

between them.

Borrowing the terminology of Ibn 'Arabi we might say that the

man on this high level of spiritual development is subjectively

placed in the position of the Unity of Existence (wahdah al-wujüd),

and personally experiences the whole world of Being in that posi-

tion. The situation is described by Chuang-tzu in the following

way:s•

Dying and being alive, being subsistent and perishing, getting into a

predicament and being in the ascendant, being poor and being rich,

being clever and being incompetent, being disgraced and being hon-

ored, being hungry and thirsty, suffering from cold and heat - all

these are but constant changes of (phenomenal) things, and results of

the incessant working of Fate.

Ali these things go on replacing one another before our own eyes, but

no one by his Intellect can trace them back to their real origin.

However, these changes are not powerful enough to disturb (the man

who 'sits in oblivion' because he is completely one with the Transmu-

tation itself), nor can they intrude into the 'innermost treasury' 52 (of

such a man).

On the contrary, he main tains (his 'innermost treasury') in a peaceful

harmony with (all these changes) so that he becomes one with them

without obstruction, and never !oses his spiritual delight.

346 Sufism and Taoism

Day and night, without ceasing, he enjoys being in spring-tide with all

things. Mingling with (the infinitely changing things on a supra-

sensible level of existence) he goes on producing within his 'interior'

the 'time' 53 (of the world).

Such astate 1 would call the perfection (i.e., perfect actualization) of

the human potentiality .54

When a man attains to this height of spiritual development, he fully

deserves the title of Perfect Man. This, however, is not the last and

ultimate stage of 'sitting in oblivion'. There is a still higher stage

beyond. That is the stage of 'no more Death, no more Life'.

Chuang-tzu sometimes calls it the 'extreme limit (chih )' 55 of know-

ledge (chih). 56 At this last stage, the man is completely unified not

with the ever changing 'ten thousand things' - as was the case when

he was in the previous stage - but with the' Mystery of Mysteries' ,57

the ultimate metaphysical state of the Absolute, at which the latter

bas not yet corne down to the sphere of universal Transmutation.

The man is here so completely one with the Way that he bas not

even the consciousness of being one with the Way. The Way at this

stage is not presentas the Way in the consciousness of the man. And

this is the case because there is no 'consciousness' at all anywhere,

not even a trace of it. The 'oblivion' is complete. And the actualiza-

tion of such a perfect 'oblivion' is to be accounted for in reference to

the metaphysical fact that the ultimate Absolu te, the Way, is in its

absolute absoluteness Something which one cannot call even 'some-

thing'. Hence the usual custom in oriental philosophies of referring

to the Absolu te as Nothing.

The stages of the above-described spiritual development of 'sitting

in oblivion' are variously discussed by Chuang-tzu in several places

of bis book. Sometimes he takes an ascending course, and some-

times a descending course. The former corresponds to the real

process by which the mind of a man gradually proceeds toward

spiritual perfection. A typical example of this type of description is

found in a passage 58 which daims to reproduce a conversation

between a certain Nan Po Tzu K'uei and a Perfect Man (or

Woman?) called Nü Yü. In this passage, Chuang-tzu gives a

description of the stages which are traversed by a man who is barn

with a special potentiality to be a Perfect Man until he really

reaches the last stage. The description is very interesting when it is

considered as a Taoist counterpart to the Islamic fana' or

self-annihilation'.

The conversation starts from Nan Po Tzu K'uei's astonishment at

the complexion of old Nü Yü, which, as he observes, is like that of a

child.

The Birth of a New Ego 347

Nan Po Tzu

K'uei:

Nü Yü:

Nan Po:

Nü Yü:

You are old in years, Master, and yet your com-

plexion is like that of a child. Why?

(This is because) 1 have corne to know the Way.

Is it possible for me to learn the Way?

No. How could it be possible? You are not the right

kind of man to do so.

You know Pu Liang 1. He had (from the beginning)

the natural potentiality to be a 'sacred man', but he

had not yet acquired the Way, whereas 1 had the Way

but lacked the 'potentiality' .59 1 wanted to give him

guidance to see if, by any chance, he cou Id become a

'sacred man'. Even if 1 should fail to achieve my goal,

it was, (1 thought), easy for a man in possession of the

Way to communicate it to a man in possession of the

potentiality of a 'sacred man'.

Thus 1 persistently taught him. After three days, he

learnt how to put the world outside his Mind.

The 'putting the world outside the Mind' i.e., forgetting the exist-

ence of the world, marks the first stage. The 'world' being some-

thing objective - and therefore relatively far from the Mind - is the

easiest thing for man to erase from his consciousness.

After he had put the world outside himself, 1 con-

tinued persistently to instruct him. And in seven days

he learnt how to put the things outside his Mind.

The 'putting the things outside the Mind' represents the second

stage. Forgetting the existence of the world was not so difficult, but

'things' which are more intimately related with man resist being

erased from the consciousness. As Kuo Hsiang remarks: 'The things

are needed in daily life. So they are extremely close to the ego. This

is why they are so difficult to put outside the Mind' .60 And Ch'êng

Hsüan Ying: 61 'The states of the whole world are foreign and far

removed from us; so it is easy for us to forget them. The things and

utensils that actually serve us in our everyday life are familiar tous;

so it is difficult for us to forget them'.

By forgetting the familiar things that surround us and are con-

nected with us in various ways in daily life, the external world

completely disappears from our consciousness.

After he had put things outside his Mind, 1 still con-

tinued to instruct him. And in nine days he learnt how

to put Life outside the Mind.

This is the third stage. It consists in the man's forgetting Life, that is

to say, erasing from bis consciousness the fact of his own Life, i.e.,

bis own personal existence. This is the stage of dropping the 'ego'.

As a result, the world, bath in its external and internai aspects,

348 Sufism and Taoism

disappears from the consciousness. This stage is immediately fol-

lowed by the next which is the sudden coming of the dawn of

'illumination'.

After he had put Life outside his Mind, (his inner eye

was opened just as) the first light of dawn breaks

through (the darkness of night).

Once this 'illumination' is achieved, there are no more stages to

corne. Or should we say, there are stages to corne, but they do not

corne successively; all of them become actualized simultaneously. If

they are to be considered 'stages', they must be described as hori-

zontal stages which occur at once and all together the moment the

inner eye is opened by the penetrating ray of spiritual daybreak.

The first of such stages is 'perceiving the absolute Oneness'.

The moment the day dawned, he saw the Oneness.

This is the moment when all things and 'I' become absolutely one.

There is no more opposition of subject and abject - the subject that

'sees' and the abject 'seen' being completely unified - nor is there

any distinction between 'this' and 'that', 'existence' and 'non-

existence'. 'I' and the world are brought back to their absolu te

original unity.

And after having seen the Oneness, there was (in his

consciousness) neither past nor present.

At the stage of the absolute Oneness, there is no more conscious-

ness of the distinction between 'past' and 'present'. There is no

more consciousness of 'time'. We may describe this situation in a

different way by saying that the man is now in the Eternal Now. And

since there is no more consciousness of ever-ftowing 'time', the man

is in the state of 'no Death and no Life'.

After having nullitied past and present, he was able to

enter the state of 'no Death and no Life'.

The state of 'no Death and no Life' can be nothing other than the

state of the Absolute itself. The man at this stage is situated in the

very midst of the Way, being identified and unified with it. He is

beyond Life and Death, because the Way with which he is one is

beyond Life and Death.

The state of the Way or the Absolute, however, is not simply

being beyond Life and Death. As is clearly shown by the very

epistemological process by which man finally attains toit, this state

is not sheer 'nothing-ness' in the purely negative sense. lt is rather

the ultimate metaphysical state, the absolu te Unity, to which the

dispersion of the ontological Multiplicity is brought back. lt is a

-...,,. r.':

!J'

The Birth of a New Ego 349

Unity formed by the unification of 'ten thousand things', a Unity

in which all the things are existent, reduced to the state of

Nothing-ness.

There is 'no Death and no Life' here. That is to say, it is astate of

complete Tranquillity and Stillness. There is no more even a trace of

the noise and fuss of the world of sensible existence. And yet

Stillness is not the stillness of Death. There is no more movement

observable. But it is not a state of non-movement in a purely

negative sense. lt is rather a dynamic non-movement, full of inter-

nai ontological tensions, and concealing within itself infinite pos-

sibilities of movement and action.

Thus it is, in both of the aspects just mentioned, a coincidentia

oppositorum. The Absolu te, in this view, is Something which goes

on realizing and actualizing 'ten thousand things' in their myriad

forms and transforming them in a limitless process of Transmuta-

tion, and yet at the same time keeping all these things in their

supra-temporal and supra-spatial Unity. lt is a Unity which is itself a

Multiplicity. lt is Stillness which is itself Ebullition.

In the end of the passage Chuang-tzu refers to this aspect of the

Way in the following words.

That which kills Life does not die. 62 That which brings to Life every-

thing that lives does not live. 63 By its very nature it sends off every-

thing, and welcomes everything. There is nothing that it does not

destroy. There is nothing that it does not perfect. It is, in this aspect,

called Commotion-Tranquillity. 64 The name Commotion-

Tranquillity refers to the fact that it (i.e., the Way) sets (ail things) in

turmoil and agitation and then leads them to Tranquillity.

We must keep in mind that at this highest stage of spirituality, the

man is completely unified and identified with the Way. Sin ce, how-

ever, the Way is nothing other than Commotion-Tranquillity, the

man who is in complete union with the Way, goes through this

cosmic process of the absolute Unity being diversified in turmoil

and agitation into 'ten thousand things', and the latter going back

again to the original state of Tranquillity. The ontology of Taoism is

an ontology which is based upon such an experience. lt would be

naturai for us to imagine that the view of Being in the spiritual eyes

of a Taoist sage will be of an essentially different nature and struc-

ture from that of an Aristotle, for example, who founds his

philosophical edifice upon the ordinary ontological experience of an

average man looking at the world around him at the level of sound

and solid common sense. The most natural standpoint of

philosophers of the latter kind is essentialism. In ancient China, the

essentialist standpoint is represented by Confucius and his school.

Both Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzü take a determined position against it.

1

11

350 Sufism and Taoism

The next chapter will be devoted to an elucidation of this particular

point.

Notes

1. tsao wu chê VII, p. 280). The name designates the Way in its 'personal'

aspect. This aspect of the Way is referred to also by the na me Great Lord, ta shih ::kMî.

The word Heaven, t'ien 7( is also sometimes used with the same meaning. More

details will be given la ter when we discuss the concept of' determinism' (Cha p. IX).

2. Il, pp. 110-111.

3. is explained by Kuo Hsiang as r 'faint darkness surrounding the

shadow'.

4. The scales of a snake and the wings of a cicada have no independence in their

movements. On the contrary ail their movements are dictated by the snake and the

cicada respectively.

5. hsin •Ü.

6. {fit!!. The word appears in an important passage (IV, p. 150) which will be given

in translation presently.

7.

8. rm.c.- , IV, p. 145.

9. nltL, , II, p. 56. My interpretation of this word is based on that given by Kuo

Hsiang and Ch'êng Hsüan Ying. The latter says:

::;l::;Mi:fl!Htti.Z.·C.., (p. 61). Sorne commen-

tators (like Lin Hsi for instance, in his famous lftî· t:.l ) interpret the word in

the opposite sense, as the inborn, naturally given mind, which is the mind in its

celestial purity. But this latter interpretation does not, I think, do justice to the basic

thought of Chuang-tzu on this problem.

10. ibid.

11. #ù. The word ch'ang is an ambiguous term in the Tao Tê Ching, because

Lao-tzu uses it in two diametrically opposed meanings. Sometimes - as is the case

with the usage of the word in this passage - it means 'unflexible', 'rigidly fixed', which

is the worst possible state of things in the philosophy of Lao-tzu. Sometimes -

particularly in many of the passages of primary importance, as we shall see la ter- it is

used in the sense of 'never-changing', 'eternal', and 'absolute'.

12. Having no 'fixed mind' of his own, he accepts everything, whether 'good' or

'bad'; rather, he does not distinguish between 'good' and 'bad'.

13. hun rlfi, a characteristic word, whose meaning has been explained in an earlier

passage in connection with Chuang-tzu's concept of the 'chaotification' of things.

14. XLIX.

r

The Birth of a New Ego 351

15.

16. Tao Tê Ching, III.

1 7. hsin ù, the discriminating activity of the intellect, the natural tendency of the

Mind toward gaining 'knowledge'.

18. chih -;t, that aspect of the Mind, which manifests itself in insatiably desiring

more and more.

19. wu chih 1!0u.

20. chih chê, ?:ll:Z lit. 'knowing men', those men who daim to know the reality of

things; who, therefore, are convinced that they are capable of giving the best advice

on every important matter of human life.

21. Liii.

22. XXXIII.

23. We are reminded of the Islamic adage: Man 'ara/a nafsa-hu 'ara/a rabba-hu 'He

who knows himself knows his Lord', which, as we saw in the first Part of this study,

plays an important rôle in the philosophy of Ibn 'Arabî.

24. LII.

25. 7.

26. a.

27. That the word tê here translated as Virtue, is one of the most important of alI

the key terms of Lao-tzu, will be seen from the very fact that the Book itself is known

by the title Tao Tê Ching, i.e., the 'Canonical Book of the Way and the Virtue'.

28. 'Ali things under Heaven' represent the Multiplicity of the phenomenal world,

while the Beginning is the Unity as their ultimate ontological origin and source.

29. hsi ch'angW#. For the meaning of the word ch'ang #, see above, note (11). The

word hsi means 'step into', 'enter', here in the mystical sense of the 'inner' grasp of a

thing, in-tuition. The word is used in XXVII in a very characteristic combination: hsi

ming, 4'§f1, 'stepping into illumination'.

30. i'l. The word is here the same as JYJ- both having the same pronunciation. As

quoted by Han Fei Tsu ( we see §.F1 actually used in this passage ( 'f .R.ffiïlfü ).

31. XLVII.

32. 1i!. On the relevance of his being a man of Ch'u to the whole topic of the present

study, see above, Chap. 1.

33. i.e., I am glad that you are keen enough to notice the difference.

34. i.e., I have lost my 'ego' and have stepped into the state in which there is no more

distinction between 'ego' and 'things'. Lin Hsi I says in his commentary: As

11111

352 Sufism and Taoism

long as there is 'ego' there are' things'. But when 1 Jose my 'ego', there is no' I'. And

since there is no 'I', there are no 'objects'. (ltFfi::il'ii;ad Loc.)

35. VI, p. 284.

36. ri1lt; cf. Ch'êng Hsüan Ying: lftfl:f-$t;lfiî, p. 285.

37. l::ki!Jft::kmm. p. 285.

38. p. 285.

39. ibid.

40. The word used here for 'fixity' is ch'ang whose double meaning has been

explained above; see notes 11 and 29.

41. See above, Chap. IV.

42. IV, pp. 146-148.

43 .•.

44. The word has already been explained before, Ch. II, Note 19. lt is a

proto-material and formless cosmic 'reality' which pervades the whole world of

Being and which constitutes the ontological core of every single thing, whether

animale or in-animale. Man is, of course, no exception to this. Thus man, on the level

of the ch'i is homogeneous with ail things as well as with the universe itself. Man

cannot 'listen with the ch'i,,' unless he has been completely unified with the universe.

The 'ego' which listens, i.e., perceives, with the ch'i is no longer an ordinary epis-

temological 'subject'; it is the Cosmic Ego.

45. The text reads: 112.Ll:liUf-J, 'listening stops with the ears', which gives but a poor

meaning. Following Yü Yüeh ( fit<W) I read ( cf.:E9ëif ad [oc.).

46. i.e., the Mind is confined to elaborating the images received from the sense

organs and fabricating out of them concepts that correspond to external objects

which are fixed once for ail in terms of' essences'. It cannot identify itself, with infini te

flexibility, with each of the infinitely varying phenomenal forms of 'reality'.

47. IV, p. 150.

48. The repetition of the word 11:: inlâiiî'f.Ll:.Ll:J is a little difficult to account for. Yü

Yüeh simply disposes of the second as a scribal error on the ground that the

sentence as quoted in other books does not have it. ( 1.Ll:.Ll:jl)(, nim r J- ff'iiJUl-fl' . âiiî'f.Ll: -&J. il 11tx-r m•m:J[;tt

17ff J-xllîilMi-B 1:.13, âiiif.Ll:lÇJ However, the second

.Ll: can very well be understood also in the sense of 'stillness' or 'no-motion' as

I have done following Ch'eng Hsüan Ying who says: ll,,Z.tl'.

p. 151.

49. ftJ, 'The hua of ten thousand things'.

50. In doing this, I shall strictly follow Chuang-tzü's own description which he gives

in Bk. II, p. 74. The passage itself will be given in translation at the outset of the

following chapter.

The Birth of a New Ego

51. V, p. 212.

353

52. ling ftt,1!/ff the most secret part of the heart which is the central locus of ail

spiritual activity.

53. i.e. he goes on experiencing within himself, without being perturbed, the alter-

nation of the four seasons, which is the' time' of ail phenomenal things. That is to say

he is completely one with ail things which are in the incessant process of

transformation.

54. ts'ai ch'üan :t:it, one of the key terms of Chuang-tzü. It means the natural human

ability brought to the highest degree of perfection.

55.

56. 9:D II, p. 74,

57. Hsüan chih yu hsüan l:tZ.3Z..:tJ, the expression is from the Tao Tê Ching. It

denotes the Way, but with a peculiar connotation which will be explained in the

chapter concerning the concept of Way.

58. VI, pp. 252-253.

59. i.e., I had not the 'ability' or 'potentiality' to become a Perfect Man; I had

'actually' the Way from the very beginning.

60. J1Jôllfü, p. 253.

61. JWUlUAJ, p. 254.

62. The Way brings everything existent to naught. But if it brings everything to

naught and death, it must itself be something beyond Death.

63. Since the Way brings into existence everything that exists, it must itself be

something that transcends Life, i.e., Becoming.

64. Ying ning lt is one of the key terms of Chuang-tzü. According to Ch'êng

Hsüan Ying, ying means 'commotion', 'agitation', and ning 'tranquillity', 'stillness'

{IJl{llbi!1, p. 255).

Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism P2.Ch03III Dream and Reality

 SUFISM AND TAOISM: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts

by Toshihiko Izutsu 1983

First published 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo
This edition is published by The University of California Press, 1984,
Rev. ed. of: A comparative study of the key philosophical concepts in Sufism and Taoism. 1966-67.

=====

Contents

Preface by T. Izutsu

Introduction

Part II - Lao-Tzii & Chuang-Tzu

I Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu

II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics

III Dream and Reality

IV Beyond This and That

V The Birth of a New Ego

VI Against Essentialism

VII The Way

VIII The Gateway of Myriad Wonders

IX Determinism and Freedom

X Absolute Reversai of Values

XI The Perfect Man

XII Homo Politicus

Part III - A Comparative Reftection 

I Methodological Preliminaries

II The Inner Transformation of Man

III The Multistratified Structure of Reality

IV Essence and Existence

V The Self-evolvement of Existence

===

111 Dream and Reality

In the foregoing chapter we talked about the myth of Chaos, the

primordial undifferentiation which preceded the beginning of the

cosmos. In its original shamanic form, the figure of Chaos as a

featureless monster looks very bizarre, primitive and grotesque.

Symbolically, however, it is of profound importance, for the

philosophical idea symbolized by it directly touches the core of the

reality of Being.

In the view of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the reality of Being is

Chaos. And therein lies the very gist of their ontology. But this

proposition does not mean that the world we live in is simply chaotic

and disorderly as an empirical fact. For the empirical world, as we

daily observe it, is far from being as 'featureless' and' amorphous' as

the face of the bird-monster of the Shan Hai Ching. On the con-

trary, it is a world where we observe man y things that are clearly

distinguishable from one another, each having its peculiar 'name',

and each being definitely delineated and determined. Everything

therein has its own place; the things are neatly ordered in a hier-

archy. We live in such a world, and do perceive our world in such a

light. According to the Taoist philosophers, that precisely is

the malady of our Reason. And it is difficult for an ordinary mind

not to see the distinctions in the world. The world, in brief, is not

chaotic.

It will be the first task of a Chuang-tzü to shatter to pieces these

seemingly watertight compartments of Being, allowing us to have a

glimpse into the fathomless depth of primeval Chaos. But this is not

in any way an easy task. Chuang-tzu actually tries many different

approaches. Probably the easiest of them all for us to understand is

his attempt at the 'chaotification' - if we are allowed to coin such a

word - of 'dream' and 'reality'. By a seemingly very simple descrip-

tive and narrative language, he tries to raise us immediately to an

ontological level where 'dream' and 'reality' cease to be distinguish-

able from each other, 1 and merge together into something

'amorphous'.311

The following is a very famous passage in the Chuang-tzü, in

which the sage tries to give us a glimpse of the 'chaotification' of

things: 2

Once, 1, Chuang Chou,3 dreamt that 1 was a butterfty. Flitting about

at ease and to my heart's content, 1 was indeed a butterfty. Happy and

cheerful, 1 had no consciousness of being Chou.

Ali of a sudden 1 awoke, and Io, 1 was Chou.

Did Chou dream that he was a butterfty? Or did the butterfty dream

that it was Chou? How do 1 know? There is, however, undeniably a

difference between Chou and a butterfty. This situation is what 1

would call the Transmutation of things.

The latter half of this passage touches upon the central theme of

Chuang-tzü. In the kind of situation here described, he himself and

the butterfly have become undistinguishable, each having lost his or

its essential self-identity. And yet, he says, 'there is undeniably a

difference between Chou and a butterfly'. This last statement refers

to the situation of things in the phenomenal world, which

ordinarily calls 'reality'. On this level of existence, 'man' cannot be

'butterfly', and 'butterfly' cannot be 'man'. These two things which

are thus definitely different and distinguishable from each other do

lose their distinction on a certain level of human consciousness, and

go into the state of undifferentiation - Chaos.

This ontological situation is called by Chuang-tzü the Transmuta-

tion of things, wu hua .4 The wu hua is one of the most important

key-terms of Chuang-tzü's philosophy. It will be dealt with in detail

presently. Here 1 shall give in translation another passage in which

the same concept is explained through similar images. 5

A man drinks wine in a dream, and weeps and wails in the morning

(when he awakes). A man weeps in a (sad) dream, but in the morning

he goes joyously hunting. While he is dreaming he is not aware that

he is dreaming; he even tries (in his dream) to interpret his dream.

Only after he awakes from sleep does he realize that it was a dream.

Likewise, only when one experiences a Great Awakening does one

realize that all this6 is but a Big Dream. But the stupid imagine that

they are actually awake. Deceived by their petty intelligence,7 they

consider themselves smart enough to differentiate between what is

noble and what is ignoble. How deep-rooted and irremediable their

stupidity is!

In reality, however, both 1 and you are a dream. Nay, the very fact

that 1 am telling you that you are dreaming is itself a dream!

This kind of statement is hable to be labeled bizarre sophistry. (But it

looks so precisely because it reveals the Truth), and a great sage

capable of penetrating its mystery is barely to be expected to appear

in the world in ten thousand years.

312 

The same idea is repeated in the following passage: 8

Suppose you dream that you are a bird. (In that state) you do soar up

into the sky. Suppose you dream that you are a fish. You do go down

deep into the pool. (While you are experiencing ail this in your

dream, what you experience is your 'reality' .) Judging by this,

no body can be sure whether we -y ou and I, who are actually engaged

in conversation in this way - are awake or just dreaming. 9

Such a view reduces the distinction between Me and Thee to a mere

semblance, or at least it renders the distinction very doubtful and

groundless.

Each one of us is convinced that 'this' is I (and consequently 'other

than this' is You or He). On reflexion, however, how do I know for

sure that this 'I' which I consider as 'I' is really my 'I'? 10

Thus even my own 'ego' which I regard as the most solid and reliable

core of existence, - and the only absolutely indubitable entity even

when I doubt the existence of everything else, in the Cartesian sense

- becomes transformed all of a sudden into something dreamlike

and unreal.

Thus by what might seem 'bizarre sophistry' Chuang-tzu reduces

everything to a Big Dream. This abrupt negation of 'reality' is but a

first step into his philosophy, for his philosophy does have a positive

side. But before disclosing the positive side - which our 'petty

intelligence' can never hope to understand - he deals a mortal blow

to this 'intelligence' and Reason by depriving them of the very

ground on which they stand.

The world is a dream; that which we ordinarily consider solid

'reality' is a dream. Furthermore, the man who tells others that

everything is a dream, and those who are listening to his teaching,

are all part of a dream.

What does Chuang-tzu want to suggest by this? He wants to

suggest that Reality in the real sense of the word is something totally

different from what Reason regards as 'reality'. In order to grasp the

true meaning of this, our normal consciousness must first lose its

self-identity. And together with the 'ego', all the abjects of its

perception and intellection must also lose their self-identities and

be brought into a state of confusion which we called above the

primordial Chaos. This latter is an ontological level at which

'dream' and 'reality' lose the essential distinction between them, at

which the significance itself of such distinctions is lost. On its subjec-

tive side, it is a state of consciousness in which nothing any longer

remains 'itself', and anything can be anything else. It is an entirely

new order of Being, where all beings, liberated from the shackles of

their semantic determinations freely transform themselves into one

another. This is what Chuang-tzu calls the Transmutation of things.313

The Transmutation of things, as conceived by Chuang-tzu, must

be understood in terms of two different points of reference. On the

one hand, it designates a metaphysical situation in which all things

are found to be 'transmutable' to one another, so much so that

ultimately they become merged together into an absolute Unity. In

this sense it transcends 'time'; it is a supra-temporal order of things.

In the eye of one who has experienced the Great Awakening, all

things are One; all things are the Reality itself. At the same time,

however, this unique Reality discloses to his eye a kaleidoscopic

view of infinitely various and variegated things which are 'essen-

tially' different one from another, and the world of Being, in this

aspect, is manifold and multiple. Those two aspects are to be recon-

ciled with each other by our considering these 'things' as so many

phenomenal forms of the absolute One. The 'unity of existence',

thus understood, constitutes the very core of the philosophy of

Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu.

The same Transmutation can, on the other hand, be understood

as a temporal process. And this is also actually done by Chuang-tzu.

A thing, a, continues to subsistas a for some time; then, when the

limit which has been naturally assigned toit cornes, 11 it ceases to be a

and becomes transmuted or transformed into another thing, b.

From the viewpoint of supra-temporality, a and b are metaphysi-

cally one and the same thing, the difference between them being

merely a matter of phenomenon. In this sense, even before a ceases

to be a -that is, from the beginning -ais b, and bis a. There is, th en,

no question of a 'becoming' b, because a, by the very fact that it is a,

is already b.

From the second viewpoint, however, a is a and nothing else. And

this a 'becomes', in a temporal process, something else, b. The

former' changes' into the latter. But here again we run into the sa me

metaphysical Unity, by, so to speak, a roundabout way. For a, by

'becoming' and 'changing into' b, refers itself back toits own origin

and source. The whole process constitutes an ontological circle,

because through the very act of becoming b, a simply 'becomes'

itself - only in a different form.

Applied to the concepts of 'life' and 'death', such an idea natur-

ally produces a peculiar Philosophy of Life, a basically optimistic

view of human existence. It is 'optimisic' because it completely

obliterates the very distinction between Life and Death. Viewed in

this light, the so-called problem of Death turns out to be but a

pseudo-problem.

Although it is thus a pseudo-problem from the point of view of

those who have seen the Truth, Chuang-tzu often takes up this

theme and develops his thought around it. Indeed, it is one of his

most favorite topics. This is so because actually it is a problem, or the

problem. Death, in particular, happens to be the most disquieting

problem for the ordinary mind. 314

And a man's having overcome the

existential angoisse of being faced constantly and at every moment

with the horror of his own annihilation is the sign of his being at the

stage of a 'true man'. Besides, since it happens to be such a vital

problem, its solution is sure to bring home to the mind the

significance of the concept of Transmutation. Otherwise, every-

thing else is exactly in the same ontological situation as Life and

Death.

Now to go back to the point at which Chuang-tzu has reduced

everything to a dreamlike mode of existence. Nothing in the world

of Being is solidly self-subsistent. In scholastic terminology we

might describe the situation by saying that nothing has - except in

semblance and appearance - an unchangeable 'quiddity' or

'essence'. And in this fluid state of things, we are no longer sure of

the self-identity of anything whatsoever. We never know whether a

is really a itself.

And this essential dreamlike uncertainty of indetermination

naturally holds true of Life and Death. The conceptual structure of

this statement will easily be seen if one replaces the terms Life and

Death by a and b, and tries to represent the whole situation in terms

of the a-b pattern which has been given above.

Speaking of a 'true man' from the state of Lu, Chuang-tzu says:

He does not care to know why he lives. Nor does he care to know why

he dies. He does not even know which cornes first and which cornes

last. (i.e., Life and Death are in his mind undifferentiated from each

other, the distinction between them being insignificant). Following

the natural course of Transmutation he has become a certain thing;

now he is simply awaiting further Transmutation.

Besides, when a man is undergoing Transmutation, how can he be

sure that he is (in reality) not being transmuted? And when he is not

undergoing Transmutation, how can he be sure that he has (in

reality) not already been transmuted? 12

In a similar passage concerned with the problem of Death and the

proper attitude of 'true men' toward it, Chuang-tzu lets Confucius

make the following statement. 13 Confucius here, needless to say, is a

fictitious figure having nothing to do with the historical persan, but

there is of course a touch of irony in the very fact that Confucius is

made to make such a remark.

They (i.e., the 'true men') are those who freely wander beyond the

boundaries (i.e., the ordinary norms of proper behavior), while men

like myself are those who wander freely only within the boundaries.

'Beyond the boundaries' and 'within the boundaries' are poles asun-

der from one another.

i I,

Dream and Reality 315

They are those who, being completely unified with the Creator

Himself, take delight in being in the realm of the original Unity of the

vital energy14 before it is divided into Heaven and Earth.

To their minds Life (or Birth) is just the growth of an excrescence, a

wart, and Death is the breaking of a boil, the bursting of a tumor.

Such being the case, how should we expect them to care about the

question as to which is better and which is worse - Life or Death?

They simply borrow different elements, and put them together in the

corn mon form of a body .15 Hence they are conscious neither of their

liver nor of their gall, and they leave aside their ears and eyes. 16

Abandoning themselves to infinitely recurrent waves of Ending and

Beginning, they go on revolving in a circle, of which they know

neither the beginning-point nor the ending-point.

For Chuang-tzu Death is nothing but one of the endlessly varieg-

ated phenomenal forms of one eternal Reality. To our mind's eye

this metaphysical Reality actualizes itself and develops itself as a

process evolving in time. But even when conceived in such a tem-

poral form, the process depicts only an eternally revolving circle, of

which no one knows the real beginning and the real end. Death is

but a stage in this circle. When it occurs, one particular phenomenal

form is effaced from the circle and disappears only to reappear as an

entirely different phenomenal form. Nature continuously makes

and unmakes. But the circle itself, that is, Reality itself is always

there unchanged and unperturbed. Being one with Reality, the

mind of a 'true man' never becomes perturbed.

A 'true man', Chuang-tzu related, 17 saw his own body hideously

deformed in the last days of his life. He hobbled to a well, looked at

his image reflected in the water and said, 'Alas! That the Creator has

made me so crooked and deformed!' Thereupon a friend of his

asked him, 'Do you resent your condition?' Here is the answer that

the dying 'true man' gave to this question:

No, why should 1 resent it? It may be that the process of Transmuta-

tion will change my left arm into a rooster. 1 would, then, simply use it

to crow to tell the coming of the morning. It may be that the process

goes on and might change my right arm into a crossbow. 1 would,

th en, simply use it to shoot down a bird for roasting. It may be that the

process will change my buttocks into a wheel and my spirit into a

horse. 1 would, then, simply ride in the carriage. 1 would not have

even to put another horse to it.

Whatever we obtain (i.e., being born into this world in a particular

form) is due to the coming of the time. Whatever we lose (i.e., death)

is also due to the arrivai of the turn. We must be content with the

'time' and accept the 'turn'. Then neither sorrow nor joy will ever

creep in. Such an attitude used to be called among the Ancients

'loosing the tie'. 18 If man cannot loose himself from the tie, it is

because 'things' bind him fast.

316 Sufism and Taoism

Another 'true man' had a visit in his last moments from one of his

friends, who was also a 'true man'. The conversation between them

as related by Chuang-tzu19 is interesting. The visitor seeing the wife

and children who stood around the man on the deathbed weeping

and wailing, said to them, 'Hush! Get away! Do not disturb him as

he is passing through the process of Transmutation!'

Then turning to the dying man, he said:

How great the Creator is! What is he going to make of you now?

Whither is he going to take you? Is he going to make of you a rat's

liver? Oris he going to make of you an insect's arm?'

To this the dying man replies:

(No matter what the Creator makes of me, 1 accept the situation and

follow his command.) Don't you see? In the relationship between a

son and his parents, the son goes wherever they command him to go,

east, west, south, or north. But the relation between the Yin-Yang

(i.e., the Law regulating the cosmic process of Becoming) and a man

is incomparably doser than the relation between him and his parents.

Now they (the Yin and Yang) have brought me to the verge of death.

Should 1 refuse to submit to them, it would simply be an act of

obstinacy on my part . . . ·

Suppose here is a great master smith, casting metal. If the metal

should jump up and begin to shout, 'I must be made into a sword like

Mo Yeh,20 nothing else!' The smith would surely regard the metal as

something very evil. (The sa·me would be true of) a man who, on the

ground that he has by chance assumed a human form, should insist

and say: 'I want to be a man, only man! Nothing else!' The Creator

would surely regard him as of a very evil nature.

Just imagine the whole world as a big furnace, and the Creator as a

master smith. Wherever we may go, everything will be ail right.

Calmly we will go to sleep (i.e., die), and suddenly we will find

ourselves awake (in a new form of existence).

The concept of the Transmutation of things as conceived by

Chuang-tzü. might seem to resemble the doctrine of 'transmigra-

tion'. But the resemblance is only superficial. Chuang-tzu does not

say that the soul goes on transmigrating from one body to another.

The gist of his thought on this point is that everything is a pheno-

menal form of one unique Reality which goes on assuming succes-

sively different forms of self-manifestation. Besides, as we have

seen before, this temporal process itself is but a phenomenon.

Properly speaking, all this is something taking place on an eternal,

a-temporal level of Being. All things are one eternally, beyond

Time and Space.

Notes

317

1. We may do well to recall at this stage a chapter in the first part of the present

study, where we took the undifferentiation or indistinction between 'dream' and

'reality' as our starting-point for going into the metaphysical world of Ibn 'Arabî.

There Ibn 'Arabî speaks of the ontological level of 'images' and 'similitudes'.

Chuang-tzü, as we shall see presently, uses a different set of concepts for interpreting

his basic vision. But the visions themselves of these two thinkers are surprisingly

similar to each other.

2. II, p. 112. The heading itself of this Chapter, ch'i wu J!!f4o/.J, is qui te significant in this

respect, meaning as it does 'equalization of things'.

3. nm, the real name of Chuang-tzü.

4. '1'J.o{I:::, meaning literally: 'things-transform'.

5. II., pp. 104-105.

6. i.e., everything that one experiences in this world of so-called 'reality'. 'Great

Awakening': ta chüeh 7.:1!.

7. i.e., being unaware of the fact that 'life' itself, the 'reality' itself is but a dream.

8. VI., p. 275.

9. i.e., it may very well be that somebody-or something-is dreaming that he (or it)

is a man, and thinks in the dream that he is talking with somebody else.

10. ibid.

11. This problem will be dealt with in detail in a later chapter which will be devoted

to the problem of determinism and freedom in the world-view of Taoism.

12. The meaning of this sentence can, 1 think, be paraphrazed as follows. lt may well

be that 'being transmuted' (for example, from Life to Death, i.e., 'to die') is in reality

'not to be transmuted' (i.e., 'not to die'). Likewise nobody knows for sure whether by

'not being transmuted' (i.e., remaining alive without dying) he has already been

transmuted (i.e., is already dead). The original sentence runs:

Kuo Hsiang in his commentary - which happens to be the oldest

commentary now in existence - explains it by saying: Bfl::.lffî1:.,

*11::.mi ?E. (p. 276), meaning; 'Once transmuted into a living being,

how cana man know the state of affairs which preceded his birth? And while he is not

yet transmuted and is not yet dead, how can he know the state of affairs that will corne

after death?' 1 mention this point because many people follow Kuo Hsiang' s

interpretation in understanding the present passage. (VI, p. 274).

13. VI, pp. 267-268.

14. i.e., the primordial cosmic energy which, as we saw in the last chapter, is thought

to have existed before the creation of the world. lt refers to the cosmogonie state in

which neither Heaven and Earth nor the Negative and the Positive were yet divided.

Philosophically it means the metaphysical One in its pure state of Unity.

15. According to their view, human existence is nothing but a provisional pheno-

Il

l1i

111

1

318 Sufism and Taoism

menai form composed by different elements (i.e., four basic elements: earth, air,

water and fire) which by chance have been united in the physical form of a body.

16. They do not pay any attention to their physical existence.

17. VI, pp. 259-260.

18. Hsien chieh 'loosing the tie', i.e., an absolute freedom.

19. ibid., p. 261-262.

20. A noted sword made in the state of in the sixth century B.C.

Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism P2.Ch04 IV Beyond This and That

 SUFISM AND TAOISM: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts

by Toshihiko Izutsu 1983

First published 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo
This edition is published by The University of California Press, 1984,
Rev. ed. of: A comparative study of the key philosophical concepts in Sufism and Taoism. 1966-67.

=====

Contents

Preface by T. Izutsu

Introduction

Part I - Ibn 'Arabi

1 Dream and Reality

II The Absolute in its Absoluteness

III The Self-knowledge of Man

IV Metaphysical Unification and Phenomenal Dispersion

V Metaphysical Perplexity

VI The Shadow of the Absolute

VII The Divine Nam es

VIII Allah and the Lord

IX Ontological Mercy

X The Water of Life

XI The Self-manifestation of the Absolute

XII Permanent Archetypes

XIII Creation

XIV Man as Microcosm

XV The Perfect Man as an Individual

XVI Apostle, Prophet, and Saint

XVII The Magical Power of the Perfect Man

Part II - Lao-Tzii & Chuang-Tzu

I Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu

II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics

III Dream and Reality

IV Beyond This and That

V The Birth of a New Ego

VI Against Essentialism

VII The Way

VIII The Gateway of Myriad Wonders

IX Determinism and Freedom

X Absolute Reversai of Values

XI The Perfect Man

XII Homo Politicus

Part III - A Comparative Reftection 

I Methodological Preliminaries

II The Inner Transformation of Man

III The Multistratified Structure of Reality

IV Essence and Existence

V The Self-evolvement of Existence

===

IV Beyond This and That

We have seen in the last pages of the preceding chapter how

Chuang-tzü obliterates the distinction or opposition between Life

and Death and brings them back to the original state of 'undifferen-

tiation'. We have spent some time on the subject because it is one of

Chuang-tzü's favorite tapies, and also because it discloses to our

eyes an important aspect of his philosophy.

Properly speaking, however, and from an ontological point of

view, Life and Death should not occupy such a privileged place. For

all so-called 'opposites' are not, in Chuang-tzü's philosophy, really

opposed to each other. In fact, nothing, in his view, is opposed to

anything else, because nothing has a firmly established 'essence' in

its ontological core. In the eye of a man who has ever experienced

the 'chaotification' of things, everything loses its solid contour,

being deprived of its 'essential' foundation. All ontological distinc-

tions between things become dim, obscure, and confused, if not

completely destroyed. The distinctions are certainly still there, but

they are no longer significant, 'essential'. And 'opposites' are no

longer 'opposites' except conceptually. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly',

'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', 'pious' and 'impious' -all these

and other conceptual pairs which are sharply distinguished, at the

level of Reason, and which actually play a leading rôle in human life,

are found to be far from being absolute.

This attitude of Chuang-tzü toward the 'opposites' and 'distinc-

tions' which are generally accepted as cultural, esthetic, or ethical

'values', would appear to be neither more nor less than so-called

relativism. The same is true of Lao-tzu's attitude. And, in fact, it is a

relativist view of values. It is of the utmost importance, however, to

keep in mind that it is not an ordinary sort of relativism as under-

stood on the empirical or pragmatic level of social life. It is a

peculiar kind of relativism based on a very peculiar kind of mystical

intuition: a mystical intuition of the Unity and Multiplicity of exist-

ence. It is a philosophy of 'undifferentiation' which is a natural

product of a metaphysical experience of Reality, an experience in

320 Sufism and Taoism

which Reality is directly witnessed as it unfolds and diversifies itself

into myriads of things and then goes back again to the original

Unity. This 'metaphysical' basis of Taoist relativism will be dealt with in

detail in the following chapter. Here we shall confine ourselves to

the 'relativist' side of this philosophy, and try to pursue Chuang-tzu

and Lao-tzu as closely as possible as they go on developing their

ideas on this particular aspect of the problem.

As I have just pointed out, the attitude of bath Chuang-tzu and

Lao-tzu toward the so-called cultural values would on its surface

appear to be nothing other than 'relativism' in the commonly

accepted sense of the term. Let us first examine this point by quoting

a few appropriate passages from the two books. Even at this pre-

liminary stage of analysis, we shall clearly observe that this relativ-

ism is directed against the 'essentialist' position of the school of

Confucius. In the last sentence of the following passage 1 there is an

explicit reference to the Confucian standpoint.

If a human being sleeps in a damp place, he will begin to suffer from

backache, and finally will become half paralyzed. But is this true of a

mudfish? If (a human being) lives in a tree, he will have to be

constantly trembling from fear and be frightened. But is this true of a

monkey? Now which of these three (i.e., man, mudfish and monkey)

knows the (absolutely) right place to live? 2

Men eat beef and pork; deer eat grass; centipedes find snakes delici-

ous; kites and crows enjoy mice. Of these four which one knows the

(absolutely) good taste?

A monkey finds its mate in a monkey; a deer mates with a deer. And

mudfishes enjoy living with other fishes. Mao Ch'iang and Li Chi3 are

regarded as ideally beautiful women by all men. And yet, if fish

happen to see a beauty like them, they will dive deep in the water;

birds will fly aloft; and deer will run away in all directions. Of these

four, which one knows the (absolute) ideal of beauty?

These considerations lead me to conclude that the boundaries be-

tween 'benevolence' (jën) and 'righteousness' (i),4 and the limits

between 'right' and 'wrong' are (also) extremely uncertain and con-

fused, so utterly and inextricably confused that we can never know

how to discriminate (between what is absolutely right and what is

absolutely wrong, etc.).

This kind of relativism is also found in the book of Lao-tzu. The

underlying conception is exactly the same as in the book of

Chuang-tzu; so also the reason for which he upholds such a view. As

we shall see later, Lao-tzu, too, looks at the apparent distinctions,

oppositions and contradictions from the point of view of the

metaphysical One in which all things lose their sharp edges of

conceptual discrimination and become blended and harmonized.

Beyond This and That 321

The only difference between Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu in this

respect is that the latter expresses himself in a very terse, concise,

and apothegmatic form, while the former likes to develop his

thought in exuberant imagery. Otherwise, the idea itself is common

to bath of them. In the first of the following quotations from the Tao

Tê Ching, for instance, Lao-tzu implicitly criticizes the cultural

essentialism of the Confucian school.5

Cast off Learning,6 and there will be no worries. How much in fact,

difference is there between 'yes, sir' and 'hum!'? Between 'good' and

'bad' what distinction is there? 'Whatever others respect 1 also must

respect', (they say).

Oh, how far away 1 am from the cè>mmon people (who adhere to such

an idea). For (on such a principle) there will be absolutely no limit to

the vast field (of petty distinctions).

People tend to imagine, Lao-tzu says, that things are essentially

distinguishable from one another, and the Confucians have built up

an elaborate system of moral values precisely on the notion that

everything is marked off from others by its own 'essence'. They

seem to be convinced that these 'distinctions' are all permanent and

unalterable. In reality, however, they are simply being deceived by

the external and phenomenal aspects of Being. A man whose eyes

are not veiled by this kind of deception sees the world of Being as a

vast and limitless space where things merge into one another. This

ontological state of things is nothing other than what Chuang-tzu

calls Chaos. On the cultural level, such a view naturally leads to

relativism. Lao-tzu describes the latter in the following way: 7

By the very fact that everybody in the world recognizes 'beautiful' as

'beautiful', the idea of 'ugly' cornes into being. By the very fact that

all men recognize 'good' as 'good', the idea of 'bad' cornes into being.

Exactly in the same way 'existence' and 'non-existence' give birth to

one another; 'difficult' and 'easy' complement one another; 'long'

and 'short' appear in contrast to one another; 'high' and 'low' incline

toward each other; 'tone' and 'voice' keep harmony with one

another; 'before' and 'behind' follow one another.

Everything, in short, is relative; nothing is absolute. We live in a

world of relative distinctions and relative antitheses. But the major-

ity of men do not realize that these are relative. They tend to think

that a thing which they - or social convention - regard as 'beautiful'

is by essence 'beautiful', thus regarding all those things that do not

conform to a certain norm as 'ugly' by essence. By taking such an

attitude they simply ignore the fact that the distinction between the

two is merely a matter of viewpoint.

As 1 remarked earlier, such equalization of opposites surely is

'relativism', but it is a relativism based on, or stemming from, a very

1111

1

322 Sufism and Taoism

remarkable intuition of the ontological structure of the world. The

original intuition is common both to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. But

with the latter, it leads to the 'chaotic' view of things, the essential

'undifferentiation' of things, which in its dynamic aspect is con-

ceived as the Transmutation of things. In the case of Lao-tzu, the

same intuition leads, in its dynamic aspect, to an ontology of

evolvement and in-volvement, the static aspect of which is the

relativism we have just discussed.

As Transmutation (hua) is the key-word of Chuang-tzu in this

section of his philosophy, Return (fan 8 or fu9 ) is the key-term which

Lao-tzu chooses as an appropriate expression for his idea.

On the cosmic significance of the Return as understood by Lao-

tzu we shall have occasion to talk in a later context. Here we shall

confine ourselves to considering this concept in so far as it has direct

relevance to the problem of relativism.

The Return is a dynamic concept. It refers, in other words, to the

dynamic aspect of the above-mentioned relativism of Lao-tzü, or

the dynamic ontological basis on which it stands. He explicates this

concept in a terse form in the following passage, which may in fact

be considered an epitome of the whole of his ontology. 10

Returning is how the Way moves, and being weak is how the Way

works. The ten thousand things under heaven are born from Being,

and Being is born from Non-Being.

It is to be remarked that there is in this passage a covert reference to

two different meanings or aspects of 'returning' which Lao-tzü

seems to recognize in the ontological structure of all things. The first

meaning (or aspect) is suggested by the first sentence and the second

meaning by the second sentence. The first sentence means that

everything (a) that exists con tains in itself a possibility or natural

tendency to 'return', i.e., to be transformed into its opposite (b ),

which, of course, again contains the same possibility of 'returning'

toits opposite, namely the original state from which it has corne (a).

Thus all things are constantly in the process of a circular movement,

froma tob, and then from b toa. This is, Lao-tzu says, the rule of the

ontological 'movement' (tung),1 1 or the dynamic aspect of Reality.

And he adds that 'weakness' is the way this movement is made by

Reality.

The next sentence considers the dynamic structure of Reality as a

vertical, metaphysical movement from the phenomenal Many to the

pre-phenomenal One. Starting from the state. of multiplicity in

which all things are actualized and realized, it traces them back to

their ultimate origin. The 'ten thousand things under heaven', i.e.,

all things in the world, corne into actual being from the Way at its

stage of 'existence'. But the stage of 'existence', which is nothing

Beyond This and That 323

other than a stage in the process of self-manifestation of the Way,

cornes into being from the stage of 'non-existence', which is the

abysmal depth of the absolutely unknown-unknowable Way itself.

It is t-0 be observed that this 'tracing-back' of the myriad things to

'existence' and then to 'non-existence' is not only a conceptual

process; it is, for Lao-tzu, primarily a cosmic process. All things

ontologically 'return' to their ultimate source, undergoing on their

way 'circular' transformations among themselves such as have been

suggested by the first sentence. This cosmic return of all things to the

ultimate origin will be a subject of discussion in a later chapter. Here

we are concerned with the 'horizontal' Return of things as referred

to in the first sentence, i.e., the process of reciprocal 'returning'

between a and b. Lao-tzü has a peculiar way of expressing this idea

as exemplified by the two following passages.

Misfortune is what good fortune rests upon and good fortune is what

misfortune lurks in. (The two th us turn into one another indefinitely,

so that) nobody knows the point where the process cornes to an end.

There seems to be no absolu te norm. For what is ( considered) just

're-turns' to unjust, and what is ( considered) good 're-turns' to evil.

lndeed man has long been in perplexity about this. 12

The nature of things is such that he who goes in front ends by falling

behind, and he who follows others ultimately finds himself in front of

others. He who blows upon a thing to make it warm ends by making it

cold, and he who blows upon a thing to make it cold finally makes it

warm. He who tries to become strong becomes weak, and he who

wants to remain weak turns strong. He who is safe falls into danger,

while he who is in danger ends by becoming safe. 13

Thus in the view of both Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu, everything in the

world is relative; nothing is absolutely reliable or stable in this

sense. As I have indicated before, this 'relativism', in the case of

Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, must be understood in a peculiar sense,

namely, in the sense that nothing has what is called 'essence' or

'quiddity'.

All things, on the deeper level of Reality, are 'essence-less'. The

world itself is 'chaotic'. This is not only true of the external world in

which we exist, but is equally true of the world within us, the internai

world of concepts and judgments. This is not hard to understand,

because whatever judgment we may make on whatever thing we

choose to talk about in this 'chaotic' world, our judgment is bound

to be relative, one-sided, ambiguous, and unreliable, for the abject

of the judgment is itself ontologically relative.

The argument which Chuang-tzu puts forward on this point is

logically very interesting and important. The Warring States period

324 Sufism and Taoism

witnessed a remarkable development of logico-semantical theories

in China. In the days of Chuang-tzu, Confucians and Mohists 14

stood sharply opposed to each other, and these two schools were

together opposed to the Dialecticians15 (or Sophists) otherwise

known as the school of Names 16 • Heated debates were being held

among them about the foundation of human culture, its various

phenomena, the basis of ethics, the logical structure of thought, etc.,

etc .. And it was a fashion to conduct discussions of this kind in a

dialectical form. 'This is right' - 'this is wrong' or 'this is good' - 'this

is bad', was the general formula by which these people discussed

their problems. Such a situation is simply ridiculous and all these discussions are

futile from the point of view of a Chuang-tzu for whom Reality itself

is 'chaotic'. The abjects themselves about which these people

exchange heated words are essentially unstable and ambiguous.

The Dialecticians 'are talking about the distinction between "hard"

and "white", for example, as if these could be hung on different

pegs' .11

Not only that. Those who like to discuss in this way usually

commit a fatal mistake by confusing 'having the best of an argu-

ment' with 'being objectively right', and 'being cornered in an

argument' with 'being objectively wrong'. In reality, however, vic-

tory and defeat in a logical dispute in no way determines the 'right'

and 'wrong' of an objective fact.

Suppose you and 1 enter into discussion. And suppose you beat me,

and 1 cannot beat you. Does this mean that you are 'right' and that 1

am 'wrong'? Suppose 1 beat you, instead, and you cannot beat me. Does this mean

that 1 am 'right' and you are 'wrong'? Is it the case that when 1 am

'right' you are 'wrong', and when you are 'right' 1 am 'wrong'? Or are

we both 'right' or both 'wrong'? lt is not for me and you to decide.

(What about asking some other person to judge?) But other people

are in the same darkness. Whom shall we ask to give a fair judgment?

Suppose we let someone who agrees with you judge. How could such

a man give a fair judgment seeing that he shared from the beginning

the sa me opinion with you? Suppose we let someone who agrees with

me judge. How could he give a fair judgment, seeing that he shares

from the beginning the same opinion with me?

What if we let someone judge who differs from both you and me? But

he is from the beginning at variance with both of us. How could such a

man give a fair judgment? (He would simply give a third opinion.)

What if we let someone judge who agrees with both of us? But from

the beginning he shares the sa me opinion with both of us. How could

such a man give a fair judgment? (He would simply say that 1 am

'right', but you also are 'right' .)

From these considerations we must conclude that neither you nor 1

1T

Beyond This and That 325

nor the third person can know (where the truth lies). Shall we expect

a fourth person to appear? 18

How is this situation to be accounted for? Chuang-tzu answers that

all this confusion originates in the natural tendency of the Reason to

think everything in terms of the opposition of 'right' and 'wrong'.

And this natural tendency of our Reason is based on, or a product

of, an essentialist view of Being. The natural Reason is liable to

think that a thing which is conventionally or subjectively 'right' is

'right' essentially, and that a thing which is 'wrong' is 'wrong'

essentially. In truth, however, nothing is essentially 'right' or

'wrong'. So-called 'right' and 'wrong' are all relative matters.

In accordance with this non-essentialist position, Chuang-tzu

asserts that the only justifiable attitude for us to take is to know, first

of all, the relativity of 'right' and 'wrong', and then to transcend this

relativism itself into the stage of the 'equalization' of all things, a

stage at which all things are essentially undifferentiated from one

another, although they are, at a lower stage of reality, relatively

different and distinct from each other. Such an attitude which is

peculiar to the 'true man' is called by Chuang-tzu t'ien ni 19

(Heavenly Levelling), t'ien chün20 (Heavenly Equalization), or man

yen 21 (No-Limits).

'Right' is not 'right', and 'so' is not 'so'. If (what someone considers)

'right' were (absolutely) 'right', it would be (absolutely) different

from what is not 'right' and there could be no place for discussion.

And if 'so' were (absolutely) 'so', it would be (absolutely) different

from 'not-so' and there could be no place for discussion.

Thus {in the endless chain of 'shifting theses' 22 (i.e., 'right' 'not-

right' 'right' 'not-right' ... ), (theses and antitheses) depend

upon one another. And (since this dependence makes the whole

chain of mutually opposing theses and antitheses relative), we might

as well regard them as not mutually opposing each other.

(In the presence of such a situation, the only attitude we can reason-

ably take) is to harmonize all these (theses and antitheses) in the

Heavenly Levelling, and to bring (the endless oppositions among the

existents) back to the state of No-Limits. 23

'To bring back the myriad oppositions of things to the state of No-

Limits' means to reduce all things that are 'essentially' distinguish-

able from each other to the original state of 'chaotic' Unity where

there are no definite 'limits' or boundaries set among the things. On

its subjective side, it is the position of abandoning all discrimina tory

judgments that one can make on the level of everyday Reason.

Forgetting about passing judgments, whether implicit or explicit, on

any thing, one should, Chuang-tzü emphasizes, put oneself in a

mental state prior to all judgments, prior to all activity of Reason, in

1

1

326 Sufism and Taoism

which one would see things in their original - or 'Heavenly' as he

says - 'essence-less' state.

But to achieve this is by no means an easy task. lt requires the

active functioning of a particular kind of metaphysical intuition,

which Chuang-tzu calls ming,24 'illumination'. And this kind of

illuminative intuition is not for everybody to enjoy. For just as there

are men who are physically blind and deaf, so there are also men

who are spiritually blind and deaf. And unfortunately, in the world

of Spirit the number of blind and deaf is far greater than that of

those who are capable of seeing and hearing.

The blind cannot enjoy the sight of beautiful col ors and patterns. The

deaf cannot enjoy the sound of bells and drums. But do you think that

blindness and deafness are confined to the bodily organs? No, they

are found also in the domain of knowing. 25

The structure of the ming, 'intuition', will be studied more closely in

due course. Before we proceed to this problem, we shall quote one

more passage in which Chuang-tzu develops his idea regarding the

relative and conventional nature of ontological 'distinctions'. The

passage will help to prepare the way for our discussion of the

'existentialist' position Chuang-tzu takes against the 'essentialist'

view of Being. 26

The nature of the things is such that nothing is unable to be 'that' (i.e.,

everything can be· 'that') and nothing is unable to be 'this' (i.e.,

everything can be 'this').

We usually distinguish between 'this' and 'that' and think and talk

about the things around us in terms of this basic opposition. What is

'this' is not 'that', and what is 'that' is not 'this'. The relation is

basically that of 'I' and 'others', for the term 'this' refers to the

former and the term 'that' is used in reference to the latter.

From the viewpoint of' I', 'I' am 'this', and everything other than

'I' is 'that'. But from the viewpoint of'others', the 'others' are 'this',

and 'I' am 'that'. In this sense, everything can be said to be both

'this' and 'that'. Otherwise expressed, the distinction between 'this'

and 'that' is purely relative.

From the standpoint of 'that' (alone) 'that' cannot appear (as 'that').

It is only when 1 (i.e., 'this') know myself (as 'this') that it (i.e., 'that')

cornes to be known (as 'that').

'That' establishes itself as 'that' only when 'this' establishes itself

and looks upon the former as its abject, or as something other than

'this'. Only when we realize the fondamental relativity of 'this' and

'that' can we hope to have a real understanding of the structure of

things.

Beyond This and That 327

Of course the most important point is that this relativity should be

understood through 'illumination'. The understanding of this

ontological relativity by Reason - which is by no means a difficult

thing to achieve - is useless except as a preparatory stage for an

'illuminative' grasp of the matter. lt will be made clear in the

following chapter that 'relativity' does not exhaust the whole of the

ontological structure of things. 'Relativity' is but one aspect of it.

For, in the view of Chuang-tzu, the ontological structure of things in

its reality is that 'chaotic undifferentiation' to which reference has

often been made in the foregoing. The' chaotic undifferentiation' is

something which stands far beyond the grasp of Reason. If, in spite

of that, Reason persists in trying to understand it in its own way, the

'undifferentiation' cornes into its grasp only in the form of 'relativ-

ity'. The 'relativity' of things represents, in other words, the original

ontological 'undifferentiation' as brought down to the level of logi-

cal thinking. In the present chapter we are still on that level.

Hence it is held: 21 'that' cornes out of 'this', and 'this' depends upon

'that'. This doctrine is called the Fang Shêng theory ,28 the theory of

'mutual dependence'.

However (this reciprocal relation between 'this' and 'that' must be

understood as a basic principle applicable to all things). Thus, since

there is 'birth' there is 'death', and since there is 'death' there is

'birth'. Likewise, since there is 'good' there is 'not-good', and since

there is 'not-good' there is 'good'.

Chuang-tzu means to say that the real Reality is the One which

comprehends all these opposites in itself; that the division of this

original One into 'life' and 'death', 'good' and 'bad', or 'right' and

'wrong' etc., is due to various points of view taken by men. In truth,

everything in the world is 'good' from the point of view of a man

who takes such a position. And there is nothing that cannot be

regarded as 'not-good' from the point ofview of a man who chooses

to take such a position. The real Reality is something prior to this

and similar divisions. lt is something which is 'good' and 'not-good',

and which is neither 'good' nor 'not-good'.

Thus it cornes about that the 'sacred man' 29 does not base himself

(upon any of these oppositions), but illuminates (everything) in the

light of Heaven. 30

Certainly, this (attitude of the 'sacred man') is also an attitude of a

man who bases himself upon (what he considers) 'right'. But (since it

is not the kind of 'right' which is opposed to 'wrong', but is an

absolute, transcendental Right which comprises in itself all opposi-

tions and contradictions as they are), 'this' is here the same as 'that',

and 'that' is the same as 'this'. (It is a position which comprehends

and transcends both 'right' and 'wrong', so that here) 'that' unifies

'right' and 'wrong', but 'this' also unifies 'right' and 'wrong'.

1

1111

328 Sufism and Taoism

(Viewed from such a standpoint) is there still a distinction between

'that' and 'this'? Or is there neither 'that' nor 'this' any longer? 31

This stage at which each 'that' and 'this' has lost its companion to

stand opposed to - this stage is to be considered the Hinge of the

Way. The hinge of a door can begin to function infinitely only when it is

fitted into the middle of the socket. (ln the same way, the Hinge of the

Way can respond infinitely and freely to endlessly changing situations

of the phenomenal world only when it is placed properly in the

middle of the absolu te One which transcends ail phenomenal opposi-

tions.) (In such a state) the 'right' is one uniform endlessness; the

'wrong' too is one uniform endlessness.

This is why 1 assert füat nothing can be better than 'illumination'.

The absolute One is of course the Way which pervades the whole

world of Being; rather it is the whole world of Being. As such it

transcends ail distinctions and oppositions. Thus from the point of

view of the Way, there can be no distinction between 'true' and

'false'. But can human language properly cope with such a situa-

tion? No, at least not as long as language is used in the way it is

actually used. 'Language', Chuang-tzu says, 'is different from the

blowing of wind, for he who speaks is supposed to have a meaning to

convey .' 32 However, language as it is actually used does not seem to

convey any real meaning, for those people, particularly the Dialec-

ticians, who are engaged in discussing 'this' being right and 'that'

being wrong, or 'this' being good and 'that' being bad etc., are

'simply talking about objects which have no definitely fixed

contents'.

Are they really saying something (meaningful)? Are they rather

saying nothing? 33 They think that their speech is different from the

chirpings of ftedglings. But is there any difference? Or is there not

any difference at ail? Where, indeed, is the Way hidden (for those people) that there

should be 'true' and 'false'? Where is Language (in the true sense)

hidden that there should be 'right' and 'wrong'? ...

(The fact is that) the Way is concealed by petty virtues,34 and Lan-

guage is concealed by vainglories.35 This is why we have the 'right' -

'wrong' discussions of the Confucians and the Mohists, the one party

regarding as 'right' what the other party regards as 'wrong', and the

one regarding as 'wrong' what the other regards as 'right'.

If we want to affirm (on a higher lev el) what both parties regard as

'wrong', and to deny what they regard as 'right', we have no better

means than 'illumination' .36

Thus we see ourselves brought back again to the problem of 'illumi-

nation'. The passages here quoted have made it already clear that

the 'illumination' represents an 'absolu te' standpoint which tran-

scends all 'relative' standpoints. lt is astate of mind which is above

l \

Beyond This and That 329

and beyond the distinctions between 'this' and 'that', 'I' and 'you'.

But how can one attain to such a spiritual height, if in fact it really

exists? What is the content and structure of this experience? These

are the main problems that will occupy us in the following two

chapters.

Notes

1. Chuang-tzu, II, p. 93.

2. i.e., there is no' absolutely' proper place; for each being, the place in which it lives

customarily is the right place, but the latter is 'right' only in a relative sense.

3. Two women famous for their supreme beauty.

4. That these concepts, t: jên and 1.-ll i, represented two of the most typical moral

values for Confucius and his school was pointed out in Chap. 1.

5. Tao Tê Ching, XX.

6. By Learning (hsüeh is meant the study of the meticulous rules of conduct and

behavior - concerning, for instance, on what occasions and to whom one should use

the formai and polite expression 'yes, sir' and when and to whom one should use the

informai expression' hum!' - the kind of learning which was so strongly advocated by

the Confucian school under the name of Ceremonies

7. op. cit., II.

8. fi..

9. fl ( lt1) fu( -kuei), lit. 'returning' - 'going-back'.

10. op. cit., XL.

11. Yi)J.

12. op.cit.,LVIII.

13. ibid., XXIX. This part of Chap. XXIX is regarded by Kao Hêng (op. cit.) as an

independent chapter. He remarks in addition that the passage is typical of'Lao-tzu's

relativism' ( p. 69. The last sentence of the passage quoted in its

original form is which may be translated as 'a thing which one wants to

crush (is not crushed), and a thing which one wants to destroy (is not destroyed).' But

in the Ho Shang edition we find • instead (iiUJ:li r•:ti:m, '-ffû:·tlu), which, as Yü

Yüeh (f<( fM remarks, is probably the right reading.

14. The followers of Mo-tzu

15. pien chê nf:1î.

16. ming chia 15K

'Il

1 111111

330 Sufism and Taoism

17. Chuang-tzu, XII, p. 427, quote by Fung Yu Lang, op. cit., 1, p. 192. The reference

is to the famous thesis put forward by the Dialectician Kung Sung Lung

that a 'bard white stone' is in reality two things: a bard stone and a white stone,

because 'bard' and 'white' are two entirely different attributes. The quoted sentence

may also be translated: The distinction between 'bard' and'white' is clearly visible as

if they were hung on the celestial sphere.

18. II, p. 107.

19. means usually 'boundary', 'limit', 'division'. But here 1 follow the

interpretation of Lu Shu Chih (f1Œr*: :X{5l, and

Pan by Lu Tê Ming in who makes it synonymous withJ:;:?i!t.

20.

21. The lexical meaning of this expression is difficult to ascertain. In translating

it as 'without limits' 1 am simply following an old commentator quoted by

in his who sayslli_fü,.ti-tl!J, (p. 109). The same word is used in Bk.

XXVII. And in Bk. XVII it appears in the form ofJ5Unfan yen which obviously is the

same commentator spells itiifü) becanse the passage reads: 'From the point

of view of the Way, what should we consider" precious" and what should we consider

"despicable" ?'

22. Cf. Kuo Hsiang's Commentary (p. 109): *ft§îz.f!Ho!f,

m'fJt.Uf§:iE, and Chia Shih Fu üW.Zft§J.

23. Chuang-tzu, II, p. 108.

24. fjJJ. The term literally means 'bright' or 'luminous'. We may compare it with the

Islamic notion of ma'rifah 'gnosis' as opposed to, and technically distinguished from,

'ilm '(rational) knowledge'.

25. 1, p. 30.

26. The passage is taken from II, p. 66. 1 shall <livide it into a number of smaller

sections and quote them one by one, each followed by a brief examination.

27. by the Dialectician Shih.

28. }J1:_:ifii, more exactly the 'theory of fang shêng fang ssû' held by

Hui Shih, meaning literally: the theory of 'life' giving birth to 'death' and 'death'

giving birth to 'life'. See Chuang-tzu, XXXIII. For this particular meaning of the

word fang ti, see the Shuo Wen rn-. HH'ci-tll.J 'fang means ( originally) two

ships placed side by side with each other'.

29. shêng jên IRA., which is synonymous with 'true man' or 'divine man', i.e., the

Perfect Man. The real meaning of the important word shêng has been elucidated

earlier in its shamanic context; see Chapter II. The expression shêng jen is more often

used by Lao-tzii than by Chuang-tzii.

30. t'ien J:;:, meaning the great Way of Nature, the absolute standpoint of Being

itself, which is, so to speak, a viewpoint transcending ail viewpoints.

31. This is a peculiar expression which Chuang-tzii uses very often when be wants to

deny something emphatically.

.

. '

Beyond This and That 331

32. II, p. 63.

33. See above, Note (31).

34. The 'petty virtues' iHVt:-or more literally, 'small acquirements' -refer to the five

cardinal virtues of the Confucians - Ch' êng Hsüan Ying ( Jïx:.:t!R: IJŒf-ll:UiiJ).

35. i.e., the natural tendency of the human mind toward showing-off, which mani-

fests itself typically in the form of discussions and debates.

36. op. cit., II, p. 63.