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.
=====
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
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X Absolute Reversal of Values
Throughout the Tao Tê Ching the term shêng jên ('sacred man') 1 is
consistently used in such a way that it might justifiably be consi-
dered the closest equivalent for the Islamic insan kami! ('perfect
man').
This word seems to go back to remote antiquity. In any case,
judging by the way it is used by Confucius in the Analects, the word
must have been widely prevalent in his age.
The Master said: A 'sacred man' is not for me to meet. 1 would be
quite satisfied if 1 could ever meet a man of princely virtue. 2
The Master said: How dare 1 daim for myself being a 'sacred man' or
even a man of (perfect) 'benevolence'? 3
It is not philologically easy to determine the precise meaning
attached by Confucius to this word. But from the general contexts in
which it is actually used as well as from the dominant features of his
teaching, we can, I think, judge fairly safely that he meant by the
term shêng jên a man with a sort of superhuman ethical perfection.
Confucius did not <lare even to hope to meet in his life a man of this
kind, not to speak of claiming that he himself was one.
This, however, is not the problem at which we must labor in the
present context. The point I would like to make here is the fact that
the word shêng jên itself represented a concept which was appar-
ently quite understandable to the intellectuals of the age of Con-
fucius, and that Lao-tzu wrought a drastic change in the connotation
of this word. This semantic change was effected by Lao-tzu through
his metaphysical standpoint, which was of a shamanic origin.
We have already seen in the first chapters of this book how
Lao-tzu - and Chuang-tzu - came out of a shamanic milieu. The
Perfect Man for Lao-tzu was originally a 'perfect' shaman. This fact
is concealed from our eyes by the fact that his world-view is not
nakedly shamanic, but is presented with an extremely sophisticated
metaphysical elaboration. But the shamanic origin of the Taoist
concept of the 'sacred man' will be disclosed if we correlate the
431
following passage, for example, from the Tao Tê Ching with what
Chuang-tzu remarks conceming the ecstatic experience of 'sitting in
oblivion'.
Block all your openings (i.e., eyes, ears, mouth, etc.), and shut all
your doors (i.e., the activity of Reason), and all your life you (i.e.,
your spiritual energy) will not be exhausted.
If, on the contrary, you keep your openings wide open, and go on
increasing their activities, you will never be saved till the end.
To be able to perceive the minutest thing4 is properly to be called
Illumination (ming).
To hold on to what is soft and flexible 5 is properly to be called
strength.
If, using your external 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 into6 the eternally real' .7
The 'etemal real' (ch'ang), as we have often noticed, refers to the
Way as the etemally changeless Reality. Thus the concept of the
'sacred man' as we understand it from this passage, namely, the
concept of the man who 'has retumed to Illumination' and has
thereby 'stepped into', that is, unified himself with, the Way, is
exactly the same as that of the man who is completely one with 'that
which cannot be made otherwise', which we have discussed in the
previous chapter in connection with the problem of Necessity and
Freedom.
The 'sacred man', for both Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, is a man
whose mind is 'wandering about in the realm of absolute Freedom',
away from the bustle of the common people. It is quite natural,
then, that such a man, when judged by the yardstick of common
sense, should appear as outrageously 'abnormal'. If worldly-
minded people represent the 'normal', the 'sacred man' is surely to
be considered a strange, bizarre creature.
An 'abnormal' 8 man - what kind of man is he, if 1 may ask?
The answer: An 'abnormal' man is one who is totally different from
other men, while being in perfect conformity with Heaven. Hence the
saying: a petty man from the viewpoint of Heaven is, from the
viewpoint of ordinary men, a man of princely virtue; 9 while a man of
princely virtue ftom the viewpoint of Heaven is, from the viewpoint
of ordinary men, a petty man.
Thus the Perfect Man, by the very fact that he is in perfect confor-
mity with Heaven, is in every respect in discordance with ordinary
men. His behavior pattern is so totally different from the commonly
accepted one that it excludes him from 'normal' human society. The
latter necessarily regards him as 'abnormal'. He is 'abnormal'
because the Way itself with which he is in perfect conformity is,
1
432
from the standpoint of the common people, something strange and
'abnormal', so 'abnormal' indeed that they treat it as funny and
ridiculous. As Lao-tsu says:
When a man of low grade hears about the Way, he bursts into laughter.
If it is not laughed at, it would not be worthy to be the Way. 10
If the Way is of such a nature that it looks not only strange and
obscure but even funny and ridiculous, it is but natural that the
Perfect Man who is a living image of the Way should also look
ridiculous or sometimes vexatious and unbearably irritating.
Chuang-tsu often describes in his Book the 'strange' behavior of the 'abnormal'.
Once a disciple of Confucius - this is of course' a fictitious story -
saw two 'abnormal' men merrily and playfully singing in unison in
the presence of the corpse of their friend, another 'abnormal' man,
instead of duly performing the funeral service. Vexed and indig-
nant, he hastened back and reported to his Master what he had just
seen. 'What sort of men are they?' he asked Confucius.
'What sort of men are they? They do not observe the rules of proper
behavior. They do not care at ail about external forms. In the pres-
ence of the corpse they sing a song, without even changing their
countenances. Their conduct (is so abnormal that) 1 am completely at
a loss to characterize them. What kind of men are they?'
Qui te ironically, Chuang-tzu makes Confucius perspicacious
enough to understand the real situation in terms of Taoist philos-
ophy and explain the nature of their conduct to his perplexed
disciple. Here is what Confucius says about it.
They are those who freely wander beyond the boundaries (i.e., the
ordinary norms of proper behavior), while men like myself are th ose
who wander freely only within the boundaries. 'Beyond the bound-
aries' and 'within the boundaries' are poles asunder from one another. ...
They are those who, being completely unified with the Creator
Himself, take delight in the realm (i.e., spiritual state) of the original
Unity of the vital energy before it is divided into Heaven and Earth.
To their minds Life is just the growth of an excrescence, a wart, and
Death is the breaking of a boil, the bursting of a tumor. ... They
simply borrow different elements, and put them together in the
common form of body (i.e., in their view a human being is a compo-
site made of different elements which by chance are placed together
into a bodily unit). Hence they are conscious neither of their liver nor
of their gall, and they leave aside their ears and eyes. 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.
T
l'
433
Thus, without being conscious (of their persona} existence), they
roam beyond the realm of dust and dirt, and enjoy wandering to their
heart's content in the work of Non-Doing.
How should such men bother themselves with meticulously observ-
ing the rules of conduct peculiar to the vulgar world, so that they
might attract (i.e., satisfy) the ears and eyes of the common
people? 11
Thus the behavior pattern of these men necessarily brings about a
complete overturn of the commonly accepted order of values. Of
course it is not their intention to turn upside down the ordinary
system of values. But as these men live and behave in this world,
their conduct naturally reftects a very peculiar standard of values,
which could never square with that accepted by common sense and
Reason.
Chuang-tzu expresses this idea in a number of ways. As one of the
most interesting expressions he uses for this purpose we may men-
tion the paradoxical-sounding phrase: 'deforming, or crippling the
virtues'. 12 After relating how a man of hideous deformity - Shu the
Crippled- because of his deformity, completes his term of life safely
and pleasantly, Chuang-tzu makes the following observation:
If even a man with such a crippled body was able to support himself
and complete the span of life that had been assigned to him by
Heaven, how much more should this be the case with those who have
'crippled the virtues' ! 13
To 'cripple' or' deform' the virtues is a forceful expression meaning:
to damage and overturn the common hierarchy of values. And sin ce
the system of values on which is based the mode of living or
principle of existence peculiar to these 'cripples' is thus radically
opposed to that of the common people, their real greatness cannot
be recognized by the latter. Even the most sophisticated man of
Reason - Reason being, after all, an elaboration of common sense -
fails to understand the significance of the 'abnormal' way of living,
although he may at least vaguely sense that he is in the presence of
something great.
Hui Shih (Hui-tzu), a famous dialectician of Chuang-tzu's time,
of whom mention was made earlier, 14 criticizes Chuang-tzu -in one
of the anecdotes about this 'sophist' recorded in the Book of
Chuang-tzu - and remarks that Chuang-tzu's thought is certainly
'big', but it is too big to be of any use in the world of reality. It is 'big
but crippled'. Against this Chuang-tzu points out that the eyes of
those who are tied down to a stereotyped and fossilized system of
traditional values cannot see the greatness of the really great.
Besides, he says, things that are 'useful' in the real sense of the term
are those things that transcend the common notion of 'usefulness'.
434
The 'usefulness' of the 'useless', the greatness of the 'abnormal', in
short, an absolute reversai of the order of values - this is what
characterizes the world-view of the Perfect Man.
Let us, first, see how Hui-tzii describes the 'uselessness' of things
that are 'abnormally big'.
The king of Wei once gave me the seeds of a huge gourd. 1 sowed
them, and finally they bore fruit. Each gourd was big enough to
con tain as mu ch as five piculs. 1 used one of them to con tain water and
other liquids; but 1 found that it was so heavy that 1 could not lift it by
myself. So 1 eut it into two pieces and tried to use them as ladies. But
they were too fiat and shallow to hold any liquid.
Not that it was not big enough. Big it surely was, to the degree of
monstrosity! But it was utterly useless. So 1 ended up by smashing
them ail to pieces. 15
lt is interesting to notice that Hui-tzu does recognize the gourds as
big, very big indeed. But their excessive bigness renders them
unsuitable for any practical use. Through this symbol he wants to
indicate that the spiritual size of the Perfect Man may be very large,
but that when his spiritual size exceeds a certain limit, it turns him
practically into a stupid fellow. This, however, only provokes a
sharp retort from Chuang-tzu, who points out that Hui-tzu has
found the gourd to be of no use 'simply because he does not know
how to use big things properly'. And he adds:
Now that you had a gourd big enough to contain as much as five
piculs, why did it not occur to you that you might use it as a large
barrel? You could have enjoyed floating over rivers and lakes,
instead of worrying about its being too big and shallow to con tain any
liquid! Evidently, my dear friend, you still have a mind overgrown
with weeds! 16
Exactly the same kind of situation is found in another anecdote
which immediately follows the preceding one.
Hui-tzu once said to Chuang-tzu: 'I have (in my garden) a big tree,
which is popularly called shu ( useless, stinking tree). Its main stem is
gnarled as with tumors, and nobody can apply a measuring line to it.
Its branches are so curled and bent that no one can use upon them
compass and square. Even if 1 should make it stand by the thorough-
fare (in order to sell it), no carpenter would even cast a glance at it.
Now your words, too, are extremely big, but of no use. That is why
people desert them and nobody wants to listen to you'.
Chuang-tzu said: 'You must have observed a weasel, how it hides
itself crouching down, and watches for carelessly sauntering things
(i.e., chickens, rats, etc.) to pass by. Sometimes, again, it nimbly leaps
about east and west, jumping up and jumping down without any
hesitation. But finally it falls into a trap or dies in a net.
435
Now look at that black ox. It is as big as an enormous cloud hanging in
the sky. It is big, indeed! And it does not know how to catch a rat. (It
is useless in this sense, but it does not die in a trap or a net.)
You say you have a big tree, and you are worried because it is useless.
Weil, then, why do you not plant it in the Village of There-Is-
Absolutely-Nothing,11 or in the Wilderness of the Limitlessly-
Wide, 18 idly spend your days by its side without doing anything, and
lie down under it for an untroubled sleep?
The tree, then, will neversuffer a premature death by being eut down
by an axe. Nor will there be anything there to harm it. If it happens to
be of no use, why sbould it cause you to fret and worry?' 19
The passage just quoted, in which Chuang-tzü clarifies his attitude
against the kind of rationalism and utilitarianism represented by
Hui-tzu is of great importance for our purposes, containing as it
does in a symbolic form some of the basic ideas of Chuang-tzu.
These ideas are so closely interrelated with each other that it is
difficult to deal with them separately. Besides, some of them have
already been discussed in detail in connection with other problems,
and others are directly or indirectly related with those that have
been touched upon in the foregoing. Here for convenience 1 will
classify them under four heads, and discuss them briefly one by one
from the particular viewpoint of the present chapter. These four
are: (1) The image of a strange, fantastic region which is designated
by such expressions as the Village of There-Is-Absolutely-Nothing
and the Wilderness of the Limitlessly-Wide; (2) the idea of idling
away one's time; (3) 'abnormal bigness'; and ( 4) the idea of free
wandering.
(1) The two expressions: the Village of There-Is-Absolutely-
Nothing and the Wilderness of the Limitlessly-Wide, are very
characteristic of the philosophical anthropology of Chuang-tzu.
They describe symbolically the spiritual state in which the Perfect
Man finds his absolu te tranquillity and freedom. In another passage
Chuang-tzu gives us a hint - symbolically, again - through the
mouth of a fictitious Perfect Man20 as to what he means by these
terms.
1 am going to unify myself with the Creator Himself. But when 1
become bored with that, immediately 1 will mount on the Bird-of-
Pure-Emptiness and travel beyond the limits of the six directions
(i.e., the Universe).
There 1 shall wander to my heart's content in the Village of There-
Is-Absolutely-Nothing and live alone in the Wilderness of the
Limitlessly-Wide.21
In the light of what we already know about the major ideas of
Chuang-tzü, the 'Village of There-Is-Absolutely-Nothing' or the
436
'Wilderness of the Limitlessly-Wide' evidently refer to the spiritual
state of Nothingness or Void in which the perfect Man finds himself
in the moments of his ecstatic experience. At the highest stage of
'sitting in oblivion' the mind of the Perfect Man is in a peculiar kind
of blankness. AU traces of phenomenal things have been erased
from his consciousness; even consciousness itself has been erased.
There is here no distinction between 'subject' and 'abject'. For both
mind and things have completely disappeared. He is now an
inhabitant of a strange metaphysical region which is 'limitlessly
wide' and where 'there is absolutely nothing'.
This, however, is but the first half of his being an inhabitant of the
Village of There-Is-Absolutely-Nothing or the Wilderness of the
Limitlessly-Wide. In the second half of this experience, the reality
of the phenomenal world begins to be disclosed to his spirituaUy
transformed eyes. AU the things that have once been wiped out
from his consciousness - including his own consciousness - corne
back to him in an entirely new form. Being reborn at a new level of
existence, he is now in a position to command an extensive and
unobstructed view of the whole world of Being as it pulsates with
eternal life, in which infinitely variegated things corne and go,
appear and disappear at every moment. We know already that this
aspect of the Perfect Man, namely, his being an inhabitant of the
region of Nothingness and Limitlessness, is discussed by Chuang-
tzu in a more philosophical way as the problem of the Transmuta-
tion of aU things.
Being perfectly familiar with that which has no falsehood (i.e., the
true Reality, the Way), he does not shift about driven by the shifting
things. 22 He regards the universal Transmutation of things as (the
direct manifestation of) the Heavenly Command, and holds fast to
(i.e., keeps his inner gaze inalterably focused upon) their Great
Source. 23
(2) The Idea of idling away one's time is closely related to the idea of
living in the region of Nothingness and Limitlessness. For the Per-
fect Man cannot be an inhabitant of such a country unless he is idling
away his time, doing nothing and enjoying from time to time an
untroubled sleep. 'To be idle' is a symbolic way of expressing the
basic idea of Non-Doing. The principle of Non-Doing which, as we
saw earlier, represents, for Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the highest
mode of human existence in this world, demands of the Perfect Man
'being natural' and leaving everything in its natural state and toits
natural course. He does not meddle with the fate of anything. This is.
the 'indifference' of the Perfect Man to the ten thousand things, of
which mention was made earlier.
But 'indifference' in this case does not imply ignorance or lack of
437
cognition. On the contrary, aU things, as they corne and go, are
faithfully reftected in the 'void' of the mind of the Perfect Man. His
mind in this respect is comparable to a spotless mirror. A weU-
polished mirror reftects every object, as long as the latter stands in
front of it. But if the abject goes away, the mirror does not show any
effort to detain it; nor does it particularly welcome a new abject
when it makes its appearance. Thus the mind of the Perfect Man
obtains the most lucid images of aU things, but is not perturbed
thereby.
(The Perfect Man) 24 does not become the sole possessor of fa me, (but
lets each thing possess its own fame). He does not become the
treasury of plans (but lets each thing make a plan for itself). He does
not undertake the responsibility for ail things, (but lets each thing
undertake the responsibility for itself). He does not become the sole
possessor of wisdom, (but lets each thing exercise its own wisdom).
He embodies completely what is inexhaustible (i.e., the 'limitless'
activity of the Way), and wanders to his heart's content in the
Land-of-No-Trace (i.e., the region of Nothingness).
He employs to the utmost what he has received from Heaven, and yet
he is not conscious of having acquired something. He is 'empty' -that
is what he is.
The 'ultimate man' makes his mind work as a (spotless) mirror. It
detains nothing. It welcomes nothing. It simply responds to, and
reftects, (whatever cornes toit). But it stores nothing. This is why he
can exercise mastery over ail things, and is not hurt by anything. 25
1 have heard that if a mirror is well-polished, dust cannot settle upon
its surface; (that is to say) if dust settles upon a mirror, (we can be
sure that) the mirror is not well-polished. 26
The image of the perfectly polished mirror as a symbol for the state
of the mind of the Perfect Man is found also in the Tao Tê Ching.
Purifying your Mysterious Mirror, can you make it spotless? 27
Thus the Perfect Man does not do anything - that is, with the
intention of doing something. The moment a man does something,
his very consciousness of doing it renders his action 'unnatural'.
Instead, the Perfect Man leaves all things, himself and all other
things, to their own natures. This is the meaning of the term Non-
Doing (wu wei). And sin ce he does not do anything, he leaves
nothing undone. By virtue of his Non-Doing, he ultimately does
everything. For in that state, his being is identical with Nature. And
Nature accomplishes everything without forcing anything.
(3) The 'abnormal bigness' of the Perfect Man has produced a
number of remarkable symbols in the Book of Chuang-tzu. We
have already seen some of them: the huge gourd which is too big to
438
be of any use, the big useless shu-tree in the garden of Hui-tzii, the
black ox, lying in the meadow, doing nothing, being unable to catch
even a rat. These, however, are relatively homely symbols; they are
things of a moderate size compared with others which we find in the
same Book. As an example of such fantastic symbols, we may
mention the famous story of a huge mythical Bird, which we
encounter on the very first page of the Chuang-tzu.
In the dark mysterious ocean of the north (i.e., the northern Iimit of
the world) there lives a Fish whose name is K'un. Its size is so huge
that nobody knows how many thousand miles it is.
(When at last the time of Transmutation cornes) the Fish is trans-
muted into a Bird known as P' êng. The back of the P' êng is so large
that nobody knows how many thousand miles it is.
Now the Bird suddenly pulls itself together and fties off. Lo, its wings
are like huge clouds hanging in the sky. And as the ocean begins to be
turbulent (with raging storms of wind) the Bird intends to journey
towards the dark mysterious ocean of the south. The southern ocean
is the lake of Heaven.
In fact, in the Book entitled Ch'i Hsieh 28 which records strange events
and things, we find the following description (of this Bird). 'Wh en the
P' êng sets off for the dark mysterious ocean of the sou th, it begins by
beating with its wings the surface of the water for three thousand
miles. Then up it goes on a whirlwind to the height of ninety thousand
miles. Then it continues to fty for six months before it rests' .29
This is immediately followed by a masterly description of the impre-
ssion which the Bird is supposed to receive when it looks down upon
our earth from the height of ninety thousand miles. The Bird is
already wandering in a region which is far above the 'worldly' world
where all kinds of material interests and inordinate desires are
bubbling and foaming in an endless turmoil. It is not that the Bird
does not see the 'dirty' world of vulgarity. The 'dirty' world is still
there, under the Bird. The only difference is that the world looked
down from this vertiginous height strikes the Bird's eyes as some-
thing beautiful, infinitely beautiful - another symbolic expression
for the way the mind of the Perfect Man mirrors everything on its
spotless surface.
(Look at the world we live in. You will see there) ground vapor
stirring; dust and dirt ftying about; the living things blowing (fetid)
breaths upon each other!
The sky above, on the contrary, is an immense expanse of deep blue.
Is this azure the re.al color of the sky? Or does it look (so beautifully
blue) because it is at suèh a distance from us? (However this may be),
the Bird now, looking down from its height, will surely be perceiving
nothing but a similar thing, (i.e., our 'dirty' world must appear to the
eyes of the Bird as a beautiful blue expanse).30
439
Chuang-tzii brings this description of the Bird's journey to an end
by going back again to the idea of the 'bigness' of the Bird and the
corresponding 'bigness' of its situation. By the force of his pen, the
Bird is now alive in our imagination as an apt symbol for the Perfect
Man who, transcending the pettiness and triviality of human exist-
ence is freely wandering in the 'void' of Infinity and Nothingness.
(Wh y does the Bird soar up to such a height?) If the accumulation of
water is not thick enough, it will not have the strength to bear a big
ship. If you pour a cup of water into a hollow on the ground, tiny
atoms of dust will easily ftoat on it as if they were ships. If, however,
you place a cup there, it will stick fast to the ground, because the
water is too shallow while the 'ship' is too large.
(Likewise) if the accumulation of wind is not thick enough, it will not
have the strength to support huge wings. But at the height of ninety
thousand miles, the (thick accumulation of) wind is under the Bird.
Only under such conditions can it mou nt on the back of the wind, and
carry the blue sky on its back, without there being anything to
obstruct its ftight. And now it is in a position to journey toward the
south.31
Here the Perfect Man is pictured as a colossal Bird, soaring along far
above the world of common sense. The Bird is 'big', and the whole
situation in which it moves is correspondingly 'big'. But this exces-
sive 'bigness' of the Perfect Man makes him utterly incomprehens-
ible, or even ridiculous, in the eyes of the common people who have
no other standard of judgment than common sense. We have
already seen above how Lao-tzu, in reference to the 'abnormality'
of the Way, makes the paradoxical remark that the Way, if it is not
laughed at by 'men of low grade', would not be worthy to be
considered the Way. In fact, the Bird P'êng is 'abnormally big'.
Chuang-tzu symbolizes the 'men of low grade' who laugh at the
'bigness' of the Perfect Man by a cicada and a little <love.
A cicada and a little dove laugh scornfully at the Bird and say, 'When
we pluck up all our energies to fty, we can reach an elm or sapanwood
tree. But (even in such ftights) we sometimes do not succeed, and are
thrown down on the ground. (Of small scale it may be, but our ftightis
also a ftight.) Why is it at all necessary that (the Bird) should rise
ninety thousand miles in order to journey towards the south?'
A man who goes on a picnic to a near-by field, will go out carrying
food sufficient only for three meals; and he will corne back (in the
evening) with his stomach still full. But he who makes a journey to a
distance of one hundred miles, will grind his grain in preparation the
night before. And he who travels a thousand miles, will begin to
gather provisions three months in advance.
What do these two creatures (i.e., the cicada and the dove) know
about (the real situation of the Bird)? Those who possess but petty
440
wisdom are not able to understand the mind of those who possess
Great Wisdom.32
This description of the imaginery flight of the Bird P' êng across the
world is a very famous one. It is significant that the passage is placed
at the very outset of the whole Book of Chuang-tzu. The uninitiated
reader who approaches the Book for the first time will simply be
shocked by the un cou th symbols that constitute the story, and will
be driven into bewilderment not knowing how to interpret the
whole thing. But by this very bewilderment, be will be directly led
into the strange mythopoeic atmosphere which is typical of what we
might call the shamanic mode of thinking. Unlike the ordinary kind
of shamanic visions, however, there reigns over this image of the
Bird' s journey an unusual air of serenity, purity, and tranquillity.
And this is a reflection of the inner state of the Perfect Man who is
no longer a mere 'shaman', but rather a great 'philosopher' in the
original Greek sense of the word.
Be this as it may, the forceful, dynamic style of Chuang-tzu and
bis creative imagination has succeeded in producing an amazing
symbol for the spiritual 'greatness' of the Perfect Man.
( 4) As regards the idea of free wandering, there remains little to say.
For the foregoing description of the flight of the Bird is itself an
excellent description of the 'free wandering' as well as of the 'big-
ness' of the Perfect Man.
The 'free wandering' is a symbolic expression for the absolute
freedom which the Perfect Man enjoys at every moment of bis
existence. What is meant by 'absolute freedom' must be, by now,
too clear to need any further explanation. The Perfect Man is
absolutely free, because he is not dependent upon anything. And be
is not dependent upon anything because be is completely unified
with the Way, there being no discrepancy between what be does and
what Heaven-and-Earth does. In the following passage, Chuang-
tzu, from the viewpoint of 'dependence' and 'independence',
<livides men into four major categories. The first is the man of 'petty
wisdom'; the second is the man of middle wisdom, represented by
Sung Jung-tzu;33 the third is the man of 'great wisdom' who is still
somewhat defective in his spiritual perfection, represented by the
famous Taoist sage Lieh-tzu; and the fourth and the last is the man
of ultimate perfection, who is the real Perfect Man.
Here is a man whose wisdom is good enough to make him suitable for
occupying with success an official post, whose conduct is good
enough to produce harmony in one district, whose virtue is good
enough to please one sovereign, and whose ability is good enough to
make him conspicuous in the politics of one state. Such a man looks
441
upon himself with self-conceit just like (the above-mentioned small
creatures). 34
Sung Jung-tzü would surely laugh at such a man. Sung is the kind of
man who, even if the whole world should praise him, would not be
stimulated thereby to increase his usual (moral) exertion, and even if
the whole world should blame him, would not be affected thereby
and become disheartened.
This is due to the fact that he draws a clear line of demarcation
between the internai and the external. 35 He is; th us, clearly conscious
of the boundaries of real glory and real disgrace. This makes him
rather indifferent to petty interests in this world. However, he
is not yet firmly established (i.e., completely self-sufficient and
independent).
Next cornes Lieh-tzu. 36 He rides on the wind and goes wandering
about with amazing skilfulness. He usually cornes back to earth after
fifteen days (of continuous ftight). He is not at ail interested in
obtaining happiness. Besides, (his ability to fty) saves him the trouble
of walking. And yet, he has still to be dependent upon something
(i.e., the wind).
As for the man (of absolu te freedom and independence) who mounts
on the natural course of Heaven and Earth, controls at will the six
elemental forms of Nature, and freely wanders through the realm of
the Limitlessness - on what should he be dependent?
Therefore it is said: The Ultimate Man has no ego, (and having no
ego, he adapts himself to everything and every event with Iimitless
ftexibility). The Divine Man has no merit (because he does nothing
intentionally). The Sacred Man has no fame (because he transcends
ail worldly values). 37
The last of the four classes of men here described is the Perfect Man.
And the 'free wandering' is nothing other than a symbolic expres-
sion for the absolute spiritual independence which characterizes his
mode of existence in this world. It refers to his absolute Freedom,
his not being retained in one place, and his not being tied to any
particular thing. The expression is also interesting in that it is
evocative of the original form of the Taoist Perfect Man as a shaman
who, in his ecstatic state, used to make a mythopoeic journey
around the limitless uni verse freely, without being obstructed by the
shackles of his material body. The first chapter of the Book of
Chuang-tzu is entitled 'Free Wandering'. It is not, 1 think, a mere
coïncidence that one of the masterpieces of shamanic poetry, Yüan
Yu ('Traveling Afar'), which is found in the Elegies of Ch'u, pres-
ents striking similarities to the mythopoeic part of the world-view of
Taoism. Both the Taoist Perfect Man and the great Shaman of Ch'u
'mount on the clouds, ride a flying dragon, and wander far beyond
the four seas' . 38
442
Notes
1. l]JJ,.
2. Analects, VII, 25.
3. ibid., VII, 33.
4. The 'minutest thing' here means the Way as it manifests itself within the mind of
man. The shaman-mystic, by closing up ail the apertures of the senses and the
intelligence, turns back into the depth of himself, where he perceives the Way
working as a very 'small thing'.
5. For the idea that the 'sacred man' constantly maintains the flexibility of the mind
of an infant, see above, Chapter IX, p. 144. The point will be further elaborated in
the following chapter.
6. U:'ft. For an explanation of the meaning of this expression, see above, Chapter V.
Note 29.
7. Tao Tê Ching, LII.
8. Chi jên !15jA.
; 9. The ordinary text reads: r A.Z.ttr, xz1J,A-ti!.J which, as Wang Hsien Ch'ien
remarks, does nothing but repeat exactly the same thing as the first half of the
sentence in a reversed order: r;zz.,J,A., AZ.tir J. Following bis suggestion 1 read the
second half: l;RZ.tFf-, AZ'J'ÀJ (:r?t•: !Jl:Er!tMJ); Chuang-tzu, VI, p. 273.
10. Tao Tê Ching, XLI.
11. Chuang-tzu, VI, pp. 267-268.
12. Chih li tê, :it•ii.
13. op. cit., IV, p. 180.
14. See Chapter 1, Note 15.
15. op. cit., 1, p. 36.
16. ibid., p. 37.
17. 1!!1ifiiJfl"Z.MI.
18. /JiJtz!f.
19. op. cit., 1, pp. 39-40.
20. It is interesting that the name of that Perfect Man is 'Nameless-Man'.
21. op. cit., VII, p. 293. See also VII, p. 296: l.îz::P.ïf'mtl,
22. This does not simply mean that the Perfect Man remains rigidly fixed and devoid
of flexibility. On the contrary, he goes on shifting himself in accordance with the
r Absolute Reversai of Values 443
universal Transmutation of ail things. Since he is in this way completely unified with
ever-changing Nature, ail the 'shifts' he makes ultimately amount to bis being
change Jess.
23. op. cit., V, p. 189.
24. In this passage, the Perfect Man is designated by the term chi jên ?t.A, 'ultimate
man', one of the several terms which Chuang-tzu uses to express the concept of the
Perfect Man.
25. op. cit., VII, p. 307.
26. ibid., V, p. 197.
27. Tao Tê Ching, X.
28. J'f.m , 'Equalizing Harmony' or the ' ( Cosmic) Harmony in which all things are
equalized', a title very typical of Chuang-tzu's ontology (see Chapter III, Chapter
IV). Sorne scholars are of the opinion that this is not the title of the book, but the
name of its author. In any case, it is apparently an invention of Chuang-tzii.'s
imagination. He simply wants to imitate jokingly and sarcastically the habit of the
thinkers of his age who substantiate their assertions by making references to ancient
authorities.
29. Chuang-tzu, 1, pp. 2-4.
30. ibid., I, p. 4.
31. ibid., 1, p. 7.
32. ibid., 1, pp. 9-11.
33. Sung Jung-tzu ( = Sung Chien 5f(iif ), a man who was fa mous for his
teaching of pacifism and non-resistance. His thought is expounded in the last chapter
(XXXIII) ofthe Chuang-tzu. His name is mentioned also by Mencius, Hsün-tzu, and
Han Fei-tzu.
34. Like the cicada and the little dove who scornfully laugh at the 'big' project of the
big Bird.
35. He knows that what is really important is the inner judgment of himself, and
therefore, does not care about how other people judge him from outside.
36. Traditionally, Lieh-tzu is considered to have been a Perfect Man who, together
with Chuang-tzu, represented the school of Taoist philosophy that had been inaug-
urated by Lao-tzu. He is made to stand chronologically between Lao-tzu and
Chuang-tzti.
37. op. cit., I, pp. 16-17.
38. ibid., 1, p. 28.
