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.

Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism P2.Ch02 II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics

 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

===

II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics

In the preceding chapter I indicated in a preliminary way the possi-

bility of there being a very strong connection between Taoist

philosophy and shamanism. 

I suggested that the thought or world-

view of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu may perhaps be best studied

against the background of the age-old tradition of the shamanic

spirit in ancient China. 

The present chapter will be devoted to a

more detailed discussion of this problem, namely, the shamanic

background of Taoist philosophy as represented by the Tao Tê

Ching and Chuang-tzü.

In fact, throughout the long history of Chinese thought there runs

what might properly be called a 'shamanic mode of thinking'. We

observe this specific mode of thinking manifesting itself in diverse

forms and on various levels in accordance with the particular cir-

cumstances of time and place, sometimes in a popular, fan tas tic

form, often going to the limit of superstition and obscenity, and

sometimes in an intellectually refined and logically elaborated form.

We observe also that this mode of thinking stands in sharp contrast

to the realistic and rationalistic mode of thinking as represented by

the austere ethical world-view of Confucius and his followers.

Briefly stated, I consider the Taoist world-view of Lao-tzu and

Chuang-tzu as a philosophical elaboration or culmination of this

shamanic mode of thinking; as, in other words, 

a particular form of philosophy which grew out of the persona! existential experience peculiar to persons endowed with the capacity of seeing things on a

supra-sensible plane of consciousness through an ecstatic encounter

with the Absolute and through the archetypal images emerging out

of it.

The Taoist philosophers who produced works like the Tao Tê

Ching and Chuang-tzü were 'shamans' on the one hand, as far as

concerns the experiential basis of their world-vision, 

but they were on the other, intellectual thinkers who, not content to remain on the primitive level of popular shamanism, exercised their intellect in

order to elevate and elaborate their original vision into a system of

metaphysical concepts designed to expIain the very structure of Being.

[301]

Lao-tzu talks about shêng-jên 1 or the 'sacred man'. It is one of the

key-concepts of his philosophical world-view, and as such plays an

exceedingly important rôle in his thought. The 'sacred man' is a man

who has attained to the highest stage of the intuition of the Way, to

the extent of being completely unified with it, and who behaves

accordingly in this world following the dictates of the Way that he

feels active in himself. He is, in brief, a human embodiment of the

Way. In exactly the same sense, Chuang-tzu speaks of chên-jên2 or

the 'true man', chih-jên3 or the 'ultimate man', shên-jên4 or the

'divine (or super-human) man'. The man designated by these vari-

ous words is in reality nothing other than a philosophical shaman, or

a shaman whose visionary intuition of the world has been refined

and elaborated into a philosophical vision of Being.

That the underlying concept has historically a close connection

with shamanism is revealed by the etymological meaning of the

word shêng here translated as 'sacred'. The Shuo Wên Chieh Tzü,

the oldest etymological dictionary ( compiled in 100 A.D.), in its

explanation of the etymological structure of this word states: 'Shêng

designates a man whose orifices of the ears are extraordinarily

receptive' .5 

In other words, the term designates a man, endowed

with an unusually keen ear, who is capable of hearing the voice of a

super-natural being, god or spirit, and understands directly the will

or intention of the latter. In the concrete historical circumstances of

the ancient Yin Dynasty, such a man can be no other than a divine

priest professionally engaged in divination.

It is interesting to remark in this connection that in the Tao Tê

Ching the 'sacred man' is spoken of as the supreme ruler of astate,

or 'king', and that this equation (Saint= King) is made as if it were a

matter of common sense, something to be taken for granted. We

must keep in mind that in the Yin Dynasty6 shamanism was deeply

related to poli tics. In that dynasty, the civil officiais of the higher

ranks who possessed and exercised a tremendous power over the

administration of the state were all originally shamans. And in the

earliest periods of the same dynasty, the Grand Shaman was the

high priest-vizier, or even the king himself.7

This would seem to indicate that behind the 'sacred man' as the

Taoist ideal of the Perfect Man there is hidden the image of a

shaman, and that under the surface of the metaphysical world-view

of Taoism there is perceivable a shamanic cosmology going back to

the most ancient times of Chinese history.

For the immediate purposes of the present study, we do not have to

go into a detailed theoretical discussion of the concept of shaman-

ism.8 We may be content with defining it in a provisional way by

saying that it is a phenomenon in which an inspired seer in a state of

ecstasy communes with supernatural beings, gods or spirits. As is

well known, a man who has a natural capacity of this kind tends to

serve in a primitive society as an intermediary between his tribes-

men and the unseen world. 

As one of the most typical features of the shamanic mentality we

shall consider first of all the phenomenon of mythopoiesis. 

Shamans are by definition men who, in their ecstatic-archetypal visions per-

ceive things which are totally different from what ordinary people

see in their normal states through their sensible experiences, and

this naturally tends to induce the shamans to interpret and structuralize the world itself quite differently from ordinary people. That which characterizes their reality experience in the most remarkable way is that things appear to their 'imaginai' consciousness in symbolic and mythical forms. The world which a shaman sees in the state of trance is a world of 'creative imagination', as Henry Corbin

has aptly named it, however crude it may still be. On this level of

consciousness, the things we perceive around us leave their natural,

common-sense mode of existence and transform themselves into images and symbols. And those images, when they become systematized and ordered according to the patterns of development which are inherent in them, tend to produce a mythical cosmology.

The shamanic tradition in ancient China did produce such a

cosmology. In the Elegies of Ch'u to which reference was made in

the preceding chapter, we can trace almost step by step and in a very

concrete form the actual process by which the shamanic experience

of reality produces a peculiar, 'imaginai' cosmology. And by com-

paring, further, the Elegies ofCh'u with a book like Huai Nan Tzu, 9

we can observe the most intimate relationship that exists between

the shamanic cosmology and Taoist metaphysics. There one seessur

le vif how the mythical world-view represented by the former

develops and is transformed into the ontology of the Way.

Another fact which seems to confirm the existence of a close

relationship, both essential and historical, between the Taoist

metaphysics and the shamanic vision of the world is found in the

history of Taoism after the Warring States period. In fact, the

development of Taoism, after having reached its philosophical

zenith with Lao-tzii and Chuang-tzii, goes on steadily describing a

curve of 'degeneration' - as it is generally called - even under a

strong influence of the Tao Tê Ching and Chuang-tzu, and returns to

its original mythopoeic form, revealing thereby its shamanic basis,

until it reaches in the Later Han Dynasty a stage at which Taoism

becomes almost synonymous with superstition, magic and witch-

craft. The outward structure of Taoist metaphysics itself discloses

almost no palpable trace of its shamanic background, but in the

philosophical description of the tao by Lao-tzii, for instance, there is

undeniably something uncanny and uncouth that would seem to be

indicative of its original connection with shamanism.303

Lao-tzii depicts, as we shall see later in more detail, the Way (tao) as

Something shadowy and dark, prior to the existence of Heaven and

Earth, unknown and unknowable, impenetrable and intangible to

the degree of only being properly described as Non-Being, and yet

pregnant with forms, images and things, which lie latent in the midst

of its primordial obscurity. The metaphysical Way thus depicted has

an interesting counterpart in the popular mythopoeic imagination

as represented by Shan Hai Ching, 10 in which it appears in a fantas-

tic form.

Three hundred and fifty miles further to the West there is a mountain

called Heaven Mountain. The mountain produces much gold and

jade. lt produces also blue sulphide. And the River Ying takes its rise

therefrom and wanders southwestward until it runs into the Valley of

Boiling Water. Now in this mountain there lives a Divine Bird whose

body is like a yellow sack, red as burning tire, who has six legs and

four wings. lt is strangely amorphous, having no face, no eyes, but it is

very good at singing and dancing. In reality, this Bird is no other than

the god Chiang.

In the passage here quoted, two things attract our attention. One is

the fact that the monster-bird is described as being good at singing

and dancing. The relevance of this point to the particular problem

we are now discussing will immediately be understood if one

remembers that 'singing and dancing', i.e., ritual dance, invariably

accompanies the phenomenon of shamanism. Dancing in ancient

China was a powerful means of seeking for the divine Will, of

inducing the state of ecstasy in men, and of 'calling down' spirits

from the invisible world. The above-mentioned dictionary, Shuo

Wên, defines the word wu (shaman) as 'a woman who is naturally fit

for serving the formless (i.e., invisible beings) and who, by means of

dancing call down spirits' .11 It is interesting that the same dictionary

explains the character itself which represents this word, IB , by

saying that it pictures a woman dancing with two long sleeves

hanging down on the right and the left. In the still earlier stage of its

development, 12 it represents the figure of a shaman holding up jade

with two hands in front of a spirit or god.

It is also significant that the monster is'said to be a bird, which is

most probably an indication that the shamanic dancing here in

question was some kind of feather-dance in which the shaman was

ritually ornamented with a feathered headdress.

The second point to be noticed in the above-given passage from

the Shan Hai Ching - and this point is of far greater relevance to the

==

present study than the first - is the particular expression used in the

description of the monster's visage, hun tun, 13 which 1 have provi-

sionally translated above as 'strangely amorphous'. lt means a

chaotic state of things, an amorphous state where nothing is clearly

delineated, nothing is clearly distinguishable, but which is far from

being sheer non-being; it is, on the contrary, an extremely obscure

'presence' in which the existence of something - or some things, still

undifferentiated - is vaguely and dimly sensed.

The relation between this word as used in this passage and

Chuang-tzu's allegory of the divine Emperor Hun Tun has been

noticed long ago by philologists of the Ch'ing dynasty. The com-

mentator of the Shan Hai Ching, Pi Yüan, for instance, explicitly

connects this description of the monster with the featureless face of

the Emperor Hun Tun.

The allegory given by Chuang-tzu reads as follows:' 4

The Emperor of the South Sea was called Shu, the Emperor of the

North Sea was called Hu, 15 and the Emperor of the central domain

was called Hun Tun. 16 Once, Shu and Hu met in the domain of Hun

Tun, who treated both of them very well. Thereupon, Shu and Hu

deliberated together over the way in which they might possibly repay

his goodness.

'All men', they said, 'are possessed of seven orifices for seeing,

hearing, eating, and breathing. But this one (i.e., Hun Tun) alone

does not possess any (orifice). Come, let us bore some for him.'

They went on boring one orifice every day, until on the seventh day

Hun Tun died.

This story describes in symbolic terms the destructive effect exer-

cised by the essentialist type of philosophy on the Reality. lt is a

merciless denunciation of this type of philosophy on behalf of a

peculiar form of existentialist philosophy which, as we shall see

later, Chuang-tzu was eager to uphold. Shu and Hu, symbolizing the

precariousness of human existence, met in the central domain of

Hun Tun; they were very kindly treated and they became happy for

a brief period of time as their names themselves indicate. This event

would seem to symbolize the human intellect stepping into the

domain of the supra-sensible world of 'un-differentiation', the

Absolute, and finding a momentary felicity there - the ecstasy of a

mystical intuition of Being, which, regrettably, lasts but for a short

time. Encouraged by this experience, the human intellect, or

Reason, tries to bore holes in the Absolu te, that is to say, tries to

mark distinctions and bring out to actuality all the forms that have

remained latent in the original undifferentiation. The result of

'boring' is nothing but the philosophy of Names (ming) as rep-

resented by Confucius and his school, an essentialist philosophy,

where all things are clearly marked, delineated, and sharply disting-

From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics 305 uished from one another ori the ontological level of essences. But the moment orifices were bored in Hun Tun's face, he died. This means that the Absolu te can be brought into the grasp of Reason by 'essential' distinctions being made in the reality of the Absolute, and becomes thereby something understandable; but the moment it becomes understandable to Reason, the Absolute dies. lt is not time yet for us to go into the details of the existentialist position taken by Chuang-tzu. 1 simply wanted to show by this example how closely the shamanic mythopoeic imagination was originally related with the birth of Taoist philosophy, and yet, at the same time, how far removed the latter was in its philosophical import from the former. This sense of distance between shamanism and philosophy may be alleviated to a considerable extent if we place between the two terms of the relation the cosmogonical story - a product of the mythopoeic mentality - which purports to explain how Heaven and Earth came into being. lt is not exactly a 'story'; it is a 'theory' and is meant to be one. lt is a result of a serious attempt to describe and explain theoretically the very origin of the world of Being and the process by which all things in the world have corne to acquire the forms with which we are now familiar. The cosmogony constitutes in this sense the middle term - structurally, if not historically - between the crude shamanic myth and the highly developed metaphysics of the Way. Here we give in translation the cosmogony as formulated in the above-mentioned Huai Nan Tzü: 11 Heaven and Earth had no form yet. lt was astate of formless ftuidity; nothing stable, nothing definite. This state is called the Great Begin- ning. The Great Beginning produced 18 a spotless void. The spotless void produced the Cosmos. The Cosmos produced (the all- pervading) vital energy. 19 The vital energy had in itself distinctions. That which was limpid and light went up hovering in thin layers to form Heaven, while that which was heavy and turbid coagulated and became Earth. The coming together of limpid and fine elements is naturally easy, while the coagulation of heavy and turbid elements is difficult to occur. For this reason, Heaven was the first to be formed, then Earth became established. Heaven and Earth gathered together the finer elements of their vital energy to form the principles of Negative (Yin) and Positive (Yang), and the Negative and Positive gathered together the finer elements of their vital energy to constitute the four seasons. The four seasons scattered their vital energy to bring into being the ten thousand things. The calorie energy of the Positive principle, having been accumulated, gave birth to fire, and the essence of the energy of fire became the sun. The energy of coldness peculiar to the Negative principle, having been accumulated became water, and the essence of

===

the energy of water became the moon. The overflow of the sun and

the moon, having become refined, turned into stars and planets.

Heaven received the sun, moon, stars, and planets. Earth received

water, puddles, dust, and soil.

In the passage her quoted we encounter again that undifferen-

tiated, featureless Something, the primordial Chaos, this time as a

cosmogonie principle or the Great Beginning, representing the state

of affairs before the creation of the world. The Great Beginning is

certainly different from the mythical monster of the Shan Hai Ching

and the metaphysical principle of the Tao Tê Ching. But it is evident

at the same time that these three are but different 'phenomena' of

one and the same thing.

Similarly in a different passage20 in the same book we read:

Long long ago, when Heaven and Earth were still non-existent, there

were no definite figures, no definite forms. Mysteriously profound,

opaque and dark: nothing was distinguishable, nothing was fathom-

able; limitlessly remote, vast and void; nobody would have discerned

its gate.

Then there were born together two divinities, and they began to rule

Heaven and to govern Earth. lnfinitely deep (was Heaven), and no

one knew where it came to a limit. Vastly extensive (was Earth), and

no one knew where it ceased.

Thereupon (Being) divided itself into the Negative and the Positive,

which, then, separated into the eight cardinal directions.

The hard and the soft complemented each other, and as a result the

ten thousand things acquired their definite forms. The gross and

confused elements of the vital energy produced animais (including

beasts, birds, reptiles and fish). The finer vital energy produced man.

This is the reason why the spiritual properly belongs to Heaven, while

the bodily belongs to Earth.

Historically speaking, this and similar cosmogonical theories seem

to have been considerably inflùenced by Taoism and its metaphys-

ics. Structurally, however, they furnish a connecting link between

myth and philosophy, pertaining as they do to both of them and yet

differing from them in spirit and structure. The cosmogony discloses

to our eyes in this sense the mythopoeic background of the

metaphysics of the Way as formulated by Lao-tzii and Chuang-tzii.

In a similar fashion, we can bring to light the subjective - i.e.,

epistemological - aspect of the relationship between shamanism

and Taoist philosophy by comparing the above-mentioned Elegies

of Ch'u and the books of Lao-tzii and Chuang-tzii. The possibility of

obtaining an interesting result from a comparative study of Ch'ü

Yüan, the great shaman-poet of the state of Ch'u, and the

From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics 307

philosophers of Taoism was noted long ago by Henri Maspero,21

although death prevented him from fully developing his idea.

ln the Li Sao22 and the Yüan Yu, 23 the shaman-poet describes in

detail the process of visionary states through which a soul in an

ecstatic state, helped and assisted by various gods and spirits,

ascends to the heavenly city where the 'etemal beings' live. This is in

reality nothing but a description of a shamanic unio mystica. And

the shamanic ascension is paralleled by a visionary ascension of a

similar structure in the Chuang-tzu, the only essential difference

between the two being that in the latter case the experience of the

spiritual joumey is refined and elaborated into the form of a

metaphysical contemplation. Just as the shaman-poet experiences

in his ecstatic oblivion of the ego a kind of immortality and eternity,

so the Taoist philosopher experiences immortality and 'long life' in

the midst of the etemal Way, by being unified with it. lt is interesting

to notice in this respect that the poet says in the final stage of his

spiritual experience that he 'transcends the Non-Doing,24 reaches

the primordial Purity, and stands side by si de with the Great Begin-

ning' .25 In Taoist terminology, we would say that the poet at this

stage 'stands side by side with the Way', that is, 'is completely

unified with the Way', there being no discrepancy between them.

In the Li Sao the poet does not ascend to such a height. Standing

on the basic assumption that both the Li Sao and Yüan Yu are

authentic works of Ch'ü Yüan, Maspero remarks that the Li Sao

represents an earlier stage in the spiritual development of the poet,

at which he, as a shaman, has not yet attained to the final goal,

whereas the Yüan Yu represents a later stage at which the poet 'has

already reached the extremity of mysticism'.

Such an interpretation is of course untenable if we know for

certain that the Yüan Yu is a work composed by a later poet and

surreptitiously attributed to Ch'ü Yüan. In any case, the poem in its

actual form is markedly Taoistic, and some of the ideas are undeni-

ably borrowings from Lao-tzii and Chuang-tzii. Here again,

however, the problem of authenticity is by no means a matter of

primary importance tous. For even if we admit that the poem - or

some parts of - it is a Han Dynasty forgery, it remains true that the

very fact that Taoist metaphysics could be so naturally transformed

- or brought back - into a shamanic world-vision is itself a proof

of a real congeniality that existed between shamanism and

Taoism.

A detailed analytic comparison between the Elegies of Ch'u and

the books of Lao-tzii and Chuang-tzii is sure to make an extremely

fruitful and rewarding work. But to do so will take us too far afield

beyond the main topic of the present study. Besides, we are going to

describe in detail in the first chapters of this book the philosophical

version of the spiritual journey which has just been mentioned. And

this must suffice us for our present purposes.308 

Let us now leave the problem of the shamanic origin of Taoism,

and turn to the purely philosophical aspects of the latter. Our main

concern will henceforward be exclusively with the actual structure

of Taoist metaphysics and its key-concepts.

Notes

1. IRA.

2. •A·

3. "'!P.A. i.e., a man who has attained to the furthest limit (of perfection).

4. 4if!A. We may note that this and the preceding words ail refer to one and the same

concept which is the Taoist counterpart of the concept of insân kâmil or the Perfect

Man, which we discussed in the first part of this study.

5. J: Miî::E§îJ.

6. Reference has been made in the preceding chapter to the possible historical

connection between the Yin dynasty and the spirit of the state of Ch'u.

7. For more details about the problem of the shaman ( (.JP; wu) representing the

highest administrative power in the non-secularized state in ancient China, see for

example Liang Ch' i Ch' ao: A History of Political Thought in the Periods Prior to the

Ch'in Dynasty 1923, Shanghai, Ch. II.

8. 1 would refer the reader to Mircea Eliade's basic work: Shamanism, Archaic

Techniques of Ecstasy, English tr., London, 1964.

9. lrltlîîTJ, an eclectic work compiled by thinkers of various schools who were

gathered by the king of Huai Nan, Liu An j!J'i(, at his court, in the second century B.C.

The book is of an eclectic nature, but its basic thought is that of the Taoist school.

1 O. one of the most important source-books for Chinese mythology, giving

a detailed description of ail kinds of mythological monsters living in mountains and

seas. The following quotation is taken from a new edition of the book,

(11$.li-*iUl), with a commentary by Pi Yüan of the Ch'ing dynasty,

Tai Pei, 1945, p. 57.

11.

12. The character it appears in the oracle-bones is: fR or /ti.

13. Plfi(. The word is written in the Chuang-tzu iaiflti.

14. Chapter VII entitled 'Fit to be Emperors and Kings', p. 309.

15. Bo th shu ( fl) and hu ( %!. ) lite rail y mean a brief span of time, symbolizing in this

allegory the precariousness of existence.

309

16. Important to note is the fact that hun tun, the' undifferentiation' is placed in the

center. It means that hun tun represents the true 'reality' of Being, bordering on both

sides on 'precariousness'. The philosophical implication of all this will be elucidated

in a later chapter.

17. lf'ltiîîî-J, III, T'ien Wên ::RXlllil.

18. The received text as it stands is apparently unintelligible. Following the emenda-

tion suggested by Wang Yin Chih ( 3:%Z) 1 read: l;J&B:kAHifH!f1Tf!IJri· ..... 1.

19. The' all-pervading vital energy' is a clumsy translation of the Chinese word ch'i

which plays an exceedingly important rôle in the history of Chinese thought. lt is a

'reality', proto-material and formless, which cannot be grasped by the senses. It is a

kind of vital force, a creative principle of ail things; it pervades the whole world, and

being immanent in everything, molds it and makes it grow into what it really is.

Everything that has a 'form', whether animate or inanimate, has a share in the ch'i.

The concept of ch'i has been studied by many scholars. As one of the most detailed

analytic studies of it we may mention Teikichi Hiraoka: A Study of Ch'i in Huai Nan

Tzu,Zf'IMJmii Tokyo 1969.

20. ibid., VII, mij]lj!itfll.

21. ibid., III.

22.

23. l:&i!J. Many scholars entertain serious doubts-with reason, 1 think - as to the

authenticity of this important and interesting work. Most probably it is a product of

the Han Dynasty (see #Jillflm nUU1îtt3l<litJ), composed in the very atmosphere of

a, fully developed philosophy of Taoism.

24. wu-wei one of the key-terms of Taoist philosophy, which we shall analyze

in a la ter passage. 'Non-Doing' means, in short, man's abandoning ail artificial,

unnatural effort to do something, and identifying himself completely with the activity

of Nature which is nothing other than the spontaneous self-manifestation of the Way

itself. Here the poet daims that at the final stage of his spiritual development he goes

even beyond the level of 'non-activity' and of being one with Nature, and steps

further into the very core of the Way. In his consciousness - or in his 'non-

consciousness', we should rather say