Continuing my exploration of Taoist book already on my shelf, I picked up the Burton Watson selection and translation of Chuang Tzu writings. As we saw with Lao Tzu, the writing attributed to "Master Chuang" can only loosely be credited to the third century BCE sage of that name; in fact, what has come down to us is another collection of greatest hits along with a few B sides. In this case, however, we have at least moved from the level of the telegraphically compressed to the merely obscure. While there's not enough here to describe a Chuang Tzu system, we at least have more than the fragmented poetry of Lao Tzu. The short but fully formed allegorical stories that comprise the bulk of this book let you sink your teeth into their interpretation a little more.
As with Lao Tzu, the defining feature of this philosophy seems to be the inversion of opposites. Again and again we see that the things the ordinary man values are mere encumbrances, and the things he holds as useless or base are where true wisdom lies. With Chuang Tzu though, this takes on an almost Nietzschean tone advocating the revaluation of all values, a dimension that wasn't obvious in the Tao Te Ching. There's more humor here, more levity of style, more "free and easy wandering", to quote the title of one chapter, that matches the counter-cultural content. There's also more signs that fit with interpreting the Way along the nondual lines that David Loy laid out. A boundaryless vastness, a stillness, a silence beyond words and even conceptualization -- these are the core features of the emptiness that replaces the subject-object duality as the ground of things. That said, to use the book as a meditation manual is still clearly impossible. Which leads me to wonder just how Taoist meditation is taught. These classic texts so far appear to be entirely philosophical in their outlook.
No comments:
Post a Comment