MEDITATIONS: ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER NINE

Horse Hooves

It brings me sorrow to say that here, in the ninth chapter, second of the outer chapters, that we witness a sharp decline in the wisdom of the new contributor(s). While chapter eight, “Webbed Toes” deviated stylistically from prior content contained within the inner chapters, “Horse Hooves” takes a turn from the profound and difficult toward the obvious and—from our post-enlightenment perspective—obviously erroneous.

With all that being said, I will do my best to see the wisdom present here while simultaneously critiquing some of the assumptions this chapter’s author makes.

So what does “Horse Hooves” say that justifies such disappointment? In a sentence, it is the same mistake made by one Jean-Jacque Rousseau in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. For those unfamiliar, I will summarize the long Rousseau’s long essay on inequality thusly: it makes many one-sided and inaccurate assumptions about the conditions of prehistoric people. So too is this chapter of the Zhuangzi guilty. Both assume a kind of “pre-social” man of abundant natural instinct and prosperity, being provided everything he needs by the generous hand of nature:

All as one, without faction—this is just the way Heaven tosses them out. So it was that in the age of the full realization of the intrinsic virtuosities, their actions were solid and full but their gaze was distant and blank. For in those days, there were no paths or trails through the mountains, no boats or bridges over the ponds; all creatures lived together, merging their territories into one another, the birds and beasts multiplying to form herds and flocks, the grasses and trees growing thick and unhampered, so one could tie a cord to a bird or beast and take a stroll with it, or bend a branch to peep into a bird’s nest. For in those days when the intrinsic virtuosities were fully realized, the people lived together with the birds and beasts, bunched together with all things. (Zhuangzi 81-82)

As any modern person ought to know, there never was such a thing as pre-social man. Never was there a time, even when our ancestors were closer to chimpanzees than to us, that we did not struggle to survive in tribal units against the hostilities of nature. If you doubt this, then look outside your house for a few hours and watch birds fight with one another over territory or cats hunting rabbits, mice, chipmunks, and squirrels. Therefore, the utopian state of nature described above is just that, utopian—i.e. no where, Neverland, the dream and fantasy of the deniers of life as it is.

This notion runs counter to all of the Zhuangzi up to this point, and counter to Taoism in general. A better, alternative interpretation of primitive human existence is one in which tribal man lives relying on his natural ability, accepting the conditions he finds himself and making the most of them. This would be a more accurate description of man fully realizing his “intrinsic virtuosity.” Indeed, we see this even in the same chapter under scrutiny:

Here are the horses, able to tramp over frost and snow with the hooves they have, to keep out the wind and cold with their coats. Chomping the grass and drinking the waters, prancing and jumping over the terrain—this is the genuine inborn nature of horses. Even if given fancy terraces and great halls, they would have no use for them. (Zhuangzi 81)

Here, the “inborn,” or intrinsic virtue of the horse lies in what it has evolved to do and be. Rather than a utopian vision (I admit threats and dangers have been omitted here, but at least they have not bee explicitly excluded), we see the horse as an example of a being exercising its natural power. The horse does not aspire to be anything unnatural, else, or other, and in so has accepted its limits, conditions, and potential.

In this regard, “Horse Hooves” is correct when it reads:

Then along came the sage, bending and twisting over ritual and music to reform the bodies of the world, dangling humankindness and responsible conduct overhead to “comfort” the hearts of everyone in the world. Only then did the people begin groping on tiptoe in their eagerness for knowledge. From there it was inevitable that they would end up struggling for profit and advantage above all. And this, all this, is really the fault of the sages. (Zhuangzi 83)

Though I do not agree that the sages are the only ones at fault, it is true that wise men, philosophers, and scientists have led the way in informing people “what life could be like” and “what one ought to value.” It is their conscious understanding, their Vernunft, if you will, which leads themselves and others astray from the Course with the promise of what could be made to be as opposed to what really is.

So even though the author of this chapter was likely led astray himself, and even though the Tao way of life would most certainly be something closer to the life of the cripples in chapter five, “Fragmentations Betokening Full Virtuosity,” with a careful, open eye, we can still find wisdom in “Horse Hooves”—literally and figuratively—for like horses and their hooves, we are animals extant in and part of the Great Clump that is the world. Like horses and their hooves, we have particular traits and features which we call our own and that are intrinsic to our species or even to each of us as individuals. Following the Course means recognizing that the magic promises of sages is just that, an illusion. Instead, put your trust in who you are—inevitably.

This is the Tao as inevitability.

Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi; The Complete Writings, translated by Brook Ziporyn, Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2020