MEDITATIONS: ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER ONE PART Two
WANDERING FAR AND UNFETTERED, PART II
This existence which we experience is dualistic and oppositional in nature. It cannot be another way, for the nature of being is exclusive. A thing is what it is because it is not something else. Any attempt to thwart this, to synthesize contradictory oppositional elements, can only result in a zero-sum negation of what is. That is to say, to try and combine two opposite concepts is to deny reality as it is. This “life-denial” is known as philosophical explosion (to render useless a definition by including the opposite definition), and it is counter to the Tao—the Way in accord with the “Tao source of life,” which is life and the universe as they are transcendently (read: objectively, beyond human perception or experience).
imagine a soft light of blue-green
imagine a strong red light
imagine a rich yellow light
imagine a bright white light
now imagine the black absence of colorif you look at these lights singly you will know what they are
if you allow them into your eyes all at once
then you will not be able to distinguish one from the other (Lao Tzu 21-2)
But, you might argue, the above passage from the Tao Te Ching only shows that things are different, not that they are necessarily oppositional or dualistic in nature. That lesson comes earlier in the same text as Lao Tzu explains the inescapable consequence of the aforementioned exclusivity:
you create death when you decide what constitutes life
you create difficulties when you create ease
you create long when you decide what is short
you create a low tone when you sing a high one (Lao Tzu 10)
As you can see, the labeling of a thing produces a relativity along which other things are more or less similar to the labeled object or concept. At the furthest end of that relativity is that object or concept which shares least in common with the originally labelled thing. But it is more than that. The polar ends of relativity are necessarily those two pole which contain none of one another, and would become less of themselves by containing those elements which they exclude. Their combination would mean their destruction, just the same as explained prior.
So, what does any of this have to do with Kun or Peng or the Zhuangzi?
Recall our tale of Kun transforming into Peng who soars thousands of miles into the sky before turning his course from the Northern toward the Southern Oblivion. “Why so high?” you might ask. The Zhuangzi answers:
Now, if water is not piled up thickly enough, it has no power to support a large vessel. Overturn a cupful of water in a hole in the road and you can float a mustard seed in it like a boat, but if you put the cup itself in there it will just get stuck. The water is too shallow for so large a vessel. And if the wind is not piled up thickly enough, it has no power to support Peng’s enormous wings. (Zhuangzi 3)
Let us once again order abstract our way to understanding the metaphorical meaning of Peng’s ascent. Peng, being a phoenix, is our archetypal instinctive image of our transformation into our higher, potential selves. Peng is us once our consciousnesses have been raised—raised meaning to become aware of what formerly we were ignorant of, afraid of , or ashamed of (or all of these and more). Note: this raised consciousness is the same uncomfortable consciousness we feel when we are self-conscious, such as when speaking in public or failing in front of a crowd.
Now, for his journey south, Peng—being a symbol of our highest potential—must ascend the highest distance. To shed the metaphor, we might say that merely beginning our process of self-improvement, self-overcoming, and individuation requires an immense amount of self-conscious awareness. In Jungian terms, we must look long and deeply into our Shadows and become aware of the many shameful, guilty, depressing, and embarrassing traits we’ve hidden there. Only then, at such a height of elevated consciousness, will we have enough reality under us for our self-transformation to be successful, real, and in accord with the Tao and Tao source of life.
Peng represents the “Master” half of the Master-Slave dialectic. The Master is that which is higher, nobler, more able to live and love living in the world—not only in spite of the suffering, but also because of it.
That leaves the opposing half of the dialectic unaccounted for, and what is left is the “Slave” half. What is meant by Slave? We are referring to that which is lower, more vulgar, and less able to live in—let alone love—the world because of all the suffering intrinsic to being. If the phoenix is the symbol of our higher selves, then the cicada, the dove, and the quail represent the common and the low. Indeed, the Zhuangzi refers to these symbols explicitly:
The cicada and the fledgling dove laugh at him, saying, “We scurry up into the air, leaping from the elm to the sandalwood tree, and when we don’t quite make it we just plummet to the ground. What’s all this about ascending ninety-thousand miles and heading south?” . . . What do these two little insects know? A small consciousness cannot keep up with a vast consciousness; short duration cannot keep up with long duration. . . . This is exactly what Tang’s question to Ji amounted to: “In the barren northland there is a dark ocean called the Pool of Heaven. There is a fish there several thousand miles across with a length that is as yet unknown, named Kun. There’s a bird there named Peng with a back like Mt. Tai and wings like clouds draped across the heavens. In a spiraling ascent that twists like a ram’s horns he climbs ninety-thousand miles . . . and then heads south, finally arriving at the Southern Oblivion. The scoldquail laughs at him, saying ‘Where does he think he’s going? I leap into the air with all my might, but before I get farther than a few yards I drop to the ground. My twittering and fluttering between the bushes and branches is the utmost form of flying! So where does he think he’s going?’ Such is the difference between the large and the small.” (Zhuangzi 4)
Aye, and such is the difference between the Master and the Slave. To one, life is a thing worth loving and the self a thing worth improving and embracing. To the other, life is merely the wretchedness of the underbrush, the darkness of the canopy, and a thing worth distracting oneself from. Funny, isn’t it, the arrogance produced by the ignorance of the cicada, the dove, and the quail? To them, there is no higher aim than the mundane day-to-day actions taken between life and death. They are slaves to their natures and to their weaknesses, and perhaps it is in their natures to be that way. Perhaps for them, fluttering between the bushes and branches is their very own highest potential being.
Whether or not the condition of the scoldquail can really be any other way, at least one consequence remains constant: he who is lower cannot understand he who is higher. In fact, to the Slave, that which the Master does, seeks, and values are incomprehensible—poison, even. For the noble pursues greater and greater capacity to love existence for what it is, including the painful parts which the vulgar person cannot, will not, and does not want to withstand. Thus the dialectic. Thus the oppositional nature of this dualistic reality. It cannot be another way. So long as some people embody a life-affirming will, those who do so less and less become more and more enemies of all that which opposes their attitude of life-denial. The interests of these two groups, or even two individuals, are innately in conflict. Whether this is a problem in and of itself depends on your own state of consciousness. To those who affirm life, it is another joyously arduous journey to overcome. To those who deny the innate conditions of life, it is a bitterness which drives the will to annihilation via the synthesis of the dialectical.
“No surprise there,” said Unk Linkin’. “The blind have no access to the beauty of visual patterns, and the deaf have no part in the sounds of bells and drums. It is not only the physical body that can be blind and deaf; the understanding can also be so.” (Zhuangzi 6-7)
Lao Tzu. “Chapter 2” & “Chapter 12”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.10 & pp 21-2
Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi; The Complete Writings, translated by Brook Ziporyn, Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2020.
