MEDITATIONS: ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER SEVEN

Sovereign Responses for Ruling Powers

 It is a universal human struggle, the desire for mastery over oneself and rule over others, and it is this very struggle with which much of the world’s wisdom is concerned. These are simultaneously questions of power and questions about morality. What is possible for a human being? And of what is possible, what actions ought we to take?

Insofar as one relies on his conscious understanding to ask these question, let alone answer them, one is bound to make mistakes—worse, to believe them; and worse still, to become incapable of not believing in them, rendering him senile. That is the very archetype of the Tyrannical King.

Dogmatism, the presupposition that there is but one correct way, is the aforementioned mistake. It comes in many shapes: sometimes in the form of a crystalized or “frozen” concept or abstraction; in other instances, it comes when we forget that what is good for the higher is often bad for the lower (and vice versa); and other times still, it appears when we over estimate our human limitations. In all these instances and more, we attempt to impress our conscious conception of the ideal onto ourselves, others, or the world. We deny the way the world is and become tyrants who try to try it—the only result being a projection of our own biases, our own deficiencies, and our own self-hatred.

Though short, Chapter Seven, “Sovereign Responses for Ruling Powers,” illustrates this point in an abundance of ways. Today, we will discuss the three previously mentioned: how the world or self is to be managed, how values are dialectic, and what is possible—as well as the consequences of well-intentioned arrogance.

Heavenroot roamed along the sunny slopes of Mt Yin, until he came upon a nameless man on the banks of the Liao River. He said to him, “How is the world to be managed?”

The nameless man said, “Away with you, you boor! What an unpleasant question! I am in the midst of chumming around as a human being with the Creator of Things. . . . Why do you have to come here to bother my mind with this business about ordering the world?”

But Heavenroot asked the same question again. The nameless man then said, “Let your mind roam in the flavorless, mingle your vital energy with the deserted silence, follow the self-so of each thing, the way it already is before any interference, without allowing yourself the least bias. Then the world will be in order.” (Zhuangzi 69)

He who is rooted in Heaven is he who at the core is aspiring toward a higher aim. Nonetheless, he has made a mistake, for what the nameless man has pointed out here is that the world is already ordered. It is Heavenroot himself who is projecting his biases, who is too full of his own ideas to see and accept reality for what it is. His cup is too full. He is not an empty vessel. He is not the vacuity of The Road, The Course, or The Way. That is why he thinks the world needs to be “managed” in the first place—“managed,” as opposed to “adapted to.” There is a world of difference between these two things.

This managerial presupposition naturally leads us to forget the differences among individuals. One way of thinking about it is the difference between those of higher and lower consciousnesses. I do not mean to speak judgmentally hear (though if you know me personally, you’ll also know I have been and will be guilty of this). What I mean to suggest is that it is in fact wrong when one assumes his Way is or ought be the same for others. Consider this conversation between Shoulder Self and crazy Jieyu:

Shoulder Self went to see crazy Jieyu, who said to him, “What did Starting Sun-center tell you?”

Shoulder Self said, “He told me that if a ruler can produce regulations, standards, judgements, and measures derived from the example of his own person, none will dare disobey him and all will be reformed by him.”

Jieyu said, “These are just ways of cheating the intrinsic virtuosities. To rule the world in this way is like trying to carve a river out of the ocean, or asking a mosquito to carry a mountain on its back. For when a sage rules, does he rule anything outside himself? He goes forth only after he himself is aligned, certain only that he is capable of doing whatever he is currently doing. A bird avoids the harm of arrows and nets by flying high, and a mouse burrows in the depths beneath the shrines and graves to avoid poison and traps. Have you ever equaled the ‘non-knowledge’ of these two little pests?” (Zhuangzi 68-69)

Draw your attention to the end of this section, specifically to the double meaning in regard to the bird and the mouse. Jieyu asks Shoulder Self two questions at once, “Has your wisdom ever been the equal of mere insignificant pests?” and “Have you ever consider the equality of wisdom between the bird and the mouse?” Read together, this double question reveals that for each creature—for each individual—whether high like the bird or low like the mouse, its own intrinsic values drawn from its natural virtues are what constitute morality for itself. That is to say, what one ought to do is an emergent property of who and what one is individually.

We are each born to a particular body with a particular temperament, to a particular time and place, and are then exposed to particular environmental influences. Though we are all human, what human is to each of us is not the same. What is good for a bird, to fly high, is impossible for a mouse, and trying to do so will only result in the mouse being caught in a trap he could have otherwise avoided. It doesn’t matter that, to the bird, his conscious reasoning is both coherent and accurate to himself. He must realize that his conscious thought is servant to the unconscious reality—and not the other way around! Those who do not understand this lesson would do well to hear the following:

The emperor of the southern sea was called Swoosh. The emperor of the northern sea was called Oblivion. The emperor of the middle was called Chaotic Blob. Swoosh and Oblivion would sometimes meet in the territory of Chaotic Blob, who always waited on them quite well. They decided to repay Chaotic Blob for such bounteous virtue. “All men have seven holes in them, by means of which they see, hear, eat, and breathe,” they said. “But this one alone has none. Let’s drill him some.” So everyday they drilled another hole.

Seven days later, Chaotic Blob was dead. (Zhuangzi 72)

Thus, like Swoosh and Oblivion, do we overestimate our wisdom and thereby our power to remake the world in our own image—the image of man (Swoosh is the wind, archetype of the masculine; Oblivion is the water, archetype of the feminine). The result of this arrogance is an ignorance which fills the head with notions of progress—all the while destroying the real world potential.

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