MEDITATIONS: ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER TEN

Breaking into Trunks

As in the previous chapter, there is much evidence of a different author than he who wrote the inner chapters. And in the same way as the previous Meditation, I intend to take this lesson with a grain of salt, critique, and interpretation.

Fortunately, not much critique is required. At its heart, “Breaking into Trunks” accurately describes the dialectical nature of attaining wisdom. It accomplishes this through metaphor, comparing the knowledge of sages with hordes of great treasures as well as means of securing those treasures from thieves who would like to steal them:

To protect your trunks, your sacks, your cabinets from thieves who would break into them, rifle through them, burst them open, no doubt you will bind them tightly with seals and ropes, secure them firmly with latches and locks. This is what common sense calls wisdom. (Zhuangzi 84)

Whether common sense is correct or not about the nature of wisdom, it does not serve its purpose. Or rather, it serves its function all to well, a function which is employed not only by he who attains wisdom, but also by he who would take advantage of the “wise.” The Zhuangzi explains:

But when a great thief arrives, he will take the cabinet on his back, haul off the trunk, shoulder the sack, and make off with it—fearing nothing more than that the seals, ropes, latches, and locks are not secure enough. . . .

To try to govern the world by doubling the number of sages would merely double the profits of the great robbers. If you create pounds and ounces to measure them with, they’ll steal the pounds and ounces and use them to rob you further. If you make scales and balances to regulate them with, they’ll steal the scales and balances and use them to rob you more. If you create tallies and seals to enforce their reliability, they’ll steal the tallies and seals and use them to rob you too. If you create ideals of humankindness and responsible conduct to regulate them with, they’ll just steal humankindness and responsible conduct and use them to rob you all the more. (Zhuangzi 84-86)

We see here the metaphor elevated to the level of abstraction, of concepts. What the Zhuangzi is really arguing here is that, just as skilled thieves will try to use your strengths against you, so too will great liars and manipulators wield your philosophy against you. That is to say, if you conform your intrinsic virtues to an externally imposed set of rules. procedures, and dictums—rather than adopting practices and disciplines which fit with and enhance your intrinsic virtues—then you make yourself vulnerable to various forms of personal and ideological possession. That is not to say that the wisdom learned and followed is useless or wrong; however, it is to say that which wisdoms one imbibes matters (I believe it was Carl Jung who warned that one should be wary of wisdom he has not earned).

In other words, attitude and introspection determine whether a piece of wisdom will serve as a virtue or as a vice.

It is hear where I depart from the author of this chapter. He goes on to apply this lesson to society at large, once again describing a Rousseauian State of Nature of perfect piece and harmony if only the sages and their wisdom were done away with. This is foolish, not because it is not true that cleverness and cunning are things that can be used against the man who attains them, but because the problem runs all the way to our human nature. Envy, jealousy, greed, desire, and resentment have always and will forever be part of what it means to be a human being, even if all of society were erased. Being embodied creatures, we have wants, needs, and desires: only a will toward life-denial, a Buddhistic will toward Nirvanic self-ending—that is, self-destruction—could possibly deliver us from this conundrum.

But when applied to the self, there is life-affirming utility in this chapter’s wisdom. And that wisdom is, “don’t overvalue your ideas.” Remember that philosophy, the love of wisdom, is the love of that which is in accord with the Truth. That which is in accord with the Truth is in accord with reality. This is the Tao, the Way or Course in alignment with that transcendent / objective, indeterminate / potential, eternal reality which is always in a state of change. Therefore, philosophy ought to lead you to your Course; it ought to serve your intrinsic virtues and not the other way around. It ought to enable and encourage you to say, “yes” to life and its conditions. It ought to make you more of who you are and not merely the hollow headed puppet of someone or something else.

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