The Old Fisherman

It is tempting to allow oneself to be possessed by the will to set society on the correct path—as if we vulgar human beings are great men of history capable of such things. And maybe you are. Perhaps Fate has graced me with the highest of privileges that the übermensch in the flesh is reading this meditation! But for the rest of us, we are most certainly not “Sons of Heaven.” We are not those whose nature and destiny is to single handedly change the Course of events. Ours is a mode of being of familial and local significance.

And yet, we, like Confucius in Zhuangzi’s tale of “The Old Fisherman,” take it upon ourselves to define the right ordering of things—things ultimately outside of our purview, well beyond our influence or control. Take example in the following quote in which the stranger / the old fisherman confronts Confucius who, identifying the stranger as a master of the Course, begs him for wisdom:

The stranger said, “. . . Please allow me to set aside what belongs to someone like me and instead try to go through the things that would motivate and preoccupy someone like you. What motivates and preoccupies you is human affairs. . . . What worries the Son of Heaven and his officers are things like the disharmony of yin and yang . . . the oppressive behavior and rebellions of feudal lords . . . overspending on ritual and music . . . and interpersonal relationships so unattended that people become promiscuous and disorderly. Now you, sir, are not in the position of a ruler or feudal lord . . . yet you capriciously take it on yourself to beautify ritual and music and codify the proper human relationships, to transform and educate all people equally—aren’t you being way too much of a busybody?” (Zhuangzi 255-6)

The old fisherman is not at all impressed with the presumptiveness of Confucius. While the specific examples are what are relevant to the time and place, the point is made. We each have our range of potential, a range of roles in which we fit. While it is nigh impossible to tell precisely where the limits begin and terminate, as embodied, mortal beings with a will emergent from said embodiment, we know ourselves to have a nature and therefore a constrained set of possibilities.

Here, Confucius serves as the archetype of the latent tyrant. He has studied for all his life, and has genuinely come into his own wisdom. He even acknowledges his ignorance, giving him the seeming of self-awareness. Yet despite all this, Confucius misses the very flaw which stunts his spiritual development. He presumes, presupposes, that he is capable of learning the Way in a form that it could be codified for all time and places.

Confucius’s error here is assuming that he is capable of knowing the ineffable in a way that even emperors and their advisers do not know. It is the arrogance of the arm-chair politician, psychologist, and philosopher. We’ve all seen this ten thousand times in our lives. Likewise, we’ve all been in this position ourselves. In the moment of an exciting, frustrating, or otherwise engaging conversation, we forget the limits of our conscious understanding. We take as an unconscious axiomatic assumption that our paltry range of knowledge is sufficient to order an entire society. We mistake ourselves as beings more worthy than kings—which is hilarious if you think about it, because these conversations happen most often among middleclass pseudo-intellectual mid-wits!

But now we’re left with a question, “What should someone as wise as Confucius focus his attention on? What falls within the domain of human affairs?”

The old fisherman goes on to explain:

“. . . You should be looking into the eight typical flaws people are prone to and the four troublemakers in the handling of affairs. The first of the eight flaws is meddling: concerning yourself with what is none of your concern. The second is smooth-talking: advancing your own agenda when no one has shown any interest in it. The third is sycophancy: scanning the listener’s intentions and shaping your words accordingly. The fourth is flattery: not caring whether what you say is true or false. The fifth is tale-bearing: a liking for speaking of the faults of others. The sixth is maliciousness: to break up friendships and cause divisions among kinfolk. The seventh is scheming: to use deceitful praise in order to bring about the downfall of your enemies. The eighth is slipperiness: facing in two directions to suit everyone, the good as well as the bad, sneakily excavating what would please them. . . .

“The four troublemakers are, first, pushiness: to have a taste for managing big projects and replacing accepted practices in order to win credit and fame for oneself. The second is greed: to insist that yours is the only way to understand things and your projects the only things to be done, raiding what others have for your own use. The third is obstinacy: not correcting one’s errors even when clearly seeing them, doubling down when called out. The forth is conceit: approving whoever is the same as oneself and disapproving whoever is different from oneself, disallowing any good in them. . . .” (256)

There is much to examine among the eight flaws and four troublemakers. Perhaps they warrant an entire meditation all to themselves. For now, I want to direct our attention to what is common among them. These are all personal flaws and interpersonal troublemaking habits.

For we whose influence lies within the realm of human affairs, these are our concerns. It is arrogance and self-conceit when we determine ourselves to be the rightful judges and mediators of others. Really we are meddling, deluding ourselves into think we have power beyond our purview. When we consciously manipulate others by planting idea seeds into their minds through smooth-talking, it is much the same. We try to bend others, even all society, to our will when we lie through sycophancy and flattery. We try to raise ourselves up artificially by lowering others through tale-bearing. To do maliciousness or to scheme are even worse versions of this. And to be a slippery snake is to become the kind of hypocrite whom no one can trust—because such a person gains only through leading others astray from their Course.

For a sage like Confucius, really his greatest deeds are to help individual students overcome these flaws and not to be tempted into the for troublemaking shortcuts. He will make a greater difference through seeking these humbler accomplishments. After all, these are within the realm of his potential, and so he might actually succeed; whereas, he who plays at being the emporer when he is not only images we is helping when really he is absconding the Course laid before him.

And for we who are not sages, the truth is the same. It is up to us to not embody these flaws ourselves. It is up to us to not be pushy with our own ideas, to not be “greedy,” or perhaps better named arrogant in thinking ours is always and everywhere the superior way. It is up to us confess our errors and to correct them, just as it is our purview to be honest and consistent in our behavior. To do otherwise is to stray from our individual Course and therefore fail to live up to our potentials.

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