MEDITATIONS: ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Ghostless Saunter

“Ghostless Saunter,” to wander about free from the haunting of one’s ancestral spirits—to live in harmony with one’s instincts, his intrinsic virtuosities. This is an easy thing to say; it is more difficult to comprehend; and it is even more dangerous than it is difficult due to the risk of miscomprehension. In Jungian terms, it is a dialectic between the archetype of the Self and that of the Persona, the mask.

On the surface, it often feels self-evident which is which. One’s occupation and social position are clearly constructs. They are dependent on factors non-intrinsic to the person. They can be gained or stripped away at a moment’s notice. Likewise, inner dispositions, attitudes, abilities, and tolerances seem immutable and therefore naturally genuine to the person to whom they belong. But things are often not nearly so obvious as they seem.

Recall that each individual fits uniquely in accord with the Tao that cannot be named. Like a bamboo tally, our jagged edges possess a potentially perfect fit with that-is-which-is. We each have a particular way that allows us to follow the Great Course—a way which transforms us; and we, transformed, thereby revise our particular ways as we become more and more in accord with the transcendent universe.

So, we’re back to where we started: how can we know what side of ourselves is genuine and what is contrived Persona? The Zhuangzi discusses just this:

Intellectual people are unhappy when deprived of the constant transmutation of ideas; debaters are unhappy when deprived of the orderly progression of arguments; critics are unhappy when deprived of the task of berating and nitpicking. These are people who pen themselves in with mere things. . . .

This is the only way these slaves to circumstances and external things delight on the process of transformation: when they meet with a time that can make use of something about them, they are unable to resist doing their thing, unable to practice non-doing. Thus do they comply and align themselves with whatever is brought by every passing year, instead of letting change be their very thing-hood! Thus do they drive their bodies and inborn natures about, sinking beneath the ten thousand things, never turning back for their entire lives. How sad! (Zhuangzi 198-9)

This is potentially a very bitter pill to swallow. However, sometimes eating food that tastes bad can be fun, too. It is in that spirit that we must accept that the very things that give our lives meaning are necessarily transient. That is not to say that there isn’t great value in developing virtue, responsible conduct, and humankindness. These developments are in fact required—but in different amounts at different times for different people, for the same person as he transforms over time.

Speaking personally, I have witnessed this in myself. In my youth, martial arts and being a martial artist gave me my greatest sense of meaning. As I advanced in age, writing become that source, but not without pain (pain still suffered). I had to admit to myself that I couldn’t continue envisioning myself as a martial artist. The context in which the necessary dedication, practice, and source of continued knowledge and skill had passed me by. Even now, though I’ve begun training again in a different martial art form, I don’t have the time to prioritize it. Writing takes precedence—for now, at least, until my circumstances change once again. If ever I manage to make myself successful in my writing career, chances are I’ll have to step back from it if ever I am graced with marriage and children. Then family will become the source of meaning in life, then perhaps writing again, and maybe even martial arts again if my body is up to it. And all of that assumes that the course of my life doesn’t take some other, unexpected turn. It very well may.

That is the difference between identifying with the Self and a Persona. One must realize that he is not what-one-does, but that-which-sustains-itself-through-myriad-transformation. This is also the process of Individuation, of repeated elevations of self-consciousness, self-dissolution, and then self-reconstitution. It is the willingness to start again on the Hero’s Journey again and again, to empty one’s cup so that it might be filled with the ever changing waters of the Great Course.

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