Admirer of philosophical Taoism (especially Chuang Tzu) that I am, I enjoyed these reflections by Hakim Bey. Hope you do also.
Aimless wanderers of the world, disunite! We never could get organized enough to agree on uniting, anyway.
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Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics
by Hakim Bey
The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it, catch the fish and you forget the bait. The snare is the means to get the rabbit where you want it, catch the rabbit and forget the snare. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it, catch on to the idea and you forget about the words. Where shall I find a man who forgets about words, and have a word with him?
— Chuang Tzu
Does Taoism have a "metaphysics"?
Certainly later Taoism, influenced by Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, developed elaborate cosmology, ontology, theology, teleology, and eschatology – but can these "medieval accretions" be read back into the classic texts, the Tao Te Ching, the Chuang Tzu, or the Lieh Tzu?
Well, yes and no. Religious Taoism certainly established such a back-reading. But, as J. Needham pointed out, the Maoists of our century were able to evolve a Marxist reading of Taoism, or at least of the Tao Te Ching. No doubt any reading of a "spiritual" text may have some validity (since the spirit is by definition indefinable); the Tao Te Ching has proved especially malleable.
But Chuang Tzu not only has no metaphysics, he actually condemns and derides metaphysics. Supernaturalism and materialism both appear equally funny to him. His only cosmogonic principle is "chaos". Oddly enough the only philosophical tool he uses is logic – although it is the logic of dream. He makes no mention of divine principle, of the purpose of being, or personal immortality. He is beyond Good and Evil, sneers at ethics, and even makes fun of yoga.
The Chuang Tzu must surely be unique amongst all religious scripture for its remarkable ANTI-metaphysics. It qualifies as "revelation" not because it unveils hidden knowledge from "outside" the self – as other scriptures claim to do – but because it transmits a sure way to "spiritual realization", SELF-realization, in this lifetime, in this body, in this daily life. If this way or method can be summed up in one word, one might say spontaneity; and if this term were to be "defined", one might mention the phrase wei wu wei, "action/non-action".
The universe comes into being spontaneously; as Kuo Hsiang points out, the search for a "lord" (or agens) of this creation is an exercise in infinite regress toward emptiness. The Tao is not "God", as some Christian translators still believe. The Tao just happens. On the human scale misery arises solely from the uniquely human ability to fall out of harmony with this Tao – to not be spontaneous.
Chuang Tzu has no interest in why humans are so inept (no concept of "sin"); his only concern is to reverse the process and "return" to the flow. The "return" is an action; the flow itself is not an action but a state – hence the paradox "action/non-action". The concept wu wei plays such a central role in Taoism that it survives even in modern religious Taoism as the truth BEHIND all metaphysics and ritual.
In the great expianatory and communal rites of cultic Taoism as practiced in Taiwan or Honolulu today, at least one person – the priest – must attain union with the Tao, and must do so by a process of voiding his consciousness of all "deities", all metaphysical principles. As for so-called ancient "philosophical" Taoism, we might say that it has wu wei instead of a metaphysics.
Lao Tzu's goal seems to have been the conversion of the Emperor to Taoism, on the assumption that if the ruler does nothing (wu wei) the empire will run itself spontaneously. Chuang Tzu however shows almost no interest in advising rulers (except to leave him alone!), and his examples of "real humans" are almost always workmen (butchers, cobblers, cooks), or drop-out hermits, or bandits. If Chuang Tzu can be said to advocate a social program – and I'm not sure he does – it certainly has nothing to do with any imperial/bureaucratic/Confucian values or structures.
His "program" could be summed up in the phrase AIMLESS WANDERING.
[Read on…]
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