Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer

they had become "forgetful of their own existence." Everything in them was spontaneous; nothing was the result of effort. "They made no plans; therefore, if they failed, they had no cause for regret; if they succeeded, they had no cause for congratulations" (p. 69). "They cheerfully played their assigned roles, waiting patiently for the end." They were free because they were in perfect harmony with creation (p. 71). For them, "One" and "Not One" are both the same: God and Man are unified. This is because they had attained Tao, and Tao is greater than God.

"Before heaven and earth existed, Tao was. It has existed without change from all time. Spiritual beings draw their spirituality from it, and the universe became what we see it now. To Tao, the highest point is not high, and the lowest point is not low; no point in time is "long ago," nor has it grown old through the passage of ages" (p. 76). The great lawmakers of the past obtained Tao and established eternal principles. The sun, the moon, and the Great Bear are kept in their orbits by Tao.

"You preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through you, are fresh and strong."
These lines are from William Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" (1805), used here to illustrate the sustaining power of Tao.

He who wishes to attain Tao must get rid of the preoccupation with "charity and duty," "music and ceremonies," and even the distinction between body and mind. Flowers and birds do not work; they simply live. That is Tao. For a human being, a state of indifference and calm—a "tranquility" original: ἀταραξία (ataraxia), a Greek term for freedom from emotional disturbance not of the skeptic but of the mystic—is the ideal goal: a passive reflection of the Eternal. "The perfect man uses his mind like a mirror. It grasps at nothing; it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep. And thus, he can triumph over the material world without hurting himself" (see p. 98).

It would, of course, be arrogant to try to assign a single meaning to Tao, and even more so to try to find an exact equivalent in Western thought. However, it is fair to say that the Greek philosopher Heraclitus original: Heracleitus often speaks of "Reason" original: Λόγος (Logos) in the same way Chuang Tzu speaks of Tao. It is "Necessity" original: ἀνάγκη (ananke), or "Fate" original: εἱμαρμένη (heimarmene), or "Mind" original: γνώμη (gnome), or "Justice" original: Δίκη (dike). In nature, it appears as balance and stability; in the State, it appears as Law; in humans, it appears as the universal Reason, which is within us but does not originate from us. Sometimes it is identified with the mysterious name of Zeus, which must not be spoken;¹ sometimes, like the "Necessity" original: Ἀνάγκη (Ananke) of the Greek poets, it is supreme over both gods and men. If it is hard to define the relationship between Tao and God, it is just as hard to define the relationship between the "Logos" and Zeus. To call Chuang Tzu and Heraclitus "pantheists" is only to say that, as far as we can translate their ideas...

¹ Fragments of Heraclitus of Ephesus, 65 original: Heracl. Eph. Rell. lxv.