The overall vision (short version)
Instead of identifying with this and that thing, Chuang Tzu invites us to identify with our horizon-spanning field of consciousness. When we do this, instead of anxiously clinging to some things and shunning others, we experience being present with the panorama of whatever things are here-and-now spread out before us. Also, instead of anxiously striving to do this and do that, we experience being effortlessly buoyed by the energy that animates all things, including ourselves.
When we identify with awareness and relax into our embodied sense of energy, we experience the freedom of wandering, amiable and aloof.
Wandering—like a vagabond, a traveller.
Aloof—from worldly worries. At ease with others and our circumstances, even bad-tempered folk and unpleasant circumstances. Not dissociated, not disengaged, rather:
Amiable—playful. Good humoured. Fully and creatively engaged with others and our circumstances.
Chuang Tzu presents this vision in the opening chapter of his book: Wandering, amiable and aloof. Here’s the opening and closing stories:
Awaking to awareness, We happy cicadas, and Mounting the world as your chariot
The overall vision (longer version)
Chuang Tzu (Master Chuang) lived in ancient China sometime around 300 BC. His personal life is a mystery. All that we can really say about him is that he wrote one of the most entertaining and profound books ever written.
Let’s, then, begin with the philosophy he presents in his book.
He observes: I am not my body. I am not my thoughts. I am not my social position. I am awareness, this here-and-now field of consciousness in which all these here-and-now things exist. And I am energy—this felt sense of aliveness, these felt inclinations, urges, promptings—here-and-now engaging with the world.
Having awoken to his nature as here-and-now awareness-and-energy, he sees that nothing can harm him and that everything is a gift with which to play. He sees that to identify with wealth and social standing, or an agenda, or a young, healthy body would be to fail to see the majesty of nature here-and-now spread out before him.
Let’s turn to you.
You face difficulties. Perhaps the government, or your boss, or your neighbours are behaving badly, in ways you wish they were not? Perhaps your partner, or your child? Perhaps nature (a destructive storm; a harmful pathogen)? Perhaps your body, or your thoughts, or your emotions?
What to do?
Take up arms? Submit? Retreat to the hills?
Chuang Tzu answers: It is not what you do that matters, but how you do.
He says: Identify with awareness, get in touch with your energetic sense of engagement with things, and from that place—act. With grace and good humour. Like water flowing to fill a terrain.
These words of mine—identify with awareness, get in touch with your energetic sense of engagement with things—are abstract and so perhaps without meaning. Chuang Tzu’s philosophy is not. He illustrates his vision with grand metaphors and charming parables. For example, he represents your field of consciousness as a mythically large bird whose wings span to the horizon. Your chattering brain and proud ego present as a cicada and a pigeon. You’ll be invited to engage with things as if you are a noble charioteer whose chariot platform is the entire world and whose spirited team of horses the dynamic process of change itself. These images provide practical guidance. They have helped me to live a more engaged and playful life. Dear reader, there is every chance they can help you, too, to live a more engaged and playful life.
Given that New Age woo has an almost monopoly hold on the words ‘awareness’, ‘consciousness’, and ‘energy’, allow me to say that there is nothing woo about Chuang Tzu’s philosophy. If you love the clarity and intellectual rigour of the Stoics, and Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein, you will find yourself in good company with Chuang Tzu.
You may be wondering what someone from the ancient world could possibly offer us in our present predicament. We who face existential threats. The possibility of annihilation by nuclear bombs, an engineered pandemic, environmental collapse, artificial intelligence. True, Chuang Tzu did not face these threats. But he did face this: a world in which autocrats and their minions inflict unspeakable harm and annihilation on entire populations. Chuang Tzu, like us, lived in the shadows of existential dangers. The solution he found to the problems of life is as relevant today as it was millennia ago.
Well, so much for Chuang Tzu’s philosophy, as vague as this sketch is. Let’s now see if we can glimpse a little of the man himself.
~
Writing in the early first century BC, the Grand Historian Su-ma Chien tells us that Chuang Tzu lived during the second half of the fourth century BC, was a native of Meng (a town in the Dukedom of Sung), and served as an official of some sort.
Scant as these morsels are, we should take them with a pinch of salt. For example, Su-ma Chien says that Chuang Tzu wrote The Old Fisherman, Robber Chih, and Rifling Trunks. Modern scholarship shows, convincingly, that he did not. And he writes a biography of the Taoist sage Lao Tzu that is pure fiction. (To take just one point: he thinks it plausible that Lao Tzu might have lived to be over two-hundred years old.) Biographical scholarship in first century BC China was not what it is today.
But let’s say that Chuang Tzu did serve as an official. This means he was a member of the gentry social class: a rung below the nobility, but above the merchants, tradesmen, and farmers. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was wealthy (the material circumstances of the gentry ranged from very wealthy to very poor), but it does mean he wasn’t labouring in the fields.
~
There are several anecdotes about Chuang Tzu in the Chuang Tzu. (The Chuang Tzu is an anthology that includes Chuang Tzu’s book, but which is mostly comprised of stories and essays written by other people. See: How Chuang Tzu’s long-lost book was discovered and excavated.) We read that he’s friends with the philosopher and chief minister of Wei, Hui Tzu (Master Hui). He refuses an offer to be chief minister of Chu. He lives in poverty. He’s married and has children. But these accounts aren’t history, they’re stories. They’re like the tale that when the Buddha was born lotus petals blossomed. They’re like the parable of the thirteenth-century Persian, Nasrudin, who lost his keys in his bedroom but searched for them under a street lamp because the light was better there.
If you’re poor you’ll probably like hearing that Chuang Tzu, too, was poor. If you keep missing out on that promotion you might console yourself with the thought that Chuang Tzu refused high office. And if your kids are driving you mad you might find comfort in the thought that Chuang Tzu, too, had children. But what if you’re rich? What if you’ve been promoted to a high-up position? What if you don’t have children? Is Chuang Tzu against these life paths? No. He is neither for nor against them. His focus is elsewhere. Chuang Tzu doesn’t care what we do, his interest is in how we do.
Did Chuang Tzu actually know Hui Tzu? Did he actually live in poverty? Did he actually refuse an offer to be chief minister?
Did the historical Nasrudin actually lose his keys in his bedroom and then look for them under a street lamp?
Was Chuang Tzu tall? Short? Handsome? Ugly? If he married, was he happily married? Did he have a lover on the side? Perhaps he was gay? Perhaps a recluse?
We don’t know.
In one story he tells of a time he dreamt he was a butterfly (Chapter 2.9). When he woke from this dream he wondered, ‘Was the butterfly in Chou’s dream? Is Chou in the butterfly’s dream?’ (Chou is Chuang Tzu’s given name.) For Chuang Tzu, being Chou or the butterfly—and by extension, being married or single, a bum or a boss—is neither here nor there. What matters is being present with the circumstances in which you happen to find yourself. When he happened to be a butterfly, he was a butterfly. When things changed and he happened to be Chou, he was Chou. He identified with neither and was present with each.
It’s like fire and firewood (Chapter 3.6). As fire passes from log to log, awareness passes from moment to moment. Now a butterfly, now Chou. Now well-to-do, now a neglected bum. Now this log, now this log. As far as Chuang Tzu is concerned, he is not this or that log. He’s the fire, the that which is alight on now this log, now this log. He’s awareness, energetic presence, ever alight on what here-and-now is.
~
So, there are two Chuang Tzus.
There’s Chuang Tzu the fire: the awareness, the energetic presence that alighted on now this log, now this log.
And there’s Chuang Tzu the log of firewood. Or more accurately, the man who was now this log, now this log.
This second Chuang Tzu is the historical Chuang Tzu. The man who lived almost two-and-a-half thousand years ago in ancient China. The man who wrote the stories you’ll read in this book. The man who may or may not have been poor. Who may or may not have been married. Who may or may not have had children.
We don’t know who this Chuang Tzu was. So let’s imagine him in each of these different circumstances. Now poor, now well-to-do. Now single, now married. Now tall, now short. And in each circumstance let’s see a man acting with humility, equanimity, and good humour.
That’s Chuang Tzu the firewood. What about Chuang Tzu the fire: the awareness, the energetic presence that alighted on now this log, now this log?
This Chuang Tzu exists here and now, waiting for you to meet him.
Jesus told his followers that if they split a piece of wood, or lifted up a stone, there he would be. Walt Whitman told his readers that if they ever wanted to find him, all they need do is look at the waves on the shore, or look under their boot-soles. And Chuang Tzu? What does he say? This:
A name constrains by treating a person as a log of firewood.
The fire that passes from log to log
knows not their exhaustion.
What do I hope you will say after reading this book? This:
It is in such places—
this split piece of wood,
beneath this lifted stone,
among these waves on the shore,
beneath my boot-soles,
this burning log—
it is here that I find Walt Whitman,
and Jesus,
and Chuang Tzu.
And not just them,
myself too.
The practical method
Chuang Tzu’s goal is to wander freely, amiable and aloof; to be present with and in playful harmony with things. (See above: the overall vision [short version].)
Specific things that Chuang Tzu writes about being present with and in playful harmony with include: our position in society; other people’s opinions and actions; physical injury and deformity; and death.
What prevents us from being present with and in playful harmony with things?
Being identified with our brain’s labels. Instead of seeing things as they are, in all their wordless nuance and wonder, we see them through the lens of our brain’s labels. Instead of being immersed in and in direct contact with the world, we are lost in a dream of labels, an abstract maze of words. Our brain’s words and labels don’t in fact match the world—as the adage goes, the map is not the territory (even a very good map is not the territory, and most of our maps are very bad). Our brain’s words and labels don’t match the word—it’s no wonder, then, lost in a dream of labels, an abstract maze of words, that we feel lost and alienated, and that we keeping bumping into things (e.g., our position in society, other people’s opinions and actions, physical injury and deformity, and death).
So, what to do about our brain’s labels? How can we learn to be present with and in playful harmony with things? Here’s Chuang Tzu’s practical method:
Step 1. De-fuse from (de-identify with) the labels that your brain attaches to things. This frees you to see and be present with the isness of things. (See: The art of harmonising.)
Step 2. Get in touch with your felt sense of energy or spirit (your felt inclinations, urges, promptings), and allow this felt sense of energy or spirit to flow forth, like water navigating a terrain. This frees you to be in harmonious contact with the dynamic process of worldly change. (See: The cook and the ox.)
The cicada and the bird
Chuang Tzu uses the image of a tiny cicada to represent your chirping brain, this tiny brain of yours that theorises about this and that, and which labels things as being this and that. And he uses the image of a fantastically large bird—a bird whose back is countless thousands of miles across—to represent your field of consciousness. Like the wings of this fantastic bird, the wings of your consciousness span to the horizon.
Chuang Tzu is a little cicada who loves chirping with all the other cicadas. At the same time, he invites us to identify, not with the little cicada, but with the large bird. He invites you to identify, not with your chirping brain and its little thoughts and labels, but with your horizon-spanning field of consciousness. Why? Because when we do this, we experience being in playful harmony with the world.
We’re introduced to the cicada and the bird in the opening two stories of Chuang Tzu’s book:
The usefulness of a useless philosophy
Chuang Tzu’s philosophy is useless in the sense that you cannot use it to manipulate others into doing what you want them to do. For example: you cannot use it to implement a political agenda, or to get others to praise you, or obey you. His philosophy is, however, incredibly useful. You can use it as a vessel in which to wander at ease on the currents of the world.
Chuang Tzu discusses the usefulness of his useless philosophy in the following stories:
Taoism? Try instead, the path
Chuang Tzu is classified as a Taoist, but this can be misleading because Taoism means very different things to different people.
There are Taoists who believe in supernatural abilities, disembodied spirits, immortal sages, elixirs of health and immortality—a philosophy the complete opposite of Chuang Tzu’s. (Chuang Tzu celebrates being present with the isness of things; his sages are at ease with being politically powerless, or crippled, or on the verge of death.)
There are robed Taoist priests, and High Priestesses, and Venerable Celestial Taoist Masters. Chuang Tzu laughs at such posturing. (His sages are lowly cripples and ugly nobodies.)
There is a type of Taoism that sees the world through complex systems of traditional Chinese psychological-physiological-architectural symbols and terminology. Think yin and yang, hexagrams, feng shui, dragons and tigers, acupuncture points and energy channels. Chuang Tzu doesn’t talk about any of that.
There is a type of Taoism that speaks of a metaphysical Tao, the unnameable mystery of mysteries, the Unmanifest and Source from which all manifest things arise. That’s the Tao of the very famous and popular Tao Te Ching. Make of that Tao what you will, but it is not the Tao of which Chuang Tzu speaks.
To the extent that it makes any sense to call Chuang Tzu a Taoist at all, it is to the extent that the word Tao can simply mean nature. Chuang Tzu’s philosophy is a philosophy about seeing and being aligned with the nature of things.
But really, the word Tao is just an abysmal failure of translation. In English we hear the word Tao and we think, Ooo, mysterious. But in Chinese this word is no more mysterious than, in English, the words ‘path’ and ‘way’. The Chinese don’t wax lyrical about some exotically foreign word ‘Tao’; they speak about ‘the path’, ‘the way’. What path? What way? Well, each of the different Taoists I’ve just mentioned has a different vision in mind, but what they all have in common is this general metaphor: similar to how a path is a thing that we can walk on to navigate our way through a landscape, nature is a thing that we can align ourselves with to navigate our way through life.
For Chuang Tzu, the path (nature; the tao) is the presenting isness of things. He writes about how our brain’s labels blind us, how they prevent us from seeing the path (nature; the surface isness of things). Instead of seeing things as they are, in all their wordless nuance and wonder, we see them through the lens of our brain’s labels. Instead of seeing and walking the path, instead of being immersed in and in direct contact with the world, we are lost in a dream of labels, an abstract maze of words. Our brain’s words and labels don’t in fact match the world—as the adage goes, the map is not the territory (even a very good map is not the territory, and most of our maps are very bad). Our brain’s words and labels don’t match the word—it’s no wonder, then, lost in a dream of labels, an abstract maze of words, that we feel lost and alienated, and that we keeping bumping into things.
Chuang Tzu’s solution to this problem is to de-fuse from (de-identify with) your brain’s labels so that you can see the path (the presenting isness of things), get in touch with your felt sense of spirit or energy, and allow your felt sense of spirit or energy to effortlessly navigate things. (See: The art of harmonising and The cook and the ox. Also, When the springs dry up.)
Freedom
For most of us, freedom means being free to do what we want. Vote, speak, move about, touch so-and-so, carry a gun. To the extent that we can do what we want, we are free. But as the Stoics point out, this is a very limited notion of freedom. There are always vast swathes of the world that simply do not comply with our will. For various reasons, we often find that we are not free to vote, or speak, or go where we want to go, or touch who we want to touch, or carry a gun. Almost everywhere we look, we lack freedom, we are constrained.
Like the Stoics, Chuang Tzu shows us a different sort of freedom: an unconstrained freedom that is always available to us.
For Chuang Tzu, freedom means being free from constraint. He points out that if you are present with the isness of things and go along with change, then nothing constrains you. (See: Mounting the world as your chariot.)
This sort of freedom is available to you right now. It is available to you regardless of your worldly situation, for it does not depend on anything in the world; it depends only on your own frame of mind.
You might be thinking: That’s a big ‘if’. If I were present with the isness of things and going along with change—easier said than done!
Chuang Tzu provides a method for doing this. First, de-fuse from (de-identify with) the labels that your brain attaches to things. This frees you to see and be present with the isness of things. (See: The art of harmonising.) Second, get in touch with your felt sense of energy or spirit (your felt inclinations, urges, promptings), and allow this felt sense of energy or spirit to flow forth, like water navigating a terrain. This frees you to be in contact with the dynamic process of worldly change. (See: The cook and the ox.)
Notice how the concept of free will vanishes in Chuang Tzu’s philosophy. When you’ve de-fused from your brain’s labels and are in touch with your felt sense of energy or spirit, the question of choice doesn’t arise. Instead, you see that your responses to things arise of themselves, and in harmony with things. (See: Penumbra and Shadow.)
When you’ve found the freedom that Chuang Tzu describes, you see that free will really just means wilful. When we believe in free will, we cause ourselves and others no end of trouble. We make ourselves literally insane, like a man yelling at an empty boat to change its course. (See: Empty boats.)
Identity and change
The things we typically identify with include our body, beliefs, possessions, social status, achievements, and plans. This causes us no end of grief. When any of these things are not what we want them to be, we must feel that we are diminished. So we fight shamelessly to keep them, or to get them. We despair and rage when we lose them, or don’t have them.
Chuang Tzu has no interest in being impoverished. He’s all for enjoying his body, beliefs, possessions, social position, achievements, and plans. But he doesn’t identify with any of these things. He identifies with awareness, the here-and-now field of consciousness in which all the mere things of the world exist. And he identifies with energy—his felt sense of aliveness, his felt inclinations, urges, promptings—here-and-now engaging with the world. This frees him to be present with, and to playfully engage with, whatever circumstances he finds himself in.
In one way or another, all of Chuang Tzu’s stories are about freeing yourself from identifying with this and that thing, and thus freeing yourself to be fully present in the world and to go along with change. The following stories make the point particularly well:
The one-footed cripple Majestically Decrepit
Four friends facing death together
Insects that live in water don’t hate having to change ponds
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