I have recently finished reading the Taoist Chuang-Tzu and have made notes and a summary of it. Comments on my conclusions are most welcome…
DT.,
I see only a slight comment made in passing. Did you notice and appreciate the deeper resemblances to Stocism - which you had been dipping into recently: a deterministic view of the world, in which a kind of knowledge (albetit slightly different in emphasis) can be used to follow the path of Nature so as to lead one to a happier life, freed from emotional extremes and marked by acceptance?
[i]“Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill… I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together…”
“The universe is change, life is opinion.”
“Everything is right for me, which is right for you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which comes in due time for you. Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature. From you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return.”
“The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself.—”
“The whole world and heaven are the substance of god.”
. . Our individual natures are part of universal nature. Hence the chief good is life according to nature, that is, according to one’s own and to universal nature.
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!”[/i]
Dunamis
Absolutely Dunamis! I had strongly suspected a correlation between Taoism and Stoicism before and, after having read the Chuang-Tzu, a am startled at the remarkable resemblance - even sometimes word for word (at least as far as I can tell by translations). It makes me wonder about any possible real socio-geographic cross influences.
I am on a Stoic email list, and presented some passages there, to which one member and moderator replied “how uncannily like Stoicism they seem!”
DT.,
" It makes me wonder about any possible real socio-geographic cross influences."
I’m not sure about cross-geographical influences. Heraclitus could be the foundational theoretical influence from antiquity, and Lao Tzu was a near contemporary in time to him. As for the living being of the universe, this may very well have some Asia Minor roots, but do not imagine that Taoism in its form could have reached that far West. But you never know. Several things were happening in the world around 600 B.C., for whatever reason.
Dunamis
I expected very little when I first went to your cite because I’ve not read much about Chang Tzu that is worth reading. I was very pleasently surprised. In my opinion, your notes were well written, interesting, and gave a good explanation of what dear old Chuang was saying, as far as a summary can do so.
I have to admit that Chuang Tzu is a paradigm of mine, so I may not be as objective as a true scholar or philosopher should be, but I have a few comments:
Much of Chuang Tzu consists of stories and parables. They work on us in ways that straight-forward explanation can not. It is like the difference between a very good explanation of Beethoven’s Ninth and hearing it.
I once wrote a series of what I call “Philosokus.” One of them, I think, applies to what could go on with Chuang Tzu:
Words that are not words
Convey thoughts that are not thoughts
To minds that are empty.
There is a depth in Chuang Tzu that few people have ever been at. Each time I’ve read him over the years, and I read him more than a few times every year, I’ve gotten new insights. His is the only book that I can reread that often and not tire of.
And each new translation I read adds something to my feeling of sympathy with dear old Chuang.
Here is an example of an inexhaustable statement of his:
When you do good, avoid fame,
When you do evil, avoid punishment.
As you say, “you never know,” anything could be the case, but I suspect the Taoists and the Stoics had the same archetypal experience. A type of Yin experience and view of the world.
Loku,
Knowing you are so familiar with, and are so admiring of the Chuang-Tzu makes your feedback extremely helpful and valuable to me. Thank you for your comments.
I have a theory about what you are saying with respect to the differences between reading a summary and actually reading the language of the text itself.
In life, we learn certain lessons but they are woven into a “nest” of tangent experience that deeply roots them in our consciousness. This is why one can’t simply tell these lessons to another person plainly and expect them to then be as wise as if they had learned them through experience.
Often, when you try to tell an adolescent about something that relates to general life wisdom, and then try to explain how they’ll understand when they get older, they often want you to “just tell them” assuming they would then be aware. But this nesting of lessons within a web of experiences is what makes them not merely understood, but “grokked”.
And so, when it comes to works such as Chuang-Tzu, the artistry of the language serves as a sort of stand-in for that nested experience. Where the reader may lack the life experience to fully appreciate the lesson, the emotional accoutrements of the surrounding vehicle of delivery stimulates the senses and larger portions of the mind than one would normally experience having only heard the lesson as a raw statement. This may not be as preferable as knowing the lesson through actual life experience or wisdom, but it “gives a sense” of the sort of conception one might eventually have were one to do so. And, more importantly, inspires the reader to seek out that experience in due time.
The economy of metaphor that Chuang-Tzu was able to employ in this is amazing. By that, I mean that he himself warned that “flowery language obscures” and so many of the passages are so clearly worded that my raw interpretations of their messages are nearly identical in wording. Yet, Chuang-Tzu seems to provide that nested experience of the senses in his work without overly flowery obfuscation. No doubt, this achievement is one reason why we are discussing something that was written so many centuries ago today.
Dunamis,
Perhaps there wasn’t a specific point of contact, but rather various individuals speaking to those in their areas might carry general concepts across vast areas of the globe from person to person, like a wave which no single person is aware of, and which evolves as it travels. This wave then might eventually form seedlings of various philosophies cropping up in their own particular regions.
Ideas (memes) that are particularly robust (i.e. useful, sensible, and preferable), such as the ethical and perspective outlooks shared by Taoism and Stoicism, might travel further in that wave with fewer variations as it moves, that meme having already become well suited to its environment.
I have read extensively from the Tao and Zen philosophies and have come to the same conclusion as many of you have they are just eastern stoicism. That is not to detract from them, but that’s what it seems like to me.
I think that during the time period when these ideas were written life was very hard and one of the best ways to avoid constant heartbreak was to quietly remove oneself from the action while opening your mind to the possibility of endless action. There is much to be said for this, but I think that it promotes a kind of hollow existence as one waits for death.
I think that may be a misreading of Stoicism Adlerian. Stoics are fully capable of experiencing and expressing joy. Also, Stoicism isn’t only about avoiding overpowering emotion, but also about living in harmony with Nature. It’s a much fuller philosophy than the “Mr. Spock” charicatures that often surround it.
That’s what I’m talking about!
To use Plato’s cave metaphore (with variations): The prisoner experiences shadows of puppets projected by the light of torches. After being dragged out of the cave there is an initial blindness from the light of the sun. After getting somewhat accustomed to the light, the ex prisoner can see reflections of real objects in a pond of water. Lastly, the ex prisoner can look directly at objects in the sunlight.
Chuang Tzu’s writings are like reflections on the water, but the water is as clear and still as any pond can be.
The possible convergence of pre-platonic greek thinking, the Tao, and Confucianism has credence if one considers Indo-european writings. The earliest forms of the Vedanta we can verify are approximately 1000 BC. There is great similarity of the basic ideas that show in the Greek and Chinese writings some four to six hundred years later. Simple trade and migration could easily account for the similarities of thought, even after adaptation of cultural differences.
It just may be that the original source of all these ideas come from India.
JT
tentative
I have heard that said before and it does make sense. Also, it doesn’t detract from how each group adapted ideas and whatnot.
DT Strain,
Yep, I’ve read a good amount of the stoic guys and agree. However, I wasn’t saying that Tao/Zen—is—stoicism but that it is a lot like it and that the foundations might have been based on some similar human conditions.
I definitely agree that they were based on similar conditions. Perhaps these ideas emerged independently in response to these similar conditions. This would be the meme version of “convergent evolution”.
But the influence idea is not unrealistic either. After all, there is a single land mass connecting these regions, even if large, and there was migration.
Regardless of the region or name though, we can all focus on the core lessons of all of these traditions and gain from them I think.