Chuang Tzu and Daoism
Nov. 14th, 2013 01:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolven7FIRST AND FOREMOST: You need to be sure that you do the reading, looking at the links I give you. Everything here is supplemental to these Texts:
Introduction to the Burton Watson translation of The Chuang Tzu:
Pages 1-6 http://www.amazon.com/Chuang-Tzu-Writings-Burton-Watson/dp/0231105959#reader_0231105959
Pages 7-22: http://books.google.com/books?id=f1BvUUUVRLEC&lpg=PP1&dq=burton%20watson%20chuang%20tzu%20introduction&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false
The actual passages from The Chuang Tzu: http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html
In addition, there's also Taoism For Dummies, written by one of America's foremost Daoism Experts: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/religion-spirituality/Eastern-Religions/Taoism.html
Fun thing to note, TfD is written by one of America's foremost experts on Taoism; also remember how good and knowledgable about a subject one has to be to condense this complex information down, in this way.
WU-WEI is one of the most important ideas in Daoism. It is often translated in its literal form as “Inaction,” but more precisely it means “Action Without Action.” It indicates not simply not doing something, but knowing precisely when and how to not do something. Knowing precisely when acting to try to further your goals will in fact harm your goals. Search here for “Confucius was seeing the sights at Lu-liang…” http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu2.html#19
There are seven “inner chapters” which were believed to be the foundation of the Chuang Tzu. The heart of what he sought to teach and believed was important.
--The Chuang Tzu is a mystical text, which is generally taken to mean that readers are not meant to understand single, individual passages, so much as the gestalt of the experience. Chuang Tzu rejects conventional language, using instead a mixture of fantasy, literal readings, and paradox, with some passages devolving into complete gibberish. Some phrases are even used ironically in order to evoke their own opposite meanings.
----This has led to there being a great deal of contention and misunderstanding of the nature of the work. See pg 15 & 16 in the introduction, and the beginning of chapter1 (“Free And Easy Wandering” http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html#1), for examples of the ways in which the Tao is discussed paradoxically. The largest is the smallest, and highest and most venerable is to be found in the most terrible and disgusting.
----Remember that Chuang Tzu is this frustrating and confusing On Purpose. The goal of his writing is to get you to the place where you recognise that the Tao—the ultimate nature of all reality—is not for you to logically, rationally understand. The Tao is for you to incorporate yourself into and flow within.
Chuang Tzu uses anecdotes, humour, and stories with people both real and made up standing in as examples of things a good Taoist needs to learn. While the people who make recurring appearances tend to always represent the same kind of viewpoint, it is not always the case (see Introduction, pg 19).
TE in Chuang Tzu’s writing is very different from that of Confucianism. Where Confucian Te represents the virtue of the ruler as expressed in their power to rule, all of which arises out of their harmony with their subjects, Te for Chuang Tzu is about the living essence of the Tao.
Consider why lighting strikes tall things. Consider the nature of contemporaneous improvisation, in Jazz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCa3iyBekCs
--These are expressions of inhabiting the Tao, of experiencing the living essence of Te in everything you do. When you are one with the Tao, you are without restriction, or limitation. You are capable of moving through any situation, completing anything set before you. But consider jazz. Consider baseball, car repair, any learned thing the end result of which is easy, fluid adaptability and grace, and any team exercise wherein you have to come to know the moods and temperament of your cohort in order to move, adapt, and act not in reaction to, but in simultaneous action with them: They take massive amounts of practice and time.
Look to page 20 in the introduction for more paradoxes of Chuang Tzu’s terms. When you call the highest possible thing “The Supreme Swindle”—that is, the biggest con around—and you call anyone who seeks it “The Great Clod”—unrefined, stupid, classless—and also “The True Man,” you are obviously saying something about the paradoxical nature of the whole of existence.
Introduction to the Burton Watson translation of The Chuang Tzu:
Pages 1-6 http://www.amazon.com/Chuang-Tzu-Writings-Burton-Watson/dp/0231105959#reader_0231105959
Pages 7-22: http://books.google.com/books?id=f1BvUUUVRLEC&lpg=PP1&dq=burton%20watson%20chuang%20tzu%20introduction&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false
The actual passages from The Chuang Tzu: http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html
In addition, there's also Taoism For Dummies, written by one of America's foremost Daoism Experts: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/religion-spirituality/Eastern-Religions/Taoism.html
Fun thing to note, TfD is written by one of America's foremost experts on Taoism; also remember how good and knowledgable about a subject one has to be to condense this complex information down, in this way.
WU-WEI is one of the most important ideas in Daoism. It is often translated in its literal form as “Inaction,” but more precisely it means “Action Without Action.” It indicates not simply not doing something, but knowing precisely when and how to not do something. Knowing precisely when acting to try to further your goals will in fact harm your goals. Search here for “Confucius was seeing the sights at Lu-liang…” http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu2.html#19
There are seven “inner chapters” which were believed to be the foundation of the Chuang Tzu. The heart of what he sought to teach and believed was important.
--The Chuang Tzu is a mystical text, which is generally taken to mean that readers are not meant to understand single, individual passages, so much as the gestalt of the experience. Chuang Tzu rejects conventional language, using instead a mixture of fantasy, literal readings, and paradox, with some passages devolving into complete gibberish. Some phrases are even used ironically in order to evoke their own opposite meanings.
----This has led to there being a great deal of contention and misunderstanding of the nature of the work. See pg 15 & 16 in the introduction, and the beginning of chapter1 (“Free And Easy Wandering” http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html#1), for examples of the ways in which the Tao is discussed paradoxically. The largest is the smallest, and highest and most venerable is to be found in the most terrible and disgusting.
----Remember that Chuang Tzu is this frustrating and confusing On Purpose. The goal of his writing is to get you to the place where you recognise that the Tao—the ultimate nature of all reality—is not for you to logically, rationally understand. The Tao is for you to incorporate yourself into and flow within.
Chuang Tzu uses anecdotes, humour, and stories with people both real and made up standing in as examples of things a good Taoist needs to learn. While the people who make recurring appearances tend to always represent the same kind of viewpoint, it is not always the case (see Introduction, pg 19).
TE in Chuang Tzu’s writing is very different from that of Confucianism. Where Confucian Te represents the virtue of the ruler as expressed in their power to rule, all of which arises out of their harmony with their subjects, Te for Chuang Tzu is about the living essence of the Tao.
Consider why lighting strikes tall things. Consider the nature of contemporaneous improvisation, in Jazz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCa3iyBekCs
--These are expressions of inhabiting the Tao, of experiencing the living essence of Te in everything you do. When you are one with the Tao, you are without restriction, or limitation. You are capable of moving through any situation, completing anything set before you. But consider jazz. Consider baseball, car repair, any learned thing the end result of which is easy, fluid adaptability and grace, and any team exercise wherein you have to come to know the moods and temperament of your cohort in order to move, adapt, and act not in reaction to, but in simultaneous action with them: They take massive amounts of practice and time.
Look to page 20 in the introduction for more paradoxes of Chuang Tzu’s terms. When you call the highest possible thing “The Supreme Swindle”—that is, the biggest con around—and you call anyone who seeks it “The Great Clod”—unrefined, stupid, classless—and also “The True Man,” you are obviously saying something about the paradoxical nature of the whole of existence.
