Another and perhaps even greater writer on Taoism was the sage Chuang-tzu. (369 – 286 BCE) His collection of stories, poems and parables also known by his name is just as commonly loved and quoted by Chinese readers and Taoists as the Tao Te Ching.
One of the wittiest and most playful books in world philosophy.
— Victor H. Mair
This collection is also a composition of the thoughts and musings of more than one writer over a successive period. It consists of thirty three chapters, the first seven, ‘inner books’ which were written by Chuang-tsu himself, fifteen ‘outer’ and eleven ‘mixed’ books all which would appear to have been written by his followers.
The concepts covered within the Chuang-tsu are akin to those of the Tao Te Ching and so both Lao-tsu and Chuang-tsu in essence agree with one another on the Tao and the Te. However, Chuang-tsu places greater emphasis on the central concept of unmotivated action or wu-wei.
Wu-wei is the principle of unmotivated action in which nonintervention in the natural course of things is to be encouraged. Action may be taken when it is spontaneous, devoid of premeditation and is appropriate to the situation.
When Chuang tsu was about to die, his disciples wanted to bury him in a well-appointed tomb. Chuang tsu said,
I have the sky and the earth for inner and outer coffins the sun and the moon for jade disks the stars for pearls and the ten thousand things for farewell gifts. Isn’t the paraphernalia for my burial adequate without adding anything?
”We are afraid the crows and kites will eat you, master,” a disciple said.
Above ground, I will be eaten by crows and kites; below ground by ants. You are robbing from the one to give to the other. Why play favorites?
When Chuang-tsu’s wife died and Hui Shi came to convey his condolences, he found Chuang-tsu squatting with his knees out, drumming on a pan and singing.
”You lived with her she raised your children, and you grew old together,” Hui Shi said “Not weeping when she died would have been bad enough. Aren’t you going too far by drumming on a pan and singing?”
“No,” Chuang-tsu said.
When she first died how could I have escaped feeling the loss? Then I looked back to the beginning before she had life. Not only before she had life but before she had form. Not only before she had form, but before she had vital energy. In this confused amorphous realm, something changed and vital energy appeared, when the vital energy was changed, form appeared; with changes in form, life began. Now there is another change bringing death. This is like the progression of the four seasons of spring and fall, winter and summer. Here she was lying down to sleep in a huge room and I followed her sobbing and wailing. When I realized my actions showed I hadn’t understood destiny, I stopped.
From this we can see that to live by the Tao is to avoid all struggle through acceptance of the Way; avoidance of positive action and acceptance of the ever changing, ever moving.
To know that ‘The only constant is change’ and to understand and accept this, brings harmony. This is following the Tao.
Hui Shi said to Chuang-tsu, “I have a large tree, of the sort people call a shu tree. Its trunk is too gnarled for measuring lines to be applied to it; its branches are too twisted for use with compasses or T-squares. If you stood it on the road, no carpenter would pay any attention to it Now your talk is similarly vast but useless, people are unanimous in rejecting it.”
Chuang-tsu replied,
Haven’t you ever seen a wildcat or a weasel? It crouches down to wait for something to pass, ready to pounce east or west, high or low, only to end by falling into a trap and dying in a net But then there is the yak. It is as big as a cloud hanging in the sky. It has an ability to be big, but hardly an ability to catch mice. Now you have a large tree but fret over its uselessness. Why not plant it in Nothing At All town or Vast Nothing Wilds? Then you could roam about doing nothing by its side or sleep beneath it. Axes will never shorten its life and nothing will ever harm it. If you are of no use at all, who will make trouble for you?
In the Taoist world view all things within the Universe are deemed to be an interaction of the primeval forces of Yin and Yang; Lightness and Darkness, the firm and the yielding. As you will see here in this archetypal representation of these two opposing forces, neither is in dominance of the other. As one ascends so the other falls.
As one eventually rises to its zenith, contained in that ascent are the seeds for its eventual collapse and descent. One cannot exist without the other, both entwined forever in a kaleidoscopic struggle without end; sometimes gentle and soothing at others violent and cataclysmic. Yin and Yang along with Chi (life force / essential essence), help encapsulate the Tao.
Together in this constant ebb and flow, they give us insight into the way things are and the way things are is the Tao.
Extracts quoted from Patricia Ebrey’s Chinese Civilization : A Sourcebook.2d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1993), pp. 28-31