China and the Chinese Part 11

All together, with the comparatively few sc.r.a.ps of Lao Tzu's wisdom to be found in the treatise, we should be hard put to understand the value of Tao, and still more to find sufficient basis for a philosophical system, were it not for his disciple, Chuang Tzu, of the fourth century B.C., who produced a work expanding and ill.u.s.trating the Way of his great Master, so rich in thought and so brilliant from a literary point of view that, although branded since the triumph of Confucianism with the brand of heterodoxy, it still remains a storehouse of current quotation and a model of composition for all time.

Let us go back to _Tao_, in which, Chuang Tzu tells us, man is born, as fishes are born in water; for, as he says in another place, there is nowhere where _Tao_ is not. But _Tao_ cannot be heard; heard, it is not _Tao_. It cannot be seen; seen, it is not _Tao_. It cannot be spoken; spoken, it is not _Tao_. Although it imparts form, it is itself formless, and cannot therefore have a name, since form precedes name.

The unsubstantiality of _Tao_ is further dwelt upon as follows:-

"Were _Tao_ something which could be presented, there is no man but would present it to his sovereign or to his parents. Could it be imparted or given, there is no man but would impart it to his brother or give it to his child. But this is impossible. For unless there is a suitable endowment within, _Tao_ will not abide; and unless there is outward correctness, _Tao_ will not operate."

It would seem therefore that _Tao_ is something which altogether transcends the physical senses of man and is correspondingly difficult of attainment. Chuang Tzu comes thus to the rescue:-

"By absence of thought, by absence of cogitation, _Tao_ may be known.

By resting in nothing, by according in nothing, _Tao_ may be approached.

By following nothing, by pursuing nothing, _Tao_ may be attained."

What there was before the universe, was _Tao_. _Tao_ makes things what they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce _Tao_; yet everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.

"Rest in Inaction," says Chuang Tzu, "and the world will be good of itself. Cast your slough. Spit forth intelligence. Ignore all differences. Become one with the Infinite. Release your mind. Free your soul. Be vacuous. Be nothing!"

Chuang Tzu lays especial emphasis on the cultivation of the natural as opposed to the artificial.

"Horses and oxen have four feet; that is the natural. Put a halter on a horse's head, a string through a bullock's nose; that is the artificial."

"A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to be got from _Tao_?"

The doctrine of Relativity in s.p.a.ce and time, which Chuang Tzu deduces from Lao Tzu's teachings, is largely introduced by the disciple.

"There is nothing under the canopy of Heaven greater than an autumn spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. The universe and I came into being together; and all things therein are One.

"In the light of _Tao_, affirmative is reconciled with negative; objective is identified with subjective. And when subjective and objective are both without their correlates, that is the very axis of _Tao_. And when that axis pa.s.ses through the centre at which all infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite One."

Thus, morally speaking, we can escape from the world and self, and can reverse and look down upon the world's judgments; while in the speculative region we get behind and beyond the contradictions of ordinary thought and speech. A perfect man is the result. He becomes, as it were, a spiritual being. As Chuang Tzu puts it:-

"Were the ocean itself scorched up, he would not feel hot. Were the Milky Way frozen hard, he would not feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven with thunder, and the great deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not tremble. In such case, he would mount upon the clouds of Heaven, and driving the sun and moon before him, would pa.s.s beyond the limits of this external world, where death and life have no more victory over man."

We have now an all-embracing One, beyond the limits of this world, and we have man perfected and refined until he is no longer a prey to objective existences. Lao Tzu has already hinted at "the Whence, and oh, Heavens, the Whither." He said that to emerge was life, and to return was death. Chuang Tzu makes it clear that what man emerges from is some transcendental state in the Infinite; and that to the Infinite he may ultimately return.

"How," he asks, "do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is not like a child who has lost the way, and cannot find his home?

"Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants.

Confucius and you are both mere dreams; and I, who say you are dreams,-I am but a dream myself.

"Take no heed," he adds, "of time, nor of right and wrong; but pa.s.sing into the realm of the Infinite, find your final rest therein."

An abstract Infinite, however, soon ceased to satisfy the natural cravings of the great body of Taoist followers. Chuang Tzu had already placed the source of human life beyond the limits of our visible universe; and in order to secure a return thither, it was only necessary to refine away the grossness of our material selves according to the doctrine of the Way. It thus came about that the One, in whose obliterating unity all seemingly opposed conditions were to be indistinguishably blended, began to be regarded as a fixed point of dazzling intellectual luminosity, in remote ether, around which circled for ever and ever, in the supremest glory of motion, the souls of those who had successfully pa.s.sed through the ordeal of life, and who had left the slough of humanity behind them.

Let me quote some lines from a great Taoist poet, Ssu-k'ung T'u, written to support this view. His poem consists of twenty-four stanzas, each twelve lines in length, and each dealing with some well-known phase of Taoist doctrine.

"Expenditure of force leads to outward decay, Spiritual existence means inward fulness.

Let us revert to Nothing and enter the Absolute, h.o.a.rding up strength for Energy.

Freighted with eternal principles, Athwart the mighty void, Where cloud-ma.s.ses darken, And the wind blows ceaseless around, Beyond the range of conceptions, Let us gain the Centre, And there hold fast without violence, Fed from an inexhaustible supply."

In this, the first, stanza we are warned against taxing, or even using, our physical powers, instead of aiming, as we should, at a purely spiritual existence, by virtue of which we shall ultimately be wafted away to the distant Centre in the Infinite.

"Lo, the Immortal, borne by spirituality, His hand grasping a lotus-flower, Away to Time everlasting, Trackless through the regions of s.p.a.ce!"

These four lines from stanza v give us a glimpse of the liberated mortal on his upward journey. The lotus-flower, which the poet has placed in his hand, is one of those loans from Buddhism to which I shall recur by and by.

"As iron from the mines, As silver from lead, So purify thy heart, Loving the limpid and clean.

Like a clear pool in spring, With its wondrous mirrored shapes, So make for the spotless and true, And riding the moonbeam revert to the Spiritual."

These eight lines from stanza vii, which might be ent.i.tled "Smelting,"

show us the refining process by which spirituality is to be attained.

Seclusion and abandonment of the artificial are also extolled in stanza xv:-

"Following our own bent, Let us enjoy the Natural, free from curb, Rich with what comes to hand, Hoping some day to be with the Infinite.

To build a hut beneath the pines, With uncovered head to pore over poetry, Knowing only morning and eve, But not what season it may be ...

Then, if happiness is ours Why must there be Action?

If of our own selves we can reach this point, Can we not be said to have attained?"

Utterances of this kind are responsible for the lives of many Taoist hermits who from time to time have withdrawn from the world, devoting themselves to the pursuit of true happiness, on the mountains.

"After gazing abstractedly upon expression and substance, The mind returns with a spiritual image, As when seeking the outlines of waves, As when painting the glory of spring.

The changing shapes of wind-swept clouds, The energies of flowers and plants, The rolling breakers of ocean, The crags and cliffs of mountains, All these are like mighty TAO, Skilfully woven into earthly surroundings ...

To obtain likeness without form Is not that to possess the man?"

This stanza means that man should become like the contour of waves, like the glory of spring,-something which to a beholder is a mental image, without constant physical form or substance. Then motion supervenes; not motion as we know it, but a transcendental state of revolution in the Infinite. This is the subject of stanza xxiv:-

"Like a whirling water-wheel, Like rolling pearls,- Yet how are these worthy to be named?

They are but adaptations for fools.

There is the mighty axis of Earth, The never resting pole of Heaven; Let us grasp _their_ clue, And with _them_ be blended in One, Beyond the bounds of thought, Circling for ever in the great Void, An orbit of a thousand years,- Yes, this is the key to my theme."

All that might be dignified by the name of pure Taoism ends here. From this point the descent to lower regions is both easy and rapid.

I am not speaking now in a chronological sense, but of the highest intellectual point reached by the doctrines of Taoism, which began to decline long before the writer of this poem, himself a pure Taoist of the tenth century, was born.

The idea mentioned above, that the grosser elements of man's nature might be refined away and immortality attained, seems to have suggested an immortality, not merely in an unseen world, but even in this one, to be secured by an imaginary elixir of life. Certain at any rate it is, that so far back as a century or so before the Christian era, the desire to discover this elixir had become a national craze.

The following story is historical, and dates from about 200 B.C.:-

"A certain person having forwarded some elixir of immortality to the Prince of Ching, it was received as usual by the doorkeeper. 'Is this to be swallowed?' enquired the Chief Warden of the palace. 'It is,' replied the doorkeeper. Thereupon, the Chief Warden purloined and swallowed it.

At this, the Prince was exceedingly angry and ordered his immediate execution; but the Chief Warden sent a friend to plead for him, saying, 'Your Highness's servant asked the doorkeeper if the drug was to be swallowed, and as he replied in the affirmative, your servant accordingly swallowed it. The blame rests entirely with the doorkeeper.

Besides, if the elixir of life is presented to your Highness, and because your servant swallows it, your Highness slays him, that elixir is clearly the elixir of death; and for your Highness thus to put to death an innocent official is simply for your Highness to be made the sport of men.' The Prince spared his life."

The later Taoist was not content with attempts to compound an elixir. He invented a whole series of physical exercises, consisting mostly of positions, or postures, in which it was necessary to sit or stand, sometimes for an hour or so at a time, in the hope of prolonging life.

Such absurdities as swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours were also held to be conducive to long life.

There is perhaps more to be said for a system of deep breathing, especially of morning air, which was added on the strength of the following pa.s.sage in Chuang Tzu:-