“True knowledge is the knowledge of no-self (wuwo, sangwo). All prejudices and arguments originate from our obsession with self as if it were the ultimate being. But in fact, the self exists only because the other exists; without the relation to the other there is no self. If the self is forgotten, there will be no fixed mind; without fixed mind, there will be no opinion, no argument and prejudice. Thus, one returns to nature (ziran) and attains true knowledge of Dao” (Ge Ling Shang – Liberation as Affirmation p 35).
In order to free oneself or become xiaoyao, Zhuangzi asks us to overcome and go beyond conventional concepts and applications of knowledge, language, and morality
Xiaoyao (逍遙) is an ideophonic word (evoking an idea through sound, like zigzag or shimmer) originally meaning “carefree wandering” or “spontaneous free play” in the first chapter of the Zhuangzi, whereas wuzhi (无知) in the title, means no-knowledge (as “true” knowledge).
Ge Ling Shang writes:“Zhuangzi neither presupposes nor does his doctrine entail that a single ineffable Dao exists … Since there is no metaphysics or metaphysical basis in the real world, … how can we possibly have a knowledge that corresponds to it? What people used to call truth is not the real truth but mere human imagination and artificial opinion, because it cannot be called truth if it corresponds to nothing.”
Though he was very critical of the endless arguments debated by those he calls the “disputers of the Dao” – Confucians, Mohists, Sophists -,
Zhuangzi was careful to keep his distance from these, and assert the uniqueness of his position. In his view, all these arguments rested on the presumption that the Dao was a metaphysical entity, as Laozi had assumed it to be, out of which the ten-thousand-things arise. Instead, Zhuangzi “was concerned with the nature of common knowledge in general, and its negative impact on human life. What is knowledge? … Does knowledge provide the perfect Way (Dao) to guide our life? … Is there a standard that can judge what is right and wrong?
Common knowledge (zhi) versus true knowledge as wuzhi – no knowledge
Zhuangzi uses “the word knowledge (zhi, 知) as it was commonly understood, … When he says that true knowledge is no-knowledge (buzhi, 不知, wuzhi, 无知), but rather awareness or realization of Dao, he means that in order to know Dao (zhidao, 知道) one must overcome the enslavement to common knowledge and surpass the conventional understanding of knowl- edge. To deconstruct the common understanding of knowledge, therefore, seems a more crucial task for Zhuangzi than to do metaphysics, because metaphysics itself is a kind of knowledge or what Zhuangzi called wulun (物 论, opinion of things).” In its initial Aristotelian sense, metaphysics has been defined as follows: “To know a thing is to name it, and to name it is to attach one or usually more universal predicates to it. Not only is the fixed within the flow alone knowable, but the universal in the individual as well. There is no place for the flow to be known as flow, nor the individual as individual” (Robert E Carter, The Nothingness Beyond God). Metaphysics has also be described as based on the correlation theory of language. For Zhuangzi, because common knowledge is based on words, it is merely “opinions of things” (wulun).
Whereas Aristotle developed his metaphysics as a methodology to differentiate what truly exists and what does not, according to the laws of reason – the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the excluded middle, – as a tool to control reality, Zhuangzi is primarily concerned with a quest for freedom. He asks “What is the problem of our life? What has restrained our freedom and spontaneity? Why can we humans not live in a carefree condition? What causes our anxiety, misery, and confusion, which tear our lives apart?” This approach was not unlike that of the Buddha when he stated that “existence is suffering.” The Buddha himself saw craving as the cause of suffering” and worked out an eightfold path of practice to overcome it, and Nagarjuna later also associated craving for things with the superimposition of concepts over undifferentiated reality.
Shang suggests that “Zhuangzi appeared to believe that people used to live happy lives, for the ancestors knew (without knowing) how to live with Dao spontaneously. But once human beings created different forms of knowledge, they lost their natural integrity and the harmonious relationship they once had with each other and the world. Laozi had pointed out before that things only first became evil when we started knowing goodness, and first became ugly when we started knowing beauty (Dao De Jing, 2/1). In other words, the trouble came from the interference ofhuman opinion, or, came from using dualistic categories wherein one (good) implies the existence of the other (evil). Human beings no longer dealt with nature or their genuine lives but with opinions they constructed by themselves.” Hence Zhuangzi’s eagerness to deconstruct opinions, and “especially the metaphysical claims concerning Dao, for this is the most crucial step toward human freedom and liberation.”
Qi Wu-lun or “Equalizing or Identifying Opinions on Things”
Shang writes: “The very foundation of Zhuangzi’s philosophy is in his second chapter, called Qi Wu-lun, or “Equalizing or Identifying Opinions on Things” in my literal translation.The title of this chapter is still controversial for many scholars … Wulun literally means the “opinions of things” or opinions determined by “things,” referring to theories and perspectives held by differ- ent individuals or groups. This chapter sometimes specifically refers to the views, not necessarily controversies, of the various schools. Zhuangzi’s thesis is not to “adjust” or synthesize those controversial opinions … but to assess all the opinions as such, to examine how and why human beings formulate metaphysical opinions in the first place and thus help them to see the equal (qi) nature of different opinions so that entrapment within the web of these opinions can be avoided. I would rather translate the title Qi Wu-lun as “Equalizing or Identifying Opinions on Things,” with the awareness that the author means by “opinions on things” views on metaphysics and ontology, on language and opinion itself.” In other words, this is how Zhuangzi carried out what we would today refer to as deconstruction.
What does Zhuangzi mean by qi, equalize or identify?
The word qi has a dual meaning: it equalizes all opinions (wulun) as relative and identify them as “equally limited perspectives.” But it also “sort out or tidy up, to put all different opinions into their right locations by means of examining their nature critically.” So, Shang points out, it is not correct to attribute to Zhuangzi “some kind of relativism or skepticism.” Zhuangzi’s “purpose in Qi Wu-lun is not to reach a conclusion that every perspective is equally right or equally wrong, but to get rid of the bondage they made.” While he examines the reliability of knowledge, Zhuangzi is not primarily interested in a quest for “truth,” as Aristotle had been. His approach is existential, rather than ontological or epistemological. He sees what are mere opinions as narratives we cling to, with disastrous consequences in our ability to live freely.
Shang explains: “Knowledge, as Zhuangzi sees it, is the outcome of the human activity of reasoning. We perceive information by means of immediate contact with things. Without sense information our reason would have nothing to schematize and categorize. On the other hand, the way we perceive information is determined by the structure of our reason, the structure that corresponds to our biological and cultural nature … to reason is to differentiate the object of reasoning. Along with the process of reasoning—clarification, analysis, deduction, induction, and argumentation—the oneness of life and the genuineness of a thing have been concealed or lost. Nature (ziran) does not reason and differentiate itself into various categories and conceptions … There is no “flower” but rather blooming in the mountain; there is no “moon” but that which is hanging in the sky. There are no “life” and “death” but a constant flux of becoming; there are no “thises” (ci, 此, shi, 是) and “thats” (bi) but an undifferentiated world of ziran as an integration or unity of heterogeneity. It is the process of reasoning or forming of knowledge that differentiates things from the oneness of nature, abstracting them into different concepts and categories.”
In the same vein, Zen philosopher Nishitani Keiji distinguishes two levels of consciousness, which he called the “field of reason,” i.e, our ordinary consciousness, where we see reality as lying in front or around us, separate and at a distance from us, and the “field of emptiness,” which we apprehend intuitively, and become “one” with when we drop our attachment to the ego. So, I would say that both types of encounter with reality are part of our biological nature, but in most of us, the intuitive capacities have either atrophied or been blocked by psychological or cultural elements. “The Way,” is meant to guide us to its recovery.
The human ability to learn and to know is limited
We cannot rely on either reason or language, because, Shang tells us, “the process of reasoning is preshaped by the structure of language and logic, which violently projects its structure on the phenomenal world, calculating and regulating it according to the demands of linguistic principles.” Not that language and logic are useless, but they are limited. Also, “the whole world is moving constantly, yet the process of reasoning just picks up one moment from the whole course of the changing world, making it a static concept or motionless theory.” And our existence as human beings is also limited. So, the human ability to learn and to know is limited. For “life has its end but knowing (knowledge) has not. It is dangerous for one to pursue the endless with his limited life” (3/1). In Zhuangzi’s words: “Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in grave danger [of exhaustion]. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger [of exhaustion] for certain.”
And, should we risk it and obstinately continue to pursue knowledge, as the West did, “there is no standard to judge whether the knowledge we believe we have is true or false.” As scientists know well, the experimental method requiring that the result of a experiment must be repeatable, does not confirm that, when put to the test in real life, it could not lead to unpredictable chain-reactions. Shang concludes: “The endless arguing about right and wrong itself disproves the existence of a final judgment about right and wrong. In this way, there is no difference whatsoever among different opinions: they are identical in their limitation and are equally relative, including the opinion that all opinions are relative … The important thing we should do, instead of arguing for right and wrong, is to realize it is some particular perspective that causes us to look at things in a particular way. More importantly, from such realization we may open up and free our mind to different perspectives which could be decisive for our ultimate transformation and liberation. Therefore, Zhuangzi proposed his “perspectivism.”
From the Dao perspective of the Oneness and identity of things and the world, we are now able to see and treat things as equal in the sense that all things are different by being what they are.
For Zhuangzi, Shang says, “perspective ( jingjie, 境界) is a paramount condition of mind, and an immanent achievement of life. But it is not one of all opinions, it is a perspective with all opinions equalized and overcome and transcended. Based on this Dao perspective with a height of religiosity beyond reason and common knowledge, we are able to see things in a totally different way. From the Dao perspective of the Oneness and identity of things and the world, we are now able to see and treat things as equal in the sense that all things are different by being what they are. The Dao perspective … sees things as they are yet never fixes itself in judging which is right and which is wrong … It sets the mind free in order eventually to wander about the infinite world. This perhaps is why Zhuangzi does not condemn any particular opinion as wrong. All he does is to point out their limitation, partiality, and exclusiveness … What Zhuangzi suggests here is that we must overcome or surmount the common knowledge in order to liberate and free ourselves by attaining a Dao perspective, a jingjie of religiosity, or what he called “true knowledge with no-knowledge.”
True knowledge as knowledge of no-self (wuwo, sangwo)
Shang writes: “True knowledge is the knowledge of no-self (wuwo, sangwo). All prejudices and arguments originate from our obsession with self as if it were the ultimate being. But in fact, the self exists only because the other exists; without the relation to the other there is no self. If the self is forgotten, there will be no fixed mind; without fixed mind, there will be no opinion, no argument and prejudice. Thus, one returns to nature (ziran) and attains true knowledge of Dao.”
Centuries later, the Platform Sutra regarded as the foundational text of Zen, formulated the same ideas in traditional Buddhist terminology as follows: “Prajna (wisdom) means ‘before knowledge’, and knowledge, (that is, the conceptual, dualistic knowledge elaborated by the intellect), according to Mahayana, is just another name for delusion. Hence, prajna is our original mind, our mind before we know anything, before there is a person who knows or something known. This non-dual nature is our original nature, our buddha nature.”
Buddhist scholars avoid using the word “knowledge” when talking about the awakening triggered by the dropping of the self. But the Chinese simply put a “wu” before whatever word they wish to negate – wuzhi (unprincipled knowing), wuwei (non coercive action in accordance with the de), wuxin (unmediated thinking and feeling), wuming (naming without fixed reference), wuyu (objectless desire), etc, the so-called “wu” forms to express the spontaneous, egoless noncoercive nature of the second word.
Shang explains: “According to Zhuangzi, the significance of the notion of no-knowledge is twofold. First, … common knowledge needs be abandoned or transcended for it is only an obstacle separating us from nature (Dao) …Second, the knowledge of no-knowledge also means our realizing the limits of knowledge and that only partial truth but never the totality of the world can be grasped.
It is crucial to note that Zhuangzi’s assertion that “true knowledge is no-knowledge” did not turn sages into a skeptics unable to act because no reliable knowledge is available to them. Just the opposite is the case: Zhuangzi saw realised “sages” as being spontaneously able to “respond appropriately” to whatever challenge they encounter in their lives.
“Furthermore,” Shang adds, “Zhuangzi reminds us that our natural instinct, spontaneity, irrational spirit, sensual perception, and even physical body are more primal than rationality. Only if one surpasses reason and self-consciousness is one able to reach the higher state of freedom. With a mind of no-knowledge, no-self, no-thinking, and no-mind, one is able to do things with least effort yet greatest success.The stories such as that of cook Ding cutting a cow (3/1), a wheel maker making fun of the king who was reading (13/7), a swimmer playing with the waterfall that even fish could not stand (19/9), an artisan drawing a perfect circle without compass (19/12), are all examples demonstrating that the ultimate skill of acting is to forget thinking of it, simply act spontaneously in accord with nature, after years of practice.” No-knowledge means no attachment to and no dependence upon opinions and knowledge.”
After opinions are equalized and deconstructed, we finally arrive at the ground of “non-dependence” (wudai, 无待). Nothing stops or stays still; everything goes and comes in accord with nature. This movement leads to the state of xu (虚, vacancy or emptiness)
The conclusion Shang arrives at in the last paragraph of this section appears, at first, to contradict everything he has said before. He now speaks of “non-dependence” (wudai) and even of “absolute.” He writes: “Our mind now no longer fixed upon ideas is clear and spontaneous, and able to reflect like a mirror the real course of nature in the state of xu (vacancy or emptiness). The word xu (虚) combines the character for “nothing” (旡) and “fire” (灬). It “‘hears’ or perceives, not through conceptual knowledge but qi (气, air or clearing in the sense of emptiness), things as they are without discrimination (4/1).The mind of xu as such becomes independent (wudai), which relies not on anything intelligible, conceptual, or artificial, knowledge that is external to itself; it reflects on and identifies itself to things as they are and as the flux of ziran thereby becomes itself ziran.” What he means here is a non-dependence on conceptual knowledge, which amounts to a dwelling on what he describes as the mind of xu, described as a dynamic emptiness, a notion I also found in Kyoto School thought where emptiness is compared to a field of force. In Shang’s words “through the mind of xu, everything is conceived of as an ‘absolute’,” for it is what it is.” But then he adds, “with nothing more than what it is, with no differentiation and dichotomization of life/death, right/wrong, here/there, good/evil, big/small, and self/other … This is Zhuangzi’s Dao of nature (Heaven and Earth). If you understood this you could call it the Reservoir of heaven … Pour into it and it is never full, dip from it and it never runs dry, and yet it is not known where the supply comes from. This is called Preserved Light (baoguang, 葆光)” (2/5). This, then, is how Zhuangzi conceived the “liberation” that he will later characterise as an affirmation.
Sources:
Ge Ling Shang – Liberation as Affirmation: The Religiosity of Zhuangzi and Nietzsche (2006)
Robert E Carter – The Nothingness Beyond God, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro
Nishitani Keiji – Religion and Nothingness (from 1961 onwards)
Huineng – The Platform Sutra (translated by Red Pine)