Q: What is the mystical method for remaining unharmed by the
deceitfulness and slander of others?
A: If a man empties himself of himself, who can harm him? (Chuang-tse)
Q: We are taught to stop doing things, instead of trying to do,
that is, to stop acting from false ideas and from artificial personality
traits. What is the purpose of this technique?
A: Cease striving; then there will be self-transformation. (Chuang-tse)
Q: The world seems like a hostile place!
A: To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. (Chuang-tse)
Q: Since esoteric truths are available to all who really want
them, why does mankind remain in its miserable state?
A: Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses.
(Chuang-tse)
Q: The great mystery to me is how I could ever have been asleep
to all this for so many years. I can now see what finally happened
– I simply refused to go along with my old and agonizing
life any longer.
A: After a while comes the Great Awakening. (Chuang-tse)
Q: What words can you give me to facilitate this Great Awakening?
A: Tao is beyond words and beyond things. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: What happens to someone who finds it?
A: What can stand in his way? He will rest in his eternal place
which is no-place.
He will be hidden in his own unfathomable secret. His nature sinks
to its root in the One.
His vitality, his power hide in secret Tao. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Is it our predominate love of visible things, worldly affairs,
that blocks us from this supreme realization?
A: He who is controlled by objects loses possession of his inner
self...Prisoners in the world of object . . . have no choice but
to submit to the demands of matter! They are pressed down and
crushed by external forces: fashion, the market, events, public
opinion. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Why do those with worldly success often walk with such a confident
flair? It looks like they’ve found something worthwhile.
A: If this is life, then pigeons in a cage have found happiness!
(Chuang Tzu)
Q: Is the right answer then, to renounce the world and live a
life of isolation and contemplation?
A: Can a man cling only to heaven and know nothing of earth?
They are correlative: to know one is to know the other. To refuse
one is to refuse both. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: I often get frustrated that wisdom teachings provide no target
for me to hit. Take for example, the Taoist concept of non-action.
It all seems vague.
A: The non-action of the wise man is not inaction. It is not
studied. It is not shaken by anything. The sage is quiet because
he is not moved, not because he wills to be quiet... Joy does
all things without concern. For emptiness, stillness, tranquility,
tastelessness, silence, and non-action are the root of all things.
. . The spirit free to work without plan follows its own instinct
guided by natural line, by the secret opening. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Can you say that another way?
A: To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step
toward resting in Tao.
To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward
attaining Tao. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: It is still hard for me to see how Taoism could be practical
in our modern world.
A: If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you.... Since
he judges no one, no one judges him.
Such is the perfect man: His boat is empty. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: What’s it going to take to finally win the prize of
the awakened life?
A: If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained
(It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain
what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what
cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing
you seek. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Again, it all seems like a gigantic contradiction!
A: To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further
by your own action,
this is the right beginning! You never find happiness until you
stop looking for it.
My greatest happiness consists precisely in doing nothing whatever
that is calculated to obtain happiness: and this, in the minds
of most people, is the worst possible course... (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Then how will we ever find contentment and true happiness?
A: Contentment and well-being at once become possible the moment
you cease to act with them in view, and if you practice non-doing
(wu wei), you will have both happiness and well-being. (Chuang
Tzu)
Q: It seems impossible to empty without striving. Something has
to throw the mental junk out. If not by my own efforts, then by
what?
A: Look at this window: it is nothing but a hole in the wall,
but because of it the whole room is full of light. So when the
faculties are empty, the heart is full of light. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: It seems as if you’re asking to stand in a vacant and
lonely place, and cast aside all my plans for happiness and success.
A: The true men of old were not afraid when they stood alone
in their views.
No great exploits. No plans. If they failed, no sorrow. No self-congratulation
in success... The true men of old knew no lust for life, no dread
of death. Their entrance was without gladness, their exit, yonder,
without resistance. Easy come, easy go.
They did not forget where from, nor ask where
to, nor drive grimly forward fighting their way through life.
They took life as it came, gladly; took death as it came, without
care; and went away, yonder. Yonder! They had no mind to fight
Tao. They did not try by their own contriving, to help Tao along.
These are the ones we call true men. Minds free, thoughts gone.
Brows clear, faces serene. (Chuang Tzu)
Q: Doesn’t it help our own development to strive to be
good and kind in this world?
A: The man in whom Tao acts without impediment harms no other
being by his actions yet he does not know himself to be "kind",
to be "gentle"...(He) does not bother with his own interests
and does not despise others who do. He does not struggle to make
money and does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without
relying on others and does not pride himself on walking alone.
While he does not follow the crowd he won't complain of those
who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him; disgrace and shame
do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong,
always deciding "Yes" or "No." The ancients
said, therefore: The man of Tao remains unknown.
Perfect virtue produces nothing. "No-Self" is "True-Self".
And the greatest man is Nobody. (Chuang-tse)
