The Age of the Sages

by Mark W Muesse

  The Ruler as Sage

  As a result of noninterference, leaving things alone, everyone benefits. The sage-ruler affirms to himself:

  “I do nothing and the people transform themselves;

  I prefer stillness and the people correct and regulate themselves;

  I engage in no activity and the people prosper on their own;

  I am without desires and the people simplify their own lives.”[6]

  It is not exactly clear from the text how wu wei was able to effect these profound social changes. Was it because the ruler made spiritual cultivation his chief priority and so modeled the same for the people? Was it because the Daoists believed in the near-magical power of accumulated virtue, as did Confucius and other Chinese of the past? Was it because the ruler’s trust in the people inspired them to be worthy of the confidence he placed in them? Or did the early Daoists have a kind of sentimental and romantic view of the common people, like that of Leo Tolstoy and Mao Zedong, leading them to believe the ordinary folk were naturally more virtuous than the scholars and aristocrats? Any of these are plausible.

  In the end, the way it works is not nearly as important as that it works. Unfortunately, the Daoists had no contemporary examples of virtuous leaders to support that claim and could only appeal to the legendary rulers of bygone eras. But Daoism and Confucianism were agreed on the point: for the ruler to diminish his selfish desires and the pursuit of power—whether by wu wei or li—was essential to the country’s well-being.

  Zhuangzi

  In the figure of Zhuangzi, however, Daoism—or at least Zhuangzi’s interpretation of it—seems to have shifted its interests from the political arena to an exclusive focus on individual spirituality. Zhuangzi does not specifically address the ruling class but the individual seeking to live in accord with the Dao.

  Most scholars think Zhuangzi was an actual person—and a quirky one at that. He was said to be totally unconcerned with status, physical appearance, and comfort. Zhuangzi’s traditional dates are 369–286 bce, which make him a contemporary of Mengzi and situates him in the Period of Warring States. Unlike virtually every other philosopher of this period, Zhuangzi had little to say about the political and social realms, as if he considered them not in the least important. According to legend, Zhuangzi was offered a high-ranking position in the court of a King Wei. Zhuangzi laughed in the face of the messenger who brought the invitation and compared the job to an ox that was well cared for, dressed in embroidered cloth, and led to the temple to be slaughtered. He said he would rather enjoy life as a pig in the mud.[7]

  Perhaps Zhuangzi had become jaded by the political situation of his day and had lost hope that things would ever change, even under the rule of a Daoist sage. Or maybe he simply believed that society did not matter; to follow the Dao was an individual and not a communal concern. Nonetheless, it is clear that Zhuangzi was inspired by the old masters who had written and compiled the Daodejing, although he did not seem to accept their political philosophy. Perhaps he thought of himself as taking their insights to their logical conclusions. In any event, Zhuangzi is the principal person responsible for drawing out and emphasizing the mystical components of Daoism.

  Zhuangzi is credited with writing what are called the “Inner Chapters” of the book that bears his name; others, it seems, wrote the so-called “Outer” and “Miscellaneous” chapters of the book. The Zhuangzi is a masterpiece of literature, and it is unfortunate that it is not better known in the West. There are far fewer translations of the Zhuangzi than the Daodejing, but many consider the Zhuangzi to be the superior work. It is provocative, entertaining, and often humorous. Much of the humor derives from the way Zhuangzi and the later writers enjoy poking fun at Confucius and other leading philosophers of the day. Unlike the dense and terse Daodejing, the Zhuangzi has a free-flowing, easy style that is consistent with its message. Though written in prose, it has a rhythmic, poetic quality.

  Let us briefly examine several of the Zhuangzi’s salient themes and illustrate them with passages from the text. Most of Zhuangzi’s ideas were anticipated in the Daodejing, but the Zhuangzi highlights these concepts and expresses them with a vividness and concreteness that the earlier text lacked.

  A fundamental part of Daoist practice was, of course, the acceptance of change, one of the basic features of the Dao. Like the Buddha, the early Daoists believed resistance to change was a primary cause of suffering. The Zhuangzi not only cautions against such resistance, it actually encourages a hearty welcoming of the impermanence of life: “Before long, Sir Come fell ill. Gasping and on the verge of death, he was surrounded by his wife and children who were weeping. Sir Plow, who went to call on him, said to his family, ‘Shush! Go away! Do not disturb transformation!’ Then, leaning against the door, he spoke to Sir Come: ‘Great is the Transforming Creator! What next will he make of you? Where will he send you? Will he turn you into a rat’s liver? Will he turn you into a bug’s leg?’”[8] Zhuangzi conveyed exhilaration at the prospect of change, even the change that occurs with death. Apparently, Zhuangzi did not see the change brought by death as a form of reincarnation or as transport to a heavenly realm. He regarded it in material terms, as the physical elements of the body now take shape in another form. There seems to be some question about the extent to which Zhuangzi embraced a materialist view of the world; at one point he even suggested that the mind dies with the body. In any event, whatever is left of us becomes something else, and he found that concept thrilling.[9] He obviously enjoyed the spontaneity and surprise associated with the movements of the Dao.

  As the story indicates, Zhuangzi especially encouraged the acceptance of death and saw this as vital to happiness in life. A story from the Outer Chapters reports Zhuangzi’s response to the death of his own wife. Shortly after she died, Zhuangzi was visited by a friend who intended to console him. The friend was astounded to see that Zhuangzi was not only not in mourning but was sitting on the floor, beating on a basin and singing a song. The scene scandalized the friend, and he asked Zhuangzi the meaning of it all. Zhuangzi said:

  “When she first died, how could I of all people not be melancholy? But I reflected on her beginning and realized that originally she was unborn. Not only was she unborn, originally she had no form. Not only did she have no form, originally she had no vital breath. Intermingling with nebulousness and blurriness, a transformation occurred and there was vital breath; the vital breath was transformed and there was form; the form was transformed and there was birth; now there has been another transformation and she is dead. This is like the progression of the four seasons—from spring to autumn, from winter to summer. There she sleeps blissfully in another chamber. If I were to have followed her weeping and wailing, I think it would have been out of keeping with destiny, so I stopped.”[10]

  For Zhuangzi, the acceptance of impermanence entailed seeing all points of view as relative and tentative. Like the Jains, he cautioned against making absolute judgments, not because of the defilements of the soul but for the simple reason that things change. What appears today as the worst of news may turn out tomorrow to be a blessing in disguise. As the Daodejing says:

  Good fortune rests upon disaster;

  Disaster lies hidden within good fortune.

  Who knows the highest standards?[11]

  The following story is a Daoist tale, although not attributed to Zhuangzi. Yet it dramatically illustrates his point:

  There is a story of a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck. He said, “Maybe so, maybe not.” The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune. He said, “Maybe so, maybe not.” And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. Again the neighbors came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, “Maybe so, maybe not.” The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to seize youn
g men for the army, but because of the broken leg the farmer’s son was rejected. When the neighbors came to say how fortunately everything had turned out, he said, “Maybe so, maybe not.”

  The practice for overcoming the tendency to rush to judgment is what Zhuangzi called emptying the mind, or “sitting and forgetting.” The idea is based largely on the metaphor of emptiness that was used in the Daodejing. Zhuangzi thought that much of our misery is caused by our preconceptions, which predispose us to see the world in particular ways, ways that disrupt our capacities to respond out of spontaneity to whatever life throws our way. These prejudices are what compel us to evaluate things before it is time. The discipline he encouraged was quite similar to meditation practices of the Buddha and to the form of Buddhism that would develop later in dialogue with Daoism, Zen. The consistent practice of sitting and forgetting allows the practitioner to relinquish habitual beliefs and patterns of thinking. It enables him or her to perceive the world afresh with openness to the present moment and freedom from precalculated responses.

  We cannot leave our discussion of the Zhuangzi without mentioning the most famous story within it, the butterfly dream. Many people who know nothing else about Zhuangzi have heard this brief anecdote: “Once upon a time Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He didn’t know that he was Zhou. Suddenly he awoke and was palpably Zhou. He didn’t know whether he was Zhou who had dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. Now, there must be a difference between Zhou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things.”[12] This little story has been interpreted in many ways. A popular contemporary Western interpretation sees the parable as an argument for the relativity of views, and hence the relativity of all claims to truth. Since we are all in a state of not knowing for certain whether we are dreaming or awake, how can we be sure of anything? Who is to say the reality of a dreaming butterfly is less real than the waking reality of a man, or the dreaming reality of a man is less real than the waking reality of a butterfly?

  Early Chinese commentaries on the story see it in a different way altogether. In English, the story is usually presented from the perspective of Zhou, who is reflecting after waking from the dream, but in the original Chinese, Zhou is not reflecting on the dream; he has forgotten it. The story is told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator and not by Zhou. The narrator knows that Zhou was dreaming, but Zhou does not. In the commentator’s view, the story is an allegory about life and death, which are compared to waking and dreaming. The commentator thinks being awake and dreaming are both real phases of existence, as are life and death. It is presumptuous to assume that death is a wholly negative experience. Who knows? In death we may be as happy as a butterfly flitting about without a care, unaware of a previous existence or identity. This may be why the story ends with the line “This is called the transformation of things.”[13]

  Daoism after the Axial Age

  These few remarks on the Zhuangzi bring to a close our examination of early philosophical Daoism. Before we leave the tradition altogether, though, let us consider so-called religious Daoism that developed after the Axial Age. The Daoist church comes into being in the second century ce, during the Han dynasty. Confucianism had just been established as the official religion of the state, and Mahayana Buddhism had finally arrived in China. It was partly in response to Buddhism that Daoism began to develop ecclesiastical structures and assume new beliefs and interests. Prompting these developments were several popular movements that predicted a Second Coming of Laozi and his establishment of a taiping, a great peace, similar to the Christian expectation of the Second Coming of Jesus. By this time Laozi had been deified and considered the incarnation of the Dao. Temples were built, and sacrifices made in his honor, just as had been done for Confucius. Soon, several Daoist devotees began to receive revelations from Laozi. One man, Zhang Daoling, received instructions on ritual, meditation, healing, and moral observances. These teachings became the basis for a new, popular Daoist movement called the Celestial Masters.

  As Daoism spread through China, it came into contact with the indigenous folk religions and tended to blend with them. In some areas, the Daoists encountered Chinese alchemists who were experimenting with the magical potential of various substances. By this time, Daoists had already developed a keen interest in prolonging life and believed that certain substances might actually confer immortality. Many Daoists believed they had found this substance in cinnabar, which they used to mix elixirs of immortality.

  With these new developments in religious Daoism, the tradition became firmly embedded in the popular religious practices of ordinary Chinese. Philosophical Daoism continued its existence in various forms, experiencing moments of prominence and patronage, such as the Tang dynasty, and moments of ridicule and obscurity, usually when Confucianism was in the ascendancy. Good times and hard times: such is the way of the Dao.

  * * *

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 75, trans. Ivanhoe, 78.↵

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 53, trans. Ivanhoe, 56. ↵

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 59, trans. Ivanhoe, 62.↵

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 60, trans. Ivanhoe, 63. ↵

  Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” in Walden and Civil Disobedience, ed. Owen Thomas (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966), 224.↵

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 57, trans. Ivanhoe, 60.↵

  Victor H. Mair, trans. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu (New York: Bantam, 1994), xxxii.↵

  Wandering On the Way (6.5), 58–59.↵

  Wandering on the Way (2.3), 13–14.↵

  Wandering on the Way, (18.2), 168–69.↵

  The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 58, trans. Ivanhoe, 61.↵

  Wandering on the Way (2.14), 24.↵

  This interpretation is based on Hans-Georg Moeller, Daoism Explained(Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 44–55. ↵

  Conclusion: Reflections on the Axial Age

  More than two thousand years now separate us from the Age of Sages. As we pause to reflect on our study of this era, we might well ask what significance this period has for us today as persons of the twenty-first century. Answers to this question will fall into two categories: historical and theological. In the first category, this study of the Axial Age has revealed certain dynamics involved in the phenomenon of human religiousness. I will summarize these general principles governing religion in history. Under the category of theology, our study has disclosed the particular ways in which the axial sages understood human existence and prescribed ideals for living life. The broad shape of their visions for authentic human life will be reviewed, drawing special attention to those features of their perspectives that seem most relevant for us today.

  The Axial Age and Our Understanding of Religion

  We begin by asking what the study of the Axial Age teaches us about religion as a phenomenon in human life. First and perhaps most obviously, our examination has made it abundantly evident that religions change and develop over time. Even Jainism, which purports to be an eternal religion, propagating the same substantial message age after age, still acknowledges that the form of that message has to change to fit the needs of the persons to whom it is addressed and that human beings interpret aspects of that message in different ways. Although the message of religious traditions is often grounded in the eternal, religions are human creations, products of finite and transitory minds that are subject to the vagaries of time.

  Frequently, the changes we witnessed in our study were quite dramatic and could be interpreted as even contrary to the intention of those who first laid the tradition’s foundations. The Buddha, for example, constantly emphasized that he was not a god but a human being who had perfected himself through his own efforts and who encouraged his disciples to do the same, yet later he was conceived to be a divine being who assisted individuals to escape samsara. The founder’s or founders’ message and the way that mess
age is received and practiced can be very different things. But it would be a mistake to think such developments are inauthentic or illegitimate. There is no world religion in which the founder’s or founders’ original vision did not undergo some refinement or even complete reinterpretation. This fact is simply inherent in the nature of religions and, indeed, of all human institutions.

  Religions develop and change because they are not self-contained entities unrelated to other domains of human experience. They are profoundly shaped by—and they profoundly shape—human culture on many levels. The Confucian traditions arose in response to difficult political and economic times in ancient China and then in turn became the philosophical and religious basis for training government officials. Zoroastrianism was a reform movement responding to widespread lawlessness and later evolved into the Iranian state religion that lasted for centuries. Buddhism and Jainism began as ways to cope with samsara, an idea wrought within ancient Hinduism, and then influenced the Hindu traditions by insisting on the centrality of nonviolence.