The conversations between Confucius and ‘Old Tan’ (Lao Tan, commonly called Lao-tzŭ) are distributed over the Outer chapters of Chuang-tzŭ. The seven compose a cycle which appears to be homogeneous, although it may be noticed that they seem to have their first meeting twice over.12 In them Confucius gratefully abandons Confucianism for the philosophy taught him, with ineffable condescension, by Old Tan. It is a version of Chuang-tzŭ’s variety of Taoism, distinguished by a strong emphasis on concrete examples of natural process, physical and biological, as models for human spontaneity. There are constant echoes from the Inner chapters but none from Lao-tzŭ, the scripture ascribed to Old Tan. The seven episodes are beautifully written, in a cool, dignified yet relaxed style with a different flavour from Chuang-tzŭ’s. There are some indications, not however conclusive, that the cycle belongs to a very late stratum of the book, later than the foundation of the Han dynasty in 202 BC. Confucius is represented as mentioning the ‘Six Classics’.13 The Classics were assembled and canonised very gradually in the Confucian school, and not attested as numbering six before the Han. There is also a curious reference to the ‘Twelve Classics’,14 commonly identified as the six together with the six wei-shu, Han apocrypha which were attached to them.
In the traditional history of Chinese thought Old Tan is the founder of Taoism and the author of its greatest book, Lao-tzŭ. As for the book, there is no firm evidence of its existence before about 250 BC, although it had risen to prominence with extraordinary speed and sureness by the end of the century. It is frequently quoted in the Primitivist essays (c. 205 BC) and elsewhere in Chuang-tzŭ, but never in the Inner chapters. The story of the meeting with Confucius is a little older, and exists in a Confucian as well as in the Taoist version. The ‘Questions of Tseng-tzŭ’ in the Confucian Book of Rites has Confucius humbly consulting Old Tan on the proper conduct of funerals. Old Tan, introduced not as a philosopher but purely as a specialist in the rites, is so assured in the authority of his knowledge and venerable years that he addresses Confucius familiarly by his given name, ‘Ch’iu’. The Book of Rites is a compilation of varied origins which took shape in the first century BC, so that there is nothing in the documentary evidence to show whether Chuang-tzŭ or the ‘Questions of Tseng-tzŭ’ is nearer to the beginnings of the story. It takes some effort of the imagination to break down the preconception that Old Tan must always have been a Taoist hero, but in fact there are strong indications that he was borrowed from the Confucians:
(1) Taoists delight in putting their own thoughts into the mouths of others, including Confucius himself. But why should Confucians put themselves at the mercy of their rivals by gratuitously taking over a story that their own founder listened humbly to the founder of Taoism?
(2) In the Chuang-tzŭ dialogues Old Tan is a keeper of archives in the reduced domain of the Chou Emperor. The ‘Questions of Tseng-tzŭ’ gives no such details; but these particulars make Old Tan a very proper person for Confucius, who dreams of restoring the Chou tradition, to consult about the rites. His dry-as-dust occupation seems however curiously inappropriate to a Taoist sage. Chuang-tzŭ, for example, seems most himself when imagined as a carefree hermit fishing by the river.
(3) Old Tan took a long time to find himself a surname. Philosophers are generally known by the surname followed by the suffix tzŭ, but in his case the tzŭ had to be added to Lao, ‘old’, and the practice took time to establish itself. In the Chinese text of Chuang-tzŭ we are regularly meeting our old friends K’ung-tzŭ (Confucius), Hui-tzŭ (Hui Shih), Lieh-tzŭ, Chuang-tzŭ himself, but the name ‘Lao-tzŭ’ turns up only in five episodes, and of these there is only one in which he was not introduced as Old Tan. Why should Taoists fail to remember or invent a surname for their founder? A plausible answer is that he had none as a peripheral figure in a Confucian story, and when Taoists adopted him the crucial point for them was that he remain identifiable as the Old Tan who used to talk down to Confucius.
(4) Old Tan is first attested in the late fourth century in the Inner chapters, as one of the figures in the life or legend of Confucius whom Chuang-tzŭ uses as spokesman of his own thoughts. (Others are Chieh Yü the madman of Ch’u, Ch’ü Po-yü the wise man of Wey, and of course Confucius himself.) He is much less prominent than the madman of Ch’u, and in his three appearances only once speaks at length.15 There is some presumption that figures whom Chuang-tzŭ constellates around Confucius would have some previous existence in his history or legend, but absolutely none that they were Taoists. In one story a friend of Old Tan is disillusioned with him because the conduct of his disciples at his funeral shows the inadequacy of their understanding of death.16 This is a strange way for a Taoist to be talking about the revered father of his philosophy, especially on the issue of death, which for Chuang-tzŭ is the touchstone. It looks as though Chuang-tzu’s Old Tan is simply the man who instructed Confucius in funeral rites.
(5) Down to about 100 BC the documented story of Old Tan is nothing but the story of his meeting with Confucius. The Inner chapters allude in passing to Confucius studying under him,17 and the Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu (c. 240 BC) mentions that ‘Confucius learned from Old Tan’, in a context suggestive of a specialist contribution to his knowledge rather than a conversion to Taoism. In the first century BC the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch’ien fitted up Old Tan with a surname at last (Li, with given name Erh) and tried to write his biography. But, apart from a few tales and scraps of information about persons whom he recognises to be only dubiously identified with Old Tan, Ssŭ-ma Ch’ien has nothing to offer but the meeting with Confucius and one more story, of Lao-tzŭ travelling westwards through the passes, leaving his book with the ‘Keeper of the Pass’ (Kuan-yin), and disappearing for ever. As earlier evidence of this story we have only the name Kuan-yin, mentioned in late parts of Chuang-tzŭ18 and elsewhere, but the name by itself is hardly conclusive testimony.
In all stories Old Tan has a tone of extraordinary authority, condescending to Confucius, ruthlessly criticising lesser men to their faces. It has been too easily assumed that the authority derives from being the founder of the school and the author of its scripture. But it is sufficiently explained on the assumption that Old Tan is first of all the man who even for Confucians could talk down to their master and address him as ‘Ch’iu’ (a familiarity reflected in the present translation by such expressions as ‘Confucius, my lad’). Among all the historical or legendary persons whom Chuang-tzŭ used as his spokesmen only Old Tan has this advantage, and it would be a master-stroke to pass the anti-Confucian classic Lao-tzŭ under his name. As for Old Tan being founder of Taoism, philosophical schools tend to be created in retrospect. Chuang-tzŭ never knew that he was a ‘Taoist’, but towards 200 BC the admirers of his writings and of the little masterpiece which had recently entered into circulation as Lao-tzŭ were thinking of themselves as an anti-Confucian school the origins of which had better be pushed back at least as far as Confucius. Then Old Tan would present himself as the unchallengeable candidate for retrospective choice as founder.
Nowadays we are inclined to take it for granted that the hero of so confused a legend probably never existed. It is amusing to think that Old Tan might well be fully historical, but not a Taoist at all – on the contrary an archivist and instructor in the rites whom Confucius himself, it is pleasing to imagine, may have found a little too rigid, dusty, old-fashioned.
When Confucius travelled west to deposit books in the palace of Chou, Tzŭ-lu advised him
‘I hear that among the keepers of archives in Chou there is a certain Old Tan who has retired and lives at home. If you wish to deposit books, sir, you might go and see what he can do for you.’
‘Very well,’ said Confucius, and went to see Old Tan, who would not give permission. Then he went through the Twelve Classics explaining them.
Old Tan interrupted his explanation
‘Too long-winded, I would rather hear the gist of it.’
‘The gist is in Goodwill and Duty.’
‘May I ask whether Goodwill and Duty belong to man’s nature?’
‘They do. The gentleman
If malevolent has not matured,
If undutiful remains unborn.
Goodwill and Duty are the nature of the True Man; what more has he to do?’
‘I should like to ask what you mean by Goodwill and Duty.’
‘To delight from your innermost heart in loving everyone impartially is the essence of Goodwill and Duty.’
‘Hmm. There’s danger in that last thing you said. Isn’t it after all an aberration to love everybody? Impartiality to all is a partiality. If you wish, sir, to save the world from losing its simplicity, well, it is inherent in heaven and earth to have constancies, in the sun and moon to shed light, in the stars to form constellations, in the birds and beasts to flock together, in the trees to grow upright. If you too go forward trusting to the Power in you, taking the direction which accords with the Way, you will already have attained the utmost; why be so busy proclaiming Goodwill and Duty, like the man banging the drum as he goes looking for runaways? Hmm, you are disrupting man’s nature, sir.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 13)
Confucius visited Old Tan and expounded Goodwill and Duty.
‘When chaff from the winnowing blinds the eye,’ said Old Tan, ‘heaven and earth and the four quarters change places; when mosquitoes and gadflies sting the flesh, we lie awake all night long. Goodwill and Duty torment our hearts and keep them restless, there is no disorder worse. If you wish to save the world from losing its simplicity, may you too move as the wind stirs you, let the Power which gathers in you hold you firm; why all this urgency, like the man with the big drum on his back who goes searching for runaways? The snow goose wants no daily bath to make it white, the rook no daily inking to make it black. Simplicities of black and white are not worth arguing over; making a spectacle of oneself to be famous and praised does not make one a bigger man. When the spring dries up, and the fish are stranded together on land, they spit moisture at each other and soak each other in the foam, but they would rather forget each other in the Yangtse and the Lakes.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 14)
When Confucius had lived fifty-one years and had not heard the Way, he went south to P’ei to visit Old Tan.
‘Have you come?’ said Old Tan. ‘I hear that you are the best of the men of the north. Have you after all found the Way?’
‘I have not found it.’
‘Where did you seek it?’
‘I sought it in measures and numbers, and in five years did not find it.’
‘Where did you seek it then?’
‘I sought it in the Yin and Yang, and in twelve years did not find it.’
‘Yes. Supposing that the Way could be offered up, there is no man who would not offer it to his lord. Supposing that the Way could be presented as a gift, there is no man who would not present it to his parents. Supposing that the Way could be told to others, there is no man who would not tell it to his brothers. Supposing that the Way could be bequeathed to others, there is no man who would not bequeathe it to his sons and grandsons. That we cannot do so, much as we might wish it, is for this reason alone: unless you have an appropriator within to make it your own, it will not stay; unless you have a regulator outside to set it in the true direction, it will not transfer. If what issues from within will not be accepted outside, the sage does not let it out; if what enters from outside is not appropriated within, the sage does not rely on it.
‘Names are tools for public use, one should not have too strong preferences between them. Goodwill and Duty are the grass huts of the former kings; you may put up in them for a night, but not settle in them for long, and the longer you are noticed in them the more will be demanded of you. The utmost men of old borrowed right of way through the benevolent, lodged for a night in the dutiful, to roam in the emptiness where one rambles without a destination, eat in the fields of the casual and simple, stand in the orchards where one can keep all the fruit. To ramble without a destination is Doing Nothing, to be casual and simple is to be easily nurtured, to keep all the fruit is to let nothing out from oneself. Of old they called this the roaming in which one plucks only the genuine.
‘Whoever thinks what matters is to get rich is incapable of renouncing salary. Whoever thinks what matters is to get famous is incapable of renouncing reputation. Whoever is too fond of sway over others is incapable of letting another man take the controls; while he holds on to them he trembles, when he loses them he pines; and one who has no mirror in which to glimpse the source of his unease is a man punished by Heaven.
‘Wrath and bounty, taking and giving, admonishing and teaching, sparing and killing – all these eight belong among the tools of ruling. Only the man who stays on course through the greatest alterations and has nothing to obstruct him anywhere may be deemed capable of employing them. As the saying goes, “To rule is to set in the true direction”. For the man whose heart thinks otherwise, the gate of Heaven will not open.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 14)
Confucius visited Old Tan. Old Tan, fresh from a bath, was drying out, hair hanging down his back, so still that he seemed other than human. Confucius awaited his convenience. A little later, presenting himself, he said
‘Am I in a daze? Or was it truly so? Just now, sir, your body was as motionless as withered wood, as though you had left everything behind and parted from man, to take your stand in the Unique.’
‘I was letting the heart roam at the beginning of things.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The heart is straitened by it and incapable of knowing, the mouth gapes at it and is unable to speak. But I shall try to say something which will guide you towards it.
‘The utmost Yin is sombre, the utmost Yang is radiant, the sombre goes on emerging from Heaven and the radiant goes on issuing from earth; the two pervade each other, and by their perfected harmony things are generated. There is something which holds all the threads, but no one sees its shape. Reducing, increasing, filling, emptying, now shading, now lighting, renewing with the day or transforming through the month, each day it is working but no one sees a result. The living spring from something, the dying go home to something, starts and ends go on reversing along the course which had no beginning, and no one ever knows where the limit is. What else but this is the Ancestor from which we descend?’
‘Let me ask about your “roaming” in this.’
‘To grasp it is utmost beauty, utmost joy. One who grasps utmost beauty and roams in utmost joy is called the “Utmost Man”.’
‘I should like to hear the secret of it.’
‘Beasts which eat grass are not irked by a change of pastures, nor creatures born in water by a change of waters, for in passing through a small alteration they do not lose the ultimately constant in them. Their pleasure or anger, sadness or joy, does not enter a halting-place inside the breast. The “world” is that in which the myriad things are one. If you grasp the whole where they are one and assimilate yourself to it, the four limbs and hundred members will become dust and grime, and death and life, end and start, will become a daytime and a night, and nothing will be able to disturb you, least of all distinctions drawn by gain and loss, good fortune or ill!
‘You discard a servant as though shaking off mud, for you know that one’s person is more valuable than its accessories. The value resides in oneself, and is not lost by alterations. Besides, if in a myriad transformations we shall never be nearer to a limit, why should any of them be enough to trouble the heart? The man who has cultivated the Way is free from these.’
‘Sir,’ said Confucius, ‘by your Power you are mate to heaven and earth, yet you still depend on the most far-reaching words to train the heart. Who of all the gentlemen of old could ever dispense with them?’
‘Not so. When the water murmurs it does nothing, the capacity is spontaneous. As for the Power in the utmost man, it does not have to be trained for other things to be unable to separate from him. It is like heaven being high of itself, earth being solid of itself, the sun and moon shining of themselves; what is there for him to train?’
After Confucius went out he spoke of it to Yen Hui.
‘As far as the Way is concerned, yes, I’ve seen about as much as an animalcule in the vinegar! If the Master had not taken the blindfold off me, I would not have guessed the scope of heaven and earth.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 21)
The Master inquired of Old Tan.
‘There are men who study the Way as they would correlatives, who allow the unallowable, treat the not so as so. There is a saying of the Sophists: “Separate the hard from the white as though suspending them apart in space.” Shall we call such men as these sages?’
‘This is a slave’s drudgery, an artisan’s bondage, wearing out the body, fretting the heart. It’s the dog which catches the mouse that gets itself on to the leash, and the spryest of the monkeys which is brought down from the mountain forests. Confucius my lad, I shall tell you something which you are incapable of hearing, incapable of saying. Of all that have a head and feet, the ones without a heart and ears are the majority! Of all that have shape not one endures with the Shapeless, the Featureless. Their motions and pauses, deaths and births, rises and falls, these are not the “why” of them. To study anything belongs to the realm of man. To forget all about things, forget all about Heaven, the name for that is “forgetfulness of self”, and it is the man forgetful of self who may be said to enter the realm of Heaven.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 12)
NOTE ‘Of all that have a head and feet …’ : all creatures except man follow the Way without thinking or being taught.
Confucius inquired of Old Tan
‘Today while you are at leisure I venture to ask about the utmost Way.’
‘Practise fasting and austerities to clear the channels of your heart, cleanse the quintessential-and-daemonic in you, smash to pieces your knowledge. The Way is profound and hard to put in words. I shall outline it roughly for you in words.
The bright is born from the dark,
The ordered is born from the shapeless,
The quintessential-and-daemonic is born from the Way,
The shaped in its origins is born from quintessence,
and reproducing their own shapes the myriad things generate. Thus the ones with nine orifices are born from the womb, the ones with eight from the egg. There are no tracks behind them when they come, no borders over which they depart, no gateway and no inner room, it’s a house without walls open in the four directions. The man who hits on the same course as these grows strong in his four limbs, keen and penetrating in his thoughts, sharp in sight and hearing, effortless in employing the heart and fluid in responding to things.
For heaven, no choice but to be high.
For earth, no choice but to be broad.
For sun and moon, no choice but to proceed on their courses.
For the myriad creatures, no choice but to multiply.
Would it be of these that it is the Way?
‘Moreover, while the information which is not necessarily knowledge and the subtlety which is not necessarily wisdom are repudiated by the sage, when it comes to that which no increase increases and no reduction reduces, he guards it close. Unfathomably deep, like the ocean! Looming so high, ending but to begin again! By its cycles it measures out the myriad things without exception. Then would your “Way of the gentleman” be the exterior of that? All the myriad things go to draw from it but it does not fail – would it be of these that it is the Way?
‘In the country in the middle there is man, neither Yin nor Yang, settled between heaven and earth. He is man only for a little while, he will return to his Ancestor. Considered in its origins, the living is a puff of vapour. Though some die early or late, how much time is there between them? It is a matter of an instant. Why should it be worth bothering whether sage Yao or tyrant Chieh is right or wrong? In fruits and berries there is pattern; the ordering of men, though harder, is their means of adjusting to one another. The sage neither misses the occasion when it is present nor clings to it when it is past. He responds to it by attuning himself, that’s the Power; he responds to it by matching with it, that’s the Way. From this course, the emperors arose and the kings began.
‘Man’s life between heaven and earth is like a white colt passing a chink in a wall, in a moment it is gone. In a gush, a rush, everything issues from there; melting, merging, everything enters there. By a transformation you are born, by another you die; all that lives feels the sadness of it, man mourns over it. You shake off your bowman’s kit which is Heaven’s, fling down your clerk’s robe which is Heaven’s, a scattering! a yielding! animus and anima depart their separate ways and selfhood follows them, and you have gone to your last home. This shaping of the unshaped, unshaping of the shaped, is known to all alike, but to the man on the verge of arriving it is of no account. Its stages are ordered in sequence by all common men alike; but he when he arrives does not order and while he orders has not arrived.
The sharpest sight will not catch a glimpse.
Better than disputation, silence.
No one has ever heard the Way.
Rather than hear, stop up your ears.
It is this that is meant by grasping it absolutely.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 22)
Confucius said to Old Tan
‘I studied the six Classics, the Songs, Documents, Rites, Music, Changes, Annals, for long enough it seems to me, and know their contents thoroughly. With this knowledge I introduced myself to seventy-two princes, discoursed on the Way of the former kings and made plain the imprints of the Dukes of Chou and Shao, but not one prince saw anything he could snap up for his use. How intractable are the difficulties of making plain the Way!’
‘Say rather how lucky you were born too late to meet the princes of a better ordered age! The six Classics are the worn footprints of the former kings, not what they used to imprint! What you speak of now is still the footprints, and the footprints are where the shoes passed, they are not the shoes! The white fish-hawk impregnates when the couple stare at each other with unwavering pupils, insects when the male calls from the wind above and the female answers from the wind below, the creature called Lei because in itself it is both male and female. The natures of things cannot be exchanged, destiny cannot be altered, times cannot be brought to a stop, the Way cannot be blocked up. If it coincides with the Way no course is unallowable, if it misses it no course is allowable.’
Confucius did not go out of doors for three months. When he called again he said:
‘I have grasped it. Crows and magpies hatch, the fish blow out foam, the tiny-waisted metamorphose, when a younger brother is born the elder wails. Too long have I failed to be a man fellow to things in their transformations, and if one fails to be that how can one transform men?’
‘Good enough,’ said Old Tan. ‘Confucius my lad, you’ve got it.’ (Chuang-tzŭ, chapter 14)