The worlds of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi
Christians and Muslims may find it hard to understand that a Chinese could hold different beliefs when performing different social functions. He may perform Confucian rituals at work, and at home, he may practice Daoist (Taoist) meditations. Confucianism and Daoism complement each other: one emphasizing life and this worldly pursuits, the other stressing a more detached stance toward this worldly activities and a quiet appreciation and merger with nature.
1. Lao Zi (Tzu) (6th. c. B.C.) and his world outlook
There have been debates of who was born earlier, Lao Zi or Confucius. It matters because it would decide who influenced whom. Unfortunately there has been no definitive conclusion to this question. Lao Zi's chief work was the Daodejing (teachings on morals).
Lao Zi believed in an all pervasive, amorphous nature. He differentiated between nature in its primordial form, and nature as it was identified and named by humans. Human naming of nature always altered the originally integral nature in some way. Thus, the "nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth," (de Bary, 79) For one to understand the true nature of nature, one should withhold one's own assertiveness, hence, be "constantly without desire, so as to observe its [nature's] subtlety." That was also why he said "The Way is empty. It may be used without ever being exhausted." (81) This preservation of the primordial way of nature carried greater wisdom than human moral practices. Thus the "sage accomplishes things by doing nothing; furthering a teaching that is without words." (stanza 2, p.80) The highest ruler was one who followed the Way and led without being noticed: "The highest is one whose existence no one knows. The next is one who is loved and admired." (84) Also, "When the Great Way declined, there were humaneness and rightness....Do away with sageliness, discard knowledge, and the people will benefit and hundredfold." (84) "The Way is constant: by doing nothing, nothing is left undone." (87) Specific things in the world derived from the One, integral nature. (p.89, stanza 42) Lao Zi also contrasted the Way with Learning, thus "Devotion to learning means increasing day by day; devotion to the Way means decreasing day by day." (89) By the last Lao Zi meant to obtain the way was to shed one's own preconceptions and become more closely aligned with nature.
Therefore, in one's interactions with nature, one should merge with, instead of conquering, nature: "Give life to things, rear them, give them life but without possessing them, act but without relying on your own ability, lead them but without ruling them, this is called profound virtue." (stanza 10, p.83)
On the other hand, Lao Zi also believes in the dialectical nature of things, meaning: everything has two sides, and opposites complement each other. One needs to assert oneself (have desire) in order to see how nature's Way (or dao/tao) works in specific instances. (stanza 1) Opposites complement each other (stanza 2). Substance and emptiness are another pair of paradoxes that complement each other (stanza 11, p.83). What he stresses is that emptiness or nothingness is not really emptiness or nothingness, but complement specific objects.
Social criticism:
Some passages are not congruous with the rest, and often have been taken as social criticism, e.g. stanza 5: "Heaven and earth are not humane, regarding all things as straw dogs." This contrasts with Lao Zi's refusal to imbue nature with humanity elsewhere, where humanity comes only secondary to the amorphous, nameless nature. It seems to belong to the same category as stanza 74 (p.93) "The people are not afraid of death, so why use death to threaten them."
Ideal rulers and statesSince, as mentioned above, the best way to rule is to follow nature closely and not venture on one's own, the ideal rulers are those who do not assert themselves (stanza 66, p.92) States should remain small and people should use least efforts to extract from nature, making least use of technology. (stanza 80, p.94)
Q: How does Lao Zi differ from Confucius and Mozi?
2. Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu) (c.369-c.286 BC)
Zhuang Zi, whose given name was Zhou (Chou), pushed Lao Zi's dialecticism even further. Like Lao Zi, he recognizes nature as an integral whole. More than Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi sees nature in movement, and the different phenomena in the world all derived from and were manifestations of nature. As such, they were ephemeral, transient, and did not have intrinsic significance. Having said that, however, Zhuang Zi was a great humanist, and glorified human ambition and imagination, which could be seen from his chapter on "Free and Easy Wondering," ( de Bary, 96-98) where he compared a man with great ambition to a legendary bird peng whose long distance flight was something small insects could not even imagine. This praise of the human mind, of course, does seem at odds with his emphasis on the transience of every living thing, including human lives. This paradox may be explained by Zhuang Zi's value on transcending common beliefs and conventions. His praise of human ambition was perhaps not encouraging worldly deeds, but facilitating a transcendence of everyday thinking to arrive at a larger picture of how things interact in the world. To him, humans should not be fixed in their beliefs of how much they know because things change (people live and die, all living beings die). He agrees with Lao Zi that ultimately, nature is this amorphous, integral whole and all the specific manifestations of nature are secondary and transient. His most extreme relativism, as often quoted in China, is his dream in which he became a butterfly, and upon waking, he was not sure if he dreamed of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreamed of him. (de Bary, 103)
Q: How did Zhuang Zi develop upon Lao Zi and how did Zhuang Zi differ from Confucius?