No One Is More Delightful Than Zhuangzi

If I had to claim a particular thinker as my master, I would choose Zhuangzi.

Sima Qian wrote a short biography of Zhuangzi, saying that "his learning touched on everything, yet its essence was rooted in Laozi," and that "his words are vast and unbridled, suited only to his own pleasure, so that even lords and ministers could not put him to use."

The first remark means that Zhuangzi was a widely read man, but that his essential ideas all returned to Laozi; this is why Daoist philosophy is often called the Way of Laozi and Zhuangzi.

Later generations always pair Laozi and Zhuangzi, first because Zhuangzi greatly admired Laozi's teachings, and second because their outlooks on life and the world were genuinely alike.

The second remark means that Zhuangzi wrote with unbridled exuberance, following his own fancy purely for his own enjoyment, so that lords, ministers, the wealthy and the eminent paid him no mind.

The lords and ministers ignored Zhuangzi, and Zhuangzi ignored them right back. One can see this in the pungent dialogues between Zhuangzi and the powerful in the book Zhuangzi.

This streak of proud independence in Zhuangzi had a natural, born-into elegance that others simply cannot imitate.

The king of Chu sent two high officials to invite Zhuangzi to come to Chu and serve as prime minister. They found Zhuangzi fishing by the river.

After listening to the two officials' flattering speeches, Zhuangzi responded coolly. He said: I hear that in your king's sacred grove there is a spirit tortoise three thousand years old, which died not long ago. The king ordered it buried with great honor and every ceremony of mourning.

Now, if you two were that spirit tortoise, would you rather drag your tail and live in the muddy pond, or leave your bones up in the ancestral temple to enjoy offerings of incense?

The two officials said: We would certainly rather drag our tails and live in the muddy pond. Zhuangzi said: Then please go back, gentlemen. Let this old fellow drag his tail and live in the muddy pond.

Among the Hundred Schools, no one wrote more beautifully than Zhuangzi.

Zhuangzi's prose flows like water, by turns solemn and playful; his insights are lofty and his thought profound, yet his style is mischievous and lively, not stern and earnest like Laozi's. If style truly mirrors the man, then the historical Zhuangzi must have been someone who saw through the ways of the world yet remained playful and endearing.

Zhuangzi was brilliantly gifted, yet he cared neither for fame and rank nor for the idea that broad learning made one superior; he was not proud and aloof like so many scholars. He never posed as a lofty hermit beyond the world; this ordinary-man's sensibility makes Zhuangzi's writing feel wonderfully close to the reader.

Zhuangzi often mocks himself in his writing. In modern terms, he was a master of self-deprecation.

Zhuangzi read, wrote, made friends purely for "self-delight."

What is "self-delight"? It means pleasing oneself. From ancient times to today, nothing is more relaxed and free than these two words.

When a person writes books and theories with someone to please in mind, an air of sycophancy inevitably lurks in the prose. Zhuangzi wanted to please no one, so he wrote however he liked.

Of course, many people can write that way, but they fall short of Zhuangzi in one respect: they lack his talent, so what they write is not good to read. This gift Zhuangzi was born with; it cannot be forced.

Equally beyond forcing is Zhuangzi's broad-minded, accepting attitude toward fate.

When Zhuangzi's wife died, he drummed on a basin and sang. His old friend Huishi reproached him for being heartless: your wife shared your life, bore and raised your children; now that she has gone, if you cannot even weep for grief, is it not too much that you sing, beating on a broken basin?

Zhuangzi answered: When she had just died, how could I not grieve? But then I reflected that she came from nature and now returns to nature, free of all the petty entanglements of human life; I ought rather to rejoice for her.

Huishi fell silent, left a bag of money for the funeral, and went away.

When Zhuangzi was dying, his disciples gathered around, discussing how to bury him. Zhuangzi said: Heaven and earth shall be my inner and outer coffin; the sun, moon and stars my pearls and jade; the ten thousand things my burial companions. What need have I of all your bother?

The disciples worried that his body would be pecked by vultures. Zhuangzi said: Bury me in the ground and the ants eat me; give me a sky burial and the vultures eat me. To take the food from the vultures' mouths and give it to the ants instead—what difference is that? Why this extra trouble?

The disciples fell silent, and the plan for an elaborate burial was dropped.

This was Zhuangzi: a free and delightful man.