How Zhuangzi Differs from Laozi
Differences in Style
- Laozi consists of short, separate passages, almost all of them philosophical or argumentative in nature.
- A few sentences use metaphors. These are quite memorable and can enrich your own expression.
- Even when it uses metaphors, its literary quality is not as high as Zhuangzi’s; it remains more of a philosophical book.
- A few sentences use metaphors. These are quite memorable and can enrich your own expression.
- Zhuangzi contains many fables.
- A fable uses an imaginative story to explain the Dao discovered by Laozi.
- By no means should you think that all of Zhuangzi is made up of fables.
- Some passages are fables.
- Others are relatively long argumentative essays.
Zhuangzi is divided into the Inner Chapters, Outer Chapters, and Miscellaneous Chapters.
The Seven Inner Chapters
- They are generally thought to have been written by Zhuangzi himself.: The most important. “Free and Easy Wandering,” “Discussion on Making All Things Equal,” “The Secret of Caring for Life,” “In the Human World,” “The Sign of Virtue Complete,” “The Great and Venerable Teacher,” and “Fit for Emperors and Kings.” The key words in these seven titles encompass the most important essence of Zhuangzi’s thought. In essence, these seven terms all point to the same thing: Laozi’s “two reversals/returns and one circle.”
The Fifteen Outer Chapters
- Generally believed to have been written by Zhuangzi's students
Eleven Miscellaneous Chapters
- Generally believed to have been written by later followers of Zhuangzi's students, who were somewhat further removed from Zhuangzi himself
Thirty-three chapters in total
- Each chapter is further divided into several sections
- The Laozi has a single level of chapter divisions
- The Zhuangzi has two levels
The Three Types of Discourse in the Zhuangzi
Allegories account for nine tenths, quoted words for seven tenths; goblet words (zhi) emerge daily, harmonized through the natural distinctions of Heaven
- Three types of discourse: allegories, quoted words, and goblet words
- Literally, these are the three literary forms used in the Zhuangzi
- Allegorical stories account for nine tenths of the text
- Quoted words: repeated statements, where Zhuangzi quotes the words of others. : These include Confucian figures such as Kongzi and Yan Hui, nobles from various states who lived at the same time as Zhuangzi or earlier, and the Yellow Emperor, who is mentioned very frequently in the Zhuangzi and whose name appears in the expression “descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors,”
They also include divine and immortal figures from ancient mythology- When Zhuangzi tells stories, he does not tell them directly. Instead, he presents them as stories told by these figures, putting the stories in their mouths. This practice is called “quoted words.”
- Zhi: a wine cup.
Goblet discourse: words spoken by a wine cup.- What characteristics does a wine cup have?
- Keep pouring wine into a cup, and once it is full, it spills over. Pour continuously, spill continuously.
- The wine cup represents cyclical recurrence and ceaseless renewal.: Represents the circle of the Dao's return from two to one; it can also be described as reversal.
- Goblet discourse refers to utterances with the characteristics of a circle.
- The beginning of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi: From the Northern Sea to the Southern Sea
- The final chapter of the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi, “Knowledge Rambling in the North” : Then back from south to north
- Goblet discourse: form is the expression of content.In Zhuangzi's works, many circles can be seen; “as dull as a wooden chicken” is actually a circle too, though only a semicircle. It describes returning from a peak; it is a semicircle.
- Goblet discourse emerges daily: Every day, it shows you these things, continually reinforcing the essential laws of the Dao through different appearances but the same substance.
- Nineteen and seventeen are mysterious numbers in the Zhuangzi.
- Ten: the greatest yang number.
- Nine: the largest yin number: So, when the two characters for ten and nine are put together, they refer to the fusion of the two extremes—extreme yin and extreme yang—as one; they symbolize the “Dao.” This is the characteristic of the Zhuangzi: form is content. Never think that Zhuangzi was literally writing out the proportions of his chapters
- Seven: represents the center
- The ancients had a concept called the six directions
- The six directions are above, below, and the four cardinal directions
- After adding above and below to the four cardinal directions, the seventh position happens to be at the center of the six directions
- What does the center represent?
- It represents the point of origin from which the entire world emerged from a mass of energy
- Scientific explanation: the singularity from which the Big Bang began
- Seven refers to the point of origin of the world. The center is seven
- Is there any evidence?
- Yes
- The most famous story in the Zhuangzi: the story of Hundun
- Hundun was originally a mass of energy, representing Laozi’s “nonbeing,” the state before the world came into existence
- Hundun had its apertures opened—seven apertures, one each day, for a total of seven days: In the end, it split open at seven, and so Hundun ceased to exist; the world came into being, and all phenomena emerged
- If you read the original story, it involves three figures
- two deities, one named Shu and the other Hu, and another named Hundun, whose apertures were opened: the three of them have identities
- Shu and Hu were respectively the emperor of the Southern Sea and the emperor of the Northern Sea.
Hundun's identity was that of the “Emperor of the Center” - This hints at the connection between seven and the center: the center is the singularity, the point of origin from which the world comes into being
- When ten and seven are combined, they represent the state of the “Dao”
- The Butcher of Ding Dismembers an Ox
- It tells of a craftsman who attained the Great Dao through his small undertaking
- He said: Because I attained the Great Dao, this knife of mine has lasted for many years without needing to be replaced, while other cooks replace their knives every year
- The original text says that he had not replaced his knife for “19 years”
- The 19 here is not accidental either; it is the same as in “the parable of nineteen”
- The extremes of yang numbers and yin numbers: the extreme yang and extreme yin, when paired, constitute the “Dao”
- The 19 years refer precisely to being in accordance with the heavenly principles of the Great Dao
- The appearance of mysterious numbers indicates that in the Zhuangzi, form is content.
- There are mysterious numbers in the Laozi, too, such as one, two, and three.
- The Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to all things.
- The Dao gives birth to One.
- This refers to the process by which the entire world, as a mass of energy, first emerges from a state of “nonbeing” into “being” and begins to generate all things.
- This is One; One represents the nascent origin of all things.
- One gives birth to Two.: yin and yang were divided.
- Two gives birth to Three.
- Yin and yang combine in different proportions, giving rise to all things.
- That is why Chinese people really like the number “three.”
- The Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage, the three attacks on Zhujiazhuang in Water Margin, the Three Heroes’ Battle Against Lü Bu, and the Peach Garden Oath—all are stories of three.
- Some historical events did indeed involve three people.: But many novels particularly like to use three, because it represents the process of generating all things.
- It is one of the yang numbers, representing a state of nascent movement, the flourishing of all things, and the ideal expressed in the saying, “As heaven moves with vigor, so the gentleman strives ceaselessly for self-improvement.”
- Three times three is nine, so nine is also used especially often.: Chinese people regard nine as fullness; if it reaches ten, decline will follow. That is why the Forbidden City has 9,999 and a half rooms. The emperor understood this principle, so it could not be completely full: when water is full, it overflows; when the moon is full, it wanes.
- Harmony with the boundaries of Heaven
- “Harmony”: to accord with: “the boundaries of Heaven”: the boundary of Heaven; in fact, it refers to nature
- Zhuangzi used fables, words attributed to respected figures, and spontaneous words to accord with the natural way of Heaven.
- These sixteen characters embody the same spirit of writing as Laozi.: It was intended to express the “Great Way” of the universe through various descriptions.