Back to the Classics Challenge 2021 #22

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021.

Classic in Translation. Eva Wong was born in Hong Kong in 1951. Clearly a born hardcore reader and seeker like us, she found Taoism at an early age. As just a child, she spent time hiking and meditating in the mountains of the New Territories. For Shambhala Publications, she has translated many curious books on Taoism, Ch'i Kung, and Fengshui. She is an adept in the I Ching, something that, like the ouija board, had better not be monkeyed with by the unwary, the ignorant or the frivolous.

Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living – tr. by Eva Wong

This translation is of a collection of anecdotes in eight chapters. It dates from about 500 B.C. though there is the inevitable controversy about authorship (Who? How many?) and when it was written and compiled and edited. The Lieh-tzu is considered a one of the three Taoist classics, a distant third after the Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu.

Maybe mystics worthy of the name don’t cotton to Lieh-tzu so much because on the whole he’s so genial and understandable. Some people say that the Taoists contributed to the variety of Chinese cuisine. That is, Taoists worked with a variety of ingredients for foods and potions that would extend life to hundreds of years. Lieh-tzu, however, is skeptical about transcending natural laws regulating human longevity. Lieh-tzu, not having immotality or methods to achieve it, says:

That which has life must by the law of its being come to an end; and the end can no more be avoided than the living creature can help having been born. So that he who hopes to perpetuate his life or to shut out death is deceived in his calculations.

However, there is a certain amount of really difficult material – the kind of not parsimonious cosmology that has exasperated Doubting Thomases for centuries, especially in chapter 1. But I figure Taoism is an orientation, not a religion, so we can skim what makes our brain bleed when we think about it and latch onto what is clear and practical for us if we want to.

For instance, do we really need more clarity than this story, which is as widely-known in Chinese culture as The Tortoise and the Hare is in ours? I paraphrase:

An old man in the kingdom of Ch'i was ruminating that the sky was going to fall and earth was going to crack open and swallow him. He was so afraid of dying that he couldn’t sleep or eat. A friend, fearing for his sanity, consolingly explained to him: "Heaven is only so much vapor. If stars or planets fall to the ground, they can’t crush us anyway. The earth is an accumulation of grains and dirt. Walking on the earth isn’t going to make it sink or cause fissures. Don’t worry so damn much." With this both men were tranquil.

Chang-tu-tze heard of it, and said: "The clouds and mists, the winds and rains - who can say that they will never break up or be damaged and destroyed? Heaven and earth are impermanent. He who frets over its possible disintegration probably isn’t completely crazy, but is just worried about something that may happen in the distant future, or something that is highly unlikely to happen at all.”

When this was communicated to Lieh-tze, he laughed, saying “It’s nonsense even think about whether heaven or earth can or cannot be destroyed.  Whether they will perish or not is something we don’t know. If heaven and earth will not perish, that’s great because we can live our lives without worry. However if they will perish that is something we can’t do much about so why worry about it? While we live we can’t know what it’s like to be dead and likewise when we’re dead we won’t know what it is like to be alive. Therefore, why let the question of whether heaven and earth will perish or whether there’s a heaven or hell, occupy our minds?

Lieh-tzu calls to mind Epictetus because he counsels us to not worry about what is not up to us. Don’t worry about what is out of our control:

Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. (Enchiridion 1)

And like the notorious advice from Epictetus,

“With regard to everything that is a source of delight to you, or is useful to you, or of which you are fond, remember to keep telling yourself what kind of thing it is, starting with the most insignificant. If you’re fond of a jug, say, “This is a jug that I’m fond of,” and then, if it gets broken, you won’t be upset. If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you’re kissing; and then, if one of them should die, you won’t be upset.” (Enchiridion, 3)

Lieh-tzu tells this bedtime story for the pandemic:

There was a man whose only son died of a sudden illness. He did not mourn for his son nor was he sad. His friends were curious about his behavior so they asked him, “Your only son is dead.   You should be heartbroken. Why do you act as if nothing happened?” The man replied, “Before my son came I had no son and I was certainly not heartbroken back then. Now I have no son. Why should I be heartbroken now?”

Pretty cold-blooded, but is it really as wild and unrealistic and demanding as that advice about turning the other cheek when somebody insults us? But if we are going to deal with whatever life still throws our way, we have to be ready and serene for discomfort, fatigue, malaise, sickness, affliction, disability, disfigurement, etc., especially if we and ours are going to live – thanks to our healthy habits and medical miracles – into our eighties and nineties.

Gulp.