based on the teachings of Lao-tzu. The first seven chapters are considered the most important for the master of Taoist healing. Some of its major ideas and the stories that explain them follow.5
WANDERING IN THE WORLD OF RELATIVE JUDGMENT
Once there was a great fish that lived in the depths of the northern sea. Its name was Kun. Its back was more than a thousand li [Chinese miles] long. Suddenly it changed into a bird whose name was Peng, whose back was also more than a thousand li in length. Startled, the bird took off from the sea and flew away. Its wings obscured the whole sky like a cloud. This bird, flying over the skies, eventually journeyed to the southern realm, the lake of heaven.
Ji Xie, a historian of the exotic, recorded the following: "When Peng took off for the south seas, its wings first flapped just above the water for three thousand li. Then it rose on an updraft to ninety thousand li. Its flight lasted for six months; then it rested."6
All judgments are relative to the judger. We must not use the great Peng bird as a standard to judge small birds. Water deep enough to float a cup is not sufficient to hold a boat. Peng's wings touched the water as it flapped, until it reached a height of ninety thousand li. The cicada and the dove do not need so much space to fly. Kun the great fish (a symbol of yin, autumn and winter) changed to Peng the great bird (yang, spring and summer). Each has its function in nature. One is not better than the other. We think they are different, but in fact one changes into the other.
All human judgments are relative to the judger. A mushroom sprouts in the morning and does not last a month, while a butterfly lives for a season. A magic mushroom in the southern Chu state lives a thousand years, and the dachun tree for two thousand. A tree or a person is not good or bad because of how long it lives or how people judge and talk about it.
Some people have enough talent to do well in a small business, while others rule a company. Others yet become governors of an entire kingdom. The whole world may admire one of these and despise the other two. Yet they are no better or worse within themselves for what others say about them or judge them to be. Liezi (Lieh-tzu) was a great Taoist sage who could ride off on the wind for fifteen days at a time. Yet Liezi depended on the wind to move, just as ordinary men depend on their legs to walk. What if there were someone who could mount into the heavens and descend into the earth, ride the six breaths of change (cold, heat, drought, rain, wind, fire), and wander in the transcendent ultimate (Tao)? Would this person make Liezi look bad? in fact, the person who has truly attained the Tao is selfless. The true spiritual person has no merit. The holiest sage has no fame. What others say of them is Irrelevant.
There was once a spiritual person who lived in the Guyi Mountains. Though very old, his skin was like snow and his body young and graceful. He did not eat any of the five starches but subsisted on wind and dew. He could ride away on clouds of qi breath, his chariot a flying dragon, into the world beyond the four seas, outside the realm of Confucian logic. The most important thing about this person, Chuang-tzu states, was his inner peace of spirit. His presence harmonized village life and nature. The villagers who lived nearby were saved from illness and each year harvested good crops.
This last quality alone was for Chuang-tzu the sign of the true Taoist sage. No matter what powers and virtues are extolled in the sagely person, it is because of interior peace alone that his or her presence brings blessing. Inner peace heals all natural and human calamities.
King Yao, after visiting the holy sage of Mount Guyi, decided to give up his kingdom.7 All the good things that come to the ruler of a kingdom were useless when compared with the inner peace of meditation. He compared the goods of the kingdom to a merchant who tried to sell fancy hats and shirts to the people of the southern kingdom of Yueh. The people of Yueh had no use for hats or shirts. They tattooed their bodies with bright colors instead. The values of Confucians, politicians, and modern consumer society are wasted on those who live lives of peaceful simplicity.
Huizi asked Chuang-tzu what to do about a huge gnarled tree that could not be sold to carpenters for wood. Plant it in the realm of wuwei (Taoist action), Chuang-tzu replied, and go there to meditate. A thing that is useless will not be harmed by the world of politicians, consumers, or war. The values of consumer society chop down all things (and all people too) who seem useful for making a profit. The preservation of nature, a peaceful society, and a healthy human body are more important than profit
ON ABSTAINING FROM JUDGMENT
A famous Taoist sage named Nan Guozi Ji (Nan kuo-tzu Chi) was meditating peacefully While sitting at a table. He looked up to heaven while practicing quiet breathing. In doing this, he seemed to have suspended his conscious judgmental mind.
His friend Yan Chengzi Yu stood in front of him and asked, "Are you still there? Can the body's form become dry wood and the mind like dead ashes? This person meditating by the table is not the same person who was here meditating a while ago."
"Yan," said Nan Guozi Ji, "It's a good thing that you ask me about it. Just now I had forgotten to make judgments. Would you like to know how its done? You've heard the sound of human music played on the flute, but not the sound of the earth's flute. If you hear the music of the earth's flute, you still haven't heard the music of heaven's flute!"
Yan asked Nan to continue. The sound of the earth's flute, Nan Guozi Ji explained, is heard in the wind playing on the hollows of trees, caves, mountains, and valleys. The sounds of earth are sometimes soft and quiet, sometimes loud and strident. The sounds of heaven's flute are heard only when all other sounds cease. One must listen to the intervals between the sounds of earth and humans to hear the music of heaven.
The sounds of human music are made on flutes and vocal chords. Human words produce arguing, judging, agreeing, and disagreeing. Human sounds are more strident than the violent storms of earth. When humans compete with each other, there are plotting and scheming, indecision and concealment, apprehension and distress, reserve and fear. The human mind is like a spear that flies forth deciding what is right and wrong. Some minds are firm, others change like weather. Some are mired in sensuous pleasure, others are plugged with hardened ideas like an old drain, unable to be cleared.
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