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I think this story is a wonderful illustration of true knowledge, and how such knowledge is always greater than the totality of any fabric of syllogistic reasoning. It may be supported by such rationality, it may be hinted at, it can at times be contradicted by it and still be true, but it is always greater. There is always more to true (non-mental) knowing.
This story was translated by Lin Yutang from the works of Chuang-tse.
Knowing the happiness of fish
Chuangtse and Hueitse had strolled on to the bridge over the Hao, when the former observed, “See how the small fish are darting about! That is the happiness of the fish.”
“You not being a fish yourself,” said Huei, “how can you know the happiness of the fish?”
“And you not being I,” retorted Chuangtse, “how can you know that I do not know?”
“If I, not being you, cannot know what you know,” urged Huei, “it follows that you, not being a fish, cannot know the happiness of the fish.”
“Let us go back to your original question,” said Chuangtse. “You asked me how I knew the happiness of the fish. Your very question shows that you knew that I knew. I knew it from my own feelings on this bridge.”
Truth exists, but the mind can’t see it. So, it spends its life in the realm of questions looking for answers.
Kind of following up on Chuang-tse’s critique of (mental) knowledge (see Another Direction), it’s easy to see from reading the news and analysis of the day’s events that knowledge is ill-used in exactly the way that that Master described. It is used to gain advantage, to exploit and pillage, to hide the truth, to obscure reason, and worst of all, to keep people in ignorance and out of touch with their own inner truth, the truth that far exceeds the reach of all other “relative truth,” which Stephen Colbert calls most aptly, “truthiness”. Of course, we each have our free choice, but each choice is a cause, and there are always effects. The effects of such causes are not well understood, which is why we live in this world — so we can learn.
Knowledge (scientific, technological, economic, political, personal) is manipulated prodigiously for self-gain. It is a disgusting use of the power of the soul and the mind, but nevertheless, life allows it because it is instructive in the extreme. After eons of exploitation for fun and profit, after eons of being exploited for the fun and profit of others, every soul begins to seek another way, another life, another reality instead of the “shadow of reality” where illusion rules… because the advantages and disadvantages of that system of predator and prey begin to take their toll on the individual.
One can easily become discouraged, depressed, disheartened by all this destructive negativity. Thus enters the grace of love and the Tao, the fresh breezes and clear springs of wisdom that unfurl the hidden personal truth referred to above, that truth that renders transparent and unreal the “appearance of truth” that the world adopts in unknowing delusion. The personal truth, sacred and inherent in every soul, feeds and nourishes one and gives one power to rise above that illusion and that veil of suffering and anguish that Macbeth so richly illustrates in his famous soliloquy:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth is a perfect illustration of the wayward mind that has become completely enshrouded and entwined in relative truth, completely delusional in its commitment to a path that “seemeth right unto [one] but leadeth straight to hell.” That path, of course, is the path of lower knowledge, the knowledge of merely mental (relative), partial understandings that creates a house of mirrors, a false promise, an illusionary grail perched like a seemingly refreshing mirage on the horizon of “the known.” Consider the famous statement from The X-Files: “the truth is out there somewhere.” If it’s out there, it’s never “In Here,” where it needs to be in order to be accessed and enjoyed by the individual.
Macbeth sees ghostly “witches” (representing the Three Fates, no doubt) that weave a course of action into his compliant and greedy mind, which he follows at his wife’s prodding (perhaps Lady Macbeth represents the Anima and Macbeth the Animus of a single mind, corrupting each other unto a delusion it (his mind) believes is real enough to provide the coveted self-glorification of “being King” — it’s not hard for illogic to convince a mind to do something it would know, if it placidly reflected, was not in its best interests!). He then suffers from delusions and hallucinations, endures psychotic paranoia, all because he committed an act based entirely upon self-deception and false truth and can’t seem to escape from the self-regressive viciousness of that lie. He and his wife sweep each other up into the horror of his self-created “Heart of Darkness,” and they both plummet into a Hellish nightmare together. It’s a perfect metaphor for the infectious delusion of a mind committed to a path it believes real but which it has created out of its own superstition, it’s own partial perception and false knowledge.
Here’s Lady Macbeth (aka Anima) seeking to overcome all feminine tendencies with the ambitious, single-minded commitment of the Animus (how often do we wish to destroy our conscience so we can simply revel in our indulgences?):
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
Shakespeare, like Chuang-tse, eloquently explains the effects of these half-baked causes! And yet, the same drama continues every day. New actors come onto the stage and the story of false knowledge ardently pursued plays out anew.
Let’s refer back to what Chuang-tse said about the ancient sages and what they did in the face of a world so boldly insistent upon the pursuit of it’s false knowledge:
“The conditions laid on them by the times were very much awry. If the conditions of the times had allowed them to act in the world on a great scale, they would have brought back the state of unity without any trace being perceived (of how they did so). When those conditions shut them up entirely from such action, they struck their roots deeper (in themselves), were perfectly still and waited. It was thus that they preserved (the Way [Tao] in) their own persons.“
To help illuminate the core of the meaning here, take a look at this quote from the “Huai Nan Tzu“:
“…to try and arrest the course of boiling by adding more water will not stop it. He who knows really the root of things will take the fire from underneath the pot: this will be effective.”
So, Chunge-tse again gives us a lovely answer to the conundrum. He tells us how to resolve the dilemma, the pain and sorrow of this worldly Tower of Babel, wherein falsehood is taken for truth, and up higher and higher goes the tower that’s built upon that shaky foundation. The Tao, the enjoyment of the Tao, the Breath of Tao, the Tao’s Living Love (reference Socrates’ “Love of Wisdom*”) heals and makes whole the individual who is consumed with Tao.
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*Diotima (Socrates’ Anima?) in Plato’s Symposium: “For God mingles not with man; but through Love, all the intercourse, and converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual…”
There are fewer birds, many pine trees seem to be sickly, the air and water are not quite as fresh as once they were; there are fewer frogs singing in the night, food tastes pale and paltry, treats are Trojan-horse destroyers; the world is less than it was and yet we get exactly what we want: everything we do is an expression of that which we desire, and all desires are granted. The world suffers under the weight of our desires. We suffer under the weight of our desires, and so the world must also.
Life is a great gift, and a great freedom, greater far than one may now know. Listening and seeing are far better than first acting as if one knows. The curse of desire is also a profound blessing, because if one desires based upon the pleasure of life’s true gifts of consciousness, love, freedom, then one’s desiring is a blessed grace to one’s self and the world.
It is bewildering that thoughts can arise that appear to demonstrate separation as a condition of what is, in truth, the indivisible wholeness of reality. It must be because we assume separation, because we believe in separation and in dichotomy, there being no clear alternative.
Thoughts are like reflections on the surface of the ocean as it vibrates to the strokes of wind and weather under a bright sun: the reflections that arise are effects, beyond control, of the conditions of the water’s movement and the sun’s position, and the wind’s flow. Shine a light on the waves, and they reflect as they must.
Thought is the same way. It’s the noise of the machinery of the mind. Like a factory, it churns out its product based upon the raw materials it receives, based upon the orders of management, based upon the scarcity of Other Direction.
There’s a passage by Chuang-tse* that illustrates the way thought functions in separation, when founded in separation: ”In taking precautions against thieves who cut open satchels, search bags, and break open boxes, people are sure to cord and fasten them well, and to employ strong bonds and clasps; and in this they are ordinarily said to show their wisdom. When a great thief comes, however, he shoulders the box, lifts up the satchel, carries off the bag, and runs away with them, afraid only that the cords, bonds, and clasps may not be [tight enough]; and in this case what was called the wisdom (of the owners) proves to be nothing but [a collaboration with] the great thief.”
With his analogy, Chuang-tse shows how thought can be separate from its own objective. Taking this further, in reference to knowledge, which is the accumulated inventory of thought, he drives the point home below (NOTE: you’ll have to employ a little ad hoc creativity as you read, and update some of the terminology to the present world, because we don’t really care so much about cross-bows, or about Dynasties anymore — but the basic principles remain true).
The knowledge** shown in the (making of) bows, cross-bows, hand-nets, stringed arrows, and contrivances with springs is great, but the birds are troubled by them above; the knowledge shown in the hooks, baits, various kinds of nets, and bamboo traps is great, but the fishes are disturbed by them in the waters; the knowledge shown in the arrangements for setting nets, and the nets and snares themselves, is great, but the animals are disturbed by them in the marshy grounds. (So), the versatility shown in artful deceptions becoming more and more pernicious, in ingenious discussions as to what is hard and what is white, and in attempts to disperse the dust and reconcile different views, is great, but the common people are perplexed by all the sophistry. Hence there is great disorder continually in the world, and the guilt of it is due to that fondness for knowledge. Thus it is that all men know to seek for the knowledge that they have not attained to; and do not know to seek for that which they already have (in themselves); and that they know to condemn what they do not approve (in others), and do not know to condemn what they have allowed in themselves;–it is this which occasions the great confusion and disorder. It is just as if, above, the brightness of the sun and moon were darkened; as if, beneath, the productive vigour of the hills and streams were dried up; and as if, between, the operation of the four seasons were brought to an end:–in which case there would not be a single weak and wriggling insect, nor any plant that grows up, which would not lose its proper nature. Great indeed is the disorder produced in the world by the love of knowledge. From the time of the three dynasties downwards it has been so. The plain and honest-minded people are neglected, and the plausible representations of restless spirits received with pleasure; the quiet and unexciting method of non-action is put away, and pleasure taken in ideas garrulously expressed. It is this garrulity of speech which puts the world in disorder.
So Chuang-tse is so helpful in showing the chaos wrought by so-called knowledge that is really simply patterns of thought, presumed understandings, and partial perceptions held in thought that do not touch on reality and thus create division and discord. But he doesn’t leave one hanging there without recourse: he offers the way to rise above thought, and thus integrate all thought with a greater, more whole, truth.
Those whom the ancients called ‘Retired Scholars’ did not conceal their persons, and not allow themselves to be seen; they did not shut up their words, and refuse to give utterance to them; they did not hide away their knowledge, and refuse to bring it forth. The conditions laid on them by the times were very much awry. If the conditions of the times had allowed them to act in the world on a great scale, they would have brought back the state of unity without any trace being perceived (of how they did so). When those conditions shut them up entirely from such action, they struck their roots deeper (in themselves), were perfectly still and waited. It was thus that they preserved (the Way [Tao] in) their own persons.
Enjoying Tao, the Way, the ineffable. The Source. The Blessed. The Beloved. That’s the Way that he describes, and that he loves.
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*You can read more of Chuang-tse’s discourses online here.
**As with most things in the world, knowledge comes in two flavors: one is either True Knowledge (above the realm of thought), or mental knowledge (within the realm of thought). You’ll see Chuang-tse use the second sense of knowledge in this quote, and the first sense later on in the last citation in this article.
“Let him that would move the world first move himself.” -Socrates
*quote by Ghandi
Over spiney brambles and black boughs
the hawk’s shadow like a ghost
passes unhindered
Under the sky is perfect enjoyment to be found or not? -Chuang-tse
We live in the Tao. We fight it, but we nevertheless live in it. It is all of life, all balance, all evolution, all gifts, curses, blessings, nothings. Tao is insight, but alive. Not knowledge, not learning, but being. So, it’s beyond every thought, sitting greatly in the now.
Nature has come down from the Beginning. Man’s mind tampers, but really this is superficial and temporary. Nature remains, ever guiding, ever nurturing, ever warning, ever teaching, and testing. It smiles at us in cool maple leaves on a cloudy day in a slight breeze. It sings through the birds, the crickets, the wind in the pines. It remands and reminds through famine, disaster, and storms that we must always go deeper — that the depths of Reality are always deeper than we think they are at this moment. The moment is an abyss before the mind, an incomprehensible chasm of Truth. The challenge is to make the leap and spread one’s wings… and fly!
