Christopher Tricker

Using a few short examples, I compare my own translation to Watson's, Mair's, and Ziporyn's. I present the Chinese sinographs and discuss how each of us has gone about translating them. Here's a link: https://www.thecicadaandthebird.com/why-this-new-translation-is-so-good (Try to forgive the page title--why this new translation is so good. It's meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

You are playing the role of Master Hui in the story. Your questions are versions of "You are not a fish, so how do you know that the fish are happy?" I will play the role of Master Chuang. My answer to your questions is: "I know it from this little desk here in Northern New South Wales, Australia." Master Chuang is not ignoring or dismissing Master Hui's question, and I am not ignoring or dismissing yours. We could get into a debate about whether or not the fish are happy. That could be interesting; it could clarify our knowledge of the world. There could be genuine value in that sort of inquiry. But however that debate/inquiry goes, at the end of it we will still be left with the opinion of you, me, or someone else. Master Chuang isn't talking about fishes. He's highlighting how anything that you or I say, we say from this and that place.

To my mind, the idea that there might be a unified field of consciousness is a theory. My experience of the here-and-now field of consciousness is a direct experience. To answer your question directly: The theory that there is a unified field of consciousness doesn't make much sense to me. But I acknowledge: It makes sense to you. Which brings us to the enjoyment of fishes (Chapter 17): Master Chuang and Master Hui are wandering about on a bridge above a ditch. Master Chuang says: Quick fish coming out to wander, following each other’s lead— These fish are happy. Master Hui says: You’re not a fish— How do you know that the fish are happy? Master Chuang says: You’re not me— How do you know that I don’t know that the fish are happy? Master Hui says: I’m not you— so indeed I don’t know about you. And you’re not a fish— which completes the case that you don’t know that the fish are happy. Master Chuang says: Allow me to stay with the original question. You asked, How do you know that the fish are happy? Knowing that I knew it, you asked me how. I know it above the ditch. Quick fish coming out to wander, following each other’s lead. We picture Master Chuang and Master Hui loafing about (wandering about) on a small bridge above a water-filled ditch, perhaps running along a rice paddy. Looking down into the ditch they see two small fish emerging from the grass and darting about in the shallow water. ~ The playful rhetoric of this conversation is somewhat, though not entirely, lost in translation. How does Master Chuang know that the fish are happy? From above the ditch. Ah, we realise. When Master Chuang says ‘how?’, he means ‘from where?’ We think: Wordplay! Master Chuang is merely playing with the ambiguity of the Chinese word an 安 (how; whence). He tricked us—and Master Hui—into thinking that by an 安 he meant ‘how?’ (how do you know that I don’t know that the fish are happy?), when in fact he meant ‘from where?’ (from where do you know that I don’t know that the fish are happy?) But this is not just wordplay. Master Chuang is making a serious point, a point that works even in English. The answer to how we know something is always to identify from where we know it. Mr Canadian holidaying in the tropics—how does he know it’s hot? From his standpoint (his experience) of being a person who is sweltering. Ms Indonesian—how does she know it’s not hot? From her standpoint of being a person for whom this is just a balmy cool-season’s day. How does Master Chuang know that the fish are happy? From where he stands on the bridge above the ditch. How does Master Hui know that Master Chuang does not know that the fish are happy? From where he stands on the bridge across from Master Chuang. This conversation is a playful enactment of the profound insight that Chuang Tzu explores in depth in Chapter 2.4: When from one perspective a thing is labelled 𝑥, from another it’s labelled not-𝑥. You’re not a fish, so how do you know that the fish are happy? Master Chuang gives two different answers to this question. Master Chuang’s first answer When Master Hui says, You’re not a fish, so how do you know that the fish are happy?, Master Chuang interprets him to be saying, Because you’re not a fish, you don’t know that the fish are happy. (This is indeed what Master Hui means, as his later response confirms.) Master Chuang, acknowledging that Master Hui does know that Master Chuang doesn’t know that the fish are happy, says, You’re not me, so how do you know that I don’t know that the fish are happy? He means this as a genuine answer to Master Hui’s question. He’s pointing out to Master Hui that in the same way that Master Hui knows that Master Chuang doesn’t know that the fish are happy, Master Chuang knows that the fish are happy. How does Master Hui know that Master Chuang doesn’t know that the fish are happy? From Master Hui’s standpoint. Likewise, how does Master Chuang know that the fish are happy? From Master Chuang’s standpoint. Master Chuang’s second answer However, when Master Chuang says, You’re not me, so how do you know that I don’t know that the fish are happy?, Master Hui interprets him to be saying, Because you’re not me, you don’t know that I don’t know that the fish are happy! This is the exact opposite of what Master Chuang means. We can see, though, why Master Hui interprets him in this way. When Master Hui says, You’re not a fish, so how do you know that the fish are happy?, he means, Because you’re not a fish, you don’t know that the fish are happy. Caught up in his own thought, he fails to see Master Chuang’s thought. He attributes to Master Chuang a thought that in fact resides in himself. Rather than unplayfully repeat himself, Master Chuang follows Master Hui’s lead and tries a different approach. His second answer is to reinterpret Master Hui’s initial question to be, How do you know that the fish are happy? (Of course, this isn’t what Master Hui means. Master Chuang intentionally misinterprets Master Hui’s words to help Master Hui see how he—Master Hui—has misinterpreted Master Chuang’s words.) This gives the same answer as the first approach: he knows it from where he stands. ~ Let’s return to Master Chuang’s original statement: Quick fish coming out to wander, following each other’s lead—these fish are happy. Master Chuang isn’t just talking about the fish down in the ditch. He’s talking about himself and Master Hui. The two quick fish wandering about in the ditch are like the quick-witted Master Chuang and Master Hui wandering about on the bridge. Like two fish darting about at ease, each taking its lead from the other, Master Chuang and Master Hui are engaged in a leisurely, verbal dance. Master Chuang is saying to Master Hui: Here’s you and me wandering about and sparring leisurely together. What happiness! Indeed. What happiness.

I agree with you that Mr Sigh does not identify himself with anything, and that that's the whole point of the story. We seem to be talking past each other about what I mean by awareness. I don't quite say to identify with "a forever present awareness"--that way of saying it makes awareness sound like a thing (a type of soul or something). I do say to identify with awareness (the here-and-now field of consciousness), which is ever present. If this sounds like hair-splitting, I don't mean it be. To identify with the here-and-now field of consciousness is not to identify with anything. Your here-and-now field of consciousness isn't a discrete thing that can be pointed to, or which persists through time. It isn't a thing, it's the that in which this and that thing is now present. It's the "constant mind", which is like the mirror-surface of a still pond (Chapter 5). It's the "large constant", which is like the common element between different fields or ponds (Chapter 21): Animals that eat grass don’t hate having to change pastures. Insects that live in water don’t hate having to change ponds. They go along with the small differences and don’t lose the large constant, so delight and anger, grief and joy, don’t enter some vacancy in their breast. All under heaven is the that in which the myriad things are one. Attain this that in which they’re one, and identify with it, and your four limbs and hundred joints will be but dust and dirt, and death and birth, end and beginning, will be but day and night, and none of them able to disturb you, much less the distinctions drawn by gain and loss, misfortune and good fortune! Awaking to this ever-present field of consciousness is a "large awakening", awaking to the realisation that being awake is a "large dream" (Chapter 2).

I don't know of anywhere that Chuang Tzu says "go with the flow". He does, however, use the imagery of flow and going along with. In the story that opens Chapter 3, Chuang Tzu uses the imagery of our life energy (sheng 生) being like a river that flows between banks. He advises us to keep our attention on our life energy, as though keeping to the main current of a river, rather than crashing on the rocky shores of reputation and punishment. In the Chapter 3 story about the death of Old Longears (Lao Dan), Neglect to Breast Beat (Qin Shi) speaks about "residing on the current" as opposed to wailing against death. In the Chapter 6 story quoted above, Second-Born Ni (Zhongni, Confucius's courtesy name) advises us to "easefully fall in line [with social norms] and go along with change".

I must say, that is a very creative reading. I never even saw that as a possibility. Let's acknowledge, though, that you have amended the text to make it say what you want it to say. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we acknowledge it. May I ask, what is it about metempsychosis that appeals to you? To my mind ... (1) there is no good reason to believe that metempsychosis happens (the evidence is merely the presence of a memory of some thing); (2) there are good reasons to believe that metempsychosis doesn't happen (memories are most simply explained as being neuronal events in brains; metempsychosis requires as us invent some mystical mechanism by which mental states are passed from dead butterflies to living humans) (3) even if metempsychosis does happen, it doesn't solve the problem of death: knowing that you are the karmic descendent of a butterfly is no more consoling than knowing that you are the causal descendent of your ancestors and culture. I ask with genuine curiosity: what is it about metempsychosis that appeals to you?

Hi Steve. Thanks. I'm on a PC desktop. I've got a couple of screen shots, but I can't work out how to insert them here.

What happens to the "I" up on death is hot philosophical topic today as well, yes? And in all times and places. :-) I disagree with your translation of 此之谓物化: "this is what the transformation of living things upon death is." Those characters simply say: "This is called things change". Or, as I phrase it: "Let's call this, things change". True, "change" (化) also means "to die", so that connotation is in play. You are right, of course. ZZ could be narrating a memory of a past life. But consider this: how would ZZ know that his memory of the butterfly is a memory of a past life? For that matter, you would be correct to say, how would he know that his memory of the butterfly is the memory of a dream? (Well, he does say it's a memory of a dream, but let's let that pass.) I suggest that ZZ would say that he doesn't know. But what he does know is this: At one point in space and time awareness was aware of the butterfly, and at another point in space and time it was aware of Chuang Tzu. The butterfly is no longer present (is dead). Chuang Tzu is present, for now. But throughout it all, awareness is present.

Yes, it is my inference. As your interpretation is your inference. This is all that we have to go on, and is as it should, and must, be. You make very interesting points that get to the heart of what ZZ's philosophy, to my mind, is about. There are two "I"s. There is the "I" who says (or experiences without words, but I use words because that is all that we have to communicate with): "I am a butterfly", or "I am Chuang Tzu". But there is another "I". The "I" of awareness. The "I" that is the here-and-now field of consciousness in which things are happening. The first "I" identifies with the butterfly. And later, with Chuang Tzu. Just as your "I" probably now identifies with the person sitting here reading this. But the second "I" (awareness), is always present. It is not identified with this or that thing (a butterfly; Chuang Tzu; the 21st century person read this). This second "I" (awareness) observes (not in words, but I have to put it in words): "Ah, here is this experience of being a butterfly flitting about." And now: "Ah, here is this experience of being Chuang Tzu." And now: "Ah, here is this experience of sitting here reading this." You can observe this for yourself. At one point you were a child. Now you are an adult. Yesterday you were sad. Now, happy (or perhaps irritated with this guy who is banging on about ZZ). And so on. This is the first "I", the "I" that identifies with this and that field of experience. AND ... notice how across all of these different experiences there was ... what? An observer, yes? An awareness, a field of consciousness that was experiencing these different things. That's the second "I" (awareness). It is ever present. Things come, things go, but this awareness, this field of consciousness, is ever present. If this makes some sense, the next question is whether or not it is what ZZ means. Well, I've just given an interpretation of ZZ's butterfly story. With genuine curiosity, do you have an alternative interpretation? Also, we can look to Chapter 1.1 and 1.2: https://thecicadaandthebird.com/awaking-to-awareness https://thecicadaandthebird.com/we-happy-cicadas Again, I only offer my interpretation of those stories. You may interpret those stories differently. Great! Let's share our interpretations and get benefit from the ones that best help us to be present with the world we find ourselves in and to go along with change in a harmonious way.

Thank you, Taoist Texts, for reading what I've written and taking the time and effort to share your response. I've joined this forum to have conversation, and you are providing that. This is the very reason I wrote the book. (Apart from wanting to get things clear in my own mind.) I'm curious, in what way is the view "things come, things go, and I am always present" the opposite of what ZZ says?

Hmm, I'm not seeing that. In the upper right-hand corner I see my name with a drop-down arrow. When I click on the arrow I see a heading "settings" with a sub-heading "account settings". when I click on "account settings" I don't see a pencil, or any option for "signature". Strange.

I am a Western European (well, Australian), so everything I say is from that point of view. If you want a commentary from a Chinese point of view, then my book may not satisfy you. But may I say this: I do not think that Chinese scholars have any special insight into Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi). The world in which Chuang Tzu lived is not at all the world in which modern Chinese folk live. Also, even the early Chinese interpreters of Chuang Tzu may well have not understood him, just as the early Western interpreters of Nietzsche did not understand him. My approach to Chuang Tzu is this: (1) Read the text. (2) As best I can, understand the cultural references that Chuang Tzu makes in his text. (3) Present my interpretation simply and clearly, so that the reader can come to their own conclusions. My view of Chuang Tzu is that he is one of those rare philosophers who transcends culture. Like the Greek Stoics. You don't need to be Greek to interpret the Stoics, you just need to be a human. And if a Greek person claimed to have a special insight to the Stoics, they would be wrong. This is because the Stoics write about the human condition. Chuang Tzu is like that.

Yes, I use the Wade-Giles transliterations (romanisations) rather than Pinyin. You are right to question that. Here's my reason for doing so. (What follows is pasted from the introduction to my book. My apologies if it over-explains things for you, but the over-explanation might help other readers to see the context in which romanisations exist.) Romanisations. Chuang Tzu’s name isn’t really Chuang Tzu. It’s 莊子. To render 莊子 into English-like words we have to use roman-alphabet letters (a, b, c) to represent a phonetic pronunciation of 莊 子. This process is called romanisation. There have been many different systems for romanising Chinese sinographs. Each system has its pros and cons, but let’s note how no system is, or ever could be, inherently better than any other. A romanised word, be it ‘Chuang Tzu’, or ‘Zhuangzi’, or any other combination of letters, is not, and is not even close to being, the original Chinese: 莊子. Because of this it doesn’t matter which system we use. Whatever system we choose the only thing to recommend it over another will be that we just happen to prefer it, for whatever reasons, and that it is a system that other people in the community are using. The most widely used system in the English-speaking community in the twentieth century was Wade-Giles, according to which 莊子 is rendered ‘Chuang Tzu’. In the 1950s, however, China adopted the Pinyin system, according to which 莊子 is rendered ‘Zhuangzi’, and over the last few decades this has become the almost universally-used system in the English-speaking world, all but replacing Wade-Giles. In this book I use a combination of modified Wade-Giles romanisations and Pinyin romanisations. ~ In the translation, I use modified Wade-Giles romanisations. Why use the out-of-date Wade-Giles spellings (‘Chuang Tzu’) instead of the current, almost universally-used Pinyin spellings (‘Zhuangzi’)? Because, whereas the printed words ‘Chuang Tzu’ are rounded, warm, and convey a sense of Eastern antiquity, ‘Zhuangzi’ is a harsh neon-lit nightmare of futuristic zeds. Given that Pinyin (‘Zhuangzi’) is the official romanisation system of China, and the United Nations, and Stanford University, and—Ah, it is inevitable, I know, that ‘Chuang Tzu’ will die out and become completely replaced by ‘Zhuangzi’. But, and call it what you will—I’m holding on to ‘Chuang Tzu’. Just as some Pinyin words are horrendous (e.g., Zhuangzi), so too are some Wade-Giles words—e.g., Ch’u (what the heck does that apostrophe mean?) and I (no, not a first-person pronoun; a Chinese name pronounced ee). In these cases the Pinyin is much better: Chu and Yi. So instead of Ch’u I write Chu. Instead of I, Yi. Sometimes the Wade-Giles spelling for different sinographs is the same. For example, the states Wei 魏 and Wei 衛. To distinguish the two, I spell one of them Wey (衛). If you want to know the correct Wade-Giles spelling or the Pinyin spelling of a name, look it up in the glossary. There you’ll find the unmodified Wade-Giles spelling, the Pinyin spelling, and the sinograph. ~ In my translation notes, when referring to sinographs I use italicised Pinyin (e.g., xin 心). In regard to "using an old transliteration imposed by the English speakers of that era"--you make me aware of an issue I hadn't given much thought to. Perhaps you see my using the old Wade-Giles romanisations as being insensitive to issues of Western imperialism? If so ... I do apologise. In my defence, I may be blind to current issues. My reason for using the Wade-Giles is purely to do with my dislike of the printed word "Zhuangzi" in English. For me, it is not an issue of West versus Chinese. It is an issue of zeds. This whole romanisation thing is very complex and unsatisfactory. I've read that there is even a movement within China to replace Chinese characters with Pinyin entirely! (For my two cents, that would be a disaster for Chinese culture!) In the end, the Chinese characters are beautiful. The English romanisations are not.

Allow me to add this new translation: The cicada & the bird. The usefulness of a useless philosophy. Chuang Tzu's ancient wisdom translated for modern life. Christopher Tricker http://thecicadaandthebird.com

Graham's translation attempts to sort Chuang Tzu's writing from the morass of writings that make up the Chuang Tzu. It is worth reading for that reason alone. The only other translation that does this is the new translation by Christopher Tricker (that's me). My new translation picks up the baton that Graham left some 40 years ago. You can check it out at http://thecicadaandthebird.com Graham's translation includes a good introduction--he discusses some of the key terms, and the historical context of the text. Note, thought, that he doesn't interpret the parables. My new translation also includes a commentary--after each parable I provide an interpretation. You might find my book useful as a launch-pad for forming your own interpretations? If you do look at my book, please let me know what you make of it. I'd love to hear your response.