Zhuangzi Discussion Questions
1. Read the first paragraph of the story of Minnow and Breeze at the beginning of Ch. 1. What is the protagonist of this story? Is it a fish or a bird? Both or neither? How big is it? How big do you think it seems to itself? What would it be like to undergo these transformations yourself? What would Confucius or Mencius have thought of this story? What is the point of telling stories like this?
2. What’s the difference between little knowledge and big knowledge in Ch.1? Why is it sad that people compare themselves to Peng Zu–because there are things even older than him, or because people shouldn’t compare themselves at all? Is the implication that people should seek big knowledge or be content with whatever amount of knowledge they have?
3. Can you tell what Song Rongzi (Songzi) leaves "unplanted" in Ch 1? Though Liezi "manages to avoid walking, he still relies on something." Compare Ch 4: "It’s easy to stop leaving tracks. What’s hard is to walk without touching the ground." What do you think it means to "chariot the norms of heaven and earth and ride the changes in the six mists to wander the inexhaustible"? Do you want to try this?
4. Does the cook and the priest analogy apply to the case of Yao and Whence in Ch. 1?
5. What does Step Brother mean when he says of the spiritual people in Chapter 1 that "from their dust and chaff you could mold the sages Yao and Shun"? The story of the man from Song doesn’t seem to make sense here. But perhaps our inability to see the sense is an illustration of the point made above, that our knowledge might be blind too. If so, what does that mean and how does it fit into the story of these spiritual people?
6. What is Zhuangzi’s point with the story about the yak in his conversation with Huizi at the end of Chapter 1? If it were an Aesop’s fable, what would the moral be? If it doesn’t have one, does that justify Huizi’s criticism?
7. If the meaning of words isn’t fixed, as Zhuangzi says in Ch. 2, does that mean speaking is just blowing? What would that mean? Compare the pipes of heaven at the beginning of the chapter and the breath blown by living things that supports Peng on her journey at the start of Ch. 1.
8. In Chapter 2, how does Royal Relativity’s description of the perfected people connect with what he says in the paragraph before about the different animals?
9. "In the dream, you don’t know it’s a dream . . . Only after waking do you know . . . Still, there may be an even greater awakening after which you know that this, too, was just a greater dream" (Ch. 2). Do the dreams ever end in a final awakening? How would you know if it did? If it doesn’t, or if you can’t know that it does, does it make a difference?
10. Compare Shadow’s response to Penumbra at the end of Ch. 2 with the search for a true lord or master and Mister Dapple’s question about who plays the pipes of heaven earlier in the same chapter. What might be the significance of the “pan-pipes” imagery?
11. Can you reconcile what the butcher says in Ch. 3 with the idea in the Ch. 2 that there is no right and wrong and that "a way is made by walking it." Is the same thing true about cutting up an ox?
12. What would it mean for Splay-limb Shu to have "splayed Virtue" at the end of Ch. 4? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing in the context of the story? Compare the discussion of "whole Virtue" and "Virtue that takes no form" in Confucius’s discussion with Duke Ai of Lu in Ch. 5.
13. Why might Zhuangzi use Confucius as one of his characters? Is the Confucius portrayed in Zhuangzi’s stories a hero, a fool, or something else? What does it mean in Ch. 5 when Duke Ai says that he and Confucius are "friends in Virtue"? Why does Duke Ai praise Confucius if Sad Nag is the hero of the story? Also compare the wheelwright’s approach to wood in Ch. 13 and the butcher’s approach to the ox in Ch. 3 with Confucius’s advice to Yan Hui about how to approach the lord of Wei in Ch. 4. Is human "material" different from inanimate matter?
14. Compare the distinction between heaven and human not being "fixed" in Ch. 6 to the meaning of words not being "fixed" in Ch. 2. What does that have to do with the "perfected" or "true" people who endure fire with getting burned in Ch.s 2, 6, and elsewhere?
15. Does Zhuangzi doubt the existence of a way, or our ability to know or describe it? If there is no way, then how could he say it is wrong for people to think that there is one? If there is a way that cannot be known or described, how is it possible to follow it? Is Zhuangzi a mystic or a skeptic?