“Within the Gates of the Master, Is There Any Such Thing as a Prime Minister?”

A Space without Frames in the Zhuangzi

The Zhuangzi, one of the two main classics of Daoist philosophy (along with the Daodejing) is a collection of reflections, dialogues, and anecdotes replete with surprises and striking imagery. It is attributed to the philosopher of the same name, who lived around the fourth century BCE, although there is close to a consensus that the complete collection is the work of several authors. [1] Reading the Zhuangzi, we are drawn into a whirlwind of transformations, confusions and clarities; into a free-flowing perspectivism that seeks to cultivate openness towards all existences, a going by them through a forgetting of the self and a cultivation of an appropriate response. Rigid framings, be they social, moral, or even spatial, are under general threat of dissolving in this water-like free flowing. However, the Zhuangzi does not simply abandon the world of human forms, interactions, and roles. Part of the richness of the text lies in its wrestling with how to live in the human and social world while resting securely right in the whirlwind of transformations. One anecdote in chapter five of Zhuangzi makes this tension particularly vivid. It is the encounter between the ex-convict Shen Tujia and the famous prime minister Zichan in the halls of their common master, Bohun Wuren (Eng.: Uncle Dim Nobody/Non-human), who instructs them in the Daoist practices of “sitting and forgetting,” of resting in the bright mirror-mind and the “tranquil turmoil” of continuous transformations. [2] First, we will explore the anecdote. This will naturally give an opportunity to elucidate the Daoist practices in question and their complex relation to social space, while moving through a series of reversals and questions typical of Daoist philosophy. Following this, we will transpose gleanings from this discussion onto the parallel problems between the social and the meditative in contemporary meditative practice. Here’s the short anecdote, slightly abridged: Shen Tujia, a one-footed ex-convict, was a fellow student of Zichan under Uncle Dim Nobody. Zichan said to him, “When I leave, you wait behind for a while, or if you leave first, I’ll wait behind.” The next day they were again seated side by side in the same small hall and Zichan said, “I said you should wait behind when I leave, and I’ll wait behind when you leave. Now I'm about to go—will you wait behind or not? You see a holder of political power and you don’t give way—do you think you’re…