Zhuangzi, Karen, Veronica: a conversation

[...] It's late for my mind now to write... but my fingers want to. And everytime I hear or read the name Zhuangzi, I cannot keep silent, I cannot avoid the world, and 1st of all the people I love (you), to know I'm a Zhuangzi-addict. And that this has saved my life, and keep saving it, and I know will always save me from the depths of disenchantment and anger.

So let me speak as who I am, and please forgive me if I miss other meanings in the article you pointed out. I appreciate what Karen Armstrong says. And I can speak just as a Zhuangzist (yes, as one guy says on that website, daoism is an umbrella...it's absolutely true, historically and philosophically, and I add that the problem is that these kind of umbrellas don't really protect you from rain, nor from acid rain... wu wei er wu suo bu wei: literally do not take action, and nothing will be left undone). Surely Armstrong has a good will in quoting ZZ, and she has a deep understanding of lots of things, the world, and the soul, and this is the reason that [...] she gets back to Zhuangzi.

My concern here is that she quotes Zhuangzi. This is my little nice wonderful great field, and not the rest of what she says, although very important. Stars are melting in the night, let me speak let me melt in what I really am by myself (ziran): a zhuangzist, and, what's more, a zhuangzi-addict. As most of the West, K.A. misunderstands what wu wei is: it's not simply sitting practicing the fastening of the mind. It is gallopping while sitting, as the Zhuangzi explains in chapter 4, the very same passage K.A. is quoting... Hey, this is absolutely not a criticism, since I understand she's not a China-expert, and since [...] lots of writers make every effeort to spread an Eastern-(para)philosophical trend.

And K.A.'s doing something great, she's doing what all the great books of the world are for: books, great books I mean, exist in order that a passage, a sentence, or even just a couple of words [...] go and catch the eye of a reader, stick to their minds and... and here words will wei wu wei, will practice wu wei... giving each sensitive reader a little enlightment, it doesn't matter that they are specialists in the subject the book deals with... allowing them to reach new insights in their fields, and their hearts.

Wei wu wei = acting the non-action = acting in a non-assertive way, and "non-assertive action" means, just in a few words, acting knowing that we, hearts and bodies, the animals, the grass, and evrything are part of the Dao (that is, the way is inside ourselves, we're made of the Dao, we're not just creatures stemming from it, we're not just "children" of the Dao); it is acting pursuing harmony between all the creatures, because they all are one in the Dao; it's acting in order to restore the original harmony and unity that constitutes the fertile soil of human nature and of the nature of all the creatures, and the "not being assertive" of this way of acting is just in its not being taken just for the benefit of me, veronica, nor against what's not veronica, nor against what veronica doesn't like... and veronica can act like this just because she's gone back in the depth of herself to what she really is, what she has always been, what she will always be (no matter if in different times she will be latent energy, or a daisy, or a mosquito, or one of the wings of a fly... or the liver of a hen... or an aylanthus leaf...), and so she has understood (or, better, has recovored the awareness) that she is a part of the Dao.

You cannot practice the fastening of the heart (or of the mind, it's just a problem in translation, and as a sinologist and philosopher I choose the translation more in tune with my soul, and, let me say, with the Chinese concept of what we call "mind"), you cannot practice the fastening of the heart just because you're not allowed to hold a book in your hands, and because, since no-one is allowed, you cannot even have a look to the back page of their newspapers! If it were that easy...! Being my competence to judge the zhuangzian aspect of the abstract from K.A.'s book, I do. This is my point of view, sometimes so great, sometimes so small. And after reading those abstract, I'm thankful to that woman that decided to quote zhuangzi, and to my friend alberto who wrote me an email so that i could read that abstract.

[...]

(finché una notte tenera e piovosa sarà tutta nostra)