Can Skill Lead to Self-Transcendence in Zhuangzi?

Abstract

Many scholars have claimed that the skills depicted by Zhuangzi can lead to self-transcendence of experiencing and attaining the Dao. However, this view is open to question. Based on a comprehensive reading of the received text of Zhuangzi, this paper attempts a comprehensive reinterpretation of its allegories of skills, including “Cook Ding Butchering an Ox”, “The Hunchback Catching Cicadas”, “The Ferryman Handling a Boat”, “The Man of Lüliang Swimming in the Torrent”, “Woodworker Qing Carving a Bell Stand”, “Artisan Chui Drawing Circles with His Fingers”, “Wheelwright Bian Chiseling Wheels”, “Bohun Wuren Demonstrating Archery”, and “The Old Metalworker Forging Weapons”. This study argues that the emphasis of these skill allegories is not on extolling skills but on pointing towards self-transcendence in a metaphorical way. Just as Mark Twain once likened an apple peel to the Mississippi River, the depiction of skilled performance and its contexts primarily serves as a vivid and illustrative vehicle for explaining self-transcendence rather than constituting self-transcendence itself. Logically speaking, exercising skills requires intentionality, whereas self-transcendence in Zhuangzi’s sense demands complete forgetfulness and a state of non-attachment. Since the states of intentionality and non-attachment are contradictory, the former does not necessarily enable the latter. Thus, the skill in Zhuangzi cannot directly lead to self-transcendence. The skill allegories in Zhuangzi represent the authors’ subjective elaborations, rooted in the focus and tacit understanding inherent in skill activities, and should not be interpreted in an overly mystical light.