Heaven the Potter's Wheel

Let's talk Zhuangzi!

"...all things are neither formed nor destroyed, for these two also open into each other to connect. It is only someone who really gets all the way through them that can see how the two sides open into each other. Such a person would not define rightness in any one particular way but would instead entrust it to the everyday function of each being. Their everyday function is what works for them, and working just means this opening up into each other, their way of connecting. Opening to form a connection just means getting what you get: go as far as whatever you happen to get to, and leave it at that. It is all just a matter of going by the rightness of the present 'this'. To be doing this without knowing it, and not because you have defined it as right, is called 'the Course.'

"Thus, the Sage uses various rights and wrongs to harmonize with others and yet remains at rest in the middle of Heaven the Potter's Wheel. This is called 'Walking Two Roads.'"
-Zhuangzi Chapter 2: Equalizing Assessment of Things

Heaven the Potter's Wheel means the spontaneous cyclical sequences of nature. The ancient character used for 'Potter's Wheel' also means 'equality'. The two meanings converge in considering the even distribution of clay made possible by the constant spinning of the wheel. It's the wheel's very instability and constant motion that makes all things equal. The turning of the Wheel of Nature brings life just as the potter's wheel creates pots.

One text of Legalist orientation called the Guanzi states, "To give commands without understanding fixed principles is like trying to establish the directions of sunrise and sunset while standing on a turning potter's wheel." It's significant that Zhuangzi uses the same image of instability that others use to critique the relativism of shifting perspectives as a solution. Using the verb "rest" in this context is ironic. The unmoving center of the spinning wheel represents a stability in the midst of instability, without seeking to eliminate it.

Does this interpretation make sense? Is the 'Potter's Wheel' meaningful? How might such an understanding play out in real life situations?

This is really interesting. I think you are definitely on point with interpreting the potters wheel metaphor and I think you can look to Lao Tzu in Mang Wi II of Tao Te Ching (D.C. Lao Everyman's Library Translation) where he says

"Something and Nothing producing each other;
The difficult and the easy complementing each other:
The long and short offsetting each other:
High and low filling out each other (though I prefer the translation from D.C Lau Penguin Classics of High and low incline towards one another);
Note and Sound harmonizing with each other;
Before and after following each other ---"

This all talks about the harmony and inclination of duality. I think a lot of people think of the Tao as a stable image but forget that it is in movement. This and That are constantly replacing each other in proportion over time. The Tao as a whole is implied to be balanced but is the Tao balanced at all segments? If there are times of great difficulty is their equal ease elsewhere at the same time or does the ease follow after, being equal in proportion at a different time. Of course I don't know because the Tao is too vast. I think the idea of a potters wheel though, which is cyclical and so never ending, is a good thought exercise to send someone down the path of contemplating This and That beyond the since of good and bad and more as reciprocals of one another. I would like to know if Chapter 2 is within the Inner or Outer Chapters I as I am missing the Outer Chapters text. (saving up though for a good translation of all the chapters, 70 bucks, can you believe that?)

Hello Brendan,

Brendan Crumrine said:

This is really interesting. I think you are definitely on point with interpreting the potters wheel metaphor and I think you can look to Lao Tzu in Mang Wi II of Tao Te Ching (D.C. Lao Everyman's Library Translation) where he says

"Something and Nothing producing each other;
The difficult and the easy complementing each other:
The long and short offsetting each other:
High and low filling out each other (though I prefer the translation from D.C Lau Penguin Classics of High and low incline towards one another);
Note and Sound harmonizing with each other;
Before and after following each other ---"

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Yes, it's more of a ceaseless process rather than a final product of perfect balance. Whether things appear to be cooperative or in conflict, they arise interdependently via dynamic process. This also applies to any particular point of view. Even a 'Taoist' view emerges mutually with a 'Confucian' view or something similar. The 'perceiver' and the 'perceived' are merely terms imposed upon the suchness of reality. It's a flowing relativity rather than a fixed duality or static opposition.

Suchness is little vague for me so I am having difficulty understanding what you are saying there. I think you are saying that the observer and the observed are in conflict with each other, giving them form? Comparable to how when you put air in water you get bubbles(a form) because the air and water arn't mixing. Like you can't observe without having something to observe. If my understanding is correct than yeah, that's fun! How do you mean "even a Taoist view emerges mutually with a Confucian view? Like in their opposition they exist together?

Brendan Crumrine said:

How do you mean "even a Taoist view emerges mutually with a Confucian view? Like in their opposition they exist together?

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'Suchness' is more of a Buddhist term anyway so I wouldn't worry about it here.

Historically speaking, Taoism and Confucianism have emerged in complementary opposition. There would probably be no Taoisms without Confucianisms. Taoism tends to emphasize the natural and spontaneous more whereas Confucianism tends to emphasize the social and ritual aspects of human life. They have played this game with one another throughout the course of their development. No single point of view exists in isolation. They're always relative to other points of view within the greater context of reality.

Oh ok I can definitely see that. There are a lot of the stories where Confucius is educated (or sometimes educating) in a Taoist parable. Plus (and I reference your name here) there are discussions of the straw dog and the need to throw away formalities such as ancestral worship by Lao Tzu.