Tao Exam
1. Does heaven revolve continuously?
2. Does earth continuously abide in rest?
3. And do the sun and moon pursue one another?
4. Who guides and directs these movements?
5. Who holds them together and connects them?
6. Who is it that, without straining and effort,
brings them about and maintains them?
7. Is there, perhaps, an unknown process because of which
they cannot be other than what they are?
8. Or do they move and turn and cannot stop themselves?
9. Do the clouds become rain? Or does rain form the clouds?
10. Who spreads them so widely?
11. Who is that, without straining and effort,
brings on this exuberant bliss and seems to awaken it?
Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, The Revolution of Heaven
Recall those exam experiences when you felt that a great deal was at stake. How difficult not to feel the imbalance of power. The interviewer holds future potential over the examinee. You may recall a job interview. I remember an interview which figured into my admission to graduate school. I passed the exam on account of the answer which I gave to a single question. At least, that’s my sense of the matter.
The series of questions, a quotation from the Zhuangzi, all have a similar answer. In order to pass this exam the interviewee must indicate ignorance, his/her inability to offer a detailed response to these questions. One can say that bodies of the solar system appear to behave in regular ways. This can be described variously, perhaps by painting a sunrise or a moon rise, or a photograph, or you could offer the math formulas for celestial mechanics and that would be yet another description. Many descriptions of the appearance, of the impression of routine movements are possible but – as to why things are as they are, nothing more is to be said. They simply are as they are.
And that is the answer your Taoist master is looking for.
You and I would hear – “You have passed the test,” from our examiner.
Who would not breathe a sigh of relief?
Award of a passing grade calls for a song! How about this one, I Feel Love by Donna Summer, released in 1977.
A final note. If asked that very question today, forty years later, I would offer exactly the same answer.
2 thoughts on “Tao Exam”
1. Does heaven revolve continuously?
No
2. Does earth continuously abide in rest?
No
3. And do the sun and moon pursue one another?
No
4. Who guides and directs these movements?
No one
5. Who holds them together and connects them?
No one
6. Who is it that, without straining and effort, brings them about and maintains them?
No one
7. Is there, perhaps, an unknown process because of which they cannot be other than what they are?
It is unknowable.
8. Or do they move and turn and cannot stop themselves?
No, they cannot stop themselves. They have no free will.
9. Do the clouds become rain? Or does rain form the clouds?
One and the same
10. Who spreads them so widely?
Gaia! The unknowable mother of all.
11. Who is it that, without straining and effort, brings on this exuberant bliss and seems to awaken it?
The answer to this final question is no one and everyone. Bliss is in the eye of the beholder.
I believe the true, bottom line, absolute, no holds barred answer to all questions everywhere is that the response matters not. We are, just as the Earth and all that resides herein, ephemeral in nature. Not a very satisfying answer but mine nonetheless.
You have passed the test.