Daoist usages of zhenren 真人
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While the Dao De Jing has the first occurrences of zhen "true; real; etc.", the Zhuangzi has the first recorded usages of zhenren "true person". Later zhenren meanings are found in Buddhist and other texts.
Zhuangzi
The Zhuangzi (ca. 3rd–2nd centuries BCE) has 66 occurrences of zhen, 19 of them in the compound zhenren. Burton Watson translates it as "True Man", and notes "Another term for the Taoist sage, synonymous with the Perfect Man or the Holy Man." The most descriptive zhenren passage repeats it 9 times.
There must first be a True Man before there can be true knowledge. What do I mean by a True Man? The True Man of ancient times did not rebel against want, did not grow proud in plenty, and did not plan his affairs. A man like this could commit an error and not regret it, could meet with success and not make a show. A man like this could climb the high places and not be frightened, could enter the water and not get wet, could enter the fire and not get burned. His knowledge was able to climb all the way up to the Way like this.
The True Man of ancient times slept without dreaming and woke without care; he ate without savoring and his breath came from deep inside. The True Man breathes with his heels; the mass of men breathe with their throats. Crushed and bound down, they gasp out their words as though they were retching. Deep in their passions and desires, they are shallow in the workings of Heaven.
The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven. This is what I call the True Man. ...
This was the True Man of old: his bearing was lofty and did not crumble; he appeared to lack but accepted nothing; he was dignified in his correctness but not insistent; he was vast in his emptiness but not ostentatious. Mild and cheerful, he seemed to be happy; reluctant, he could not help doing certain things; annoyed, he let it show in his face; relaxed, he rested in his virtue. Tolerant, he seemed to be part of the world; towering alone, he could be checked by nothing; withdrawn, he seemed to prefer to cut himself off; bemused, he forgot what he was going to say. ...
Therefore his liking was one and his not liking was one. His being one was one and his not being one was one. In being one, he was acting as a companion of Heaven. In not being one, he was acting as a companion of man. When man and Heaven do not defeat each other, then we may be said to have the True Man. (6, 大宗師)[11]
Guo Xiang (d. 312 CE), the earliest known Zhuangzi editor and commentator, explains this passage.
The zhenren unifies Heaven and man, and levels the myriad extensions. The myriad extensions do not oppose each other, and Heaven and man do not overcome each other. Thus being vast he is one, being dark he is omnipresent – he mysteriously unifies the other with his own self.[12]
Watson's "True Man of ancient times" and "True Man of old" translate gu zhi zhenren 古之真人, which the Zhuangzi uses 7 times. For instance, this contrast with the shenren 神人 "holy person"
Therefore the Holy Man hates to see the crowd arriving, and if it does arrive, he does not try to be friendly with it; not being friendly with it, he naturally does nothing to benefit it. So he makes sure that there is nothing he is very close to, and nothing he is very distant with. Embracing virtue, infused with harmony, he follows along with the world – this is what is called the True Man. He leaves wisdom to the ants, takes his cue from the fishes, leaves willfulness to the mutton. Use the eye to look at the eye, the ear to listen to the ear, and the mind to restore the mind. Do this and your levelness will be as though measured with the line, your transformations will be a form of compliance. The True Man of ancient times used Heaven to deal with man; he did not use man to work his way into Heaven. The True Man of ancient times got it and lived, lost it and died; got it and died, lost it and lived. Medicines will serve as an example. There are monkshood, balloonflower, cockscomb, and chinaroot; each has a time when it is the sovereign remedy, though the individual cases are too numerous to describe. (24)[13]
Another Zhuangzi chapter depicts zhenren as oblivious to punishment.
Governing is a difficult thing. To dispense favors to men without ever forgetting that you are doing so – this is not Heaven's way of giving. Even merchants and peddlers are unwilling to be ranked with such a person; and although their occupations may seem to rank them with him, in their hearts they will never acquiesce to such a ranking. External punishments are administered by implements of metal and wood; internal punishments are inflicted by frenzy and excess. When the petty man meets with external punishments, the implements of metal and wood bear down on him; when he incurs internal punishment, the yin and yang eat him up. To escape both external and internal punishment – only the True Man is capable of this. (32)[14]
Huainanzi
The Huainanzi (2nd century BCE) mentions zhenren "true person" 11 times. One Huainanzi chapter uses zhenren to describe a spiritual state in which "closing the four senses" results in one's jing 精 "essence" and shen 神 "spirit" returning to the ultimate Daoist zhen 真 "truth".
Hence the spiritual faculties will be hidden in the invisible world, and the spirit will return to the Perfect Body (or the Perfect Realm). ... The spirit fills the eye, so he sees clearly; it is present in the ear, so he hears acutely; it abides in the mouth, and so the person's words are with wisdom; it accumulates in the mind, so his thoughts are penetrative. Hence the closing down of the Four Senses gives the body rest from troubles, and the individual parts have no sickness. There is no death, no life, no void, no excess; in such a condition of spirit, like the diamond, it will not wear away; such are the characteristics of the Perfect Man. (8)[15]
A second chapter uses zhenren to describe Fu Xi and Nüwa.
Drifting aimlessly, they led the ghosts and spirits and ascended the Nine Heavens, where they paid court to the Lord as the Sacred Gate and remained reverently silent in the presence of the Great Ancestor. Even then, they would not extol their own merit, or trumpet their own fame. [Rather], they concealed within themselves the Tao of the True Man and thereby followed the unchanging course of Heaven and Earth. How was this [possible]? With their Tao and Te they communicated with what was on high, whereas their knowledge of factual matters was obliterated. (6)[16]
A third Huainanzi chapter contains what Le Blanc considers "the locus classicus for the True Man's ability to return to the origin."
He who can return to that which produced [him] as if he had not yet acquired [physical] form, we call him a True Man. The True Man is he who has not yet begun to differentiate himself from the Great Unity (wei shih fen yu t'ai-yi che 未始分於太一者). (14)[17]
Le Blanc describes how the Huainanzi synthesizes the "other-worldly" zhenren "True Man" with the "this-worldly" shengren "Sage"; "In pre-Han works, the expression "chen-jen" seems to be found only in works of Taoist inspiration and always refers to the quasi-mystical and contemplative strand of Taoism."[18] He concludes.
The point of the two Huai-nan tzu fables seems to be that in times of peace the True Man does not reveal his inner greatness. This is a Taoist tenet consistent with the ineffability of Tao. So, petty men of limited scope and skills deride the True Man, who is untrained in any particular skill. But in periods of imminent chaos (the clash of darkness and light, of Yin and Yang) the True Man suddenly manifests world-shaking power (universal resonance) and completely overwhelms his detractors.[19]
Chuci
The southern Chuci (2nd century CE), which has Daoist elements although not strictly a "Daoist text", uses zhenren in two poems. Yuan you "Far-off journey" contrasts it with xian.
I honoured the wondrous powers of the Pure Ones,
And those of past ages who had become Immortals.
They departed in the flux of change and vanished from men's sight,
Leaving a famous name that endures after them.[20]
Shou zhi "Maintaining Resolution" (in the Nine Longings section) also uses it, translated here as "Immortals".
I visited Fu Yue, bestriding a dragon,
Joined up in marriage with the Weaving Maiden,
Lifted up Heaven's Net to capture evil,
Drew the Bow of Heaven to shoot at wickedness,
Followed the Immortals fluttering through the sky.[21]
Liezi
The Daoist Liezi (ca. 4th century CE) uses zhenren in two chapters. The first usage (3),[22] refers to the Zhuangzi (6) saying zhenren slept without dreaming.
A dream is something that comes into contact with the mind; an external event is something that impinges on the body. Hence our feelings by day and our dreams by night are the result of contacts made by mind or body. It follows that if we can concentrate the maid in abstraction, our feelings and our dreams will vanish of themselves. Those who rely on their waking perceptions will not argue about them. Those who put faith in dreams do not understand the processes of change in the external world. "The pure men of old passed their waking existence in self-oblivion, and slept without dreams." How can this be dismissed as an empty phrase?
The other chapter usage (8)[23] concerns the politician Zi Chan 子產 (d. 522 BCE). He was able to govern the state of Zheng but not control his brothers who loved wine and women – but were secretly zhenren. Zi Chan asks the Daoist sage Deng Xi 鄧析 how to "save" them, but misunderstands Deng's answer and admonishes his brothers with Confucianist morality and bribes, "Hear my words. Repent in the morning, and in the evening you will have already gained the wage that will support you". His brothers reply,
Long ago we knew it and made our choice. Nor had we to wait for your instructions to enlighten us. It is very difficult to preserve life, and easy to come by one's death. Yet who would think of awaiting death, which comes so easily, on account of the difficulty of preserving life? You value proper conduct and righteousness in order to excel before others, and you do violence to your feelings and nature in striving for glory. That to us appears to be worse than death. Our only fear is lest, wishing to gaze our fill at all the beauties of this one life, and to exhaust all the pleasures of the present years, the repletion of the belly should prevent us from drinking what our palate delights in, or the slackening of our strength not allow us to revel with pretty women. We have no time to trouble about bad reputations or mental dangers. Therefore for you to argue with us and disturb our minds merely because you surpass others in ability to govern, and to try and allure us with promises of glory and appointments, is indeed shameful and deplorable. But we will now settle the question with you. See now. If anybody knows how to regulate external things, the things do not of necessity become regulated, and his body has still to toil and labour. But if anybody knows how to regulate internals, the things go on all right, and the mind obtains peace and rest. Your system of regulating external things will do temporarily and for a single kingdom, but it is not in harmony with the human heart, while our method of regulating internals can be extended to the whole universe, and there would be no more princes and ministers. We always desired to propagate this doctrine of ours, and now you would teach us yours.
Zi Chan is perplexed and speechless, so he goes back to Deng Xi who explains, "You are living together with real men without knowing it. Who calls you wise? [Z]heng has been governed by chance, and without merit of yours."
Wenzi
The little-known Daoist text Wenzi has 17 occurrences of zhenren. For example, this context echoes Zhuangzi (6) in defining zhenren as sleeping without dreaming.
The Way molds myriad beings but is ever formless. Silent and unmoving, it totally comprehends the undifferentiated unknown. No vastness is great enough to be outside it, no minuteness is small enough to be inside it. It has no house but gives birth to all the names of the existent and nonexistent. Real people embody this through open emptiness, even easiness, clear cleanness, flexible yielding, unadulterated purity, and plain simplicity, not getting mixed up in things. Their perfect virtue is the Way of heaven and earth, so they are called real people. Real people know how to deem the self great and the world small, they esteem self-government and disdain governing others. They do not let things disturb their harmony, they do not let desires derange their feelings. Concealing their names, they hide when the Way is in effect and appear when it is not. They act without contrivance, work without striving, and know without intellectualizing. ... Therefore real people deliberately return to essence, relying on the support of spirit, thus attaining completeness. So they sleep without dreams and awake without worries.[24]
Later Daoist texts
According to Daniel Coyle,
From the period of the Han to the Six Dynasties the zhenren took on a more religious significance, becoming one of the linchpins of "Daoism." Movements of alchemy, life-prolonging techniques, and the quest for "immortality" flourished, yet most mystical allusions remained firmly ground in the Zhuangzi. From the Zhuangzian perspective, the religious experience (etymologically, that which binds together) becomes a personal rapture that elevates one from the microcosmic to an altogether macrocosmic perspective – a perspective that affirms continuity as the fabric of unity – that somehow binds one to the totality of existence in a personal integration and affirmation of all.[25]
Daoists applied the honorific title Zhenren to their sages. Zhou Yishan 周義山 (b. 80 BCE) was called Ziyang Zhenren 紫陽真人 "True Person of Purple Yang", a name later applied to Zhang Ziyang 張紫陽, author of the Wuzhen pian (note zhen "reality; perfection" in the title).
Miura notes that religious Daoism associated the zhenren with the xianren "transcendent; immortal" and quotes the Ziyang zhenren neizhuan 紫陽真人內傳 "Inner Biography of the True Person of Purple Yang" (4th century CE) that there are upper, middle, and lower degrees of xian, with zhenren occupying the upper rank in the celestial bureaucracy.[26]
In Daoism, zhenren can refer to some gods, xian, and even mortals who underwent apotheosis.[1] The term can also refer to beings who were a mixture of one or more of these.[1]
