Mystical experiences in the inner chapters of Zhuangzi
Open MIND October 1, 2012 Thomas John Mcconochie
Many sinologists have labeled Zhuangzi's writings as mystical, but they do so without engaging the scholarly literature on mysticism. This analysis examines three specific passages from the Zhuangzi—the "riding the wind" section, the "Ziqi" dialogue, and the "sitting and forgetting" dialogue—to provide an explicit hermeneutic for understanding mysticism in the text. The proposed hermeneutic holds that mystical experiences transcend ego and sensory perception through esoteric practices involving ecstasy, leading the practitioner to experience what they consider the true nature of reality. The ecstatic experience of the egoless state itself is more central to mystical experience than unity with a divine other, which is absent from two of the three passages analyzed.