The Dancing Wu Li Masters
ISBN: 978-0060959685
A book about Zen does not need to say much in order to say more than a person can handle. A book about physics often must say much more, although the essence of the equations and ideas once firmly grasped, should not take long to explain. The Dancing Wu Li Masters tries to do both and ultimately fails at doing each task in certain respects.
In fairness, this book is now old. The first printing was back in 1979. The explanations are repeated in more modern books, so this tells the reader that this one was instrumental in informing future authors on the topic of how best to approach the subject. Zukav does, at times, have a gift for explaining complicated topics with ease. At others, he belabors the narrative and drops in how similar certain facets of Quantum Mechanics are to an acid trip. To be sure, Quantum Mechanics is strange. However, it may be that everyone who studies the field finds themselves on a kind of intellectual acid trip. This is because Quantum Mechanics from a mystical standpoint, has the curious sensation of having your own perceptions stare back at you in a jumbled way. Not too surprisingly, this lends itself to a kind of nihilism that Zukav attempts to marry off to Eastern Taoism through the means of a Tai Chi master who is called Al Huang.
The problem with Al Huang’s Tai Chi way is that it all seems relative to man as opposed to being relative to the way itself. Indeed, one of the steps in the indicated mystical system is a way called “My Way”, which, a cursory reading in any Buddhist text will tell you should not last much beyond the first hour of day one in any serious Buddhist pursuit of enlightenment. There is only “The Way” which is a critical difference that this text equivocates. This, as will be seen, proves dangerous.
The cover art is reminiscent of the Isle of Man’s many-footed flag emblem called the “Triskeles”. After reading through the entirety of the book, one wonders if the objective was not simply to devise a way to worship man and his cleverness. Indeed, there is a lot of cleverness in the book. The central favored explanation, for instance, Quantum Mechanics centers on the Copenhagen interpretation which suggests one must be preset if a tree should fall in the woods or else nothing at all might happen. This is the purely statistical understanding of QM, however. Bohm and others put forth theories that do not make guest appearances here. One of these is called the “Pilot Wave” theory. These are not widely adopted, but they can explain many facets of Quantum theory just as well if not better than the Copenhagen one. Now, there are even some physical models in a Bohm-style that show how the double slit experiment might work without having to rely on many assumptions the Copenhagen interpretation requires.
The Buddhism/Taoism/Tai Chi failure is in the idea that all matter is ultimately empty and is simply dancing. Standard Buddhism suggests one should empty one’s mind of all forms–and this part is the critical part–of all things OTHER THAN those things which exist in the Buddha mind. This is a key distinction and many Buddhist texts discuss aspects of various wrathful and peaceful deities and a kind of Buddhist apocalypse to come. Far from suggesting these are “empty dances” one rather instead gets the impression that if one does not have the Buddha-mind at this point, one will burn up with the rest of creation. There is a definitive aim that this book misunderstands or misapplies. Yes, physical things change their form, but the forms they assume, as Plato indicated, mean something, somewhere. Enlightenment is the road to understanding, hopefully, what that means. It is not, “Oh well, things come and go, kids!”
By the time the reader gets to the part of imaginary particles the entire work starts to feel like an imaginary intellectual ivory tower. While it is true virtual particles exist in theory, there is something distinctly cynical about assuming they exist for the purpose of theory while suggesting everything is an illusion. By the time one is done reading the book, one feels as though one would have done better to have read nothing at all. It is only salvageable as an experience by disagreeing with the core tenets the book presents that anything of value can be derived. This might be called “The Way of Annihilation of Falsehoods”. It is peculiar since this is the only book that this strategy must be employed without a doubt to derive the benefit of meaning.
It could be that Zukav did not understand the Tai Chi fellow. It could be the Tai Chi fellow did not understand Zukav. It might even possibly be that the understanding of the field was, at the point this book was made, immature. However, one feels even with all that Zukav would still have tried to place man squarely in the middle of the universe like some kind of God regardless. While the entirety of QM screams “Get over yourselves, there’s too much going on here” Zukav seems to yell back, “I know better because it’s all an illusion because of this Tai Chi guy over here!” Never mind that it is misapplied. Never mind the entire discussions on symbols and mathematics not necessarily corresponding to models. (What are models if they cannot be discussed?) Never mind other overlapping Eastern philosophy that suggests that these theories are only being half-applied. The point to be made–the book is bad. It is bad the same way a lot of old kung fu movies are bad. One cannot exactly follow the plot, but one feels like one should finish the movie since they are “this far in”. It is bad because it fails to yoke together its intended subject domains. It is bad because it picks and chooses the points that prove its case, but ignores things that flatly contradict it. It is ultimately bad because it offers a teaching that is patently false as far as the mysticism it claims to represent goes.
For all that, there are some diamonds in here, but the reader’s hands have to get far too bloody in the digging for them. It is better to pass on this one and find something else from an actual wisdom teacher.
