20
THE TAO OF THE BAT
Bat-Tzu (as interviewed by Mark D. White)
Master Bat-Tzu, I thank you for granting me this interview, especially since you have never spoken to anyone of your unique relationship with Bruce Wayne, also known to some as the Batman.
You’re most welcome. If my humble words can be of any help to anyone, I am glad to do it. Yes, as you say, I have known Bruce Wayne since he was a little boy. I was a friend of his parents, you know, particularly his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. Good man, Dr. Wayne—I think of him often, as well as his lovely wife. So, of course, does Bruce.
I have tried to be a friend to Bruce since the untimely death of his parents. I hoped to guide him to a more harmonious place, but he chose a different path, what he has called the “way of the bat.”1 Even though I disagreed with his choice, I have tried to provide counsel when I could.
Why did you disagree with his choice?
Please don’t misunderstand—he does an immeasurable amount of good as the Batman. But his life as the Batman is a life without balance, and balance is necessary for all things, especially people. The importance of balance is one of the central teachings of the Taoist masters, such as Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu, and through their writings they have been my teachers, as I have been Bruce’s.2
Taoist masters?
Yes, Taoism is an ancient Eastern philosophy, dating at least as far back as Lao-Tzu’s time, which focuses on the natural flow of the universe. The Chinese called this tao, or “the Way,” for lack of a better name. Lao-Tzu actually says that the way is that which cannot be named.3 Taoists try to align themselves with the Way by balancing the opposing forces within themselves, the light and the dark, the feminine and the masculine, the soft and the hard—what the Taoists called yin and yang.
Like the popular black-and-white, circular symbol?
Correct—that symbol is a representation of the balance between opposing forces that defines everything about the world we live in. Yang (the white part) represents the masculine, the hard, the unyielding, while yin (the black part) represents the feminine, the soft, the nurturing. The way that the two sides look like snakes chasing each other’s tails shows that both sides flow into each other and ultimately define each other. This is also shown by the black dot in the white area, and the white dot in the black area—they tell us that the root of each side lies in the other.
Since that horrible day, I’m afraid that Bruce has let his yang dominate, believing it necessary to rid his beloved Gotham City of the criminals that infest it, but he has forgotten that he must still embrace his yin.
So he does have yin?
Yes, everybody does, and he is no exception—you can see it in the less tense moments, especially with Dick and Tim. . . .
The original and current Robins.
Correct—Bruce was often very hard on them, very demanding, in accordance with his yang, but he has had tender moments with them as well (though few and far between).
Didn’t he recently go on some sort of “spiritual quest” with Dick and Tim? Do you think that shows some striving for balance?
Yes, the year he spent traveling around the world, after that horrible mess with Brother Eye and Alex Luthor, when Dick was almost killed.4 I think he realized then that his yang had dominated for too long, and he had become bitter, cold, paranoid—even for Bruce. Lao-Tzu wrote that “sages remove extremes, remove extravagance, remove arrogance.”5 I think that is what he has started to do. Indeed, since he returned, I have seen changes in him—for instance, he decided to adopt Tim shortly after their return. And he has shown such tenderness toward Selina Kyle’s beautiful newborn child, Helena—I even heard he took her a teddy bear, in his Batman costume no less!6
Why, he has even forgiven the magician, what is her name . . .
Zatanna? For the mind-wipe, you mean?
Yes, that’s right, Zatanna—lovely girl, though very hard to understand sometimes.
Ha!
Even I was surprised when I heard about that—I thought Bruce would never forgive her for violating his mind like she did.7 But you see, that’s his yin—warm, soft, accepting of others’ flaws—and it has begun to manifest itself more since his return. Of course, he still needs his yang, not only to perform as Batman, but to be a complete person, in harmony with the world and the Tao. All of us need that balance between the hard and soft, masculine and feminine.
Why is that? One of the key traits of the Batman is his single-minded devotion to the cause of fighting crime.
But a person with no balance is not in harmony—“knowing harmony is called constancy, knowing constancy is called clarity.”8 Many of Bruce’s teachers taught him this, not just me.9 The world is defined by dualities of opposing forces that must be held in balance to be effective—this is the meaning of the black and white intermingling in the yin-yang symbol. Lao-Tzu wrote, “Being and nonbeing produce each other: difficulty and ease complement each other, long and short shape each other, high and low contrast with each other, voice and echoes conform to each other, before and after go along with each other.”10 Without the repulsive, we would not know the beautiful; without the dark, there could be no light. We need the bad to highlight the good—how else would we know what the good is?
Look at Bruce, for example—he is defined by many dualities. Publicly, he lives in spacious, palatial Wayne Manor, but he spends most of his time in a dank, dreary cave covered in bat guano (dreadful stuff). He is one of wealthiest people in the world, a captain of industry, but he spends much of his fortune to support numerous charitable causes, as well as financing his crime-fighting activities. He could easily live a life of pampered leisure, but instead he has devoted himself to a thankless task, fighting crime, every day fighting exhaustion and injury that would fell a normal person. He is one of the most intelligent, learned people in the world, as well as a physical specimen of human perfection, yet he does not take pride in these things but rather uses his abilities for the good of mankind, claiming no credit for his accomplishments.
Think about this, my friend—for all of his physical prowess, his dark, frightening costume, and his formidable size and presence, the Batman’s most intimidating feature is that which is not even there—his shadow! As Lao-Tzu wrote, “The use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open doors and windows for a room, it is where there is nothing that they are useful to the room.”11 Nothingness can be more important than substance, which Bruce uses to “strike fear into the hearts of criminals,” as he likes to say (endlessly, I’m afraid).
Now what was I saying—oh yes, he can be single-minded, as you say. If I had but a penny for every time I’ve implored him to take a night off, enjoy the company of one of the beautiful, intelligent women he’s seen over the years, I could melt them down and make a second giant penny, like the one he keeps in his cave. But he usually relents only when doing so would serve the greater mission against crime—silly man.
[Laughs.] The giant penny, yes—that reminds me of a story. Did you know that once, Bruce was so lonely he asked that Aquaman fellow—not that new, young one, but the one from the old Justice League days—to help retrieve that horrid museum piece from the crevice it fell into during the earthquake that struck Gotham City? He couldn’t bring himself to ask his colleague to visit but instead had to concoct a ruse to lure him here. Insufferable man, so afraid to share his feelings, to admit his emptiness, even with those closest to him.12
Have Dick and Tim inherited Bruce’s imbalance?
Oh, thankfully no. Take Dick, for instance—despite all of his soul-searching, he is a young man who keeps his yin and yang in balance. Ever since he was a young boy, newly in our charge . . .
You were involved in raising Dick?
What? No . . . no, of course not, though I saw him quite a bit while visiting Bruce over the years. As I was saying, despite being struck by the early, violent death of his parents, as was Bruce, Dick managed to maintain a basic lightheartedness about him, light to balance the dark.
He had to—he couldn’t exactly be sullen in green Speedos and pixie shoes!
Oh! Don’t remind me. . . . [Laughs.] Sorry. . . . You’ve distracted me again. Stop that.
You know, I’ve heard that Dick, in his adult role as Nightwing, is often said to be “the Batman with a feminine side,” which is precisely my point. He cares about his friends—not just as his responsibility, as Bruce does, but truly cares about them and for them. Just think about his recent tenure with the Outsiders, which was supposed to be a working group of heroes, rather than a family like the Titans, his former allies. But he found he couldn’t do it—he found it impossible not to care about his colleagues, who truly became his friends, and he could no longer tolerate leading them into danger. Of course, who did he hand the group off to? Bruce, who was more than happy to assemble a group of heroes who would follow his commands to march into the flames of hell.13
What about Tim, the current Robin?
Oh, Tim is the one I fear for. He has lost so much since he began his crime-fighting career alongside Bruce—first his mother, early on, and more recently his father; his girlfriend, Stephanie Brown, who fought crime as the Spoiler (and Robin, for a brief time while Tim was “retired”); and two of his best friends, Conner Kent and Bart Allen.14 And all of them died at the hands of criminals, just like Bruce’s parents did. If anyone has a right to sink into despair and lose his soft, compassionate nature in strict devotion to his hard, retributive side, it’s Tim. In fact, he told me once that when his mother died and his father lay paralyzed in a hospital bed, he stared “into the dark side,” and felt “the night-demon’s cowl . . . sucking me into a lifetime in hell.”15
But in the end I think Tim realized this danger; he is a very self-aware young man. As Lao-Tzu wrote, “Those who know others are wise; those who know themselves are enlightened.”16 He’s seen what loss has done to Bruce—you know, when Tim originally came to us . . .
“To us”?
Sorry, I did it again—when Tim came to Bruce, after deducing his secret identity, he said that Batman needed a Robin, that Batman had sunken too far within himself after the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd. He had become too hard and angry, again allowing his yang to rule over his yin. I suppose, in a way, that Robin has always been the yin to Batman’s yang, the light to balance the Dark Knight.
I suppose so. I had also never realized the role that death has played in many of Batman’s inner circle, including Dick. . . .
Certainly, Dick has shouldered his share of loss—his own parents, of course, and more recently his adopted town of Blüdhaven, including many of his close friends. But perhaps he understands the nature of death, and hopefully he can help Tim (and, perhaps, even Bruce).
What do you mean by “the nature of death”?
Death is just part of a natural cycle and should be accepted as part as the path that we all take. Chuang-Tzu wrote well on this subject: “If you are at peace in your time and live harmoniously, sadness and happiness cannot affect you.”17 He questioned the preference for life over death: “How can I know that wanting to live is not delusion? How can I know that aversion to death is not like a homeless waif who does not know where to return? . . . How do I know the dead do not regret having longed for life at first?”18
I suppose the resurrection of Jason Todd would be a good example of that?
Yes—who is to say that he is happier now than in his previous state?
Oh, poor Jason—he was so angry, so wild, so uncontrollable—everything that Bruce could be if he doesn’t maintain a constant check on his rage. Lao-Tzu wrote, “When beings climax in power, they wane; this is called being unguided. The unguided die early.”19 Jason needed to learn control; we all tried to teach him that. Unfortunately, his mysterious return doesn’t seem to have taught him much either. Chuang-Tzu wrote that “the perfection of virtue is to take care of your own mind in such a way that emotions cannot affect you when you already know nothing can be done, and are at peace with what is, with the decree of fate.”20 But his fate remains to be seen, and I can only hope he can learn to accept what he cannot change; Bruce must learn this too, of course.
Of course, we can’t discuss Jason without bringing up his murderer, the Joker.
The Joker . . . well, the less said about him, the better, I think. I’m sure others have much more to say about him than I could offer.21 But interestingly enough, I do remember, once Bruce said that Dick told him that “the Joker exists because of me. How I represent the order that is necessary to live in Gotham City and the Joker is the chaos that disrupts that order.”22 That’s another example of how members of a duality support each other (and of Dick’s budding wisdom, I daresay).
I notice you haven’t mentioned Alfred yet.
Oh, I haven’t? Well, there’s . . . I suppose there’s really not much to say about Mr. Pennyworth, except that he’s a loyal servant, a trusted advisor—a paragon of humility. “Sages take care of themselves, but do not exalt themselves.”23
A bit like you, Master . . .
Oh, I suppose, yes. Actually, I’ve always regarded Alfred as quite the epitome of the wise man, or sage, of Taoist thought. After all, Lao-Tzu wrote that “sages manage effortless service and carry out unspoken guidance.”24 That suits Alfred very well, I should think. Of course, he has put Bruce in his place on many an occasion, I should say.
Indeed.
Pardon me?
I’m sorry, just something caught in my throat.
Can I get you some water?
No, thank you.
Now that I think about it more, it seems to me that Alfred embodies a very important concept of the Tao, that of wei-wu-wei, or “action without action.” Lao-Tzu wrote, “Do nondoing, strive for nonstriving.”25 The wise man knows when to do nothing, and by doing so, does something. Alfred is of inestimable aid to the Batman, but does so by simply seeing a clue that Bruce did not notice, a possibility he did not imagine, or some valuable insight that escaped him. Alfred’s mind is open, and so he sees all at once. Chuang-Tzu told a story of a butcher who was so skilled he had never sharpened his blade in nineteen years. The butcher said that when he cuts up an ox, “the joints have spaces in between, whereas the edge of the cleaver blade has no thickness. When that which has no thickness is put into that which has no space, there is ample room for moving the blade.”26 Alfred is like that butcher, seeing what is there, and also what is not, which is often more important.
“Sages never do great things; that is why they can fulfill their greatness.”27 Alfred is not the Batman, but Bruce would not be the Batman without him. Chuang-Tzu wrote, “Sages harmonize right and wrong, leaving them to the balance of nature.”28 Alfred must balance the right and wrong within Bruce, tending to his health and his injuries, his joy and his sadness, his calm and his rage, trying to align them with the natural balance of things, the Tao.
It is a very difficult task that he has assumed, but that is Alfred’s way, and he chooses to go with it, not against it. He reminds me of what Lao-Tzu wrote about water: “Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, nothing can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful.”29 Water runs gently through your fingers but over time can carve mountains. It is patient, as is Alfred—yet another lesson Bruce could learn from him. As you know, many of the martial arts that Bruce has mastered over the years are grounded in basic Taoist principles such as flexibility and yielding—for instance, they teach one to use an opponent’s size and energy against him. Would that Bruce took those lessons to heart in other aspects of his life!
You know, Lao-Tzu wrote, “I have three treasures that I keep and hold: one is mercy, the second is frugality, the third is not presuming to be at the head of the world.”30 I can imagine Alfred saying that too.
It’s almost like he just did. . . .
Pardon?
Nothing, nothing . . .
Do you have something to say, young man?
No, Master, it’s just interesting how you’ve gushed about Alfred, especially since a few minutes ago you “didn’t have much to say” about him.
(Silence.)
Okay . . . well . . . thank you again, Master. It has been a most . . . illuminating discussion.
You’re very welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some cleaning to do . . .
NOTES
1 Shadow of the Bat Annual #3 (1995).
2 The exact details of Lao-Tzu’s and Chuang-Tzu’s lives, including their true identities (sound familiar?), are a mystery. The Tao Te Ching is widely believed to have been compiled from various sources around 500 BCE, and Chuang-Tzu’s primary writings date back to around 300 BCE.
3 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapters 1, 25, and 32. All quotations from this masterpiece are translated by Thomas Cleary and can be found in The Taoist Classics: Volume One (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994), 12-47.
4 See Infinite Crisis #7 (June 2006); the yearlong travels occurred during the 52 series (2006-2007), but were explicitly shown only occasionally.
5 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 29.
6 Catwoman #53 (Mar. 2006), reprinted in Catwoman: The Replacements (2007).
7 The mind-wipe was revealed in flashback in Identity Crisis (2005); Bruce forgave her in Detective Comics #834 (September 2007).
8 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 55.
9 “In my teachings I had many masters, each with his own singular philosophy. My masters agreed on one point only: to be a warrior requires balance” (Batman, in Batman Confidential #8, October 2007).
10 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 2.
11 Ibid., chapter 11.
12 The giant penny was lost during Catalysm (1998); the Aquaman episode occurred in Gotham Knights #18 (August 2001).
13 See Outsiders #49 (September 2007).
14 Tim’s mother died in “Rite of Passage” (Detective Comics #618-621, 1990); his father in Identity Crisis (2005); Stephanie in Batman #633 (December 2004), reprinted in War Games Act Three (2005); Conner in Infinite Crisis (2006); and Bart in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 (June 2007).
15 Detective Comics #621 (September 1990); see also the last three pages of Robin #167 (December 2007) with regard to the death of Tim’s father.
16 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 33.
17 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 3, p. 68. The “Inner Chapters” of Chuang-Tzu are included in The Taoist Classics Volume One, 51-100, from which the translations I quote are drawn, again translated by Thomas Cleary. These chapters are the most widely known and are the only ones attributable to the master himself. The unabridged Chuang-Tzu , including material appended by later scholars, can be found in The Texts of Taoism, vols. 1 and 2 (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1962).
18 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 2, p. 64.
19 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 35.
20 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 4, p. 73.
21 Indeed, see the essays in this book by Robichaud, and Donovan and Richardson.
22 Batman #614 (June 2003), included in Hush Volume Two (2003).
23 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 72.
24 Ibid., chapter 2.
25 Ibid., chapter 63.
26 Chuang-Tzu, chapter 3, 66-67.
27 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 63.
28 Chuang-Tzu, chapter 2, 60.
29 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 78.
30 Ibid., chapter 67.
20
THE TAO OF THE BAT
Bat-Tzu (as interviewed by Mark D. White)
Master Bat-Tzu, I thank you for granting me this interview, especially since you have never spoken to anyone of your unique relationship with Bruce Wayne, also known to some as the Batman.
You’re most welcome. If my humble words can be of any help to anyone, I am glad to do it. Yes, as you say, I have known Bruce Wayne since he was a little boy. I was a friend of his parents, you know, particularly his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. Good man, Dr. Wayne—I think of him often, as well as his lovely wife. So, of course, does Bruce.
I have tried to be a friend to Bruce since the untimely death of his parents. I hoped to guide him to a more harmonious place, but he chose a different path, what he has called the “way of the bat.”1 Even though I disagreed with his choice, I have tried to provide counsel when I could.
Why did you disagree with his choice?
Please don’t misunderstand—he does an immeasurable amount of good as the Batman. But his life as the Batman is a life without balance, and balance is necessary for all things, especially people. The importance of balance is one of the central teachings of the Taoist masters, such as Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu, and through their writings they have been my teachers, as I have been Bruce’s.2
Taoist masters?
Yes, Taoism is an ancient Eastern philosophy, dating at least as far back as Lao-Tzu’s time, which focuses on the natural flow of the universe. The Chinese called this tao, or “the Way,” for lack of a better name. Lao-Tzu actually says that the way is that which cannot be named.3 Taoists try to align themselves with the Way by balancing the opposing forces within themselves, the light and the dark, the feminine and the masculine, the soft and the hard—what the Taoists called yin and yang.
Like the popular black-and-white, circular symbol?
Correct—that symbol is a representation of the balance between opposing forces that defines everything about the world we live in. Yang (the white part) represents the masculine, the hard, the unyielding, while yin (the black part) represents the feminine, the soft, the nurturing. The way that the two sides look like snakes chasing each other’s tails shows that both sides flow into each other and ultimately define each other. This is also shown by the black dot in the white area, and the white dot in the black area—they tell us that the root of each side lies in the other.
Since that horrible day, I’m afraid that Bruce has let his yang dominate, believing it necessary to rid his beloved Gotham City of the criminals that infest it, but he has forgotten that he must still embrace his yin.
So he does have yin?
Yes, everybody does, and he is no exception—you can see it in the less tense moments, especially with Dick and Tim. . . .
The original and current Robins.
Correct—Bruce was often very hard on them, very demanding, in accordance with his yang, but he has had tender moments with them as well (though few and far between).
Didn’t he recently go on some sort of “spiritual quest” with Dick and Tim? Do you think that shows some striving for balance?
Yes, the year he spent traveling around the world, after that horrible mess with Brother Eye and Alex Luthor, when Dick was almost killed.4 I think he realized then that his yang had dominated for too long, and he had become bitter, cold, paranoid—even for Bruce. Lao-Tzu wrote that “sages remove extremes, remove extravagance, remove arrogance.”5 I think that is what he has started to do. Indeed, since he returned, I have seen changes in him—for instance, he decided to adopt Tim shortly after their return. And he has shown such tenderness toward Selina Kyle’s beautiful newborn child, Helena—I even heard he took her a teddy bear, in his Batman costume no less!6
Why, he has even forgiven the magician, what is her name . . .
Zatanna? For the mind-wipe, you mean?
Yes, that’s right, Zatanna—lovely girl, though very hard to understand sometimes.
Ha!
Even I was surprised when I heard about that—I thought Bruce would never forgive her for violating his mind like she did.7 But you see, that’s his yin—warm, soft, accepting of others’ flaws—and it has begun to manifest itself more since his return. Of course, he still needs his yang, not only to perform as Batman, but to be a complete person, in harmony with the world and the Tao. All of us need that balance between the hard and soft, masculine and feminine.
Why is that? One of the key traits of the Batman is his single-minded devotion to the cause of fighting crime.
But a person with no balance is not in harmony—“knowing harmony is called constancy, knowing constancy is called clarity.”8 Many of Bruce’s teachers taught him this, not just me.9 The world is defined by dualities of opposing forces that must be held in balance to be effective—this is the meaning of the black and white intermingling in the yin-yang symbol. Lao-Tzu wrote, “Being and nonbeing produce each other: difficulty and ease complement each other, long and short shape each other, high and low contrast with each other, voice and echoes conform to each other, before and after go along with each other.”10 Without the repulsive, we would not know the beautiful; without the dark, there could be no light. We need the bad to highlight the good—how else would we know what the good is?
Look at Bruce, for example—he is defined by many dualities. Publicly, he lives in spacious, palatial Wayne Manor, but he spends most of his time in a dank, dreary cave covered in bat guano (dreadful stuff). He is one of wealthiest people in the world, a captain of industry, but he spends much of his fortune to support numerous charitable causes, as well as financing his crime-fighting activities. He could easily live a life of pampered leisure, but instead he has devoted himself to a thankless task, fighting crime, every day fighting exhaustion and injury that would fell a normal person. He is one of the most intelligent, learned people in the world, as well as a physical specimen of human perfection, yet he does not take pride in these things but rather uses his abilities for the good of mankind, claiming no credit for his accomplishments.
Think about this, my friend—for all of his physical prowess, his dark, frightening costume, and his formidable size and presence, the Batman’s most intimidating feature is that which is not even there—his shadow! As Lao-Tzu wrote, “The use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open doors and windows for a room, it is where there is nothing that they are useful to the room.”11 Nothingness can be more important than substance, which Bruce uses to “strike fear into the hearts of criminals,” as he likes to say (endlessly, I’m afraid).
Now what was I saying—oh yes, he can be single-minded, as you say. If I had but a penny for every time I’ve implored him to take a night off, enjoy the company of one of the beautiful, intelligent women he’s seen over the years, I could melt them down and make a second giant penny, like the one he keeps in his cave. But he usually relents only when doing so would serve the greater mission against crime—silly man.
[Laughs.] The giant penny, yes—that reminds me of a story. Did you know that once, Bruce was so lonely he asked that Aquaman fellow—not that new, young one, but the one from the old Justice League days—to help retrieve that horrid museum piece from the crevice it fell into during the earthquake that struck Gotham City? He couldn’t bring himself to ask his colleague to visit but instead had to concoct a ruse to lure him here. Insufferable man, so afraid to share his feelings, to admit his emptiness, even with those closest to him.12
Have Dick and Tim inherited Bruce’s imbalance?
Oh, thankfully no. Take Dick, for instance—despite all of his soul-searching, he is a young man who keeps his yin and yang in balance. Ever since he was a young boy, newly in our charge . . .
You were involved in raising Dick?
What? No . . . no, of course not, though I saw him quite a bit while visiting Bruce over the years. As I was saying, despite being struck by the early, violent death of his parents, as was Bruce, Dick managed to maintain a basic lightheartedness about him, light to balance the dark.
He had to—he couldn’t exactly be sullen in green Speedos and pixie shoes!
Oh! Don’t remind me. . . . [Laughs.] Sorry. . . . You’ve distracted me again. Stop that.
You know, I’ve heard that Dick, in his adult role as Nightwing, is often said to be “the Batman with a feminine side,” which is precisely my point. He cares about his friends—not just as his responsibility, as Bruce does, but truly cares about them and for them. Just think about his recent tenure with the Outsiders, which was supposed to be a working group of heroes, rather than a family like the Titans, his former allies. But he found he couldn’t do it—he found it impossible not to care about his colleagues, who truly became his friends, and he could no longer tolerate leading them into danger. Of course, who did he hand the group off to? Bruce, who was more than happy to assemble a group of heroes who would follow his commands to march into the flames of hell.13
What about Tim, the current Robin?
Oh, Tim is the one I fear for. He has lost so much since he began his crime-fighting career alongside Bruce—first his mother, early on, and more recently his father; his girlfriend, Stephanie Brown, who fought crime as the Spoiler (and Robin, for a brief time while Tim was “retired”); and two of his best friends, Conner Kent and Bart Allen.14 And all of them died at the hands of criminals, just like Bruce’s parents did. If anyone has a right to sink into despair and lose his soft, compassionate nature in strict devotion to his hard, retributive side, it’s Tim. In fact, he told me once that when his mother died and his father lay paralyzed in a hospital bed, he stared “into the dark side,” and felt “the night-demon’s cowl . . . sucking me into a lifetime in hell.”15
But in the end I think Tim realized this danger; he is a very self-aware young man. As Lao-Tzu wrote, “Those who know others are wise; those who know themselves are enlightened.”16 He’s seen what loss has done to Bruce—you know, when Tim originally came to us . . .
“To us”?
Sorry, I did it again—when Tim came to Bruce, after deducing his secret identity, he said that Batman needed a Robin, that Batman had sunken too far within himself after the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd. He had become too hard and angry, again allowing his yang to rule over his yin. I suppose, in a way, that Robin has always been the yin to Batman’s yang, the light to balance the Dark Knight.
I suppose so. I had also never realized the role that death has played in many of Batman’s inner circle, including Dick. . . .
Certainly, Dick has shouldered his share of loss—his own parents, of course, and more recently his adopted town of Blüdhaven, including many of his close friends. But perhaps he understands the nature of death, and hopefully he can help Tim (and, perhaps, even Bruce).
What do you mean by “the nature of death”?
Death is just part of a natural cycle and should be accepted as part as the path that we all take. Chuang-Tzu wrote well on this subject: “If you are at peace in your time and live harmoniously, sadness and happiness cannot affect you.”17 He questioned the preference for life over death: “How can I know that wanting to live is not delusion? How can I know that aversion to death is not like a homeless waif who does not know where to return? . . . How do I know the dead do not regret having longed for life at first?”18
I suppose the resurrection of Jason Todd would be a good example of that?
Yes—who is to say that he is happier now than in his previous state?
Oh, poor Jason—he was so angry, so wild, so uncontrollable—everything that Bruce could be if he doesn’t maintain a constant check on his rage. Lao-Tzu wrote, “When beings climax in power, they wane; this is called being unguided. The unguided die early.”19 Jason needed to learn control; we all tried to teach him that. Unfortunately, his mysterious return doesn’t seem to have taught him much either. Chuang-Tzu wrote that “the perfection of virtue is to take care of your own mind in such a way that emotions cannot affect you when you already know nothing can be done, and are at peace with what is, with the decree of fate.”20 But his fate remains to be seen, and I can only hope he can learn to accept what he cannot change; Bruce must learn this too, of course.
Of course, we can’t discuss Jason without bringing up his murderer, the Joker.
The Joker . . . well, the less said about him, the better, I think. I’m sure others have much more to say about him than I could offer.21 But interestingly enough, I do remember, once Bruce said that Dick told him that “the Joker exists because of me. How I represent the order that is necessary to live in Gotham City and the Joker is the chaos that disrupts that order.”22 That’s another example of how members of a duality support each other (and of Dick’s budding wisdom, I daresay).
I notice you haven’t mentioned Alfred yet.
Oh, I haven’t? Well, there’s . . . I suppose there’s really not much to say about Mr. Pennyworth, except that he’s a loyal servant, a trusted advisor—a paragon of humility. “Sages take care of themselves, but do not exalt themselves.”23
A bit like you, Master . . .
Oh, I suppose, yes. Actually, I’ve always regarded Alfred as quite the epitome of the wise man, or sage, of Taoist thought. After all, Lao-Tzu wrote that “sages manage effortless service and carry out unspoken guidance.”24 That suits Alfred very well, I should think. Of course, he has put Bruce in his place on many an occasion, I should say.
Indeed.
Pardon me?
I’m sorry, just something caught in my throat.
Can I get you some water?
No, thank you.
Now that I think about it more, it seems to me that Alfred embodies a very important concept of the Tao, that of wei-wu-wei, or “action without action.” Lao-Tzu wrote, “Do nondoing, strive for nonstriving.”25 The wise man knows when to do nothing, and by doing so, does something. Alfred is of inestimable aid to the Batman, but does so by simply seeing a clue that Bruce did not notice, a possibility he did not imagine, or some valuable insight that escaped him. Alfred’s mind is open, and so he sees all at once. Chuang-Tzu told a story of a butcher who was so skilled he had never sharpened his blade in nineteen years. The butcher said that when he cuts up an ox, “the joints have spaces in between, whereas the edge of the cleaver blade has no thickness. When that which has no thickness is put into that which has no space, there is ample room for moving the blade.”26 Alfred is like that butcher, seeing what is there, and also what is not, which is often more important.
“Sages never do great things; that is why they can fulfill their greatness.”27 Alfred is not the Batman, but Bruce would not be the Batman without him. Chuang-Tzu wrote, “Sages harmonize right and wrong, leaving them to the balance of nature.”28 Alfred must balance the right and wrong within Bruce, tending to his health and his injuries, his joy and his sadness, his calm and his rage, trying to align them with the natural balance of things, the Tao.
It is a very difficult task that he has assumed, but that is Alfred’s way, and he chooses to go with it, not against it. He reminds me of what Lao-Tzu wrote about water: “Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, nothing can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful.”29 Water runs gently through your fingers but over time can carve mountains. It is patient, as is Alfred—yet another lesson Bruce could learn from him. As you know, many of the martial arts that Bruce has mastered over the years are grounded in basic Taoist principles such as flexibility and yielding—for instance, they teach one to use an opponent’s size and energy against him. Would that Bruce took those lessons to heart in other aspects of his life!
You know, Lao-Tzu wrote, “I have three treasures that I keep and hold: one is mercy, the second is frugality, the third is not presuming to be at the head of the world.”30 I can imagine Alfred saying that too.
It’s almost like he just did. . . .
Pardon?
Nothing, nothing . . .
Do you have something to say, young man?
No, Master, it’s just interesting how you’ve gushed about Alfred, especially since a few minutes ago you “didn’t have much to say” about him.
(Silence.)
Okay . . . well . . . thank you again, Master. It has been a most . . . illuminating discussion.
You’re very welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some cleaning to do . . .
NOTES
1 Shadow of the Bat Annual #3 (1995).
2 The exact details of Lao-Tzu’s and Chuang-Tzu’s lives, including their true identities (sound familiar?), are a mystery. The Tao Te Ching is widely believed to have been compiled from various sources around 500 BCE, and Chuang-Tzu’s primary writings date back to around 300 BCE.
3 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapters 1, 25, and 32. All quotations from this masterpiece are translated by Thomas Cleary and can be found in The Taoist Classics: Volume One (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994), 12-47.
4 See Infinite Crisis #7 (June 2006); the yearlong travels occurred during the 52 series (2006-2007), but were explicitly shown only occasionally.
5 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 29.
6 Catwoman #53 (Mar. 2006), reprinted in Catwoman: The Replacements (2007).
7 The mind-wipe was revealed in flashback in Identity Crisis (2005); Bruce forgave her in Detective Comics #834 (September 2007).
8 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 55.
9 “In my teachings I had many masters, each with his own singular philosophy. My masters agreed on one point only: to be a warrior requires balance” (Batman, in Batman Confidential #8, October 2007).
10 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 2.
11 Ibid., chapter 11.
12 The giant penny was lost during Catalysm (1998); the Aquaman episode occurred in Gotham Knights #18 (August 2001).
13 See Outsiders #49 (September 2007).
14 Tim’s mother died in “Rite of Passage” (Detective Comics #618-621, 1990); his father in Identity Crisis (2005); Stephanie in Batman #633 (December 2004), reprinted in War Games Act Three (2005); Conner in Infinite Crisis (2006); and Bart in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 (June 2007).
15 Detective Comics #621 (September 1990); see also the last three pages of Robin #167 (December 2007) with regard to the death of Tim’s father.
16 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 33.
17 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 3, p. 68. The “Inner Chapters” of Chuang-Tzu are included in The Taoist Classics Volume One, 51-100, from which the translations I quote are drawn, again translated by Thomas Cleary. These chapters are the most widely known and are the only ones attributable to the master himself. The unabridged Chuang-Tzu , including material appended by later scholars, can be found in The Texts of Taoism, vols. 1 and 2 (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1962).
18 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 2, p. 64.
19 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 35.
20 Chuang-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, chapter 4, p. 73.
21 Indeed, see the essays in this book by Robichaud, and Donovan and Richardson.
22 Batman #614 (June 2003), included in Hush Volume Two (2003).
23 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 72.
24 Ibid., chapter 2.
25 Ibid., chapter 63.
26 Chuang-Tzu, chapter 3, 66-67.
27 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 63.
28 Chuang-Tzu, chapter 2, 60.
29 Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 78.
30 Ibid., chapter 67.