The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (Translations from the Asian Classics)

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Fame is something to beat people down with, and wisdom is a device for wrangling. Both are evil weapons—not the sort of thing to bring you success. Though your virtue may be great and your good faith unassailable, if you do not understand men’s spirits, though your fame may be wide and you do not strive with others, if you do not understand men’s minds but instead appear before a tyrant and force him to listen to sermons on benevolence and righteousness, measures and standards— this is simply using other men’s bad points to parade your own excellence. You will be called a plaguer of others. He who plagues others will be plagued in turn. You will probably be plagued by this man.

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People who excuse their faults and claim they didn’t deserve to be punished—there are lots of them. But those who don’t excuse their faults and who admit they didn’t deserve to be spared—they are few. To know what you can’t do anything about and to be content with it as you would with fate—only a man of virtue can do that. Therefore I say, the Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame. 2 – Discussion on Making All Things Equal For the purpose of understanding Zhuangzi, Hui Shi’s key saying strikes at the use of similarity to ground realism:Zhuangzi’s brand of Daoism, as is often pointed out, is in many respects quite different from that expounded in the Tao Te Ching. Therefore, though the two may have drawn on common sources and certainly became fused in later times, it seems best to consider them separately.

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Mair, Victor H. (2000). "The Zhuangzi and its Impact". In Kohn, Livia (ed.). Daoism Handbook. Leiden: Brill. pp.30–52. ISBN 978-90-04-11208-7. Note, first, that Butcher Ding’s activity is cutting – dividing something into parts. While he is mastering his guiding dao, he perceives the ox already cut up. He comes to see the places he should cut as already existing spaces and fissures in the ox. The ox thus seems a perfect metaphor for our coming to see the world as divided into the “natural kinds.” We internalize a language that serves some purpose. When we master a guiding dao, we seek to execute it in a real situation. Doing so requires finding distinctions in nature to match the concepts in the instructions. While acting, we do not have time to read the map; we see ourselves as reading the world. Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wenhui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!” Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now—now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop, and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint. Only by inhabiting Dao (the Way of Nature) and dwelling in its unity can humankind achieve true happiness and freedom, in both life and death. This is Daoist philosophy's central tenet, espoused by the person—or group of people—known as Zhuangzi (369?-286? B.C.E.) in a text by the same name. To be free, individuals must discard rigid distinctions between good and bad, right and wrong, and follow a course of action not motivated by gain or striving. When one ceases to judge events as good or bad, man-made suffering disappears and natural suffering is embraced as part of life.Fung Yu-lan (1933), Chuang Tzu, a New Selected Translation with an Exposition on the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang, Shanghai: Shang wu. Zhuangzi: Mystic, Moralist and Social Reformer, ed. Herbert A. Giles (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981).

The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (Translations from the Asian

Dull and unwitting, they have no desire; this is called uncarved simplicity. In uncarved simplicity, the people attain their true nature. He who knows what it is that Heaven does, and knows what it is that man does, has reached the peak. Knowing what it is that Heaven does, he lives with Heaven. Knowing what it is that man does, he uses the knowledge of what he knows to help out the knowledge of what he doesn’t know and lives out the years that Heaven gave him without being cut off midway—this is the perfection of knowledge. However, there is a difficulty. Knowledge must wait for something before it can be applicable, and that which it waits for is never certain.Møllgaard, E. (2007) An introduction to Daoist thought: Action, language, and ethics in Zhuangzi. New York: Routledge Thus, all hearts equally achieve cheng. As each grows along with the body, it acquires a pattern of language use – a way of making shi–fei judgments about the relation of objects and words. Every person’s heart naturally acquires some disposition to these assignments. If this acquired heart (the one that grows with the body) is the authority, then Confucian sages have no superior authority over it – hence no superior authority to criticize a fool’s attitudes. Confucian innatists assume one pattern of chen (completion) is right and they project their historically acquired norm on nature. They assume we need to cultivate the xin [hsin] (heartmind) so it will give the correct shi–fei judgments. I will tell you what that means. Do you think it is easy to do anything while you have a mind? If you do, Bright Heaven will not sanction you.” How, then, can I know that what I call Heaven is not really man and what I call man is not really Heaven? 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.

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Universally love the ten-thousand thing-kinds; the cosmos is one ti. [ Ti was a technical term referring to the basic parts of any compounded object.] Everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know, but no one knows enough to pursue what he already knows.The Zhuangzi is the most influential purely literary Chinese work dating from before China's imperial unification in 221BC. [37] Its literary quality, imagination and creativity, and linguistic prowess were unprecedented in the period of its creation. [37] Virtually every major Chinese writer or poet in history, from Sima Xiangru and Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, Ruan Ji and Tao Yuanming during the Six Dynasties, Li Bai during the Tang dynasty, to Su Shi and Lu You in the Song dynasty were "deeply imbued with the ideas and artistry of the Zhuangzi." [38] Early times [ edit ] The Zhuangzi interprets the universe as a thing that changes spontaneously without a conscious God or will driving it, and argues that humans can achieve ultimate happiness by living equally spontaneously. [32] It argues that because of humans' advanced cognitive abilities, they have a tendency to create artificial distinctions—such as good versus bad, large versus small, usefulness versus uselessness, and social systems like Confucianism—that remove themselves from the natural spontaneity of the universe. [33] To illustrate the mindlessness and spontaneity he felt should characterize human action, Zhuangzi most often uses the analogy of craftsmen or artisans. [30] As Burton Watson described, "the skilled woodcarver, the skilled butcher, the skilled swimmer does not ponder or ratiocinate on the course of action he should take; his skill has become so much a part of him that he merely acts instinctively and spontaneously and, without knowing why, achieves success." [30] The term "wandering" ( 遊; yóu) is used throughout the stories of the Zhuangzi to describe how an enlightened person "wanders through all of creation, enjoying its delights without ever becoming attached to any one part of it." [30]