ZhuangziTaoismScholarly ReconstructionClassical ChineseShareZhuangzi 28Giles - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableGilesLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Zhuangzi 1Zhuangzi 2Zhuangzi 3Zhuangzi 4Zhuangzi 5Zhuangzi 6Zhuangzi 7Zhuangzi 8Zhuangzi 9Zhuangzi 10Zhuangzi 11Zhuangzi 12Zhuangzi 13Zhuangzi 14Zhuangzi 15Zhuangzi 16Zhuangzi 17Zhuangzi 18Zhuangzi 19Zhuangzi 20Zhuangzi 21Zhuangzi 22Zhuangzi 23Zhuangzi 24Zhuangzi 25Zhuangzi 26Zhuangzi 27Zhuangzi 28Zhuangzi 29Zhuangzi 30Zhuangzi 31Zhuangzi 32Zhuangzi 33Zhuangzi 34Zhuangzi 35Zhuangzi 36Zhuangzi 37Zhuangzi 38Zhuangzi 39Zhuangzi 40›Tao.Zhuangzi 28ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1"But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectic skill that this may be made clear. The true Sage will have none of these. It is in addition without gain, in diminution without loss, that the true Sage finds salvation. 2"Unfathomable as the sea, wondrously ending only to begin again, informing all creation without being exhausted, the TAO of the perfect man is spontaneous in its operation. That all creation can be informed by it without exhaustion, is its TAO. 3"In the Middle Kingdom there are men who recognise neither positive nor negative. They abide between heaven and earth. They act their part as mortals, and then return to the Cause. 4Of the Cause, sc. God, which is commensurate with infinity. 5life is but a concentration of the vital fluid, whose longest and shortest terms of existence vary by an inappreciable space,---hardly enough for the classification of Yao and Chieh. 6"Tree-fruits and plant-fruits exhibit order in their varieties; and the relationships of man, though more difficult to be dealt with, may still be reduced to order. 7These have been classified as follows:-- 81. Sovereign and Subject. 2. Husband " Wife. 3. Father " Son. 4. Elder Brother " Younger Brother. 5. Friend " Friend. 9The true Sage who meets with these, does not violate them. Neither does he continue to hold fast by them. 10He adapts himself to the exigencies of his environment. 11Adaptation by arrangement is TÊ. Spontaneous adaptation is TAO, by which sovereigns flourish and princes succeed. 12"Man passes through this sublunary life as a white horse passes a crack. Here one moment, gone the next. Neither are there any not equally subject to the ingress and egress of mortality. One modification brings life; then another, and it is death. Living creatures cry out; human beings sorrow. The bow-sheath is slipped off; the clothes-bag is dropped; and in the confusion the soul wings its flight, and the body follows, on the great journey home! 13"The reality of the formless, the unreality of that which has form,--this is known to all. Those who are on the road to attainment care not for these things, but the people at large discuss them. Attainment implies non-discussion: discussion implies non-attainment. Manifested, TAO has no objective value; hence silence is better than argument. It cannot be translated into speech; better then say nothing at all. This is called the great attainment." 14Tung Kuo Tzŭ asked Chuang Tzŭ, saying, "What you call TAO,--where is it?" 15"There is nowhere," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "where it is not." 16"Tell me one place at any rate where it is," said Tung Kuo Tzŭ. 17"It is in the ant," replied Chuang Tzŭ. 18"Why go so low down?" asked Tung Kuo Tzŭ. 19"It is in a tare," said Chuang Tzŭ. 20"Still lower," objected Tung Kuo Tzŭ. 21"It is in a potsherd," said Chuang Tzŭ. 22"It is in ordure," said Chuang Tzŭ. And Tung Kuo Tzŭ made no reply. 23"Sir," continued Chuang Tzŭ, "your question does not touch the essential. When Huo, inspector of markets, asked the managing director about the fatness of pigs, the test was always made in parts least likely to be fat. Do not therefore insist in any particular direction; for there is nothing which escapes. Such is perfect TAO; and such also is ideal speech. Whole, entire, all, are three words which sound differently but mean the same. Their purport is ONE. 24"Try to reach with me the palace of Nowhere, and there, amidst the identity of all things, carry your discussions into the infinite. Try to practise with me inaction, wherein you may rest motionless, without care, and be happy. For thus my mind becomes an abstraction. It wanders not, and yet is not conscious of being at rest. It goes and comes and is not conscious of stoppages. Backwards and forwards without being conscious of any goal. Up and down the realms of Infinity, wherein even the greatest intellect would fail to find an end. 25"That which makes things the things they are, is not limited to such things. The limits of things are their own limits in so far as they are things. The limits of the limitless, the limitlessness of the limited,--these are called fulness and emptiness, renovation and decay. TAO causes fulness and emptiness, but it is not either. It causes renovation and decay, but it is not either. It causes beginning and end, but it is not either. It causes accumulation and dispersion, but it is not either." 26O Ho Kan was studying with Shên Nung under Lao Lung Chi. 27No record of the first and last. Shên Nung was a legendary emperor who invented agriculture. See p. 196. 28Shên Nung used to remain shut up, with his head on the table, absorbed in day-dreams. On one occasion, O Ho Kan knocked at the door, and entering said, "Lao Lung is dead!" 29Thereupon Shên Nung, leaning on his staff, arose; and flinging down his staff with a bang, smiled and said, "O my Master, thou knewest me to be worthless and self-sufficient, and thou didst leave me and die. Now I, having no scope for my vain talk, I too will die." 30heard this, he said, "Those who exemplify TAO are sought after by all the best men in the empire. Now if one who has not attained to more TAO than the ten-thousandth part of the tip of an autumn spikelet, is still wise enough to withhold vain talk and die,--how much more those who exemplify TAO? To the eye it is formless, and to the ear it is noiseless. Those who discuss it, speak of it as 'the obscure.' But the mere fact of discussing TAO makes it not TAO." 31At this the Empyrean asked Without-end, saying, "Do you know TAO?" 32"I do not," replied Without-end; whereupon the Empyrean proceeded to ask Inaction. 33"Is there any method," asked the Empyrean, "by which you know TAO?" 34"I know," answered Inaction, "that TAO may honour and dishonour, bind and loose. That is the method by which I know TAO." 35The Empyrean repeated these words to No-beginning, and asked him which was right, the ignorance of Without-end or the knowledge of Inaction. 36"Not to know," replied No-beginning, "is profound. To know is shallow. Not to know is internal. To know is external." 37Here the Empyrean broke in with a sigh, "Then ignorance is knowledge, and knowledge ignorance! But pray whose knowledge is the knowledge of not knowing?" 38"TAO," said No-beginning, "cannot be heard. Heard, it is not TAO. It cannot be seen. Seen, it is not TAO. It cannot be spoken. Spoken, it is not TAO. That which imparts form to forms is itself formless; therefore TAO cannot have a name." 39No-beginning continued, "He who replies to one asking about TAO, does not know TAO. Although one may hear about TAO, he does not really hear about TAO. There is no such thing as asking about TAO. There is no such thing as answering such questions. To ask a question which cannot be asked is vain. To answer a question which cannot be answered is unreal. And one who thus meets the vain with the unreal is one who has no physical perception of the universe, and no mental perception of the origin of existence,--unfit alike to roam over the K'un-lun peak or to soar into the Supreme Void." 40Light asked Nothing, saying, "Do you, Sir, exist, or do you not exist?" 41But getting no answer to his question, Light set to work to watch for the appearance of Nothing. 42Hidden, vacuous,--all day long he looked but could not see it, listened but could not hear it, grasped at but could not seize it. 43"Bravo!" cried Light. "Who can equal this? I can get to be nothing, 44but I cannot get as far as the absence of nothing. Assuming that Nothing has an objective existence, how can it reach this next stage?" 45The man who forged swords for the Minister of War was eighty years of age. Yet he never made the slightest slip in his work. 46The Minister of War said to him, "Is it your skill, Sir, or have you any method?" 47Any TAO?--in its earlier sense of way of doing things. 48"It is concentration," replied the man. "When twenty years old, I took to forging swords. I cared for nothing else. If a thing was not a sword, I did not notice it. I availed myself of whatever energy I did not use in other directions in order to secure greater efficiency in the direction required. Still more of that which is never without use;-- ‹Previous chapterZhuangzi 27Next chapterZhuangzi 29›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg