ZhuangziTaoismScholarly ReconstructionClassical ChineseShareZhuangzi 4Giles - 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 4ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1how much more then will ordinary people fail? 2"Hence, if from nothing you can proceed to something, and subsequently reach three, it follows that it would be still more easy if you were to start from something. To avoid such progression, you must put yourself into subjective relation with the external. 3"Before conditions existed, TAO was. Before definitions existed, Speech was. Subjectively, we are conscious of certain delimitations which are,-- 4Right and Left Relationship and Obligation Division and Discrimination Emulation and Contention 5These are called the Eight Predicables. 6Not, of course, in the strict logical sense. 7For the true Sage, beyond the limits of an external world, they exist, but are not recognised. By the true Sage, within the limits of an external world, they are recognised, but are not assigned. And so, with regard to the wisdom of the ancients, as embodied in the canon of Spring and Autumn, 8Confucius' history of his native State. Now one of the canonical books of China. 9the true Sage assigns, but does not justify by argument. And thus, classifying he does not classify; arguing, he does not argue." 10"The true Sage," answered Tzŭ Ch'i, "keeps his knowledge within him, while men in general set forth theirs in argument, in order to convince each other. And therefore it is said that in argument he does not manifest himself. 11Others try to establish their own subjective view. The true Sage remains passive, aiming only at the annihilation of contraries. 12"Perfect TAO does not declare itself. Nor does perfect argument express itself in words. Nor does perfect charity show itself in act. Nor is perfect honesty absolutely incorruptible. Nor is perfect courage absolutely unyielding. 13"For the TAO which shines forth is not TAO. Speech which argues falls short of its aim. Charity which has fixed points loses its scope. Honesty which is absolute is wanting in credit. Courage which is absolute misses its object. These five are, as it were, round, with a strong bias towards squareness. Therefore that knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge. 14"Who knows the argument which can be argued without words?--the TAO which does not declare itself as TAO? He who knows this may be said to be of GOD. To be able to pour in without making full, and pour out without making empty, in ignorance of the power by which such results are accomplished,--this is accounted Light." 15Of old, the Emperor Yao said to Shun, "I would smite the Tsungs, and the Kueis, and the Hsü-aos. Ever since I have been on the throne I have had this desire. What do you think?" 16"These three States," replied Shun, "are paltry out-of-the-way places. Why can you not shake off this desire? Once upon a time, ten suns came out together, and all things were illuminated thereby. How much more then should virtue excel suns?" 17Illustrating the use of "light." Instead of active force, substitute the passive but irresistible influence of virtue complete. The sun caused the traveller to lay aside his cloak when the north wind succeeded only in making him draw it tighter around him. 18A disciple and tutor of remote antiquity. Said to have been two of the four Sages on the Miao-ku-shê mountain mentioned in ch. i. 19saying, "Do you know for certain that all things are subjectively the same?" 20"How can I know?" answered Wang I. "Do you know what you do not know?" 21"How can I know?" replied Yeh Ch'üeh. "But can then nothing be known?" 22"How can I know?" said Wang I. "Nevertheless, I will try to tell you. How can it be known that what I call knowing is not really not knowing, and that what I call not knowing is not really knowing? Now I would ask you this. If a man sleeps in a damp place, he gets lumbago and dies. But how about an eel? And living up in a tree is precarious and trying to the nerves;--but how about monkeys? Of the man, the eel, and the monkey, whose habitat is the right one, absolutely? Human beings feed on flesh, deer on grass, centipedes on snakes, owls and crows on mice. Of these four, whose is the right taste, absolutely? Monkey mates with monkey, the buck with the doe; eels consort with fishes, while men admire Mao Ch'iang and Li Chi, 23Beauties of the fifth and seventh centuries B.C., respectively. The commentators do not seem to have noted the very obvious anachronism here involved. 24at the sight of whom fishes plunge deep down in the water, birds soar high in the air, and deer hurry away. 25For shame at their own inferiority. 26Yet who shall say which is the correct standard of beauty? In my opinion, the standard of human virtue, and of positive and negative, is so obscured that it is impossible to actually know it as such." 27"If you then," asked Yeh Ch'üeh, "do not know what is bad for you, is the Perfect Man equally without this knowledge?" 28"The Perfect Man," answered Wang I, "is a spiritual being. Were the ocean itself scorched up, he would not feel hot. Were the Milky Way frozen hard, he would not feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven with thunder, and the great deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not tremble. In such case, he would mount upon the clouds of heaven, and driving the sun and the moon before him, would pass beyond the limits of this external world, where death and life have no more victory over man;--how much less what is bad for him?" 29as follows:--"I heard Confucius say, 'The true sage pays no heed to mundane affairs. He neither seeks gain nor avoids injury. He asks nothing at the hands of man. He adheres, without questioning, to TAO. Without speaking, he can speak; and he can speak and yet say nothing. And so he roams beyond the limits of this dusty world. These,' added Confucius, 'are wild words.' 30Han Fei Tzŭ tells us that Lao Tzŭ, whose doctrines Confucius seems to be here deriding, said exactly the opposite of this; viz: "The true Sage is beforehand in his attention to mundane affairs," i.e. "takes time by the forelock." Neither utterance, however, appears in the Tao-Tê-Ching. See The Remains of Lao Tzŭ, p. 44. 31Now to me they are the skilful embodiment of TAO. What, Sir, is your opinion?" 32"Points upon which the Yellow Emperor doubted," replied Chang Wu Tzŭ, "how should Confucius know? 33Lao Tzŭ and the Yellow Emperor have always been mixed up in the heads of Taoist writers, albeit separated by a chasm of some two thousand years. Confucius is here evidently dealing with the actual doctrines of Lao Tzŭ. 34You are going too fast. You see your egg, and expect to hear it crow. You look at your cross-bow, and expect to have broiled duck before you. I will say a few words to you at random, and do you listen at random. 35"How does the Sage seat himself by the sun and moon, and hold the universe in his grasp? He blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the confusion of this and that. Rank and precedence, which the vulgar prize, the Sage stolidly ignores. The revolutions of ten thousand years leave his Unity unscathed. The universe itself may pass away, but he will flourish still. 36"How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is not as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home? 37"The lady Li Chi was the daughter of Ai Fêng. 38When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life? 39"Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams,--I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a sage may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by. 40"Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right and wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth. 41"Who shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one who either differs from, or agrees with, both of us, he will be equally unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot decide, must we not depend upon Another? 42Upon God, in whose infinity all contraries blend indistinguishably into ONE. 43Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in the obliterating unity of God. There is perfect adaptation to whatever may eventuate; and so we complete our allotted span. 44"But what is it to be embraced in the obliterating unity of God? It is this. With reference to positive and negative, to that which is so and that which is not so,--if the positive is really positive, it must necessarily be different from its negative: there is no room for argument. And if that which is so really is so, it must necessarily be different from that which is not so: there is no room for argument. 45"Take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong. But passing into the realm of the Infinite, take your final rest therein." 46Our refuge is in God alone, the Infinite Absolute. Contraries cannot but exist, but they should exist independently of each other without antagonism. Such a condition is found only in the all-embracing unity of God, wherein all distinctions of positive and negative, of right and wrong, of this and of that, are obliterated and merged in ONE. 47Herbert Spencer says, "The antithesis of subject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness lasts, renders impossible all knowledge of the Ultimate Reality in which subject and object are united." Principles of Psychology, i. p. 272. 48The Penumbra said to the Umbra, "At one moment you move: at another you are at rest. At one moment you sit down: at another you get up. Why this instability of purpose?" "I depend," replied the Umbra, "upon something which causes me to do as I do; and that something depends in turn upon something else which causes it to do as it does. My dependence is like that of a snake's scales or of a cicada's wings. 49Which do not move of their own accord. 50How can I tell why I do one thing, or why I do not do another?" 51Showing how two or more may be the phenomena of one. 52Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzŭ, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called Metempsychosis. 53Showing how one may appear to be either of two. ‹Previous chapterZhuangzi 3Next chapterZhuangzi 5›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