Zhuangzi The Essential Writings Quotes

How do I know that the dead don’t regret the way they used to cling to life?

Thus, the Sage uses various rights and wrongs to harmonize with others and yet remains at rest in the middle of Heaven the Potter’s Wheel.

The Consummate Person uses his mind like a mirror, rejecting nothing, welcoming nothing: responding but not storing. Thus he can handle all things (7:14) without harm.

Everyone knows how useful usefulness is, but no one seems to know how useful uselessness is.

If right were ultimately right, its differentiation from not-right would require no debate.

The Great Course is unproclaimed. Great demonstration uses no words. (2:34) Great Humanity is not humane. Great rectitude is not fastidious. Great courage is not invasive. For when the Course becomes explicit, it ceases to be the Course. When words demonstrate by debate, they fail to communicate. When Humanity is constantly sustained, it cannot reach its maturity.21 When rectitude is pure, it cannot extend itself to others. When courage is invasive, it cannot succeed.22 These five are originally round, but they are forced toward squareness.

Absorb yourself in the realities of the task at hand to the point of forgetting your own existence. Then you will have no leisure to delight in life (4:14) or abhor death. That would make this mission of yours quite doable!

A fish-trap is for catching fish; once you've caught the fish, you can forget about the trap. A rabbit-snare is for catching rabbits; once you've caught the rabbit, you can forget about the snare. Words are for catching ideas; once you've caught the idea, you can forget about the words. Where can I find a person who knows how to forget about words so that I can have a few words with them?

To try to govern the world by doubling the number of sages would merely double the profits of the great robbers. If you create pounds and ounces to measure them with, they’ll steal the pounds and ounces and use them to rob you further. If you make scales and balances to regulate them with, they’ll steal the scales and balances and use them to rob you more. If you create ideals of humankindness and responsible conduct to regulate them with, why, they’ll just steal humankindness and responsible conduct and use them to rob you all the more. How do I know this is so? He who steals a belt buckle is executed, but he who steals a state becomes a feudal lord.

with the answers.” The question Zhuangzi faces is indeed among the most fundamental human problems: How should I live my life? Which of the alternate courses should I take as my guide? How is it that I come to choose one course over another? Given that there are alternate ways to see things, why do I, and why should I, see things the way I do rather than another way and thus follow one path rather than another? Zhuangzi’s response to this problem, simply stated, is this: This question can never be answered in the terms in which it has been put, because our understanding consciousness can never know why it sees things one way rather than another, can never ultimately ground its own judgments, and is actually in no position to serve as a guide for living. To consciously weigh alternatives, apply your understanding to making a decision about what is best, and then deliberately follow the course you have decided on—this is the fundamental structure of all purposive activity and conscious knowledge, the basis of all ethics, all philosophy, all politics, all human endeavors at improvement, and this is precisely what Zhuangzi seems to consider ridiculous and impossible. Knowledge is unreliable; Will is unreliable; Tradition is unreliable; Intuition is unreliable; Logic is unreliable; Faith is unreliable. But what else is there?

But Tian Gen asked the same question again. The nameless man then said, “Let your mind roam in the flavorless, blend your vital energy with the boundless silence, follow the rightness of the way each thing already is without allowing yourself the least bias. Then the world will be in order.

It is rank, wealth, prominence, prestige, fame, and advantage that arouse the will. It is appearances, actions, sexual beauty, conceptual coherence, emotional energies, and intentions that entangle the mind. It is dislikes, desires, joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness that tie down Virtuosity. It is avoiding, approaching, taking, giving, understanding, and ability that block the Course. When these twenty-four items do not disrupt you, the mind is no longer pulled off center. Centered, it finds stillness. Still, it finds clarity. Once clear, it becomes empty, and once empty, it is able to “do nothing, and yet leave nothing undone.

If we follow whatever has so far taken shape, fully formed,7 in our minds, making that our teacher, who could ever be without a teacher? The mind (2:12) comes to be what it is by taking possession of whatever it selects out of the process of alternation—but does that mean it has to truly understand that process? The fool takes something up from it too. But to claim that there are (2:13) any such things as “right” and “wrong” before they come to be fully formed in someone’s mind in this way—that is like saying you left for Yue today and arrived there yesterday.8 This is to regard the nonexistent as existent. The existence of the nonexistent is beyond the understanding of even the divine sage-king Yu—so what possible sense could it make to someone like me?

What is this Three in the Morning? A monkey trainer was distributing chestnuts. He said, “I’ll give you three in the morning and four in the evening.” The monkeys were furious. “Well then,” he said, “I’ll give you four in the morning and three in the evening.” The monkeys were delighted. This change of description and arrangement caused no loss, but in one case it brought anger and in another delight. He just went by the rightness of their present “this.” Thus, the Sage uses various rights and wrongs to harmonize with others and yet remains at rest in the middle of Heaven the Potter’s Wheel.16 This is called (2:24) “Walking Two Roads.

Zhao Wen’s zither playing, Master Kuang’s baton waving, Huizi’s desk slumping—the understanding these three had of their arts flourished richly. This was what they flourished in, and thus they pursued these arts to the end of their days. They delighted in them, and observing that this delight of theirs was not shared, they wanted to make it obvious to others. So they tried to make others understand as obvious what was not obvious to them, and thus some ended their days debating about the obscurities of “hardness” and “whiteness,” and Zhao Wen’s son ended his days still grappling with his father’s zither strings. Can this be called success, being fully accomplished at something? In that case, even I am fully accomplished. Can this be called failure, lacking the full accomplishment of something? If so, neither I nor anything else can be considered fully accomplished.

Thus, the Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage’s only map. He makes no definition of what is right but instead entrusts it to the everyday function of each thing. This is what I call the Illumination of the Obvious.

But if we are all one, can there be any words? But since I have already declared that we are “one,” can there be no words? The one and the word are already two, the two and the original unnamed one are three.18 Going on like this, even a skilled chronicler could not keep up with it, not to mention a lesser man. So even moving from nonexistence to existence we already arrive at three—how much more when we move from existence to existence! Rather than moving from anywhere to anywhere, then, let us just go by the rightness (2:33) of whatever is before us as the present “this.

When Yan He was appointed tutor to the crown prince of Wei, son of Duke Ling, he went to consult with Qu Boyu. “Here is a man who is just naturally no good. If I find no way to contain him, he will endanger my state, but if I do try to contain him, he will endanger my life. His cleverness allows him to understand the crimes people commit, but not why they were driven to commit these crimes.10 What should I do?” Peng Boyu said, “Good question! Be careful and cautious and rectify yourself! Be compromising in appearance and harmonious in mind. But even these measures can present problems. Don’t let the external compromise get inside you, and don’t let your inner harmony show itself externally. If you let the external compromise get inside you, it will topple you, destroy you, collapse you, cripple you. If the harmony in your heart shows itself externally, it will lead to reputation and renown, until you are haunted and plagued by them. If he’s playing the baby, play baby with him. If he’s being lawless and unrestrained, be lawless and unrestrained with him. If his behavior is unbounded and shapeless, be unbounded and shapeless with him. You must master this skill to the point of flawlessness. Don’t you know the story of the praying mantis? It flailed its pincers around to stop an oncoming chariot wheel, not realizing the task was beyond its powers. This is how it is for those with ‘great talents.’ Be careful, be cautious! If you irritate him by flaunting your talents, you will be in more or less the same position. Don’t you know how the tiger trainer handles it? He doesn’t feed the beast live animals for fear of arousing its lust for killing. He doesn’t feed it uncut sides of meat for fear of arousing its lust for dismemberment. He carefully times out the feedings and comprehends the creature’s propensity for rage. The tiger is a different species from man but can be tamed through affection for its feeder. The ones it kills are the ones who cross it. However, a man who loves horses even to the point of gathering their shit and piss in jeweled boxes may still get his skull or chest kicked in if he smacks away a mosquito on the unbridled animal at the wrong time. Despite the best intentions, (4:17) his solicitousness backfires on him. Can you afford to be careless?

Zhuangzi said, “Affirming some things as right and negating others as wrong are what I call the characteristic inclinations. What I call being free of them means not allowing likes and dislikes to damage you internally, instead making it your constant practice to follow along with the way each thing is of itself, going by (5:23) whatever it affirms as right, without trying to add anything to the process of life.

Everyone knows how useful usefulness is, but no one (4:20) seems to know how useful uselessness is.