Zo of the Northern Sea replied, ‘From the standpoint of the Tao, what is noble? and what is mean? These expressions are but the different extremes of the average level. Do not keep pertinaciously to your own ideas, which put you in such opposition to the Tao. What are few? and what are many?…
The earl of the Ho said, ‘Well then, may I consider heaven and earth as (the ideal of) what is great, and the point of a hair as that of what is small?’ Zo of the Northern Sea replied, ‘No.’ The (different) capacities of things are illimitable; time never stops, (but is always moving…
They who lose themselves in their pursuit of things, and lose their nature in their study of what is vulgar, must be pronounced people who turn things upside down. -Zhuangzi, Correcting the Nature, by Zhuang Zhou, trans. James Legge With the GMC Sierra truck commercials, I feel a twinge of discomfort. Is that repulsion…
Saturday afternoon was spent in the yard mulching fallen leaves. Mulching is good work. The leaves are prepared for decay, a return to humus, bedding for future generations of trees. Does life have an absolute beginning, and a final end? Where is a line of separation between what is living, and the process of…
The life of the sage is like the action of Heaven; and his/her death is the transformation common to all things. In his/her stillness his/her virtue is the same as that of the Yin, and in movement his/her diffusiveness is like that of the Yang. He does not take the initiative in producing either…
Ingrained ideas and a high estimate of their own conduct; leaving the world, and pursuing uncommon ways; talking loftily and in resentful disparagement of others; – all this is simply symptomatic of arrogance… Discoursing of benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and good faith; being humble and frugal, self-forgetful and courteous; – all this is simply symptomatic…
The night was restless. It was as if I awakened every hour or so, unable to be sufficiently comfortable to drift off into sleep until morning. Awake at five AM ceasing attempts to shake the foreboding which had invested my mind since the early evening, I gave up the quest for sleep. I got…
If you winnow chaff, and the dust gets into your eyes, then the places of heaven and earth and of the four cardinal points are all changed to you. If mosquitoes or gadflies puncture your skin, it will keep you all the night from sleeping. But this painful iteration of benevolence and righteousness excites…
Those who think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues; those who seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame; those who cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid (of losing them)….
‘I performed first the music calculated to awe; and you were frightened as if by a ghostly visitation, I followed it with that calculated to weary; and in your weariness you would have withdrawn. I concluded with that calculated to perplex; and in your perplexity you felt your stupidity. But that…
