If we were to follow the judgments of the predetermined mind,
who would be left alone and without a teacher?

Not only would it be so
with those who know the sequences (of knowledge and feeling)
and make their own selection among them,
but it would be so as well
with the stupid and unthinking.

For one who has not this determined mind,
to have his affirmations and negations
is like the case described in the saying,

   ‘He went to Yüeh today, and arrived at it yesterday.’

It would be making what was not a fact to be a fact.
But even the spirit like Yü could not have known how to do this,
and how should one like me be able to do it?

~*~

But speech is not like the blowing (of the wind);
the speaker has (a meaning in) his words.
If, however, what he says, be indeterminate (as from a mind not made up),
does he then really speak or not?
He thinks that his words are different
from the chirpings of fledglings;
but is there any distinction between them or not?

But how can the Tâo be so obscured,
that there should be ‘a True’ and ‘a False’ in it?
How can speech be so obscured
that there should be ‘the Right’ and ‘the Wrong’ about them?

Where shall the Tâo go to – that it will not be found?
Where shall speech be found that it will be inappropriate?
Tâo becomes obscured through the small comprehension (of the mind),
and speech comes to be obscure
through the vain gloriousness (of the speaker).

Zhuangzi, by Zhuang Zhou, The Adjustment of Controversies, trans. by James Legge

The phrase predetermined mind according to context refers to the conventional minded, a majority who assume the existence of a deity, a godhead providing a universal standard of right and wrong, good and evil. Zhuang Zhou writes if this were so, those reference points of reality would be provided to the well-spoken and to the stupid, without any difference.

To utter abject nonsense, immune to the rudiment of established fact, in effect uttering wildly inaccurate judgements, or put bluntly, lies strung together like beads on a string – is linguistically incoherent. To engage in community sustaining conversation, every participant by and large assumes “facts are facts.” As the occasion arises, no one, simply no one has the ability to rectify this farcicalness.

Zhuang Zhou writes this is not speech at all as there is absence of meaning. Simply making things up according to whim, does not meet the standard of what is meant by speaking. How different is this than the chirping of birds?

There’s no ‘true or false’ and the distinction between right action and wrong action is confused. Is it Ok to drag one’s neighbor out of his/her house because it is unclear whether their papers are “in order”?

Pin-headed minds are revealed by incoherent speech.

Enough said.