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 happiness or calamity.
He responds to the influence acting on him,
and moves as he feels the pressure.
He rises to act only when he is obliged to do so.

He discards wisdom and the memories of the past;
he follows the lines of his Heaven-given nature;
and therefore he suffers no calamity from Heaven,
no involvement from things,
no blame from men,
and no reproof from the spirits of the dead.

His life seems to float along;
his death seems to be a resting.
He does not indulge any anxious doubts;
he does not lay plans beforehand.
His light is without display;
his good faith is without previous arrangement.
His sleep is untroubled by dreams;
his waking is followed by no sorrows.
His spirit is guileless and pure;
his soul is not subject to weariness.
Vacant and without self-assertion,
placid and indifferent,
he agrees with the virtue of Heaven.

–Zhuangzi, Ingrained Ideas, by Zhuang Zhou, trans. James Legge

According to Webster’s dictionary the first known use of juxtaposition was in 1654.  The word is a compound of Latin and old English.  The idea is placement that produces an noteworthy effect.

Zhuangzi describes the sage, a centered individual, living his/her life with poise, satisfied to be, to remain and grow and thrive, responsive within the possibilities afforded by “heaven.”  What is meant by “heaven” is the lynch pin of this relationship between a man (or a woman) and the dynamic mix of circumstances and of human others which surround us.  It is easier to define “heaven” by pointing to what it is not.

Heaven is not an “it,” an invisible place in the sky, where an ancient Zeus-like male-figure-God watches over (manipulates) you.  Places are not invisible.  A God imagined as male, old, spatially located, in a universe that is older than we are able to imagine, with more suns similar to ours than we can imagine (200 billion trillion is the estimate), is beyond belief.

The Taoist heaven is the synchronicity, the give and take dynamism of everything around us and in us.  Think of the molecules vibrating within the smooth black pebble that caught your eye while walking alongside Lake Michigan.  You picked the pebble up to admire at leisure.  Think of the swells gently moving toward the shoreline, manifesting the energy of the moon’s gravitational pull, and the push of the wind, dissipating among the shoreline pebbles.  You are all of that.

“That” is heaven.

Back to our term of interest:  juxtaposition.