Seeming To Soar, To Dive
It is morning and the sun “rises” in the east over the Fox River. Do I correctly understand and render these matters? Consider the possibility that “getting it correct” is to completely miss the point. Is there a correct? How could/would one know? And if you were convinced that your assessment was incorrect what would you do about that?
Would the fault lie in the understanding, — to say it clearly, in my confusion? Or would the fault lie in the concatenation of circumstances, — that is an anomaly in the relative position of the rotating earth, tilting on it’s autumnal axis, and the river, and the observer, etc.?
And we all have our individuality
which makes us what we are as compared together;
but how do we know that we determine in any case correctly
that individuality?
Moreover you dream that you are a bird,
and seem to be soaring to the sky;
or that you are a fish,
and seem to be diving in the deep.
But you do not know whether we that are now speaking are awake or in a dream.
It is not the meeting with what is pleasurable that produces the smile;
it is not the smile suddenly produced
that produces the arrangement (of the person).
When one rests in what has been arranged,
and puts away all thought of the transformation,
he is in unity with the mysterious Heaven.
–Zhuangzi, The Great and Most Honored Master trans. by James Legge
