other · wisdom

Zhuangzi — The Complete Works

c. 350–250 BCE · Warring States Period · China

Chapter 1 — Free and Easy Wandering

1In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, the name of which is the Kun —
2I do not know how many thousand li it measures.
3It changes and becomes a bird whose name is the Peng.
4The back of the Peng is, I do not know how many thousand li in extent.
5When it is moved, it flies, its wings are like clouds all round the sky.
6When the sea is being moved to migrate to the Southern Ocean,
7It flaps along the water for three thousand li.
8Then it ascends on a whirlwind ninety thousand li,
9And it rests only after six months of flight.
10The mushroom of a morning knows not the alternation of day and night.
11The chrysalis knows not the alternation of spring and autumn.
12Their short years are not long years.
13But the Peng flies for six months — and that is one of its journeys.

Chapter 2 — The Adjustment of Controversies

14There is Tao, and there are its distinctions:
15It is divisible but cannot be divided;
16It can be accumulated but cannot be treated as an accumulation.
17The Tao cannot be heard; heard, it is not the Tao.
18The Tao cannot be seen; seen, it is not the Tao.
19The Tao cannot be expressed in words; expressed in words, it is not the Tao.
20Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering around,
21Happy with itself, doing as it pleased — unaware of being Zhuangzi.
22Then he woke up, suddenly he was Zhuangzi again.
23But then he didn't know: was he Zhuangzi who had dreamed of being a butterfly,
24Or a butterfly who was now dreaming of being Zhuangzi?
25Between Zhuangzi and the butterfly there must be some barrier.
26This is called the Transformation of Things.

Chapter 3 — Nourishing the Lord of Life

27Prince Hui's cook was cutting up an ox.
28To every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder,
29Every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee —
30Zip! Zoup! He slithered the knife along with a zing,
31And all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Forest Grove.
32"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed!"
33"What I care about," the cook replied, "is the Tao,
34Which goes beyond mere skill. When I first began cutting up oxen
35I could see nothing but the whole ox. After three years I could see no more whole animals.
36And now I work with my mind and not with my eye.
37My mind works along without the control of the senses.
38Falling back upon eternal principles, I glide through such great joints or cavities as there may be,
39According to the natural constitution of the animal."

Chapter 17 — The Floods of Autumn

40Once upon a time, Zhuangzi was fishing in the Pu river.
41The King of Chu sent two high officials to him with a message:
42"Our prince desires to burden you with the administration of his realm."
43Zhuangzi held on to the fishing rod and, without turning his head, said:
44"I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred tortoise that has been dead for three thousand years.
45The king keeps it in his ancestral temple, wrapped in cloth,
46Cherished in a box.
47Now would this tortoise rather be dead, to be thus honoured?
48Or would it rather be alive, wagging its tail in the mud?"
49The two officials said: "It would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud."
50"Begone!" said Zhuangzi. "I too will wag my tail in the mud."

Chapter 18 — Perfect Happiness: Zhuangzi Sings at His Wife's Grave

51When Zhuangzi's wife died, Huizi went to condole.
52He found the widower sitting on the ground, singing, with his legs spread out at a right angle,
53And beating time on a bowl.
54"To live with your wife," exclaimed Huizi,
55"And see your eldest son grow up to be a man,
56And then not to shed a tear over her corpse —
57This would be bad enough. But to drum on a bowl and sing — surely this is too much!"
58Zhuangzi replied: "You misjudge me. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else?
59But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born.
60Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body.
61Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit.
62In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery
63A change took place and she had a spirit.
64Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born.
65Now she is dead: a passage, transformation, from one condition to another.
66She now lies sleeping in the Great Inner Room.
67To break in upon her rest with the noise of lamentation
68Would show that I know nothing of nature's laws.
69That is why I do not weep."

notes

Zhuangzi (4th–3rd century BCE) is the second foundational text of Taoism after the Tao Te Ching, and many scholars consider it the more intellectually extraordinary of the two. Attributed to the philosopher Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou), though the 33-chapter text as it survives was likely compiled by his followers over several generations. Where the Tao Te Ching is brief and aphoristic, Zhuangzi is rich with stories, parables, dialogues, and flights of imagination. Its central concerns: the relativity of all perspectives (there is no absolute vantage point outside the Tao from which to judge things); the transformation of all things into one another (the butterfly dream); the superiority of natural spontaneity over deliberate effort (Prince Hui's cook); the foolishness of seeking fame, office, or immortality in conventional terms. Zhuangzi's humour is distinctive — whimsical, playful, subversive. He mocks Confucius, laughs at death, and finds the Tao in the most unlikely places: a lame tree, a gourd too big to use, a skeleton on a journey. Translation after James Legge, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 39 (1891). Public domain.

currently held: Manuscript tradition

TransformationMortalityPhilosophyTaoist

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