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Is there a way to be perfectly happy in this world or not? Is there a way to live longer or not? If there is, what can you do and what can you depend on to accomplish those things? What should you avoid and what should you accept? What should you move towards and what should you stay away from? What should you enjoy and what should you hate? The things admired in this world are having wealth, being moral, living a long life and being famous. What brings enjoyment are having a comfortable place to live, eating flavorful foods, wearing beautiful clothes, looking at pretty colors, and hearing delightful music. What's looked down on are being poor, being vulgar, dying young, and those who are filled with hate. What's disliked are not being physically healthy, not having flavorful food to stimulate the taste buds, not having fancy clothes to wear, not being able to see bright colors, and not being able to listen to delightful music. If someone doesn't acquire those things, they become depressed and anxiety-ridden. Those are stupid ways to treat the body! The wealthy cause suffering to their bodies and make themselves sick because they try to accumulate more and more riches, but they never seem to get enough. That's treating the body as being superficial. People who want to be moral spend all their time day and night wondering if others see them as being kind or not. That's being negligent towards the body. If a person spends their whole life worrying about when they're going to die, then their lives would simply revolve around worrying and they'd just be extending their misery. That's taking yourself even farther away from your body. People of high morals could be lined up so the rest of the world could observe how good they were, but that wouldn't be enough to keep them alive. Can we really determine whether what we think is good is really goodness or really not goodness? Even if we decide that someone is good, that's still not enough to keep them alive. If we decide that someone isn't good, that might be enough to keep other people alive. Therefore it's been said: "Faithfully listen to admonishments. Squat down and obey. DO NOT disagree." When Zi Xu (an adviser to the kings of the state of Wu who was forced to commit suicide) disagreed he suffered great injury to his body. If he hadn't disagreed, then he wouldn't have ended up becoming so famous. Can anything really be considered to be good or not? As for when ordinary people express happiness, can we really determine if their happiness is coming naturally from within them or if it's a release from unhappiness? When I observe the common people having fun, they socialize with each other in groups, rushing on and chattering incessantly as though that's the only thing they can do. Even though they all say they're happy, I'm not sure if they're happy, but I'm also not sure if they're unhappy. Maybe they're just appearing to be happy, but they're really not? Personally, I find more happiness in not being involved in all that activity, yet ordinary people would find what I do to be very uncomfortable. Therefore it's been said: "In perfect happiness the sense of happiness vanishes. In perfect honorability the sense of honor vanishes." In this world, no one can know what results might occur from acting in ways that are considered to be either right or wrong. Even so, if no actions are taken, right and wrong become settled of themselves. To be perfectly happy throughout your entire life - only by taking no actions would it keep multiplying and accumulating. Please try to get the gist of these words. Without taking any actions the heavens are clear, and without taking any actions the earth is stable. Since neither of them do anything, they conform to each other and all living things transform naturally. What wasn't there before is suddenly there, and there's no sense where it came from! What is there suddenly vanishes, and it doesn't even leave an image behind! All living things become involved in all sorts of things, and they go along with what happens and keep developing without even being aware they're doing it. Therefore it's been said: "Heaven and earth don't do anything, yet nothing is left undone." Among people, who would be able to achieve this type of nonaction? When Zhuangzi's wife died, Hui Zi went to mourn with him, but found Zhuangzi sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him, banging on a drum and singing. Hui Zi said: "You lived with this woman, raised your children with her and got old together. That you don't cry about someone dying is one thing, but to be banging on a drum and singing shows complete lack of affection for her!" Zhuangzi said: "Not at all. When she first died, how couldn't I react to it! I thought back to the time before she was born. Not only before she was born, but to the time before she had any shape whatsoever. Not only before she had any shape, but to the time before she had any spiritual essence. So many different pieces blended together between the time when she was nothing at all and the time when she came into existence. As they evolved, so did her spiritual essence. As her spiritual essence evolved, her shape arose. As her shape evolved, she was born, and now the evolution has resulted in her death. Just like there are spring and autumn, summer and winter, the four seasons naturally progress from each other. For the time being she is lying down and appears to be sleeping in a huge room, and I started out rushing around trying to follow her while crying my eyes out. Then I realized I was simply trying to obstruct destiny, so I stopped." Zhi Li Shu and Hua Jie Shu were observing the hills of the Earl of Darkness in the vast empty area of the Kun Lun mountains where the Yellow Emperor (Huang Di) used to come and rest. Suddenly something that looked like a willow tree started growing out of his (Hua Jie Shu's) left elbow. When he noticed it he became startled and jumped up in fright as though he wasn't at all pleased with the situation. Zhi Li Shu asked: "Are you upset about this?" Hua Jie Shu said: "Not any more. Why should it upset me? Life is something we can make use of for a certain period of time. What we use temporarily in this life from the time we were born is the dirt and dust of the world. Death and birth progress like day and night. A while ago you and I were observing manifestations of transformations around us, and now I've had my own transformation. Why would that be something to be upset about!" On his travels through the state of Chu, Zhuangzi noticed a hollow skull. Even though it was old and covered with dirt, he could still make out its shape. Zhuangzi poked it with his riding crop and then asked it: "My friend, was it because you lost your principles and were corrupt in your life that you ended up this way? Or was it because you had no loyalty to the affairs of your country and your head was chopped off that you ended up this way? Or was it because your behavior was so horrendous you brought shame to your parents and wife that you ended up this way? Or did you end up this way simply because you found yourself cold and hungry out here in the wilderness? Or did you just die a natural death when your time was up?" When he was finished speaking, he went to sleep using the skull as a pillow. In the middle of the night the skull came to him in a dream and said: "It's obvious from what you said that you're an eloquent and educated speaker. Everything you said shows the ways people exhaust themselves while they're alive. After you're dead, there's no need for all that. Do you want me to tell you about what it's like to be dead?" Zhuangzi said: "Yes." The skull said: "In death there's no ruler above you nor a servant below. Also, you're not affected by the four seasons. You can be as spontaneous as the heavens and the earth, and simply flow along naturally. Even the happiness of the highest king couldn't be any better than this." In disbelief, Zhuangzi said: "If I could control destiny and bring you back to life again in your previous body with bones, flesh and skin, and you could return to your parents, wife, friends and neighbors, would you like that?" The skull gave an angry glare and said: "Why in the world would I want to give up happiness comparable to the highest king and return to the toils of human life?" When Yan Yuan (Yan Hui, Confucius' favorite pupil) went on a journey east to the state of Qi, Kong Zi (Confucius) got a very worried expression on his face. Zi Gong (one of Confucius' disciples) moved to the foot of his mat and asked: "Your humble disciple wishes to ask why you look so worried about Hui going east to Qi?" Kong Zi said: "You asked a good question! In the past Guan Zi said something I think is really good: 'If a pocket is small it can't be used to store large things. If a well rope is short, it can't be used to draw up deep water.' Someone like that realizes that a person's achievements depend mostly on their fate, and a person's suitability for certain tasks depends on their physical abilities. Those are things that can't be arbitrarily increased or decreased. I'm afraid that Hui will speak to the marquis of Qi about the Way of Yao, Shun and the Yellow Emperor, then go on to stress the importance of the words of Sui Ren and Shen Nong. That guy (the marquis) will search within himself for those qualities but won't be able to find them there. When he can't find them, his mind will get muddled. When a person's mind gets muddled, they end up killing someone. "Haven't you heard this story before? A long time ago a sea crow landed in in the outskirts of the state of Lu. The marquis captured it and brought it back to the palace where he provided a feast for it at his ancestral temple. He had the music of the Nine Shao (the music created by Emperor Shun of the Yin dynasty, considered to be the most exquisite music of the times) played for its entertainment, and provided the meats usually reserved for the Tai Lao festival (a yearly festival held in the spring requiring the sacrifice of a cow, lamb and pig) as an imperial meal. All that fuss only made the bird dizzy and it looked worried and sad. It didn't dare to eat one shred of meat, nor would it drink from a cup. In three days it died. He used what he himself found nourishing to nourish the bird, not considering what a bird would really be nourished by. What a bird finds most nourishing is to stay on its perch deep in the forest, travel between hills and mounds, float in the rivers and lakes eating a variety of fish, and fly in formation with other birds until they stop and wander around looking for a place to make their nest. The one thing that bird couldn't stand was having to listen to the voices of human beings. What was the point of subjecting it to all that noise and clatter? If the music of the 'Xian Chi' (Salty Pond) or the 'Nine Shao' are played outside around Dong Ting Lake, when birds hear it they fly away, when animals hear it they take off, when fish hear it they swim deeper into the pond, but when cultured people hear it they gather closely in a group and pay attention. Fish will live if they reside in water. People will die if they reside in water. They are decidedly different from one another, so their likes and dislikes are different. Therefore, the sages of old didn't expect everyone to have the same abilities, nor for what they each did in life to be similar. If things don't try to become anything other than what they really are, and righteousness goes along with what's already been set up, then you could make an analogy of that to a twig branching out naturally and grasping good fortune." While taking a walk, Lie Zi stopped to eat something by the side of the road. Noticing a hundred-year old skull lying there, he pulled away some of the weeds around it, pointed at it and said: "Only you and I know that you're not really dead, nor are you really alive. Due to circumstances, you're taking a rest! Due to circumstances, I'm energetic!" Where do all the various species come from? What started growing in the water became amoeba. What grew from that on the borders of the land became frog moss. As the frog moss grew to the top of the hills, it became snakegrass. As the snakegrass got densely compacted, it became the crow's foot plants. The roots of the crow's foot plants became grubs who fed on its leaves and turned into bearded butterflies. The central body of the bearded butterflies transformed and became a variety of insects that lived beneath the warm earth. As they evolved, their skin was shed from their bodies and became what is known as flying insects. After a thousand days the flying insects became birds which were said to look like hollow discarded bones. The foam that emerged from the hollow discarded bones turned into a fine mist that filled the air. The fine mist that filled the air turned into a type of acrid food, and provided nourishment for the birth of other crawling creatures. As the stronger of these crawling creatures spread out, they gave birth to the nine chief species of four legged creatures. As these creatures stomped over the fields, they left behind a type of fertilizer from which sprouted the sheep plant, which can be likened to bamboo without its stalks. After a long time bamboo grew in vast green fields. The vast green fields provided the type of grain that spread over large areas and nourished horses. After there were horses, human beings came into existence. People eventually return to reenter the wellspring of all life. All living creatures began from that wellspring, and they all enter back into it. | Zhuangzi Translation | Glossary/Index A to N | Glossary/Index P to Z | ZZ Links | ZZ Books | | Return Home | Laozi's Dao De Jing | Your Dao De Jing | Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) | Links | Meditation | Dao (Tao) is Open Forum | Book List | Other Stuff | |
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