1/4 Duke Ai of Lu said to Confucius, "In Wei there was an ugly man named Ai T'ai-t'o. But when men were around him, they thought only of him and couldn't break away, and when women saw him, they ran begging to their fathers and mothers, saying, ‘I'd rather be this gentleman's concubine than another man's wife!’—there were more than ten such cases and it hasn't stopped yet. No one ever heard him take the lead—he always just chimed in with other people.
4/4 He was vague about giving an answer, evasive, as though he hoped to be let off, and I was embarrassed, but in the end I turned the state over to him. Then, before I knew it, he left me and went away. I felt completely crushed, as though I'd suffered a loss and didn't have anyone left to enjoy my state with. What kind of man is he anyway?"
The cicada and the little dove laugh at this, saying, "When we make an effort and fly up, we can get as far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don't make it and just fall down on the ground. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!"
How do I know this is so? The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and dawn; the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn. They are the short-lived.
Thinking about #writing and #pleasure at the moment, partly because I'm rambling about with my #philosophy students through the #Zhuangzi (which is a total delight). So here's one from the archives.
The River God said, "But then what should I do? What should I not do? How shall I decide what to accept, what to reject, what to pursue, what to renounce?"
Ruo of the Northern Sea said, "Taking the point of view of the Course: what could be worthy, what could be worthless? The question points to their reciprocal overflowings, back and forth.
Not restricting your will to any of them, you limp the great stagger of the Course. What is greater, what is lesser? The question points to the bloomings of their witherings, the bounties put forth by their declines. Not unifying your conduct along the path of any of them, you go along uneven and varied with the Course."
"After this, Lieh Tzu concluded that he had never really begun to learn anything. He went home and for three years did not go out. He replaced his wife at the stove, fed the pigs as though he were feeding people, and showed no preferences in the things he did. He got rid of the carving and polishing and returned to plainness, letting his body stand alone like a clod. In the midst of entanglement he remained sealed, and in this oneness he ended his life."
"Can you really make the body like a withered tree and the mind like dead ashes? The man leaning on the armrest now is not the one who leaned on it before!"
I wish I had more time to write (said everyone in unison) if only so I could metabolize these thoughts and feelings instead of storing them as fatty deposits for some future day that may never come. It's not even because I think I have anything of value to say. I just often feel clogged up by these fragments and sluggish as a result. I suppose the other option is to fast from thoughts and feelings altogether...
"Make your will one! Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty—and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind."
Hu Tzu said, "I have already showed you all the outward forms, but I haven't yet showed you the substance—and do you really think you have mastered this Way (dao 道) of mine? There may be a flock of hens but, if there is no rooster, how can they lay fertile eggs? You take what you know of the Way (道) and wave it in the face of the world, expecting to be believed! This is the reason men can see right through you."
"I was listening to the words of the madman Jieyu. He talked big without getting at anything, going on and on without getting anywhere. I was shocked and rather scared by what he said, which seemed as limitless as the Milky Way--vast and excessive, with no regard for the way people really are." #Zhuangzi
3/3 So in all our travels we can never really know where we are going, in all our dwellings we can never really know what is maintaining us, in all our eating we can never really know what we are tasting. This is all the bright and vigorous energy of heaven and earth—how could it be obtained and possessed?"
Another striking similarity is between what I was writing about regarding the butterfly story in the Zhuangzi and this passage from "Beyond Nature and Culture" by anthropologist Philippe Descola:
1/ I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but whenever I read a new book I'm always thinking about ways it connects or relates to all the other books I've read.
Naturally, because I tend to reread a lot of the same things (like #Thoreau and #Zhuangzi) I tend to more easily find connections between new books and those more familiar ones.
When I first read #BraidingSweetgrass a few years ago I immediately felt many, many connections to both.
4/4 It took me a long time to finish it, and it is quite long, but I hope it captures my thought process, or the connection I see between these two texts and why it matters.
If you're looking for a 3000 word personal reflection on the #Zhuangzi and how it relates to my own struggle to make and keep close relationships while being a #caregiver to my disabled brother, then I have just the thing for you:
1/ Finished a long post while watching the sunset over the lake (see previous post).
It was challenging to write, and not just because of its personal and vulnerable nature.
I'm probably going to split this into two separate pieces for my Medium page, but I wanted to share the full version on my blog (since I guess that's what it's for). It probably should be two separate posts, but there is something about the juxtaposition between the two parts that is, I think, very apt.
3/3 So if you want a #LongRead about the #Zhuangzi and how it relates to me being a #Caregiver to my brother, and how that makes having meaningful friendships and other relationships impossible, then this one is for you.
I'm late to the game because I don't know what I'm doing, so a brief #introduction:
I take care of my disabled brother full-time and stress about it the rest of the time. When I have the capacity I like to read and think about #Zhuangzi, #Thoreau, #animism, and #indigenousknowledge like the work of Tyson Yunkaporta and VF Cordova. I also drink too much tea (#gongfucha), am a former classical and folk musician, and wish I could sit under more trees