The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death. So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death.Go here to read the introductory post to the chapters of the Book of Chuang Tzu.
You hide your boat in the ravine and your fish net in the swamp and tell yourself that they will be safe. But in the middle of the night a strong man shoulders them and carries them off, and in your stupidity you don't know why it happened. You think you do right to hide little things in big ones, and yet they get away from you. But if you were to hide the world in the world, so that nothing could get away, this would be the final reality of the constancy of things.
You have had the audacity to take on human form and you are delighted. But the human form has ten thousand changes that never come to an end. Your joys, then, must be uncountable. Therefore, the sage wanders in the realm where things cannot get away from him, and all are preserved. He delights in early death; he delights in old age; he delights in the beginning; he delights in the end. If he can serve as a model for men, how much more so that which the ten thousand things are tied to and all changes alike wait upon!
~ Burton Watson translation via Terebess Asia Online ~
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Chapter 6, Part 6 - Chuang Tzu
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"Therefore, the sage wanders in the realm where things cannot get away from him, and all are preserved."
ReplyDeleteThis seems to me to be about meditation.
I think I need to do some serious meditation today.
You have had the audacity to take on human form and you are delighted. But the human form has ten thousand changes that never come to an end. Your joys, then, must be uncountable.
ReplyDeleteI love the poetry in that.