Thursday, April 21, 2011

Chapter 19, Part 9A - Chuang Tzu

Confucius was seeing the sights at Lu-liang, where the water falls from a height of thirty fathoms and races and boils along for forty li, so swift that no fish or other water creature can swim in it. He saw a man dive into the water and, supposing that the man was in some kind of trouble and intended to end his life, he ordered his disciples to line up on the bank and pull the man out. But after the man had gone a couple of hundred paces, he came out of the water and began strolling along the base of the embankment, his hair streaming down, singing a song.

Confucius ran after him and said, "At first I thought you were a ghost, but now I see you're a man. May I ask if you have some special way of staying afloat in the water?"
~ Burton Watson translation via Terebess Asia Online ~
Go here to read the introductory post to the chapters of the Book of Chuang Tzu.

2 comments:

  1. Rambling Taoist,


    My name is Barbara O’Brien and I am a political blogger. Just had a question about your blog and couldn’t find an email—please get back to me as soon as you can (barbaraobrien(at)maacenter.org)

    Thanks,
    Barbara

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barbara,
    You didn't look very hard! All you have to do is click on my name at the top of the left column to find my email address.

    I performed a quick search for maacenter.org. It came back with the Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center, a site "produced and sponsored by the law firm of James F. Early, LLC (James F. Early, Esq.)."

    What sort of "political blogging" do you do?

    ReplyDelete

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