Chapter 21, Part 3B - Chuang Tzu

"Ah," said. Confucius, "we had best look into this! There is no grief greater than the death of the mind - beside it, the death of the body is a minor matter. The sun rises out of the east, sets at the end of the west, and each one of the ten thousand things moves side by side with it. Creatures that have eyes and feet must wait for it before their success is complete. Its rising means they may go on living, its setting means they perish. For all the ten thousand things it is thus.

"They must wait for something before they can die, wait for something before they can live. Having once received this fixed bodily form, I will hold on to it, unchanging, in this way waiting for the end. I move after the model of other things, day and night without break, but I do not know what the end will be. Mild, genial, my bodily form takes shape. I understand my fate but I cannot fathom what has gone before it. This is the way I proceed, day after day.

"I have gone through life linked arm in arm with you, yet now you fail [to understand me] -- is this not sad? You see in me, I suppose, the part that can be seen - but that part is already over and gone. For you to come looking for it, thinking it still exists, is like looking for a horse after the horsefair is over.

"I serve you best when I have utterly forgotten you, and you likewise serve me best when you have utterly forgotten me. But even so, why should you repine? Even if you forget the old me, I will still possess something that will not be forgotten!"
~ Burton Watson translation via Terebess Asia Online ~

Go here to read the introductory post to the chapters of the Book of Chuang Tzu.