Monday, May 16, 2011

Chapter 23, Part 9A - Chuang Tzu

The Way permeates all things. Their dividedness is their completeness, their completeness is their impairment. What is hateful about this state of dividedness is that men take their dividedness and seek to supplement it; and what is hateful about attempts to supplement it is that they are a mere supplementation of what men already have.

So they go forth and forget to return - they act as though they had seen a ghost. They go forth and claim to have gotten something - what they have gotten is the thing called death. They are wiped out and choked off - already a kind of ghost themselves. Only when that which has form learns to imitate the formless will it find serenity.
~ Burton Watson translation via Terebess Asia Online ~
Go here to read the introductory post to the chapters of the Book of Chuang Tzu.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.