Chapter 27, Part 4 - Chuang Tzu

Yen Ch'eng Tzu-yu said to Tzu-ch'i of East Wall, "When I began listening to your words, the first year I was a bumpkin; the second I followed along; the third I worked into it; the fourth I was just another thing; the fifth it began to come; the sixth the spirits descended to me; the seventh the Heavenly part was complete; the eighth I didn't understand death and didn't understand life; and with the ninth I reached the Great Mystery.

"When the living start doing things, they are dead. When they strive for public causes because private ones mean death, they are following a path. But what lives in the light is following no path at all.' What is the result then? How can there be any place that is fitting? How can there be any place that isn't fitting? Heaven has its cycles and numbers, earth its flats and slopes - yet why should I seek to comprehend them?

"No one knows when they will end - how then can we say that they are fated to die? No one knows when they began - how then can we say that they are not fated to die? There seems to be something that responds - how then can we say there are no spirits? There seems to be something that does not respond - how then can we say that spirits do exist?"
~ Burton Watson translation via Terebess Asia Online ~

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