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Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi·c. 300 BCE·Chinese

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Herbert A. Giles translation (1889), from Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. Public domain worldwide.

Chapter 1: The Leviathan and the Rukh

In the northern ocean there is a fish, called the Leviathan, many thousand li in size. This Leviathan changes into a bird, called the Rukh, whose back is many thousand li in breadth. With a mighty effort it rises, and its wings obscure the sky like clouds.

When on a voyage, this bird prepares to start for the southern ocean, the Celestial Lake. And in the record of marvels we read that when the Rukh flies southwards, the water is smitten for a space of three thousand li around, while the bird itself mounts upon a great wind to a height of ninety thousand li, for a flight of six months' duration.

A cicada and a young dove laughed, saying, We fly up with all our might among the trees, and sometimes, before we can get there, we are obliged to come down again. What is the use of going up ninety thousand li to start for the south?

Those who go to the suburb taking three meals with them, come back with their stomachs as full as when they started. But those who travel a hundred li must take ground rice enough for an overnight halt. And those who travel a thousand li must supply themselves with provisions for three months. What should these two creatures know?

The Useless Tree

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "Sir, I have a large tree, of a worthless kind. Its trunk is so irregular and knotty that it cannot be measured out for planks; while its branches are so twisted as to admit of no geometrical subdivision whatever. It stands by the roadside, but no carpenter will look at it. And your words, sir, are like that tree—big and useless, not wanted by anybody."

"Sir," rejoined Chuang Tzu, "have you never seen a wild cat, crouching down in wait for its prey? Right and left it springs from bough to bough, high and low alike—until perchance it gets caught in a trap or dies in a snare. On the other hand, there is the yak with its great huge body. It is big enough in all conscience, but it cannot catch mice.

"Now if you have a big tree and are at a loss what to do with it, why not plant it in the domain of non-existence, whither you might betake yourself to inaction by its side, to blissful repose beneath its shade? There it would be safe from the axe and from all other injury; for being of no use to others, itself would be free from harm."

Chapter 2: The Butterfly Dream

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called Metempsychosis.

Chapter 3: Prince Hui's Cook

Prince Hui's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every whshh of rent flesh, every chhk of the chopper, was in perfect harmony—rhythmical like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, simultaneous like the chords of the Ching Shou.

"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed."

"Sire," replied the cook; "I have always devoted myself to Tao. It is better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me simply whole bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals. And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me stop, but my mind urges me on, I fall back upon eternal principles. I follow such openings or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through joints: still less through large bones.

"A good cook changes his chopper once a year—because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month—because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. By these means the interstice will be enlarged, and the blade will find plenty of room. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh from the whetstone."

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