#19Abril Justo cuando la #oruga pensaba que el mundo se había acabado, se convirtió en #mariposa #ChuangTzu Algunas veces tenemos + poder del q queremos ver y malgastamos nuestra energía resistiéndonos al cambio, con la mirada en el pasado, intentando ser quienes ya no somos Viviendo cada momento ❤️
#ChuangTzu
🦋"Once upon a time, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhou. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably 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." - #Zhuangzi, Ch 2 tr Burton Watson
#dao #tao #daoism #taoism #zhuangzhou #ChuangTzu #doist #taoist
Who We Were In Time
#ChuangTzu was fishing one day when the Prince of Ch'u sent two high officials to interview him, saying that His Highness would be glad of Chuang Tzu's assistance in the administration of his government.
Chuang Tzu quietly fished on, and without looking around he said, "I have heard that in the State of Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise that has been dead three thousand years. I have also heard the prince keeps this tortoise packed up in a box on the altar in his ancestral shrine. Now, do you you think that tortoise would rather be dead and have its remains thus honored, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?"
The two officials answered that no doubt it would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud.
Then Chuang Tzu cried out, "Begone! I too elect to remain wagging my tail in the mud!" #taoism #01
" `The petty man will die for riches, the gentleman will die for reputation. In the manner in which they alter their true form and change their inborn nature, they differ. But in so far as they throw away what is already theirs and are willing to die for something that is not theirs, they are identical. So it is said, Do not be a petty man - return to and obey the Heaven within you; do not be a gentleman - follow the reason of Heaven. Crooked or straight, pursue to the limit the Heaven in you. Turn your face to the four directions, ebb and flow with the seasons. Right or wrong, hold fast to the round center upon which all turns, in solitude bring your will to completion, ramble in the company of the Way. Do not strive to make your conduct consistent,16 do not try to perfect your righteousness, or you will lose what you already have. Do not race after riches, do not risk your life for success, or you will let slip the Heaven within you. Pi Kan's heart was cut out, Wu Tzu-hsu's eyes were plucked from their sockets - loyalty brought them this misfortune. Honest Kung informed on his father, Wei Sheng died by drowning - trustworthiness was their curse. Pao Chiao stood there till he dried up; Shen Tzu would not defend himself - integrity did them this injury. Confucius did not see his mother, K'uang Tzu did not see his father - righteousness was their mistake." These are the tales handed down from ages past, retold by the ages that follow. They show us that the gentleman who is determined to be upright in word and consistent in conduct will as a result bow before disaster, will encounter affliction.' "
Never-Enough said to Sense-of-Harmony, "After all, there are no men who do not strive for reputation and seek gain. If you're rich, people flock to you; flocking to you, they bow and scrape; and when they bow and scrape, this shows they honor you. To have men bowing and scraping, offering you honor - this is the way to insure length of years, ease to the body, joy to the will. And now you alone have no mind for these things. Is it lack of understanding? Or is it that you know their worth but just haven't the strength to work for them? Are you, then, deliberately striving `to be upright and never forgetful'?"
Sense-of-Harmony said, "You and your type look at those who were born at the same time and who dwell in the same community and you decide that you are gentlemen who are far removed from the common lot, who are superior to the times. This shows that you have no guiding principle by which to survey the ages of past and present, the distinctions between right and wrong. Instead you join with the vulgar in changing as the world changes, setting aside what is most valuable, discarding what is most worthy of honor, thinking that there is something that has to be done, declaring that this is the way to insure length of years, ease to the body, joy to the will - but you are far from the mark indeed! The agitation of grief and sorrow, the solace of contentment and joy - these bring no enlightenment to the body. The shock of fear and terror, the elation of happiness and delight - these bring no enlightenment to the mind. You know you are doing what there is to do, but you don't know why there should be things to do. This way, you might possess all the honor of the Son of Heaven, all the wealth of the empire, and yet never escape from disaster."
The swamp pheasant has to walk ten paces for one peck and a hundred paces for one drink, but it doesn't want to be kept in a cage. Though you treat it like a king, its spirit won't be content.
#Zhuangzi (chapter 3, The Secret of Caring for Life, Watson trans.)
> Henry David Thoreau said,
“All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end.”
An on-line article with Harper's(?) had Socrates say this line about Progress in an imagined dialogue with Steven Pinker.
#Thoreau 's quote from #NeilPostman has be thinking of the #WellSweep story by #ChuangTzu or ##ChuangTze #荘子
Trees, Taoism, and Bigots
https://www.xenofact.com/2024/02/04/trees-taoism-and-bigots/
> "If you had a machine here.. in a day you could irrigate a hundred times your present area. The labor required is trifling as compared with the work done. Would you not like to have one?.. It is a contrivance made of wood.. heavy behind and light in front. It draws up water.. in a constantly overflowing stream.. it is a #WellSweep
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59709/pg59709-images.html#Page_147
#ChuangTzu #荘子 #TheWellSweep #TheMachine
#Deforestation ? #Erosion ? other reasons ? One wonders after reading of the #PowerLoom
This was cited in something I read last week and I thought it was worth making it easy for me to re-find. There are plenty of philosophers, including Aristotle, who talk about the difference between the way we treat animate and inanimate objects, but none put it so eloquently as Chuang Tzu.
If a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with […]
Once Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing what he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Tzu. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Tzu. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu.*
#dailywalk, #pilgrimsprogress: 12,492 steps, 4.8 miles
*Translation by Burton Watson. #chuangtzu #butterfly
Seeing the Way
Only the perfect man can transcend the limits of the human and yet not withdraw from the world, live in accord with mankind and yet suffer no injury himself. Of the worlds teaching he learns nothing. He has that within which makes him independent of others.If the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. If the ear is unobstructed, the result
https://alexandersmap.com/2023/08/07/seeing-the-way/
#Taoism #Learning #Lifestyle #PersonalGrowth #Relationships #ChuangTzu #Taoism
"We read in the Chuang-tzu: [..] Suddenly I awoke, 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."
~ from "Zen and Japanese Culture" by Daisetz T. Suzuki
Re-reading A.C. Graham’s scholarly translation of #ChuangTzu #Zhuangzi I’m reminded that there’s evidence of a strain of anti-imperialist thought in ancient China. “Throughout the literature of the third and second centuries BC, the reign of Shen-nung represents a distinctive political idea, unlike those of Confucians, Taoists, or any other well documented school. It has the look of a peasant utopia; everyone is required to support himself by his own labour…”
#politics #anarchism #Daoism
I'm reading Giles's Chuang Tzu on an e-book reader. The wait screens show great pencil drawings of gears and buildings, but the most fascinating one is of a little house at the foot of a mountain. A Japanese #老子 LaoTzu book (by #蜂屋邦夫) mentions ch80's ideal appearing in a #ChuangTzu episode. Had me wondering what a #はねつるべ is. The "well-sweep" in the picture of the hut in the BOOKS drawing! Ironic to see it between drawings of gears and a clocktower, given the moral of the episode.
> ... splendour of the heavenly bodies is dimmed.. energy of land and water is disturbed.. influence of the four seasons is destroyed.. not one tiny creature.. moves on earth or flies in air but becomes other.. it should be. So overwhelming is the confusion which desire for knowledge has brought.. The simple and the guileless have been set aside; the specious and the false have been exalted.. confusion come upon the world. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59709
#HerberGiles's #ChuangTzu on gutenberg! #Climate
Chancing on this Oscar Wilde review of an old translation of Chuang Tzu makes me want to learn to write a quote-a-day bot. But how?
> #Morality is, of course, a different thing. It went out of fashion, says #ChuangTzu, when people began to moralize. Men ceased then to be spontaneous and to act on intuition. They became priggish and artificial, and were so blind as to have a definite purpose in life.
https://www.online-literature.com/wilde/a-critic/39/
#荘子 #OscarWilde #LaoTzu #Witty
> Wilde was.. intrigued.. Like teenage #LeGuin.. in #LaoTzu, Wilde saw a#RabbleRouser in #ChuangTzu: “He would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas.”.. #HeidiCParton point[s to] #OscarWilde’s famous.. quips [that] would be.. familiar to a #Taoist:
#ChuangTzu wrote, “What starts out being sincere usually ends up being deceitful.”.. Oscar Wilde put it, “A little #sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
https://bookriot.com/lets-talk-about-ursula-k-le-guin-oscar-wilde-and-taoism/
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