(The following is an excerpt from chapter 13 titled ‘The Way of Heaven’ from ‘The Complete Works of Zuangzi’, translated by Burton Watson. The book is a 2400 year old prose-poem by the Chinese sage Zhuangzi aka Chuang Tzu. I had shared a long excerpt from the book last week and I thought that I would share some more excerpts this week and the next and make this a 3-part series. Hope you like it!)

Shi Chengqi backed respectfully away so that he would not tread on Laozi’s shadow and then advanced once more in a humble manner and asked how he should go about cultivating his person.

Laozi said, “Your face is grim, your eyes are fierce, your forehead is broad, your mouth is gaping, your manner is overbearing, like a horse held back by a tether, watching for a chance to bolt, bounding off as though shot from a crossbow. Scrutinizing ever so carefully, crafty in wisdom, parading your arrogance—all this invites mistrust. Up in the borderlands, a man like you would be taken for a thief!”

The Master said: The Way does not falter before the huge, is not forgetful of the tiny; therefore the ten thousand things are complete in it. Vast and ample, there is nothing it does not receive. Deep and profound, how can it be fathomed? Punishment and favor, benevolence and righteousness—these are trivia to the spirit, and yet who but the Perfect Man can put them in their rightful place?

When the Perfect Man rules the world, he has hold of a huge thing, does he not?—yet it is not enough to snare him in entanglement. He works the handles that control the world but is not a party to the workings. He sees clearly into what has no falsehood and is unswayed by thoughts of gain. He ferrets out the truth of things and knows how to cling to the source. Therefore he can put Heaven and earth outside himself, forget the ten thousand things, and his spirit has no cause to be wearied. He dismisses benevolence and righteousness, rejects rites and music, for the mind of the Perfect Man knows where to find repose.

Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down. The world values words and hands down books, but although the world values them, I do not think them worth valuing. What the world takes to be value is not real value.

What you can look at and see are forms and colors; what you can listen to and hear are names and sounds. What a pity!—that the men of the world should suppose that form and color, name and sound, are sufficient to convey the truth of a thing. It is because in the end, they are not sufficient to convey truth that “those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.” But how can the world understand this!