(The following are two excerpts from chapter 16 – ‘Mending the inborn nature’ and chapter 18 – ‘Supreme happiness’, from ‘The Complete Works of Zuangzi’, translated by Burton Watson. This is the third and final blog post of collected excerpts from this 2400 year old prose-poem by the Chinese sage Zhuangzi aka Chuang Tzu. Hope you like it!)
Excerpt 1:
When the men of ancient times spoke of the fulfillment of ambition, they did not mean fine carriages and caps. They meant simply that joy was so complete that it could not be made greater. Nowadays, however, when men speak of the fulfillment of ambition, they mean fine carriages and caps. But carriages and caps affect the body alone, not the inborn nature and fate. Such things from time to time may happen to come your way. When they come, you cannot keep them from arriving, but when they depart, you cannot stop them from going. Therefore carriages and caps are no excuse for becoming puffed up with pride, and hardship and poverty are no excuse for fawning on the vulgar. You should find the same joy in one condition as in the other and thereby be free of care, that is all. But now, when the things that happened take their leave, you cease to be joyful. From this point of view, though you have joy, it will always be fated for destruction. Therefore it is said, Those who destroy themselves in things and lose their inborn nature in the vulgar may be called the upside-down people.
Excerpt 2:
What ordinary people do and what they find happiness in—I don’t know whether or not such happiness is, in the end, really happiness. I look at what ordinary people find happiness in, what they all make a mad dash for, racing around as though they couldn’t stop—they all say they’re happy with it. I’m not happy with it, and I’m not unhappy with it. In the end, is there really happiness, or isn’t there?
I take inaction to be true happiness, but ordinary people think it is a bitter thing. I say: the highest happiness has no happiness, the highest praise has no praise. The world can’t decide what is right and what is wrong. And yet inaction can decide this. The highest happiness, keeping alive—only inaction gets you close to this!
Let me try putting it this way. The inaction of Heaven is its purity, the inaction of earth is its peace. So the two inactions combine, and all things are transformed and brought to birth. Wonderfully, mysteriously, there is no place they come out of. Mysteriously, wonderfully, they have no sign. Each thing minds its business, and all grow up out of inaction. So I say, Heaven and earth do nothing, and there is nothing that is not done. Among men, who can get hold of this inaction?