Chuang Tzŭ

...the destruction of knowledge. Even Socrates was called a Sophist a teacher in ancient Greece often accused of using clever but misleading arguments because of his destructive criticism and his restless challenging of popular views. But Chuang Tzŭ original: "Chuang Tzŭ"; now commonly spelled Zhuangzi has nothing of the skeptic in him. He is an idealist and a mystic, possessing all the idealist’s hatred for a system based only on practical use original: "utilitarian system", and the mystic’s contempt for a life consisting of nothing but outward activity. “The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action; the true sage ignores reputation” (p. 5). The Emperor Yao a legendary, virtuous ruler of ancient China would have stepped down from his throne in favor of a hermit, but the hermit replied that “reputation is but the shadow of reality,” and would not exchange what is real for what only seems to be real. Yet, even greater than Yao and the hermit is the divine being who lives on the mysterious mountain in a state of pure, passionless inaction.

For the sage, then, life means the death of everything that ordinary men consider to be life: the life of appearance or reputation, of doing or action, and of being or individual self-hood. This leads to the “collection of paradoxes” found in chapter two. Just as we escape from the world and the self in the moral and active realms—enabling us to reverse and look down upon the world's judgments—we also go behind and beyond the contradictions of ordinary thinking and speech in the realm of theory. Speech, after all, tends to trap our thoughts in rigid categories original: "stereotypes abstractions". The sage knows nothing of the distinction between the "subjective" (the self) and the "objective" (the world). Such a distinction exists only based on the human perspective original Latin: "ex analogiâ hominis".

“From the standpoint of Tao The Way; the fundamental principle underlying the universe,” all things are one. People who are “guided by the standards of their own minds” see only contradiction, variety, and difference; the sage, however, sees the many disappearing into the One. In this One, the subjective and objective, positive and negative, "here" and "there," and "somewhere" and "nowhere" all meet and blend. For him, “a horizontal beam and a vertical pillar are identical. So are ugliness and beauty, greatness, wickedness, perverseness, and strangeness. Separation is the same as construction; construction is the same as destruction” (pp. 19-20). The sage “blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the comparison of 'this' and 'that.' Rank and social standing, which the common people original: "the vulgar" prize, the sage completely ignores. The universe itself may pass away, but he will continue to flourish” (p. 29). “If the ocean itself were scorched up, he would not feel hot. If the Milky Way were frozen solid, he would not feel cold. If the mountains were split by thunder and the great depths of the sea were tossed up by a storm, he would not tremble” (pp. 27-28).

original Latin: "Si fractus illabatur orbis, / Impavidum ferient ruinæ." A quote from the Roman poet Horace, Odes 3.3.

He is “embraced in the all-encompassing unity of God,” and finds rest by passing into the realm of the Infinite (p. 31).

It is impossible to read this chapter on “The Identity of Contraries” without being reminded of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Like him, Chuang Tzŭ discounts the value of knowledge gained through the senses...