莊子·逍遙遊庄子·逍遥游

In the northern darkness there is a fish whose name is Kun. The Kun is so large that no one knows how many thousand miles it measures. It changes and becomes a bird whose name is Peng. The back of the Peng is so broad that no one knows how many thousand miles it measures. When it rouses itself and flies, its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. When the sea begins to move, this bird sets out for the southern darkness. The southern darkness is the Pool of Heaven. The Qi Xie is a record of marvels. It says: "When the Peng journeys to the southern darkness, it beats the water for three thousand miles, rises on a whirlwind ninety thousand miles high, and goes, and rests only after six months." Heat haze, motes of dust, living things blowing breath at one another. The blue of the sky: is that its true colour? Or is it only that it is so far away and has no end? When the Peng looks down, it must see the same, and nothing more. If water is not piled deep enough, it will not have the strength to carry a large boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor, and a mustard seed will sail on it as a boat; set the cup itself there and it sticks, because the water is shallow and the boat is large. If wind is not piled deep enough, it will not have the strength to carry great wings. So only at ninety thousand miles is the wind beneath it. Only then can it ride the wind, with the blue sky on its back and nothing to hold it back; only then can it set its course for the south.

The cicada and the little dove laughed at it, saying: "When we make an effort and fly, we can reach the elm or the sandalwood tree, and sometimes we do not even make it, and simply drop to the ground. What is the point of going ninety thousand miles to the south?" Someone who goes out to the green fields takes three meals and comes back with a belly still full. Someone who goes a hundred miles must pound grain for the journey the night before. Someone who goes a thousand miles must gather provisions for three months. What do these two little creatures know? Small knowledge does not reach great knowledge; a short life does not reach a long one. How do we know this is so? The morning mushroom does not know the turn from dark to new moon; the summer cicada does not know spring and autumn. These are short lives. South of Chu there is a tree called the Dark Spirit, for which five hundred years are a spring and five hundred years an autumn. In high antiquity there was a great Chun tree, for which eight thousand years were a spring and eight thousand years an autumn. And yet Pengzu is famous today for living long, and everyone wishes to match him. Is that not sad?

This is what Tang asked of Ji. North of the bare and barren lands there is a dark sea, the Pool of Heaven. In it is a fish several thousand miles wide, and no one knows its length. Its name is Kun. There is a bird there whose name is Peng. Its back is like Mount Tai, and its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. It rises on a whirlwind spiralling like a ram's horn ninety thousand miles high, beyond the clouds and vapours, with the blue sky on its back, and then sets its course for the south and travels to the southern darkness. The quail laughed at it, saying: "Where does he think he is going? I leap up and rise no more than a few yards before I come down, and flutter about among the brambles and weeds. That is as far as flying goes. Where does he think he is going?" This is the difference between the small and the great. So there are those whose knowledge is enough for one office, whose conduct suits one village, whose virtue pleases one ruler and wins the trust of one state. They look at themselves in just this way. Song Rongzi would smile at them. If the whole world praised him, he would not be spurred on; if the whole world condemned him, he would not be discouraged. He was sure of the line between inner and outer, and clear about the boundaries of honour and disgrace, and that was all. He did not chase after the things of the world. Even so, there was something he had not yet planted. Liezi rode the wind and travelled on it, lightly and well, and came back after fifteen days. He did not chase after good fortune. But though he was spared walking, he still depended on something. If one were to ride the truth of heaven and earth, drive the changes of the six energies, and wander in the boundless, what would one depend on then? So it is said: the perfect person has no self, the spirit person has no merit, the sage has no name.

Yao offered to give up the world to Xu You, saying: "When the sun and moon have come out, to keep the torches burning is surely to make light the hard way. When the seasonal rains have fallen, to go on watering the fields is surely wasted labour. If you, sir, took the throne, the world would be in order, and yet I still occupy it. I see my own shortcomings. Let me hand over the world." Xu You said: "You govern the world, and the world is already in order. If I were to take your place, would I be doing it for the name? A name is the guest of reality. Shall I play the guest? The wren nests in the deep forest, but uses no more than one branch. The mole drinks at the river, but takes no more than a bellyful. Go home and rest, my lord. I have no use for the world. Even if the cook does not tend his kitchen, the priest of the offerings does not leap over the wine vessels and the altar stands to take his place."

Jian Wu said to Lian Shu: "I heard Jie Yu talk, and what he said was huge and had nothing to hold on to; it went off and never came back. I was startled and frightened by his words. They were like the Milky Way, without end, wildly different from anything ordinary, far from what people feel." Lian Shu said: "What did he say?" "He said: 'Far away on Mount Gushe there lives a spirit person, whose skin is like ice and snow, gentle as a young girl. He does not eat the five grains but breathes the wind and drinks the dew. He rides the clouds and mist, drives flying dragons, and wanders beyond the four seas. His spirit is concentrated, so that things are kept from sickness and plague, and the harvest ripens every year.' I thought this was madness and did not believe it." Lian Shu said: "Of course. The blind have no part in the beauty of patterns, the deaf have no part in the sound of bells and drums. But is it only in body that there is blindness and deafness? There is blindness and deafness in understanding too. Those words describe you, as you are now. This person, with such virtue, would embrace the ten thousand things and make them one. The age longs for order; why would he wear himself out making the world his business? Nothing can harm this person. A flood that reaches the sky would not drown him; a drought that melts metal and stone and scorches the earth and hills would not make him hot. From his dust and leavings, his chaff and husks, you could still mould a Yao or a Shun. Why would he be willing to make things his business?" A man of Song took ceremonial caps to sell in Yue, but the people of Yue cut their hair short and tattoo their bodies, and had no use for them. Yao governed the people of the world and brought peace to everything within the seas. Then he went to see the four masters on far Mount Gushe, north of the river Fen, and in a daze he forgot that he had the world.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi: "The king of Wei gave me the seeds of a great gourd. I planted them and they grew into a gourd that could hold five piculs. I filled it with water, but it was not strong enough to be lifted. I split it to make ladles, but they were too wide and flat to hold anything. It was not that it was not wonderfully large, but because it was useless, I smashed it." Zhuangzi said: "You are clumsy, sir, at using large things. There was a man of Song who was good at making a salve to keep hands from chapping, and for generations his family had made their living bleaching silk in the river. A traveller heard of it and offered a hundred pieces of gold for the recipe. The family gathered to discuss it and said: 'For generations we have bleached silk, and never earned more than a few pieces of gold. Now in one morning we can sell the skill for a hundred. Let us give it to him.' The traveller took it and went to persuade the king of Wu. When Yue made trouble, the king of Wu made him a general. In winter he fought the men of Yue in a battle on the water and defeated them utterly, and he was given a fief of land. The power to keep hands from chapping was the same; one man won a fief with it, the other never escaped from bleaching silk. The difference was in how it was used. Now you have a gourd that holds five piculs. Why not think of making it into a great float and drifting on the rivers and lakes? Instead you worry that it is too flat to hold anything. Your mind, sir, is still full of brambles."

Huizi said to Zhuangzi: "I have a great tree that people call the stink-tree. Its trunk is so gnarled and knotted that no carpenter's line can be laid on it, and its branches are so twisted that no compass or square can be used on them. It stands beside the road and no carpenter gives it a glance. Your words are just the same: big and useless, and everyone turns away from them." Zhuangzi said: "Have you never seen a wildcat or a weasel? It crouches low and lies in wait for something to wander past, leaps east and west, high and low, and ends up caught in a trap or dead in a net. Then there is the yak, as big as a cloud hanging from the sky. It certainly knows how to be big, but it cannot catch a mouse. Now you have a great tree and you worry that it is useless. Why not plant it in the village of nothing at all, in the wide and empty wilds, and wander idly beside it doing nothing, or lie down to sleep beneath it, free and easy? No axe will cut it short, nothing will harm it. If it is of no use, how could it come to grief?"