ChiDragon

One problem is the phrase 麗之姬 ???

麗姬 Li Ji occurs in the previous 'Nie Que asked Wang Ni story':

 

毛嬙 麗姬 人之所美 也 Mao Qiang and Li Ji were accounted by men to be most beautiful ...

 

And 麗姬 Li Ji occurs too in this not translated story but one line from it:

 

晉獻公伐虢 得麗姬 Jin offer Duke to stab Guo to get Ji Li

麗之姬，艾封人之子也。晉國之始得之也，

OK. It was the way that the phrase was worded. Yes, 麗姬 is a girl.... Sometimes, I see that the "之子" was referred as "the child of" instead of "the son of" . It was rare though.

I hope we are clear on this, now, from our meaningful dialogue....

List of Jin rulers

 

How did you translate 之子, the son of, to be a daughter...???

All translators ... Legge, Craham, Correa, Chen, Watson ... translates 'daughter of'.

I don't know who was copying whom. IMO They are in error.

子: son

女: daughter.

Please don't let these blind men lead you.

And my translation guru professor Edwin G. Pulleyblank has another opinion than you.

Sorry, I do regret that he is not thoroughly familiar with the language.

FYI...

王來: The king is coming.

王之來: The coming of the king; the purpose for the king's arrival.....was.....

Your knowledge of modern chinese is both an advantage and a disadvantage. But honestly:

This text is early Han language written like the Mawangdui versions of Tao Teh Ching.

ZhuangTze says: "Do not use your point of view to perceive the point of view of others." It was advisable to understand the person before making a judgment...

 

1. Li Ji was a daughter of the border Warden of Ai. When (the ruler of) the state of Jin first got possession of her, she wept till the tears wetted all the front of her dress. But when she came to the place of the king, shared with him his luxurious couch, and ate his grain-and-grass-fed meat, then she regretted that she had wept.

 

This little story inside the story relates to this confucian Analects text

 

2. Confucius choose the criminal Gong Ye Chang as husband to his daughter!

Confucius choose to believe that he was not guilty ...

 

3. I cannot at first sight see, what this little story has to do within the context?

So I view it as another hint to the identity of Zhuangzi's fictional Chang Wu Zi,

but you are maybe able to enlighten me?

1. After Li Ji eating all the good foods on a comfortable bed in the palace, then she was wondering how silly she was crying so bad on the way to the palace.

2. Chang Wu Zi understood the bird language, he heard the birds said: "let's go eat the dead body under the tree by the river." Then Chang Wu Zi heard an old lady was crying while looking for her son. He told her that there is a body by the river. It was her son, but Chang Wu Zi was arrested for murdering her son. Later, he was exonerated because he proved himself to the officials that he heard that from the birds to locate the dead body. Confucius knew he was not guilty and a gentleman, thus Confucius was honored to have him as a son-in-law.

3. Zhuangzi was used the little story as an analogy for his next illustration:

Everybody is afraid of death, ZZ was wondering is there someone ever regret for what he had lived for after his death.

is the 1200 BC oracle character meaning 'a hill or mound, big, elder, empty'

It developed into the modern chinese character 丘 and was too the name of Confucius.

Names were in classical chinese language marked with an added 也 character in texts.

Your 'emphasize' is the modern nowadays way of reading the 也 in chinese language.

 

Please remember ... Zhuangzi is not a daily newspaper but an ancient pre-Qin text

Thank you for reminding me(a stupid native) how to read pre-Qin text. ....

1. no. 1.16 on the list

 

2. Ju Que Zi asked using the respectful term 夫子 to name Confucius.

 

3. Chang Wu Zi answered using the personal name 丘也 to name Confucius.

 

4. Zhuangzi's agenda writing so is to guide the reader to identify the persons speaking,

which helps the reader to understand the hidden pointe connected with the two persons.

1. I cannot confirm that Chang Wu Zi 長梧子 is the same person as Gongye Chang 公冶長 form the ref-site.

2. Yes, 夫子 was used short for Confucius(孔夫子).

3. 丘 is Confucius original name. The character 也 was used to emphasize that we are talking about him particularly. It was not used to relate him to a family member.

4. Sorry, this is not the way we do it in the Chinese language....

Classic text

瞿鵲子問乎長梧子曰：「吾聞諸夫子，聖人不從事於務，不就利，不違害，不喜求，不緣道；無謂有謂，有謂無謂，而遊乎塵垢之外。夫子以為孟浪之言，而我以為妙道之行也。吾子以為奚若？」

 

長梧子曰：「是黃帝之所聽熒也，而丘也何足以知之！且女亦大早計，見卵而求時夜，見彈而求鴞炙。

Modern interpretation

瞿鵲子向長梧子問道：「我從孔夫子那裡聽到這樣的談論：聖人不從事瑣細的事務，不追逐私利，不迴避災害，不喜好貪求，不因循成規；沒說什麼又好像說了些什麼，說了些什麼又好像什麼也沒有說，因而遨遊於世俗之外。孔夫子認為這些都是輕率不當的言論，而我卻認為是精妙之道的實踐和體現。先生你認為怎麼樣呢？」

 

長梧子說：「這些話黃帝也會疑惑不解的，而孔丘怎麼能夠知曉呢！而且你也謀慮得太早，就好像見到雞蛋便想立即得到報曉的公雞，見到彈子便想立即獲取烤熟的斑鳩肉。

English translation of the above interpretation

Ju Que Zi asked Chang Wu Zi and said: "I have heard this from Confucius's dialogue: A sage doesn't do anything that was trivial, he doesn't pursue personal gains; he doesn't evade adversity; he is not greedy; he doesn't make a habit become a rule; by not saying anything but it seems something has been said; by saying something but it seems like nothing has been said. Because of taking a journey outside of this world, Confucius thought these are flippant discourse, but I reckon that was the subtle practice and embodying. And Mr. what do you think...???"

Chang Wu Zi(長梧子) said: "These kind of thoughts even Huang Di was doubtful, then, how could Confucius know about this! And you are worrying about it too soon; it seems like when you see an egg and then immediately you want to go to inform the rooster; and when you see a spark of the fire then immediately you want to reach for the barbecued turtledove.

瞿鵲子問乎長梧子曰： 「吾聞諸夫子，.....」

Ju Que Zi was asking Chang Wu Zi by saying: "I have heard it from the great teacher......"

1. Chang Wu Zi mentions Confucius using his personal name 丘也 Qiu which marks a family relationship.

 

2. Chang Wu Zi 長梧子 is equal to Gongye Chang 公冶長, styled Zi-chang (al. Zi-zhi) 子長 (al. 子芝).

He was son-in-law to Confucius.

1. I am not sure about that: using his personal name 丘也 Qiu which marks a family relationship.

2. Chang Wu Zi 長梧子 was a disciple of Confucius. I am not sure about the son-in-law part...!!!

是黃帝之所聽熒也: Even Huang Di heard it and became vague,

而丘也何足以知之: Then how could Confucius be understood that.

I have a problem with the typical translation of the opening:

...............

 

IMO, Confucius would NOT say this; all that he taught seems to suggest he would say the opposite. The traditional versions above make Confucius sound like a Daoist but then why would ZZ say he is wrong?

 

I finally found a translation which makes sense to me.

 

Eno:

I have heard it from the Master that he regarded as wild and excessive teachings that hold that the Sage does not strive towards any goal, does not pursue benefit or evade harm, takes no pleasure is seeking for things and does not stick to the Dao; that when he is silent he is speaking and when he is speaking he is silent, and that he roams beyond the world of dust. But I regard these as the practice of the marvelous Dao.

 

Now this makes complete sense: In this version, Confucius sees such thinking as "wild and excessive" which is what we would expect of him concerning the idea to 'not strive towards any goal'.

 

It seems the construction of the sentence depends on where you put these words in translation; in this final construction, although these words are at the end of the sentence the translator sees them as belonging to the description of Confucius thought about the Sage.

 

In the end, this is continuing the previous sections which seem to really call for 'relativism' over judgement; non-distinction of this and that. Here it goes further by saying it is all just a dream. It doesn't sound like basic philosophy but how to approach it without leaving philosophy behind?

I have heard it from the Master that he regarded as wild and excessive teachings that hold that the Sage does not strive towards any goal, does not pursue benefit or evade harm, takes no pleasure is seeking for things and does not stick to the Dao; that when he is silent he is speaking and when he is speaking he is silent, and that he roams beyond the world of dust. But I regard these as the practice of the marvelous Dao.

瞿鵲子問乎長梧子曰：「吾聞諸夫子，聖人不從事於務，不就利，不違害，不喜求，不緣道；無謂有謂，有謂無謂，而遊乎塵垢之外。夫子以為孟浪之言，而我以為妙道之行也。吾子以為奚若？」

吾聞諸夫子:

吾聞諸: I heard from

夫子: a teacher, a nickname for Confucius because he was a great teacher.

"I have heard it from the great teacher that he regarded a sage was not very serious in conducting his affairs, does not pursue benefit or causing harm, does not eager for pleasure, does not associate with Tao; ...."

The reason that a sage wasn't serious in conducting his affairs is because he has gained his sagacious status. Thus everything he does, without additional effort, was already in the sagacious level.

Tian Ren He Yi

天人合一 : Heaven and human are united as One.

Chi-dragon, I am suprised at you! I had you figured for a full-on materialist given all your talk about chi being 'air' and naught else. An interesting turn!

Chi is 'air' to start with; but its phase changes at difference stages. IMO Chi does transform into energy only at the last stage. This is my sole belief. This belief gives me the positive spirit to defend any intruder who looked at it differently. However, I have been feeling that there is a strong negative spiritual force counteracting with my positive spiritual force. In the contrary, my positive spiritual force may be somebody else's negative opposing force.

Peace...!!!

Ok... don't get too excited with your reply. I gave no typing indication of excitement but you did (!!!). Maybe just calm down in your responses.

 

I have said All along that there is no difference... I pointed it out again here (ZZ wants one to drop 'this or that') and that was the question I posed to you. Maybe you just didn't understand what I was asking/suggesting. If you don't really understand then ask a question instead of getting all worked up over a reply.

 

But I see that nobody has answered XieJie's question of the meaning of 'one-leg'... so I am hoping to hear something more meaningful.

The One-foot guy is not handicapped in anyway.

What does One-foot symbolized?

The One-foot 'one-leg' does not symbolize anything. FYI The no response was my answer. Just to make it more clear, it was only used in comparison with the 'two-leg' person by ZZ in his illustration to point out that there is no difference. The significance in reading ZZ lays on the overall concept of his parables rather than looking at it piece by piece to exam the irrelevant characteristics of each individual minor item.

PS...

Sorry, I have to tell it like it's.....

****** Personal feeling filter ON *********

If one turns it around, then one sees that everything is ordinary to nature since nature is without discrimination; but that is just creating the "this or that" construct. So the metaphysical interpretation may be to just not hold discrimination?

Even "this and that" construct, ZZ had emphasized that there is no difference. A two legged person is a person; and an one legged person is still a person. Please don't get excited about that based on this statement:

"Now from the composed gesture of 右師, one will know that he knows it was due to nature, not man."

右師 was just figured out that Nature is always right....!!!

ChiDragon,

 

you are of course right, this is a famous story, however, there is very slight angle of view in ZZ's story. Historical story is about Yao and his noble act, while story ZZ descibes here is about Xun (not about Yao). Therefore, I think, these are two different stories, or perhaps better - one story with two different points. ZZ does not care about noble act of Yao (because of principles no self, no merit, no fame - in next chapters we will see that according to him, even to live in the mud like tortoise is better than work for government etc.), the point of ZZ's story is that Xun refused work for goverment, or perhaps more precisely: to take his job, to take a job of any other man - and we can only guess why: because his own (internal) work is more important? That is why this story belongs to story about Rongzi and Liezi, because Xun belongs to them.

Yes, you are right. ZZ introduced the Yao-Xun story in Chapter One is for the purpose so he can referred back to later. In this chapter, ZZ was using the story to emphasize that Xun was strongly believes in the principles of no-self, no-merit, no-fame. That was the main reason why Xun was refused to accept Yao's throne. Indeed, there was no guess work about that...

公文軒見右師而驚曰：「是何人也？惡乎介也？天與？其人與？」曰：「天也，非人也。天之生是使獨也，人之貌有與也。以是知其天也，非人也。」

When 公文軒 saw 右師, he was startled and said, "What kind of person is this? How come he only has one leg? Is this endowed? Or it was after birth due to the act of human?"

Translation:

公文軒 said, "Nature made him this way, not man. Nature's engenderment causes him to have one leg. Humans are born with two legs was by inherence. Now from the composed gesture of 右師, one will know that he knows it was due to nature, not man.

Metaphoric Interpretation:

This parable was suggesting us don't be surprised about things that we didn't know. There are things in Nature which are out of the ordinary that we may not even aware of.

澤雉十步一啄，百步一飲，不蘄畜乎樊中。神雖王，不善也。

Translation:

In the marsh, a pheasant has to take ten steps to find something to eat and has to take a hundred steps to fine water to drink; but the pheasant does not wish to live in a cage. It was because, that even, it was very comfortable and relaxed, but lack of freedom was not so good.

　　老聃死，秦失弔之，三號而出。弟子曰：「非夫子之友邪？」曰：「然。」「然則弔焉若此，可乎？」曰：「然。始也吾以為其人也，而今非也。向吾入而弔焉，有老者哭之，如哭其子﹔少者哭之，如哭其母。彼其所以會之，必有不蘄言而言，不蘄哭而哭者。是遁天倍情，忘其所受，古者謂之遁天之刑。適來，夫子時也﹔適去，夫子順也。安時而處順，哀樂不能入也，古者謂是帝之縣解。」

 

指窮於為薪，火傳也，不知其盡也。

When LaoTze died, 秦失 came to express his condolence and only wailed three times then left.

A disciple asked: "Are you a friend of our teacher?"

秦失 said: "Yes."

Disciple: "Then was it proper just for you to wail three times for your condolence?"

秦失 said: "Yes, at first I thought I came as one individual but not now anymore. At the instance as soon I stepped in, there were some people crying for him; it seems like they were crying for their own children. There were some young people crying seems like they were mourning for their own mothers. They came by to pay their last respect to the deceased and revealed many mixed emotions. Of course, there are things that they do not wish to speak of but said it anyway; things do not wish to cry about but cried. Thus this was evading the natural principles, infringing the truth, forgotten the acceptance of the innate essence. The death of LoaTze was incidental by following the sequence in time because he lived in peace and died in peace. Therefore, the mourn and joy cannot invade the internal heart. In the ancient, this was called the natural extrication, the release of all the suffering.

There is time for faggots to be burnt out. The usage of fire may be passed down from generation to generation but no one knows when it will be extinguished!

Notes:

These are proper nouns

1. 公文軒 and 右師

2. 秦失

Spirit is a very powerful invisible force may be known as a "spiritual force". Its effect is invincible when it was enforced. Whether one believes it or not, it doesn't even have to make any sense....

My 2 cents worth.

Hehehe. You're cheating. You apparently have read The Chuang Tzu more than once. But you are right, of course.

Right.....???

What did you say about adding more or less to the story...???

Yao wanted to pass his throne to Xun because he thoght Xun is better.

I just wanted to get the fact straight. Yao wanted to pass his throne to Xun was because he was getting old. He wanted to pass the throne to a highly qualified person. Normally, it was customary in China, a throne was always passed down to the first born son as the crowned prince. However, Yao did not want his throne to be ruined by his unqualified son. Therefore, he thought of passing his throne outside of the family.

The Yao-Xun story was a very famous story in the Chinese history. There was a term given for this action called 禪讓(shan4 rang4): to abdicate the throne to a qualified person instead of the next of kin. Yao was famous and given credit, in the Chinese history, because of this noble act.

when you have a lot of jing, you don't need sex

when you have a lot of chi, you don't need food

when you have a lot of shen, you don't need sleep

 

hmmmmm

Really......????

People still believing in this kind of stuff...???

Hehehe. You can put me in that category basket too.

Sometimes you are logical and practical but not hopeless..........

hehehehe.....I think I will....

The metaphor about the skilled cook was a ridicule about a cook that he is a better butcher than an actual one. ZhuangTze described that the cook was learned to butcher an ox from the basic technique. From the empirical experience, after nineteen years, the basic technique becomes an art how to butcher an ox. Hence, the cook was butchering an ox with the state of the art from his heart. He doesn't have to replace as many knives as other butchers because of his own cutting skill. He does not use his knife for chopping nor cut the bone with it. He knew exactly where to start cutting. He can visualize where every bone and joint are in the ox. He can have a smooth cut at the joint to separate the bones and the meat from the bones. When he was done with the butchering, there was nothing wasted.

This metaphor can be apply to one's life. If one has the heart into something, one can be as smooth as the skillful cook to handle any convoluted situation without any doubt.

There was this scholar spent two years and tried to come up with an interpretation which will make sense to him.

 

The lives of the people are limited; but the knowledge of desire is endless. Using a limited life to pursue the endless desire, thus how can one not to be exhausted. If one has already being sensing it was troublesome and still continue to be intrigued, then it would be very dangerous. It was because of the driven factor of desire, the action of the people will be out of control. Desire engenders the root of resentment. If one doesn't restrain one's crave and expect something in return from a good deed, then he should expect a punishment for committing a crime. People should stay at a distance from the crave and be very careful not to make any mistake as a matter of principle. Hence, it may protect oneself; it may be kept it natural; it may support their parents and it may enjoy one's life until death.

Yes, we can gain knowledge, go to school and get a degree and a good job. No problem there, I think. It is when we constantly seek new knowledge, chasing after it as if we would be lost without this new knowledge, that we forget to live - to live naturally, to rest when the work is done. To sleep without dreams and wake without worries.

People do get wiser as they have grown older because they had gained more knowledge and empirical experiences. Obtaining knowledge shouldn't be considered as dangerous. The way the classic text was phrased is very misleading; but, hey, that is one of those classic paradoxes again. It was up to the interpreter to make some sense out of it.

The people do not have a problem forgetting how the live. In fact, it was the problem with their knowledge of how to live with endless craves. IMO The metaphor here was that life is too short. It's better to learn as much as one can in life but do not take advantage of what one has learned for egocentricity...

"Since I've begun to understand this on a deeper level, my thoughts about spirit have been diminished greatly."

 

This is what I'm referring to.

 

I don't know how to explain it but i personally take issue with a "path" that drops one off at the station without ever having got on the train. So I'm still wondering...

What is this deeper level that you are thinking of...???