Mair 19:11

[Marblehead]

Craftsman Ch'ui could draft as accurately freehand as if he were using compass and L-square because his fingers evolved with things and he did not calculate with his mind.  Therefore, his numinous terrace remained unified and unfettered.

A shoe fits when you forget about your foot; a belt fits when you forget about your waist; the mind fits when you forget about right and wrong; opportunity fits when there is no internal transformation or external imitation.  One who begins with what fits and never experiences what doesn't fit has the fitness that forgets about what fits.

{{There was a certain Sun Hsiu who paid a call at the gate of Master Pien Sir Ch'ing and complained to him, saying, "When I lived in my village, I was never said to lack cultivation, and when I faced difficulties, I was never said to lack courage.  Nevertheless, though I worked in my fields I never met with a good harvest, and though I served my lord I never met with worldly success.  I am treated as an outcast in the villages and am driven out of the townships.  But what crime have I committed against heaven that I should meet with such a destiny?"

     "Haven't you heard how the ultimate man conducts himself?" asked Master Pien.  "He forgets his inner organs and is oblivious of his senses.  Faraway he is, roaming beyond the dust and dirt of the mundane world, carefree in the enterprise of having no affairs.  This is called 'acting without presumption, nurturing without control.'  But now you ornament your knowledge to alarm those who are ignorant and you cultivate your person to highlight those who are vile.  You are as ostentatious as if you were walking along holding the sun and moon above you.  You are fortunate that you have a physical body that is whole and is possessed of all of its nine orifices, that you have not been afflicted midway through life by deafness, blindness, or lameness but can still be compared to the lot of other men.  What leisure do you have for complaining against heaven?  Begone, sir!"

     After Master Sun left, Master Pien went inside.  He sat down for a while, then looked up to heaven and sighed.  "Why are you sighing, master?" one of his disciples asked him.  "Just now Hsiu came," said Master Pien, "and I told him about the integrity of the ultimate man.  I'm afraid that he will be alarmed and bewildered."

     "Not so," said the disciple.  "If what Master Sun said was right and what you said was wrong, the wrong will surely not be able to bewilder the right.  And if what Master Sun said was wrong and what you said was right, then he surely must have come because he was already bewildered.  In that case, what mistake did you commit?"

     "Not so," said Master Pien.  "Of old, there was a bird that alighted in the suburbs of Lu.  The Marquis of Lu was pleased with it and offered it beef, mutton, and pork for nourishment.  For music, he had 'The Ninefold Splendors' performed, but the bird's eyes began to glaze over with sadness and it was unwilling to eat or drink.  This is called nourishing a bird as one would nourish oneself.  If, however, we are able to nourish birds as birds should be nourished, we ought to let them perch in the deep forests, float on rivers and lakes, feed on loaches and hemiculters, and dwell in self-contentment, then they will feel safe on level, dry ground, and that is all.  Now, Hsiu is a person of slim wit and slight learning.  My telling him about the integrity of the ultimate man is like using a carriage and horses to transport a mouse or drums and bells to delight a bull-headed shrike.  How could he not be alarmed?"}}

 

[OldDog]

First part of the OP ... the story of Craftsman Ch'ui ... seems to be speaking to the point our friend Wandelaar made in the post on 19:9. 

 

What is also important is the fact that worries and consequent nervousness as regards the reception of one's own work seriously interfere with the execution of the job. - Wandelaar

 

Craftsman Ch'ui,  because he had evolved with his craft and no longer needs to rely on his mind to perform his work, is not influenced by worries regarding the reception of his work. Thus, he makes no mistakes.

 

Even so, there may are other considerations that account for Ch'ui's ability.

 

Perhaps it is that he understands that beyond what the result of his work may be, he cannot influence how it will be received by others and is thus unencumbered by concerns of whether the product will be appreciated or not. 

 

Similarly, perhaps Ch'ui realizes that his skill is beyond the understanding of those who do not share his trade. So, there is no concern regarding how his skill is perceived. Asked to provide a draft, he simply does it.

 

Either way, Ch'ui knows ... from some unconscious place ... what the result wants to look like ( recall the bellstand?) and simply provides that. Such is the deep understanding he has of draftsmanship.

 

Is this not like the ulitmate man that Master Pien describes in the second part of the OP?

[OldDog]

@Marblehead

 

I've been meaning to ask ...

 

In your posts from Mair, is there any significance to the use of double braces ... {{ and }} ... that delimit some of the text?

 

When I compare to Watson's translation, the parts Mair sets off with double braces are not given special treatment.

 

Just wondering

[wandelaar]

Sun Hsiu made a show of his excellence and because of that was considered arrogant by all the people he met. But the ultimate man hides his treasures and knows that it's better not to pose as some superior human being as that would invite the hatred and/or ridicule of the masses. Now we can indeed choose how to behave and what we do, but how that is received in the world around us is beyond our power. So the ultimately man has to grow above those kind of earthly worries. The ultimate man - unlike Sun Hsiu - has also outgrown the belief in a just world. In short: Master Pien fears that his advise to Sun Hsiu will not be understood.

[OldDog]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

The ultimate man - unlike Sun Hsiu - has also outgrown the belief in a just world.

 

Now there's an interesting statement.

 

Aside from the subjective sense of justice, which we are all biased with to one degree or another, how else might it be understood. 

 

One might ask: Is there an objective standard ... or at least consensus ... that can be pointed to for a just world? The link you provided (Thanks!) to help set context suggests a preeminent authority to which appeals for justice ... at least in deciding whether something is just ... can be made.

 

Where does Dao fit in such a case? We often speak of the Dao with a sense of preeminence in the world's workings. Does the Dao set the standard?

 

Or, as you suggest in the case of the ultimate man, is the Dao to be considered above justness. If the world, through Dao, is all encompassing and is the way it is supposed to be ... self-so ... is there a sense of justness there?

 

In Laotse, we are led to think that if the people were left to their natural ways then all would be ordered as it should be. Indeed, it is said that this would be the way the ssge would govern. Sounds a lot like a description of a just world. Can a sage then rise to the level of an ultimate man if outgrowing a belief in a just world is requisite?

 

For me, considering these questions, brings me not to belief or disbelief in a just world, but to seeing the notion of justness as an invention of the human mind that should be dealt with there in a manner similar to other conceptualizations.

 

Worth pondering.

[wandelaar]

@ OldDog

 

Now how about the infamous straw dogs... ?

 

That's how I understand it: Tao doesn't care about people, and so it is silly to count on being rewarded for doing "the right thing" such as Sun Hsiu is doing.

[OldDog]

Doing the right thing is its own reward.

 

I'm sure somebody said that somewhere.

 

I'm not sure that the Dao is indifferent ... that is, does not care.

[wandelaar]

35 minutes ago, OldDog said:

Doing the right thing is its own reward.

 

The problem of Sun Hsiu was that he expected the world and the people around him to reward his efforts at being a good man. As that didn't happen, he started complaining. So apparently for Sun Hsiu the realization of having done the right thing wasn't enough. And the same goes for very many people around the world even today.

 

The belief in a (basically or fundamentally or eventually or even after death or seen in the perspective of several incarnations) just world is too comforting for many people to let it go and accept the obvious truth that Tao doesn't care. We are just its straw dogs.

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by wandelaar

[OldDog]

2 hours ago, wandelaar said:

... the obvious truth that Tao doesn't care.

 

It's not that the Dao doesn't care. In that sense, it doesn't not care either. Dao simply does. It is the human mind that renders a judgement on how that doing is viewed ... kind/unkind, caring/not caring ... judgments.

 

What the lessons in Laozi are trying to get at is that the changes in the world can be understood through the workings of Heaven and Earth. Knowing those workings puts the ultimate man in the position of being in harmony with the world. Hence, the ultimate man has no expectation.

[Marblehead]

7 hours ago, OldDog said:

@Marblehead

 

I've been meaning to ask ...

 

In your posts from Mair, is there any significance to the use of double braces ... {{ and }} ... that delimit some of the text?

 

When I compare to Watson's translation, the parts Mair sets off with double braces are not given special treatment.

 

Just wondering

The double braces are comments by Mair and nor really a part of the translation itself.

 

In Mair's actual published translation all these comments are numerically noted in the text and then listed at the end of the translation.

 

Including the comments within the appropriate sections was the best way I decided to present the sections.

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, OldDog said:

Worth pondering.

Yeah, you pondered that well.

 

[OldDog]

1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

The double braces are comments by Mair and nor really a part of the translation itself.

 

You sure of that?

 

I got the Kindle version of Burton Watson's The  Complete Works of Zhuangzi. It shows the part about Master Bian (Pien in Mair) as the last story in chapter 19. The story matches quite closely. It appears as a continuation of the text following Artisan Chui, without any delimitation. I don't own Mair to make a direct comparison. Terebes' Online shows Watson the way my Kindle version does.

[Marblehead]

6 minutes ago, OldDog said:

You sure of that?

No, I wasn't sure so I had to look.

 

I first note that what I am using for posting the Mair sections are a combination of a .pdf file supplemented with information from his published hard copy of the same.  The hard copy of his translation ends at:

 

One who begins with what fits and never experiences what doesn't fit has the fitness that forgets about what fits . . . .

 

All the rest in this section above is in a note at after the end of the actual translation.

 

 

Watson's hard copy note after the end of the section translation that reads "How could he help but be startled?":

 

The text of the last part of the sentence appears to be corrupt and I make little sense of it.  The same anecdote , in somewhat more detailed form, has already appeared on pp. 194-95.

 

 

 

Anyhow, what we find on the internet is generally without the notes and comments as they are likely copyright protected.

 

 

[wandelaar]

Apparently Mair considered the part "There was a certain Sun Hsiu who paid a call at the gate of Master Pien Sir Ch'ing (...) How could he not be alarmed?" as not belonging to the original text of the Chuang tzu.

[wandelaar]

10 hours ago, OldDog said:

It's not that the Dao doesn't care. In that sense, it doesn't not care either. Dao simply does. It is the human mind that renders a judgement on how that doing is viewed ... kind/unkind, caring/not caring ... judgments.

 

What the lessons in Laozi are trying to get at is that the changes in the world can be understood through the workings of Heaven and Earth. Knowing those workings puts the ultimate man in the position of being in harmony with the world. Hence, the ultimate man has no expectation.

 

That's another way of saying the same thing. The crucial insight here is that one can behave in the way that seems best considering the circumstances and that that is the most sensible thing to do, but that there is no implied guarantee  that things will then turn out fine. The ultimate man has eventually to rise above petty earthly concerns to find piece of mind. And that is something that's hard to do for mere mortals...

[OldDog]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

And that is something that's hard to do for mere mortals...

 

True enough. In a sense, people bring troubles on themsleves through the things they choose to be involved in. All to often the basis for involvement is ego driven self-aggrandizement which easily leads to contention. Its difficult to go along in the world without a sense of expectation.