| Knowledge Rambling in the...: |
Dong-guo Zi asked Zhuangzi, saying, 'Where is what you call the Dao to be found?' Zhuangzi replied, 'Everywhere.' The other said, 'Specify an instance of it. That will be more satisfactory.' ' It is here in this ant.' 'Give a lower instance.' 'It is in this panic grass.' 'Give me a still lower instance.' 'It is in this earthenware tile.' 'Surely that is the lowest instance?' 'It is in that excrement.' To this Dong-guo Zi gave no reply. |
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Zhuangzi said, 'Your questions, my master, do not touch the fundamental point (of the Dao). They remind me of the questions addressed by the superintendents of the market to the inspector about examining the value of a pig by treading on it, and testing its weight as the foot descends lower and lower on the body. You should not specify any particular thing. There is not a single thing without (the Dao). So it is with the Perfect Dao. And if we call it the Great (Dao), it is just the same. There are the three terms, "Complete," "All-embracing," "the Whole." These names are different, but the reality (sought in them) is the same; referring to the One thing.
'Suppose we were to try to roam about in the palace of No-where - when met there, we might discuss (about the subject) without ever coming to an end. Or suppose we were to be together in (the region of) Non-action - should we say that (the Dao was) Simplicity and Stillness? or Indifference and Purity? or Harmony and Ease? My will would be aimless. If it went nowhere, I should not know where it had got to; if it went and came again, I should not know where it had stopped; if it went on going and coming, I should not know when the process would end. In vague uncertainty should I be in the vastest waste. Though I entered it with the greatest knowledge, I should not know how inexhaustible it was. That which makes things what they are has not the limit which belongs to things, and when we speak of things being limited, we mean that they are so in themselves. (The Dao) is the limit of the unlimited, and the boundlessness of the unbounded.
'We speak of fulness and emptiness; of withering and decay. It produces fulness and emptiness, but is neither fulness nor emptiness; it produces withering and decay, but is neither withering nor decay. It produces the root and branches, but is neither root nor branch; it produces accumulation and dispersion, but is itself neither accumulated nor dispersed.' |
