Novak, Philip. The World’s Wisdom, Chuang Tzu
Somewhere in the writings of Chuang Tzu, an aged Confucius hears a description of sagehood that puzzles him: “The true sage pays no heed to mundane affairs…. He adheres, without questioning, to the Tao. Without speaking he can speak; and he can speak and yet say nothing. And so he roams beyond the limits of this dusty world.
”Shocked, Confucius sputters: “These are wild words.” Wild they may be, but they are very likely the self-description of Chuang Tzu, who lived about two hundred years after the author of the Tao Te Ching. Rambunctious, irreverent, paradoxical, and, many say, exceedingly subtle, his writings are the second most important source for philosophical Taoism.
The Unfathomable Source of Mind
Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a moment to lay our finger upon their very cause?
But for these emotions I should not be. But for me, they would have no scope. So far we can go; but we do not know what it is that brings them into play.
Novak, Philip. The World’s Wisdom, Chuang Tzu, (S.165). HarperOne. Kindle-Version.
