Chuang Tzu’s Butterfly

On posh jobs

Someone offered Chuang Tzu a court post. Chuang Tzu answered the messenger, "Sir, have you seen a sacrificial ox? It is decked in fine garments and fed on fresh grass and beans. 

However, when it is led into the Great Temple, even though it might earnestly wish to be a simple calf again, it’s now impossible."

On being civilized

Horse have hooves so that they can grip on frost and snow, and hair so that they can withstand the wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water, they buck and gallop, for this is the innate nature of horses. Even if they had great towers and magnificent halls, they would not be interested in them. 

However, when Po Lo [a famous horse trainer] came on the scene, he said, "I know how to train horses". He branded them, cut their hair and their hooves, put halters on their heads, bridled them, hobbled them and shut them in stables. Out of ten horses at least two or three die …

However, is it really the innate nature of clay and wood to be moulded by compass and T-square, template and plumb line? "Po Lo is good at controlling horses and indeed the potter and carpenter are good with clay and wood." And the same nonsense is spouted by those who rule the world.

To restore one’s                   nature, is to come back to the first truth of being

On being gnat food

At a sumptuous banquet to celebrate his going on a journey Mr Tien remarks, "How kind Heaven is to humanity. It provides the five grains and nourishes the fish and birds for us to enjoy and use."

Everyone nods in agreement except for the twelve year old son of Mr Pao. He steps forward and says, "My Lord is wrong! All life is born in the same way that we are and we are all of the same kind. One species is not nobler than another; it is simply that the strongest and cleverest rule over the weaker and more stupid. Things eat each other and are eaten, but they were not bred for this.

To be sure, we take the things that we can eat and consume them, but you cannot claim that Heaven made them in the first place just for us to eat. After all, mosquitoes and gnats bite our skin, tigers and wolves eat our flesh. Does this mean that Heaven originally created us for the sake of mosquitoes, gnats, tigers and wolves.?"

On butterfly dreams

The Outline said to the Shadow, "First you are on the move, then you are standing still; you sit down and then you stand up. Why can’t you make up your own mind?"

Shadow replied, "Do I have to look to something else to be what I am? Does this something else not have to rely upon yet another something? Do I have to depend on the scales of a snake or the wings of a cicida? How can I tell how things are? How can I tell how things are not?