Perfect Happiness莊子 外篇 至樂

Is there perfect happiness in the world or is there not? Is there anything that can keep the body alive or is there not? Now what should one do and what should one lean on? What should one avoid and where should one dwell? What should one go toward and what should one leave? What should one enjoy and what should one hate?

What the world honors is wealth, high rank, long life, and goodness. What it enjoys is ease of body, rich flavors, fine clothes, beautiful colors, and the sound of music.

What it holds low is poverty, low rank, early death, and badness. What it suffers over is the body not getting ease and leisure, the mouth not getting rich flavors, the body not getting fine clothes, the eyes not getting beautiful colors, and the ears not getting the sound of music.

If they do not get these things, they worry greatly and are afraid. Is not this way of caring for the body foolish?

The rich man wears out his body with busy work, and he piles up much wealth and cannot use it all. His way of caring for the body is outside himself.

The honored man joins night to day, weighing what is good and what is not. His way of caring for the body is thin.

A man's birth is a birth together with worry. One who lives long grows dim, worrying long and not dying. How bitter that is. His way of caring for the body is far off.

The man of fierce honor is seen as good by the world, but he is not good enough at keeping his own body alive. I do not know whether goodness is truly good or truly not good. Take it as good, and it is not enough to keep his own body alive. Take it as not good, and it is enough to keep others alive.

Therefore it is said. "If your loyal counsel is not heard, step back and do not contend." So Wu Zixu contended and ruined his body, and if he had not contended his name would not have been made either. Is there truly such a thing as goodness or is there not?

Now I still do not know about what the common world does and what it enjoys. Is its happiness truly happiness, or is it truly not happiness?

When I look at what the common world enjoys, they run along in crowds as if they could not help themselves, and they all call it happiness. I have never been happy in it, and I have never been unhappy in it either. Is there truly happiness or is there not?

I take doing nothing to be true happiness, and this is just what the common world suffers over most.

Therefore it is said. In perfect happiness there is no happiness. In perfect praise there is no praise.

Right and wrong in the world truly cannot be settled. Even so, by doing nothing right and wrong can be settled. Keeping the body alive with perfect happiness — only doing nothing comes near to holding it.

Let me try to speak of it. Heaven does nothing, and by this it is clear. Earth does nothing, and by this it is at peace. So the two kinds of doing nothing join together, and the ten thousand things are all changed and born.

It is dim, it is faint, and there is nowhere it comes out of. It is faint, it is dim, and it has no shape. The ten thousand things are thick and many, and all of them swell out of doing nothing.

Therefore it is said. Heaven and earth do nothing, and yet there is nothing they do not do. Among people, who can attain to doing nothing?

When Zhuangzi's wife died, Huizi came to mourn her. Zhuangzi was sitting with his legs stretched out, drumming on a tub and singing.

Huizi said, "You lived with her, you raised your children, and your body has grown old. Not weeping at her death would be enough. Yet you also drum on a tub and sing. Is this not going too far?"

Zhuangzi said, "It is not so. When she first died, how could I alone not have felt sorrow?

I looked into her beginning, and there was no life in it. Not only was there no life, there was no shape. Not only was there no shape, there was no breath.

Mixed in the dim and the faint, it changed and there was breath. The breath changed and there was shape. The shape changed and there was life. Now it has changed again and gone to death. This is the same as the going of the four seasons, spring and autumn and winter and summer.

She is lying at ease in a great room. If I followed her with loud weeping, I would be taking myself for one who does not understand fate. So I stopped."

Uncle Zhili and Hua Jieshu looked out over the hill of Mingbo and the empty land of Kunlun, where the Yellow Emperor had rested. Suddenly a growth rose on Hua Jieshu's left elbow, and his mind started at it and he hated it.

Uncle Zhili said, "Do you hate it?"

Hua Jieshu said, "No. What would I hate? Living is a borrowed thing. What lives by borrowing is dust and dirt. Death and life are night and day. And you and I were watching change, and the change has reached me. What would I hate in that?"

Zhuangzi was going to Chu when he saw an empty skull, dry and bare and yet still holding its shape. He struck it with his horsewhip and asked it.

"Sir, did you crave life and lose the way of things, and come to this? Or was your country lost and the axe fell on you, and you came to this? Or did you act badly, and were ashamed to leave disgrace to your parents and your wife and children, and came to this? Or did you suffer cold and hunger, and come to this? Or did your years run out and bring you here?"

When he had finished speaking, he pulled the skull over, laid his head on it and slept. In the middle of the night the skull appeared in his dream and said, "What you say is like the talk of a clever speaker. Looking at what you said, it is all the burdens of living people. In death there is none of this. Would you like to hear the talk of death?"

Zhuangzi said, "Yes."

The skull said, "In death there is no ruler above and no minister below, and there is none of the business of the four seasons. At my ease I take heaven and earth for my spring and autumn. Not even the happiness of a king facing south is better than this."

Zhuangzi did not believe it and said, "If I had the keeper of fate bring your body to life again, and make your bones and flesh and skin, and send you back to your parents, your wife and children, your village and the people you know, would you want it?"

The skull frowned deeply and wrinkled its brow and said, "How could I give up the happiness of a king facing south and go back to the toil of the world of men?"

Yan Yuan was going east to Qi, and Confucius had a worried look. Zigong came down from his seat and asked, "I make bold to ask. Hui is going east to Qi, and you have a worried look. How is this?"

Confucius said, "Good, your question. Long ago Guanzi said something that I think very good. He said, 'A small bag cannot hold a big thing, and a short well rope cannot draw from a deep place.'

Since it is so, he held that fate has what it has completed and the body has what it is fitted to, and that nothing can be taken from this or added to it.

I am afraid that Hui will speak to the lord of Qi of the Way of Yao and Shun and the Yellow Emperor, and will lay on top of it the words of Sui Ren and Shen Nong. That man will search within himself and not find it, and not finding it he will be confused, and when a man is confused, death follows.

And have you alone not heard of it? Long ago a sea bird settled outside the city wall of Lu. The lord of Lu welcomed it in, offered it wine in the shrine, played the Nine Shao music to make it happy, and set out the great sacrifice to feed it. The bird's eyes swam, and it grew worried and sad, and it did not dare eat one slice of meat or drink one cup of wine, and in three days it died.

This was feeding a bird the way he himself is fed. It was not feeding a bird the way a bird is fed.

One who feeds a bird the way a bird is fed should let it roost in the deep woods, roam on the sandbanks, float on the rivers and lakes, feed on loach and minnow, stay with its own flock, and live at its ease.

That bird only hates to hear the speech of men. What use is all that noise to it?

Set out the music of Xianchi and Nine Shao in the fields of Dongting, and the birds hear it and fly away, the beasts hear it and run off, the fish hear it and go down into the water. Only the crowds of men hear it and gather round to watch.

Fish dwell in water and live. Men dwell in water and die. They are surely different from each other, and so what they like and hate is different.

Therefore the sages of old did not make their abilities one, and did not make their work the same. Names stop at the real thing, and rightness is set where it fits. This is called being open in its order and holding onto good fortune."

Liezi was eating by the roadside when he saw a hundred-year-old skull. He pushed the mugwort aside, pointed at it and said, "Only you and I know that you have never once died and never once lived. Are you truly grieving? Am I truly glad?"

A seed has its workings in it. Getting water, it becomes water moss. Getting the place where water and soil meet, it becomes the coat of frogspawn. Born on the high ground, it becomes plantain. When plantain gets manure, it becomes the wuzu plant. The root of the wuzu becomes a grub, and its leaf becomes a butterfly.

The butterfly before long changes into an insect that is born under the stove. Its form is like something that has shed a skin, and its name is quduo. After a thousand days the quduo becomes a bird, and its name is ganyugu. The spittle of the ganyugu becomes the simi, and the simi becomes the vinegar fly. The yilu is born from the vinegar fly, the huangkuang is born from the jiuyou, and the wurui is born from the firefly.

The yangxi pairs with the bamboo that has no shoots, and old bamboo gives birth to the qingning, and the qingning gives birth to the cheng, and the cheng gives birth to the horse, and the horse gives birth to man, and man goes back again into the workings.

The ten thousand things all come out of the workings, and all go into the workings.