The Inner Chapters of Chuang Tzu
Les Chapitres
intérieurs de Tchoang-tzeu
(English)
Author: Zhuangzi
(Chuang Tzu) (3rd Century BCE)
French Translator:
Léon Wieger 1913
Translator/Editor: Nik Marcel 2017
English translated from French.
Copyright
© 2018 Nik Marcel
All
rights reserved.
A Bilingual (Dual-Language) Project
2Language Books
The Inner Chapters of Chuang Tzu
Chapter 1
Towards the ideal:
A. If we are to believe ancient legends, in the
northern ocean lives an immense fish, which can take the form of a bird.
When this bird takes flight, its wings extend
across the sky like clouds.
Skimming the waves, in the direction of the south,
it takes a run-up over a length of four hundred and fifty kilometres; then
rises on the wind, to the height of thirteen thousand five hundred kilometres,
in the space of six months.
What can be seen up there, in the blue sky?
Is it a herd of wild horses running?
Is it powdery matter fluttering about?
Is it puffs of wind giving birth to beings?
And the blue, is it heaven itself?
Or is it simply the colour of the infinite
distance, in which heaven, the personal being of the Annals and the Odes, is
hidden?
And, from up there, can earth be seen? And in which
way? Mysteries!
In any case, rising from the vast ocean, and
carried by a great mass of air — capable of supporting its immensity —, the
great bird glides at a phenomenal altitude.
A recently hatched cicada, and a very young pigeon,
having seen it, laughed at the great bird and said, “What good is it to rise so
high? Why expose yourself this way?
We are content with flying from branch to branch, without
leaving the suburbs. When we fall to the ground, we do not hurt ourselves.
Every day, without tiring, we find our necessities.
Why go so far? Why climb so high? Do not worries
increase in proportion to the distance and the elevation?”
B. Some remarks concerning these two small animals,
on a subject surpassing their competence:
A little mind does not understand what a great mind
embraces.
A short experience does not extend to distant
facts.
The mushroom that lasts only one morning does not
know what a lunar month is.
The insect that lives for only one summer
understands nothing of the succession of the seasons.
Do not ask ephemeral beings for information about
the great tortoise, who is five hundred years old.
Do not ask them for information about the great
tree, whose life span is eight thousand years.
Even old P’eng-tsou will not tell you anything that
goes beyond the eight centuries that tradition ascribes to him.
To each being, its own path to development.
C. There are men almost as narrow-minded as the two
little animals mentioned above.
Understanding only the routine of the banal life,
they are only fit to be community leaders or small town mayors, at most.
Master Joung of Song was superior to this sort, and
more like the great bird.
He was equally indifferent to praise and blame.
Standing by his own judgment, he did not let himself be influenced by the
opinions of others. He never distinguished between glory and disgrace. He was
free from the bonds of human prejudice.
Master Lie of Tcheng was superior to Master Joung,
and even more like the great bird.
His soul used to take flight on the wing of
contemplation, sometimes for a fortnight, leaving his body lifeless and
insensitive.
He was almost free of earthly ties; not quite,
though, for he had to wait for the ecstatic abduction: a residual dependency.
Let us now consider a man entirely absorbed by the
immense cosmic gyration, and moving about in this infinite nothingness.
Such a person will no longer depend on anything. He
will be perfectly free, in the sense that his self and his action will be
united with the self and the action of the great All.
It is therefore rightly said: the super-man no
longer has a personal self; the transcendent man no longer has any personal
action; and the Sage no longer has a personal name — for he is one with
Everything.
D. Once, Emperor Yao wanted to cede the empire to
his minister Hu-You.
He said to him, “When the sun or the moon shines
forth, the torch is extinguished. When the rain falls, the watering can is set
aside. It is thanks to you that the empire prospers. Why should I remain on the
throne? Please get up!”
“Thank you,” said Hu-You. “Please stay there! It is
under your reign that the empire has flourished. What does my personal
reputation matter to me? A branch in the forest is enough for the bird to
lodge. A little water, drunk at the river, quenches the rat. I have no more
needs than these little beings. Let’s stay in our respective places, you and
I.”
These two men reached roughly the level of Master
Joung of Song. The Taoist ideal is higher than that!
One day, Kien-ou said to Lien-chou, “I have heard
Tsie-u say things that are exaggerated, extravagant...”
“What did he say?” inquired Lien-chou.
“He said that in the distant Kou-chee island lives
transcendent men, white as snow and fresh as children, who take no sort of
food, but inhale the wind and drink dew.
They walk in space, the clouds serving them as
chariots and the dragons as mounts. By the influx of their transcendence, they
protect men from diseases, and bring about the ripening of the harvests.
These are of course follies. So, I did not believe
it.”
Lien-chou replied: “The blind man does not see,
because he has no eyes. The deaf man does not hear, because he has no ears. You
did not understand Tsie-u, because you have no mind. The super-men that he
spoke of exist. They even possess virtues far more marvellous than those that
you have just cited.
But, as far as diseases and harvests are concerned,
they concern themselves so little with such things, that, the empire falling
into ruins, and everybody asking them for help, they would not trouble
themselves over it, so indifferent they are to everything...
The super-man is not affected by anything. A
universal deluge would not overwhelm him. A universal cataclysm would not
consume him. He is so high above everything. From his scraps and waste, Yao and
Chounn people would be made. And this man would concern himself with small
things, as are the harvests, and the government of a State? Come on!
Everyone imagines the ideal in their own way. For
the people of Song, the ideal is to be well dressed and well-groomed. For the
people of Ue, the ideal is to have a shaved head and tattoos.
Emperor Yao went to great lengths, and imagined
that he had ruled ideally well.
After he had visited the four Masters, in the
distant island of Kou-chee, he recognised that he had ruined everything.
The ideal is the indifference of the super-man, who
allows the cosmic wheel to turn.”
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