Zhi Travels North (6)

1 Dongguo Zi asked Chuang Tzu, “You have Tao on your mouth all days. Where is Tao on earth?”

2 Chuang Tzu replied, “Tao is everywhere.”

3 Dongguo Zi couldn’t catch him yet. He asked again, “Could you specify an instance of it?”

4 Chuang Tzu replied unconcernedly, “It exists in the ants.”

5 Dongguo Zi was dissatisfied with his unconcerned attitude. He protested, “How can you take a so humble instance?”

6 Chuang Tzu replied again, “In the panic grass.”

7 Dongguo Zi reproached, “This sample is paltrier and humbler.”

8 Chuang Tzu didn’t change attitude. He took another instance. “Tao exists in the tile and brick.

9 To his surprise, Dongguo Zi blamed him. “Worse! Can you take it seriously?”

10 Chuang Tzu neglected his anger. “Tao exists in the shit.”

11 Hearing the answer, Dongguo Zi didn’t ask again. He felt it was wrong to consult about Tao in this way. So, he looked at Chuang Tzu quietly with expectation to petition him for the answer.

12 Chuang Tzu now felt that Dongguo Zi with this attitude could accept his explanation so he stooped to said slowly, “Your questions are difficult to answer. Especially you want me to specify an instance.

13 When we buy a pig in the market, we must check the pig allover, especially the hooves. If we discover that the pig lacks a hoof, it might be an ill pig that has suffered from foot-and-mouth disease, and then we don’t buy it.

14 So I specified the instance as humble as possible. In fact, we are discussing worldly things; we may take a sample that exists in the world. When we discuss unworldly things that belong to the spirit aspect or other space, we have difficulty in taking the worldly sample.

15 As for Tao, it is abstract. I can’t take an instance to explain.

16 Zhou, Pian and Xian--"Complete," "All-embracing," "the Whole"-- are different characters but they have the same meaning. They all refer to the “One” thing.

17 Suppose we are to try to roam about in the palace of “ No-where” ;

18 when meet there, we may discuss about the subject without ever coming to an end?

19 Or we stay still, doing and caring for nothing.

20 Do we stay harmonious there and our hearts are absolutely free?

21 I have no idea of others but my heart is free and unlimited.

22 I don’t ask my heart to go somewhere. It just strolls around, unsettling. It comes and goes but I don’t know when and where it stops.

23 Heart is so. It strolls in very vast space. When all people, including the men of perfect practice, enter into the space, they inevitably lose the direction and become goalless.

24 Our comprehension of something means that we think it in the realm of material world.

25 If a thing can be defined, it is limited.

26 Limitless space means that its boundary is unlimited. In the limitless space, the definition of fullness, emptiness; withering and decay are different from those in the limited space.

27 In limitless space, the emptiness and fullness is not that in our mind any more, nor is the decay and withering. There is no start and no end. Parting and unification are the same.”