Zhuangzi: Life Should Have Been Calm and Unhurried, Handled with Ease

Zhuangzi: Life should have been calm and unhurried, handled with ease; instead, we are rushing frantically, stumbling and scrambling.
Recently, “Life should have been calm and unhurried, handled with ease; instead, we are rushing frantically, stumbling and scrambling” has gone viral on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and throughout the Chinese-speaking world. “Handled with ease” comes from the story of Cook Ding cutting up an ox in “The Essentials of Nourishing Life” in the *Zhuangzi*. The “philosophy” of the line itself is also very much in keeping with Zhuangzi: life could be free and unhurried. Engaging, profound, practical, and endlessly rewarding to ponder—these are also characteristics of Zhuangzi’s philosophical prose.
Some 200 or more Chinese idioms originate in the *Zhuangzi*, and its philosophy has permeated Chinese culture.
A. “Nourishing life” is Zhuangzi’s study of our nature and life. People damage their nature and lose their lives: “Our lives have limits, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with what is limited is perilous. Rest content with the times and dwell in accord with their course, and neither sorrow nor joy can enter. This is what the ancients called release from suspension” (the way to liberation).
“Xu Wugui” in the *Zhuangzi*: “They drive their bodies and natures onward, submerge them in the myriad things, and never return throughout their lives.”
B. “Discussion on Making All Things Equal” in the *Zhuangzi*: “Once we receive our completed bodily form, we hold on to it until it is exhausted. Clashing with things and wearing ourselves down against them, we rush through life with nothing able to stop us—is this not tragic! To toil all our lives without seeing our work bear fruit, to grow weary and worn by labor without knowing where we are headed—can this be anything but sorrowful?” “Great understanding is expansive; petty understanding is full of distinctions.”
C. “Mending Our Nature” in the *Zhuangzi* speaks of “nourishing understanding through tranquility”: “Those who lose themselves in things and lose their nature in convention are called people who have turned things upside down.” (This statement is consistent with Marx’s philosophy of alienation and the core of his dialectic of setting what stands on its head back on its feet.) Idioms originating in this chapter include “things that come by chance,” “rooting deeply and resting in utter stillness,” “finding complete joy and fulfillment,” “giving free rein to ambition through rank and office,” “following convention in poverty and constraint,” and “losing one’s nature in convention.”
D. “Mending Our Nature” discusses recluses:
“When the Way cannot flourish in the world, and the world cannot flourish through the Way, even if sages do not live among the mountains and forests, their virtue remains hidden. It is hidden by circumstance; they do not deliberately hide it themselves. Those whom the ancients called recluses were not people who concealed their bodies from view, kept their words unspoken, or hid their understanding without expressing it. Rather, their times and circumstances were profoundly out of joint. When their times and circumstances were favorable and they could act freely throughout the world, they returned to unity without leaving a trace; when their times and circumstances were unfavorable and they met with hardship throughout the world, they rooted themselves deeply, rested in utter stillness, and waited. This is the way to preserve oneself.”—Marxism finds itself in the same predicament. The works of Marx and Engels have also received a cold reception, not because their ideas are wrong or lacking in value, but because of the circumstances. When the revolution was at a low ebb, Lenin withdrew to Siberia and Austria, Zhu De, Mao Zedong, and Peng Dehuai withdrew to the mountains and forests, and Confucius was stranded between Chen and Cai. A noble person remains steadfast in adversity.
E. “Perfect Happiness” in the *Zhuangzi* discusses the happiness of death.
The skull said: “Everything you describe is a burden of the living. Once you are dead, none of these troubles remain. Would you like to know the happiness of death?” Zhuangzi said: “Yes.” The skull said: “When people die, they have no ruler above them and no subjects below them, nor any seasonal labors. They are calm and free, enduring as long as heaven and earth. Even the happiness of a king facing south on his throne cannot compare with this.” Zhuangzi did not believe it and said: “If I had the god who governs life restore your body, grow back your bones, flesh, and skin, and send you back among your parents, wife, children, neighbors, and acquaintances, would you want that?” Hearing this, the skull knitted its brows deeply and furrowed its forehead, saying: “How could I abandon the happiness of a king on his throne and return to the toil of the human world?”
“Heaven’s Gifts” in the *Liezi*: “Liezi was traveling to Wei and stopped to eat by the roadside. His followers saw a skull a hundred years old. He brushed aside the weeds and pointed to it, then turned to his disciple Baifeng and said: ‘Only that one and I know that we have never been born and never died. Is this truly sorrow? Is this truly joy?’”
F. “Letting Be and Allowing to Stand” in the *Zhuangzi*: “Look at nothing, listen to nothing; embrace your spirit in stillness, and your body will become balanced of itself. Be still, be clear; do not weary your body or disturb your vital essence, and you may live long.”
G. “Free and Easy Wandering” in the *Zhuangzi*: “Ride the true course of heaven and earth, steer the transformations of the six vital energies, and wander through the boundless—what would you then have to depend on?”
11.12 Mending Our Nature
“When the Way cannot flourish in the world, and the world cannot flourish through the Way, even if sages do not live among the mountains and forests, their virtue remains hidden. It is hidden by circumstance; they do not deliberately hide it themselves. Those whom the ancients called recluses were not people who concealed their bodies from view, kept their words unspoken, or hid their understanding without expressing it. Rather, their times and circumstances were profoundly out of joint. When their times and circumstances were favorable and they could act freely throughout the world, they returned to unity without leaving a trace; when their times and circumstances were unfavorable and they met with hardship throughout the world, they rooted themselves deeply, rested in utter stillness, and waited. This is the way to preserve oneself.”