Meditation And World Creation By Chuang-Tse

this pic is from Wikipedia

About 2 weeks ago I learned from my friend about Zhuangzi (Chuang-tse), a Chinese philosopher from Taoism tradition, I think. My friend told me a quarter that in English has to be something like this:

It's easy to learn the Path, It's difficult not to speak about it. Learn and not speak -so you can reach natural. Learn and speak -so you will reach human. Persons in ancient times appealed to natural, not to human.

Well, if you know better translation, I'll be very happy to post it here.

So, I wanted to find more stories from Chuang-tse and found a splendid adopted to modernity translation in Russian of a fable about Phoenix and crow. I wanted to tell this story here too, because I like it very much, but I could not find it in English. If you want, you can translate it from this page in Russian with a translator you can find on the right here.

But I found a page with different translations from Chuang-tse in English and one of these stories touched me very much.

Hui Shi said to Zhuangzi, "I have a large tree, of the sort people call a shu tree. Its trunk is too gnarled for measuring lines to be applied to it, its branches are too twisted for use with compasses or T-squares. If you stood it on the road, no carpenter would pay any attention to it Now your talk is similarly vast but useless, people are unanimous in rejecting it."

Zhuangzi replied, "Haven't you ever seen a wildcat or a weasel? It crouches down to wait for something to pass, ready to pounce east or west, high or low, only to end by falling into a trap and dying in a net But then there is the yak. It is as big as a cloud hanging in the sky. It has an ability to be big, but hardly an ability to catch mice. Now you have a large tree but fret over its uselessness. Why not plant it in Nothing At All town or Vast Nothing wilds? Then you could roam about doing nothing by its side or sleep beneath it. Axes will never shorten its life and nothing w ill ever harm it. If you are of no use at all, who will make trouble for you?"

I think, the words I posted in bold are very interesting if we read them not letterally but from psychological side. As a meditation.

And here is the other quater I like too, interesting explanation of a deep phylosophical concept:

"No," Zhuangzi said, "when she first died how could I have escaped feeling the loss? Then I looked back to the beginning before she had life Not only before she had life but before she had form. Not only before she had form, but before she had vital energy. In this confused amorphous realm, something changed and vital energy appeared,- when the vital energy was changed, form appeared; with changes in form, life began. Now there is another change bringingdeath This is like the progression of the four seasons of spring and fall, winter and summer.

I think it's very clear, the understanding of the creation. Something what I think much in the last period.