Observations placeholder
Chuang Tzu - Zhuangzi - Chapters 11 & 12
Identifier
010765
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Two circa 3rd century BCE "Outer Chapters" of the Zhuangzi (莊子 "[Book of] Master Zhuang") use the archaic character xian 僊. Chapter 11 has a parable about "Cloud Chief" (雲 將) and "Big Concealment" (鴻濛) that uses the Shijing compound xianxian ("dance; jump"):
Chapter 12 uses xian when mythical Emperor Yao describes a shengren (聖 人 "sagely person").
A description of the experience
CHAPTER 11
Big Concealment said, "If you confuse the constant strands of Heaven and violate the true form of things, then Dark Heaven will reach no fulfillment. Instead, the beasts will scatter from their herds, the birds will cry all night, disaster will come to the grass and trees, misfortune will reach even to the insects. Ah, this is the fault of men who 'govern'!"
"Then what should I do?" said Cloud Chief.
"Ah," said Big Concealment, "you are too far gone! [僊僊] Up, up, stir yourself and be off!"
Cloud Chief said, "Heavenly Master, it has been hard indeed for me to meet with you—I beg one word of instruction!"
"Well, then—mind‑nourishment!" said Big Concealment. "You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless. Undo the mind, slough off spirit, be blank and soulless, and the ten thousand things one by one will return to the root—return to the root and not know why. Dark and undifferentiated chaos—to the end of life none will depart from it. But if you try to know it, you have already departed from it. Do not ask what its name is, do not try to observe its form. Things will live naturally end of themselves."
Cloud Chief said, "The Heavenly Master has favored me with this Virtue, instructed me in this Silence. All my life I have been looking for it, and now at last I have it!" He bowed his head twice, stood up, took his leave, and went away. (11, tr. Burton Watson 1968:122-3)
CHAPTER 12
The true sage is a quail at rest, a little fledgling at its meal, a bird in flight who leaves no trail behind. When the world has the Way, he joins in the chorus with all other things. When the world is without the Way, he nurses his Virtue and retires in leisure. And after a thousand years, should he weary of the world, he will leave it and ascend to [僊] the immortals, riding on those white clouds all the way up to the village of God. (12, tr. Watson 1968:130)