The Taoist Chuang Tzu

Chuang Tzu:

“He whose Law is within walks in hiddenness. His acts are not influenced by approval or disapproval. He whose will is outside himself directs his will to what is beyond his control, and seeks to extend his power over objects. He who walks in hiddenness has light to guide him in all his acts. He who seeks to extend his control is nothing but an operator. While he thinks he is surpassing others, others see him merely as straining, stretching to stand on tip-toe. When he tries to extend his power over objects, those objects gain control of him. Who is controlled by objects loses possession of his inner-self. If he no longer values himself, how can he value others? If he no longer values others, he is abandoned! There is no deadlier weapon than the Will. The sharpest Sword is not equal to it! There is no robber so dangerous as the robbers called Yin and Yang. Yet it is not nature that does the damage: it is Man’s own Will.”


“The birth of man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid an unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. I cannot tell if what the world considers ‘happiness’ is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way that they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while, they claim to be just on the point of attaining ‘happiness.’”