Let it be…
Chuang tzu is the legendary sage and author of one of the world’s greatest and oddest books. Myth, allegory, punnery, poetry, jokes, and grammatical acrobatics.
The passage below, from the second chapter of Chuang tzu, is a mashup of the translations by Brook Ziporyn, David Hinton, and BurtonWatson.
A large consciousness is idle and spacey; a small consciousness is cramped and circumspect. Big talk is bland and flavorless; petty talk is detailed and fragmented. In sleep, our spirits go visiting; in waking hours our bodies hustle. We give, we receive, we act, we construct; all day long we apply our minds to struggles against one thing or another — struggles unadorned or struggles concealed, but in either case tightly packed, one after another without gap. The small fears leave us nervous and depleted; the large fears leave us stunned and blank. Shooting forth like an arrow from a bowstring: such is our certainty about right and wrong. Holding fast as if to sworn oaths: such is our defense of our victories. Worn away as if by autumn and winter: such is our daily dwindling, drowning in our own activities, unable to turn back. Held as if by cords, we continue along the same ruts. When our minds draw near to death, nothing can restore us to vitality.
Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, plans and regrets, transformations and stagnations, unguarded abandonment and deliberate posturing — music from empty holes, mushrooms springing up in dampness! Day and night they alternate before us, but who knows where it all begins? It is! It just is! That’s enough — let it be!
Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up, and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he were Zhuang Zhou who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly, there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.