Chuangtzu's Grief
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When Chuangtzu’s wife died, his friend Huitzu went to his home to express his condolences. To his surprise, Chuangtzu was sitting on the floor, singing and beating a plate to keep time.
“You’ve lived with your wife for so long,” Huitzu said to him, “and you’ve raised a family together. Don’t you feel sad about her death? It is bad enough that you don’t feel grief. But you have gone too far now that you are singing?”
“You are wrong, my friend,” Chuangtzu replied. “I cried bitterly when she passed away. How could I not be sad? But after a while it occurred to me that before my wife was born, she had not had life. Not only that, she had not had a physical form, either. Not only she had no physical form, but she had not had the energy that gave rise to her form.
“In fact, there was nothing in the beginning. Out of the nothingness, something happened. A transmutation took place and she was given energy. Then another transmutation took place and her energy took on physical form. And then another transmutation happened and her physical form became alive.
“Now a different transmutation has taken place and she has returned to death. The cycle is much like the change of seasons. My wife is lying peacefully between heaven and earth. If I keep weeping over her death like a baby, it would only mean that I haven’t recognized the cycle of life. That’s why I decided not to cry any more.”
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The Wedding Of The River-god
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A Butcher's Knife
Wise Proverbs
- Every door may be shut, but death's door.
- 人生在世，唯死难逃。
- Nothing causes greater sorrow than despair.
- 哀莫大于心思。
- A profound understanding of commonplace affairs is genuine knowledge.
- 世事洞明皆学问。
Editor Says:
Chuangtzu once had a dream in which he was a butterfly fluttering here and there as the fancy of a butterfly would take him. When he woke up, he found the man lying in the bed was Chuangtzu, not a butterfly. He wondered whether it was Chuangtzu who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly that dreamed it was Chuangtzu.