From: Xiaoyao Tour Pre-Qin Zhuang Zhou
Excerpt:
Little knowledge is not as good as great knowledge, and small years are not as good as big years. What if I know? I don't know the future, I don't know the spring and autumn. There are ghosts in southern Chu, and 500 years old is spring and 500 years old is autumn. In ancient times, there was a big tree, eight thousand years old was spring, and eight thousand years old was autumn. This is also a big year. Peng Zu has a long reputation, and everyone is the best. Don't be too sad!
Translation:
Xiao Zhi can't compare with great wisdom and short life can't compare with long life. how do you know Fungi in ephemera do not know night and dawn. Spring begets summer and dies, and summer begets autumn and dies. I don't know a year. This is short-lived. There is a big tree in southern Chu called Gui Ling, which regards 500 years as a spring and 500 years as an autumn.
In ancient times, there was a tree called Toona sinensis, which regarded 8,000 years as a spring and 8,000 years as an autumn. This is longevity. But Peng Zu, who lived 700 years, is now particularly famous for his long life. Isn't it sad that everyone wants to compete with him?
Zhuangzi is a genius, clever and diligent. He disdains to associate with a corrupt society, and the realistic situation also prevents him from displaying his ambition. Therefore, the soul pursuing freedom has to soar in the fantasy world and seek liberation in the realm of absolute freedom. It is in this situation that he wrote the song "Happy Travel", which is the pursuit of suppressing the soul.
This article is one of Zhuangzi's representative works, and it is also a masterpiece of a hundred schools of thought. It is full of strange imagination and romantic colors, and combines reasoning with fables and vivid metaphors to form a unique style. "Wandering freely" is also an important aspect of Zhuangzi's philosophy. The whole article repeatedly expounds the idea of nothing to rely on and pursues the absolute freedom of the spiritual world.
In Zhuangzi's eyes, everything in objective reality, including people, is antagonistic and interdependent, so there is no absolute freedom. If you want nothing to rely on, you have nothing. Therefore, he hopes that everything will go with the flow, be detached from reality, deny all the functions of human beings in social life, and confuse human life with the survival of all things; Advocate not to dwell on things and pursue unconditional spiritual freedom.