Giant parts of the Zhuangzi are written as small dialogues, normally between a ”instructor” and a scholar. The instructor could be Zhuangzi, or Confucius, or a carpenter, and many others. I feel plenty of these would make nice reads for a freshman class. The entire textual content is in Previous Masters. Right here’s a well-known little fragment, from “Enjoyment of Untroubled Ease”:
Huizi mentioned to Zhuangzi, ‘I’ve a big tree, which males name the Ailantus. Its trunk swells out to a big measurement, however shouldn’t be match for a carpenter to use his line to it; its smaller branches are knotted and crooked, in order that the disk and sq. can’t be used on them. Although planted on the wayside, a builder wouldn’t flip his head to have a look at it. Now your phrases, Sir, are nice, however of no use – all unite in placing them away from them.’ Zhuangzi replied, ‘Have you ever by no means seen a wildcat or a weasel? There it lies, crouching and low, until the wanderer approaches; east and west it leaps about, avoiding neither what’s excessive nor what’s low, until it’s caught in a entice, or dies in a internet. Once more there may be the Yak, so massive that it is sort of a cloud hanging within the sky. It’s massive certainly, nevertheless it can not catch mice. You, Sir, have a big tree and are troubled as a result of it’s of no use – why do you not plant it in a tract the place there may be nothing else, or in a large and barren wild? There you may saunter idly by its aspect, or within the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep beneath it. Neither invoice nor axe would shorten its existence; there can be nothing to injure it. What’s there in its uselessness to trigger you misery?’
