Just came across a 4th C BCE Taoist scholar, Zhuangzi through the writer, Karen Armstrong In an interview in a recent article in the NYTimes she writes:
Everybody has heard of the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist classic. Less well known, but equally important and far more accessible, is “The Book of Zhuangzi,” written in the fourth century B.C., which also enables the reader to become aware of the Tao, the sacred reality that permeates every aspect of life. Zhuangzi’s style is energetic, ebullient, bracing, humorous and accessible. The secret, he explains, is to let ourselves go, laying aside the ego that we cherish so diligently. We do this not by abstruse meditation; instead, we must focus on simple tasks so thoroughly and wholeheartedly that we forget ourselves and allow the qi, the sacred force that permeates the whole of reality, to take over. His heroes are not daunting, solitary mystics. Instead, Zhuangzi introduces us to ordinary people engaged in humdrum tasks who lose themselves so completely in their work that, without any great drama, they experience ekstasis. We meet a hunchback catching cicadas in the forest and a butcher carving an ox who have both, in their own way, touched the Tao, the ineffable source of life itself, by concentrating so intensely on their job that they have left themselves behind. This brings not only new insight but a great peace. Zhuangzi tells us that when Taoists quietly and gently discuss the Tao together, they simply look at one another and smile. There is no disagreement in their hearts, and so they become friends.
What he describes is so hard to do!
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