RELG 253 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Tao Te Ching, Taoism, Wu Wei
17 Mar 2016
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Zhuang zi, the thinker and his writing. Text edited in late 300 bce, but development for 200 years. 33 chapters: 7 inner, 15 outer, 11 miscellaneous. Style very different from lao zi"s dao de jing. Because when he was writing it, he wanted to show a certain philosophical understanding. Handing out acorns to monkeys and said you get 3 in the morning and. 4 at night. the monkeys were angry so the training said you get 4 in the morning and 3 at night. the monkeys were happy . Name can change but the underlying essence remains the same. There is no change in the amount of acorn given to the monkey. By names, we can never obtain absolute truth the truth is the dao , and language cannot describe the dao ( the essence) cause its so deep. The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and dawn; the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn.
