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Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Miscellaneous Chapters -> Metaphorical Language -> 1.2

Words like the water that daily issues from the cup,
and are harmonised by the Heavenly Element (of our nature),
may be carried on into the region of the unlimited,
and employed to the end of our years.
But without words there is an agreement (in principle).
That agreement is not effected by words,
and an agreement in words is not effected by it.
Hence it is said, 'Let there be no words.'
Speech does not need words.
One may speak all his life,
and not have spoken a (right) word;
and one may not have spoken all his life,
and yet all his life been giving utterance to the (right) words.
There is that which makes a thing allowable,
and that which makes a thing not allowable.
There is that which makes a thing right,
and that which makes a thing not right.
How is a thing right?
It is right because it is right.
How is a thing wrong?
It is wrong because it is wrong.
How is a thing allowable?
It is allowable because it is so.
How is a thing not allowable?
It is not allowable because it is not so.
Things indeed have what makes them right,
and what makes them allowable.
There is nothing which has not its condition of right;
nothing which has not its condition of allowability.
But without the words of the (water-) cup in daily use,
and harmonised by the Heavenly Element (in our nature),
what one can continue long in the possession of these characteristics?
All things are divided into their several classes,
and succeed to one another in the same way, though of different bodily forms.
They begin and end as in an unbroken ring,
though how it is they do so be not apprehended.
This is what is called the Lathe of Heaven;
and the Lathe of Heaven
is the Heavenly Element in our nature.


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