Follow us on Facebook to receive important updates Follow us on Twitter to receive important updates Follow us on sina.com's microblogging site to receive important updates Follow us on Douban to receive important updates
Chinese Text Project
Simplified Chinese version
Back Forward
Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Inner Chapters -> Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease -> 7

惠子庄子Huizi said to Zhuangzi,
'I have a large tree,
which men call the Ailantus.
Its trunk swells out to a large size, but is not fit for a carpenter to apply his line to it;
its smaller branches are knotted and crooked, so that the disk and square cannot be used on them.
Though planted on the wayside,
a builder would not turn his head to look at it.
Now your words, Sir,
are great, but of no use
。” - all unite in putting them away from them.'
庄子 Zhuangzi replied,
'Have you never seen a wildcat or a weasel?
There it lies, crouching and low,
till the wanderer approaches;
西 east and west it leaps about,
avoiding neither what is high nor what is low,
till it is caught in a trap,
or dies in a net.
Again there is the Yak,
so large that it is like a cloud hanging in the sky.
It is large indeed,
but it cannot catch mice.
You, Sir, have a large tree
and are troubled because it is of no use
- why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else,
广 or in a wide and barren wild?
There you might saunter idly by its side,
or in the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep beneath it.
Neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence;
there would be nothing to injure it.
What is there in its uselessness
!” to cause you distress?'


Enjoy this site? Please help.Site design and content copyright 2006-2024. When quoting or citing information from this site, please link to the corresponding page or to https://ctext.org/ens. Please note that the use of automatic download software on this site is strictly prohibited, and that users of such software are automatically banned without warning to save bandwidth. 沪ICP备09015720号-3Comments? Suggestions? Please raise them here.