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Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Outer Chapters -> The Full Understanding of Life -> 1.2

For those who wish to avoid caring for the body,
their best plan is to abandon the world.
Abandoning the world, they are free from its entanglements.
Free from its entanglements, their (minds) are correct and their (temperament) is equable.
Thus correct and equable, they succeed in securing a renewal of life, as some have done.
In securing a renewal of life, they are not far from the True (Secret of their being).
But how is it sufficient to abandon worldly affairs? and how is it sufficient to forget the (business of) life?
Through the renouncing of (worldly) affairs, the body has no more toil;
through forgetting the (business of) life, the vital power suffers no diminution.
When the body is completed and the vital power is restored (to its original vigour),
the man is one with Heaven.
Heaven and Earth
are the father and mother of all things.
It is by their union that the body is formed;
it is by their separation that a (new) beginning is brought about.
When the body and vital power suffer no diminution,
we have what may be called the transference of power.
From the vital force there comes another more vital,
and man returns to be the assistant of Heaven.


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