Witty and imaginative, enriched by brilliant imagery, and making sportive use of both mythological and historical personages (including even Confucius), this timeless classic is sure to appeal to anyone interested in Chinese religion and culture.

Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings includes the seven 'inner chapters,' which form the heart of the book, three of the 'outer chapters,' and one of the 'miscellaneous chapters.' Watson also provides an introduction, placing the philosopher in relation to Chinese history and thought. As Chuang Tzu said, Those who go quietly with the flow of nature are not worried by either joy or sorrow.

Central to these is the belief that only by understanding Tao (the Way of Nature) and dwelling in its unity can man achieve true happiness and freedom, in both life and death. Chuang Tzu spoke greatly about other things, which had a deep routed meaning, but in all that he talked about he made one distinction and that is the fact that he supported nature over nurture. Using parable and anecdote, allegory and paradox, he set forth, in the book that bears his name, the early ideas of what was to become the Taoist school. Chuang Tzu (369?-286? B.C.) was a leading philosopher representing the Taoist strain in Chinese thought.

And Burton Watson's lucid and beautiful translation has been loved by generations of readers. 153.The basic writings of Chuang Tzu have been savored by Chinese readers for over two thousand years. Munro takes a very different interpretive perspective see Munro, Donald, The Concept of Man in Early China ( Stanford: Stanford Univ. C., “ Theories of Human Nature in Mencius and Shyuntzyy, ” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 15 ( 1953): 557 CrossRef Google Scholar. Lau questions whether the section fits at all into the work's main thrust see Lau, D. web the basic writings of chuang tzu have been savored by chinese readers for over two thousand years and burton watson s lucid and beautiful translation. Obviously the danger exists that the coherence I find may be witness more to my own ingenuity than to Hsün Tzu's writing. Therefore we should try initially to make what we can of the section as it stands. We grasp only imperfectly Hsün Tzu's notion of the logical or rhetorical progress of an argument, and our intuitive judgments as to what constitutes coherence may differ from his. It is fruitful to proceed as if the text is integral unless we have compelling evidence to the contrary. I cannot here defend all aspects of this breakdown, but I will note that I proceed as if the section contains no major interpolations or rearrangements of parts. 10 The accompanying numbers refer to the Harvard Index Text.

Chuang tzu watson