I often think about Zhangzi and the gilded tortoise shell when I think about future promotions. Heck, I’ve mentioned it to my boss in the past to explain why I’m not interest in advancement at this time.
You want to be careful with those Zhuangzi stories. He has one about a butcher with years of practice, so the knife just slips silkily in between the bones... But you'll definitely sound like a psycho if you cite that for inspiration. Or there's the one about being a knobbly tree who won't get chopped down. That might not make you sound very sane. Or there's the bird the size of a continent whose every flap of the wings could cause a hurricane...
Reading Zhuangzi is still a good way to experience a very, very different way of thinking.
hahhaa! Telling your boss that a promotion is like becoming a sacred gilded tortoise shell relic slides into the psycho-adjacent tactics for office politics!
I do love the mega-bird story - since it's in the first chapter, I've read it several times. Then it clicked one day and I now think about it at least once a month. Wild stuff.
Zhangzi knew when his bread was buttered! Or should I say lacquered? In this day and age of fast advancement at all costs it is refreshing to hear these stories.
I think the emphasis should be on Taoism/ Chan Buddhism in our discussion, a spiritual life versus a political one, which pulled the educated Chinese male in opposite directions.
Yes, that's certainly right about Wang Wei, who in later life became very devout. A part of this series is him exploring his spiritual side, as he finds it in the landscape of his estate. A lot of it is very hard to express in word, though! I don't know much about the reaction of his contemporaries, but certainly later readers have found something very calm and detached in Wang's poems, which they relate to the Buddhist recognition that the world is an illusion. Perhaps that's seen most clearly in Deer Grove, with its talk of echoes and reflected light.
This poem does seem to have much more of a Daoist edge to it. There's an interest in people and particulars that is quite un-Buddhist, a rejection of hierarchies, and a willingness to celebrate pleasure.
I often think about Zhangzi and the gilded tortoise shell when I think about future promotions. Heck, I’ve mentioned it to my boss in the past to explain why I’m not interest in advancement at this time.
You want to be careful with those Zhuangzi stories. He has one about a butcher with years of practice, so the knife just slips silkily in between the bones... But you'll definitely sound like a psycho if you cite that for inspiration. Or there's the one about being a knobbly tree who won't get chopped down. That might not make you sound very sane. Or there's the bird the size of a continent whose every flap of the wings could cause a hurricane...
Reading Zhuangzi is still a good way to experience a very, very different way of thinking.
hahhaa! Telling your boss that a promotion is like becoming a sacred gilded tortoise shell relic slides into the psycho-adjacent tactics for office politics!
I do love the mega-bird story - since it's in the first chapter, I've read it several times. Then it clicked one day and I now think about it at least once a month. Wild stuff.
Zhangzi knew when his bread was buttered! Or should I say lacquered? In this day and age of fast advancement at all costs it is refreshing to hear these stories.
I think the emphasis should be on Taoism/ Chan Buddhism in our discussion, a spiritual life versus a political one, which pulled the educated Chinese male in opposite directions.
Yes, that's certainly right about Wang Wei, who in later life became very devout. A part of this series is him exploring his spiritual side, as he finds it in the landscape of his estate. A lot of it is very hard to express in word, though! I don't know much about the reaction of his contemporaries, but certainly later readers have found something very calm and detached in Wang's poems, which they relate to the Buddhist recognition that the world is an illusion. Perhaps that's seen most clearly in Deer Grove, with its talk of echoes and reflected light.
This poem does seem to have much more of a Daoist edge to it. There's an interest in people and particulars that is quite un-Buddhist, a rejection of hierarchies, and a willingness to celebrate pleasure.