/lit/ - Literature

>>20950986
Zhuangzi is the /lit/ Daoist work, and had this reputation too during Chinese history
It's even the favourite book of the protagonist of the Dream of the Red Chamber, if I remember correctly

>>19276375

>>18764922
>>18764927
>>18764931
>>18764938
>>18764943
>>18764950
>>18764956
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>>18764969

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

- Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi

>>17860101
Zhuangzi literally and figuratively refuted every single ''philosopher'' or ''thinker'' that came before or after him.

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

- Zhuangzi

>>12075768
>That's like saying socialism works because capitalism beats it to death at every comparison.

two things:

1) socialism does work. in a perfect world, imho, there unquestionably would be aspects of it that no first-world civilization would do without. free universal health care. free college tuition. and i should hope that it goes without saying these things would be *contingent upon other rules* also! to *grow the patch wisely* does not require Deus Vult, or Moldbug Vult, or Nick Vult, or any other Vult. to just care for the future - and care for *life* also - is not utopian, it is boring, but no less necessary for being so. as parables go, the Dextrous Butcher well and truly lacks for nothing. cannot find a flaw, and based Zhuangzi for saying so. a better tale of How to Care for Life was never written.

2) capitalism beats *everything* to death at every comparison. Capital's closest literary approximation is Judge Holden. this is why Randian objectivists are fucking retards. your only attitude towards Capital in its rawest sense should be one of mind-shattering horror, imho. b/c if it isn't you will try and square the circle in the political arena, and you will fail. modernity does not give a fuck.

>>12075782
>Deconstructionism seems to be mixed with destructive criticism most of the time which is just erroneous conflation of terms.
that is true, but that is why one must begin with Heidegger, and not with Derrida. i began with Derrida and it was a fucking disaster. and it *also* means that you will need to read *Nietzsche* also, because he also is a part of Heidegger, and Heidegger is That Dude for deconstruction.

JBP does not fucking understand. a lot of people don't. Glenn Beck does not understand. It Is Necessary To Understand. all this is a part of the Wild Ride. no fucking points are awarded for scoring off Postmodernism w/o understanding the intellectual trajectory, as fucking ungodly weird as it is. but that is the Wild Ride and why it is necessary to take it. its final meaning does not lay in politics but in an abject humility, complete horror, total bewilderment, and aporia, and perhaps laughter.

>Show me a man who has forgotten words, that I might have a drink with him. - Zhuangzi

>>9598194
>only
That's the problem right there
It should be unnecessary and is just sad, really, to have to state that there are a lot more famous works than just the Great Four; take the Golden Plum Vase or Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio for instance that have quite a reputation in the East Asian countries. I would say accessibility is the biggest factor; Chinese culture is remote to the West even more so than that of the Japanese, and it is much easier to translate Chinese into Japanese or Korean due to their thousand years worth of cultural diffusion than any Indo-European language.
And it doesn't help that there are batshit translators. Evan King changed the ending of the first translation of Rickshaw Boy to a banal happily-ever-after because the original gave him the boo-boos.

>just 4 (or 5) famous books of philosophy
I won't be able to provide much insight into this, sorry (not implying I did in the previous paragraphs anyway)

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

-Chuang Tzu