Chuang Tzu

I'm about halfway through Chuang Tzu's basic writings now, and it's been a really interesting read.  I've read Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and Hua Hu Ching, so I'm quite familiar with Taoist philosophy, but the anecdotal format of Chuang Tzu's writings is very different from the conciseness of Lao Tzu's lessons. Both tend to repeat and rephrase certain statements or ideas, but Chuang Tzu often uses historical/legendary figures to indirectly demonstrate the Taoist principles instead of using metaphors.  Here's some passages I found interesting:

"If a man sleeps in a damp place, his back aches and he ends up half paralyzed, but is this true of a loach?  If he lives in a tree, he is terrified and shakes with fright, but is this true of a monkey?  Of these three creatures, then, which one knows the proper place to live?  Men eat the flesh of grass-fed and grain-fed animals, deer eat grass, centipedes find snakes tasty, and hawks and falcons relish mice.  Of these four, which knows how food ought to taste?  Monkeys pair with monkeys, deer go out with deer, and fish play around with fish.  Men claim that Mao-chi'ang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run.  Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world?  The way I see it, the rules of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of right and wrong are all hopelessly snarled and jumbled.   How could I know anything about such discriminations?"

"Right is not right; so is not so.  If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument.  If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.  Forget the years, forget distinctions.  Leap into the boundless and make it your home!"

"The sage embraces things.  Ordinary men discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others.  So I say, those who discriminate fail to see."

"Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "I have a big tree called a shu.  Its trunk is too gnarled and bumpy to apply a measuring line to, its branches too bent and twisty to match up to a compass or square.  You could stand it by the road and no carpenter would look at it twice.  Your words, too, are big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!"
    Chuang Tzu said, "Maybe you've never seen a wildcat or a weasel.  It crouches down and hides, watching for something to come along.  It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high or low - until it falls into the trap and dies in the net.  Then again there's the yak, big as a cloud covering the sky.  It certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn't know how to catch rats.  Now you have this big tree and you're distressed because it's useless.  Why don't you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it?  Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it.  If there's no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?""

...and the famous butterfly analogy, of course (anyone who took Fraleigh's Japanese film class will probably remember this one since we compared it with Ghost in the Shell):
"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.  He didn't know he was Chuang Chou.  Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.  Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction!  This is called the Transformation of Things."