In this section, Zhuangzi presents the famous line: Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me. He then proceeds to undermine his own statement by saying "We have already become one, so how can I say anything?". By saying something, one adds complexity.
The following is the text of Chapter 2 Section 9 from the book "Zhuangzi, Basic Writings" translated by Burton Watson (1925-2017), with some minor changes.
Chapter 2, Section 9
There is nothing in the world bigger than the tip of an autumn hair, and Mount Tai is little. No one has lived longer than a dead child, and Pengzu died young.[1] Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me.
We have already become one, so how can I say anything? But I have just said that we are one, so how can I not be saying something? The one and what I said about it make two, and two and the original one make three. If we go on this way, then even the cleverest mathematician, much less an ordinary man, can’t tell where we’ll end. If by moving from non-being to being, we get to three, how far will we get if we move from being to being? Better not to move but to let things be!
Notes
- The strands of animal fur were believed to grow particularly fine in autumn; hence “the tip of an autumn hair” is a cliché for something extremely tiny. Pengzu, the Chinese Methuselah (a biblical patriarch who died at the age 969), appeared on p. 2.
See Also
Please find the Chinese text and English translation by James Legge below:
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