Nan-guo Zi-qi said:“Just now, I lost my Self.”

What is the significance of that statement?

Suppose that we could take Zhuang Zi on a spaceship and move him close enough to the planet Jupiter that he could see the Red Spot

turning around and around.

What would his explanation of this phenomenon be?

Suppose that we could take Zhuang Zi on a spaceship and move him close enough to the planet Jupiter that he could see the Red Spot

turning around and around.

What would his explanation of this phenomenon be?

Keep in mind that this is a meteorological phenomenon, i.e., it is something happening in

the sky of Jupiter. So Zhuang Zi would see it as a rotating circle. If you saw a rotating ferris wheel

for the first time, and you realized that the horses were not real, what would your first question be?

Suppose that we could take Zhuang Zi on a spaceship and move him close enough to the planet Jupiter that he could see the Red Spot turning around and around.

What would his explanation of this phenomenon be?

Keep in mind that this is a meteorolgical phenomenon, i.e., it is something happening in the

sky of Jupiter. So Zhuang Zi would see it as a rotating circle. If you saw a rotating ferris wheel for the first

time, and you realized that the horses were not real, what would your first question be?

So how does Zhuang Zi explain rotation of the circle?

When people sleep their spirits intertwine peacefully. When they awaken, they contend

with each other -- often violently.

Why does Zhuang Zi find the situation he described above ironic?

Without this no I;Without I nobody to “take it to be.”

What runs this process?

There seems to be a “true ruler” of the process,

an autonomous will that decides,but what is the seemingly inevitable bad

result of this situation as Zhuang Zi sees it?

In order to mitigate the danger involved in this seemingly inevitable ego-centric conflict,

people try to rationalize to themselves why they...

In order to mitigate the danger involved in this seemingly inevitable ego-centric conflict,

people try to rationalize to themselves why theywill never die.

“Should one take his preconceptions as his authority, then who would

fail to have an authority [by which to justify his beliefs]?”

If people take their preconceptions as axioms, what will happen?

What happens if different groups chose different axioms?

1. Tell your self to get lost.2. Understand that the map is not the

territory.

In Germany a man was using a GPS device in his car that gave out spoken directions.

The GPS said, “Turn left!”

So he swung his car to the left, went over the curb, and then went onto some railroad

tracks.

What, then, are the implications when a human looks at something other than another

human?

What if we remove “this” and “that”?

1. How is it that things are the way that they are? They are thus because people affirm them to be so. How is it that things are not some way? They are not that way because people deny them being that way.

2. Things are firmly endowed with the ways that they are, and they are firmly endowed with their permissibility. There is no thing which is not as it is, and there is no thing that is not acceptable (permissible).

So, let us consider a straw and a rafter, or an ugly person and Xi Shi, the great and the shifty, the agreeable and the perverse. The Dao links them all into a single whole. Its division is a completion. Its completion is a destruction. In all cases, creatures have neither a completion nor a destruction but are once again melded into one.

The knowledge of the people of antiquity had a point to which their knowledge reached. Where did it reach? There was a stage at which there had not yet begun to be creatures, and that was the farthest, that was the point at which the subject of inquiry was fully exhausted and nothing could be added to it.

The knowledge of the people of antiquity had a point to which their knowledge reached. Where did it reach? There was a stage at which there had not yet begun to be creatures, and that was the farthest, that was the point at which the subject of inquiry was fully exhausted and nothing could be added to it.

Next there were those who accepted the existence of creatures and yet did not create domains among them.

Next, there was a stage at which there were domains, but there was not yet affirmation and rejection.

The manifestation of affirmation and denial was the reason for the attenuation of the Dao.

There was a time of beginning. There was a time before there was a beginning. There was a time before the time before there was a beginning. There are things that there are (i.e., things that exist). There are things that there are not (i.e., things that do not exist). There was a time before there were things that do not exist. There was a time before there was a time before there were things that do not exist. And then suddenly there came to be the non-existence of things. Yet it was not yet known, regarding things that exist and things that do not exist, in the final analysis which things existed and which things did not exist.

1. Beginning2. Pre-beginning3. Pre-pre-beginning

1. Time of things that exist.2. Time of non-existent (or not yet existent) things.3. Time before non-existent things.4. Time before the time before non-existent things.*5. *6. *7. Non-existence of things.*8.*9. Which things exist?! Which things do not exist!?

Perhaps we can translate this into current terms by saying that there are some people who argue that even though time as we know it begins with the Big Bang, there could have been or maybe one should say must have been a prior time sequence. They believe that because they believe that something must have happened to produce the Big Bang and a sort of temporal trapdoor that we fell through at that point and can’t get back above. But then surely some prior time sequence produced...It’s all speculation at this point, but at least Zhuang Zi is not unique in thinking about “before the beginning.”

Outside of the bounds of the ordinary world, the sage holds all in his mind and does not make propositions. Inside the bounds of the ordinary world, the sage make [objective] propositions and does not make value judgments.

What is this “ordinary world” that Zhuang Zi talks about, and what kind of world does he contrast it to?

Carlos Castaneda wrote a book on this subject.