1. Read the first paragraph of the story of Minnow and Breeze at the beginning of Chapter One. What is the protagonist of this story? Is it a fish? A bird? Both? Neither? How big is it? How big do you think it seems to itself? Imagine what it would be like undergoing these transformations yourself. What do you think Confucius, Mozi, or Mencius would have thought reading this story?

 

2. What's the difference between little knowledge and big knowledge as described in Chapter One? Why is it sad that people compare themselves to Peng Zu–because there are things even older than him, or because people shouldn't compare themselves at all? Is the implication that people should seek big knowledge or be content with whatever amount of knowledge they have?

 

3. Can you tell what Song Rongzi leaves "unplanted" in Chapter One? Though Liezi "manages to avoid walking, he still relies on something." Compare Chapter Four: "It's easy to stop leaving tracks. What's hard is to walk without touching the ground." What do you think it means to "chariot the norms of heaven and earth and ride the changes in the six mists to wander the inexhaustible"?

 

4. How does the analogy of the cook and the priest apply to the case of Yao and Whence in Chapter One?

 

5. What does Step Brother mean when he says of the spiritual people in Chapter One that "from their dust and chaff you could mold the sages Yao and Shun"? The story of the man from Song doesn't seem to make sense here. But perhaps our inability to see the sense is an illustration of the point made above, that our knowledge can be blind, too. If so, what does that mean and how does it fit into the story of these spiritual people?

 

6. What is Zhuangzi's point with the story about the yak in his conversation with Huizi at the end of Chapter One? If it were an Aesop's fable, what would the moral be? If it doesn't have one, does that justify Huizi's criticism?

 

7. If the meaning of words isn't fixed, as Zhuangzi says in Chapter Two, does that mean speaking is just blowing, after all? What would that mean? Compare the pipes of heaven at the beginning of the chapter and the breath blown by living things that supports Peng on her journey at the start of Chapter One.

 

8. In Chapter Two, how does Royal Relativity's description of the perfected people connect with what he says in the paragraph before about the different animals?

 

9. "In the dream, you don't know it's a dream . . . Only after waking do you know . . . Still, there may be an even greater awakening after which you know that this, too, was just a greater dream" (Chapter Two). Do the dreams ever end in a final awakening? How would you know if it did? If it doesn't, or if you can't know that it does, what difference does it make?

 

10. Compare Shadow's response to Penumbra at the end of Chapter Two with the search for a true lord or master and Mister Dapple's question about who plays the pipes of heaven earlier in the same chapter.

 

11. How do you reconcile what the butcher says in Chapter Three with the idea in the second chapter that there is no right and wrong and that "a way is made by walking it." Is the same thing true about cutting up an ox?

 

12. What would it mean for Splay-limb Shu to have "splayed Virtue" at the end of Chapter Four? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing, in the context of the story? Compare the discussion of "whole Virtue" and "Virtue that takes no form" in Confucius's discussion with Duke Ai of Lu in Chapter Five.

 

13. Is the Confucius portrayed in Zhuangzi's stories a hero, a fool, or something in between? What does it mean in Chapter Five when Duke Ai says that he and Confucius are "friends in Virtue"? Why does Duke Ai end up praising Confucius if Sad Nag is the hero of the story?

 

14. Compare the distinction between heaven and human not being "fixed" in Chapter Six to the meaning of words not being "fixed" in Chapter Two. What does that have to do with the "perfected" or "true" people who can endure fire with getting burned, etc. in Chapters Two, Six, and elsewhere?

 

15. Compare the wheelwright's approach to wood in Chapter Thirteen and the butcher's approach to the ox in Chapter Three with Confucius's advice to Yan Hui about how to approach the lord of Wei in Chapter Four. Is human "material" different from inanimate matter?

 

16. Does Zhuangzi doubt the existence of a way, or our ability to know or describe it? If there is no way, then how could he say it is wrong for people to think that there is one? If there is a way that cannot be known or described, how is it possible to follow it?

By Paul Kjellberg. Copyright © Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

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