Lieh-Tzu : A Taoist Guide to Practical Living

by Wong, Eva; Lieh-Tzu

• ISBN13: 9781570621536
• ISBN10: 1570621535
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1995-12-01
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

The Lieh-tzu is a collection of stories and philosophical musings of a sage of the same name who lived around the fourth century BCE. Lieh-tzu's teachings range from the origin and purpose of life, the Taoist view of reality, and the nature of enlightenment to the training of the body and mind, communication, and the importance of personal freedom. This distinctive translation presents Lieh-tzu as a friendly, intimate companion speaking directly to the reader in a contemporary voice about matters relevant to our everyday lives.

Author Biography

Eva Wong, Ph.D., is a practitioner of the Taoist arts and a member of the Fung Loy Kok Institute of Taoism. She is the translator of Cultivating Stillness and Seven Taoist Masters.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Reading Lieh-tzu	p. 1
The Gifts of Heaven
Introduction	p. 24
That which is not born gives birth to everything	p. 25
All things are connected and come from the same origin	p. 28
Heaven and earth have their strengths and weaknesses	p. 30
Life and death	p. 32
Shadows, sounds, and ghosts	p. 33
The stages of life	p. 35
Life is hard work, death is rest	p. 37
The value of emptiness	p. 41
Are things growing or decaying?	p. 42
Worrying that the sky will fall	p. 43
Life that is borrowed, wealth that is stolen	p. 45
The Yellow Emperor
Introduction	p. 50
The Yellow Emperor visits the immortal lands	p. 51
Riding on the wind, floating with the clouds	p. 54
The art of staying under water and walking through fire	p. 56
The art of archery	p. 58
Feats of power	p. 59
The art of taming tigers	p. 62
The art of steering a boat	p. 64
The art of swimming	p. 65
The man who could walk through fire	p. 67
Lieh-tzu and the sorcerer	p. 69
Lieh-tzu's fear	p. 72
Lao-tzu teaches Yang-chu	p. 74
What is there to appearances?	p. 76
Softness and hardness, yielding and resisting	p. 78
King Mu of Ch'ou
Introduction	p. 82
King Mu's dream	p. 85
Learning the arcane arts	p. 88
Dreams	p. 90
The truth about happiness and misery	p. 93
What is real and what is unreal?	p. 95
The man who lost his memory	p. 97
Who is confused?	p. 99
The man who got upset over nothing	p. 101
Confucius
Introduction	p. 104
True happiness and contentment	p. 105
Seeing with ears and hearing with eyes	p. 108
Who is a sage?	p. 110
What is wisdom?	p. 112
The man with a wooden face	p. 113
The art of traveling and sightseeing	p. 115
Lung-shu's strange illness	p. 116
Responding naturally	p. 118
There are some things that you just can't fight	p. 119
Who is supporting whom?	p. 120
What is strength?	p. 122
The strange arguments of Kung-sun Lung	p. 124
Knowing when to withdraw	p. 127
The Questions of T'ang
Introduction	p. 130
Where do things come from?	p. 131
The man who tried to move mountains	p. 132
The man who tried to chase down the sun	p. 134
The North Country	p. 135
Strange customs in strange countries	p. 138
The questions of a child	p. 139
The art of fishing	p. 140
Exchanging hearts and minds	p. 142
Musician Wen learns to play the lute	p. 144
When Han-erh sang	p. 146
Kindred spirits	p. 148
Artificial or real?	p. 149
Learning the art of archery	p. 151
Tsao-fu learns to drive	p. 154
Lai-tan's revenge	p. 156
Effort and Destiny
Introduction	p. 160
Effort argues with Destiny	p. 161
Fortune and worth	p. 163
The friendship of Kuan-chung and Pao Shu-ya	p. 166
Are life and death a matter of effort or destiny?	p. 171
An average doctor, a good doctor, and an ingenious doctor	p. 173
Yang-chu talks about destiny	p. 175
We cannot know people who are different from us	p. 177
Success and failure	p. 179
The king who was greedy about life and afraid of death	p. 181
Death is not a loss	p. 183
Yang-chu
Introduction	p. 186
A name is nothing and titles are empty	p. 187
Life--temporarily staying in the world; death--temporarily leaving	p. 190
In life there may be differences; in death everything is the same	p. 192
Riches can injure you, but poverty can also hurt you	p. 193
Taking care of yourself	p. 194
A madman or an enlightened man?	p. 196
What damages health more--unrestricted pleasure or obsessive hard work?	p. 198
Everyone must die sometime	p. 201
Would you sacrifice a strand of hair to benefit the world?	p. 202
Ruling a country is like tending a flock of sheep	p. 204
Things are not as permanent as we think they are	p. 205
Longevity, fame, social status, and wealth	p. 207
Explaining Coincidences
Introduction	p. 210
Action and reaction	p. 211
Why do people follow the path of the Tao?	p. 212
Lieh-tzu learns archery	p. 213
Choosing the right person for the job	p. 214
Can we compete with nature?	p. 215
Someone's words can make or break you	p. 216
Being at the right place at the right time	p. 217
If I can step on someone, someone else can step on me	p. 219
To solve a problem, you need to remove the cause, not the symptom	p. 220
Trust and confidence	p. 222
The best way to keep a secret is not to talk	p. 223
Those who succeed are not excited about success; those who know do not display their knowledge	p. 224
Fortune and misfortune	p. 226
A matter of luck	p. 228
Seeing beyond appearances	p. 229
Managing your life and governing a country	p. 231
Rank, wealth, and ability can get you into trouble	p. 232
You cannot apply one principle to all conditions	p. 233
Retribution by accident	p. 235
Confusing name and reality	p. 236
To die for someone who values you is natural	p. 237
Confused by too many alternatives	p. 238
Yang-pu and the dog	p. 240
Knowledge and action	p. 241
Capture and release--an act of compassion or cruelty?	p. 243
Who was created for whom to eat?	p. 244
It's all in your mind	p. 245
Those who are involved are muddled; those who watch are clear	p. 247
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