Original: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/heaven-and-earth/zhs
Translated: zhuangzip. 90–3
Zigong, a disciple of Confucius', is travelling in the South when he comes across a man manually watering his field, and suggests the use of a well sweep for efficiency.
为圃者忿然作色而笑曰:“吾闻之吾师:‘有机械者必有机事,有机事者必有机心。’机心存于胸中,则纯 白不备;纯白不备,则神生不定;神生不定者,道之所不载也。吾非不知,羞而不为也。”子贡瞒然慙, 俯而不对。
The gardener flushed with anger and then said with a laugh, "I've heard my teacher say, where there are machines, there are bound to be machine worries; where there are machine worries, there are bound to be machine hearts. With a machine heart in your breast, you’ve spoiled what was pure and simple, and without the pure and simple, the life of the spirit knows no rest. Where the life of the spirit knows no rest, the Way will cease to buoy you up . It’s not that I don’t know about your machine—I would be ashamed to use it!"
— zhuangzip. 91
The disciple leaves ashamed, and when he meets his teacher again, he relates the story to him. Confucius replies:
孔子曰:“彼假修浑沌氏之术者也:识其一,不知其二;治其内,而不治其外。夫明白入素,无为复朴, 体性抱神,以游世俗之间者,汝将固惊邪?且浑沌氏之术,予与汝何足以识之哉!”
When Zigong got back to Lu, he reported the incident to Confucius. Confucius said, "He is one of those bogus practitioners of the arts of Mr. Chaos. He knows the first thing but doesn’t understand the second. He looks after what is on the inside but doesn’t look after what is on the outside. A man of true brightness and purity who can enter into simplicity, who can return to the primitive through inaction, give body to his inborn nature, and embrace his spirit, and in this way wander through the every day world—if you had met one like that, you would have had real cause for astonishment. As for the arts of Mr. Chaos, you and I need not bother to find out about them."
— zhuangzip. 94
Who is Mr. Chaos [沌氏]? And does Zhuangzi bring up Confucius to contrast their approaches or to borrow from his authority? Wiki's take on this: Hundun. Also TIL 混沌 hundun bears a similar etymology to the Greek chaos in that they both refer to some sort of primordial void.
~ the barber's speech in the The Great Dictator: machine hearts.
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
The Barber
— The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin
To read: https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/465/1/KRYSTYNA%20KRAJEWSKA.pdf
Bibliography
zhuangzi Zhuangzi. 2013. The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. Translated by Burton Watson. Columbia University Press. ↩︎ 1 2 3