"Why go so low down?" asked Tung Kuo Tzŭ.
"It is in a tare," said Chuang Tzŭ.
"Still lower," objected Tung Kuo Tzŭ.
"It is in a potsherd," said Chuang Tzŭ.
"Worse still!" cried Tung Kuo Tzŭ.
"It is in ordure," said Chuang Tzŭ. And Tung Kuo Tzŭ made no reply.
"Sir," continued Chuang Tzŭ, "your question does not touch the essential. When Huo, inspector of markets, asked the managing director about the fatness of pigs, the test was always made in parts least likely to be fat. Do not therefore insist in any particular direction; for there is nothing which escapes. Such is perfect Tao; and such also is ideal speech. Whole, entire, all, are three words which sound differently but mean the same. Their purport is One.
"Try to reach with me the palace of Nowhere, and there, amidst the identity of all things, carry your discussions into the infinite. Try to practise with me inaction, wherein you may rest motionless, without care, and be happy. For thus my mind becomes an abstraction. It wanders not, and yet is not conscious of being at rest. It goes and comes and is not conscious of stoppages. Backwards and forwards without being conscious of any goal. Up and down the realms of Infinity, wherein even the greatest intellect would fail to find an end.
"That which makes things the things they are, is not limited to such things. The limits of things
