On March 4th of this year, I posted The Parable of the Butcher and the Analytic Philosopher. Today, NChen makes a simply marvelous comment. Here it is, in full:
Story sounds like a tale from The Chuang Tzu:
"Cook Ting was cutting up
an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder,
every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the
knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were
performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou
music.
“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill
reaching such heights!”
Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What
I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up
oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the
whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes.
Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it
wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the
knife through the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never
touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.
“A good
cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes
his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for
nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is
as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between
the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert
what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than
enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade
of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the
grindstone.
“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up
the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what
I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety,
until — flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the
ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely
satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it
away.”
“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook
Ting and learned how to care for life!”
Is that not spectacular? Thank you, NChen.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
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