Zhuangzi, Chapter 18: Book 18, Chapter 18: Perfect Happiness

Translation

Perfect Happiness

CHAPTER XVIII.

PERFECT HAPPINESS.

Argument:--The uncertainty of human happiness--What the world aims at is physical well-being--This is not profitable even to the body--In inaction alone is true happiness to be found--Inaction the rule of the material universe--Acquiescence in whatever our destiny may bring forth--Illustrations.

[This chapter is supplementary to chapter vi.]

Is perfect happiness to be found on earth, or not? Are there those who can enjoy life, or not? If so, what do they do, what do they affect, what do they avoid, what do they rest in, accept, reject, like, and dislike?

What the world esteems comprises wealth, rank, old age, and goodness of heart. What it enjoys comprises comfort, rich food, fine clothes, beauty, and music. What it does not esteem comprises poverty, want of position, early death, and evil behaviour. What it does not enjoy comprises lack of comfort for the body, lack of rich food for the palate, lack of fine clothes for the back, lack of beauty for the eye, and lack of music for the ear. If men do not get these, they are greatly miserable. Yet from the point of view of our physical frame, this is folly¹.

Wealthy people who toil and moil, putting together more money than they can possibly use,--from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this going beyond the mark?

Officials of rank who turn night into day in their endeavours to compass the best ends;--from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this a divergence?

Man is born to sorrow, and what misery is theirs whose old age with dulled faculties only means prolonged sorrow! From the point of view of our physical frame, this is going far astray.

Patriots are in the world's opinion admittedly good. Yet their goodness does not enable them to enjoy life²; and so I know not whether theirs is veritable goodness or not. If the former, it does not enable them to enjoy life; if the latter, it at any rate enables them to cause others to enjoy theirs.

It has been said, "If your loyal counsels are not attended to, depart quietly without resistance." Thus, when Tzŭ Hsü³ resisted, his physical frame perished; yet had he not resisted, he would not have made his name. Is there then really such a thing as this goodness, or not?

As to what the world does and the way in which people are happy now, I know not whether such happiness be real happiness or not. The happiness of ordinary persons seems to me to consist in slavishly following the majority, as if they could not help it. Yet they all say they are happy⁴.

But I cannot say that this is happiness or that it is not happiness. Is there then, after all, such a thing as happiness?

I make true pleasure to consist in inaction, which the world regards as great pain. Thus it has been said, "Perfect happiness is the absence of happiness⁵; perfect renown is the absence of renown."

Now in this sublunary world of ours it is impossible to assign positive and negative absolutely. Nevertheless, in inaction they can be so assigned. Perfect happiness and preservation of life are to be sought for only in inaction.

Let us consider. Heaven does nothing; yet it is clear. Earth does nothing; yet it enjoys repose. From the inaction of these two proceed all the modifications of things. How vast, how infinite is inaction, yet without source! How infinite, how vast, yet without form!

The endless varieties of things around us all spring from inaction. Therefore it has been said, "Heaven and earth do nothing, yet there is nothing which they do not accomplish." But among men, who can attain to inaction?⁶

When Chuang Tzŭ's wife died, Hui Tzŭ went to condole. He found the widower sitting on the ground, singing, with his legs spread out at a right angle, and beating time on a bowl.

"To live with your wife," exclaimed Hui Tzŭ, "and see your eldest son grow up to be a man, and then not to shed a tear over her corpse,--this would be bad enough. But to drum on a bowl, and sing; surely this is going too far."

"Not at all," replied Chuang Tzŭ. "When she died, I could not help being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had already existed in a previous state before birth, without form, or even substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. And while she is thus lying asleep in Eternity, for me to go about weeping and wailing would be to proclaim myself ignorant of these natural laws. Therefore I refrain."

A hunchback and a one-legged man were looking at the tombs of departed heroes, on the K'un-lun Mountains, where the Yellow Emperor rests. Suddenly, ulcers broke out upon their left elbows, of a very loathsome description.

"Do you loathe this?" asked the hunchback.

"Not I," replied the other, "why should I? Life is a loan with which the borrower does but add more dust and dirt to the sum total of existence. Life and death are as day and night; and while you and I stand gazing at the evidences of mortality around us, if the same mortality overtakes me, why should I loathe it?"

Chuang Tzŭ one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still preserving its shape. Striking it with his riding whip, he said, "Wert thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country in ruin and perished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?--some beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the natural course of old age?"

When he had finished speaking, he took the skull, and placing it under his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night, he dreamt that the skull appeared to him and said, "You speak well, Sir; but all you say has reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In death there are none of these. Would you like to hear about death?"

Chuang Tzŭ having replied in the affirmative, the skull began:--"In death, there is no sovereign above, and no subject below. The workings of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are bounded only by eternity. The happiness of a king among men cannot exceed that which we enjoy."

Chuang Tzŭ, however, was not convinced, and said, "Were I to prevail upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife, and to the friends of your youth,--would you be willing?"

At this, the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said, "How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?"⁷

When Yen Yüan⁸ went eastwards to the Ch'i State, Confucius was sad. Tzŭ Kung arose and said, "Is it, Sir, because Hui⁹ has gone east to Ch'i that you are sad?"

"A good question," replied Confucius. "There is a saying by Kuan Chung¹⁰ of old which I highly esteem: 'Small bags won't hold big things; short ropes won't reach down deep wells.' Thus, destiny is a pre-arrangement, just as form has its limitations. From neither, to neither, can you either take away or add. And I fear lest Hui, on his visit to the prince of Ch'i, should preach the Tao of Yao and Shun, and dwell on the words of Sui Jen and Shên Nung. The prince will then search within himself, but will not find. And not finding, he will doubt. And when a man doubts, he will kill¹¹.

"Besides, have you not heard that of old when a sea-bird alighted outside the capital of Lu, the prince went out to receive it, and gave it wine in the temple, and had the Chiu Shao¹² played to amuse it, and a bullock slaughtered to feed it? But the bird was dazed and too timid to eat or drink anything; and in three days it was dead. This was treating the bird like oneself, and not as a bird would treat a bird. Had he treated it as a bird would have treated a bird, he would have put it to roost in a deep forest, to wander over a plain, to swim in a river or lake, to feed upon fish, to fly in order, and to settle leisurely. When the bird was already terrified at human voices, fancy adding music! Play the Hsien Ch'ih¹³ or the Chiu Shao in the wilds of Tung-t'ing, and birds will fly away, beasts will take themselves off, and fishes will dive down below. But men will collect to hear¹⁴.

"Water, which is life to fishes, is death to man. Being differently constituted, their likes and dislikes are different. Therefore the Sages of the past favoured not uniformity of skill or of occupation. Reputation was commensurate with reality; means were adapted to the end. This was called a due relationship with others coupled with advantage to oneself."¹⁵

Lieh Tzŭ, being on a journey, was eating by the roadside, when he saw an old skull. Plucking a blade of grass, he pointed at it and said, "Only you and I know that there is no such thing as life and no such thing as death¹⁶.

Are you really at peace? Or am I really happy?¹⁷

"Certain germs, falling upon water, become duckweed. When they reach the junction of the land and the water, they become lichen. Spreading up the bank, they become the dog-tooth violet. Reaching rich soil, they become wu-tsu, the root of which becomes grubs, while the leaves comes from butterflies, or hsü. These are changed into insects, born in the chimney corner, which look like skeletons. Their name is ch'ü-to. After a thousand days, the ch'ü-to becomes a bird, called Kan-yü-ku, the spittle of which becomes the ssŭ-mi. The ssŭ-mi becomes a wine fly, and that comes from an i-lu. The huang-k'uang produces the chiu-yu and the mou-jui produces the glow-worm. The yang-ch'i grafted to an old bamboo which has for a long time put forth no shoots, produces the ch'ing-ning, which produces the leopard, which produces the horse, which produces man.

"Then man goes back into the great Scheme, from which all things come and to which all things return."¹⁸

Practical Reading

Book 18: Perfect Happiness -- 至乐 (zhì lè)

"Perfect Happiness" shatters the assumption that we know what happiness is. Zhuangzi observes that what the world chases—wealth, rank, longevity, fine food—often destroys the very body it's meant to serve. Through his wife's death (where he drums on a bowl and sings), the skull's defense of death over life, and the sea-bird killed by kindness, Zhuangzi argues that true happiness is found in inaction and in accepting the natural cycle of transformation rather than clinging to any single phase of it.

Key Modern Applications:

1. The Wealthy Who Toil and Moil -- "Wealthy people who toil and moil, putting together more money than they can possibly use—from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this going beyond the mark?" This is not moralistic anti-wealth rhetoric but a practical observation: the pursuit of accumulation past the point of bodily benefit is literally self-harming. The hedge fund manager working 100-hour weeks to add to an already sufficient fortune is, by Zhuangzi's calculus, destroying the very thing wealth was meant to serve.

2. Chuang Tzŭ Drumming at His Wife's Death -- Hui Tzŭ is scandalized that Zhuangzi drums and sings instead of weeping. Zhuangzi explains that his wife has simply moved from one phase to another—formless → substance → form → birth → death—like the rotation of seasons. This is not callousness but a refusal to impose emotional obligation on a natural process. In modern grief culture, where people feel pressured to perform sorrow on a timeline, Zhuangzi offers permission to trust one's own response rather than society's script.

3. The Skull's Happiness Greater Than a King's -- The skull refuses the offer of rebirth, preferring death's freedom from rulers, subjects, and seasonal toil. While we shouldn't romanticize death, the passage reveals how much of life's misery comes from hierarchy, obligation, and the anxiety of status—concerns that simply don't exist in the unconditioned state. The skull's contentment is a mirror showing that many "life problems" are social fictions.

4. The Sea-Bird Killed by Kindness -- The Prince of Lu gives the sea-bird wine, royal music, and bullock meat; the bird dies of terror in three days. "This was treating the bird like oneself, and not as a bird would treat a bird." Every overbearing parent, every manager who projects their own ambitions onto a report, every institution that forces its beneficiaries into its own mold rather than adapting to their nature, is the Prince of Lu. Good intentions, when they ignore the recipient's actual constitution, become lethal.

5. Inaction as the Source of All Transformation -- "Heaven does nothing; yet it is clear. Earth does nothing; yet it enjoys repose. From the inaction of these two proceed all the modifications of things." This cosmological claim reframes inaction not as laziness but as the generative ground of all change. The most transformative moments—insight, healing, ecological renewal—occur when we stop forcing and allow the system to self-organize.

Action Step: Choose one relationship where you've been "killing with kindness"—imposing your own idea of what's good on someone whose nature is different. For one week, do nothing. Observe what happens when you stop treating the bird like yourself.