Night 2 · Unfolding

I Have Let Go of Me

吾丧我

今者吾丧我，汝知之乎？

Just now, I lost myself. Did you notice?

Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, “On the Equality of Things” (Qiwulun)

02 Tonight

Some nights the mind has no particular topic. It just talks. It comments on the show you watched, rehearses tomorrow's conversation, grades how you did today. The lights are off. The voice is still on.

03 How the ancients saw it

Zhuangzi's second chapter opens with Master Ziqi of the South Wall sitting against his armrest. He looks up at the sky and lets out a long, slow breath. He seems absent, as if he had set his own body down somewhere.

A student standing nearby can't help asking. “What happened? Can the body really become like withered wood, and the mind like dead ashes? The man leaning on that armrest is not the one who leaned there before.”

Ziqi says, “Good question. Just now, I lost myself. Did you notice?”

Chinese has two words for “I” in that sentence, wu and wo. In classical Chinese, wu tends to be the subject and wo often the object, and scholars disagree about how much philosophy to read into the difference. Many modern readers take it this way: wu is the one who remains, awake and present; wo is the busy self, the one that defends and narrates. That is a later interpretation, and Zhuangzi may not have meant it so precisely. It is still a useful one at night. Ziqi didn't vanish. The narrator did.

“Dead ashes” sounds bleak. It helps to picture an old house at the end of the day. The last chore was to bank the fire: rake grey ash over the red coals so they would rest until morning. The fire wasn't out. It was resting.

The voice in your head that argues and plans and hands out grades is probably the wo. You don't have to defeat it. You only have to notice that someone is listening to it, and that the listener is much quieter.

04 One line for the pillow

The voice is talking. You are the one who hears it.

05 A quiet image to end on

A hearth at the end of the evening. Someone draws grey ash over the red coals. The glow sinks out of sight. The room keeps its warmth.

Words of the night