Stop reading: Duke Huan and Pien the Wheelwright. How can the ancient texts teach us?

Duke Huan was reading a book at the top of the hall, wheelwright Pien was chipping a wheel at the bottom of the hall. He put aside his mallet and chisel and went up to ask Duke Huan:

‘May I ask what words my lord is reading?’

‘The words of a sage.’

Is the sage alive?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘In that case what my lord is reading is the dregs of the men of old, isn’t it?

‘What business is it of a wheelwright to criticize what I read? If you can explain yourself, well and good; if not, you die.’

‘Speaking for myself, I see it in terms of my own work. If I chip at a wheel too slowly, the chisel slides and does not grip; if too fast, it jams and catches in the wood. Not too slow, not too fast; I feel it in the hand and respond from the heart, the mouth cannot put it into words, there is a knack in it somewhere which I cannot convey to my son and which my son cannot learn from me. This is how through my seventy years I have grown old chipping at wheels. The men of old and their untransmittable message are dead. Then what my lord is reading is the dregs of the men of old, isn’t it?

Chuang-tzu, The Inner Chapters, trans. A.C. Graham

For other posts involving Chuang-tzu, see here