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庖丁為文惠君解牛，手之所觸，肩之所倚，足之所履，膝之所踦，砉然嚮然，奏刀騞然，莫不中音。合於《桑林》之舞，乃中《經首》之會。文惠君曰：「譆！善哉！技蓋至此乎？」 庖丁釋刀對曰：「臣之所好者道也，進乎技矣。始臣之解牛之時，所見无非牛者。三年之後，未嘗見全牛也。方今之時，臣以神遇，而不以目視，官知止而神欲行。依乎天理，批大郤，導大窾，因其固然。技經肯綮之未嘗，而況大軱乎！ 良庖歲更刀，割也；族庖月更刀，折也。今臣之刀十九年矣，所解數千牛矣，而刀刃若新發於硎。 彼節者有間，而刀刃者无厚，以无厚入有間，恢恢乎其於遊刃必有餘地矣，是以十九年而刀刃若新發於硎。 雖然，每至於族，吾見其難為，怵然為戒，視為止，行為遲。動刀甚微，謋然已解，牛不知其死也，如土委地。提刀而立，為之四顧，為之躊躇滿志，善刀而藏之。」 文惠君曰：「善哉！吾聞庖丁之言，得養生焉。」
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A butcher was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. Wherever his
hand touched, wherever his shoulder leaned, wherever his foot stepped, wherever
his knee pushed—with a zip! with a whoosh!—he handled his knife
with aplomb, never skipping a beat, as though he were dancing to ancient music. Lord Wenhui said, “Sheesh! Fantastic! Can skill really reach
such heights?” The butcher sheathed his knife and replied, “What your humble servant values is the way, which
goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, I did not see
anything but oxen. Three years later, I no longer saw the whole ox. These days, I
encounter them with spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Sensible knowledge
stops, and spiritual desires proceed. I rely on the natural patterns, strike in
the big gaps, am guided by the large fissures, and follow what is inherently
so. I never touch a ligament or tendon, much less any big bones! [1] A good butcher
changes his knife every year because he cuts. An average butcher changes it
every month because he pries. Now my knife is nineteen years old and I have cut
up many thousands of oxen with it but the blade is still as though fresh from
the grindstone. There are spaces between those joints, and the edge of the blade has no thickness. If you use what has no thickness to go where there is space--oh!--there’s plenty of extra room to play about in. This is why, after nineteen years, my blade is still as though fresh from the grindstone. [3] “Still, when I get to a hard place, I see the difficulty and take breathless care. My gaze settles! My movements slow! I move the knife slightly, and with a sigh it’s done, before the ox even knows it’s dead, crumbling to the ground like a clod of earth! I stand holding my knife and glance all around, dwelling on my accomplishment. Then I clean my knife and put it away.” Lord
Wenhui said, “Excellent! I have heard the words of a butcher and learned how to
nurture life!” [4] |
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[1] As
I have always imagined it, when the cook first started out, fresh from culinary
school, whenever he saw an ox, he pictured one of those charts you see on the
wall in a butcher shop outlining the different cuts of meat. In his mind he
projects the chart onto the ox in front of him and cuts along the dotted lines.
And he does a clumsy job. As time goes on, he realizes that each ox is unique.
He forgets the chart and is able to appreciate and respond to the
idiosyncrasies of individual cases, eventually in ways too subtle for words to
capture. That’s why he says he does not follow any technique, because each
performance is sui generis. In the
process, he becomes a much better butcher. [3] It is interesting to note the different ways that later 玄學 xuánxué, "Mysterious Learning" or "Neo-Daoist," thinkers and Buddhists read this passage. According to the Xuánxué, reality often involves subtleties too small or unique for words to capture, like the individual striations of muscle and tendon in an ox. Similarly, it may contain possibilities too large for words to contain, like the fact that a gourd could be both a spoon and a boat (1:06). And it can be too variable to be pinned down to a single definition, as we saw with the different "goods" for people, monkeys, and eels (2:11). Thus, given the subtlety, ambiguity, and relativity of reality, language--and, by extension, thought--is not a reliable guide to life. By forgetting language and forgetting what we think we know, even to the point, here, of forgetting "oxen," we are able to respond to things as they are, hence better. Buddhist thinkers read this as a reflection not on the nature of reality "out there," so to speak, but on the nature of the self, or more specifically on the illusory nature of the self. Any conception of ourselves brings with it certain conceptions of failure and success, as we saw with Lady Li (2.12). As we forget our self, or what we think of as our self--as the Perfected People did in 2.11 and Zhuangzi himself did in the butterfly dream (2.14)--those needs and the obstacles they bring with them fade away, until life is left a wide-open space. In effect, the Neo-Daoists focus on the hard-to-find spaces between, while the Buddhists focus on the dimensionless thickness of the edge of the blade. [4] This is a paradigmatic example of what Graham calls the "knack" stories. Bonus: Margaret's Cook Ding
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