Inner Chapters

Chuang Tsu was a Chinese philosopher whose ideas were so revolutionary that he was often misunderstood in his own day. Little is known about this great thinker, though recent scholarship has shed some light on the man. He was a contemporary of Lao Zi and Confucius, but the accounts of him are woven with legend and myth. While those two thinkers devoted their energies to practical matters of governance and ethics, Chuang Tsu transcended the material world, anticipating Zen Buddhism's emphasis on emptiness or ego transcendence. In the Chuang Tsu/ Inner Chapters , he captured humanity's essence in imagery and fantasy, often with a sharp sense of humor.