Long, long ago there was a great rose of Sharon that counted eight thousand years as one spring and eight thousand years as one autumn. South of Ch’u there is a caterpillar which counts five hundred years as one spring and five hundred years as one autumn. How do I know this is so? The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and dawn the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn. What do these two creatures understand? Little understanding cannot come up to great understanding the shortlived cannot come up to the long-lived.

If you are going a hundred li, you must grind your grain the night before and if you are going a thousand li, you must start getting the provisions together three months in advance. If you go off to the green woods nearby, you can take along food for three meals and come back with your stomach as full as ever. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!” The cicada and the little dove laugh at this, saying, “When we make an effort and fly up, we can get as far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don’t make it and just fall down on the ground. Only then can he set his eyes to the south. Only then can he mount on the back of the wind, shoulder the blue sky, and nothing can hinder or block him. Therefore when the P’eng rises ninety thousand li, he must have the wind under him like that. If wind is not piled up deep enough, it won’t have the strength to bear up great wings. But set the cup there and it will stick fast, for the water is too shallow and the boat too large. Pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor and bits of trash will sail on it like boats. If water is not piled up deep enough, it won’t have the strength to bear up a big boat. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and has no end? When the bird looks down, all he sees is blue too. He beats the whirlwind and rises ninety thousand li, setting off on the sixth month gale.” Wavering heat, bits of dust, living things blowing each other about-the sky looks very blue.

The Universal Harmony records various wonders, and it says: “When the P’eng journeys to the southern darkness, the waters are roiled for three thousand li. When the sea begins to move, this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven. The back of the P’eng measures I don’t know how many thousand li across and, when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over the sky. He changes and becomes a bird whose name is P’eng. The K’un is so huge I don’t know how many thousand li he measures.

IN THE NORTHERN DARKNESS there is a fish and his name is K’un.

Chuang tzu watson