The Three Principle Texts of Daoism translated by ... - Bad Request

Suppose that the boiling metal in a smelting-pot were tobubble up and say: “Make of me an Excalibur"; I thinkthe caster would reject that metal as uncanny. And if asinner like myself were to say to God: “Make of me aman, make of me a man"; I think he too would reject meas uncanny. The universe is the smelting-pot, and God isthe caster. I shall go whithersoever I am sent, to wakeunconscious of the past, as a man wakes from a dreamlesssleep.4.Chuang Tzu one day saw an empty skull, bleached, butstill preserving its shape. Striking it with his ridingwhip,he said: “Wert thou once some ambitious citizenwhose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country into ruin andperished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind hima legacy of shame?--some beggar who died in the pangsof hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by thenatural course of old age?"When he had finished speaking, he took the skull and,placing it under his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In thenight he dreamt that the skull appeared to him and said:"You speak well, sir; but all you say has reference to thelife of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In death there are