The Utmost Person Has No Fixed Self

answered by Zhuangzi, "Free and Easy Wandering"

기원전 4세기경

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Aladdin (1992)

dir. Ron Clements, John Musker · USA

A being confined for endless years inside a lamp, granting only his master's wishes, confronts for the first time the fact that he too wants freedom. Between a life spent existing for others and a wish of his own, he wavers.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Does a being who grants others' wishes also have the right to be free itself?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

至人無己，神人無功，聖人無名。

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

The utmost person has no fixed self; the spiritual person seeks no achievement; the sage seeks no name.

💡 TL;DR

Zhuangzi said the utmost person has no fixed self, seeks no achievement, seeks no name.

📝The Classic Answers

Zhuangzi said the utmost person has no fixed self, seeks no achievement, seeks no name. A being confined for endless years inside a lamp, granting only the wishes of others, was never even permitted to hold a wish of his own. Erasing oneself for another's sake and being denied, from the start, the freedom to exist as oneself are not the same thing. The moment he truly becomes free is not when he grants another's wish, but when he can finally speak his own for the first time. Whenever I devote myself to someone, I examine whether that devotion is, in fact, erasing myself.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If you are devoting yourself to someone today, check that you have not forgotten a wish of your own.

📖 Classic Source: Zhuangzi, "Free and Easy Wandering". Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.