The Cicada and the Dove Laugh

Reading it step by step

The Peng is heading for ninety thousand li. Down below there are two spectators: a cicada and a little dove. They laugh. “We fly till we hit a tree and stop. If we don't make it, we drop. Why work so hard?”

Sound familiar? “Why push yourself like that?” “What's the use of that?”

There are a few lovely points in this passage.

First: the Peng probably can't even hear them. And if it could, it wouldn't care. Laughter from a branch doesn't carry ninety thousand li. It's Zhuangzi, the storyteller, who can't resist answering for it: “What do these two little creatures know?”

Second: this is a fable, not zoology. In nature, sparrows don't mock great birds; each simply lives its own nature. Zhuangzi borrows animals to talk about people. Those with a narrow view often laugh at those heading somewhere far.

Third: small understanding cannot reach great understanding. The morning mushroom, the summer cicada, the ancient trees that count a thousand years as one spring: lifespans long and short are simply facts of nature, neither good nor bad. Comparison is something we add. When Zhuangzi mentions Pengzu, famous for living eight hundred years, the point is not to envy long life but to stop grieving over it. Awaken to the Dao within the years you are given, and length stops being the question.

So today's lesson cuts both ways. When you're laughed at, don't debate the cicada; keep flying. And when you catch yourself wanting to say “why bother?” about someone else's flight, check whether you're sitting on an elm branch.