| Introduction: Reading Lieh-tzu | p. 1 |
| The Gifts of Heaven | |
| Introduction | p. 24 |
| That which is not born gives birth to everything | p. 25 |
| All things are connected and come from the same origin | p. 28 |
| Heaven and earth have their strengths and weaknesses | p. 30 |
| Life and death | p. 32 |
| Shadows, sounds, and ghosts | p. 33 |
| The stages of life | p. 35 |
| Life is hard work, death is rest | p. 37 |
| The value of emptiness | p. 41 |
| Are things growing or decaying? | p. 42 |
| Worrying that the sky will fall | p. 43 |
| Life that is borrowed, wealth that is stolen | p. 45 |
| The Yellow Emperor | |
| Introduction | p. 50 |
| The Yellow Emperor visits the immortal lands | p. 51 |
| Riding on the wind, floating with the clouds | p. 54 |
| The art of staying under water and walking through fire | p. 56 |
| The art of archery | p. 58 |
| Feats of power | p. 59 |
| The art of taming tigers | p. 62 |
| The art of steering a boat | p. 64 |
| The art of swimming | p. 65 |
| The man who could walk through fire | p. 67 |
| Lieh-tzu and the sorcerer | p. 69 |
| Lieh-tzu's fear | p. 72 |
| Lao-tzu teaches Yang-chu | p. 74 |
| What is there to appearances? | p. 76 |
| Softness and hardness, yielding and resisting | p. 78 |
| King Mu of Ch'ou | |
| Introduction | p. 82 |
| King Mu's dream | p. 85 |
| Learning the arcane arts | p. 88 |
| Dreams | p. 90 |
| The truth about happiness and misery | p. 93 |
| What is real and what is unreal? | p. 95 |
| The man who lost his memory | p. 97 |
| Who is confused? | p. 99 |
| The man who got upset over nothing | p. 101 |
| Confucius | |
| Introduction | p. 104 |
| True happiness and contentment | p. 105 |
| Seeing with ears and hearing with eyes | p. 108 |
| Who is a sage? | p. 110 |
| What is wisdom? | p. 112 |
| The man with a wooden face | p. 113 |
| The art of traveling and sightseeing | p. 115 |
| Lung-shu's strange illness | p. 116 |
| Responding naturally | p. 118 |
| There are some things that you just can't fight | p. 119 |
| Who is supporting whom? | p. 120 |
| What is strength? | p. 122 |
| The strange arguments of Kung-sun Lung | p. 124 |
| Knowing when to withdraw | p. 127 |
| The Questions of T'ang | |
| Introduction | p. 130 |
| Where do things come from? | p. 131 |
| The man who tried to move mountains | p. 132 |
| The man who tried to chase down the sun | p. 134 |
| The North Country | p. 135 |
| Strange customs in strange countries | p. 138 |
| The questions of a child | p. 139 |
| The art of fishing | p. 140 |
| Exchanging hearts and minds | p. 142 |
| Musician Wen learns to play the lute | p. 144 |
| When Han-erh sang | p. 146 |
| Kindred spirits | p. 148 |
| Artificial or real? | p. 149 |
| Learning the art of archery | p. 151 |
| Tsao-fu learns to drive | p. 154 |
| Lai-tan's revenge | p. 156 |
| Effort and Destiny | |
| Introduction | p. 160 |
| Effort argues with Destiny | p. 161 |
| Fortune and worth | p. 163 |
| The friendship of Kuan-chung and Pao Shu-ya | p. 166 |
| Are life and death a matter of effort or destiny? | p. 171 |
| An average doctor, a good doctor, and an ingenious doctor | p. 173 |
| Yang-chu talks about destiny | p. 175 |
| We cannot know people who are different from us | p. 177 |
| Success and failure | p. 179 |
| The king who was greedy about life and afraid of death | p. 181 |
| Death is not a loss | p. 183 |
| Yang-chu | |
| Introduction | p. 186 |
| A name is nothing and titles are empty | p. 187 |
| Life--temporarily staying in the world; death--temporarily leaving | p. 190 |
| In life there may be differences; in death everything is the same | p. 192 |
| Riches can injure you, but poverty can also hurt you | p. 193 |
| Taking care of yourself | p. 194 |
| A madman or an enlightened man? | p. 196 |
| What damages health more--unrestricted pleasure or obsessive hard work? | p. 198 |
| Everyone must die sometime | p. 201 |
| Would you sacrifice a strand of hair to benefit the world? | p. 202 |
| Ruling a country is like tending a flock of sheep | p. 204 |
| Things are not as permanent as we think they are | p. 205 |
| Longevity, fame, social status, and wealth | p. 207 |
| Explaining Coincidences | |
| Introduction | p. 210 |
| Action and reaction | p. 211 |
| Why do people follow the path of the Tao? | p. 212 |
| Lieh-tzu learns archery | p. 213 |
| Choosing the right person for the job | p. 214 |
| Can we compete with nature? | p. 215 |
| Someone's words can make or break you | p. 216 |
| Being at the right place at the right time | p. 217 |
| If I can step on someone, someone else can step on me | p. 219 |
| To solve a problem, you need to remove the cause, not the symptom | p. 220 |
| Trust and confidence | p. 222 |
| The best way to keep a secret is not to talk | p. 223 |
| Those who succeed are not excited about success; those who know do not display their knowledge | p. 224 |
| Fortune and misfortune | p. 226 |
| A matter of luck | p. 228 |
| Seeing beyond appearances | p. 229 |
| Managing your life and governing a country | p. 231 |
| Rank, wealth, and ability can get you into trouble | p. 232 |
| You cannot apply one principle to all conditions | p. 233 |
| Retribution by accident | p. 235 |
| Confusing name and reality | p. 236 |
| To die for someone who values you is natural | p. 237 |
| Confused by too many alternatives | p. 238 |
| Yang-pu and the dog | p. 240 |
| Knowledge and action | p. 241 |
| Capture and release--an act of compassion or cruelty? | p. 243 |
| Who was created for whom to eat? | p. 244 |
| It's all in your mind | p. 245 |
| Those who are involved are muddled; those who watch are clear | p. 247 |
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