Lieh-tzu

Lieh-tzu East Asia
A semi-legendary sage, Lieh-tzu provides a perfect example of Taoist obscurity. He ‘dwelt on a vegetable plot for forty years, and no man knew him for what he was’. In Chinese tradition the wise man attains to the sublime but performs the common tasks. Like other hsien, immortals, Lieh-tzu rode on the wind, and he delighted in the enigmatic utterances of Taoist philosophy. He told his disciples: ‘Saying nothing and knowing nothing, there is in reality nothing that a man does not say, nothing that a man does not know.’