ABSTRACT
Vast and out of line-Zhuangzi’s imagination takes him far from human concerns. Giant sea creatures, creatures that live for thousands of years, spirit people able to live on the dew. Zhuangzi lets go of conventional limitations in order to explore beyond the boundaries. With the imagination he releases the transformations of things, lets them take new and unheard of courses. By following the transformations one is released from the anxiety of loss, and the fear of death. One identifies with the changes, with the penumbral stages, so that one does not fear them as a loss of identity. From a point of view that leaves human concerns behind, everything is lost and everything is retained in the torrent of flux. It is only conceiving of fixed identities that creates loss. Insight ming allows us to identify with the transformations-so that identity itself becomes fluid and penumbral. When identity is itself fluid and penumbral change can no longer be perceived as loss. But neither, of course, can it be perceived as permanence. Rather, one sees through the dichotomy of permanence and loss as artificial.
