Live Like a Daoist Week

Over the next seven days you will be putting some of the views found in the Zhuangzi into practice. Unlike other weeks of exercises in this class, you will not be actively aiming at a life featuring specific content or virtues (other than, perhaps, virtues like openness and flexibility), but rather you’ll be shifting, loosening, or abandoning perspectives that you currently hold — sometimes rather playfully. The result of this therapy, Zhuangzi suggests, should be a better life.

All of the philosophical exercises for this week are located on this page and you will need to complete them daily. This will consist of two steps:

1. At the start of each day in the morning, you should read the assigned exercises and carry them out—you can keep this assignment open on your phone throughout the day for easy access.
2. At the end of each day in the evening, you should submit in the designated dropbox a short private journal entry (1-2 paragraphs) on what you’ve learned.

Class periods and dialogue sessions that occur during the week will involve discussing and working on your exercises individually or in groups.

Readings for the assigned exercises and evening reflections this week are drawn from:

• Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, translated by Brook Ziporyn (Hackett, 2020)