Finding your essential self: the ancient philosophy of Zhuangziexplained

Lao-tzu, on the other hand, believed that we are naturally pure; it is the belief systems and social indoctrination of the world that give us a gross character and warp our pure nature. As a result, we need to get back to the raw, intrinsically human, elements of our being.

we can enlarge and enrich experience by recognizing how Greek authors, prior to modern science, represented the thing that is both closest to us and yet is still, in some sense, quite mysterious—our own essence as a human self. Many of their ideas are utterly remote from the individualistic and secular contexts of our body-centered market capitalis