When Did the Eggshell Crack?

NMH

15-12-2025

Created by ChatGPT

Toward late afternoon, as the sun cast long shadows and the schools of fish return to their resting places, Kingfisher still perchs on the branch. Its eyes follows the setting sun; it no longer looks like a laborer hunting fish, but like one lost in vague, wandering thoughts.

Delighted by this strange sight, Zhuangzi speaks up:

– Which stubborn fish has chased you adrift into the realm of reverie?

Seemingly unperturbed, Kingfisher swoops down to Zhuangzi and replies:

– It’s not a fish, but an eggshell!

Zhuangzi is startled. He looks around, as if searching for some elusive shard of eggshell, then asks:

– Then it isn’t an eggshell either, is it?

Kingfisher says:

– It is, and yet it isn’t. It is the fragile eggshell that Laozi pointed to when speaking of Confucian reverence for rulers through ritual. When did it crack?

Zhuangzi laughs and answers:

– A long tale—folk history still carries it. You may have heard.

Kingfisher asks further:

– I’ve heard that when Duke Hui of Lu learned that Qin dared to use the Heaven-sacrificing rites reserved for the Zhou king, he too wished to adopt them, claiming that ritual propriety had been devised by Lu’s ancestors. When the Zhou king objected, Lu argued that if the Son of Heaven did not forbid Qin, how could he forbid Lu? Was that when the shell cracked?

Zhuangzi replies:

– Lu devised rites for the Zhou king. Confucius was in Lu. That story exists, and Confucius knew it. But that was shattering, not cracking.

Kingfisher ponders and asks again:

– Then was it earlier—when King You of Zhou deposed the rightful heir and installed a younger son, provoking the Marquis of Shen to invite foreign forces to attack Haojing, the capital of the Son of Heaven?

Zhuangzi answers:

– So great a destruction—how could that be called a mere crack?

Scratching its head, feathers bristling as if enlightenment is dawning, Kingfisher hurriedly asks:

– Then it must have been when King You became obsessed with wine and women, neglected the court, and deceived the feudal lords just to buy a smile from Bao Si?

Zhuangzi narrows his eyes and says:

– Not far off—but still a large crack.

At this point Kingfisher is at a loss and concedes:

– Then I must ask Zhuangzi to point it out.

Zhuangzi hints:

– What about deviant desire?

Kingfisher cries out:

– That’s right. Desire rose across the whole realm, obscuring the light of the Dao.

Zhuangzi nods, seeming to agree, and says:

– Still not the first crack.

Now understanding the need to return to the root and recover what is true, Kingfisher replies:

– Then it must have begun in the father’s reign—King Xuan of Zhou—who killed ministers without cause, casting them away like rotten straw. He neglected the common people and indulged only the desires of imperial power.

By then, Zhuangzi’s eyes have grown dim:

– When King Xuan of Zhou mistook himself for the Son of Heaven to whom the Dao must render service, that crack split wide, and a hundred years later the whole realm collapsed. Struggles for power, wealth, and kingship were nothing more than fragments of a shattered eggshell, scattered everywhere. The Confucian school then erred again, believing that preserving the fragments and arranging them to look presentable was the Dao itself. Thus, the political order could never escape chaos, for the Dao kept steadily declining.

Just as clarity dawns, Kingfisher remembers the fish it has set aside for Zhuangzi while the sun is still aloft. Lost in thought, Kingfisher feels that even a fisher like itself might yet attain the Dao.

References

[1] Vuong QH. (2024). Wild Wise Weird. https://books.google.com/books?id=N10jEQAAQBAJ

[2] Zhuang Zhou. (1964). Zhuangzi.

[3] Laozi. (1868). Tao Te Ching.

[4] Nguyen MH. (2025). Kingfisherish Wandering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FVLLLXNW/ 

[5] Nguyen MH. (2025). Confucius’s Dream of an Eggshell. https://www.xomchim.com/post/confucius-s-dream-of-an-eggshell