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On the Nature of Liu Ling’s Trousers

The Taoist Liu Ling liked to go about his house naked. One day, he was interrupted by some stuffy Confucian visitors. When they expressed surprise (and likely, no little dismay) at the absence of trousers, Liu replied: “The whole universe is my house and this room is my trousers. And so I put the question to you instead, gentlemen: what are you doing here inside my trousers?”

This story typifies many of my favourite Taoist tropes:

• topsy-turvy spatio-temporal relativities
• a freeing disregard for social norms,
• cosmic identity as a matter of course
• and the deployment of humour as a vector for wisdom.