Abstract: This paper examines the dialectics between the living human body and the objective world of things, mainly in relation to the execution method of death by a thousand cuts, but also in relation to the practice of writing with ones own blood and using ones own flesh as a medicine for others. I call those three practices "transgressions" and investigate their symbolic meaning. I will show how these transgressions play a part in the Chinese symbolic institution, in other words in the cosmic order, often called the dào . I will show how in the Zhuangzi a different kind of dào is presented. Finally I will put these practices into perspective by describing a symbolic kind of self-execution that is practiced in Tibetan Buddhism. In a modified version it is recently also practiced in the context of psychotherapy and counseling. My claim is that this helps us understand the dào of Zhuangzi as the foundation of human existence.
Erik Hoogcarspel (Thu,) studied this question.