达生

The title means 'to understand life thoroughly': the chapter opens by saying that one who grasps what life truly is does not toil at what life has no use for. It is a chapter of masters who succeed by forgetting themselves: a hunchback who catches cicadas as if picking them up, a swimmer who goes with the whirlpools, and the woodworker 梓庆, who fasted until he forgot reward and praise before carving a bell stand so fine that viewers thought it the work of spirits.

The chapter also gave 呆若木鸡, from a fighting cock trained until it stood as still as a wooden bird and no rival dared face it. It was praise at first; today the idiom means 'dumbstruck'.