Cook Ding butchers an ox for Lord Wenhui and the whole thing comes apart in rhythm, the movements described in the language of court music and dance. Asked about his skill, Ding corrects the term: what he cares about is the Dao, which goes beyond skill. Three years in, he says, he stopped seeing the whole ox. Now he works by spirit rather than by eye, going in at the natural openings and following the cavities that are already there, never touching a ligament or a tendon and certainly never a bone. A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts; an ordinary one once a month because he hacks. Ding's blade is nineteen years old, has taken apart thousands of oxen, and is as sharp as if it had just come off the stone, because the joints have spaces and the edge has no thickness. It is the tradition's definitive image of wu wei — not inaction, but action so exactly fitted to the grain of the thing that no force is expended.