庖丁解牛

Pronunciation: páo dīng jiě niú Literal meaning: Chef Ding butchers ox

Origin & Usage

Cook Ding (庖丁) cut apart (解) an ox (牛) for Lord Wenhui with his whole body in motion and the blade whispering, never once meeting bone. At first, he said, he saw nothing but ox; after three years he no longer saw the whole animal; now he meets it with his mind rather than his eyes and guides the knife through the spaces already there. His blade was nineteen years old and had taken apart thousands of oxen, and its edge was still as new as the day it left the whetstone. The Zhuangzi tells it as a lesson in nourishing life. The phrase describes mastery that has stopped looking like effort.

Examples

English: "After thirty years of practice, the surgeon performed complex operations with effortless precision"

Chinese: 经过三十年的实践，这位外科医生以毫不费力的精确度进行复杂手术