1 “Skill mastery, cultivation and spontaneity in the Zhuangzi: conversations with Confucius” in Justin Tiwald (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, forthcoming Karyn Lai Philosophy, School of Humanities and Languages University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia Abstract The Zhuangzi’s skill stories—exemplifying a wide range of skills in ordinary activities such as swimming, bell-stand carving, cicada-catching and butchering—present vignettes of enviable mastery. Scholars have noted their elusive nature, including the epistemological assumptions that underpin them. In scholarly literature, the mastery of skills has been described in various ways, expressed in terms of ineffability, spontaneity, and reliance on knowledge of an anti-rationalist, intuitive, anti-intellectual, and mystical nature. I suggest that some of these characterisations may be misleading in that they oversimplify the multi-faceted nature of the cultivation required to attain these expert levels of mastery. I examine elements in the Zhuangzi’s epistemology, for a start, by studying the skill stories that involve conversations with Confucius. The juxtaposition in these stories, between Confucius and the skill masters, can help highlight some elements of mastery, action and cultivation that are distinctive in the Zhuangzi. This, in turn, will help refine our understanding of mastery in the text, with particular focus on the idea of spontaneity in action.