《南华真经义海纂微》Vol. 13

In circles where people compete for victory and help the common folk boast, how could they grasp the deep meaning of the “Autumn Floods” chapter in the Nanhua (Zhuangzi)? Great and small cannot be measured against each other, so what the Five Emperors, Three Kings, humane persons, and men of responsibility do all stays within one range; each thing has its allotted place, and even the most penetrating person cannot step outside it. That is why the text sets out the contrast of large and small—to show that ultimate principle has no rank to fight over.

Commentary by Lü Huiqing: When autumn waters rise on schedule and the hundred streams pour into the Yellow River, it is like learning piled up from outside that has not yet opened onto the Great Dao. The Jing River rushes along and the two banks cannot make out ox or horse—like clinging to the word “Dao” yet unable to get beyond the two sides and the middle, not yet reaching “seeing everywhere.” Flowing downstream to the Northern Sea means following principle until one must arrive at rest; turning back to gaze at the vast ocean is turning toward the Great Dao and roaming in the boundless. Confined to one corner, one is limited by large and small; fixated on one season, one is devoted only to near and far in time; bound to one school’s teaching, one is constrained by craft—people under heaven cannot wander freely, largely for these reasons. Leaving the riverbank to view the sea, one can slip free of narrow limits, join a view without fixed direction, and only then speak of the great principle. Myriad streams enter yet do not fill it; the Weilü (tail-gate) drains yet it is not emptied—whether it grows or shrinks, neither long nor short nor small nor large decides it; water is almost close to the Dao. From here, viewing the sea from the bank, one leaves confinement and speaks the great principle. Count the four seas within heaven and earth, China within the four seas, and people finally among the ten thousand things— as if present, as if absent. The toil that the Five Emperors, Three Kings, humane persons, and men of responsibility worry over is nothing beyond this. Some refuse and yield to seek a name, or compile books to pass as broad learning—from the angle of “the Great Dao has no fixed direction,” that is slighting meaning and skimping on pattern; is that empty talk? Lin Yidu’s note: those mewed in a niche cannot see beyond their border; those fixated on one season cannot keep pace with change; those bound by teaching cannot follow the Dao—“Dao” is also “year”; the sage embodies the times; those who hold one season and doubt the “year” never hear the Dao. When the sage speaks, wording shifts with the age; what changes is phrasing, what is the same is the Dao. The Dao disperses into teachings; each sells its master’s sayings; when long-standing abuse hardens, people cling and cannot pass through. Today Confucians reject Buddhism, Buddhists reject the Dao—they do not know the Three Sages established teachings with one original intent; without seeing this, all are bound by teaching. When River Lord leaves the bank to view the sea, he is no longer blinded by one bend and can speak the great principle. In the Northern Sea, ten thousand streams return yet it does not overflow; the Weilü drains yet it is not empty—far beyond rivers and streams, yet it does not take that as grounds to think itself greater. Compare form to heaven and earth, receive qi from yin and yang: what rules and serves the body stands between heaven and earth, tiny as one splinter of wood or pebble on Mount Tai; the smallest hollow, ant nest, grain of rice, or millet seed, set among mountains and marshes, is like the Northern Sea in heaven and earth. Things take “ten thousand” as a round number for fullness; a person is one thing among the ten thousand; China’s nine regions where people gather—how is that unlike one hair on a horse’s body? The Five Emperors in continuous yielding, the Three Kings in campaigning to seize states, humane persons grieving for the people, men of responsibility diligent in office—different undertakings, all exhausted on the tip of a hair. Boyi refused the state for a name; Confucius edited the classics to pass as broad and boasted to his age—still like River Lord taking water as plentiful.

Commentary by Chen Xiangdao: Laozi often likens the Dao to water; the Dao’s value lies in having root, water’s in having source. Zhuangzi uses the Northern Sea for the sage’s Dao and autumn floods for the hundred schools’ arts. In that age the Great Dao was split among the hundred schools; innate truth sank in custom; masters of one bend rejoiced that all beauty under heaven was theirs alone—like a frog mewed in a well who cannot be told of the sea, or an insect fixated on one season who cannot be told of ice. After awakening one looks up at the court of heaven and lowers the place of all beneath heaven, climbs Mount Tai and knows the crowd of mountains is small—hence the “Autumn Floods” chapter. The hundred schools take “leading the many” as ability, so River Lord is the stand-in; the sage takes following things as achievement, so Sea Lord is the stand-in. The hundred streams return yet it does not overflow; the Weilü drains yet it is not empty—because the returning abyss has no bottom. View large and small against each other and the burden of surplus and lack remains; forget large and small in mutual comparison and the mood of looking down to boast or looking up to sigh vanishes. Zhuangzi does not expect mutual forgetting but mutual viewing—he wants to drive the narrow Way back to the great Way.

Commentary by Chen Bixu: “Gazing at the ocean” is the sight of water’s vastness; before reaching the sea gate one stays crude, so those without corners mock. Penetrating change and suiting the time is the broad Way. Gentleman and petty person each have a shore of capacity; overstepping one’s lot and reckless speech stores up one’s own shame; only after knowing shame can one speak of principle; know that those who seem foolish and deluded are not truly so. No water is greater than the sea, yet it does not take itself as more—taking the meaning of placing oneself below and yielding the body. Qi and Wei’s strife, snail horns, the myriad people, the tip of a hair—all parables for the greedy. The Five Emperors’ “continuous” means continuously practicing benevolence and righteousness.

Oral Exegesis by Master Lin (Yizhai): “Jing” here means turbid: river water arrives in a rush and beats turbid against both banks, hence “greatness of the jing flow”; the two banks (liang si) are not the Jing and Wei “Jing.” “Yang” is like a figure in the sea; Sea Lord is the god’s name. Mewed in a niche, fixated on one season; the cicada that knows neither spring nor autumn. Weilü is Wo Jiao, seen in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Lei kong is a tiny hole. A person among the ten thousand things is one; count what can be named in the Great Void—within the nine regions one is again only one item; count with grass, trees, birds, and beasts—two lines of utmost finesse: the world is this small; what the Five Emperors and Three Kings know and can do never steps outside this within.

In a miscellaneous essay, someone named Chu wrote: once you have seen the ocean, ordinary waters can no longer satisfy you; once you have been steeped in the company of a sage, it is hard to explain things in everyday language. So when the autumn floods rose, the River God (Hebo) went gladly eastward with the current to the sea, but gazed out in awe and felt himself utterly inferior to the Northern Sea God (Ruo). The passage also cites the frog at the bottom of a well and the summer insect, then describes how the northern sea is beyond measure. If you set the four seas within heaven and earth, and the Middle Kingdom within the four seas, the proportion is no more than a single hair on a horse’s body. How then can anyone insist that beyond heaven and earth there is nothing greater than heaven and earth? Thus this chapter uses the dialogue between Hebo and Ruo to show that distinctions of “small and large,” “few and many” are relative, in resonance with the discussion of Kun and Peng, the cicada, and the dove in “Carefree Wandering”; the rhetoric is ingenious, turning again and again toward the unexpected.

The gist of Ruo’s opening reply is this: those who cling to one school’s doctrine must be helped to shed the bias of “thinking themselves supreme,” and led toward a state of openness to the great Dao (the Way).

Hebo asked: Then may I take heaven and earth as vast and the tip of a hair as tiny?

Ruo of the northern sea answered: You may not. The measure of things has no end; time has no stopping point; rank and status are not fixed; birth and death have no fixed outcome. Therefore the person of great wisdom looks from both far and near: thus they know that “small” is not necessarily “few” and “large” is not necessarily “many”—this is understanding that measure is inexhaustible. They discern past and present: thus they are not bored by distance nor stand on tiptoe straining for what is far—this is understanding that time never stops. They see clearly fullness and emptiness: thus gain does not make them wildly glad and loss does not make them anxious—this is understanding that allotment is inconstant. They see the level great road plainly: thus they do not especially rejoice in life nor treat death as disaster—this is understanding that beginning and end were never something to grasp fixedly. When you reckon it up, what people know is not equal to what they do not know; the span they live is not equal to the time before they were born; using the tiniest scale to exhaust the greatest realm, one becomes confused and cannot find peace. Seen in this light, on what grounds can one say the tip of a hair defines “ultimate fineness”? On what grounds can one say heaven and earth exhaust “ultimate vastness”?

Guo Xiang develops Zhuangzi’s meaning here: each thing has its own “measure”—life and death, the turn of fortune, gain and loss are all a portion allotted within one’s lot; beginning and end renew day by day, each complete in itself and lacking nothing. From this we see that whether near or far, large or small, things each have their own scale (to be discerned in the clear light of understanding).

Past and present reflect one another, showing that change is not limited to birth and death; therefore one need not brood over what is “long-lasting,” nor desperately cling to what is brief—one should look closely at the alternation of fullness and emptiness: only when one sees that gain and loss have no fixed allotment can one keep the joy and sorrow born of life and death from weighing on the heart. That is the right way of “daily renewal.” If one understands that from beginning to end all is daily renewal, one knows that the “already past” (what is established as gone) cannot be held or held back; entering what is new without alarm, leaving what is old without panic. Though the changes of life and death seem one continuous body, what each thing knows has its boundary; giving life and taking it have their seasons, each following its own rate. Better to rest in the portion one receives—then great and small are alike sufficient.

If what is as fine as an autumn hair does not presumptuously demand the work of heaven and earth, then all beyond one’s own person is surplus; if one does not see that heaven and earth must be greater than an autumn hair, one is merely content with the look of one’s form—why insist on fixing what is fine and what is large?

Dao is not divided into “small” and “large”; from the outset it has no fixed form. We take heaven and earth to be supremely vast, yet as far as our knowing can reach we cannot touch their outer limit—so what is called “large” is not necessarily truly large, and what is called “small” is not necessarily truly small. The small is not thereby less, the large is not thereby more, for once you measure with quantity, there is no end in sight.

Treat the past as past and the present as present—yet before the words are finished, the present has already become past, which shows that past and present do not stand still. If you realize that past and present are all within change and flux, you need not brood over what is far away nor stand on tiptoe straining toward what is near, and you will know that time originally has no boundary. If you insist on gloomily waiting until you have “lived out a full hundred years” before counting life complete, you are making “the far” a burden; if you take Peng Zu’s long life as a target to compete with, you are treating “the near” as a standard you can reach by standing on tiptoe.

When the sun passes midday it inclines westward; when the moon is full it wanes. Observing fullness and emptiness, neither wildly rejoicing in gain nor deeply grieving loss, you see that boundaries are inherently inconstant. Where there is a beginning there must be an end; where there is an end there must be a beginning. Grasping beginning and end from the root origin and seeing the open way, you need not rejoice at birth nor fear death, because beginning and end cannot be held to as a single fixed pole. Then how can what things call season, division, end, and beginning be said to be true knowing?

When “knowing” is not yet true knowing, what is known must have its limit. End implies beginning; from the root origin discerning beginning and end clarifies the open way—hence no joy in life, no disaster in death—and knowing that beginning and end must not be stubbornly fixed: can what things call season, division, end, and beginning be true knowing? When knowing is not true knowing, what is known is surely inferior to what is not known: only with birth is there knowing; before birth there is no knowing, and in life one is surely not as free of attachment as before birth. Knowing belongs to the “small,” the boundless belongs to the “large”; using the small to seek exhaustively the domain of the utmost large only leads to confusion and never to settling the self at ease.

Yidu commentary: When we look at things through bodily form and outward appearance, largeness and smallness appear; when we look at things through the Dao, there is no division into large and small. “Measure” is about how we appraise things; “time” is about how things change; “distinction” is about how things differ; “governing beginning and end” is about birth and death. From the standpoint of great wisdom, none of these is enough to settle what is far or near, large or small.

Xiangdao commentary: If you know that the measure of things has no end, you need not fuss over more or less in size; if you know that time has no final limit, you need neither reject the old and new nor stretch on tiptoe to grasp them; if you know that distinction is never fixed, gain and loss are not enough to make you worry or rejoice; if you know that beginning and end have no fixed rule, death and life are not enough to count as disaster or delight. People see things this way because they have “knowing”; so those who know, because they are “born,” can rest in what they know—yet if they returned to the state before birth, who would still say the large is not the finest of the fine, or the fine is not the greatest of the great?

Yidu commentary (continued): Knowing that the measure of things is endless, small and large are not worth counting as more or less; knowing that time never stops, present and past are not worth despising or reaching for on tiptoe; knowing that distinction is inconstant, gain and loss are not worth anxiety or joy; knowing that beginning and end have no fixed cause, death and life are not worth treating as harm or pleasure—for a person to use what is utterly small to pursue what is utterly great, what is that if not delusion? (The meaning matches the passage above; the Xiangdao commentary has already brought out the main point.)

Bixu (commentator) says: The “measure” of the ten thousand things has no end, so one cannot settle judgments by large or small; time has no boundary, so one cannot settle them by old giving way to new; the lines between things are not fixed, so one cannot settle them by gain and loss; beginning and end have no fixed reason, so one cannot settle them by change.

The Great Person—one who has penetrated the Great Dao—clears away dust and opens the field of vision, knowing that when things are far their effect is often great and when they are near the cost is tiny, so their “measure” has no limit. The remote past cannot be fully stated; in the present, taking one thing as proof of one thing never quite holds. Things flow and cannot be dammed; each day is new and cannot be chased, so time cannot be held still. Seeing that fullness and abundance are nothing to prize, one does not rejoice in having them; seeing that poverty and emptiness are nothing to despise, one does not grieve at losing them; understanding that life and death are only coming and going, one is no longer pulled by liking and disliking.

“Meet it and you do not see its head; follow it and you do not see its tail”—the Dao was never a fixed “reason” to begin with. From this we know: discriminating knowledge has an end, while empty vastness without bounds does not. While alive, benefit and harm weave together; in death one returns to silent emptiness. If one uses pleasures as small as an ant’s or a gnat’s to exhaust a realm as vast as Kunlun, one is bound to be trapped. Even the tip of the finest hair has its concrete form; the minute still has remainder; heaven and earth may tilt and fall short, and the great domain is not enough to be called “whole.”

Yanzhai (another commentator) says: The text spoke of “great” before; here it speaks of neither small nor great—exactly the point of “the tip of autumn down is large, Mount Tai is small”: large and small are relative, and measure must not be clung to. The measure of things is endless, so one cannot speak of large or small; time does not stop, so one cannot speak of succession and renewal; divisions are inconstant, so one cannot speak of gain and loss; beginning and end have no fixed reason, so one cannot speak of change. Only the person of great knowing—deep insight into the Dao—has the “four knowings” that follow: knowing ancient and modern as one, so what is met but not yet arrived at is far without anxiety, and what can be gathered and taken is near without standing on tiptoe; entrusting life and death to the correct path. With this understanding one knows that “end” is like “beginning,” and “end” cannot be taken as a fixed “reason.” What people know is human affairs; what they do not know is the Way of Heaven. After birth I can know—before birth, how could I know? With beings as small as ourselves, to try to exhaust Heaven at its greatest scale is to deserve confusion and unrest.

People can understand this: how much or how little there is in the world, and how seasons turn, were never fixed to begin with—so why keep arguing over who came first or last, who is greater or lesser, who has more or less? Once you see that past and present never stand still, the point is clear. “Remote” (yao) stresses how long time stretches; “swift succession” (duo) stresses how fast change turns. Do not despise living just because you live long, and do not stand on tiptoe to scrape a little extra life. Length of life has its allotted span; staying in one’s place is enough.

Of course people cannot avoid being born or lacking awareness; yet the classic says “better not to know” and “better not to have been born”—that is aimed at worldly people who do not seek genuine clarity but chase hollow cleverness, who do not preserve life in their proper station but grasp for a few more years—using a finite life to pursue endless desire, forgetting their place while hoping for luck beyond what is due. If they cannot even see clearly what helps or harms themselves, how can they fix the boundaries of what is large or small, subtle or coarse in the ten thousand things? “Better not to know” is like Wang Ni’s reply to Nie Que; “better not to have been born” is like the skeleton that no longer wishes to bear human weariness. Yet once one is born and knows, how can one avoid being burdened by that? Answer: if you can take “no birth” as the home of birth, and “not knowing” as the horizon of knowing, then what drag remains in “being alive,” what load in “knowing”?

The River God asked: People who discuss such matters say that what is most subtle has no form, and what is most vast cannot be enclosed—is that credible?

Ru of the Northern Sea replied: If you look at the large from a small standpoint, you cannot see it whole; if you look at the small from a large standpoint, you cannot see it clearly. Subtlety is the extreme of “small,” vastness the extreme of “large,” so what is convenient differs—this is how circumstances shape things. Both the refined and the coarse belong to the level of what has form; what has no form is what number cannot divide; what cannot be enclosed is what number cannot exhaust. What can be put into words is the coarse side of things; what can be grasped in mind is the subtle side. What speech cannot reach and mind cannot discern should not be forced into a split between refined and coarse. Therefore the conduct of the Great Person—one whose virtue is complete and who is one with the Dao—is this: they do not deliberately harm others, yet need not parade benevolence; they do not act for private gain, yet do not despise rank; they have goods and wealth but do not wrangle; they may speak little yet carry weight; they do not borrow others for their affairs, yet eat without toiling and are satisfied; they are neither greedy nor corrupt, neither fawning nor vulgar; they do not make a show of novelty yet move with the crowd, neither flattering nor out of step with the world. Rank and salary are not enough to move their heart; punishment and disgrace are not enough to wound their will, because they know that right and wrong cannot be cut into two fixed sides, nor can large and small. The ancients said: one who has attained the Dao does not crave reputation; one of supreme virtue does not cling to a fixed “self”—the Great Person has no fixation on “self”; this is the utmost of keeping to one’s proper measure and what fits.

Guo Xiang’s note

What the eye sees has a fixed limit, so when viewing the large there is always something not fully seen, and when viewing the small something not clearly seen—this shows that starting from the senses and from numbering, one cannot exhaust the true boundary between “large” and “small,” “subtle” and “coarse.” That the Great Person is “the utmost of keeping to proper divisions” lies precisely in not clinging to one pole and not forcing a split between subtle and gross.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: What the eye can take in has its limits, so one cannot see the whole of what is large, nor see clearly what is fine and small—this is simply because sight does not reach that far. “Fine” and “grand” are still not the ultimate. How could one speak of the Dao that has no form and cannot be enclosed?

Large and small differ, so what suits each cannot be the same. Where there is no form and nothing to enclose, there is no difference of “what suits better.” Where speech and thought cannot reach, how could one still divide fine from coarse?

Speech and thought exist, yet what makes speech and thought possible is “non-being” (wu). One must go beyond speech and thought, enter the realm of “no words, no intent,” and only then arrive.

The great person has no contrived mind; he only follows Heaven. Wherever he sets foot lands on auspicious ground—how could he walk a path that harms others? It is not that he never harms, but that he does not boast of his kindness; he moves in accord with principle and lets each thing do what its nature allows, each in its proper place—not because someone is lowly that they are put in that role, but so that each keeps their allotment and hits the mean, self-sufficient and self-reliant.

Principle is naturally without covetousness, so there is no split between “must do” and “must never do”—hence he differs from the world. Straightforward by following principle, glory and disgrace do not cling to his heart, so he accords with equanimity and leveling (xujing, qitong). He lets things be and their natures open by themselves; fame and merit belong to the things themselves—hence he is “without renown”: only when nothing is lost among things does reputation arise; he merely lets things be. He uses restraint (yue) so that each reaches its allotment—therefore it is “each in their own place” (ge an ben fen).

Self-sufficient and self-reliant, following Heaven, setting foot on lucky ground—how could he leave the path of harming others? It is not that he withholds kindness, but that he does not over-praise his own kindness; he responds to principle in action and lets things do what they can, position matching what is fitting—not because of low status that one is placed in that office, but so that allotments are fixed and centered, self-sufficient and self-reliant, that is all.

This passage comes from the Lü lineage’s commentary in the Yihai Zuanwei exegesis of the Zhuangzi (Classic of Southern Florescence). The gist is as follows.

If you measure the large from the standpoint of the small, what the eye cannot reach does not mean that something large truly cannot surround or contain. If you measure the small from the standpoint of the large—as when a midge (jiaomeng) perches on a mosquito’s eyelash and cannot be seen—that does not mean the small truly has no form at all. Fine and coarse ultimately rest in the formless; what has form cannot be fully divided by counting, nor fully enclosed by number. What can be put into words is only the coarse side of things; what can be held only in mind and intent is the subtle side. The Dao, however, lies beyond speech and thought and was never something to be chosen between fine and coarse.

Therefore the Great Man acts from spontaneity (ziran): he does not deliberately heap on kindness, nor intentionally set out to act (youwei). When one’s path settles on profit, scheming for gain becomes one’s business; when yielding and deferring turn into calculation, strife follows; when one lives only by brute strength, one will not borrow from others; greed is the opposite of that; making a show of odd ways takes being different as one’s skill; flattery and sycophancy mean obeying only ruler and parents, not going along with the crowd. When all of this arises from spontaneity, then rank and stipend, reward and punishment in the world are not enough to serve as encouragement or warning. How could one still draw a line between right and wrong, or sort great from small among rights and wrongs? When someone can shrink the boundary of “distinction” to the limit, until they no longer cling to distinction, that is why the Daoist adept “does not listen” (to fame), why supreme virtue “does not obtain” (external marks), and why the Great Man is “without self” (wuji).

Plain-Language Reading of the Scripture

Some commentaries on the classics say on their own: Heaven looks vast and dim; that may not be its “true face,” and if you gaze too far, you cannot see where it ends. So, measuring what is large from up close, you cannot take in all of “large”; measuring what is small from far away, you cannot make it out clearly. People who argue in the world, taking only what the eye can reach as if they had grasped the truth, are deeply foolish.

Moreover, heaven and earth sit in empty space and are only one small thing within it; as for myself, I am boundless in extent—not because heaven and earth are so huge, but because I, in comparison, appear very small. The tip of an autumn hair is the finest part of form; seen from afar it is too fine to see—not because that tip has no substance, but because I am too far from it. If you set aside sight and sustain things with spirit-awareness, then what is extremely large can still be bounded, and what is extremely small can still take shape—this is why Hairuo (the sea lord) is skilled at speaking the Way, and why one reasons from principle in that tradition.

Broadly speaking, what is most minute is the subtle; one step finer, smaller than “subtle,” is chaff and bran (the husks of grain). From the perspective of the large, it is still a fine thing; from the perspective of the subtle, it already appears as the fullness of “large.” The refined and coarse in things can be traced in mind and pushed to the limit in words—but that only reaches the limit of “things,” and is not enough to exhaust the Dao. Only “speech that is not speech”—what the ear cannot hear, what the heart cannot discern, what the scheming mind cannot obtain—how could refined and coarse exhaust that?

The “great person” is content within the allotment of their nature: though they do not actively harm others, their benevolence toward people is not lavish; they follow what nature already gives and do not add extra gain; though unmoved by profit, they do not look down on gatekeepers and toll-keepers who live in poverty; though they do not scramble for wealth, they do not over-refuse or over-yield; in affairs they do not live off others’ labor, nor do they rely on many connections; though customs differ, those who stand out as deliberately unconventional are few—because they stay among the multitude and follow common usage. All of this is the conduct of the “great person”: in elevation they do not act like the pure harmony of Yi or Hui; in lowliness they do not act like the brutality of Dao Zhi the robber. How would they take rank and salary as encouragement, disgrace and punishment as shame, or the lines between right and wrong, large and small, to heart?

Therefore the Dao has nothing to “hear,” and De has nothing to “gain”—because the great person is without fixed self, fulfills what lies within the allotment of nature, and arrives at utmost restraint (zhiyue).

Plain-Language Commentary

Commentary by Xiangdao: When the “Great Person” faces the world, he uses the heart-mind to forget external things, then uses the Dao to forget that very heart-mind, and does not step outside the Dao to do what harms people. To outsiders he may seem full of human kindness, yet he is not deliberately piling on benevolence; he does not scramble for wealth and goods, and seems yielding, but he is not putting on humility; he does not lean on others in getting things done and seems to rely on his own strength, yet he is not showing off how “hard he works.” His bearing differs from the ways of the world and looks unconventional, but he is not trying to be oddly eccentric. He does not raise himself by looking down on humble origins, does not play the pure man by rejecting greed and corruption, and does not play the upright man by shunning flattery and sycophancy. Thus rank and stipend, punishment and disgrace cannot stir his inner mind—this is what is meant by “seeming to take on much effort while in truth not taking on much; seeming odd while in truth not being oddly different.” The rights and wrongs, great and small, that appear outside need not be sorted at all; any fine or coarse distinctions that fall into words and inclinations need not be clung to in the heart either.

Commentary by Bixu: A tiny insect cannot embrace the edge of the sea; the great Peng bird does not fix its gaze on tussock grass—what each can see has its limit, and overstepping one’s place is perilous. The most refined vital breath (Qi) was never meant to take on fixed form, yet it still cannot wholly escape being tugged by speech and intent. Knowing that favor and profit invite trouble, one does not contend over goods; though one’s conduct differs from the vulgar, one often joins in harmony without taking the lead in song. Rank and salary are not enough to move the heart; shame and punishment are not treated as shame—one has, as it were, forgotten the body outside oneself. Right and wrong cannot be fully divided; the fine and the coarse cannot all be seen through—hence the need for an empty, receptive heart. The person of the Dao “hears what is not heard” and thus accords with the Dao; the highest virtue (De) takes “not getting” as its getting—if one makes “getting” the aim, one has already fallen a step lower. The Great Person has no “I”; yet “I” too is a thing among things. All of the above still uses names and categories to pin things down and explain them—it is not yet the utmost of natural non-action (Wuwei).

This passage discusses large and small, the formed and the formless, and how the great person (daren) moves in the world. The gist is as follows.

Large, small, and the limits of knowing

Viewing heaven through a bamboo tube, what you see cannot be complete; when the great peng bird looks down from the heights, it cannot make out things so small they are almost formless. What is too small to count in fen (as with downy hairs or motes of dust), and what is too vast to exhaust with large numbers such as zi and zhao, each has its boundary. Both jing (essence, the refined) and the coarse fall within what has form (youxing), so they can still be pursued in speech and in thought; when both large and small reach formlessness and no image, they pass beyond where words can go, and can no longer be sorted by refined and coarse. (The text also says: though one need not harm outer things, one need not deliberately extend universal love to all things—this is spoken from the angle of not clinging to form and not piling on benevolent favor.)

The “great person” and the world

Those who seek profit and scramble for goods—the great person does not seek profit for himself and does not treat yielding and deferring as a craft. Each does his own work; he does not depend on others, nor does he eat only after he has spent his strength to the last. Toward greed, flattery, and the like, the great person does not look down on them either—outwardly his conduct resembles ordinary people’s, yet he does not mark himself off as cliff-like and strange (yayi); rather he harmonizes his light and blends with the dust (heguang tongchen): he goes with the crowd without setting himself apart, and can dwell at ease even with flatterers without letting their habits disorder his mind. In this state, right and wrong need not be picked apart, large and small need not be forced apart; there is no name to fight over, no rampart to build. The great person keeps the utmost principle in the simplest compact (yue)—doing only what his station requires. To hold to that compact is to fulfill oneself. Looking from the fine toward the great, one sees only as far as “cannot be exhausted”—that is not saying the great stops there; looking from the great toward the fine, one sees only as far as “cannot be made out”—that is not saying the fine is truly formless. Jing is the extreme of fineness; hong is the fullness of greatness. Though large and small differ, whatever has form and can be numbered is subject to formation and decay (chenghuai). If refinement reaches the formless and greatness reaches what cannot be encircled, it can neither be fixed by form nor divided by number, and then formation and decay no longer apply. What is coarse can be spoken of; what is refined can be grasped in mind; beyond refined and coarse, where speech and intention cannot reach and form and number cannot divide, there is probably only the Dao. Therefore the great person puts benefiting things (liwu) first and does not pride himself on benevolent grace; he is not moved by profit, yet does not for that reason despise those who chase profit. What follows is all about how the great person differs from the world: he does not even lightly scorn flattery; he lets gentleman and petty person each go their way; he need not take right and wrong or large and small as standards of discrimination—how then could rank and disgrace serve as reward and warning? From this one sees that the great person empties himself (xuji), and De (Virtue) naturally gathers to him—not by overstepping his place to seek it. De is supremely noble; whether sought within or verified without, it is in truth utterly easy—yet people abandon the inner for the outer and leave the easy for the hard. Is that not delusion?

He Bo said: As for what lies outside things and what lies within them, by what are nobility and baseness distinguished? And by what are largeness and smallness distinguished?

Bei Hai Ru said: Viewed from the Dao, the myriad things have no noble or base rank; viewed from each thing in itself, each takes itself as noble and other things as base; viewed through common custom, noble and base are not decided by oneself; viewed as distinctions, if you treat the large as large, then nothing under heaven is not large; if you treat the small as small, then nothing under heaven is not small. If one knows that heaven and earth are no more than a grain of husk and the tip of a hair is no less than a hill or mountain, the scale of large and small becomes clear. Viewed by function: regarding what a thing has, nothing lacks what it has; regarding what it lacks, nothing is without lack. Knowing that east and west oppose each other yet cannot fail to coexist, function and role are settled. Viewed by inclination and commitment: regarding what is so as so, nothing is not so; regarding what is not so as not so, nothing is not not-so. Knowing that Yao and Jie each follow nature yet oppose each other, the difference in inclination and conduct becomes clear.

Formerly Yao and Shun abdicated and became emperors; Zhi and Kuai (King Kuai of Yan) abdicated and perished. Tang and Wu fought and became kings; Duke Bai (Bai Sheng) fought and lost the state. Seen from this, the ritual of contention and yielding, the paths of Yao and Jie—nobility and baseness all depend on the times and cannot be taken as fixed law. A ridgepole can ram a city wall yet cannot plug a mouse hole—this speaks of implements each having its use. Qiji and Hualiu run a thousand li in a day yet are worse than a wildcat or weasel at catching mice—this speaks of skills each having limits. The owl catches fleas and sees fine hairs at night yet by day stares and cannot see a hill—this speaks of natures differing. Therefore it is said: taking only “right” as teacher and not “wrong” as right, taking only “order” as teacher and not “disorder” as disorder—this is not yet understanding heaven-and-earth’s principle and the myriad things’ condition. It is like taking heaven as sole model without earth, yin as sole model without yang—clearly unworkable. Yet if one still goes on talking, that is either folly or deception.

He Bo, how could you know the gate of noble and base, the home of large and small?

Guo Xiang’s commentary ( gist): Things have no innate noble or base; each is self-sufficient. Self-pride and mutual disdain are narrow views—precisely where the Dao interweaves and levels. That noble and base are not set by oneself is what is called “inversion.” What is called large is self-completion; what is called small is having no surplus. If by its nature it suffices to be called large, then tip of hair and hill need not differ in name; if by having no surplus it suffices to be called small, then heaven-and-earth and a grain of husk need not differ in label. If one views distinctions without following this way, then adding and subtracting, overturning and crushing, never end. Heaven and earth never fail to be mutually “this” and “that,” like east and west opposing yet like lip and teeth—not necessarily deliberately acting for each other, yet when the lip is gone the teeth grow cold: what the other does is precisely what completes my function. Thus if one denies mutual function and looks only at separate deeds, then all function under heaven seems absent; if one acknowledges mutual function from inseparability, then no function under heaven is absent. If one forgets self-achievement and only pursues mutual favor, the more favor the thinner the artifice, and the world loses its proper work and natures scatter. So function and role have no fixed moment to fix. All things are natural, hence nothing is not so; all things mutually negate, hence nothing is not not-so. What is without so and not-so is Yao; what has so and not-so is Jie—the two rulers each received heaven’s quality and cannot replace one another. Viewing the world’s inclinations and conduct through Yao and Jie, they likewise cannot replace one another. Those who receive the realm by matching heaven and people show traces of both struggle and yielding; seek the trace and lose what makes the trace, and the error is vast. If one accords with each thing’s difference and entrusts it to the natural, then nothing fails to match heaven-and-earth’s principle and the myriad things’ condition—taking suitability of nature as order and loss of nature as disorder; differing natures and feelings are right and wrong, with no master to assign them to heaven’s balance; let both courses run freely, and distant regions and unlike customs converge while each finds its place.

Lü’s commentary says: When you look at the ten thousand things through the lens of the Dao (the Way), there is originally no nobility or baseness; when each thing looks through its own lens, each takes itself as noble and others as base. But the Dao is not a “thing,” nor is it “worldly sentiment.” From a worldly view, nobility and baseness are not something you can decree for yourself—and the Dao is not the worldly way either. The Dao belongs neither to “things” nor to “the vulgar,” so within the Dao there is nothing to call noble or base.

Because the mind treats what it feels is “large” as large and what it feels is “small” as small, people know that heaven and earth, compared with the great void, are only a slight difference—yet they can still be magnified until they become mountains; they know that a grain of rice or the tip of a hair, compared with the formless, are only a slight difference—yet they can still be shrunk until they become hillocks. Distinctions of this sort seem numerically clear-cut, but the Dao does not rest in “distinction,” so within the Dao there is nothing to call large or small.

Because there is the side of “being,” people affirm being: if there is east, there must be west; because there is the side of “non-being,” people affirm non-being: without east there is no west. People know that east and west oppose each other yet cannot exist apart—boundaries of “function” seem fixed plainly enough, but the Dao does not rest in the being or non-being of function, so within the Dao there is nothing to call being or non-being.

Because what one feels “is so” is called right, and what one feels “is not so” is called wrong, people know that Yao and Jie each cling to one pole and mutually condemn the other—stances of “orientation” seem obvious enough, but the Dao does not rest in the direction of right and wrong, so within the Dao there is nothing to call right or wrong.

If that is so, those who practice the Way will doubly forget (forgetting right and wrong, forgetting self and other) and rest in “tian jun” (Heaven’s balance, natural equilibrium). Why would they still need to divide “ni” (fine distinctions, edges of difference) into noble and base, large and small?

If the abdications of Yao and Shun are taken as the sole standard, cases like Zhi’s and Kuai’s become “severed” (rejected, cut off); if the punitive campaigns of Tang and Wu are taken as the sole standard, cases like Duke Bai’s become “annihilated.” The ritual of contention versus yielding, and the conduct of Yao versus Jie—their nobility and baseness all shift with time and circumstance; they cannot serve as unchanging constant laws.

However thick a beam may be, it cannot plug a small hole; however fast a thousand-li horse may run, it cannot catch a mouse; owls and horned owls cannot see by daylight—the three differ in nature, yet to force them into sameness is to fail to understand Heaven’s principle and the disposition of things.

(The closing line “cuan fu yan qi du yi, tu yan qi zhong” in transmitted texts may be corrupt; the gist is often taken to mean that holding only one-sided righteousness, or speaking only from the crowd’s view, is insufficient to exhaust the Dao.)

If we speak in terms of “things” and “inner versus outer,” what is meant is that in original nature there is no fixed boundary between inside and outside. By the principle of nature itself, nothing is inherently noble or base; nobility and baseness are distinctions people impose. Seen through the eyes of the Dao (the Way), there is no other versus self, no right versus wrong, and thus no question of who is high or low; if one looks only from each thing’s own standpoint, each takes itself as precious and the other as cheap. The high and low of things do not come from their own nature but from custom and habituation; so the world’s rankings of worth do not truly belong to the things themselves.

The principle of large and small cannot be overturned, yet forms differ: what is small, if it does not strive to become large, is already fully “large” as small; what is large, if it does not strive to become small, is already fully “small” as large. Following what it takes as large and resting content, the tiniest hair can equal a hill; following what it takes as small and leaving nothing over, a hill can equal the finest tip. The differences among the ten thousand things are endless—it all depends on which side one views them from.

“Being” (you) refers to subtle being and constant being; “non-being” (wu) refers to true non-being and constant non-being. All moving and growing things under heaven, in nourishing and developing, seem in the process to accomplish something—this may be called “being”; yet these accomplishments ultimately revert to creation and nature, not to anyone’s exclusive possession—this is again called “non-being.” Clinging only to “being” one does not see “non-being”; clinging only to “non-being” one does not see “being.” The two oppose each other like east and west, yet in truth cannot be separated; thus the lines of function and limit are settled by nature itself.

Among the principles of the ten thousand things there is “this” and “not-this”; self and other deny each other, and the contrast of Yao and Jie arises from this. When each follows its own nature and mutually denies the other, aims and conduct show forth: some yield the throne and become emperors, some yield and are wiped out; some contend and become kings, some contend and perish. The ritual of contention and yielding was honored in the age of Yao, Shun, Tang, and Wu, yet was base in the time of Zhi Kui and Lord Bai. To say Yao is right and Jie wrong also has its season—it cannot be taken as an eternal standard.

Again by analogy: ridgepoles, thoroughbred horses, and owls differ in use, skill, and endowment. Taking governance as one’s model, taking heaven as one’s model, taking yin as one’s model—each is only grasping one aspect and cannot apply everywhere; this is obvious. Abdication and succession, if they go against the custom of the time, are called usurpation; if they fit the custom of the time, are called righteousness. The root is the same while the branches differ—why insist on ranking them as better or worse?

(Vernacular commentary) If you look at the ten thousand things through the eyes of the Dao, there is originally no distinction between noble and base; once you leave the Dao and view things only by worldly habit, differences appear: rank has high and low, merit has presence and absence, orientation has right and wrong. Yet I can take what is naturally large as large and what is naturally small as small, all the way through to superior and inferior—and together with whether merit exists or not and whether inclinations are right or wrong, I can view them all with the same eye. Then who can still draw a sharp line between large and small, presence and absence, right and wrong?

The principles of the world differ on the surface yet connect at the root; they connect at the root yet manifest differently. Change is inexhaustible and cannot be fixed into one constant rule: sometimes yielding and withdrawing leads to being cut off, sometimes striving leads to kingship, sometimes striving leads to ruin—this is “sameness within difference”; “difference within sameness” lies not in things themselves but in the Dao; the gap between sameness and difference lies not in outward conduct but in timing. It is not only these truths that work this way. Different uses call for different implements; different talents call for different skills; different endowments call for different natures: when you value one side, the other seems base; when you magnify one side, the other seems small—how can noble and base, large and small, be measured on a single scale?

From this we know: right and wrong, order and disorder, as well as Heaven and Earth and Yin-Yang, often complement and push each other forward; conclusions cannot be drawn from noble and base or large and small alone.

Bixu (commentary): The Dao itself has no high or low—only human preference divides things; what the world esteems is always something outside the Way. To say “as small as heaven and earth, as large as a tip of hair” misses the point: if whatever is big counts as big, then everything could be called big; if whatever is small counts as small, then everything could be called small—that is using differences in degree to cancel one another out. Saying heaven and earth are small and a hair-tip is huge is unreasonable in the same way.

East and west stand opposed, like high and low—they cannot swap places. Merit must be realized in oneself before one can help others; without merit in oneself, what could others rely on? What Yao took as right—if everyone took it as right, the world would all follow; what Jie took as true—if everyone took it as true, who would dare not agree? How could the aims and conduct of sages and ordinary people be the same? Yao, Shun, Tang, and Wu aligned with the times and kept their proper place; Zhi Kui and Duke Bai went against human affairs and clung to skewed measures. Thus high and low are not fixed—they differ with aim and conduct, and the capacity of noble and common is already divided. Yet right and wrong, order and chaos, constantly lean on each other; this cannot be overlooked.

To take only Heaven as teacher and ignore Earth, or only Yin and ignore Yang, is stiff and dim—not enough to discuss the Dao. Those who go against the times and custom may sit in high rank yet seem base; those who follow times and custom may be small yet seem great.

Yizhai says: When each holds itself lofty and looks down on the other, chicken droppings and pig fungus (two base things) can for a moment serve a ruler—worth is not locked inside the thing itself, like regalia and caps obtained by chance. Comparing heaven and earth to a grain of rice and a hair-tip to Mount Tai makes degrees of difference even less worth arguing over. Each role has its function—this is called the division of tasks. Farmer, merchant, craftsman, and trader—none can be missing from the world, like east and west opposing each other yet neither dispensable. Taking Yao as right and Jie as wrong follows what pursuit and conduct naturally demand; viewed through “not abandoning,” how could a lord arise? So pursuit and conduct cannot be fixed in one view. Speaking from small, large, being, and non-being is not quite the same as the “following the thus” (yin shi) of the Qiwu lun (“Equalizing Things”); hence the parable of different vessels, different skills, different natures—heaven and earth and Yin-Yang likewise illustrate that neither side can be absent. Usurpers and righteous followers extend the discussion of Yao and Jie.

Things in themselves have no fixed rank of noble or base; only when one can “forget the self and forget things”—no longer setting self against things—can one speak of true equality. If one still sees oneself as lofty and looks down on others, with “this” and “that” still hanging in the mind, the discriminating mind has not yet been forgotten; noble and base remain tied to “I,” rather than resting with things as they are.

Noble and base need not be decided by “I.” Let go of self-clinging and follow the myriad things: what is large is used as large, what is small is used as small—each according to its fit. Extend this to distinctions of achievement and failure, being and non-being: though not simple opposites, they depend on each other and neither can be dispensed with. If one judges everything only by debates over right and wrong and principle, like those surrounding Yao and Jie (the ancient sage-king and tyrant), one is still contending on the surface and has not touched the root.

From this one can see the pattern of things and the tenor of human feeling: contention and yielding, good and evil, noble and base all shift with time and place—they cannot be treated as unchanging constants. Like vessels, each has its use; like skills, each has its strength and limit; like natures, each has what suits and what harms them—one cannot measure all with a single yardstick.

If one takes only “order” as teacher and denies “disorder,” or takes only Yin as teacher and denies Yang, one has not understood how heaven, earth, and the myriad things face each other and give rise to one another. Compliance and resistance, succession and change are likewise only “what fits the moment”; you need not argue at length—even with words, one mostly stays on outward traces. How then can one say clearly where noble and base, large and small, truly come from?

If you wish to trace the source of noble and base, large and small, you should turn toward the layer “before things have yet arisen”—before the discriminating mind and names and forms have stirred; there lies the answer.

The River God said: If that is so, what should I do and what should I not do? How should I decline or accept, take or leave—and what can I arrive at in the end?

Beihuo Ru said: From the standpoint of the Dao, what counts as noble and what as base? That is what is called mutual reversal and cyclical transformation (fanyan). When the mind clings fixedly to one side, it goes against the Great Dao (dajian). What counts as little and what as much? That is what is called giving without a fixed measure (xieshi). To act in only one fixed way is to fall out of alignment with the Dao (canci). Solemn—as when a state has its ruler: its virtue lies in impartiality, not in private gain. At ease—as when there is the spirit of the community altar at sacrifice: its blessing lies in the multitude, not in enjoyment by one person alone. Vast—as when the four directions stretch without boundary, with no fixed limit. Embracing all kinds of things, what need is there for anything to prop them up or bear them from outside? This is what is called having no fixed direction (wufang). The myriad things are inherently equal—who is long and who is short? The Dao has no absolute end or beginning; things have death and birth, and one must not treat a momentary completion as eternal. Full and empty alternate; forms ought not to occupy a fixed “position” and hold it to the death. The years cannot be forcibly lengthened, nor the seasons forcibly halted. Waning and waxing, fullness and emptiness, ending and beginning again—these are precisely what we use to speak the direction of the “great meaning” and to discuss the principle of the myriad things. The growth of things is like a galloping horse: there is no moment without motion, no time without change. Why still ask what to do and what not to do? They will transform of themselves (zihua).

(Guo Xiang’s Yihai zuanwei gist woven above: noble and base originally convert into each other; clinging to one pole makes one uneven with the Dao. Follow allotment and circumstance—action has no constant pattern; failing to change with change means misalignment with the Dao. The ruler’s virtue is in the public good, not private virtue; the altar’s blessing is for the many, not private fortune. The body of the Dao is broad and unfixed, nowhere partial, yet it thoroughly nurtures all beings—not because outer things “support its wings,” but because, being without fixed direction, it takes the myriad things as its directions, and none is insufficient. Death and birth are inexhaustible change, not that the Dao has beginning and end; completion cannot be relied on, so one does not treat form as a seat to guard forever. To raise the years or stop the seasons is impossible; message and rest, fullness and emptiness, end giving rise to beginning—therefore one should follow use without clinging. If one recklessly chooses between “acting” and “not acting,” one spoils self-transformation.)

Lü Huiqing (sometimes credited as “Lü’s commentary”) says: In ordinary study, the mind stays tied to what has form and substance. When one hears that the Dao does not distinguish noble from base or small from large, at moments of what to do or not do, what to accept or decline, what to take or leave, one no longer knows which side to follow—and that, after all, is only human.

What we call “noble” and “base” are merely how things turn into each other and extend from each other; they are not the Dao itself. Where there is “return,” there is “going forward”: what goes forward counts as noble, what returns counts as base. Where there is “extension,” there is “depletion”: depletion counts as noble, extension counts as base. At such times one should release fixed intent and not cling to a single pole; if intent is locked in, one diverges sharply from the Dao and cannot get through.

What we call “little” and “much” are only the waning of things and the giving out of things—not the Dao either. In waning there is glory: glory is “little,” waning is “much.” In giving there is gathering: giving is “much,” gathering is “little.” One should advance along “both tracks” and not hold to one side alone; if one travels only one road, one falls out of step with the Dao and it no longer fits.

“Selfless De” means not favoring one person alone among those who deserve honor; “unrestricted resolve” is exactly this. “Selfless blessing” means not blessing one person alone among those reached in sacrifice; “not going by one path only” is exactly this. “No fixed boundary” means not drawing dead lines—connecting with the Dao without great obstruction; “who then receives winged support” means there is no fixed quarter. “The ten thousand things are equal” means matching the Dao without unevenness.

If one relies only on momentum already formed, one does not know that end and beginning were never fixed. If one stares only at form and position, one does not see fullness and emptiness; one does not know that names and roles are inherently changeable. Years cannot be listed one by one, hence the distant does not feel stifling; seasons cannot be forcibly stopped, hence pursuit does not cease (“gathering without stopping”). Decline and growth, message and silence, fullness and emptiness—when one phase ends, another beginning comes again; this is nothing but “Heaven’s course,” the natural turn. Therefore one speaks of the approach of the Great Dao and discusses the principles of the ten thousand things—why tie the mind to accepting or refusing, taking or leaving?

Whether quick or slow, whether change is spoken of or not, transformation is dense and unceasing—why tie the mind to acting or not acting? Things will nurture and arrange themselves in any case; “going toward transformation” means just this.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: The principle of the ten thousand things has always arisen from nature itself—neither something done on purpose nor something deliberately left undone—so why trouble yourself over declining or accepting, seeking or letting go? “Yan” (surplus, overflow) means having more than enough; “shi” (bestowing) means giving everything away. What we call noble and base, much and little, are distinctions people impose by force; they are not the real truth of the Dao. The real truth of the Dao is simply oneness. Seen through the Dao, being noble adds nothing, being base takes nothing away, having much is not surplus, having little is not lack—so how could there be separate categories of noble and base, much and little? When De (virtue) has no partiality, one who governs does not lean on any person in particular; when blessing has no partiality, one who performs sacrifice does not favor any recipient in particular. The commentary below agrees with Lü Huiqing’s reading.

Chen Xiangdao’s commentary: “Yan” is like broad, level ground: turn it over and the level becomes a slope. The difference between level and slope has never been fixed—are the shifts between noble and base not just the same? “Shi” is the exercise of benevolence; if one can decline it, then even when there is giving one does not take oneself to be benevolent—what do numbers of more and less matter? To “fan yan” (turn back from surplus) is to forget noble and base and not be dragged down by reputation; to “xie shi” (decline bestowal) is to forget much and little and not be dragged down by profit. Someone who can do this yet still cannot return to what is genuinely real has never existed.

Bixu (the style name of Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan) comments: To accept when one ought to accept yet not accept—what kind of acting is that? To take what others discard—why is that not acting? Noble and base, small and great, do not go beyond these two poles. Noble and base have no fixed master; they turn and flow back and forth—this is the constant pattern. The great Dao is very level; letting the heart-mind wander and finding contentment in that—this is thorough penetration. Each person’s allotted share has its fixed measure; less and more replace and give to one another—this is fitting. The world’s heights and lows are uneven; whether moving or stopping, all follow change—this is the reason of things. If De (Virtue/Power) is mixed with private intent, it cannot be stern and resolute; if good fortune comes from partiality, it cannot last. Once there are boundaries, it cannot spread everywhere; once there are fixed places, someone comes to take them up. If one devotes oneself to supporting and protecting one part alone, the De that embraces all things is obstructed. All of the above means declining what is honored and resting in what is lowly. Forget the self and there is no long or short; forget thoughts and there is no birth or death; forget fixed positions and there is no fullness or emptiness. Forget years and let change run its course; forget seasons and let them shift as they will. Forget waxing, waning, fullness, and emptiness—who then plays beginning and end? Things are never for a moment not being born, never for a moment not being transformed; change is like galloping, shift is like flying. It is nothing but Yin-Yang, nothing but the four seasons; they transform on their own—why fix the heart on doing versus not doing?

Yizhai (the style name of Southern Song commentator Lin Xiyi) says: Viewed from the Dao there is no noble or base; turned back upon oneself, one becomes broad and at ease. If one binds oneself with noble-base and right-wrong, one turns against the Dao. Giving and receiving naturally show more or less; drop the reckoning of giving and receiving, and there is neither more nor less. If one clings to one side and acts, or sticks to the measure of giving and receiving, one falls short of the Dao. The state has its ruler, sacrifice has its altar to the soil god (she)—meaning this heart takes the Dao as lord and has nowhere to lodge private intent. When the heart is vast without end, there is no division like field boundaries. All things are complete within me—this is embracing everything. Without partial love, who would come to receive, wing, and uphold in support? “No fixed direction” means no deliberate heart; with no deliberate heart there is no long or short and no birth or death. Not leaning on what is already accomplished means not placing oneself above others by success. Fullness and emptiness change with the moment and cannot be fixed at one point—hence not clinging to any one form. Without ancient versus modern, years cannot be singled out; without coming and going, time cannot be halted. The great meaning is the Dao. Change and movement are never absent. What counts as doing and what as not doing—leave it all to zaohua (the natural process of arising and passing); hence the saying that things transform by themselves.

The River God (He Bo) had not yet grasped the natural order of Heaven or the true state of the ten thousand things; doubt still lingered in him. He asked again how one should handle declining versus accepting, seeking versus letting go. The Sea God (Hai Ruo) replied: What people call noble and base, few and many, are nothing more than mutual reversal and mutual unfolding—one waning while another waxes, giving and receiving in turn. To cling to a fixed view and travel a single path is to turn away from the Dao (the Way). It is like a ruler toward the people: his kindness reaches everywhere without exception; like the Earth Spirit (She Shen) toward the multitude: blessing shows no partiality. This means the Dao has no fixed direction or ritual form, yet it holds all things in equal embrace.

Life and death among the ten thousand things are only shifts of form within transformation—not the beginning or end of the Dao itself. Therefore success has no permanent place; do not treat the body as something you can hold onto. When it goes, you cannot stop it; when it comes, you cannot refuse it. The principle of fullness and emptiness in things is just like this. The ten thousand things arise as if galloping; vitality never rests. One can only let them change on their own—in that process there is no room for human doing or not-doing, let alone calculations of decline, acceptance, seeking, or discarding. This means that in meeting things, the valuable thing is a mind without contrivance; then life and death need not become a burden.

The River God (He Bo) asked: “If that is so, what is there to value in the Dao?” The North Sea God (Bei Hai Ruo) replied: “Those who understand the Dao necessarily penetrate how things work; those who penetrate how things work necessarily understand how to adapt to circumstances (quan bian—flexible response suited to the situation); those who understand adaptation do not let external things harm them. A person of supreme De (virtue/power) is not scorched by fire, not drowned by water, not injured by cold or heat, and not harmed by birds and beasts. This is not because he stands close to fire, water, or wild animals without being hurt—it is because he sees clearly where safety and danger lie, rests calmly in fortune and misfortune, and is extremely careful about going and staying. Thus nothing can harm him. Therefore it is said: the natural (tian) is within, the human (ren) appears outwardly, and De is rooted in the natural. To understand how Heaven and the human each act, to take the natural as the root, to settle in what one has received, to advance and retreat, bend and stretch in accord with the natural, and to gather everything back to the essential point—even speaking to the utmost limit.”

The River God asked again: “What is Heaven? What is the human?” The North Sea God said: “Cattle and horses are born with four feet—that is Heaven (the natural). Putting a halter on a horse and a ring through a bull’s nose—that is the human (the artificial). Therefore it is said: do not use the human to destroy the natural, do not use deliberate contrivance to destroy the mandate of Heaven (ming), and do not sacrifice what you already have for the sake of reputation. To hold fast carefully without losing it—this is called returning to the genuine.”

Guo Xiang (a Wei–Jin scholar who commented on the Zhuangzi) notes: The Dao is valued because the myriad things transform of themselves. One who knows this understands that he is not the one who masters birth and transformation; since he is not, how could “I” have given birth to himself? It is simply that he came to be by himself. The four limbs and the hundred parts of the body take form without deliberate making; once formed, why stir up further schemes? Penetrating this principle, one can set aside excessive cleverness, abandon the desire to add to life by artifice, follow change and employ adaptive response, and not let external things harm oneself—thus constantly preserving oneself. Where the mind finds rest, danger cannot make it dangerous; where the mind is at ease in all situations, hardship cannot make it suffer. Even when the heart feels secure, one does not let that security be violated. Knowing that some things cannot be avoided, one rests content with what fate brings; understanding that going and staying are not ultimately up to oneself, nothing can harm one. The natural is within; what the natural accords with appears outside—neither side is something deliberately manufactured. The knowing and awareness of the natural operate on their own; so although one acts outwardly, one always takes Heaven as the root, rests in what one has received, and responds together with change. Thought reaches Heaven and Earth and conduct extends through the myriad things, yet one never loses the essential point and ultimate norm—then the great way of Heaven and the human is complete. Cattle and horses do not reject halter and nose-ring because that is what the mandate of Heaven requires. When it accords with the mandate, even if one is entrusted to human affairs, the root still lies in Heaven. If action goes too far and driving loses measure, the principle of Heaven perishes. Not following the natural and deliberately contriving—where then is the mandate? What one receives has its constant allotment; to sacrifice it for reputation is excess.

In Lü Huiqing’s commentary: To let the myriad things transform of themselves is the Dao. Hebo (the River God) had not grasped this, and asked what was so valuable about the Dao. Hai Ruo (the Sea God) told him: Understanding how things work, knowing how to adapt, and not letting external things harm oneself—all of that belongs to those who know the Dao, but it is still not the highest reach of one who embodies the Dao (personally realizes the Way). When fire and water do not injure one and cold and heat do not invade, that is the state proper to one who embodies the Dao. The phrase “it does not mean approaching fire and water lightly” (fei wei qi bo zhi) means discerning safety and danger, being careful about going and staying, so that outer things cannot harm oneself—yet that still amounts only to knowing, understanding principle, and seeing what fits the situation. To rest in fortune and misfortune, to know when nothing can be done and accept it in peace—that is when Heaven (one’s natural spontaneity) is within. To examine going and staying, so that even what one fears in others one cannot fail to fear—that is when the human (artificial contrivance) is outside. Entering De (virtue/power) from here, though one may not yet be wholly Heaven with no human artifice, De is already rooted in Heaven. To understand that the conduct of Heaven and the human both stem from Heaven, and to rest in what one has obtained, is to move from Heaven toward the human; to waver, bend, and return to what is essential, speaking of it at the utmost depth, is to return from the human to Heaven. From “do not use the human to extinguish Heaven” to “this is called returning to the genuine”—in relation to the Dao, how could that be merely knowing? Lin Yidu’s reading largely agrees with Lü’s commentary.

Chen Xiangdao’s commentary: Those who understand the Dao necessarily grasp how things work; those who grasp how things work necessarily understand quanbian—meeting the outer world with a mind that does not cling, without losing inner balance. How, then, could the outer world wound the heart or outer things harm the self? When practice reaches this point, one can meet human affairs from what is naturally so—whether hesitating or yielding, always in accord with what fits—then turn back from human affairs toward the Dao of Heaven, take hold of the root, and speak to the utmost. Hai Ruo’s (the sea god who debates the River God in “Autumn Floods”) line of thought first equalizes large and small, noble and base; in the middle it discerns safety and danger and is careful about going and staying; at the end it clearly separates Heaven and the human and returns to the essential pivot. To equalize the ten thousand things is to preserve oneself; to preserve oneself is to return to the Dao. At that essential pivot, nothing more is needed than a return to original authenticity.

Bixu Zi (Chen Jingyuan)’s commentary: Those who understand the way of transforming and transforming again, and who grasp the principle of living and living again, can follow outer things and exercise quanbian. Hence they are secure in ease and uninjured, because they discern safety and danger, weigh fortune and misfortune, and are careful about going and staying. The person of De (Virtue/Power) inwardly keeps to the principle of Heaven and outwardly cultivates human affairs; only then can rank and achievement be attained. When advance, retreat, and where one stands are in one’s own hands, one can return to the subtle root and speak of the ultimate. Oxen and horses are such by the principle of Heaven; piercing the nose and putting on the halter is using the human to erase the natural; making them hungry and driving them to run is using contrivance to harm life and fate; fixating on labels such as “yellow mare” or “dark stallion” is letting one’s nature be sacrificed for a name. To keep the natural without losing it and return to simplicity without falsity—that is the right path.

Yizhai (the style name of Lin Xiyi, a scholar of the Southern Song) said that this question was very well put: if one always followed the arrangements of zaohua (creation and transformation), would people have no need to study the Dao either? In the recorded dialogues between Zhu Xi (honored as Master Zhu Wengong) and his disciples, Liao Deming once asked the same thing; Zhu Xi did not answer, presumably because it was hard to speak plainly. That is why Zhuangzi here brings up the word quan (weighing and adaptability), and uses the line “do not let things harm yourself” to make the point clear.

“Dao” is the general name; “li” is each thing’s own pattern of order; “quan” is the measure of how one applies things—the decision lies in oneself. Only when one first has the whole of the Dao can there be such great functioning. Once quan is understood, one knows what is heavy and what is light.

“Bo” (thin/near) here means drawing close. A person of utmost virtue certainly knows that everything has its allotted portion—how could external things harm him? Yet he does not for that reason go near danger, just as one who knows ming (fate, mandate) does not stand beneath a wall about to fall. Observing safety and peril and being careful about staying or leaving—this is still having the human heart within the heart of the Dao; how could it mean only letting nature take its course? “Heaven within, human outside” (tian nei ren wai)—heaven’s way inward as master, human affairs outward as support—is what the earlier chapter meant: what acts as sovereign is the way of heaven; what acts as assistant is the way of humanity.

“Virtue lies in heaven” speaks of virtue in the sense of nature. The “knowing” in “knowing the conduct of heaven and human” starts from the human heart: rooted in nature and at peace with what one has—this line still belongs to the heart of the Dao. “Position” means where one settles; advancing and retreating, hesitating or moving, bending and stretching, each following its proper order—this line belongs to the human heart. By this point one is already at the critical juncture of the Dao and the utmost reach of li.

Horses and oxen have four feet—that comes from nature; if one does not halter the horse’s head or pierce the ox’s nose, they are of no use—that is the business of the human heart. As for destroying what is natural, destroying life, throwing away the body for the sake of reputation—the human heart then flows into danger. The three phrases “wu yi” (do not…) are all prohibitions. Knowing both heaven and human and being able to guard them without loss, heavenly principle is then complete—this is called returning to the true and original. Human affairs and fate, in the end, never depart from heavenly principle.

From the opening of this chapter to this point, there are six rounds of question and answer. It is like wind driving distant waves closer and wilder until here the snow-white breakers surge up faster than one can take them in; then in a moment all stills again, ten thousand leagues of ripples, green water holding the sky in one color. When a person stops falsehood and returns to what is truly is, the inner mind empty, still, and clear—that is much the same.

The person of supreme De (virtue/power) uses human affairs to discern the way of Heaven, uses flexible response to penetrate principle, distinguishes safety from danger, and is careful about going and staying—how could outer things harm him? Yet he never takes this as grounds to look down on the ten thousand things. Heaven is within, establishing the root; the person is without, meeting what must be done. When De returns to Heaven, one joins with Shen (spirit); there is no fixed direction and nothing to measure. Knowing Heaven and resting in De, bending and stretching follow the world’s events; returning to the essential and speaking to the limit, one does not lose what is truly real. Then the principles of treating oneself and treating others are complete within this. So River God (Hebo) is clear through and through, and has nothing left to ask.

Students today often lack confidence; doubts clog the inner mind, and many repeat River God’s mistake. If under Sea God (Hai Ruo)’s words they suddenly awaken—clouds part, the moon shows, bright and clear—seeking within themselves is enough; what leisure remains to ask anything else?

[Textual note: In “knowing fu (that) Heaven and human conduct,” fu should read fu (husband/it)—a near-homophone error; in “positioning oneself in de (gain),” de should read De (virtue). The sense of the passage makes this clear.]

Collected Subtleties of the Sea of Meaning on the Authentic Scripture of Southern Florescence (Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Cuanwei), fascicle 53—Song Chu Boxiu’s compilation of various commentators on the Zhuangzi; included in the Qing Complete Library of the Four Treasures. Fascicle 54 of the same work, Song Chu Boxiu, section: “Autumn Floods,” chapter four.

Kui (the one-legged creature of legend) envied the millipede; the millipede envied the snake; the snake envied the wind; the wind envied the eye; the eye envied the heart. Kui said to the millipede: “I hop along on one foot—nothing could be simpler than that. Now you…

The one-legged beast Kui, in legend, envied the many-footed centipede; the centipede envied the snake; the snake envied the wind; the wind envied the eye; the eye envied the mind.

Kui said to the centipede, “I get around by hopping on one foot—nothing is clumsier than I. Yet you manage tens of thousands of feet. How do you do it?” The centipede replied, “It is not like that. Have you never seen someone spit? One go, and the large drops are like pearls, the fine spray like mist—they fall mixed together in numbers past counting. I simply set in motion the tianji (Heaven’s spontaneous mechanism); I myself do not know why it works.”

The centipede said to the snake, “With all my feet I still cannot match you, who have none—why is that?” The snake said, “What tianji sets in motion, how could one alter it? Why would I need feet?”

The snake said to the wind, “I have to wriggle my spine and ribs to move, and there is always some trace left. You rise in a rush from the northern sea and rush into the southern sea, as if you were nothing at all—why?” The wind said, “True—I am exactly like that, from the northern sea to the southern sea. Yet when people point at me, they have already ‘won’ over me; when they trample me, they have ‘won’ over me too. Even so, only I can snap great trees and blow houses over. So in many small contests one does not insist on winning—that is the great victory. Only the sage can achieve that kind of great victory.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When the myriad things come to be, it is not because they know how to be born that they are born.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When the myriad things come into being, they do not emerge because they know they “ought to be born”; when life moves, it does not act because it understands “how it should proceed.” Thus the feet do not know why they walk, the eyes do not know why they see, and the heart-mind does not know why it cognizes—they simply incline and rise in accord with nature, each finding its own ease. The measure of fast and slow, the discernment of cleverness—sometimes achieved, sometimes not—are not ruled by a sovereign “self.” Yet some people insist on claiming the body as private property and boasting of their talents; this goes against tianji (the heavenly mechanism—the unalterable pulse of natural life) and injures the shenqi (the divine implement, the root of spirit). The zhiren (perfected person, one who has realized the Great Dao) knows that heavenly mechanism cannot be changed, so they discard cleverness, set aside cunning design, and merge with wuwei (non-coercive action), letting things move of themselves. Hence no activity fails to be carefree and at ease. Releasing natural capacity and not competing with it—this is “small victory that does not prevail.” Going further: guiding the myriad things and gathering every kind of talent so that each faculty can unfold and each thing does its own part—then nothing under heaven fails to be carefree. That is the sage’s “great victory that fully prevails.”

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Kui (the one-legged creature of legend), having only one foot, pitied the millipede for having too many legs; the millipede, with its many legs, pitied the snake for having none; the snake, writhing on both sides of its spine, pitied the wind for blowing in one gust from the northern sea all the way to the southern sea. From this we see: when the eyes must depend on “here” to see “there,” they envy the heart-mind—for though the heart-mind does not directly “see” anything, there is nowhere it cannot reach. Kui takes one foot as easy and laments the millipede’s difficulty with many feet; the millipede takes many feet as easy and laments the snake’s difficulty with no feet. Yet once heavenly mechanism stirs, no one knows why it is so—where do difficulty and ease lie in the contrast of many versus few, having versus lacking? Clearly wind, eyes, and heart-mind are alike in arising from ziran (self-so, spontaneity). Someone as narrow as He Bo (the god of the Yellow River), fussing over rank and quantity—how can they speak of such things? Wind precisely achieves “great victory” through “small non-victory.” Human eyes and heart-mind deploy shen (spirit) far more subtly than wind, yet still cannot reach the state of “seeing nothing, knowing nothing” while thereby illuminating “that which can see” and awakening to “that which can know”—and on that basis to wield the great victory that restrains the myriad things. Can that count as true knowing?

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Kui, the legendary one-legged spirit-beast, has only one foot and walks as if in peril; the centipede has countless feet yet moves with ease; the snake has no feet yet goes swiftly; wind has no form yet can stir and transform. When the eyes cling to visible color and shape, the heart gets caught in every phenomenon that meets it from outside. One foot envying ten thousand feet is the few envying the many; the slow envying the fast is many feet envying those with none. The snake treats having a body as a burden, so it envies the wind’s power to move and change; the wind, because it cannot be seen, envies the eye that can see; the eyes feel enslaved by outer things, so they envy the heart dwelling at the center in non-action (wuwei). “Chichuo” describes a trembling, unsteady gait. Like spittle flying out—no intent to become pearls or mist—it all comes from heaven’s spontaneous mechanism (tianji), utterly natural. Many feet yet slow walking, no feet yet fast walking, and needing feet to walk steadily are likewise nothing but that same spontaneous mechanism. Wind rises from the North Sea and enters the South Sea, issuing from yin and returning to yang; human pointing and blocking cannot stop it, and when it snaps trees and lifts roofs, its force shows all the more. This likens the sage’s learning, when cultivated to be like wind, to having nowhere further to go. From Kui’s envy over one foot up to wind—that is the span. Because there are heart and eyes, there is envy: the eye sees outward, the heart moves inward, and thus one thing is admired from another without end; when there is no heart and no eyes, it is like wind toward the myriad things—nothing left to envy. Who but a sage could reach that?

Chen Xiangdao’s commentary: If you take feet as something useful, one foot is not as good as ten thousand, so Kui envies the centipede; if you take feet as a burden, ten thousand are not as good as none, so the centipede envies the snake. The snake already has a body; seeing “not having” it feels insufficient, so it envies the wind. Though the wind rises in a rush, it still feels constrained by direction and tendency, so it envies the eyes. The eyes only govern seeing; the heart governs everything without exception, so it envies the heart.

Bixu (the style name of Daoist Chen Jingyuan) explains in his commentary: In things there are cases where the lesser overcomes the greater and where having nothing overcomes having something—all of this is brought about by Heaven’s spontaneous mechanism and the turn of timing and fate; force cannot seize it, and the ultimate principle cannot be fully traced. Kui (the one-legged creature of legend), the many-footed centipede, the snake, and the wind envying one another speak to exactly this. Nothing excels at seeing like the eye; nothing excels at knowing like the heart. When the eye sees yet does not discriminate, it is hiding its clarity; when the heart knows yet does not speak, it is gathering in its wisdom. This is relying on not winning in small matters to accomplish the great win.

Yizhai (Lin Xiyi) says: From one foot the discussion runs to no feet—all motions of Heaven’s spontaneous mechanism; the text may be called marvelous prose. In the middle he also uses a person spitting to liken the centipede’s many feet; at the end he returns to the wind, while heart and eye are no longer discussed. The writing shifts thus—marvel upon marvel. On the wind he further says that not winning in many small ways becomes the great win—then what thing among the ten thousand can step outside creation-and-transformation?

After the dialogue between Hebo and Hairuo ends, Nanhua (Zhuangzi) raises his own theme and extends the earlier meaning: Kui, the centipede, and the snake envy one another over the number or presence of feet—that is fixation on bodily form; heart and eye envy one another over inner and outer, ease and strain—that is fixation on function. These are all vain impulses among the ten thousand things. Only the wind has form yet is not obstructed; when pointed at or trampled it seems almost formless—in such small matters it cannot win. When the great win goes into action, it can stir and transform the ten thousand things; when not employed, it drifts freely into the sea. This is no more than one breath of creation-and-transformation, returning again to creation-and-transformation itself. By this he likens the sage: in bending and stretching he follows the age; form and function are both complete; serving in office and withdrawing are both fulfilled; from beginning to end he never loses the Dao. People see that he cannot win in small matters and look down on him; when the great win accumulates, it is not limited to uprooting trees and lifting roofs—yet where does it intend to overcome outer things? It is only Heaven’s mechanism moving; naturally so. Consider again what Hebo and Hairuo discuss—noble and base, many and few, large and small, fine and coarse—it is like creatures of different kinds envying one another with vain impulses, not understanding that each thing already embodies its own natural principle, between which love and hate have no room. Whether bodily form and number are many or few, whether movement is fast or slow—each resting in the natural, none fails to be sufficient in the Dao. This is precisely why the sage has no place in the world where he is not at ease.

Some doubt that the later passage elaborates the meaning of mutual envy but stops at the wind, leaving the parts about envying the eye and envying the heart untreated. Yidu (Lin Zi) closes with “first there are heart and eye, and only then is there envy”—that reading is correct.

When Confucius traveled to Kuang, the people of Song hemmed him in on all sides, yet he went on playing the zither and singing without pause. Zilu came in and asked, “Master, why are you still so at ease?” Confucius said, “Come here—I will tell you. I have long tried to avoid hardship and still cannot escape it; that is ming (fate). I have long sought smooth success and still cannot attain it; that is shi (the times). In the age of Yao and Shun, no one under heaven was trapped in hardship—not because everyone’s ability had finally “worked.” In the age of Jie and Zhou, no one under heaven found smooth success—not because everyone’s ability had failed. The age simply was what it was. On water, not shying from dragons and serpents is the courage of a fisherman; on land, not shying from rhinoceroses and tigers is the courage of a hunter; when blades are crossed before you, treating death like life is the courage of one who dies for a cause; knowing that hardship belongs to fate and success to the times, and facing great peril without fear—that is the courage of a sage. Zhong You, rest your mind and wait. My lot has its own limits.” Before long the commander of the armed men came forward to apologize: “We took you for Yang Hu—who had wronged the people of Kuang and looked like you—so we surrounded you. Now we see our mistake and ask to withdraw.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: The passage is meant to show that shi and ming are inherently as they are; hence the stress on dreading hardship and chasing success. When the times are simply thus, the mind need not labor over “failure” versus “success.” The fisherman, hunter, and martyr each have courage rooted in what they rest in; the sage is at rest everywhere. Whoever knows that fate is not at one’s own disposal has no place left to “use” the mind. Whoever rests in fate finds that wherever they are is nothing other than xiaoyao (carefree ease).

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Confucius, in peril at Kuang, could abide between life and death without fear, until the people of Kuang asked to stand down. This shows that those who cannot put aside cleverness and deliberate contrivance yet fret over life and death not only gain nothing—they only entangle their own hearts.

Lin Yidu’s annotation: Whether one falls into hardship or rises to success depends on oneself; the right moment and one’s allotted lot depend on Heaven. To seek success and fail is still easy to settle into; to try to escape hardship and not succeed makes settling in hard. As the old saying goes, “Wealth without arrogance, poverty without resentment.” The ancients never let hardship or success drag them down; each simply rested in the time at hand. Not shying from dragons, rhinoceroses and tigers, or naked blades is a small courage that leans to one side; facing great calamity without fear is the sage’s great courage, which can embrace all three kinds of courage. The courage Mencius had for the sake of righteousness can be compared to this. “What can you do to me?” Before long, the men in armor withdrew with apologies. Thus one who has reached knowledge of fate neither clings to life nor fears death—and Confucius had fully attained this.

Chen Jingyuan’s annotation: When Confucius traveled in Kuang, the people of Song surrounded him. What they called “pointing and blocking” seemed to have gotten the better of him; when they realized their mistake and asked leave to withdraw, that was the real great victory.

Lin Xiyi said: This passage explains that the right moment and one’s lot come from nature, not from what human effort can grant. What is there for one who knows the great Dao to fear? In the middle, the fisherman, the hunter, and the man of fierce loyalty are used to compare the sage—and that too has its point. When people can rest in peace, there is no need to say more.

This chapter explains that life and death are fated and that hardship and success have their seasons; therefore the noble person does not stand beneath a crumbling wall, does not harm humaneness to save his life, and does not fear when facing great calamity. Knowing that fate sets bounds, he fulfills his human duty in ordinary times and at such a moment rests in quiet acceptance, without extra words.

This chapter explains that life and death are fated and that hardship and success have their seasons; therefore the noble person does not stand beneath a perilous wall, does not seek life at the cost of humaneness, and does not fear when facing great calamity. Knowing that fate sets bounds, he fulfills his human duty in daily life and at such a moment rests in Heaven’s decree. Having already gained what is most noble and most sufficient within, outward hardship, success, gain, and harm cannot shake his heart—until the men in armor realize their error and withdraw with apologies. From this it is clear that human beings cannot overcome Heaven, yet can also use weakness to overcome strength. Unless the sage’s insight into principle is thorough and his self-knowledge clear, how could he be like this? Lu Deming’s Yinyi records Sima Biao’s old commentary: “Song” should read “Wei”; Kuang was a town in Wei—the received texts mostly wrongly write “Song.”

Gongsun Long asked Wei Mou: When I was young I studied the way of the ancient kings, and when I grew up I mastered the conduct of benevolence and righteousness. I could unite sameness and difference, separate hardness and whiteness, call wrong right and impossible possible. I stumped the wise men of a hundred schools and exhausted the eloquence of every debater. I thought I had reached the utmost in understanding. Now, having heard Zhuangzi’s words, I feel dazed and astonished. I do not know whether my arguments fall short of his or my insight is inferior to his. At present I can hardly open my mouth. May I ask what this means?

The noble son Mou leaned on his armrest, sighed, and laughed up at heaven: Have you never heard of the frog in the shallow well? It said to the turtle from the Eastern Sea: How happy I am! I hop about on the well curb and rest beside the broken brick of the well wall. When I jump into the water, it holds up my armpits and cheeks; when I step into the mud, it covers my feet past the instep. Looking back at the crabs and tadpoles in the well, none can compare with me. To monopolize the water of this pit and squat with legs spread, enjoying the shallow well— that too is the height of joy. Sir, why not come in often and see? Before the turtle from the Eastern Sea had put its left foot in, its right knee was already stuck. So it hesitated and withdrew, and told the frog about the sea: A distance of a thousand li is not enough to express its vastness; a depth of a thousand ren is not enough to measure it. In the time of Yu the Great there were nine floods in ten years, yet the sea did not grow larger; in the time of Tang there were seven droughts in eight years, yet the shore did not shrink. It does not change with the length of time, nor increase or decrease with rain or drought— that is the great joy of the Eastern Sea. When the frog in the shallow well heard this, it was alarmed and lost, blank and empty.

Your wisdom has not yet clarified the realm where right and wrong arise, yet you want to peer into Zhuangzi’s discourse— like asking a mosquito to carry a mountain or a millipede to cross a river; it surely cannot manage. Knowing that such subtle speech is beyond reach, you still chase momentary triumph in debate— are you not that frog in the shallow well? Zhuangzi treads the Yellow Springs below and ascends to the Grand Sovereign above; he does not divide south from north but opens on all four sides, sinking into what cannot be fathomed; he does not divide east from west but begins from the dark mystery and returns to the Great Penetration. Yet you constrain yourself with scrutiny and chase things with disputation— that is like viewing heaven through a bamboo tube or pointing at earth with the tip of an awl; is it not too small? Be on your way! Have you never heard of the youth of Shouling who went to Handan to learn how to walk? He failed to learn the gait of Zhao and lost his own way of walking, and had to crawl home. If you do not leave now, you will forget your original skill and lose your former learning. Gongsun Long heard this, his mouth open and unable to close, his tongue lifted and unable to set down, and he fled.

Guo Xiang’s commentary holds: Monopolizing the water of one pit and spreading the legs to enjoy the shallow well is like the small bird content in the mugwort. The left foot not yet in while the right knee is already stuck shows that the large cannot roam inside the small— not that it unwillingly refuses. Envying the large from the standpoint of the small, one becomes blank and lost; each thing has its own allotment and cannot be forced to compare and imitate. Beginning from dark mystery and returning to Great Penetration means reaching everywhere. One who roams the infinite is not something scrutiny can grasp; what one cannot bear, one simply leaves. Using this to imitate that, both are lost.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary holds: The so-called realm of right and wrong is where right and wrong arise. One who understands where right and wrong come from will see Yao and Jie as the same; one who does not, when facing Zhuangzi’s words, will be dazed with nowhere to speak. The Yellow Springs lie beneath the six extremes; the Grand Sovereign above the Supreme Ultimate. Not dividing south and north, opening on four sides, sinking into the unfathomable— is forgetting dark and bright, not binding oneself to direction, and entering the wondrous. Not dividing east and west, beginning in dark mystery and returning to Great Penetration— is converging with harmonious blending, from the wondrous to the manifest. In sum, it is penetrating in six ways and open in four, the body filling emptiness. This is what mind cannot exhaust and words cannot settle. If one still constrains oneself with scrutiny and chases with disputation, that is as narrow as viewing heaven through a tube or drawing earth with an awl tip.

Lin Zi’s note: Gongsun Long could overturn the cleverness of the hundred schools and exhaust the crowd’s disputations; yet when he heard Zhuangzi’s words, he was dazed and at a loss, finding it strange in his heart. Prince Mou of Wei used the parable of the well frog and the sea turtle to instruct him, so he was startled and lost his footing. His insight could not reach the realm of right and wrong, nor could he discuss the most subtle discourse—he was no different from the well frog. Zhuangzi’s Dao, upward surpasses Heaven’s height, downward plumbs Earth’s depth; “ao ran si jie” (opening freely in the four directions) is displaying it as benevolent manifestation; sinking into what cannot be fathomed is concealing it in function (phrases from the Book of Changes, distinguishing the Dao’s appearing and its hidden working). From dark primordial stillness (xuanming) it is utterly unmoving; returning to the great thoroughfare (datong), it responds as things touch it. Subtle to this degree—it cannot be grasped by inquiry and debate.

Shouling was a place in Yan; Handan was in Zhao; the young man was a junior disciple. Hearing that Zhao excelled at walking, he went a thousand li, set aside his own skill, and forced himself to learn. He never mastered Zhao’s way of walking and instead lost his original stride. This ridicules Gongsun Long for not knowing his measure when trying to learn from Zhuangzi: he would not only fail to attain Zhuangzi’s Dao but would in the end lose what he already had.

Chen Jingyuan’s (Bixu) note: A countryman who wants to offer the warmth of sunning his back to the Son of Heaven is like a well frog telling the sea turtle about his world. The sea is vast—neither drought nor flood can shrink or swell it; when a person has penetrated the great Dao, how can honor and disgrace make him glad or sad? Parables take right and wrong as their main theme. If you discard right and wrong yet still try to explain parables, how can you know weight from light? Those who cannot tell heavy from light chase only immediate advantage, yet imagine they have reached the utmost; those who boast of momentary gain have never heard of long-range forethought. Zhuangzi steps over an abyss yet is already beyond visible form, concealed within spirit-like transformation, forgetting east and west entirely; from the empty expanse of high heaven he returns to the root. To seek him with legalistic formulas and probe him with sharp scrutiny is to view heaven through a bamboo tube. Hence one who learns walking and loses his step can only crawl home; one who learns cleverness and forgets the real, in confusion blocks the great Dao.

Yizhai says: If there were truly nine consecutive years of great flooding and seven years of severe drought, people would nearly all perish. Zhuangzi rewrites this as “ten years with nine floods and eight years with seven droughts,” and the point shifts. What follows—“treading the Yellow Springs below and ascending to Heaven above”—means that one’s vision and aim are vast and lofty. “Shi” (same character family as “release/interpretive awakening”) denotes penetrating understanding. “Sinking into what cannot be fathomed” means entering a depth that cannot be measured. “Beginning in xuanming (the dark, formless origin before anything appears)” is prior to wuji (limitlessness); “returning to the Great Penetration (datong)” is returning to the highest Dao. If one relies only on narrow cleverness and tries to exhaust it through verbal disputation, is that not pitifully small?

The parable of losing one’s original gait at Handan is especially apt. Gongsun Long was a disputer of Zhao who could merge sameness and difference in speech and separate hard from white, reducing the hundred schools to silence and leaving the crowd speechless—yet when he heard Zhuangzi’s words, he was utterly at a loss. As a rule, those who chase external learning and forget their root often fail in just this way. Hence Wei Mou used the contrast between the frog in the well and the sea turtle to instruct him, so he might see where right and wrong arise and where subtle discourse resides. Only then can one ascend to Heaven and penetrate to the Yellow Springs, opening freely on all sides. “Beginning in xuanming” aligns with empty non-being and unites with wu (nothingness); “returning to the Great Penetration” is becoming one with the Dao. To try to exhaust Zhuangzi’s way with a little lip-wisdom and debate is no different from the youth of Shouling who went to Handan to learn how people walk there: he never learned it and had to crawl home. “Yuzi” means ruzi—a boy, a youth.

The above appears in Nanhua zhenjing yihai zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning of the True Classic of Nanhua), juan 54. Juan 55 was composed by the Song scholar Chu Boxiu; the chapter title is “Qiushui” (Autumn Floods), the fifth chapter. The work is included in the Siku quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries).

Zhuangzi was fishing by the Pu River when the King of Chu sent two high officials ahead to convey his message: “We wish to burden you, sir, with the affairs of our state.” Zhuangzi held his fishing rod without even turning his head and said, “I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for three thousand years. The king wraps it in cloth, places it in a bamboo chest, and keeps it in the ancestral temple. Would this turtle rather be dead and leave its bones to be honored, or rather be alive dragging its tail in the mud?” The two officials said, “It would rather be alive dragging its tail in the mud.” Zhuangzi said, “You may go! I too intend to drag my tail in the mud.”

Guo Xiang notes: Preferring to live dragging one’s tail in the mud means that each thing’s own nature has where it belongs.

Lü Huiqing notes: Zhuangzi was someone who did not fix his heart on death; he spoke this way to remedy the age’s habit of chasing profit and forgetting life—only these two officials’ insight was enough to grasp his meaning.

Lin Yiduo notes: Zhuangzi cited the sacred turtle to decline the King of Chu’s invitation because he did not wish to enter wealth and rank and harm his own life.

Chen Buxu notes: This too was to remedy the age’s rushing after profit and forgetting life; only these two officials’ insight was enough to hear it.

Lin Yiduo notes: Zhuangzi used the sacred turtle to refuse the King of Chu’s appointment, unwilling to injure his life for the sake of honor and wealth.

Chen Buxu notes: From this one can see that carriage and cap (the trappings of high office, meaning rank and glory) are merely external things and do not belong to life itself.

Lin Xiyi (Yizhai) said: Using “dead bones left behind” versus “living and dragging the tail” as a comparison is truly striking.

Zhuangzi used the sacred turtle to decline an official summons—the reasoning is very concrete. Talented people who relieve the state’s worries and set disorder right are indeed what the country relies on; yet after success, trouble often follows and one often cannot preserve oneself—just as the sacred turtle, though it could show omens to people, still ended as collected dry bones. Long ago Tao Hongjing (Hermit Tao) painted two oxen in reply to an imperial summons: one bound by whip and rope, one roaming freely among water and grass—the same idea.

When Hui Shi was prime minister of Liang, Zhuangzi went to see him. Someone said to Hui Shi, “Zhuangzi has come because he wants to take your place as minister.” Hui Shi was alarmed and searched the state for three days and three nights. Zhuangzi went to see him and said, “In the south there is a bird called yuanchu (a phoenix-like bird in tradition)—do you know it? Yuanchu flies from the southern sea to the northern sea; it will not perch except on the parasol tree, will not eat except bamboo seeds, will not drink except from sweet springs. Just then an owl got a rotten rat; as yuanchu flew past, the owl looked up and shrieked ‘Ha!’ Now do you also want to use the state of Liang to ‘Ha!’ at me?”

Guo Xiang notes: Searching the state was mustering troops in array. “You want to use Liang to scare me”—this means species’ tastes differ and each has limits to what it desires.

Zhuangzi and Huizi (named Shi, skilled in disputation, a friend of Zhuangzi) were wandering on the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, “The white minnow swims at ease—that is the fish’s joy.” Huizi said, “You are not a fish; how do you know the fish are joyful?” Zhuangzi said, “You are not me; how do you know I do not know the fish are joyful?” Huizi said, “I am not you, so of course I do not know you; you were never a fish in the first place, so you do not know the fish’s joy—that can be settled quite firmly.” Zhuangzi said, “Please return to where we began. You asked ‘how do you know the fish are joyful’—you already knew that I knew, and only then came to ask me. I knew it on the bridge over the Hao.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: You are not me, yet you can know that I am not a fish—so when I am not a fish, I can also know the fish’s joy. Huizi set aside his opening words and used slick disputation to press the question. Tracing his original intent, he meant that if one is not a fish, there is no way to know each other. Now you are not me, yet you say “how do you know the fish are joyful”—that is precisely knowing that I am not a fish. Since that is so, whatever can know each other may know the other from this, without having to be a fish oneself to know fish. Following your question “how do you know,” you already knew what I knew, yet came to ask me again. I knew it right there on the Hao—why enter the water? Things live and rest in their places; heaven and earth cannot change their abode, yin and yang cannot twist their allotted roles. To understand the joy of water creatures from the ease of land creatures is not yet very marvelous.

Lu Huiqing’s commentary: Returning to the beginning—when Huizi said “you are not a fish, how do you know the fish’s joy,” it amounted to: you are not me, yet you already took it as settled that I know the fish’s joy; then I, not being a fish, can also know the fish’s joy. That is already knowing that I know, and still coming to ask me. I only knew it on the Hao—I need not become a fish to know.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Fish hide in deep places and are content in themselves. The classic says “in fish, the plan succeeds”—deeply knowing the fish’s condition and taking it as model. Human beings start from themselves and can know on the Hao; they need not first become fish.

Lin Yidu: Fish hide in deep, far-off water and feel at ease there. Zhuangzi’s phrase “yu yu de ji” (the fish have found their reckoning) means to know fish thoroughly and then act accordingly. Humans on land settle into land; fish in water settle into water. Only after fully realizing one’s own nature can one grasp the nature of all things—hence one can know the fish’s joy. Huizi did not see this and insisted on arguing right and wrong, and their split began there. Zhuangzi asked him to return to the root of the exchange and to look with a heart that extends self to others; he finally said, “I know it from up on Hao”—from the joy he felt on the bridge, he inferred the fish’s joy.

Chen Xiangdao: In outward form, the myriad things and I do not look alike; in principle, the myriad things and I share the same nature. Huizi matched form to form, so he said, “You are not a fish—how do you know the fish’s joy?” Zhuangzi matched nature to nature, so though he was not a fish, he could know how fish really are. Set aside big and small, forget noble and base: though heaven and earth are long-lived, they exist together with me; though the myriad things are many, they are one with me. Thus being here is enough to know what is there; being in the open is enough to know the joy of what is hidden.

Bixu: When one is free and at ease oneself, one can see fish leisurely and at ease. Huizi treated human and fish as different, so he raised objections—he had lost the boundary of qiwu (seeing things as equal, dissolving mutual distinctions). That Huizi did not understand Zhuangzi was so; to say Zhuangzi did not understand fish is not necessarily so on the level of principle. Consider Huizi’s original question, “How do you know the fish are happy?”—he himself did not know the fish, yet he asked Zhuangzi. The white minnows swim at ease; only Zhuangzi on the Hao bridge knew their joy. Fish joy and human joy differ in kind, yet in xiaoyao (carefree wandering) they are the same.

Lin Xiyi (Yanzhai) said: “Xun qi ben” (follow it back to the root) means returning to what was said at the start. You first asked me, “If you’re not a fish, how do you know the fish are happy?”—that shows you understood me, or you would not have asked. Since you could understand me thus, I on the Hao bridge could understand the fish the same way.

In this chapter, the dialogue between He Bo and Hai Ruo can be read alongside the exchange in the Jingde chuandeng lu (Record of the Transmission of the Lamp) where National Teacher Zhong speaks of “the dharma preached by the non-sentient” and “buddhahood without mind.” Dahui said: that old man was soft yet stubborn, and the monk he met was soft yet stubborn too—the two stuck together. People say this house’s dharma is great, its gate is wide, its waves are broad, and the root of life is cut off—Zhuangzi could claim those words as well.

Li Shibiao discoursed on the Dao: All things invariably carry the Dao within themselves—what is there for me to pick and choose? Nature is invariably full and complete from Heaven—what could I be lacking? Even when one has already attuned to the unity of things and self, there remains a state of knowing that is not deliberately sought yet arises on its own: subtle principle responds first in silence, is taken in through spirit (Shen); something happens before perception, and there is no evading it. It is in this that Zhuangzi could know the fish’s joy at the bridge over the Hao.

Fish leap up or dive down, free of the calamity of nets and of the mutual moistening with saliva when water runs dry, at ease within a single stretch of water. If one stops at calling that the fish’s happiness, why wait for Nanhua (Zhuangzi, honored as Nanhua Zhenren) to know it? What fish delight in is the Dao, not water; what Nanhua knows is joy, not fish. When fish forget water, their joy is whole; when people forget the object “fish,” their knowing is one.

Zhuangzi could have said nothing here, and Huizi (Hu Shi, Zhuangzi’s debating companion) could have asked nothing. That this exchange still stands is because without the question, the highest words have nowhere to settle; without the saying, the subtlety of the Dao cannot show. The point is to break the later habit of splitting things and self into two sides.

If things belong only to things themselves, Zhuangzi was not a fish—how could he know the fish’s joy? If I belong only to myself, you are not I—how could you know that I do not know the fish’s joy? Knowing and not knowing are both the far ends of the Dao; one must return to the root. The ancients did not separate root from branch. They said: the eye is like the ear, the ear like the nose, the nose like the mouth—on the side of “self” it is so; to see life as death, oneself as fish, a pig as a person, a person as a pig—on the side of “things” it is likewise so.

Truly so, then everywhere is the highest roaming, nowhere is not a wondrous realm; every thing has true joy, nothing is not natural harmony. Why limit this to the happiness of the minnow at the Hao bridge? Zhuangzi and the fish were never apart. Only one who grasps that supreme joy is no joy (zhile wule) and that true knowing is no knowing (zhenzhi wuzhi) can speak in these terms.

The text also slips in a remark: someone jostled this monk hard, yet the monk softly but tenaciously pressed on—declaring his lineage great, his gate wide, his waves broad, his life-root cut off. Those lines Zhuangzi could stand behind as well.

Those who understand their own original nature (benxing) can penetrate external things, so nothing in the world can conceal genuine feeling; those who fail to understand their own nature cannot know others, and so in dealing with things they often cling to surface appearances. Zhuangzi knew the fish’s joy by taking original nature as the standard for sympathetic understanding; Huizi failed to understand Zhuangzi because he kept them apart by outward form. At first reading, readers invariably admire Huizi’s eloquence and treat Zhuangzi’s position as if it barely needed refuting. Once one hears the phrase “return to the root” (xun ben), even learning vast enough to fill five cartloads has nowhere to interject—and Huizi’s root is exposed. Throughout the scripture, the effort to remedy Huizi’s one-sidedness is nowhere more earnest and apt than in these two words. The point is to turn inward, know one’s own nature, and connect with the shared principle of all things, so that in human feeling they no longer stand apart and movement and stillness both return to supreme truth—why must one enter the water before knowing the fish? Look again at the line “You do not know the fish’s joy—complete!”: “complete” (quan) carries the sense of “necessarily,” and also means wholly not knowing the fish’s joy. Bixu (Daoist scholar Chen Jingyuan) titled this chapter “Joy Complete” (Le Quan), which seems to miss the original intent. Naming it the “Return to the Root” (Xun Ben) chapter fits the text better.

This chapter takes “Autumn Floods” as its title and sets up a dialogue between He Bo (the god of the Yellow River) and Hai Ruo (the god of the sea) to explain the principles of large and small, refined and coarse, and to clarify how things look different when viewed from the perspectives of the Dao, things, function, and orientation (the Great Dao, phenomena, utility, and direction). Each thing takes nature as its root; there is no inherent high or low. Success and failure, gain and loss, are merely accidents of timing. After repeated debate, the conclusion is: do not use human contrivance to destroy what is natural, and do not use deliberate cunning to destroy fate. Finding satisfaction within one’s own allotted nature (the share that one’s inherent nature assigns) is returning to the authentic. Some of this cannot be reached by words or by deliberate scrutiny.

Next it discusses how Kui (a one-legged creature of legend), the many-legged centipede, the snake, and the wind pity one another—an analogy for how people feel ashamed of the length or shortness of their talents without understanding that heaven’s design cannot be altered, and that many small “inadequacies” together make up a greater adequacy. Whoever truly grasps this finds every thing sufficient to its share; what is there to pity? Without pity there is nothing to envy; when the impulse to envy stops and distinctions fade, that is the utmost that matters.

Confucius traveled in Kuang and faced danger without fear, because he knew that fate comes from the Creator (the one who generates all things) and is not something the people of Kuang can control. If one is crushed by harsh adversity, how can the sage’s courage show? The parable of the well frog and the sea turtle repeats the point of He Bo and Hai Ruo: to penetrate principle and understand how to adapt so that outer things cannot harm you.

This means that people sunk in turbidity and narrow, shallow views may know that sages lie ahead yet still strain to emulate them—like Shouling Yuzi going to Handan to learn how to walk and losing his own gait. Using one’s weaknesses to chase another’s strengths and overstepping one’s place brings no good.

It goes on to the spirit-turtle preferring to drag its tail in the mud, and the phoenix-like yuanchu refusing to fix its heart on a rotting rat—both laments for a decadent age and grief that the Great Dao cannot be practiced.

Finally, the debate between Zhuangzi and Huizi at the Hao bridge shows that the nature of things and of the self is originally the same and only seems divided by bodily form, so they cannot know each other across that divide. From nature’s view, the other’s joy and one’s joy are the same; that one can know the fish’s joy from where humans find ease is nothing strange. What is strange are those who wrangle over verbal minutiae and forget the root of life and nature. This strikes not only at the deep flaw in Huizi but also warns those in the world who study one master’s sayings and then smugly preen (shallowly pleased with themselves)—no different from He Bo thinking himself abundant because of the river. So the chapter ends on this note of caution.

Nan Hua Zhen Jing Yi Hai Zuan Wei, fascicle 55. Qin Ding Si Ku Quan Shu edition, fascicle 56, by Song Chu Boxiu.

Is there supreme joy in the world? Is there a way to preserve life? What should one do now, what should one rely on, what should one avoid, where should one stay, what should one approach, what should one leave, what should one like, and what should one dislike?

What people in the world honor is wealth, long life, and a good name; what they delight in is bodily ease, rich food, fine clothes, women, and music; what they look down on is poverty, short life, and a bad name; what torments them is that the body is not at ease, the mouth does not taste rich flavors, the body is not clothed in splendor, the eyes do not see beauty, the ears do not hear music. When they cannot obtain these things, they are deeply anxious and afraid. To nurture the body in this way is utterly foolish.

The rich toil their bodies and hurry in their work, amassing goods they can never use up—thus they treat the body as if care for it were external to themselves. The noble worry day and night over whether affairs go well or ill—thus they too stand apart from true care of the body. From birth people arrive together with worry; the long-lived grow dim and muddled, enduring worry for ages yet unable to die—how painful that is! To treat the body this way is to stray even further from care. The martyr is regarded by the world as one who does good, yet that is not enough to preserve his own life. I do not know whether such goodness is truly good or not really good at all. If we call it good, it cannot keep a person alive; if we call it not good, it can still save others. Therefore it is said: when loyal words of remonstrance are not heeded, withdraw and do not force the issue. Wu Zixu (a minister of Wu in the Spring and Autumn period) harmed his own person through contentious remonstrance; had he not contended, his name would not have been made. Whether goodness exists or not—who can say?

As for the practices of the world today and the joy people take in them, I too do not know whether that is joy or not really joy. I see that what the world pursues as joy, everyone rushes toward in haste and urgency, as if there were no other way, and all declare this to be joy. I neither find it joyful nor find it not joyful. Does joy exist or not? I hold that Wuwei (non-action) alone is true joy—and that is precisely what the world finds most bitter. Therefore it is said: supreme joy is joy without deliberate striving; supreme reputation is reputation without deliberate striving. Right and wrong in the world truly cannot yet be settled; yet with Wuwei, right and wrong can be settled. Supreme joy and the preservation of life—perhaps only Wuwei can secure them. Let me try to explain: Heaven is clear through Wuwei, Earth is at peace through Wuwei; the two join in Wuwei, and the myriad things are all generated. Dim and indistinct—there is no place from which they are produced; vague and fleeting—there is no fixed form. The myriad things flourish, all growing from Wuwei. Thus Heaven and Earth are Wuwei, yet nothing is not accomplished by them. Which person can achieve Wuwei?

Guo Xiang (a Jin-dynasty scholar who commented on the Zhuangzi) notes: Forget deliberate pursuit of delight, and joy becomes full; when joy is full, the body can be preserved. Suppose there is joy? Supreme joy is actually without delight; suppose there is no joy? The body is already preserved, and free of worry. Among the eight choices of relying on, avoiding, settling, and the rest, none can preserve life; only not picking and choosing, but going along with what comes, can make one whole. Rich flavors, music, and beauty—losing them does not harm the form, gaining them harms the nature; yet now people worry because they cannot obtain them—hence the call to foolishness. To nurture the form, one need only be content; to be close to one’s own life, one need only find satisfaction within oneself. First release fixation on survival, and worry can be forgotten; forget worry, and life becomes welcome; when life is welcome, the body truly belongs to me, wealth is truly my possession, and honor is truly my glory. The martyr is seen as doing good yet cannot live, because such goodness is excessive and cannot wholly complete life. Withdrawal and not contending accord with the virtue of the mean. Whether there is goodness or no goodness, one should follow the natural middle way. The crowd rushes toward what they call joy, even without avoiding death. I do not take that as joy, nor do I deliberately refuse joy—I simply hold nothing in the mind and let things be. The joy of Wuwei is nothing other than freedom from worry. The world takes clangorous sound as joy and beauty and goodness as reputation. Right and wrong in the world are indeed unsettled; by letting them be with Wuwei, right and wrong settle of themselves. When the common people each keep their place, my body comes close to being preserved. The clarity and peace of Heaven and Earth are not obtained by deliberate action, so the myriad things can all be generated; if one acts with intent, sometimes one instead obstructs. To say there is no source is to say they generate themselves; to say there is no image of action is to say they propagate themselves. If a person can be Wuwei, though he does not deliberately seek joy, supreme joy arrives of itself.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Without pleasure, there is no sorrow; without a body, there is no death. To seek the highest joy yet feel no worry, or to preserve the body yet never die—such things do not exist. Then what should one do, rely on, avoid, settle in, draw near, leave, love, or hate? Even if one asks, why fix on must-do or must-not, must-rely or must-not? Simply follow the times and accord with principle, without the mind clinging—that is the utmost.

What people under Heaven esteem is wealth, rank, long life, and a good name; what they despise is poverty, low status, early death, and a bad name. They also take bodily ease, rich food, fine clothes, music, and beauty as pleasure; when they cannot obtain these, they suffer, worry, and fear. Using such things to nourish the body is truly foolish. The rich are burdened by wealth; the noble are burdened by status. The longer one lives, the longer one’s cares—one drifts further from the way of life and nature.

Lie shi—those who forget themselves to pursue fame—sacrifice the self for reputation. If you say this is wrong, it can still save lives; only when one can save others without losing oneself is it fully good. Hence the ancients loyally remonstrated, and when not heeded, they withdrew in compliance and ceased to contend. Wu Zixu (a minister of Wu in the Spring and Autumn period) loved forceful remonstrance and harmed himself; yet without contending, fame would not stand. Is there real goodness here, or not?

What the world does today is not right action; what it takes as joy is not true joy. True action is Wuwei (non-action), and only then can there be real doing; true joy is not clinging to pleasure, and only then can pleasure be fully enjoyed. I do not know whether what the world calls joy is joy or not joy. The world delights in purposeful doing; the sage delights in Wuwei. Wuwei is indeed joy, but the world sees it as great suffering and cannot achieve it. Thus the highest joy is no-joy; the highest reputation is no-reputation.

Right and wrong arise from purposeful action; only with Wuwei do right and wrong settle themselves. Without “is” and without “is not,” wherever the mind turns is joy; wherever the body rests can it abide.

Clarity and stillness are the De (virtue/power) of Heaven and Earth, yet Heaven and Earth do not boast of clarity and stillness—therefore both unite in Wuwei, and the myriad things are born and transformed. When the Dao manifests, it becomes things; when things are gathered in, they become images. With no fixed origin, one cannot know whence they come; with no fixed form, they cannot be seen. “Zhizhi” (each in its office) means the myriad things each have their lord, yet all pass in and out within Wuwei. Wuwei and yet nothing left undone—such is the principle of Heaven and Earth. Humans stand between Heaven and Earth—how can they fully achieve Wuwei?

Chen Bixu (the Daoist name of the Northern Song master Chen Jingyuan) explains in his commentary that if one clings to the eightfold line of questioning—what to do, what to rely on, and the rest—happiness may never truly arrive, and the body may not be preserved either. What people throughout the world honor and delight in are external things that come from outside and lodge with us only for a while; they cannot be treated as things one is bound to possess. When one fails to obtain them and then sinks into worry and fear, what is that if not folly? Gold, jade, fine carriages, and official caps—the emblems of wealth and rank—are already far removed from nurturing the physical form. To wear oneself out laboring on and on just to prolong life—where is the glory in that? The bold martyr acts with daring, yet the body still cannot escape harm, all because he wants the world to witness his goodness. Whenever one fixes on “this is good” as good, that very goodness has already ceased to be good. The reputation for goodness cannot be secured; what must be held to is quansheng—the full preservation of life. What the world does and what it takes for joy is rushing and rivalry, busy and urgent, as if it could never stop; it treats the hollow pleasures of the dusty world as delight and turns the absence of pleasure and fame into suffering. Right and wrong, in truth, still cannot be settled. Only when one keeps to one’s own station and the true nature is not shifted can one speak of deciding right and wrong. When Heaven and Earth are both Wuwei (non-action) and unite in harmony, amid calmness the manifold beauties naturally gather; when above and below each act with deliberate intent and cannot blend, the harmonizing qi (vital energy) is blocked. When signs first stir, there was originally no trace of coming forth or of form; yet the ten thousand things all arise from indistinct primordial qi. What we call zaohua (creating-transformation) is not itself any single thing, yet it creates and transforms the ten thousand things. People mostly act guided by qianshi (prior preconceptions); unable to be without deliberate intent, how could they achieve Wuwei?

Lin Xiyi (style name Yizhai), in his Kouyi (Oral Exposition), says: From “what to do, what to rely on” through the following four lines, the rhetorical movement matches Qu Yuan’s “Divination”: each is a chain of dilemmas with no easy answer. The text then adds: Creating-transformation has no single thing of its own, yet it creates and transforms the ten thousand things; people mostly harbor prior preconceptions and cannot be without deliberate intent—so how could they achieve Wuwei?

Lin Xiyi, in his Yizhai Kouyi, observes that from “Why act, and on what basis?” through the following four lines, the rhetorical movement matches that of Qu Yuan’s Divination. The sections that follow on wealth and rank, long life, and a good name likewise align in meaning: all treat how external things injure the person. After those three passages, the segment on the “martyr for principle” develops the theme further but shifts tone—a deliberate structural move in the text. Dunxun means to hang back and yield. Striving contends and can maim the body; refusing to compete for reputation cannot bring success either—those two lines lay bare worldly motives: to mutilate oneself in pursuit of fame cannot count as goodness. The whole world clamors and rushes to seize; I take wuwei (non-action) as joy, while the world treats that as great suffering. Thus pleasure, fame, and the judgment of right and wrong are not yet settled; only wuwei can fix them.

Chu Boxiu, in his Guanjian, says: people live in hollow circumstances; what is hard to obtain is joy, what is hard to keep is life. Hence the opening sigh—that perfect happiness and preserving oneself are not necessarily attainable—while also asking one to rest in one’s place, without leaning on, chasing, or abandoning anything in between; then what is there to delight in or detest? What the world calls joy is wealth and honor, long life, a fine name, rich flavors, beauty, and pleasing sounds; yet change in which fortune and disaster cling together is hard to foretell, and what is lovely cannot be held for long. What people scorn and find painful is poverty and low status, early death, a bad name, and failing to get what they seek. If the heart roams at the root of the ten thousand things and the self can even be forgotten, how could outer burdens touch one? Watch the rich: they wear out the body and bustle in affairs; the honored brood day and night over gain and loss; the long-lived fret endlessly about not dying—they all leave the form stranded outside itself, far from the Dao. One who dies for principle cannot preserve the self either; it is the same pattern. Loyal remonstrance need not be forced; gentle, gradual guidance leaves the ruler without fault and the minister fulfilling duty—that is the fullness of the lord-and-minister bond. As for Wu Zixu, who contended in remonstrance, maimed his body, and thereby won a name—was there real goodness or not? Look at what the world delights in: is it joy or not? I truly take wuwei as joy; the world takes it as great suffering—from this their directions diverge. One must therefore grasp that perfect joy is the absence of worldly joy and supreme honor the absence of worldly honor; only then, resting in wuwei, can one adjudicate right and wrong under heaven. To seek perfect joy and preserve the self, nothing comes closer than wuwei. Heaven and earth, through wuwei, are clear and still, and the ten thousand things are thus generated; if the human being can be wuwei, how would the ten thousand things not follow and be nurtured in turn?

When Zhuangzi’s wife died, Huizi (Hu Shi, Zhuangzi’s friend) came to offer condolences. He found Zhuangzi sitting with legs spread apart, beating on a clay basin and singing. Huizi said: “She lived with you, bore and raised children, and grew old with you. Not weeping when she died would be enough; to beat a basin and sing—is that not going too far?” Zhuangzi said: “It is not so. When she had just died, how could I not feel grief? Yet when I traced her origin, she originally had no life; not only no life, she originally had no form; not only no form, she originally had no qi. Amid the blur and chaos of the undifferentiated, a change produced qi; qi changed and there was form; form changed and there was life; now again change has brought death. This is like the turning of the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She now rests at ease in the great room of heaven and earth. If I were still to follow her wailing, I would show that I do not understand the mandate of nature—so I stopped.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary says: Before one understands the principle, one may feel sorrow; once one is thoroughgoing, one can stop. This is used to guide those who have feelings, to investigate ultimate principle and dispel the burden of emotion.

Lv Huiqing’s comment: What Zhuangzi held in esteem were Confucius, Meng Sun Cai (the figure in the book who sees through life and death), and the Yan lineage (the line of Yan Hui), yet his own conduct resembled Zi Sang, Zi Fan, and Zi Qin Zhang (the sort who ignore conventional rites and sing beside the dead). Why? Because the flaw in the human way is that people everywhere sink into partial grief and joy and smother heavenly principle; to heal that flaw, one shows conduct of this kind.

Lin Yidu’s comment: Zhuangzi lived among others and could not wholly forget ordinary human feeling, so when his wife died he beat an earthenware basin and sang—the “drumming on the tub and singing”—which shows that feeling still came out in sound. Huizi said: Your children are grown, she had already aged, and you were together no short time; when she died you did not weep, which already shows you are heartless, and then you drum on a basin and sing—is that not going too far? Zhuangzi answered: When my wife had just died, how could I not feel grief in my heart? But when I traced her origin, at first there was no life, no body, and no qi—from what, then, did she ever arise? Blended in empty void (originally empty stillness), not the slightest sign could be found. Refined qi gathered and became a thing; then there was qi; with qi came form, with form came life. “Mang” is not yet having image—it is the beginning of yang; “wu” is not yet having measure—it is the beginning of yin. Within yin and yang each holds harmonizing qi (qi that balances yin and yang). Qi shifts and there is form; form in turn receives shaping; form shifts and there is life, and with life there is death. Death and life follow each other like a ring without end. Seen from no qi, no form, no life, the myriad things are simply empty void; seen from form, qi, and life, it is nothing turning into something and something turning into nothing, like the four seasons revolving in an endless cycle. People may rest at ease asleep in a great chamber—the great chamber is heaven and earth; the myriad things are like people in that room. How could people fail to go in and out of this room? How could the myriad things fail to go in and out of heaven and earth?

Bixu (Chen Jingyuan’s) comment: To hear of a death and feel grief in the heart is ordinary human feeling; to drum on a basin and sing is to use an object to release attachment. People originally had no life—from where did form and qi come? Mingled at the vast, indistinct boundary, they mutually gave rise to this one life; now again changing and returning to nothing—what difference is there from the four seasons transforming and passing without leaving a trace? When inquiry is pushed to the root source, worldly worry therefore ceases.

Yizhai (the sobriquet of Lin Xiyei of the Southern Song) says that “when form changes, life arises” means that form comes first, and only then does this capacity for turning movement—life—appear. Buddhism classifies “movement and turning” under the wind element (among the four great elements, the one that governs motion); what it points to is precisely this word “life.” The turning of the four seasons is a metaphor for the fact that wherever there is birth, there must be death. Zhuangzi’s drumming on a tub and singing is likewise an allegory, like Yuan Rang (a contemporary of Confucius) climbing onto the coffin and singing when his mother died—could it mean that when a close relative has just died, the human heart is entirely absent? The sage’s gate in Confucianism asks people to fulfill filial duty and mourn; are they ignorant of the truth of life and death? People like Yuan Rang and Zhuangzi wanted to pierce through the heart’s attachment, so they went to such extremes. This shows that “the mind of the Dao is subtle” (as the Documents says: the heart of Heaven’s Dao is hard to discern); it cannot walk alone in the world, which is why there is the teaching of “holding the middle way.” Li Hanlao (Li Bing of the Song) went to ask Chan Master Dahui (written in the text as “Dahui” in another form) because he feared that if he could not forget his feelings he would be far from the Way. Dahui replied: If your son dies and you do not weep, you are a jackal or wolf. That answer shows real insight; had some other Buddhist answered, the reply would surely have fallen into one-sidedness.

In the chapter of the Zhuangzi where his wife dies—the matter that, from ordinary feeling, is hardest to release—he treats it with complete ease. Why? Because when you trace the beginning of form and qi, both ultimately root in “nothing” (wu), mixed together in blur and indistinction (mangwu); only then come qi and form; once form exists, feeling and love arise. If a Buddhist answered this question, the answer would inevitably slide into bias.

This chapter treats Zhuangzi’s wife’s death. By ordinary human feeling, that is among the hardest things to release, yet he could meet it with calm. Because he traced the origin of form and qi, he knew that everything ultimately stems from nothingness, mingling first in manghu—that is, huanghu, the state before chaos has split into distinct things—and only then giving rise to qi and form. Once the body appears, feeling and delight multiply without limit. The affection between kin is only a momentary, provisional joining. The deluded take the false for real; from feeling comes love, from love comes grasping, and yeyuan—the causal tangles spun out by conduct—keep growing, so people are bound and blocked by birth and death, harming both body and original nature: how foolish. The zhenren, one who has attained the Way, pities ordinary confusion and uses simple comparisons: things in the world are born from being (you), and being in the end returns to non-being (wu); that is the natural order. Even metal and stone eventually break down—how much more so human beings? One must use the “du eye,” the gaze that pierces illusion, to see through the world and leave not a thread of obstruction. Original nature is like clear sky and bright sun, spiritually luminous through the ages; in its midst there was never room for sorrow or joy. His drumming on the basin and singing was lending voice to a vessel without feeling, to correct the worldly fault of wailing and weeping with emotion pushed too far. If one merely swapped grief for joy, one would still be caught in partiality.

The Liezi records that Dongmen Wu of Wei did not weep when his son died. When asked why, he said: There was a time when I had no son and was not troubled; now my son is dead, the same as having no son then—what should I grieve for? That is the broad vision of someone who has penetrated things, hence unlike the vulgar. What comes from outside by chance is not worth taking to heart.

In the text, the character read as “gai” does not fit the sense; it should be “kai,” meaning to sigh with deep feeling; “manghu” should be read as “huanghu.”

Chisel-Limb Uncle and Smooth-Glue Uncle were viewing the scene together at the Hill of the Dark Lord and the ruins of Kunlun—where the Yellow Emperor once rested. Suddenly a willow-like growth (a tumor-like excrescence) appeared on Chisel-Limb’s left elbow. Smooth-Glue felt uneasy and showed disgust. Chisel-Limb asked: Do you loathe it? Smooth-Glue said: No—what is there for me to loathe? Life itself is something borrowed on loan; whatever is further produced from that loan is merely dust and filth. Death and life are like night and day. You and I are here watching change; when change arrives in my body, why should I loathe it?

Guo Xiang’s comment: These passages first display feeling, then use ultimate principle to dispel it. If one said, “I was originally without feeling, therefore I am not grieved,” then those who do feel would cut themselves off from vast openness and remain trapped in sorrow and pleasure.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Huang Di used this principle to guide them. If one says, “I have no emotional attachment, therefore I am free of worry,” then people who do have attachment would shut themselves off in vast, empty distance and instead lose their way, stuck between worry and pleasure. Where Huang Di rests, heart is already dead and form already cast off, like soil; he does not even notice willow sprouting on his elbow. Willow is something that grows easily. As for Huajie Shu, at first he cannot help being startled and repelled; in the end he sees that this growth is only a temporary borrowing, like dust and grime—what is there to dislike? What the ancients called observing transformation (guanhua) is roughly this.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: What Huang Di rests in is the Great Dao. Willow is yin wood; the left belongs to yang. Willow on the left elbow is the play of yin and yang. Life is a borrowing from the maker of things, altogether like dust, chaff, and husks—why love or hate it? The Yijing says that understanding the way of day and night yields true knowledge; that is exactly this point. When you watch yin-yang change and change comes upon yourself, what is there to dislike?

Chen Jingyuan (Bixu)’s commentary: These two—one who treats scattered, broken limbs as acceptable (Zhilichu), one who treats slippery isolation as acceptable (Huajie Shu)—observe transformation at the Hill of Solitude and the high, broken mound; willow grows from the elbow; “left” carries the sense of growth. Life is a borrowing of transformation and emptiness. From emptiness, birth is dust; measured against the long view, death is dark night. Hence what gives life to life does not itself live; what gives change to change does not itself change. Life present now is constant life; sudden change is constant change. View constant change through constant life, and you know constant life is not truly real and constant change is not mere void. Emptiness and transformation interpenetrate—on that basis, what is there to grieve over?

Yizhai (the studio name of Lin Xiyi) says: The phrase “where the Yellow Emperor rested” means that the Yellow Emperor once rested there. “Willow sore” (liuyang) is what people today call a boil or festering sore; the name evidently existed already in antiquity. It is borrowed to stand for extremely fine external things and defilement—what Buddhism calls “provisionally assembled from the four conditions” (things arise from temporary convergence of conditions and have no fixed, independent self). To watch the transformations of the myriad things, and then to have transformation reach one’s own person, means that one oneself changes along with the Creator.

Earlier it says he felt disgust with restless urgency—that too is human nature. To reflect on the principle of life and death and understand its root is for the mind of Dao to take charge; what then is there to loathe?

That a willow grows from the left elbow is a very strange saying. Most commentators pass over it in silence; only Lü’s commentary (Lü Huiqing’s) mentions it. I have a slight insight and will add a word of explanation: The willow is a tree that grows easily; the left elbow is an arm one rarely uses. An seldom-used arm and easily sprouting willow wood illustrate how change comes quickly for someone who is without deliberate intent and practices wuwei (non-action). The elbow belongs to the animal realm, the willow to the plant realm—natures differ, forms differ. For what moves to suddenly become a plant would, by ordinary feeling, be hard not to find strange. Yet when the myriad things receive transformation they do not know it themselves; so all who stand within the great smelter (the Creator casting the ten thousand things like metal in a furnace) cannot in the usual way escape it. If one understands that one’s own life is only a temporary loan of dust and defilement, then elbow and willow are both merely things—where could closeness and distance, love and loathing, find room? From this one sees that the myriad things and I share one pivot of transformation. But unless one is still to the utmost, one cannot see this; hence Shu Jie Shu (a figure in Zhuangzi’s allegory) contemplated at the place where the Yellow Emperor rested, and only then did transformation reach his own body.

The Yellow Emperor belongs to the virtue of Earth (tude); Earth’s virtue chiefly means stillness. “Rest” (xiu) likewise means cessation and quiet. Stillness is the substance of transformation; movement is its function. To watch transformation and yet be touched by transformation is to be one with transformation; when body and transformation are one, wherever one goes, what place is not “I”? This means the sentient can become the insentient, and the insentient can sometimes become the sentient. The passage “There are seeds…” and what follows in the “Perfect Joy” chapter shows that all of this proceeds from the Creator’s transformation. To undergo small changes without losing the great constant Way is to find joy wherever one goes.

From Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning on the True Classic of Southern Florescence), juan 56. The Qianlong Siku Quanshu edition includes juan 57. By Song author Chu Boxiu, belonging to the second section “Perfect Joy” (Zhile). Zhuangzi went to the state of Chu and saw empty, silent things; undergoing small change without losing the great constant, there is no place that is not joy.

Volume 56 of Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (a work that gathers and elucidates the meaning of the Nanhua Zhenjing, i.e., the Zhuangzi), included in the imperially commissioned Complete Library of the Four Treasures (Qing dynasty official compendium). Volume 57, compiled by Chu Boxiu of the Song dynasty. “Perfect Happiness” (Zhile, a Zhuangzi chapter on ultimate joy), section two.

Zhuangzi traveled to the state of Chu and saw an empty skull—hollow and dry, yet still shaped like a head. He tapped it with his riding crop and asked: “Sir, did you end up like this because you clung to life and went against the natural order? Or because your state perished and you were executed by axe and halberd? Or because you acted badly and brought shame on your parents, wife, and children? Or because you froze and starved? Or because your years simply ran out?” When he had finished, he pulled the skull over and used it as a pillow to lie down.

At midnight the skull appeared to him in a dream and said: “You talk like a skilled debater. What you describe are the burdens of the living; once dead, those things are gone. Would you like to hear what death is like?” Zhuangzi said: “I would.”

The skull said: “After death there is no ruler above and no subject below; there are no seasonal duties. One wanders freely at ease, taking heaven and earth as one’s span of years. Even the pleasure of a king facing south cannot surpass it.”

Zhuangzi did not believe this and said: “I will ask Siming (the spirit who governs human lifespan) to give you bodily form again, restore your flesh and bones and skin, and send you back to your parents, wife and children, hometown, and acquaintances.”