《南华真经义海纂微》Vol. 14

Zhuangzi asked the skull: “Would you like to go back among your kin and old friends?” The skull knitted its brow tightly and said, “How could I give up the joy of facing south like a king and return to the drudgery of the human world?” “Facing south as king” refers to the ancient custom of a ruler sitting with his face to the south in the seat of honor; here it describes the carefree dignity the dead enjoy.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: An older view held that Zhuangzi delighted in death and loathed life. If that were so, what would become of “making equal”? To make equal is to be at home in life while alive and at home in death when dead. Once one’s feelings toward life and death are leveled, one no longer frets over death while living. That is precisely what Zhuangzi means to uphold.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Only by tracing things to their beginning and following them to their end can one grasp that life and death are one continuous whole. To cling to life is wrong, but to rejoice in death and despise life—is that treating life and death as one? Zhuangzi speaks as he does because people’s failing lies above all in craving life and fearing death; his words about the “joy of facing south as king” are not uttered without cause.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Zhuangzi uses this fable of a dialogue with a skull to equalize life and death, so that one is at peace in life and at peace in death. When both are accepted with ease, the transformations of yin and yang cannot push you around. Do not brood on death while you live, and do not cling to life when you are dying.

Chen Jingyuan (Bixu)’s commentary: Those who grasp at life take worldly business for pleasure; those who dread death take the human realm for toil. Only one who has gone beyond life and death can speak of the deeper point.

Lin Xiyi (Yizhai) says: “Qiaoran” suggests something hollow yet firm; “congran” suggests ease and self-possession. These lines are put in others’ mouths to discuss life and death—the invented exchange with the skull is a striking conceit. Readers should look for the meaning and not treat it as something that really happened.

Zhuangzi (honored as Master of Southern Splendor) put five questions in succession to the skull, as if he had already seen clearly where worldly woes come from. According to the skull’s reply, even if all kinds of worldly troubles existed, how could they fall upon it? Readers often take this to mean that Zhuangzi loved death and hated life—but that is not so. What he saw was people clinging to life and fearing death, rushing about without rest; he deeply feared that in this way they would lose their original self (the authentic self untangled by external things). If that authenticity is lost, though the body remains, what difference is there from death? That is why he set up this discussion to set things right, hoping that even one person in ten thousand might awaken. It is like a skilled physician matching medicine to the illness: one must reduce what is excessive and supplement what is lacking—the situation demands no less. Knowing that life is limited, one stops at warmth and fullness and does not amass more to multiply affairs and burdens. Knowing that death is rest, one entrusts oneself to compliance and does not resist natural change to deepen grief. Thus one lives without toil and dies without suffering, at ease taking the long span of heaven and earth as one’s own spring and autumn; wherever one goes, is that not the ease of facing south as king? Chen Bixu (Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan) called this chapter “Two Fallacies,” using it to dispel confusion from two kinds of bias—his judgment is apt.

When Yan Hui was going east to Qi, Confucius looked troubled. Zigong left his mat and asked, “Your disciple ventures to ask: Yan Hui is going to Qi—why does the Master look worried?”

Confucius said, “Well asked. In the past Guan Zhong had a saying that I agree with: ‘A small bag cannot hold something large; a short rope cannot draw water from a deep well.’ That is to say, each person’s allotted span has its limit, and each form has what suits it—you cannot add or subtract at will. I fear that Yan Hui will explain to the Marquis of Qi the ways of Yao, Shun, and the Yellow Emperor, and on top of that the words of Suiren and Shennong. The marquis will seek them inside himself and not find them; not finding them, he will be confused, and when a person is confused, it can end in death.

Have you not heard? Once a sea bird alighted in the outskirts of Lu. The Duke of Lu welcomed it into the ancestral temple, offered wine, had the Jiushao (the elegant music attributed to Shun’s time) played, and set out a tailao feast (with ox, sheep, and pig complete) for it to eat. The bird was dizzy and sorrowful—it dared not eat a piece of meat or drink a cup of wine, and in three days it was dead. This was caring for a bird the way one cares for a person, not the way one cares for a bird. To care for it according to its nature, one should let it roost in deep forest, roam open plains, float on rivers and lakes, eat small fish, move and rest with the flock, and dwell at ease. What it fears most is human noise—why all that clamor! When the Xianchi (music attributed to the Yellow Emperor) and Jiushao are performed on the wilds of Dongting, birds hear them and fly away, beasts hear them and run, fish hear them and dive to the bottom; only humans hear and crowd around to watch. Fish can live in water; humans drown in water—likes and dislikes are not the same. Therefore the ancient sages did not force the same talents or the same tasks on everyone. Names stop at what is real; principle rests in what fits. That is called order that penetrates and blessings that can be kept.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When one cannot find something within, one turns to seek without; abandoning the inner to seek the outer—is that not confusion? When name matches reality and arrangements suit, one penetrates; when nature can constantly find sufficiency in itself, blessings can be kept.

Lu Huiqing’s commentary: Before one has understood the realm that transcends right and wrong, to listen to Zhuangzi’s words—dizziness and sorrow are hard to avoid. That is why the sea bird is repeated: so that students may think deeply and be careful in word and deed.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary explains: Those who have not yet grasped the standpoint that transcends judging right and wrong will naturally feel sorrow and alarm when they read Zhuangzi—so the sea-bird episode is invoked again and again. The Duke of Lu received the sea bird with ritual music and lavish courtesy, yet the bird died in terror and distress; the point is to make learners think hard and to be careful in word and deed.

Storming a city and plugging a hole call for different tools; galloping a thousand li and catching mice call for different skills; seeing clearly at night yet poorly by day reflects different natures. For that reason the ancient sages did not force all talents into one mold or all tasks into one pattern. When names are kept to what matches reality, no label outruns the thing itself; when propriety is built on what fits the case, no “rightness” is pushed beyond what is due. “Smooth passage along the grain” means following each line’s own length— not forcing links; force them and the way blocks. “Holding fortune as it fits” means keeping to each share’s proper measure— not giving too much; give too much and it cannot be held.

Lin Yidu (Song commentator) held that Yan Hui was about to go to Qi intending to instruct the Marquis of Qi with the teachings of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, yet he did not know the marquis’s endowment was already fixed; forcing instruction on him, he would surely be humiliated. That is exactly why Confucius was worried and Zigong asked his question. A chu is a bag for holding valuables; a geng is the rope for drawing from a well. When the bag is small, it cannot hold large things; when the rope is short, it cannot reach water in a deep well. Human endowment comes from tianming (Heaven’s decree); it cannot be casually increased or decreased—one can only leave it to nature. If the Marquis of Qi could not find these principles within himself, he would necessarily seek them outward, and delusion would arise from the heart; once the heart is in turmoil, even wishing to preserve life, how could one succeed? The ancients sometimes died because they spoke blunt counsel—this is that very reason. It is like entertaining a seabird in the ancestral temple with the Jiushao (elegant music of Shun’s time) and a tailao feast (ox, sheep, and pig in full array), yet not understanding that their likes and dislikes are not the same. Therefore the sage accords with each thing’s own nature and does not demand one kind of talent from all; each thing fully uses its capacity, and what it does differs accordingly. The sage himself does not seek fame—fame follows what is real; the sage also does not preset fixed yi (rightness)—yi forms as situations change and fit just right. When name rests on the real, it will not become empty reputation; when yi is set where it is fitting, it will not turn into unrighteous yi. When principle runs clear, there is nowhere one cannot go; when fortune is held properly, one can be at ease in any situation entered.

Chen Jingyuan, styled Bixu (Master Bixu), held that the life and nature received from nature cannot be forced by exhortation—just as a small bag cannot hold large things; endowment and allotted lot cannot be forcibly changed or accommodated—just as a short rope cannot draw up deep water. When the seabird hears Jiushao and panics, it is just like the Marquis of Qi feeling bewildered by the Way of the Three Sovereigns. People are wise or dull, so they cannot be treated uniformly; affairs have ancient and modern sides, so they cannot be identical. When name does not exceed the real, there is order without blockage; when yi is applied fittingly, calamity departs and danger no longer remains.

Li Qizhai (Lin Xiyi, a Song-dynasty commentator on the Zhuangzi) says: A person’s ming (allotted span and lot) and xing (physical form) both come from Heaven; each has a fixed measure that cannot be increased or decreased. If you use the principles of the ancients to admonish the Duke of Qi yet fail to move or transform him, he will take it as grounds to blame you. This borrows Yan Hui’s situation to satirize the wandering persuaders of the time—like offering human food to a bird and thus going against the bird’s nature. The point is simply: to speak forcibly to someone with whom one ought not to converse is to misspeak (shiyan).

Zhuangzi then develops the theme further. As for the character read as “tan” (altar), some commentators read it as “chan,” meaning a sandbank in the water. People’s endowments differ, and what they go through differs too: titles should be fixed according to what one actually possesses; principles should be established in line with what fits one’s disposition. “Tiaoda” means direct and effortless; “fuchi” means fortune that can be steadily kept. A small bag cannot hold a large object—an image for ming once settled, which cannot be altered; a short well rope cannot draw deep water—an image for the body’s particular aptitudes, which cannot be forced. All of this comes from the Creator; in between there is no room for human adding or subtracting.

Now if Yan Hui expounded the Way of the ancient kings to the Duke of Qi, it would not match what the duke had long had in mind; he would be confused and lose his footing, and in the end harm his own person. Hence the comparison with the sea bird: facing the taillao (a full feast of ox, sheep, and pig), the bird dares not eat; hearing the Shaoyue (the elegant music of Emperor Shun), it only grows more sorrowful. This is nourishing a bird with what suits humans—against its nature—until it neither eats nor drinks and dies. What follows clarifies “nourish birds by the way birds are nourished”: let them find an environment they can live in and what accords with their disposition; then nourishing things and nourishing oneself are both right. Therefore the sage does not force talents into one mold but follows each thing’s nature; nor does he make affairs uniform but weighs whether human affairs can be carried out. Names stop at what is real and are not empty show; principles are set where they fit and are not excessive—so order flows freely and abundant blessing is preserved.

Lie Yukou (Liezi) was walking along the road. When he stopped to eat by the roadside, he saw a skeleton that had lain there for a hundred years. Pushing aside the tangled grass, he pointed at it and said: “Only you and I know this: there was never death, and never birth. Were you really being nourished and kept alive? Am I really the one who is happy?”

The transformation of species all begins from subtle ji (the germ of change). Given water, it becomes fang (an extremely minute water creature); where water meets soil, it becomes the film of frog or clam (a moss-like growth); growing on high ground, it becomes lingxi (a plant name). Lingxi, meeting dungy soil, turns into wuzu; the root of wuzu becomes a grub, its leaves become a butterfly. Before long the butterfly changes again into an insect born under the stove, shaped like something just shed its skin, called guduo. After a thousand days guduo becomes a bird called ganyugu. The spittle of ganyugu becomes simi, simi becomes shiyi (tiny worms in vinegar). Yilu arises from shiyi, huangkuang from jiuyou, maorui from decaying quan. Yangxi and long-unharvested old bamboo together produce qingning; qingning produces cheng (a beast), cheng produces the horse, the horse produces the human being; and the human being in turn returns to ji (the pivot of generation and transformation of the ten thousand things). All things emerge from ji and all enter back into ji.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: Each takes whatever situation it meets as its joy; delight and nourishing care have no fixed, unchanging reality. The kinds of transformation are too many to count. From “given water, it becomes fang” through “all enter into ji” expresses that one qi transforms into myriad forms—there is only change, no genuine death or birth.

Lu Huiqing’s commentary: The wandering soul (youhun) shifts and transforms with no fixed destination; what can a century-old skull still know? If a person cuts away heart-and-mind knowing and arrives at non-knowing, they will see that they were never born and never died—they are no different from that skull. Are you truly the one who nurtures the body and fears death? Am I truly the one who delights in life and rejoices in living?

Only when one understands that the wandering soul reaches everywhere and that essential qi (jing-qi) gathers to become things will one ask: How many are the sources of the kinds of things? Thus fang (minute water creatures), piyi (the filmy membrane on frogs and mussels), and lingxi (a plant of high ground) are originally one kind: some obtain the meeting of water and soil, some grow on lingtun (dry mounds of earth), and the forms they take differ accordingly. Wuzu, qicao (grub of the scarab beetle), and the butterfly, together with what grows from lingtun, are also one kind: some meet yuqi (dung and soil), some change from the root, some change from the leaf—each transformation is not the same. Quduo, ganyugu (a kind of bird), simi, shiyi (tiny worms in vinegar), yilu, and xu (brief forms the butterfly becomes) are likewise one kind: some arise beneath the stove, some take long ages, some are generated from foam (mo, froth and viscous fluids)—their coming into being differs in each case. As for huangli and jiuyou, maorui and fuxuan (maggots in rotting melons), yangxi and bu sun (bamboo that fails to sprout shoots)—one no longer knows from what seed or kind they come. Jiuzhu, qingning, and cheng are also successive transformations of the same lineage; horses and human beings each have their own source from which they arise. Thus the ten thousand things may be mutually generated among the non-sentient, or among the sentient; the non-sentient may give rise to the sentient, or the sentient to the non-sentient—all of this is the work of the wandering soul and essential qi. What Liezi (Lie Yukou) spoke of is only what people have heard or seen and can know; as for transformations never heard or never seen, how could they ever be fully told?

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Liezi is at ease with living; the skull is at ease with dying—each treats what it meets as comfort. From this we know there was never truly birth, nor truly death; what is called nurturing is not necessarily real nurturing, and what is called joy is not necessarily real joy. In the text, fang is the old form of jue (“to cut off”), implying that after severance something comes again—it carries the sense of continuation. When water is obtained, this becomes such “continuation,” the opening of the birth and transformation of the ten thousand things. Below, from “garment of the frog-spawn” (wabian) through Cheng, horse, and human, all are things in endless birth and change: the same body changing many times, or shifting by borrowing another form, or living again after death, or living yet turning toward death. This life and that death link and follow one another without end, while the root that governs the arising of forms is never absent for an instant. Therefore the sage knows: birth does not long endure, and death is not eternal annihilation—only the transformation of one qi, adapting and thus becoming myriad forms. Within myriad forms and myriad changes there is still what does not change; turning toward that unchanging is what is called the ji (pivot). The ji is master of movement and stillness: from wu (non-being) it enters and issues into you (being); when you disperses it returns to wu—nothing fails to pass through it.

Bixu (Chen Jingyuan)’s commentary: “I have never died—is this life truly joy? You have never been born—is that death truly nurturing?” This pushes the teaching of neither birth nor death to the limit. At the time, Liezi (Lie Yukou), seeing a frog by the road, pointed to it to explain the pivot of transformation: the frog, receiving fire qi, becomes a quail; obtaining water, it continues and is born again. The Shuowen takes “reverse severance” as ji: seed left by the water attaches to green moss and grows; the moss spreads like a garment, and tadpoles emerge from it. Seed left on a hill becomes grass called lingxi (plantain), the drug known as plantago (cheqiancao). This is the sentient entering the insentient, as when a mountain earthworm becomes a lily. Yuqi is manure-soil. Wuzu is grass growing at the water’s edge, commonly called ink-grass. From one plant, root and leaf produce different things because qi has Yin and Yang. Thing gives rise to thing in succession; it cannot be reduced to one rule. The butterfly at once becomes quduo; when first formed its body is clean, as if just shed; after a thousand days it can fly. Its foam becomes the Simi insect. This means large and small changes follow one another without end. Simi in turn becomes the vinegar mite (shiyi). Below, sentient beings change as soon as they meet external conditions. Maorui is born from rotten grass, the rotten silkworm, and the firefly—insentient becoming sentient, as rotten wheat becomes a butterfly. The rotten silkworm produces yangxi, sheep’s-foot greens—sentient returning to insentient. Yangxi joins with old bamboo that no longer sprouts; two insentient things unite and produce qingning, shaped like a hedgehog; the saying that ruined bamboo groves have many hedgehogs refers to this. Shizi says the people of Yue call the leopard Cheng; some say Cheng is the tapir. Soushenji records that in the time of Duke Xiao of Qin a horse bore a human. These are all cases where the Five Movements and Six qi touch things and transform—hard to trace to a single origin.

Moxie (Yan of Lin Xiyi's style-name) said: When the living can eat and drink, that is called "nourishing"; when the dead return to still extinction, that is called "joy." Zhuangzi deliberately inverts ordinary reason— that is precisely where he plays with the strange. "Seeds have their kinds" means the species by which the myriad things of the world are born differ from one another. He provisionally begins from the most minute; the large, in fact, are not different in kind. The wonder of the writing lies in order emerging from disorder— like watching drifting clouds or a broken flight of wild geese: the longer you look, the better it gets.

"Fang" is the moss just forming on the water's surface, not yet fully grown; "the coat of frogs and oysters" is moss already mature, clinging to the bank and soil. "Ling tun" is high ground in the fields; "ling xi" is plantain; "yu qi" is manure and soil. The root of wu zu becomes a grub (the larva of a scarab beetle); its leaves are also another name for the butterfly. Below, from qu duo and gan yu gu to mao rui and fu quan— all are names of insects— he shows the transformations of the myriad things and unceasing generation. At the end he closes with the strangest sayings; that is his way of shocking the world.

Yang xi is a plant name; bamboo that looks like bamboo but does not sprout shoots is called "bamboo-long-without-shoots." Qing ning is an insect name; cheng is also an insect. Ma (horse) can also be a plant name, as in horse-teeth plant, horse orchid, and the like; ren (person) can also be a plant name, as in ginseng and renmianzi. He clearly uses many plant names, yet deliberately writes horse and person as such bizarre names. Commentators through the ages have been unable to explain this clearly— in truth countless generations have been fooled by him and have not seen through it. Among the transformations of the myriad things, sparrows can become clams, hawks can become turtledoves, rotten grass can become fireflies, rats can become bats— there is nothing that cannot happen. "Outgoing from the pivot" and "entering the pivot" (being born from the pivot of creation and returning into it) are birth and entering death— that is also "the great transmission knows no end": transformations pass on without limit.

This chapter runs from “how many kinds of seed” to “the horse gives birth to a person,” with the full account preserved in the Liezi; when the Nanhua zhenjing (the Zhuangzi) cites it, the wording is comparatively brief. The principles by which plants and animals transform and generate lie beyond what eye and ear can fully discern; only a gentleman who truly gewu (investigates things to the limit) can grasp them completely. The point is to stress emphatically that change in things has no fixed pattern, thereby showing that coming and going, birth and death in human affairs are nothing strange—one need only recognize that there is something that does not alter along with change.

Though the scripture text cannot be read through with full certainty, a provisional reading by sense suggests breaking the text at the two occurrences of “yi” (ferment/vinegar), then “jiuyou,” “fuqu,” and joining “yangxi” through “qingning” into one sentence. Reference to various commentaries on pronunciation and meaning supports the same reading. The shu (commentary) by Dharma Master Cheng (Cheng Xuanying of Tang), however, treats “yilu, huangli, maorui, jiuzhu” as one syntactic unit—likely at odds with the intent of the original text.

Chen Bixu (Song Chen Jingyuan), following Zhang Junfang’s collated edition, reads: “Simi becomes the ferment for pickled meat; the ferment gives rise to yilu; yilu gives rise to huangli; huangli gives rise to jiuyou; jiuyou gives rise to maorui; maorui gives rise to fuqu; fuqu gives rise to yangxi; yangxi is comparable to busun; long-standing bamboo gives rise to qingning”—and so on, abbreviated here. Such lineation is neat, but the additions are excessive and the prose lacks variation—not the literary manner of the Zhuangzi.

Further examination: a note on the Liezi cites the Erya, saying that when bear and tiger mate, the offspring is the leopard; the Classic of Mountains and Seas says that on the southern mountains there are many mo leopards, and Guo Pu’s note calls the white leopard mo. “Cheng” is another name for mo, and mo is in turn another name for the leopard.

This chapter takes “Supreme Joy” (Zhi Le)—the highest joy as Zhuangzi describes it—as its theme. From the outset it observes that merely being alive is a burden, and worry and suffering arise without end; thus, in fleeing and settling, leaving and approaching, one is at a loss how to choose and finds no way to preserve oneself. Why is this? The meaning is: when a person in the midst of suffering gives rise to revulsion and urgently wishes to return to what is originally true, genuine joy will arrive. Therefore what the world calls joy is not necessarily true joy. Affairs under heaven flourish to the point of decline; things at an extreme turn and change. A minister out of favor and a son of low estate, because they are anxious and fearful and think deeply about danger, may thereby attain clarity; poverty, low status, worry, and distress can also complete a person, and the turning points of misfortune and blessing often depend on each other. Yet people remain trapped in grief and joy and cannot free themselves—how can they rest in the innate disposition of life and fate? Hence the conclusion returns to no joy and no reputation: that is supreme reputation and supreme joy.

Next it records two episodes—drumming on a basin and singing (when Zhuangzi’s wife died) and the skull’s reply (the skull explaining the joys of death in a dream)—both treating situations the world does not relish as their own joy. Such joy is not something the vulgar can discuss together.

In the middle it describes those who observe transformation yet are touched by transformation: when a change appears on the arm they do not loathe it; those who seek themselves and fail, hearing of this joy, instead become frightened and worried. This means: follow transformation and joy is the same; go against genuine feeling and even if one is preserved, it is not joy.

At the end it argues that the generation and transformation of humans, plants, insects, and beasts follow no fixed rule, and concludes: all emerge from the Ji (pivot of generation and transformation) and all return to the Ji. How vast the Ji is—who makes it expand and contract? Whatever involves formed things, none is outside this. Birth, death, and change cycle without end. To delight in life and hate death, or to delight in death and weary of life, is to cling to one side—not the utmost of joy. One must reach the point of neither joy nor non-joy, neither life nor non-life; only then is one not enslaved by change, not driven by the Ji, and aligned with the realm of Dayan’s void one unused (in the Book of Changes, among the fifty counts one is left empty and unused, pointing to empty stillness and the marvel of non-employment)—boundless and merged, clear and deep as if present. That is Supreme Joy.

Volume fifty-seven of Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Commentary on the Nanhua Scripture, Gathering the Depths of the Sea of Meaning) ends here; what follows is volume fifty-eight of the Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei as collected in the imperial Complete Library of the Four Treasures.

Chapter 1 of Dacheng (Understanding the True Situation of Life), compiled by Chu Boxiu of the Song dynasty.

Those who understand the true situation of life do not pursue what life cannot achieve; those who understand the true situation of fate do not force what intelligence cannot overcome. Nourishing the body must rely on material means, yet there are cases where supplies are ample and the body still is not well maintained; life cannot depart from the body, yet there are cases where the body has not left and life is already gone. Birth cannot be refused; death cannot be held back. How lamentable! People assume that nourishing the body is enough to preserve life—when it is not, what is worth doing in worldly striving? Though not worth doing, one cannot entirely abstain; entanglement ultimately cannot be escaped.

If you wish to avoid toiling for the body, better to withdraw from the world (release worldly attachments). Withdrawal brings freedom from burden; freedom from burden steadies heart and qi; steadiness renews you together with outer things, and you draw near the Dao. What affair cannot be dropped, what attachment to living cannot be released? Dropping affairs, the body is not worn down; loosening grip on survival, jing is not depleted. When form is whole and jing restored, one becomes one with Heaven. Heaven and Earth are parents of the myriad things: when qi gathers, a body forms; when qi disperses, one returns to the origin. When form and jing are not impaired, this is called being able to shift with transformation; when jing refines further, it turns back to assist the natural Heaven within. In Daoist usage, “jing” means inner vitality—emphasizing that form and spirit follow nature, not merely fattening the flesh.

Guo Xiang’s commentary (Guo Xiang, Western Jin commentator on the Zhuangzi): What life ought not to pursue is what lies outside one’s share; what intelligence cannot help is what fate displays. Knowing to stop at one’s own allotment, when things match life that is enough—more than that harms. Guarding the form too zealously brings death of life. Once you know it is not under your control, there is no need to brood; otherwise the more you nourish, the closer to the place of death. If you let go and entrust, each nature’s portion achieves itself—all arising from utmost principle, and not to be evaded. “Daily renewal” means renewing day by day; entrusting yourself to daily renewal, then nature and life exhaust their inherent state. Therefore discard partiality, act without leaning, and so nurture the myriad things with kindness—success everywhere—and turn with transformation, assisting the natural.

Lü Huiqing, a Northern Song commentator on the Zhuangzi, held that “what life has no use for” refers to things that are not necessary for life to depend on in order to exist, and “what knowledge cannot do anything about” refers to what the mind was never able to know in the first place. When the body is not kept in good condition, it is because life has been nourished too lavishly—that is, what the Laozi calls “thickening life”—not because external goods are lacking. When life is lost, it is because one has walked toward death oneself; it is not always simply because the body has parted from life. From this we can see that caring for the body is in truth insufficient to preserve life, and what in the world is there that deserves one’s full striving? Yet some matters cannot be entirely left undone; how could one completely cease laboring for the body? To avoid being mastered by the body, one should be present in the world without being dragged down by it. Without such drag, the inner mind is upright and at peace; when it is upright and at peace, one no longer treats ministering to the body as the main task, and instead renews and transforms together with nature. To reach this “renewed birth”—being reborn along with nature—is close to truly preserving life. People often suppose that certain affairs are not worth casting aside, yet if one does not cast them aside, one is bound by affairs and the body grows weary. They often suppose that life is not worth clinging to, yet if one does not release that clinging, one is mastered by the urge to survive and the spirit is drained. When the body is whole and the spirit is restored, virtue is again like its original endowment. The ten thousand things receive refined qi from Heaven and complete their forms on Earth. When the two join, that is why our bodies take shape—as the Book of Changes says, “Heaven and Earth mingle in fertile embrace; the ten thousand things become rich and mature.” When the two part, that is how the ten thousand things begin to emerge—as in “male and female unite in essence; the ten thousand things are generated.” When they join, there is no depletion; when they part, transformation and change can proceed. Not to be depleted is already to be pure; to be capable of change is refinement upon refinement. To use the refined qi received from Heaven to turn back and assist the natural—xiang tian—and thus preserve life: is that not marvelous?

Lin Yidu, a Song-dynasty commentator on the Zhuangzi, held that “what life has no use for” is the situation meant by the Laozi line “To enhance life is called an ill omen”—deliberately piling up life only invites disaster—and that “what knowledge cannot do anything about” refers to matters such as wealth and poverty, long life and early death, which human effort cannot alter. Nurturing the body depends on external things. Only when one can shift and transform without depletion is refined qi truly stable; when one can shift yet remain pure, and employ what is innate from Heaven to assist Heaven in return, then to preserve life in this way—is that not marvelous?

In life, what human effort cannot augment is what Laozi meant by “forcing life to flourish is called an ill omen”—deliberately trying to extend life turns into misfortune. What the heart knows it cannot change is wealth and poverty, longevity and early death. Nurturing the bodily form depends on external things; yet if pursuit of those things has no limit, the form is inevitably burdened. Preserving life does rely on the body, but some people cling to the body without letting go while life has already perished—meaning the form is still there but the living force is gone. Life’s arrival cannot be pushed away; its departure cannot be held back. People think nurturing the form is enough to preserve life, but in fact it is not enough. Given that, what in the world is still worth scheming over? Even when nothing is worth doing, what must be done still cannot be avoided. If you wish to free yourself from toil for the sake of the body, it is better to leave the world behind. Here “the world” is the dusty realm where self and others live together and from which there is no escape. One who is fully awakened treats all of this as a great dream; once the great dream has dissolved, what could still bind you? Without binding, the mind is upright and at peace, and so one can be renewed together with nature—endless renewal, and that is what reaches destiny. Affairs need not be abandoned and life need not be forgotten, yet the starting point is still to abandon affairs and release attachment to life, so that the body is not worn down and spirit is not depleted. When this is achieved, one merges with Heaven and takes change as one’s companion. Heaven and Earth interact and the myriad things are born: what gathers becomes form and has shape; what begins is Qi. Where things meet, there is being; where they scatter, there is non-being. When form is whole, there is clarity; when Jing (essence) is whole, one enters Shen (spirit). Jing refined upon Jing is the utmost spirit under Heaven—therefore one can, with one’s own nature, assist the nature of the myriad things.

Chen Bixu (Chen Jingyuan, styled Bixuzi, a Song-dynasty Daoist scholar) said: Those who understand the reality of life accept wealth and poverty as they come, knowing that riches are not obtained by forced pursuit and that eminence is not gained by deliberate envy. Those who understand the reality of fate accept whether they are wise or dull, obstructed or smooth, knowing that wisdom is not suddenly acquired by hasty study and that success is not secured by straining with brute effort. Some people have gold and jade filling their houses yet are stingy and will not use them; some have vigorous spirit and Qi yet chase external things and lose their lives. Most people in the world are like this. How lamentable—the world’s view is upside down. Only those who set the self aside can avoid the place where death is inevitable. The principle is just so. These matters are not worth fixating on, yet they are what the living can hardly escape entirely. The greatest affliction of the body is worldly entanglement. When entanglement is gone, there is no burden; without burden, there is no danger. De (virtue and inner power) and achievement renew day by day, as if one were born again, and one draws near to the Dao. While in the world, one cannot stand without affairs; with a body but no life, one cannot exist. Then why must all affairs be cast away, or life deliberately abandoned? When the body is preserved and the spirit restored, and one merges with creation and transformation: in merging one becomes the form of the myriad things; in dispersing one returns to before primordial emptiness (Taiwu). Those skilled at mastering life forget the body, and the body is thereby preserved; they forget the clinging to survival, and the spirit is thereby restored. When form and Jing (essence) are already robust, one moves with change and transformation, continually probing the subtle, and in the end it is only assisting one’s own naturalness (ziran).

Liu Kai’s commentary states: Life is what I possess in myself; fate is what Heaven constrains. One who has penetrated life to the utmost can fully know the Way of Heaven; one who has penetrated fate to the utmost never forgets what it means to be human. What in life ought not to be done—stop and do not do it; then whatever can be stopped, do not do. What intelligence cannot overcome—accept in peace; then whatever can be settled within, do not seek outside yourself. Neither reaching outward nor forcing action, and you align with the Dao. Yet the human form dwells in the world, and the world’s entanglements often cling without release. The form is not the Dao; the world is not me—entanglement lies only in external things. View these three through the Dao, and entanglement is easy to dispel. Once entanglement is removed, what can the world do to me? The world can be set aside—why should I cling to this form? Not fixating on the world, not craving the form: that is the utmost penetration of life and fate.

Lin Yuzhai (Lin Xiyu, styled Yuzhai) in Kouyi (Oral Expositions) says: “What life has no use for” refers to things outside the self; “what knowledge cannot help” refers to what human effort cannot achieve. Preserving the form necessarily relies on external things; where there is life, the form must be kept. External things are often more than enough—how can the form endure forever? Though the form may be preserved, life still has its end. Some undertakings are not worth doing, yet one cannot wholly refrain from doing them—that is what was meant earlier by “among things, nothing is worth doing, yet one cannot fail to do some of it.” Whether one acts or refrains, one cannot avoid burdening oneself. To be free of entanglement, one must see the world lightly. Seeing the world lightly is not fleeing the world, but living in it without clinging in the heart: responding only when moved, acting only when there is no alternative—then I am still I, and the world is still the world. The mind stays level, without picking high or low. Life renews itself unceasingly; go along with that infinity, transform together with the maker of things, renewed day by day. Affairs outside oneself and what ties to life need not be deliberately cast off—they fall away of themselves. The body is a provisional joining of the four great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind); when it disperses, it returns to the beginning and merges into the formless. When spirit is kept whole and complete, it can transform—this is called “being able to shift.” Penetrating the great Dao to this point, spirit refined upon refined, one can assist and sustain creation.

Chu’s Guanjian (Limited Views) says: Xu You withdrew and lived in lofty seclusion, declining the realm that Yao wished to yield to him. Return to the formless beginning. When spirit is kept whole and complete, it can transform—this is called “being able to shift.” Embodying the Dao to this degree, refined to the utmost, one can assist and sustain creation.

Chu Boxiu writes in Guanjian (Limited Views): Xu You, the ancient hermit who lived in seclusion and declined the offer of the empire through abdication, did so because he understood that some things in life should not be forced. When Confucius was besieged in Chen, he still played the zither and sang, because he understood that some things cannot be changed by the mind alone. If one is not at peace with one's own life yet constantly seeks to add to it, even when external things are abundant, the physical form cannot be properly nourished. If one is not at peace with one's own understanding yet tries to command it, though the body has not departed, life is already lost. When life arrives, it cannot be pushed away; one must recognize it through proper cultivation. When life departs, it cannot be stopped; excessive cultivation can instead harm it. People assume that nourishing the physical form is enough to preserve life—they know the practice of nurturing, but nurturing the body alone cannot preserve life, because they do not understand what truly ought to be nurtured; what they nurture is not what should be nurtured. Life itself is not worth striving for, yet people often lose their lives precisely through such supposed "nurturing." Yet there are things one cannot entirely avoid, such as eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty—actions that are unavoidable simply because one is still alive in the world. Therefore, to escape laboring for the sake of the body, it is better to set aside worldly affairs. To be in the world yet able to release it—what further entanglement remains? "Zhengping" (proper equilibrium) means viewing all things as equal, differing from ordinary worldly living—hence it is called "gengsheng" (renewed life). Renewal of life approaches the Dao (the Way). Affairs need not be discarded, because one can use external things without being used by them. Life need not be abandoned either, because one can likewise forget it. Yet for the body to be whole and the spirit restored, one must still begin by abandoning affairs and releasing attachment to life, proceeding from the coarse to the refined. Unity with Heaven is the highest attainment. All things in the world receive the qi of Yin-Yang: when qi combines, they take form as the myriad things and appear as you (being); when qi disperses, they return to the origin of Heaven and Earth and revert to wu (non-being). When form is complete and essence restored, one can penetrate transformation—thus dwelling in Heaven one is one with Heaven, dwelling on Earth one is one with Earth, among people one is human, encountering things one follows things. "Essence upon essence" means purity without cessation; inversely assisting Heaven, one returns to the original source of received qi, and no transformation can command oneself. This is the subtle realm of penetrating life thoroughly and thereby reaching forgetfulness of attachment to life itself. "Wei shi" (acting for the world) and "wei xing" (acting for the form) are close in meaning—the words are simply exchanged.

Liezi asked Guan Yinzi: “A person who has reached the utmost cultivation can dive into water without drowning, tread on fire without being burned, and walk among all things without fear. How can one achieve this?” Guan Yinzi said: “It is because they preserve pure, unified qi—not because of cleverness, courage, or daring. Sit down; I will tell you. Whatever has form, sound, or color is a thing. Among things, what makes one so far from another? What lets one stand ahead of others? Only differences of form and color. All things arise from the formless and rest where change no longer occurs. Whoever can exhaust this principle is not constrained by outer things. They keep to a measure that does not exceed, hide in a thread with no beginning, move between the start and end of the ten thousand things, unify their nature, nurture breath, align with De, and thus penetrate where the ten thousand things come from. Such a person keeps innate endowment intact; spirit has no gap—where could outer things enter?”

“A drunk who falls from a carriage may be injured yet not die. His bones and joints are like others’, but harm differs because his spirit is whole. He does not know he mounted; he does not know he fell; life, death, shock, and fear do not enter his heart—so he is unafraid when things strike him. If wine can keep the spirit this intact, how much more one who is wholly natural! The sage hides in the natural and so nothing can harm them. One who seeks revenge does not break Ganjiang or Moye (famed ancient swords); though resentful at heart, one does not blame the tile blown by wind that hits them. Thus the world can be even. Without the disaster of attack and war, without punitive killing—this is where that Dao leads. Do not open human cleverness; open innate nature. Opening the natural gives rise to De; opening the human gives rise to harm. Neither rejecting one’s own nature nor slighting others—then the people can nearly keep their true simplicity.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary holds: The heart is empty, so it can respond to what is solid; when utmost fitting is reached, nothing is impossible—not because outer things come to suit you on their own. Among things, what makes one far from another? Only the heartless can far exceed. Alike in form and color, they are not enough to vie for precedence. Constantly moving in the utmost realm, one is not bound by things; resting in one’s allotted portion, one blends with transformation and renews daily with creation. End and beginning are two ends of things—add ornament and distinction and they split in two. Do not use the mind to drive qi, nor leave one’s nature because of outer things. The ten thousand things all arise from nature. The drunk falling from a carriage merely lost ordinary awareness—not natural heartlessness. Ganjiang and Moye are for facing enemies, yet one seeking revenge does not break them; a falling tile that hits someone draws no blame—because they have no mind. Knowing without deliberation is opening heaven’s heaven; knowing and sensing only after prior views is opening human’s heaven. Opening heaven is the activity of nature; opening human is the deployment of cleverness. When nature stirs, affairs fit, one is content and forgets the rest—De arises thus. When cleverness is deployed, one chases feelings, grows weary yet does not stop—harm arises thus. Acting in accord with innate nature, human order is naturally complete. People’s disasters and falsity often come from deploying cleverness, not from the activity of nature.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: The turning of Heaven and Earth and the transformations of the myriad things—which of these is not Qi (vital energy)? If one can truly hold fast to pure Qi (pure, undivided vital breath), then walking on water without drowning, treading fire without burning, and stepping on perilous ground without fear are nothing strange. This is only because one has reached the ground of utmost emptiness (zhixu, extreme stillness and void), so where could cleverness and boldness find a place to join in?

Take the dragon as an analogy: when Qi gathers into a body, it mounts to the zenith of Heaven and coils in the deepest abyss—there is nowhere it cannot go; when Qi disperses and becomes patterned markings, it sinks into non-being and cannot be seen. That too is nothing but Qi.

Whatever has shape and form, signs and traces, sound and color, is a thing (wu). How far can thing differ from thing? How could that measure up to the “prior” (xian)—the beginning before anything has yet appeared? It is only appearance and color. The prior is the very first when there is not yet any thing; color is when things have already come forth as something. With such shaped, colored stuff, how can one speak of holding pure Qi and roaming in utmost emptiness?

When a thing has been worked by creation (zaohua) but not yet taken shape, it is no longer shape, sound, or color; therefore it can rest in what does not change and not depart. One who grasps and exhausts this principle dwells within the measure of non-excess (buyin zhi du—not overstepping the proper limit): neither too bright nor too dark, just right without going too far; it is stored within the thread of no beginning (wuduan zhi ji—the course that has no starting point and cannot be traced to an origin), where end and beginning turn into each other yet can never be fully exhausted; one roams where the myriad things end and begin—that is, where shaping arises from the formless and stopping occurs in “no further transformation.”

When nature is unified, it does not split; when Qi is nourished, it is not drained; uniting De (Virtue/Power) to reach the source from which the myriad things are fashioned, one cultivates nature and returns to Heaven’s De, standing together with the Maker (the great Dao that gives birth to the myriad things) in the formless. Then what is guarded is whole, without crack or gap—so from where could external things enter?

A person drunk on wine: even life, death, and terror cannot get into the heart. One who stores himself in the natural and preserves original nature—external things certainly cannot harm him. In the world there is often an executor of killing (the natural order that carries out death)—when people meet it, it is like encountering the ancient sword Ganjiang or being struck by a falling tile; there is nothing to resent. Because of this the realm is even; even when one campaigns against another state, one does not sink into the disorder of attack and battle.

One who “opens Heaven” (kai tian—unfolds the natural): De arises from this, because he forgets knowledge along with oneness and abides in unknowing Wuwei (non-action). One who “opens the human” (kai ren—unfolds artificial cleverness): in his De there is still a heart, and in the heart there is an “eye” (discriminating calculation)—that is merely self-injury. Neither despising one’s own natural endowment nor slighting the human boundary of roles, revering what people revere—if the common people understood this, they would be close to true simplicity (ben zhen).

Commentary by Lin Yidu (Yidu) explains: “Pure” means not mixed; “guard” means returning to singleness. Without mixture one can be still; with singleness one can gather qi. When qi is still and yet held, that is what Laozi meant by “concentrate the breath until you become supple” (zhuan qi zhi rou)—it does not belong to cleverness or bold daring. Form, voice, color, and external things are not far apart, yet people do not know how to embody the bearing of inner clarity (shenming); they first show joy and anger on their faces—how can they stand ahead of the myriad things?

The arising of the myriad things: the formed comes from the formless; change comes from what has not yet changed. This means the virtue of spirit is present in both movement and stillness. Grasp this and exhaust the subtle principle until there is no form and no transformation—how can external things block you? Ritual and law have measure, so one does not indulge to excess; the warp and woof of the Dao has an origin, so there is no thread-end to seek. Only when one’s own person does not divide beginning from end can the myriad things have beginning and end. Therefore make the native nature single and undivided, nourish qi without harming it, and keep virtue intact without losing it. Then one can penetrate the source of the myriad things without contending, hold to spontaneity (ziran) without loss. What comes from outside—how can it enter my inner heart?

The text below uses three analogies: a drunk who falls from a carriage is kept whole in spirit by wine, so he is not injured by the fall; Mo Ye and Gan Jiang (famous swords) and a tile falling have no mind, so people do not resent them. If a person can be like this without loss, how can external things invade?

The “Heaven of human beings” is spontaneity within intentional action; the “Heaven of Heaven” is spontaneity within non-action (wuwei). When Laozi says “Earth follows Heaven,” he means the Heaven of human beings; when he says “the Dao follows ziran,” he means the Heaven of Heaven. Those in whom virtue arises this way do not govern the state with cleverness; those in whom calamity arises this way govern the state with cleverness. “Not weary of the people” means not using artifice to extinguish native nature; “not neglecting people” means not abandoning human affairs because of native nature. The common people then can almost live by their authentic selves. Those who teach and transform from below—nothing more than this.

Bi Xu (Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan, styled Bixuzi) comments: It is precisely because his practice stays hidden and is not shown outward that he can move through the world without obstruction. Not fearing tigers and rhinoceroses, not shying from arms and battle formations—that comes from holding to pure unity so that cunning has no place in the heart. The ten thousand things all have form and color; there is no absolute “before” and “after.” Where there is form, there is change; if one attains the Dao that does not cling to traces of form and is not bound by change, it is inexhaustible, and the myriad things each rest in their own nature. What is meant by “traveling hidden without being blocked” is not overstepping measure, hanzhang cangyao (holding brilliance within and hiding one’s light), moving at the beginning and end of the ten thousand things, and at last returning to the great void. When one zhuan ben xing (devotes oneself to original nature), yang hu qi (nourishes and holds qi), and he yu de (aligns with de), the three blend into one and become the same as zaohua (creation and transformation). When innate nature is kept whole and spirit has no crack, from where could blockage and fear enter? When a drunk falls, outer things cannot harm him— the principle is the same. The sage is stored within the pattern of Heaven; ghosts and spirits cannot see his tracks. Once there is scheming and once emotion stirs, harm and resentment are drawn in. Cultivate the person this way and harmony runs unblocked; govern the realm this way and the world is at peace. Do not use cleverness to drive cleverness; use forgetting to dissolve forgetting. To forget contrivance is de; to be enslaved by cleverness is to be robbed. Neither to swell with virtue nor to treat unknowing as loss— that is close to the real Dao.

Yizhai (the style name of Lin Xiyou of the Southern Song) says that “guarding pure qi” means holding fast to primordial qi and not letting it become mixed. Appearance, image, sound, and color refer to what has visible form. All things are bound by physical form; if I too fall into form and trace, I become the same as the myriad things—how then could I reach the time before they had yet appeared? People cannot see the beginning and end of the myriad things because they are dragged down by form and trace, stopping only at color and appearance. The text first strings together four words, then mentions only “color”—that is a stylistic move in the writing. The Creator has no physical form and stops at no further change, meaning there is no alteration. One who grasps the principle of creation and exhausts its subtlety has left behind “things already formed,” and the myriad things cannot hold him. “The measure that is not excess” is a fixed norm; “the principle without end” is inexhaustible reason—the end and beginning of the myriad things are creation itself. Devoting oneself to original nature and aligning with De, becoming one with creation, is therefore called “penetrating what the myriad things are created by.” What is called Heaven and what is called spirit is this principle manifest in oneself. When the inner self is preserved whole and without gap, from where could external things enter?

The drunk who falls from a cart, and the analogies of Mo-ye and Gan-jiang (ancient named swords) and floating tile, are all extremely precise. The Heaven in human beings still carries scheming mind; the Heaven of Heaven is without mind. Opening the Heaven of Heaven is the virtue of spontaneity; if one opens instead the heaven of human beings, the mind is not yet fully transformed, the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) all become injury—how much more so external things?

Liezi had already obtained the Way of the wind immortal, hence this question; the answer exhausts the matter in the single phrase “guarding pure qi.” Humans and beasts, plants, the void, metal and stone—whether sentient or not—all do not depart from qi. Humans receive relatively pure qi; immortals can guard that pure qi even more fully, embracing spirit in stillness, so that in action external things cannot block them, fire cannot burn them, and danger cannot frighten them. Appearance, image, sound, and color differ vastly from one another—how could they suffice to rank what comes first and what after? Everything cited falls within form and color. What is meant by “first” is what has not yet taken shape as a thing but is precisely where the thing will take shape from; what has not yet changed but is precisely where change will proceed from. Understand this, and the end and beginning of the myriad things become visible. Exhaust this principle, and how could the myriad things constrain him? Therefore one should rest in the portion received at birth, hide within the daily-renewing principle, and wander at the utmost of the myriad things. Devoting oneself to original nature, nurturing qi, uniting De with Heaven, and penetrating where the myriad things are generated—one goes beyond form and color. The body may be forgotten; spirit has no crack—why must external things enter one’s inner dwelling?

What follows: the drunk concentrates spirit entirely on wine; the sage hides in Heaven—therefore nothing can harm them. Mo-ye, Gan-jiang, and floating tile illustrate absence of mind and feeling: even if they strike a person, the person does not resent them—how much less when they do not strike? If people can be like this, the world would be even; whence would war and slaughter come? Whether one preserves heavenly nature or deploys human cleverness depends on which heaven one opens—virtue and harm part here, and students should be careful. As for “how could things stop there,” the character read as “stop” (zhi) does not fit the sense. Guo’s commentary (Guo Xiang’s commentary on the Zhuangzi) says: the person who reaches the utmost is not one who is constrained. Here it should be the character for “constrain” (zhi), confused in writing because the two words sound alike.

Bixu (Chen Jingyuan, Song-dynasty Daoist) notes: Cicadas can be made into meat paste, which is why one goes out to catch them on a pole. When first learning to catch cicadas with a sticky rod, one stacks pellets on the tip to test whether the hand trembles. If two pellets stay put without falling, missing a cicada becomes as rare as a hair’s breadth; if five stay put, the body is like a severed stump and the arms like withered branches—the cicada alights without fear, and taking it is like picking something up at hand. From this we know that when intention is single and spirit is concentrated, nothing in the Way is beyond reach—not merely catching a cicada’s wing.

Yanzhai (Lin Xiyi, Song dynasty) says: “Neither turning nor tilting” means only fixing the heart in concentration, with the whole mind on the cicada, unaware of anything else. Here that is used to illustrate guarding the Shen (spirit). Such things really exist in the world; people treat them as mere skill and do not see the Way hidden in them, and so they doubt the word “spirit.” That “doubt” (yi) should read as “concentration” (ning); the later chapter on Yan Qing carving a bell stand can be read alongside this.

Yan Hui asked Confucius: I once crossed the deep ford of Shang Shen; the ferryman handled the boat like a spirit. I asked, “Can boat-handling be learned?” He said, “It can. Someone good at swimming learns after much practice; someone who can dive—even if he has never seen a boat—can steer at once.” I asked again, but he would not tell me more. What does this mean?

Confucius said: Those who swim well succeed again and again because they forget the water. Those who dive and can handle a boat though they have never seen one treat the abyss as a hill and a capsized boat as a cart rolling backward. Capsizes and rollbacks may lie all around, yet they do not enter the place where the mind rests at ease—how could they fail to be at ease everywhere? Betting with tiles feels nimble; betting with belt hooks brings fear; betting with gold brings confusion. The skill is the same; once something is prized and clung to, outer things weigh too heavily. Whoever prizes outer things has an inwardly clumsy heart.

Guo Xiang notes: Things have their natures, yet one must practice many times before mastery. When practice has fulfilled the nature, it looks as if it were always so. They take the abyss for a hill, so a boat overturning in the depths seems like a cart backing on a slope. Many capsizes and rollbacks do not touch the mind, because the nature is already trained to ease, and whatever meets it feels spacious. The more heavily something is prized, the more the heart holds itself stiff. Those who wish to nourish life and preserve the inner—does that not come down to having nothing stiffly prized?

Lü Huiqing’s commentary explains that the stories about steering a boat and betting with gold make the point clear: when the body is whole and the essence is restored, a person is at ease, so whatever comes up they remain calm and unhurried. The more heavily one values something, the more tense and guarded the heart becomes. Those who wish to nourish life and preserve what is within can do so only by valting nothing and holding nothing dear. He adds that wholeness of form and renewal of essence are not empty words; unless one can set aside the pull of worldly affairs and not cling to life itself, until the spirit has no retreat and no gap (shen wu que), one is not equal to this stage.

Lin Yidu’s note says this parable means that one who understands nourishing life follows nature and trusts the true heart, with nothing hanging on the mind, and is at home wherever they go. Someone good at swimming steers a boat by native capacity and has not yet reached the extreme; someone good at diving, even if they have never seen a boat, can handle one at once. Capsizing, backing away, and every sort of scene may appear before them yet cannot enter the heart—where would such a person not be at leisure? “Zhu” means wagering something in a contest of archery. A belt hook is costlier than a tile; gold is costlier still than a hook. When the heart values nothing, skill is present; when it values something, it falls into disorder.

Chen Jingyuan (Bixuzi) notes that steering like a spirit is because one who swims well does not fear drowning. One who dives eagerly need not rely on a boat to operate it right away. One who forgets water still keeps the boat in mind; one who has never seen a boat has forgotten water and boat together. Distress does not enter the breast because inwardly there is surplus ease; if the heart holds something precious, skill collapses. He also compares: a tile is a base thing—wager with it and the archer’s release is sure to be careful and on target; hook and gold are heavy treasures—as stakes, the shooter’s heart flutters and they nearly fail. Clearly, take water lightly and the boat can be steered; take goods heavily and scheming turns clumsy. This is the way of nature.

Lin Xiyi (Yanzhai) says that one who dives well treats water as level ground, so without study they can steer a boat. In archery, wagering with objects is called “zhu.” The archer’s dexterity is originally the same; once there is something to lose, what is valued shifts to outer things and the inner self is confused; when the inner self is confused, even one who was skillful may sometimes become clumsy.

Tian Kai paid a visit to Duke Wei of Zhou. The duke said, “I have heard that Zhu Shen studies the art of nurturing life, and that you often associate with him. Have you ever heard anything from him?” Tian Kai replied, “I merely hold a broom and serve in the courtyard—what could I possibly hear from the master?” The duke said, “Do not be modest; I would like to hear what you know.” Tian Kai said, “I heard the master say: ‘One who is good at nurturing life is like a shepherd who sees a sheep lagging behind and lashes it with a whip.’” The duke asked, “What does that mean?” Tian Kai said, “In Lu there was a man named Shan Bao who lived among cliffs, drank from springs, and did not compete with the world for profit. At seventy his complexion was still like an infant’s; unfortunately he met a starving tiger and was bitten to death and eaten. There was also a Zhang Yi who rushed to cultivate connections at every grand mansion and every household behind a thin curtain—he omitted none. At forty he died of an internal heat illness. Shan Bao nurtured only his inner self, yet a tiger devoured his body; Zhang Yi worked only at outward affairs, yet disease invaded his inner being. Neither of these two men whipped the part of themselves that lagged behind.”

Confucius said, “Do not hide inward without limit, and do not spread outward without limit; stand like withered wood, mindlessly, in the exact center. If you can do these three things, your reputation will reach its utmost. On a dangerous road, one person in ten is killed—fathers, sons, and brothers warn one another and will not set out until they have gathered many companions to go together. Is that not very prudent? What people ought truly to fear are the pleasures of the bed and the harm of mouth and belly in eating and drinking—yet they do not know to guard against them. That is the error.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: In studying how to nurture life, one must aim for the mean. Clinging to one side alone and exceeding what is reasonable in that direction—neither attains balanced adjustment throughout. Whipping what lags behind means removing what is deficient. When one is already inward-turning and still hides further within, that is excessive hiding; when one is already outward-turning and still presses further out, that is excessive exposure. To be like dead wood, without private bias, and to stand in the true center—that is when reputation reaches its peak and reality matches it as it should. When one in ten dies on the road, people are greatly afraid; as for the harm of lust, one step leads into the place of death, yet no one refrains from taking the risk—the error in that is grave indeed.

Dan Bao was someone whose bodily form was intact while his vital spirit had already perished; Zhang Yi was someone whose external possessions were ample while his physical form had not been properly nourished. Dan Bao leaned toward hiding and inward guarding; Zhang Yi leaned toward outward display and self-promotion—both were deliberately acting with a fixed intent. To stand like withered kindling is to be free of arising thoughts; to be able to stand in the center is not to be the one who lags behind and deserves the lash.

One who knows how to tend sheep gives a lash to the sheep that fall behind, so that they follow the correct path and do not stray. Dan Bao and Zhang Yi neither lashed the side of themselves that lagged behind. What is meant by “entering and hiding” is hiding deeper and deeper; what is meant by “going out and displaying yang” is going further and further outward. To stand like kindling in the middle is to be someone who does not fix the mind on either concealment or display. When one has grasped the real situation, reputation naturally reaches its utmost. On a perilous road, one person in ten may lose life—that is the calamity of the human world; what goes wrong amid pillow, mat, food, and drink is the calamity of yin-yang imbalance. Calamities of the human world are obvious, and people know to avoid them; calamities of yin-yang are subtle, and people do not know to be cautious. Laozi’s saying that as soon as people move they step into the realm of death points to this.

Nourishing life is like tending sheep. Sheep love to take side paths, so those that lag behind cannot go unlashed. Dan Bao only nourished the inner and was not careful about the outer; Zhang Yi only cultivated the outer and did not regulate the inner—neither lashed where lashing was due. “Entering and hiding” means dwelling in seclusion apart from others, not knowing how to meet and respond to external things; “going out and displaying yang” means rushing about in turbid custom, forgetting to tend oneself. Standing like kindling in the center is dull rigidity, rarely able to adapt to change. Not clinging to any of these three is what counts as attaining the constant name and reaching the extreme. Peril on the road is coarse and obvious, easy to guard against; matters of pillow and couch are hidden and fine, hard to hold steady. Hence harm from beauty has long afflicted people, yet people under heaven still do not notice.

Yaozhai said: “Ba hui” is a broom, used for sprinkling water and sweeping the floor. Herding sheep should mean letting the flock go on its own; only those that lag get the whip. The point is that one must follow heavenly principle and also do one’s full part as a human being. Dan Bao withdrew to cultivate the inner and was eaten by a tiger; Zhang Yi cultivated the outer through constant social dealing and died from inner heat—both failed to complete the human side and cannot blame everything on Heaven. This analogy fits the scholar’s self-cultivation best; from it one can infer what the surrounding passages mean by the Way of Heaven and the way of humans. “Not sinking inward into hiding” means not clinging only to stillness; “not rushing outward into yang” means not leaning only into activity. “Standing like firewood in the center” means not raising private motives and entrusting oneself wholly to Heaven—whether moving or still, like dead wood. Whoever can fulfill these three lines may be called a zhi ren (the Daoist figure of fully realized cultivation). “A dangerous road” (wei tu) is used to picture the safety of pillow and mat—that is, “beauty is the axe that chops away life”—warning people to restrain desire.

Zhu Zhuangren (the official in charge of sacrificial prayer), wearing xuan duan (black ceremonial dress), came to the pigsty and said to the pig: Why fear death? I will raise you three months, then observe ten days of abstinence and three days of fasting, lay white mao grass beneath you, and place your shoulder and rump on a carved zu—would you agree? Planning for the pig, better chaff and staying in the pen. Planning for oneself, one accepts living with the honor of xuan mian (carriage, horses, cap and robes—high rank) and dying inside painted mourning carts and ornate coffin fittings. For the pig one refuses; for oneself one accepts—how is that different from the pig?

Guo Xiang’s note: Once desire is satisfied, the self is already lost; only constant principle remains—and in this humans and beasts are the same. Lu’s note: For the pig one pushes away; for oneself one takes—does one cherish the body less than a pig? One is dragged down by the worldly. Therefore only by casting off affairs and forgetting attachment to life can one be free of entanglement. Yi Du’s reading is the same.

Yidu commentary: Speaking for the turtle, it would rather drag its tail through the mud than leave an empty shell to be honored and enshrined; speaking for the pig, it would rather eat chaff in a pen than have its shoulders and rump laid on a carved sacrificial stand. This means that to seek wealth and rank by going against the natural order of xing (nature) and ming (life) is not as good as accepting poverty and low station while following that order. Zhuangzi compares himself to the turtle and ordinary people to the pig—the point is not hard to see.

Bixu commentary: Ox hide made into a drum can marshal an army; yet speaking for the ox, it would rather wear the yoke and work. A white fox fur robe—the Son of Heaven wears it on the throne; yet speaking for the fox, it would rather run in marsh and grass. So the pig in the pen does not want its shoulders and rump sent to the carved stand—that is someone who penetrates life and follows fate.

Yanzhai’s remarks: Xuanduan is the ceremonial cap. Huan means feeding with fodder. Zhuan is the decorated carrier; dun is a kind of table or stand. What is bent and can hold things is called julou, a category of baskets and bins. In Zuozhuan, Duke Xuan year 2, the cook was killed because stewed bear paw was not done—the corpse was put in a ben (basket)—that is the sense here. While alive, people crave the honor of high office and fine caps, or accept execution and having the body placed in overturned vessels and baskets—they are still willing. Speaking for the pig is avoiding death; planning for oneself yet seeking rank—why is that?

The gist of these four sections connects: the hunchback catching cicadas, with mind undivided, develops the previous chapter’s theme of guarding pure qi; the ferryman who handles the boat as if spirit-assisted is jingyi (refined meaning) entering shen (spirit); whipping the laggard sheep shows the rule for yangsheng (nurturing life); the ritual master’s advice to the pig warns against seeking xuanmian (ceremonial rank and caps). Given that, why act the other way?

The main ideas of the four preceding sections form one continuous thread. The hunchback who catches cicadas with single-minded focus and no distraction illustrates the prior chapter’s theme of guarding the pure, unified qi (vital energy). The person who knows water so well that rowing seems aided by spirits embodies what the Yijing (Book of Changes) calls “jingyi ru shen”—bringing subtle principle to the point where it merges with spirit. When herding sheep, whipping only the stragglers is a rule for nurturing life: tend what is weak and lagging. Zhu Zongren, the official who presides over sacrificial announcements, persuades the pig to accept ritual slaughter—a warning against being dazzled by high office, chariots, wealth, and glory. All of this is meant to break ordinary people’s dullness and turn them toward the wonder of dasheng (attaining the true nature of life). The meaning of the passage is already clear; there is no need to repeat it.

In the phrase ba hui, ba is read pu mo qie in traditional phonology. Li’s old commentary glosses it as ba (“grasp”), as in Lin Xiyi’s Zhuangzi Yizhai Kouyi—the sense of uprooting something whole; ba hui means a broom. Most commentators pass over it briefly. Master Wuyin Fan (Fan Yingyuan) held that ba should be read as fu, and that both fu and hui are what attendants hold in service—reasonable, but the phonetic basis is still unclear. Looking at the graph and the logic of the passage, ba is almost certainly fu (a ritual feather staff), a small copyist’s slip. In rhyme books fu is the same reading as zhu, denoting a whole-feather ceremonial implement—also what attendants carry.

Zhuan dun: Lu Deming’s Jingdian Shiwen says it should be chun, the painted, ornamented funeral carriage that bears the coffin. Ju should be cuan, read cai guan qie; lou should be liu, read li jiu qie. The sense is lying in state amid the funeral setup of gathered timbers, plaster, shan, and liu. The old recension uses these graphs. Compare Liji (Tangong): for a Son of Heaven, “cuan tu long chun yi guo,” and “she liu shan.” Liu is the same as liu (willow). Cuan means to gather—piling wood over the coffin and coating it with mud; long chun is a hearse painted with dragons. The passage’s point: offer a pig the pomp of a rich man’s funeral in exchange for its life—the pig still refuses. Are humans less sensible than a pig?

This excerpt comes from Chu Boxiu’s Nanhuazhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Nanhuazhenjing is another name for the Zhuangzi), in the Siku Quanshu, from the “Dasheng” chapter.

Duke Huan of Qi was hunting in a marsh; Guan Zhong drove his chariot. The duke suddenly saw a ghost. He grasped Guan Zhong’s hand and asked, “Zhongfu, what did you see?” Guan Zhong replied, “I saw nothing.” After returning, the duke was distraught, fell ill for several days, and shut himself indoors.

A scholar of Qi named Huangzi Ga’ao said, “You have harmed yourself—how could a ghost harm you? When angry, pent-up qi disperses and cannot be gathered back, the blood and qi become deficient; when that qi rushes only upward and does not descend, one easily grows wrathful; when it sinks only downward and does not rise, one easily becomes forgetful; when it neither rises nor falls but blocks the body at the heart and chest, illness follows.”

The duke asked, “Then are there really ghosts?” He answered, “There are. In muddy water dwells Li; on the stove, Ji. In the heap of filth inside the gate lives Lei; below the northeast corner, Pei’e and Guiying leap about; below the northwest corner dwells Yiyang. In water is Wangxiang; on mounds, Shen; in mountains, Kui; in the wilds, Fanghuang; in marshes, Weishe.”

The duke asked what Weishe looked like. Huangzi said, “Weishe is as large as a chariot hub and as long as a chariot shaft, wearing purple robes and a red cap. It hates the sound of the thunder chariot; when it hears it, it holds its head and stands upright. One who sees it can nearly achieve hegemony.” The duke smiled and said, “That is exactly what I saw.” He then straightened his robes and cap and sat with him; before a full day had passed, his illness had vanished without his noticing.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: This chapter means that when worry arrives and body and mind are burdened, it is because one does not understand how things work; when trouble departs and one’s native disposition is restored, that is true penetration of principle.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: When the heart is anxious and doubtful, though a ghost cannot harm a person, the person will harm himself; once doubt is cleared, though the illness remains in the body, it will recede on its own. One who can preserve heaven’s nature and keep external things from entering will naturally not be harmed. How did Huangzi Ga’ao know these ghosts’ names and forms? In antiquity, those whose spirit was unified and undivided—men were called wu, women xi—could even know where the spirits dwelt; then to know ghosts’ names and shapes—is that without ground?

Commentary of Yidu: The names of these ghosts were handed down by the ancients; Zhuangzi cites them, and the teaching is lodged in that citation. Anyone whose learning has not yet opened to the Way of Heaven should not argue over whether ghosts exist. Confucius said, “If you cannot yet serve people properly, how can you serve ghosts?”—meaning the topic should be set aside for the time being, without rash judgment. What Duke Huan of Qi saw in the marsh: Prince Gao, following the thread of his lord’s suspicion, offered a way out, described the form of weiyi (the great coiling serpent), and said that whoever sees it is near to achieving hegemony. That speech struck exactly what weighed on Huan’s mind; his doubt lifted, and the illness cleared as if unnoticed. When people today fall sick and recover after divination, medical treatment, or a ritual specialist, the mechanism is the same—only the dull-witted fail to see it.

Commentary of Bixu: Guan Zhong had nothing hanging on his mind, so he saw no ghost; Huan had business on his mind, so he saw a ghost and fell ill. When yang qi shoots upward and yin qi congeals, a person is prone to anger; when yin qi drains downward and yang qi sinks into hiding, a person is prone to forgetfulness; when qi neither rises nor falls but pools in the middle of the body at heart and chest, illness follows. Once the question “Are there ghosts?” is asked, the answer is a parade of ghostly shapes; when weiyi is described, it happens to match what he saw with his own eyes. Desire, great or small, brings joy when satisfied; doubt, fine or coarse, when released can ward off illness. What matters in events is timely awakening—hence even the consummate person cannot wholly discard words.

Commentary of Yizhai: Aiyi is illness from qi surging upward; shengou means stuck in a muddy ditch. What Huan saw was in a marsh, so he pressed only for the shape of weiyi. At first he took it for a demon; fear then made him sick. When he heard that the seer would soon hegemonize, delight alone dispelled the disease. This is not the same as the Yijing line about “a pig carrying mud on its back, a cart loaded with ghosts,” yet since the sage put such language in a line, such things occur in the world and are not strange.

Huan’s illness came from doubt—not something drugs could cure. Gao used the illusory to stop the illusory; without medicine, effect appeared. Whether ghosts exist follows the rise and fall of mind; liking and loathing in the heart are nothing but human delusion—that much is clear. Once delusion is cleared, even if such things exist in the world, they are not worth marveling at.

Because Duke Huan of Qi fell ill from suspicion and doubt, no medicine could cure him. Gaoo (the one who counseled and comforted Huan) addressed delusive thoughts in order to still delusive thoughts, and so recovery came without relying on drugs. It is clear that whether ghosts exist or not follows the arising and ceasing of one’s own thoughts; likes and dislikes in the heart are nothing but the person’s false emotional consciousness. Once delusive emotion is gone, likes and dislikes return to what is genuine; when the original mind is clear, the arising and ceasing of thoughts is no longer ruled by outer things. People today chase what is false and harm what is genuine—they themselves “see ghosts” and thus bring on illness. Who truly understands how to treat it? Gaoo said: “You hurt yourself; how could a ghost hurt you?” That is the real medicine for the disease. It is like mistakenly thinking one has swallowed a tile and feeling pain in the heart: when the tile is found and removed, the pain stops; when the bow’s reflection in the cup is cleared away, the illness born of suspicion is cured—just the same kind of case. If one can clarify the mind and wash away anxious thinking, so that the inner self is empty, still, and bright, without a speck of dust, and the ten thousand situations cannot disturb it, from where would a ghost appear, and from where would disease enter? The ghost names recorded in the text may look bizarre, but the Kongzi Jiayu (Family Sayings of Confucius) also speaks of Kui and Wangxiang; the Zuozhuan records “the new ghost is large, the old ghost small”; the Shiji tells of Lord of the Pool at Hao presenting a jade disk—so ghosts are not entirely absent. As long as yin and yang each keep their place and do not harm one another, that is enough. The scripture says: “When the world has the Dao, its ghosts are not numinous.” (Ghosts no longer manifest power to harm.)

Ji Shengzi trained fighting cocks for the king. After ten days the king asked: “Is the cock ready?” He answered: “Not yet—it is still vain and arrogant, relying on raw fighting spirit.” Ten days later the king asked again; he answered: “Not yet—it still responds to sound and shadow.” Ten days later again; he answered: “Not yet—it still has a sharp gaze and overbearing air.” Ten days later again; he answered: “Almost. When other cocks crow, it shows no change at all; it looks like a wooden cock—its De (Virtue/Power) is complete.” The other cocks did not dare to fight; they all turned and fled. Guo Xiang commented: This chapter means that when one is cultivated until De is complete, one has no rival outwardly—how much more can one preserve oneself? Lü Huiqing commented: If a person’s self-cultivation can be like the wooden cock, unmoved and unchanged by outer things, then nothing can stand against him.

Commentary by Yidu: Here, raising a fighting cock is used as a metaphor for nurturing life, and the nurturing proceeds in stages. At first, “proud and vain, relying on bravado,” means lacking real inner virtue yet arrogant and self-important; “still reacting to sound and shadow” means responding instantly to any noise or shadow—though insight comes quickly, the mind is still pulled by external things; “glaring fiercely and swelling with fighting spirit” means glaring and puffing up, bent solely on finding an opponent and insisting on victory. When other cocks crow yet one remains unchanged, the opponent challenges but one does not respond—one has forgotten winning and losing. When one finally looks like a wooden cock and other cocks dare not fight, one knows that a person whose virtue is complete not only has no contentious mind within but can also keep external things from developing contentious minds. This is the utmost of nurturing.

Commentary by Bixu: “Proud and vain, relying on bravado” is spirit and qi held high, boastful and self-aggrandizing; “still reacting to sound and shadow” is showing off and looking around left and right; “glaring fiercely and swelling with fighting spirit” is affected posture and outward display of brilliance; “though they crow, no change” is blending with the crowd and not showing off. Until one looks like a wooden cock and strange cocks dare not fight—that is mind like dead ashes and form like withered wood; nothing outside can contend with it anymore.

Yizhai says: Responding when there is sound and moving at the sight of a shadow show that the mind is still shifted by external things. “Glaring fiercely and swelling with fighting spirit” means spirit and qi are vigorous while the body stays still. Saying first “proud and vain, relying on” is qi exposed outward; saying here “glaring fiercely, swelling with spirit” is qi gathered inward. When one looks like a wooden cock, spirit and qi are finally complete. This teaches the art of guarding qi, merely using the cock as a metaphor.

“Proud and vain, relying on bravado” is rousing fighting spirit to seek an enemy; “still reacting to sound and shadow” is the mind chasing something and forgetting inner guarding; “glaring fiercely and swelling with fighting spirit” is inner qi full and issuing outward, still with a mind to surpass external things. When one looks like a wooden cock, inner fulfillment is round and the outer form sheds traces, standing transcendent beyond things; strange cocks dare not fight—those who look turn away instead. This shows that nurturing qi until spirit is whole, when spirit is whole, awe-inspiring virtue naturally appears. When one learns the Way until the body is like dead wood, qi and spirit need no deliberate nurturing yet are naturally complete—even ghosts and spirits revere one, how much more one’s kind? That ancients did not strive to win yet were good at winning lies in this. As for the phrase “the cock is ready”—on the literal surface it does not parse; compared with the Liezi original “the cock can fight now,” the Zhuangzi text likely has omissions.

Confucius was watching the waterfall at Lülü, a place anciently known for its plunging rapids. The suspended water fell thirty ren high; foam surged for forty li; even soft-shelled turtles, crocodilians, and fish and turtles could not swim there. He saw a man swimming in the water and thought the man must be in anguish and seeking death, so he sent a disciple downstream to rescue him. The man had swum several hundred paces before he came out of the water, hair streaming, singing as he walked, and rested below the embankment. Confucius went up to him and asked, “I took you at first for a ghost; looking closely, I see you are a man. May I ask whether there is a method to walking on water?” The man said, “No—I have no method at all. I begin from what is established, grow through my inborn disposition, and complete myself in fate. When I meet a whirlpool I sink with it; when I meet a surge I rise with it; I follow the water’s course and do not add my own private intent. That is why I can walk on water.” Confucius asked, “What do you mean by beginning in the established, growing in nature, and completing in fate?” He said, “I was born among hills and mounds and am at home in hills and mounds—that is the established; I grew up beside water and am at home in water—that is nature; I do not know why it is so, yet it is naturally so—that is fate.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: Water that spins and is drawn in is called “qi”; water that sinks down and then gushes up is called “gu.” Each person has a particular excellence; when one obtains it and puts it to use, nothing under heaven is difficult. To pass through the ceaseless generation of things with this attitude of no obstruction—where could one fail to get through?

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Following the principle of nature and life (xing and ming), sinking with the whirlpool and floating with the surge, going with the water without private intent—only thus can one walk on water. At a place where even soft-shelled turtles and crocodilians cannot swim, one has aligned with one’s virtuous nature and connected with where the myriad things arise; hence there is nowhere one cannot adapt. To be born among hills and mounds and be at home there is called “gu”—the established; the established is not from inborn nature but is what people form after birth. To grow up in water and be at home in water is called “xing”—nature; nature is the excellence one is specially endowed with. Without such nature, relying only on practice, even if one can do it, one cannot reach what others cannot reach.

Yi Du’s commentary: The man at Lülü who walked on water had the principle in him and did not mix in private intent; he was one who accorded with natural principle, and so he could enter the water together with the whirlpool. That was his special excellence; without such nature and learning only from others, even if one could manage it, one would not attain what ordinary people cannot attain.

Commentary by Yidu (Lin Zi, styled Yidu): The man of Lüliang could tread on water and walk through the dangerous rapids below because, though he had a method, he did not act from private intent—he simply followed the pattern of things. So he sank with the whirlpool and rose with the surge, and the water did not harm him. “At first there is reliance on something” means that in the beginning one has something to depend on; “growing through one’s nature” means that when one follows one’s inherent disposition, a state that completes itself naturally appears; “fulfillment through ming (destiny/fate)” means one no longer knows what one relies on or what one owes it to—at that point “naturalness” alone is not enough to explain it. Therefore he was at home on hills and at home in water, without knowing why.

Commentary by Bixu (Chen Jingyuan, styled Bixuzi): “Qi” is like being drawn in as the millstone hub spins; “mi” is water circling back and then surging out. If one goes against the current from private intent, neither xing (nature) nor ming can be fulfilled. Growing up among hills and being at home there is not losing the original suchness; growing up in water and entering it without danger is because this accords with xing. Being in the rapids without knowing why—thereby ming is fulfilled. Clearly, knowing the way to preserve life is like swimming at Lüliang: it is accomplished through long practice.

Yizhai (Lin Xiyi) says: This passage matches the earlier one about steering a boat. “Gu (that which one relies on)” is the suchness of things. Mencius said that speaking of xing is simply speaking of its suchness—meaning that xing and ming are originally the logic of the natural. “Following the water’s course without mixing in private intent” is compliance without opposition. Being at home on hills and at home in water are both following the natural, without knowing why. So the words xing and ming were never really separate; the text only divides them for literary effect.

The man of Lüliang treading water and singing—the subtlety lies in following water’s pattern without private intent, so water cannot harm him. If people in the world follow the way of being human without private intent, others will not harm them either. Extend this to dealing with the ten thousand things, and where could one not preserve oneself? “At first there is gu” means one grows through practice; “growing through xing” means long practice becomes second nature; “fulfillment through ming” means one and water forget each other—you do not know why, yet it is so—this is called obtaining preservation from the heaven-given. This chapter is precisely about not clashing with outer things and not being harmed while amid things. These words can serve as a standard for living in the world. The text also notes: The character read as “bing” had no other reading in older times; it should be read like “bang” (beside), in the departing tone.

Ziqing was a carpenter of Lu, named Qing. He carved wood into a yu (a percussion instrument that stops the music, also called yi, shaped like a crouching tiger with seventy-two tooth-like ridges on its back). When the yu was finished, viewers were astonished and thought it must be the work of spirits or gods. The Duke of Lu asked what art he possessed. Ziqing said: I am a craftsman and have no magic. I simply never allow my qi to be depleted when making a yu—I must first observe abstention so the mind can settle. Abstention means clearing the heart and reducing desires beforehand. After three days of abstention, I dare not think of rewards, rank, or salary; after five days, I dare not think of praise or blame, skill or clumsiness; after seven days, I suddenly forget my four limbs and body. Then the court vanishes from my mind, my craft stands alone, and outer disturbances all fall away. Only then do I enter the mountains and observe the innate character of the trees; when the form fits completely and the yu already seems present before my eyes, I take up the tools—otherwise I stop. This is matching my own naturalness to the wood’s naturalness. That the object was taken for divine work, I suppose, lies in this.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When you treat the court as if it were nothing, the mind that grasps and yearns is cut off. You must select material that is exactly right to use, not depart from its nature, and fully follow the subtle excellence of things—hence the suspicion of spirit-work.

Lu Huiqing’s commentary: If even a vessel can be doubted as divine craftsmanship when made this way, then one who has not yet cleared outer disturbance yet wishes to roam in the realm where the myriad things transform cannot reach that state.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Not depleting qi is inner emptiness, stillness, and single-mindedness. Not thinking of rewards, rank, and salary is forgetting advantage; not thinking of praise, blame, skill, and clumsiness is forgetting reputation; forgetting the four limbs and body means the spirit is whole and one with Heaven—hence treating the court as nothing and the outer affairs that disturb the heart also vanish. Then entering the mountains, one works only when the tree’s shape matches the yu, without forcing. Using one’s own naturalness to fit the thing’s naturalness—this is why the vessel was suspected to be divine work.

Chen Jingyuan, Master of Empty Azure, comments: When thought and calculation drive you, qi is depleted; without desire, the heart can be still. Not thinking of rewards, rank, and salary screens off outer affairs; not thinking of praise, blame, skill, and clumsiness stills inner thoughts; forgetting the body forgets inner and outer together. Then one enters the mountains, takes material from nature, and matches natural skill to it—hence refinement like that of spirits and gods, and the Duke of Lu’s suspicion that he had an art.

Yizhai (the style name of Lin Xiyì; the passage cites his commentary) says: A ju is the wooden base from which bells and drums are suspended—of the same kind as the crossbeams and uprights of a bell-and-chime frame—used to hang bells and drums, with the wood carved into the shape of a beast. The maker of the ju did not keep rank, stipend, or others’ praise and blame in mind. He went into the mountains and chose timber that was naturally fit for the purpose, letting his skill accord with nature, so the finished work was as marvelous as if made by spirits or ghosts—which is why the Lord of Lu suspected he had some other art besides ordinary craft.

Yizhai also says: Not dwelling on rank, stipend, and reputation, and forgetting one’s own body, means guarding the pure, unified qi (vital energy) so that outer things cannot enter the mind. Observing the innate character of the tree, seeing that the trunk already seemed a ready-made ju, and only then taking it for use—that is simply using one’s own nature to match the nature of the thing.

When qi is not wasted, spirit (shen) stays whole; and when one further stills the mind as in fasting and purification (calming the inner self and reducing desire to nourish the spirit), that is the way to nurture spirit and qi—so it shows in the actual making. When skill is single-minded, disturbance from outside is removed. Seeing that the wood’s nature already matched the shape of the ju, one then acts: little effort, much result—and the object therefore seems divine workmanship. Yet the subtlety of “matching the natural with the natural” cannot be fully put into words; only one who has fathomed the wondrous and penetrated change can grasp it. If a person is not moved by reward, rank, stipend, or praise and blame, then whatever they do, how could it fail to approach the marvelous?

Dong Ye Ji, skilled at driving, presented his art to Duke Zhuang. Going forward and back he matched a straight line; turning left and right he matched the compass. The duke thought even fine weaving could not surpass such skill and had him circle a hundred times and return. Yan He, passing by, went in and said, “Ji’s horses are about to break down.” The duke was silent and did not answer. Before long the horses indeed faltered and came back. The duke asked, “How did you know?” He replied, “The horses’ strength was already spent, yet they were still driven on—so they were bound to fail.”

Gong Chui could draw a circle freehand in a stroke and surpass compass and square; his fingers changed with the object without prior reckoning in the mind—so his spirit platform (lingtai, the seat of mind) was single and unbound. Forget the feet, and shoes are comfortable; forget the waist, and the belt is comfortable; let the mind forget right and wrong, and the heart is comfortable; when the inner self does not act rashly and the outer self does not follow blindly, one is comfortable in handling affairs. Starting from ease and never leaving ease—that is ease that has even forgotten “ease.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When a horse’s strength is already spent and one still drives it onward, failure follows. This shows that the most fitting limit must not be crossed. Even someone as dexterous as Gongshui the legendary craftsman must still follow the compass and square; the point is that when one accords with things as they are, the work is easily accomplished. When every part of the body is at ease, one forgets even the body itself. The distinction between right and wrong arises from not being adapted to what one meets. When one can accept whatever one encounters in peace, the mind neither shifts inwardly nor chases outwardly. From this we know that whoever still notices “ease” in the heart has not yet truly attained ease.

Lü Huìqīng’s commentary: Dongye Ji’s driving had reached the utmost skill, yet when the horse’s strength was exhausted he still failed. In cultivating the Way, if one forcibly tries to do what life by nature cannot do and what the mind cannot manage, one likewise cannot succeed by one’s own effort. The saying that Gongshui could turn his hand once and surpass compass and square means that he let his fingers move as they would, and the lines he drew matched compass and square without leaving a trace. Fingers and tool worked together so naturally that he need not first measure and examine in the mind; they already conformed to square and circle. Precisely because of this, his spirit platform (lingtai) was single-minded and unbound. As for forgetting the feet, forgetting the waist, and in the heart forgetting right and wrong—then ease is everywhere—this is precisely because one does not deliberately examine with the mind.

Lín Yídú’s commentary: Ji drove in accord with rule, like weaving brocade patterns; he made the chariot loop like a hook, coming and going a hundred times yet returning to the original track. Han Ying the Han scholar said: Shun the ancient sage was good at employing people; Zaofu the ancient master driver was good at employing horses. Do not drive the people to their limit, and there will be no people in flight; do not drive horses to their limit, and there will be no horses straying from the herd. A horse stumbles and falls because driving exceeds the proper measure; the people’s wit is drained because government and teaching are finicky and intrusive. Therefore one who penetrates Heaven’s mandate does not force what the mind cannot help. Gongshui responded to outer things without obstruction and his nature was not mixed—this was fingers and objects changing together. With no lingering examination in the mind, the spirit was single and unrestrained. Forgetting feet and waist is still a secondary matter; when the heart forgets right and wrong, the root is already forgotten—how much more so those secondary matters. Inner and outer depend on oneself alone; whatever one meets is always thus. From ease to lasting ease—that is the ease of forgetting ease. Gongshui’s marvel works by this principle too.

Yizhai's explanation: The art of driving a chariot is like weaving silk into patterns. What is meant by "pattern must not exceed" (wen fu guo) is that the reins in the hand are like weaving a warp; "hooking a hundred" (gou bai) means driving in a circle, turning round and round a hundred times. When the horse's strength is already spent and one still will not stop urging it on, however clever the driving, failure is inevitable. If a person relies only on his own prowess, how can he not overtax his spirit?

Gongshu (the legendary craftsman of antiquity) spun a circle with his hand so that it was round as a lid, naturally matching compass and square—as when Wu Daozi painted the halo around a Buddha figure in a single stroke. Finger and object change together, just as Huang Tingjian (Shangu) spoke of calligraphy: the hand no longer feels there is a brush, the brush no longer feels there is a hand; hand and brush both forgotten, with no deliberate intent. This is when the senses' awareness stops and spirit moves of itself. Then mind is pure and undivided, unhindered—that is ease (shi). "Fang" (guarding) is like "zao" (making): when cultivation reaches ease, the inner mind is pure and unchanging; even when touching outer things, one does not feel one is doing something. Starting from ease and remaining at ease throughout, in time even "ease" is forgotten.

The Book of Poetry says, "Hold the reins like weaving a warp; the two outer horses step like a dance"—which confirms "pattern must not exceed." Weaving a warp gathers the threads on this side while the pattern shows on that side; likewise, a skilled driver holds the reins above and the horses below naturally fall into step. "Hooking a hundred" is driving in circles without stopping, hence one knows failure is certain. When strength is gone and one still forces the issue, not only the horse breaks down—the person is worn out too. The ruler kept silent and did not speak, fearing to crush the other's resolve; in a moment things proved as he foresaw. Though this shows foresight, it does nothing for danger already at hand. People in the world who hear loyal counsel yet cannot act on it err in the same way.

Gongshu spun a circle that matched compass and square. Among the various commentators, Master Lü's reading fits best; his treatment of the word "gai" (lid) is especially sound. Yizhai's gloss on "gai" is wordy, but what follows is keen. Taking both together makes the account complete. The meaning of the classic is simply this: one who has penetrated life has a mind in communion with the myriad principles; outer things naturally accord—it is not a matter of deliberately seeking accord with things. Therefore skill is refined and effort deep; moving at ease through the world without unease—that is ease in which ease itself is forgotten. If a person meets nothing in outer things with resistance, then wherever he goes, nothing is not ease.

A man named Sun Xiu came to visit Bi Qingzi, a person of the Way, and in astonishment poured out his grievance: “I live in my village, and no one says my conduct is corrupt; when I face danger, no one says I lack courage. Yet when I farm, the years are bad; when I serve my lord, the times are wrong. I am kept at a distance in the community and driven out in the district. Have I somehow offended Heaven? How did I come to this fate?”

Bi Qingzi said: “Have you never heard how the Perfected Person (Zhiren)—one who has reached the utmost in cultivation—stands in life? They forget the liver and gall within the body, discard what the ears and eyes perceive, wander lost beyond the dust of the world, and roam free in the domain of Wuwei (non-action). That is acting without leaning on one’s own merit, nurturing the ten thousand things without lording over them. Now you parade cleverness to startle the foolish, polish yourself to show others up as foul, and shine as if you were carrying sun and moon when you walk. That you still keep your body whole, all nine openings intact, without mid-course ruin—deaf, blind, or lame—and still count among ordinary people is already good fortune. What room is there to blame Heaven? Be on your way.”

Sun Xiu withdrew. Bi Qingzi went inside, sat a while, then sighed toward heaven. A disciple asked: “Master, why do you sigh?” Bi Qingzi said: “Sun Xiu just came. I told him the virtue of the Perfected Person. I fear it alarmed him and only deepened his confusion.” The disciple said: “That may not be so. If Sun Xiu was right and you were wrong, what is wrong cannot confuse what is right. If Sun Xiu was wrong and you were right, he came already confused—where is the fault in that?”

Bi Qingzi said: “It is not like that. Once a bird alighted in the outskirts of Lu. The lord of Lu was fond of it, set out a Ta lai feast (the full sacrifice of ox, sheep, and pig), and had the Jiushao music (the elegant music attributed to the sage-king Shun) performed for its delight. The bird was anxious and sad, its gaze dim; it dared not eat or drink. That is nourishing a bird the way you nourish a person. If you nourish a bird as a bird should be nourished, let it roost in deep forest, float on rivers and lakes, feed it what its nature prefers, and leave it at ease on level ground—that is enough. Sun Xiu is narrow in view and short on hearing. I told him the De (virtue/power) of the Perfected Person—like hauling a tiny mouse in a carriage and entertaining a little quail with bells and drums. How could he not be terrified?”

Guo Xiang’s commentary holds that whatever does not spring from true nature is mere grime; whatever one does by following oneself belongs to the business of non-purposive action. Acting as the heart moves, without leaning on something else on purpose; letting growth be, without ruling it so it grows—the way of nourishing people and the way of nourishing birds each suit their object; both are letting fate settle as it will. In that lies completion.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: The way of guarding and sustaining taught in this chapter lies in preserving life and, beyond that, in making the spirit whole and restoring essence until one merges with Heaven as one. Sun Xiu’s conduct is the opposite. After hearing this teaching he cannot help but worry and panic; his sight grows dim and he dares not eat—hence the closing analogy of the sea bird.

Lin Yidu’s commentary: Bian Qingzi was Sun Xiu’s teacher. Sun Xiu felt that in his home place no one denied he cultivated virtue, and in hardship no one denied he was brave—yet his farming never met a good year, his service never met an ordered age; in the village he was shunned, in the district driven away. He did not see what fault was his, yet bore this lot. His teacher said: Have you not heard how the Perfect Person (zhiren)—one whose virtue has reached its utmost—acts on his own? Forgetting liver and gall, the five viscera become empty and clear, without clinging; casting off ears and eyes, the six dusts (the six sense fields: form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and mental objects—the outer world) cannot enter. Thus one may linger outside the dust of the world and wander freely in non-action (wuwei). The True Lord’s (zhenjun) doing comes from non-action, so though one acts, one does not take credit; the True Host’s (zhenzai) standing as chief comes from never having meant to be chief, so though one leads, one does not control. Now you polish body, mind, and cleverness and show yourself in the world—harm is what you have earned. To keep the body whole and not die before one’s time still places you among ordinary people; you are already fortunate. Where is there room to blame Heaven or resent others? Fearing Sun Xiu still would not understand and would be alarmed, he offered the sea bird: if a sea bird is kept in a way that does not fit its nature, it grows sorrowful and dizzy and dares not eat. Those skilled at nurturing life need only follow what suits each one’s allotted nature—and that is enough.

Bixuzi (Chen Jingyuan)’s commentary: Sun Xiu thought his person was cultivated and his will brave, yet what he met went against him—he did not know Heaven’s mandate and fretted in vain. The Perfect Person’s conduct is not meant to be known by others; if liver and gall are forgotten, how much more joy and anger; if ears and eyes are cast off, how much more seeing and hearing. Polishing courage and being rejected and driven off are all grime; the Perfect Person forgets completely and that is wholly “no business.” Now Sun Xiu wants to act yet leans on his achievements, wants rank yet lords it over others—seeking to be seen, boasting in self-importance, hoping only by luck to escape harm—at best he is one whose bodily form happens to remain intact. What Sun Xiu sought is what the art of nurturing life has no use for; so Master Bian answered that “wisdom and effort are powerless”—fate is not something knowledge and strength can alter. From this we know: sound too loud, music too lofty—lane and market folk who hear it are bound to be baffled; how could he not be terrified?

Yi Zhuan said: Bin (guest) and bin (to reject) share the same sound—meaning to cast off or drive away. “Displaying filth to startle the fool” means Sun Xiu deliberately set himself apart from others and showed off how unusual he was. Kuan qi is like a tiny aperture— a metaphor for how narrow his vision was. When words are pitched too high, how could he not be alarmed? This satirizes scholars of the time whose sight was shallow and who had not yet grasped the Great Dao. “Feed it with winding ease” means letting the bird find food according to its own nature. The parable of raising a bird by a bird’s ways was already explained in the previous chapter.

When one is content with Heaven’s lot and knows one’s mandate, there is no grief; when one exhausts principle and fully realizes one’s nature, what is left to doubt? What Sun Xiu said stood very far from the logic of mandate and nature. So the Master of the Flat told him how a perfected person acts: forget liver and gall—then the inner self is empty and still; leave ears and eyes behind—then the outer self is at peace; and only then roam free beyond the dust of the world. Every deliberate, contrived deed in human affairs is dust; if you can leave that behind, then walking, standing, sitting, and lying down are all the business of doing nothing—meaning the body has risen above the world. What achievement is worth leaning on? What lord is worth clutching? Now you polish cleverness and adorn yourself until you shine like sun and moon—and instead you draw worldly disaster. To keep your form intact and not die halfway is already good fortune; where is the spare energy to blame Heaven? This was meant to shock him out of delusion and turn him back. The parable of the sea bird is already plain in meaning.

The opening says that life is what people value most, yet some who care for it too zealously end up harming it. Life belongs to Heaven and must not be resisted; others ruin Heaven’s mandate through deliberate artifice. Whoever understands both points can preserve life and rest in Heaven’s mandate—this is the way of “deep roots and a firm foundation, long life and enduring vision”: only when roots go deep and the base is solid can one live long and keep the spirit from fading.

Therefore whatever lies beyond life’s power, whatever fate makes unavoidable, should be kept at a distance—knowing it is not what one should pursue. Yet people also have an innate wholeness that cannot be set aside for an instant. Consider a drunk with a carriage, or someone bent on revenge facing Moye or Ganjiang (celebrated ancient swords): where in the mind is there room for deliberate calculation?

Catching cicadas on a pole and handling a boat show that long practice alone reaches marvelous skill. Herding sheep and walking dangerous paths turn on driving the laggards and guarding against peril. The parable of advising a pig mocks those who grasp at rank as no great wisdom; the tale of seeing ghosts shows that those who cannot guard against the illusory are often most deluded. Later analogies multiply, all to spell out what “understanding life” must watch for—earnest and apt.

What life may nourish has its proper measure: it is not gained by demanding it or lost by refusing to ask. Hardship sometimes comes unlooked-for; it is not escaped by luck, nor avoided by cleverness. One should only do one’s part and follow Heaven’s pattern, seeking a clear conscience within. Long life, early death, blessing, and disaster need not be chased.

Whether one cultivates quietly in mountain valleys or serves in court, nurturing the inner self and ordering others abroad is still completing human relations and reviving teaching—all converging on the way of virtue. Yet how many truly know life’s worth and stay alert in the nearest matters of pillow, mat, food, and drink? One must appear like the wooden cock (the fighting cock trained to no combat, stiff as wood—a image of complete inner poise), drive without exhausting strength—then one understands the principle of nurturing life and comes near the conduct of the perfected person (one who has reached the highest cultivation).

The piece ends with the bird outside Lu that grieves at drum and bell: when outward support no longer suits it, inner nature is injured. To know how to nourish is to know how to preserve. What matters is first to understand one’s own life, then extend benefit to the lives of all things and be at ease with them as they are; forget even “being at ease,” and there is no place that is not ease.

Zhuangzi was walking in the mountains when he saw a large tree with lush foliage. Woodcutters had stopped beside it but did not cut it down. When he asked why, they said it was good for nothing. Zhuangzi said: Because this tree is not “timber,” it has been able to live out its full span granted by nature.

When Zhuangzi left the mountains, he stayed at an old friend’s home. The friend was delighted and told his boy to kill a goose to cook. The boy asked: One honks and one does not—which should I kill? The master said: Kill the one that does not honk.

The next day a disciple asked Zhuangzi: Yesterday the tree in the mountains lived out its natural years because it was not timber; today the master’s goose died for not being “useful.” How will you, Master, position yourself?

Zhuangzi smiled and said: Zhuang Zhou intends to place himself between being timber and not being timber. To stand between timber and not timber looks like a middle way, but in fact it is not truly so; one still cannot escape entanglement. As for floating and wandering in accord with Dao and De—that is not like this. There is neither praise nor blame; at one moment like a dragon, at another like a snake, changing with the times and refusing to cling to a single fixed course; rising or falling, taking harmony as one’s measure, floating and wandering in the origin of the myriad things. To preside over the myriad things without being presided over by them—how could one then be dragged into trouble? This is the method of Shennong and the Yellow Emperor. As for the real circumstances of the myriad things and the transmission of human relations, it is not so: where there is gathering there is separation, where there is completion there is ruin; integrity and uprightness meet with setbacks, high rank invites talk; acting brings loss, worth invites plotting, unworthiness brings failure. How can one insist that things must turn out a certain way? Alas! Disciples, remember: only the homeland of Dao and De is the place to return.

Guo’s commentary (Guo Xiang, Zhuangzi Commentary) says: This merely imagines placing oneself between being material and not being material; precisely because one still cannot escape entanglement, in the end one does not truly remain there. As for floating and wandering in accord with Dao and De, Zhuangzi truly takes his stand in that. Events cannot be fixed as inevitable, so one cannot meet them with only one response. Only one who changes together with the times can pass through every change and remain unobstructed throughout.

Lü Huiqing (a Song-dynasty scholar who commented on the Zhuangzi) wrote: Sages and worthies are not accepted by the world, and calamity often arises precisely from having talent. That is why Zhuangzi returns to the theme again and again, deeply warning that talent can become a burden. Yet among the dull and unworthy, many are also killed for failing to cry out—so being “useless timber” is no guarantee of escape. The tree in the hills is spared because it is good for nothing, while the master’s goose that cannot honk is slaughtered; one gains, one loses, yet in essence it is the same. Hence the wish to stand between “having talent” and “having none”—but that still only resembles the Dao; it is not the Dao itself. As the root of things, the Dao neither rests in either extreme nor in the middle; therefore to halt between talent and no talent still cannot free one from entanglement. If one can ride the Dao and De and drift freely, there is neither praise nor blame, and neither noble nor base can measure one; one may appear like a dragon or hide like a serpent, and neither sage nor ordinary can be fixed by such labels. Following waxing and waning, fullness and emptiness, changing with the times—now rising, now sinking—in harmony without going against the flow, how could one still be bound to the space between talent and no talent? One merely drifts with things at the source of the myriad beings. That source is what is called the “father of fathers”—the common root of all things. Then one can meet the myriad beings without being enslaved by them; how could one still be dragged down? The real state of the myriad beings and the transmission of human relations: where there is union there is separation, where there is completion there is ruin; excessive uprightness meets injury, high rank invites censure. Then how can relying on the middle between talent and no talent be sure to remove entanglement? If one wishes to be free of burden, there is nothing but to turn toward the homeland of Dao and De.

Lin Yidu (Song-dynasty commentator) held that once the principles of the world are set in motion, they release like a crossbow trigger: one can only ride the momentum and go with the flow, not force control by human effort. When the world’s timing passes, it is like an arrow in flight: one can only move with it, not seize and hold it. Thus the tree that survived yesterday did so because it was useless timber; today the goose was killed because it lacked ability—it could not call. Usefulness and uselessness have no fixed fortune or misfortune. Therefore the sage accords with the moment and follows principle, turning with the ten thousand things without clinging to any one of them, changing with the age without being bound by convention. At times he rises like a dragon, at times he coils like a serpent; his transformations have no fixed pattern, so others can neither praise nor slander him. He shifts with the times, taking harmony as his measure, roaming at the root source of the ten thousand things. Though he can respond to all things, he is not enslaved by them, and so he can meet endless change. This is precisely the rule that ancient kings valued. As for the real state of things and the continuation of human relations, parting and joining, success and ruin are inevitable—how can one insist that things must turn out a certain way? To shake off such entanglements, one has only to turn toward the realm of Dao and De (the Way and Virtue).

Chen Jingyuan (Daoist scholar, styled Master Bixu) held that the goose could not live because it lacked outward expression (it could not call); the tree could grow into a great trunk and branches because it kept inner substance. The perfected person hides his essence and blends his appearance, and so can move in the world without standing apart in isolation; his De (Virtue/Power) is renewed day by day. “Floating and roaming” means leaving no trace. Neither seeking praise nor fearing blame, he can gather himself like a tied pouch; like dragon and serpent, he can show or hide. Changing with the time, he fits what the age requires; not fixed on a single course of action, he can ascend or descend. Taking harmony as his measure, every move follows principle. Roaming at the root source of the ten thousand things means not chasing the twigs and leaves, so worldly burdens cannot disturb the way of utmost antiquity. As for how things really are: the capable are plotted against, as fine timber is cut down; the unworthy are bullied, as the goose that cannot call is slaughtered. The realm of Dao and De lies in not treating outcomes as necessary and in leaving no trace.

Yizhai (Lin Xiyi's pen name) says: Whether one has talent or not, as long as one still leaves traces, one cannot avoid being burdened. One must reach the point where good and evil vanish together and can no longer be named—that is preserving one's true nature. "Riding the Dao and De" means following nature. "One dragon, one snake" is a metaphor for being employed or discarded, changing with the circumstances. With no fixed preconceptions in the heart, there is neither praise nor blame; clinging to one way of acting is having a contrived mind. Whether ascending or descending, advancing or retreating, all take accord with nature as the measure; being above or below is equally acceptable. "Zu" (ancestor) means the primordial beginning. The feelings of things are each their private feelings; what passes through human generations is habituation. The following lines portray human sentiment very thoroughly. One does not master how one moves through the world—how can one fix what must happen? This laments the impermanence of human affairs and the dread of hidden calamity, hence the instruction to disciples: only by following nature can one avoid disaster.

To become a sage or saint, none achieves it without learning; yet those who could learn to be sages often cling to outward traces and instead create harm. Only when the inner self truly gains something while forgetting traces is there no harm. Trees in the mountains survive because they are not useful timber; geese that do not honk are killed because they are useless—these are visible phenomena. Whether they live or die is not only about being useful or useless—it also depends on what each encounters. So the zhenren (perfected person, one who embodies the Dao) intends to stand between useful and useless, yet still feels unable to escape burden; wishing to break free, they simply do not yet know what encounter awaits. Whether one can succeed depends on talent; what one meets depends on fate. If talent belongs to the human realm and fate to Heaven, one splits the two into utterly unrelated paths. In fact talent also comes from Heaven and is fulfilled by the human; preserving fate rests on the human yet is linked to Heaven. Encounter is precisely the trace where Heaven and human interact, and beauty and ugliness appear thereby. Thus to stop between useful and useless is still the business of the worthy; to transcend useful, useless, and the in-between—to no longer be burdened—is to enter the ground of sagehood. Therefore one must roam the mind in the primordial beginning of things, treat things as things without being ruled by things; then talent cannot enslave oneself and fate cannot bind oneself. Hence sages do not prize talent and rarely discuss fate.

In the classic text, the character xiang had no other reading in older times; here it is read in the departing tone, the same as xiang meaning "toward."

Shinan Yiliao (a man of Chu, surname Xiong, given name Yiliao, who lived in Shinan) paid a visit to the Marquis of Lu (ruler of Lu), who wore a troubled expression. Shinanzi asked: "Why do you look troubled?" The Marquis said: "I study the Dao of the Former Kings (ancient sage-kings) and carry on the enterprise of the Former Lords (past rulers)."

Shinan Yiliao, a worthy man from Shinan in the state of Chu, called on the Duke of Lu. Seeing the duke’s troubled face, he asked, “Why are you worried?”

The duke said, “I study the principles of the former kings, carry on my predecessors’ work, revere spirits and honor the worthy, and practice all of this myself without ever letting up for a moment—yet I still cannot escape misfortune. That is why I am troubled.”

Shinan Yiliao said, “Your way of warding off misfortune is too shallow. The sleek fox and the spotted leopard live in mountain forests and rocky caves—that is quiet; they come out at night and hide by day—that is caution; even when hungry and thirsty they go far to rivers and lakes to find food—that is prudence. Yet they still fall into nets and traps. What crime have they committed? It is the pelts on their backs that bring disaster. The state of Lu today is precisely that ‘pelt’ of yours. I wish you would strip away outward form and cast off that skin, cleanse your inner heart and drop desire, and wander in desolate wilds where no one lives.

“In southern Yue there is a settlement called the Land of Established Virtue. Its people are simple and plain, with little selfishness and few desires; they know how to work but not how to hoard; they give to others without asking return; they do not know where righteousness should lead or how rites ought to be performed. They follow their innate nature in acting, and in doing so they tread the great Dao. While alive they live at ease; when dead they can be buried. I wish you would leave your throne, abandon worldly affairs, and walk on together with the Dao.”

The duke said, “That road is far and dangerous, and there are rivers, mountains, and ridges—I have no boat or carriage. What am I to do?”

Shinan Yiliao said, “Do not be arrogant in manner, and do not linger and hold back—let that be your carriage.”

The duke said again, “That road is deep, remote, and far, with no human habitation—whom shall I have as companion? I have no provisions—how can I get there?”

Shinan Yiliao said, “Cut your spending and restrain your desires—even without provisions you will have enough. You cross rivers and drift out toward the sea; looking ahead you cannot see the shore; the farther you go, the less you know where the end is. Those who see you off all turn back from the bank, and from then on you are far away.

“So one who employs others has encumbrances; one who is employed by others has worry. Yao neither employed others nor was employed by others. I wish to remove your encumbrances and worry and wander with the Dao alone in vast emptiness and nothingness.

“When boats are tied together to cross a river, if an empty boat bumps yours, even a narrow-minded person will not grow angry; if there is someone in the boat, people shout for him to steer aside or fall back—if the first call gets no answer and the second gets none either, the third will surely carry curses. Before there was no anger and now there is anger because before the boat was empty and now there is someone in it. If a person can empty himself and move through the world in that way, who could harm him?”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: If a person clings to their own body and also prides themselves on their state, even though they worry greatly and honor the worthy and value virtue (De), their troubles only deepen. Therefore he is told to forget self and state, let things transform on their own, and entrust his mind to Southern Yue (far from the Central Plains). The scripture continues: what once did not anger now angers, and harsh words follow; what was once empty has now become solid. If one can set aside the self and meet the world with an emptied heart, who can harm him?

Guo Xiang explains further: Entrusting the mind to Southern Yue means taking a place very far from Lu. If each person acts according to their native endowment and each walks the path they should walk, the four directions can all find their place—is that not vast? “Leaving the state and casting off custom” means clearing worldly thoughts from the chest; the Lord of Lu, however, took it to mean he must actually migrate to Southern Yue. “Form stiff and staying put” means the body is rigid and obstructive, “remaining fixed” means stagnating without advance. When form and outer things are level with each other and the mind follows outer things as they change, that is entrusting the self to things and traveling by borrowing things. When the ruler reduces expenditure and thins desire, nothing is lacking. Crossing rivers and drifting on the sea without seeing shore illustrates how far one must go to leave behind desire and emotion. When the ruler has no greed, the multitude each return to keep their proper places; he goes far from there—that is standing transcendent above the ten thousand things. “Having people” means treating people as private property; “being seen to have people by others” means being enslaved by others. Entrusting the realm to the hundred officials is not personally possessing the people; complying with the people and employing things without enslaving oneself is not being possessed by others. This is asking one to drop entirely the mind that “owns the state.” Though the times change, using self-emptying to escape harm—the principle is the same.

Lü Huiqing’s note aligns with the end of the preceding paragraph: To treat people as one’s own is private appropriation; to be possessed by others is to be enslaved. Entrusting the realm to the hundred officials is not possessing people; complying with the people and employing things without enslaving oneself is not being possessed by others. To make one have no mind whatsoever of taking the state as one’s own—then though the age changes, using self-emptying to avoid harm remains one and the same principle throughout.

According to Lü Huiqing’s commentary, comparing Lu to “skin” (something external that invites calamity) means that trouble arises when one cannot forget one’s own state. If one does not cast off the bodily form, the state becomes a burden—hence “gouxing” (cutting away the form) to strip off that skin. If the inner mind is not pure, desire stains it—hence “xixin” (washing the heart) to remove desire. Leaving human affairs and entering what is natural is “wandering in the trackless wilds.” The “Land of Established Virtue” (Jian de zhi guo) is where the Dao is truly established.

Its people are simple and dull, with few desires—not because culture and teaching are lacking. They know work but not hoarding; when things come, they use them to meet need. They give to others without seeking return—this is benevolence, yet they do not treat it as favor. Not knowing where righteousness should apply, they do not fuss over social exchange; not knowing what ritual is meant to express, they act freely and yet step into the Great Square (the Great Dao). Alive, they can be at ease; dead, they can be buried—throughout life’s course they do not abandon this. Such is the Land of Established Virtue. The reason people cannot go and wander there is only that they are bound by state and custom. Cast off the state, discard convention, turn and move with the Dao—without strain one can arrive.

The Dao is originally near and level; people take it as far and perilous because the body is proud and will not yield, and they stall and do not advance. Taking non-arrogance and non-stagnation as one’s carriage, and sparing expenditure and few desires as provisions—why worry about not arriving? When one cannot see the bank, one makes an endless voyage. Those who see one off return at the cliff’s edge; those stuck in place, afraid of depth, dare not go further. The ruler stands alone—none can follow. If one wanders here, one neither possesses others nor is enslaved by them. That Yao is Yao is nothing more than this. “Great Vastness” (Da mo) and “Established Virtue” are what the previous chapter called the ancestor of the ten thousand things and the homeland of Dao and De.

Next comes the parable of the empty boat that collides with another yet provokes no anger—because with no one in the boat, there is no one to blame: those who formerly drifted on the Dao, dwelling in the world, were no different.

On one authoritative reading, Southern Yue is a realm of light—the very place where Jian De, the sage’s kingdom the scripture fictively names, is located. Its people are plain and unassuming, with little desire, and skilled at tending the inner life. They toil without hoarding for themselves and give without demanding return: that is great Ren (benevolence). They do not deliberately reckon where yi (righteousness) ought to apply: that is genuine yi. They do not rigidly prescribe how li (ritual propriety) must be done: that is li at its height. Ren, yi, and li all arise naturally from within, so that even when they act freely and without constraint, their steps still follow the Great Dao. While alive they rest content in life; when they die they rest content in death. Casting off the body’s burdens and the heart’s cunning, and roaming a wilderness without vulgar crowds, means drawing spirit and De inward to converge and thereby unite with Heaven. Leaving one’s state, abandoning the mundane world, and traveling with the Dao toward the land of Jian De means letting the Dao shine outward and thereby unite with others.

The Duke of Lu took this as if he were truly being sent to Southern Yue and feared the long, dangerous road—not seeing that the land of Jian De exists only in his own heart, and that by preserving spirit and forgetting the body he need not travel far to arrive. His fear of going hungry on the way shows an inability to forget external things: clinging to the letter and fixating on outward realms. Shinanzi, who admonished the Duke, was urging him to seek within his own nature—cut waste, use sparingly, and limit desires to nourish the heart—so that even without provisions he would naturally be supplied. The river stands for De and the sea for Dao; not seeing the far shore means being entirely within the realm of appearances; not knowing where the end lies means yielding to transformation. Then those who escort one home turn back of themselves from the margin of that realm—meaning that truly reaching the Dao is beyond what ordinary people can manage.

Those who are exalted and possess others become burdened; those who enjoy favor and cling to others grow anxious. Treat favor and rank as low and unreliable, and burden and worry fall away. That is the counsel that the Duke should shed encumbrance and forget anxiety and roam with the Dao in the country of great emptiness (Damoguo). The empty boat illustrates the absence of a private mind: strike it and there is no anger. Put someone on the boat and the mind faces outward things, and those things come to disturb. Treat the ten thousand things with no-mind (wuxin), and who can harm you?

Bi Xuzi (Green Void Master, Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan) explains: Strip away the ornament of outward form, and the superficial layer of “fur and hide” falls away; cleanse the inner heart, and fond cravings are dispelled. To discipline yourself in this way is to wander in the “land without people”—a place free of worldly entanglements. Leave behind this side’s cult of worthies and take up that side’s cultivation of virtue, and you have the “country of established virtue,” a realm founded on cultivating De. Plainness keeps private motives small; simplicity keeps desires few. Knowing where righteousness should go, one hides clever contrivance; knowing where ritual should be sent, one responds in kind. Without unfettered ease, how could one roam beyond the civilized square? Without following one’s true nature, how could one tread the Great Dao? Alive, one can be at ease; dead, one can be laid to rest—always dwelling within it without leaving. The text hopes the ruler will cast off superfluous branches and walk alongside the subtle, wondrous Way. Worry that there is no boat or carriage means one is not yet “suspended and released” from the bonds of birth and death; worry that the road is long and provisions scarce means clinging and leaning outward are not yet cut off. With little expenditure and few desires, one needs no dry rations yet is full—like a quail roosting wherever it may and nestlings fed only what comes to them. Crossing rivers and floating on the sea until no shore is in sight is to be cut off from dust and vulgarity, without fixation. Turning back from the cliff is to say that those of small strength go no farther; “My lord, from here you are far indeed” means sight and hearing no longer reach. Yao did not treat people as private possessions, so he could forget the affairs of Fen River’s bank; nor was he possessed by others—yet the Dao moves in daily life while people do not notice. When I forget others, I have no encumbrance; when others forget me, they have no worry—thus alone with the Dao one wanders in the country of Great Mo. Great Mo names creation and transformation itself. The empty boat that strikes is a figure for meeting things with no fixed self. At first there was no anger, because there was no one there; now there is anger, because a person is perceived. People do not rage at an empty boat—so it is clear that when one empties oneself, outer things cannot harm.

Yizhai (Southern Song Lin Xiyi) says: Being dragged down by “fur and hide” means that once one has a name in the world, trouble can follow. The earlier “land without people” is the origin before any thing is born; here the “country of established virtue” appears again. Reading this passage, later generations’ veneration of the Pure Land takes its source from here. In Warring States times the far south was not yet linked with the central plains—the names are borrowed for teaching, with no separate literal geography. Tilling and eating one’s own food, with no private hoard, and as yet no names for ritual and righteousness—hence nowhere to go, nowhere to send farewells. Moving as the heart moves, all accords with the Great Dao. With hearts set on the Way, they encourage one another, wishing to reach this country. Not putting on a stiff, reserved bearing is not treating the body as one’s private property; not lingering in one place is not treating the realm as one’s private possession. Then one may go. Crossing rivers and floating on the sea until the end is unknown is nothing but the few words “wandering in the infinite.” Those who see one off all return from the cliff; “My lord, from here you go far” means that after the learner of the Way awakens, the supports that first helped awakening are like seeing someone off and putting them aboard—at the sea cliff everyone turns back. It is like seeing sword-dance and thereby mastering cursive script: at first the sword is the entry; once there is awakening, the sword becomes the one who sees you off; reading the classics is the same kind of escort. The country of Great Mo is the land without people and the country of established virtue. The empty boat that bumps the boat yet provokes no anger—this simile is the finest.

Foxes and leopards hide in mountains and wilds, live frugally, and often go hungry, yet they still cannot escape disaster—simply because their fur and pelts bring calamity upon them. The throne of Lu today is no different from patterned fur inviting trouble. If one can truly gou xing (lay aside attachment to outward form and status), the outer skin naturally falls away; if one sa xin (wash the inner heart), desire within naturally vanishes. To stand aloof from the world is to wander in the trackless wilds (wu ren zhi ye—a vastness without the entanglements of ordinary people).

Having said this, fearing the Marquis of Lu would find it too remote and groundless, the text sets up the Land of Established Virtue (jian de zhi guo—an imagined realm where virtue is already complete) to guide him. There people only work and do not hoard; what they have at hand is enough. They give without expecting return and bestow without treating it as favor. How would they reckon where yi (right conduct) should go or how li (ritual propriety) should be done? Thus they act as they will yet never leave the great Dao. “Life is worth welcoming, death is worth burying” means being at peace with living and with dying. To leave the state and cast off custom is to shed every burden; to keep company with the Dao is to return to wuwei (non-action). Such a person can reach the Land of Established Virtue.

The Marquis of Lu still did not understand and worried the road was long and he had no boat or carriage. He was told: as long as you do not take pride in being lord and do not cling to the throne, taking that frame of mind as your carriage, you can go. He still feared the place was remote, with no neighbors and no grain—how could he arrive? As a rule, those stuck on outer things and fixed in “having” all dread falling into emptiness; the fault is usually just this. So he was told again: spend little, desire little—without grain you already have enough. Drift upon the great sea of virtue (de), boundless, shoreless, without end.

Those who “see you off” stand for rank and cravings that daily follow you and feel familiar. Once you cast them off and wander in the infinite, what once followed can only stop at the cliff’s edge and go no further—day by day they grow more distant.

Whoever clings to “there being people” and also clings to “being seen as possessing something” cannot escape worry and drag. Only one as open as Yao (the ancient sage praised in tradition), with no fame to his name, can be free of calamity. The lord is urged to drop burdens, cast off grief, and wander alone with the Dao in the Great Land of Non-Being (da mo zhi guo). “Mo” means “nothing” or “non-being.” From the trackless wilds one advances to the Land of Established Virtue; at da mo even “de” is forgotten—this is the “Land of Nothing Whatever” (wu he you zhi xiang) spoken of in “Xiaoyao You” (Free and Easy Wandering).

The point of the “empty boat strikes a boat” (xu chuan chu zhou) has already been explained earlier. Older editions punctuated after “ju,” with most commentaries following that break; the punctuation is now placed after “li,” with “ju” beginning the next sentence.

Bei Gong She was collecting contributions from the people on behalf of Duke Ling of Wei to cast a set of bells. He built a platform and worked outside the outer city gate; within three months the upper and lower tiers of bells were cast and hung. Prince Qing Ji saw this and asked him: “What method did you use?”

Bei Gong She said: “I simply held to ‘the One’—a single-mindedness without artificial contrivance—and dared not set up any further method within that. I have heard that after carving and polishing, one must return to plain simplicity. I was dim and unaware, as if without scheming; vague and hesitant, I did not dare to hurry. In the midst of confusion and blur I saw off those who left and welcomed those who came. Those who came I did not block; those who went I did not hold back. The overbearing I let be overbearing; those who bent and went along I let go with them, following each person until they reached their own limit. So though collections were made morning and evening, the people did not lose so much as a hair. How much more so is there the broad great Way in the world!”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: He merely held calmly to the One and dared not add another method to complicate matters—nothing beyond returning to one’s nature and trusting plain simplicity. With no fixed direction or preference, he allowed people to come and go, yielding to the multitude without tying them down, using only what had to be done; hence there was no harm. Serene and without clinging, he let everyone under heaven complete themselves—this is the path of great penetration. Therefore in managing this affair, it was accomplished in no long time.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: If one sets up methods within it, that is no longer what is called “the One.” Carving and polishing and then returning to plain simplicity means stripping ornament and holding to what is real. Dim unawareness is not knowing who one is or what one is calculating; vagueness and hesitation is not daring to be quick. Seeing off and welcoming, neither blocking nor stopping—the overbearing are not suppressed, the compliant are not obstructed—all because of what the other party cannot avoid on their own. So morning and evening collections did not break a single hair, simply because nothing else was set up within the One. How much more so—among the principles of the world there is an even wider great road! The cook Ding who could move freely in the gaps between joints—that is exactly this principle.

Yidu (a Song-dynasty commentator on the Zhuangzi) said: The bell’s hollow belly responds readily to sound—this images the human heart-mind. Levying goods to cast the bell images gathering and storing spirit to cultivate the inner self. First one builds an altar and offers sacrifice to the bell, and only then puts it to use—this images first completing the substance of the heart, then letting its function unfold. Three months mark a small completion of the heavenly Dao; when the upper and lower sets of suspended bells are both in place, substance and function are fully together. Prince Qingji asked by what method this was done; the answer was to hold fast to “One” (single-minded unity) in action and not dare to set up another means. Carving and then returning to simplicity images recovering one’s original nature; seeming ignorant, slack, and hesitant, one is in fact free of deliberate scheming. What comes is not forbidden, what goes is not blocked—each follows its own intent: the overbearing, the hard, or the soft, all go as they will; those who come crookedly to attach themselves are not forced to change. Precisely because each is allowed to reach its own end, there is no exhaustion; under the levy not even a hair is harmed. None of this exceeds each thing’s own nature and place, so there is no loss and fullness comes of itself.

Buxu (Chen Jingyuan, styled Buxu) said: To apply the mind single-mindedly to this matter—how could one dare invent another method? After carving, returning to simplicity is letting institutions revert to plain antiquity. Outwardly slack and seemingly hesitant, inwardly one is free and does not shrink back. Sincerely welcoming and seeing off, yet neither suppressing nor encroaching; yielding to the resistant and letting the compliant go their way—each follows their own end rather than being taken by power or demand. Thus the levy takes not a hair, the people are content, and only then is there no harm. How much more so for one who has the Great Dao!

Yanzhai (Lin Xiyi, styled Yanzhai) said: Following natural principle, pure and undivided, one therefore acts within “One” and dares not set up another method. Carving then returning to simplicity is shedding sharp edges and returning to the natural. Seeming ignorant, as if slack or hesitant, is the appearance of a mind that stores no artifice. Neither forbidding nor obstructing, nor deliberately welcoming or sending off. The overbearing who will not yield and the crooked who comply—both are left to themselves. “Reaching one’s own end” and “coming of oneself” mean that whether compliant or resistant, in the end nothing is forced and arrival is natural, so there is no harm even to a hair. Da tu (the broad highway, figure for the Great Dao) means one may walk openly upon it and need not treat affairs with a scheming mind.

Bells and chime-stones are vessels for serving Heaven: they accord with pitch pipes (lü-lü, standards for tuning) and harmonize Yin-Yang; the state ought to possess them. When levied from the people to provide them, they can also “come of themselves,” so not a hair is injured. Da tu is where one may walk in openness—do not handle affairs with a scheming heart.

Metal and stone bells and chimes are instruments for serving Heaven; they must conform to the lü-lü (pitch pipes used to set correct tone) so as to harmonize Yin and Yang. This is something the state ought to provide. If it had to be done by levying taxes on the people, it would in principle be hard to finish quickly. Yet in only three months they completed a two-tier suspended set: frames with bells hung in rows—six above and six below—what is called bianzhong (bells hung in pitch order as a set). People wondered how it was done so fast and asked what method was used. The answer was: one only knew how to hold to pure singleness (heart undivided, without admixture) and dared not add any other contrivances. Once there was carving and shaping, that was a beginning in youwei (deliberate doing); returning again to simplicity was at last wuwei (non-action, no further forcing). Thus one reached a state as if without discriminating awareness—looking negligent yet hesitant. The spirit gathered and yet was vacant; seeing off what left and welcoming what came was like a gnat flying past the eyes, leaving no trace. Those who came were not forbidden; they were allowed to bend and attach themselves as they would. Those who went were not stopped; they were left to act as stubbornly as they pleased. Following each person’s natural course to the end, one only let each fully express their own situation. That was all one could do. Even a two-tier bell frame could be completed without troubling the people—how much more so one who carries the Dao within! This is modest speech. It means: treating things by the Dao, one is at ease everywhere; clinging to things and letting the Dao be obstructed, one is dragged everywhere. Using taxation to get things done is what those who govern the world cannot always avoid; where there is Dao in it, the work is finished and the people are not harmed. What is called Dao here is nothing more than holding to pure singleness and returning to simplicity.

Confucius was besieged between Chen and Cai and for seven days could not kindle a fire to cook food. Taigong Ren (the one who came to offer condolences) asked him, “Are you about to die?”

Confucius said, “Yes.”

“Do you hate death?”

“Yes.”

Taigong Ren said, “I have spoken before of the principle of avoiding death (meaning how to live in the world and escape disaster—not seeking immortality). In the eastern sea there is a bird called Yidai (literally “sluggish in intent”). When it flies, it is so weak it seems incapable; it must rely on companions to lead before it flies, and when it roosts it crowds in among the flock. Advancing, it dares not go first; retreating, it dares not fall behind. When eating, it dares not taste first—it only takes what is left over. Thus in the ranks it is never pushed out, and outsiders can never harm it, and so it escapes calamity.

Straight trees are cut down first; sweet wells are drained first. You probably display your wisdom to startle foolish people, cultivate yourself to make others’ filth stand out, and shine as if carrying the sun and moon when you walk—so you cannot escape disaster.

Long ago I heard one who had fully attained the Way say: Whoever praises himself has no merit; when achievement is complete, it is destroyed; when fame is complete, it is impaired. Who can cast off fame and merit and give them back to the multitude? The great Dao spreads without parading itself; virtue acts without lingering in reputation—plain and ordinary, like a fool or madman; erasing tracks and abandoning power, not serving fame and merit. Therefore he does not demand of others, and others do not demand of him. The perfected person (zhi ren) does not seek a name.”