《南华真经义海纂微》Vol. 20

People assume the Creator has fixed plans in advance, but in truth that notion is merely projected onto human beings. The discourse of Qiuli—a shared synthesis woven from many local voices—speaks of union and dispersion, sameness and difference: a horse is not any single limb; only when the hundred parts form one body does the name “horse” apply. The great person who merges the myriad things achieves what is common to all; the myriad things differ from one another, yet the Dao is thereby made complete. Like timber from a great marsh or wood and stone from a great mountain—some share one source yet serve different uses, some come from different places yet converge on one purpose—all remain within the differentiation of form and qi, and the utmost principle is already fully present there. At the end the text cites Jizhen (who holds that nothing acts as master) and Jiezi (who holds that something directs): one clings to emptiness, one to concreteness; both are obstructive, and still they merely follow the cycle of the myriad things. Therefore one must go beyond both speech and silence, with mind merged and meaning grasped inwardly, before discourse on the ultimate of Dao and things can stand. What can be spoken of, named, or said is not the truly fitting Dao; neither words nor silence can fully bear it.

“Miscellaneous Chapters: External Things, Part One” is the Miscellaneous chapter titled “External Things” (Waiwu).

External things cannot be taken as reliably inevitable. That is why Long Feng (the minister who spoke plainly to Jie of Xia and was put to death), Bi Gan (whose heart was cut out under Zhou of Shang), and Jizi (Zhou’s uncle, who feigned madness) came to grief; why Molai (who aided the tyrant) died and Jie and Zhou perished. No ruler fails to want loyal ministers, yet loyalty is not necessarily trusted—so Wu Yuan (Wu Zixu) was thrown into the river after death, and Chang Hong (a grandee of Zhou) died in Shu; his blood was kept three years and turned into green jade. No parent fails to want filial children, yet filial devotion is not necessarily cherished—so Xiao Ji (son of King Wuding of Shang) was consumed by sorrow, and Zeng Shen (Zengzi, disciple of Confucius) was steeped in grief.

When wood rubs against wood it ignites; when metal stays by fire it melts. If yin and yang run out of step, heaven and earth are greatly blocked and obstructed—then come thunderclaps, fire arises in water, and the great locust tree is burned. When a person is sunk in deep worry, caught on both sides with nowhere to escape, the heart churns restlessly and things cannot be finished; the mind hangs between heaven and earth—when things go as wished it feels eased, when they do not it sinks in gloom; meeting events it stagnates. Friction of benefit and harm within the chest produces much inner fire, and people thereby burn away the peace of the heart. The moon by nature cannot overpower fire; only in one release of clinging does the Dao reach its limit.

Guo Xiang comments: Outcomes of good and evil cannot be treated as fixed. Blood turning to jade is the utmost of sincere devotion. Loyalty is not necessarily trusted, filial piety not necessarily loved—so the perfected person (zhi ren), who does not meet things with a fixed mind but responds along with what is encountered, simply follows the changes that come. “Heaven and earth greatly entangled” means yin and yang running awry. If one cannot forget the bodily form, one is dragged by encounters into joy and sorrow and finds neither side workable. The more one holds on and values oneself, the harder the situation; not knowing what to keep, the heart cannot settle. “The mind like something suspended” refers to those who reach high in ambition; ease or gloom are neither clear nor smooth. “Producing fire” means the inner self is scorched. Drop benefit and harm and the heart is peaceful; while benefit and harm remain within, peace is burned away. Large ambition and dim understanding multiply entanglements; gathering inward with clarity, one knows one’s proper place. Only by being suddenly released (yiran) without self-importance, forgetting form and resting in one’s nature, is the Dao exhausted.

Lü Huiqing comments: Whatever is not originally pure and native to nature and life (xingming) is an external thing, so it cannot be grasped as inevitable. Long Feng and Bi Gan took benevolence as reliable and treated it as necessary; Molai and Jie and Zhou took non-benevolence as reliable and treated it as necessary—none escaped disaster. Doing good or evil without staining the mind with labels of punishment and reputation, why fix on one inevitability? External things are not inevitable for others alone; they are not inevitable for oneself either. Rulers and fathers all want loyal, filial children, yet loyalty is not necessarily trusted and filial piety not necessarily loved. Wanting to fulfill loyalty and filial piety oneself still lies on one’s own side; if the Dao has not yet reached sudden release to the full, even what one wants for oneself remains external and cannot count as inevitable—how much less what one places in others? Wu Yuan, Chang Hong, and the like placed their hopes in others, and so met death, grief, and blood turned to jade. That utmost loyalty still cannot make the one served necessarily trust—this is deeply lamentable. Wood rubbing wood to burn means even kindred qi cannot be wholly without mutual harm; metal staying by fire to melt means even differing qi cannot be wholly without mutual harm. From yin and yang running awry onward, this is the great calamity with no escape under heaven and earth: shaking into thunder, flashing light, sometimes born from unlike kinds, sometimes harming like kinds, until living fire burns away peace and the moon cannot suppress that fire. Having a body is already a great affliction—how can there be no worry? Clinging either to sameness or to difference is falling on both sides. Inner unrest prevents finishing what one intends; the mind hangs between heaven and earth, and ease, gloom, and stagnation cannot be undone. This is like yin and yang awry and heaven and earth blocked, benefit and harm rubbing together and much water-and-fire, like thunder crashing and water-and-fire burning the locust tree. Even a nature as clear as the moon cannot overcome the fire that burns the tree. All of this comes from having a deliberate mind. Yiran means letting the heart go until there is no deliberate mind; the Dao is exhausted here.

Lin Yidu comments: On one’s own side there is righteousness (yi); on the side of external things there is fate (ming). Righteousness can be cultivated; fate cannot be treated as inevitable. “External things cannot be counted on” chiefly concerns fate. A minister’s loyalty and filial piety lie within oneself; using loyalty and filial piety to seek a ruler’s or father’s trust and love is already lodged in external things. External things may be uncertain, yet what one ought to fulfill cannot be left unfulfilled. Those who fulfilled loyalty and filial piety yet were not understood by ruler or father are people like Long Feng and Xiao Ji. Not only failing to gain trust or love but finally meeting execution and grief—that is what cannot be made inevitable. The noble person only cultivates what lies within; the rest awaits Heaven’s mandate. Wood rubbing wood produces fire; fire staying by metal melts the metal. Fire does not fail to burn because it acts on metal; metal does not lose its nature because it is melted. The sage follows yin and yang to govern heaven and earth. When yin and yang are harmonious, heaven and earth are open and wind and rain come in season; once blocked and obstructed, thunder strikes violently, water and fire burn the great locust tree. Water is normally used to extinguish fire, yet here fire burns the tree—this refers to phenomena such as lightning fire. The sage who penetrates fate is not controlled by yin and yang; joy and sorrow do not lodge in the chest. Ordinary people place inevitability in external things, the five phases come to injure, yin and yang come to encroach, and they are trapped by joy and sorrow with no escape. Hesitation and unfinished business: when things go as wished there is comfort, when they go against wish there is gloom; meeting situations one sinks, touching things one sticks. Benefit and harm battle in the chest, rubbing together and scorching the inside—that is “producing fire,” burning away the order of harmony so nature is no longer whole. The moon is heaven’s yin, fire is human yang. When human desire flares and heavenly principle is extinguished, that is “the moon cannot overcome fire.” Yin-yang and the five phases out of tune are simply invited by human likes and dislikes. To be suddenly released (yiran), forget form, and stand outside benefit and harm—that is where this Dao is exhausted.

Bi Xu Zi’s commentary runs as follows: The Dao rests at ease within the heart, yet affairs always reach outward. When you cannot even hold yourself steady, how much less can you master external things? The moon belongs to the yin of Heaven; fire belongs to the yang within human nature. When human desire flares up and Heaven’s principle is extinguished, that is what people mean by “the moon cannot overcome fire.” Disorder in Yin-Yang and the Five Phases is all summoned by human likes and dislikes. If one can suddenly release attachment (yiran: letting go of fixation and yielding without strife), forget the bodily form, and stand outside gain and loss, then the Dao is complete at that point.

He also says: If one thought that benevolence and righteousness always bring a good reward, Bo Yi and Shu Qi (the brothers at the end of the Shang who refused Zhou food and starved) would not have died of hunger. If one thought talent and wisdom could always be relied on, Bi Gan (who remonstrated with King Zhou of Shang and was disemboweled) would not have had his heart cut out. If one thought loyalty always spared one from disaster, Wu Yuan (Wu Zixu) and Chang Hong (a loyal minister of Zhou, said in legend to have blood that turned green) would not have been killed. Whether loyal worthies or fawning sycophants, both ends get trapped with no escape. “Green” (bi) is the color of grief; the heart governs blood, and when loyal ministers grieve for the state, their blood is said to turn green. Wu Yuan and Chang Hong knew only to serve their lord with full loyalty, not that opposing the ruler brings calamity; Xiaoji (son of King Gaozong of Yin) and Zeng Shen (Confucius’s disciple, famed for filial piety) knew only to serve their parents with full filial devotion, not that being rejected by one’s parents breeds sorrow instead. None of them understood that outcomes in the outer world cannot be fixed in advance.

E Lai obeyed King Zhou and did evil with him, yet still could not escape death—like two pieces of wood rubbed together that catch fire. Long Feng opposed King Zhou; good and evil differed, yet he was still killed—like metal meeting fire and melting. When Yin and Yang run contrary to their course, Heaven and Earth fall into chaos; when loyalty and filial piety are punished instead, the state collapses. Loyalty and filial piety are what subjects and children ought to fulfill; unhappily they meet a benighted ruler or a stubborn parent who violates reason and acts with cruelty, like fire breaking out on water and burning the great locust tree. The Huainanzi speaks of an old locust tree catching fire—this is the same idea. When loyal ministers remonstrate, the burden of worry falls on the minister; when flatterers fawn, the burden falls on the ruler. Both are trapped in the calamities that active striving invites, so fear and anxiety mount and one’s aims cannot be realized. The heart wishes to shine between Heaven and Earth, yet the age declines, closes in, and sinks into stagnation, leaving no room to act. Loyalty and sycophancy rub against each other; resentment and anger grow daily, and the human harmony of qi is burned away. The sincerity of loyalty and filial piety is like the moon; the nature of tyranny is like fire—and the moon was never able to overcome fire. Only one who is suddenly without fixed intent and utterly yielding has taken loyalty and filial piety to their furthest point.

Yizhai (the style name of Lin Xiyu of the Southern Song) explains in his oral commentary that in the ages of Jie and Zhou, the worthy and the unworthy alike met disaster, which shows that outward fortune and misfortune are not fixed. Chang Hong, a minister of Zhou, was sent into exile in Shu and there disemboweled; the people of Shu kept his blood in a box, and after three years it turned into green jade. Emperor Yuan of Jin executed a minister because grain he had been entrusted to transport had not arrived; that man’s blood ran up the pillar against gravity. A ruler of Northern Qi killed Hulu Guang (a famous general of Northern Qi, style name Mingyue) over the “bright moon” affair, and his blood on the ground could not be washed away. These are all cases of the same kind. Xiaoji (son of King Gaozong of Yin) and Zeng Shen (a disciple of Confucius, famed for filial piety) both suffered in their family bonds because they took filial duty to the limit—again showing that nothing is inevitable. Wood by nature holds no fire, yet when pieces rub together they blaze; metal is extremely hard, yet in fire it melts and runs—both mean that change cannot be treated as fixed, and the anomalous appears. In great thunder-storms trees are sometimes burned; that is calamitous fire from disorder in the movement of Yin and Yang. When a person is trapped on both sides, fear and agitation arise. The heart is like something hung in midair: one binds oneself, sinks in gloom and indulgence, benefit and harm war inside, and from that strife fire is drawn that burns away the harmony in the chest. Human nature is like the moon, yet it is smoked by desire for things; the moon’s clarity cannot outweigh this fire. Only one who is relaxed, without contrivance, and utterly yielding has truly fulfilled the Way of loyalty and filial piety; if one indulges slackness, it goes on until the patterns of Heaven are extinguished.

Chu Boxiu (late Song) offers a narrower reading: to weight outer things is to lighten the inner self; to gain outer things is to lose oneself. Worldly profit, salary, fame, praise and blame, success and failure, gain and loss are none of them native to xing and ming (nature and life); all belong to outer things. Yet the vulgar take them as real, die for them and do not turn back, and even at the loss of life they do not wake up. What the shallow fashion esteems is either profit or fame, and with them come disgrace, honor, and shame. The discerning know profit and salary are foul and refuse to chase them, then turn to fame to lift themselves. Among names none is finer than loyalty and filial piety, for they can keep lords and parents from many faults and are enough to settle the realm and advance teaching. When antiquity was thick with virtue, the ruler was like a high branch—wuwei (non-action)—and the people like wild deer at ease; there was neither offense against the ruler’s countenance nor anger at the sovereign, nor punishments of knife, saw, or boiling cauldron. If a minister unluckily served a dark lord who killed against reason, it was like Yin and Yang running awry and thunderbolts falling at random—then the name of loyalty stood out. If a son unluckily faced a violent father and was driven to wander, it was like fire rising from water and burning the locust tree—then the name of filial piety spread. The locust tree’s color is properly yellow, standing for a balanced, harmonious temperament. Wood can be twisted to wring out water and drilled to bring forth fire; both Yin and Yang are present. Fire from water is Yang entering Yin’s place; when it reaches burning the locust tree, Yang is too strong—how can the mean and harmony not be harmed? Humans are born of Yin and Yang and originally hold chonghe zhi qi (the peaceful qi in which Yin and Yang are in balance). Once outer things intrude, qi stirs within, joy and anger rush together, Yin and Yang contend, chonghe is worn down day by day, outer evils seize the opening, like a tree without roots that cannot long endure. “Two traps” means that outwardly one serves the lord and nurtures parents, inwardly one cultivates the person and nurtures life—on both sides one cannot escape care. The heart is anxious and the will cannot succeed, as if suspended between Heaven and earth with no escape. The character wei is hard to read; some take it as yu (melancholy), which makes the sense clearer: knotted in thought, drowned in craving, pressed too heavy by outer things—then benefit and harm clash, fire attacks from within, chonghe is burned to ash, and disaster follows. Yin and Yang move in taixu (the vast empty expanse), originally without trace; their ease or anguish responds to what human joy and anger call forth. Humans are most spirit-like—how can they fail to cherish themselves? Again compare moon and fire: the moon is large, yet it wanes more often than it waxes—that is Heaven’s principle; fire is small, yet the more it burns the fiercer it grows—that is human doing. Heaven’s way dislikes fullness; what is full easily declines. The moon’s superiority is not over fire—it is the image of human desire flourishing while Heaven’s principle is extinguished. When the moon is full it wanes, when it wanes it waxes again by a fixed measure, and its light is not thereby lessened; when fire rages it can light the sky, but when the fuel is gone only ash and dust remain. In the world there are ministers who do their duty yet meet hardship; that paradoxically completes the name of loyalty and filial piety, while those who abuse them hasten their own ruin. The body cannot overcome tyrannical power, yet principle in fact overcomes it—as the moon’s form does not overcome fire, yet its light in fact overcomes fire. The names loyalty and filial piety are in truth the misfortune of ministers and sons. The Daodejing says: when the six kin are not in harmony, the filial son appears; when the state is in disorder, the loyal minister appears. How should one place oneself? By “yu ran er dao jin”: relaxed and without contrivance, forgetting oneself, changing together with outer things. When one can forget the self and follow things in change, how could there still be the disaster of inner fire burning away harmony?

Zhuangzi’s household was poor, and he asked the Overseer of the River (Jianhe Hou, a feudal lord who supervised the waterways) for grain. The lord said, “Fine. When I receive the tax revenue from my fief, I’ll lend you three hundred gold—will that do?” Zhuangzi’s face darkened with anger and he said, “When I came yesterday, something called out to me on the road. I looked back and saw a crucian carp in the rut-water left by a wheel track. I asked what it wanted, and it said, ‘I am a petty subject of the Eastern Sea’s waves. Can you give me a dipper or a pint of water to save me?’ I said, ‘Fine. I’m just about to go south to see the kings of Wu and Yue, and I’ll bring the waters of the Western River to meet you.’ The carp’s face also darkened: ‘I’ve lost the water I normally depend on and have nowhere to stay—a dipper or a pint would keep me alive. Yet you talk like that—you’d do better to look for me early at the dried-fish shop!’”

Guo Xiang’s commentary holds that the grain-borrowing story means help that fits the situation is not scorned for being small; if it doesn’t fit, even a large amount does no good. The chapter on Ren Gongzi means that when aims differ, the paths of ordering the world each suit their own purpose. Lü Huiqing’s commentary holds that borrowing grain shows that nurturing life seeks only to preserve oneself, not to chase surplus; Ren’s fishing shows that ordering the world aims at great achievement and does not expect immediate results. Yi Du’s commentary holds that saving someone in urgent distress must be timely—a promise like the Overseer of the River’s did not arrive when it was needed.

Ren Gongzi fashioned an enormous hook and a thick, long black line, used fifty gelded oxen as bait, crouched on Mount Kuaiji, and cast his rod into the Eastern Sea. He fished every day; a full year passed with no catch. Later a great fish took the bait, was pulled down by the huge hook, then leapt with flailing fins—white waves like mountains, the sea churning, a sound like ghosts and spirits, a presence that awed the land for a thousand li. Ren Gongzi got this fish, split it, and dried it as jerky; from east of the Zhe River to north of Cangwu, everyone had eaten their fill. Later, people of shallow insight who only knew small doctrines were startled and told one another about it. If you only raise a fine rod and silk line and wait beside ditches for small fish, it is hard to land a great fish; if you polish petty talk to chase a lofty name (the county magistrate—here, high-hung reputation), you are far from great attainment. Those who have never understood a style like Ren’s are likewise far from discussing with him the great affairs of ordering the world.

Yidu commentary: Relieving someone in urgent distress must be done at the moment it matters. When the Lord of the River—who oversaw the waterways and from whom Zhuangzi once asked for grain—promised to lend only after he had collected the tax revenue from his fief, he had already missed the right moment and it was too late. That is why the parable compares the situation to the crucian carp in a cart rut, showing that the lord did not grasp how desperate the fish was. The nobleman of Ren fashioned a huge hook and a stout line because he meant to undertake something great and build lasting achievement. Using a castrated ox as bait, he let a great fish swallow it until the commotion was felt a thousand li away—meaning that one whose aspiration is vast may harvest late, yet still shake the world. When the nobleman of Ren landed that fish, everyone who ate of it was filled; the “fish like this” stands for a gain so immense that the whole realm shares in its benefit. Later people, startled, passed the story on to one another—meaning that those of far-reaching intent can realize their aim under heaven and carry their name to later ages; the ancient Yi Yin and Taigong (Lord Jiang) were people of that kind. The mud puppy and the crucian carp are small fish; a county magistrate is a petty post—neither is a place to lodge a lofty will.

Bixu commentary: “Chang yu” (what one is constantly with) refers to what is habitually close and familiar. Fish and water are naturally intimate; once that bond is lost, there is nowhere to rest. Give clothing when someone is cold; give food when someone is hungry. To scoop up river water to revive the fish in a cart rut—is that not far too late? This is like the saying that giving a tiger a thousand in gold is not as good as giving it a pig’s shoulder. The nobleman of Ren completed his great hook and heavy line and only after a full year did he catch the great fish. People in the world who measure talent by narrow gauges and settle affairs by lip service, when they hear of such extraordinary conduct, pass it on to one another in amazement. This illustrates that those of shallow learning cannot be reasoned with about the great task of ordering all under heaven. “Gan lei” (“lei” read in the level tone) means a fine bamboo pole and a silk fishing line. “Xian” (also read level tone) means “elevated”—elevated name and fine repute.

Yizhai kouyi: “Yi jin” is the rent and tax of a fief. “Bo chen” is like an official of the waters. “Chang yu” is what one usually keeps company with. “Wen cai” is to appraise and measure. “Feng shuo” is like idle talk. “Lei” is a fine cord. “Xian” is a posted notice, like a reward placard. The point is that if one polishes petty phrases to curry favor from above, hoping to match the other party’s stated commands and standards, how much can one really obtain? The character “su” (worldly) should be read with the following line—it refers to worldly people.

This section first collates the passages in “External Things” about borrowing grain and fishing, then records the anecdote about tomb raiding.

In the line about Jianhe Hou (the lord charged with overseeing the rivers), one character was traditionally read with falling tone; by sense it should be the exclamation xu (“alas”). The crucian carp calls itself a bo chen (“subject of the waves”); old commentators gloss this as a follower carried along by the current. The phrase “the king of Wu and Yue” has troubled every school of commentary and is mostly passed over in silence; only Bixu (Chen Jingyuan) suggests that Wu and Yue are where many waters gather, and “king” is like the rivers and seas toward which all valleys flow. Zhang’s collated text adds a character after “swim,” read with falling tone, but the reading still does not cohere. On careful review of the sense, “king” (wang) was originally “earth/soil” (tu), with one extra stroke added above. The gist: a person in the Dao is like a fish in water and cannot leave it for a moment; if one has lost the Dao within and yet seeks help outside, counting on funds from the fief of Jianhe Hou, how can that relieve the present crisis? “Great hook and huge black line” is a metaphor: the larger the tackle, the richer the catch. “Lei” should be lei (black silk fishing line). The vulgar character under “wind” is redundant, a scribal error. The point is that keeping to the Dao shows results only over time; one cannot demand success overnight. When cultivation is complete and applied in action, grace reaches the ten thousand things—how could it be limited to east of the Zhe or north of Cangwu? The four characters “flared up angrily” after “crucian carp” are a mistaken duplicate copy. “Suspended” (xian) is read with level tone; speaking of lofty name and fine reputation, this reading fits best.

What follows is Nanhua zhenjing yihai zuanwei, fascicle 88 (as preserved in the Siku quanshu), by Chu Botao of the Song, the second section on the Miscellaneous Chapters, “External Things.”

A Ru scholar took the Odes and Rites to rob a tomb. The senior scholar called down from above: “It’s dawn in the east—how goes it?” The junior answered: “The skirt and short jacket aren’t undone yet; there’s a pearl in the mouth.” The Odes indeed say: “Green green the wheat, growing on the hill slope. While alive he would not give; dead, why does he hold a pearl in his mouth?” So they seized his hair and pressed his chin; the scholar used a metal awl against the cheek and slowly parted the jaws, so as not to damage the pearl in the mouth.

Guo Xiang’s note: The Odes and Rites are only the traces left by former kings. If the person is not right, the Dao does not spread of itself—hence the Ru scholar taking them along for use.

Guo Xiang held that the Odes and Rites (Shijing and ritual norms) are merely the stale traces left by former kings. The Dao does not act on its own unless it meets the right person; yet among Confucians some use these traces to commit wicked deeds, which shows that traces alone cannot be trusted.

Lü Huiqing held that Confucians in the petty mold borrow the words of former kings to justify their own injustice, and that this is no different from the conduct described in the passage.

Lin Yidu held that the age of the former kings is already far off, while Confucians exploit their traces to steal—even opening graves, citing lost lines from ancient poetry to mock the dead, and using that to argue that the dead held pearls in their mouths and ought to be stripped of them. Where the traces of benevolence and righteousness are large, people borrow them to seize the state; where the traces of poetry and documents are small, Confucians borrow them to rob tombs. Extend the line from the traces of poetry and rites and you reach benevolence and righteousness; extend the line from the mind-set of tomb robbery and you reach usurping the realm—one cannot be careless about this.

Chen Jingyuan (style name Bixuzi) held that poetry guides the heart and rites guide conduct; both were originally auxiliary teachings for governance. The noble person uses poetry and rites to cultivate himself; the petty person recites poetry and rites to play the bandit. Noble persons are few and petty persons many, so the traces of the sages benefit the world little and harm it much. Tomb robbers do not dig at the graves of Boyi and Shuqi (ancient worthies who kept faith and died poor, with nothing buried with them), yet they always excavate the tombs of Jie of Xia and Zhou of Shang (tyrants who hoarded wealth and lost their realms)—it is the rich hoard in the tomb that draws them. Hence “the more you hoard, the heavier your loss” is a stern admonition from the Laozi tradition.

Lin Xiyi (style name Yanzhai) held that this is an analogy for the lobbyists of the time, who borrowed the words of sages and worthies to cover up villainy. When a superior addresses inferiors it is called lu; lu chuan means the great Confucian takes the lead in instructing those below. The lines “green, green the wheat” and the following two lines depict a burial ground; the next two lines mock wealth and rank—they are from an ancient lost poem. From “take hold of their temples” onward, the text teaches how to extract the pearl from an ancient corpse’s mouth without damaging the pearl.

When The Odes and Ritual are applied throughout the realm, the aim is to set governance on a straight course, keep it from going astray, and carry them forward together with law so that people may achieve something worthwhile. Sages do not appear in every age, so those who think far ahead wish to root out the world’s ills completely: once people leave Ritual behind, they inevitably fall under the constraint of law; when they can align with Ritual, legal coercion can be withdrawn. The sage’s intention is simply this. In the decline of the age, however, custom grows thin, and some even use what the sages left behind to practice deceit, going so far as to open graves without scruple. That not only harms the living; the dead cannot rest peacefully underground either—the spread of such harm cannot be fully told. They also quote The Odes to order and adorn their conduct, which is to do what ought not be done and use what ought not be used.

Zhuangzi (Master Zhuang) pitied the age; his intent was sincere, yet he had nowhere to apply his strength, so he could only lodge his meaning in oblique comparisons. Lu was said to have many Ru scholars, yet when one looked closely, there was only one true Ru—so this chapter was not written without cause. It condemns those who twist the heart and distort Ru teaching, so that people do what The Odes and Ritual require and fulfill what Ru ought to fulfill, and thereby warns against the fashion of lavish burial in that time and stirs simplicity in later ages. When the main rope is lifted, the mesh of the net spreads with it—for the way of governing the realm, is that merely a small benefit?

A disciple of Master Lao (Lao Laizi), a recluse of Chu, went out to gather firewood and met Zhongni (Confucius). Returning, he reported: “There is a man over there—long above, short below, back hunched, ears set back, eyes that seem to be laboring over the four quarters of the world. I do not know whose son he is.” Master Lao said: “That is Kong Qiu (Confucius). Summon him.”

Zhongni arrived. Master Lao said: “Qiu, cast off the arrogance in your bearing and the look of cleverness on your face—then you will be a true gentleman.” Zhongni bowed and withdrew, his expression constrained; he changed his demeanor and asked: “May my learning still advance further?”

Master Lao said: “You cannot bear to see this generation harmed, yet you proudly bequeath trouble to ten thousand generations. Is it that you are shallow by nature, or that your plans do not reach far enough? Taking the exchange of favor for others’ goodwill as a thing to be proud of is a disgrace for life—it is merely the way ordinary people push for advancement. People summon one another by reputation and bind one another by private feeling. Rather than praising Yao and condemning Jie, better to forget both sides and shut the gate by which praise enters. Going against nature brings harm without exception; acting on one’s own impulse falls into perversity without exception. The sage handles affairs with calm caution, and so often succeeds. What can you do? Carry all this on your shoulders—and in the end it is still arrogance.

Guo Xiang, the Western Jin scholar who wrote a commentary on the Zhuangzi, describes a figure whose upper body is long and lower body short, ears turned back, and who, seen bending forward, looks worn out—as though running errands for someone else. The point is that only if such a person can yixing quzhi (forget the body and discard cleverness) does he count as a true junzi (noble person). Confucius bows with joined hands and withdraws: he accepts what is said. The question posed is meant to have Lao Laizi (the recluse of the Spring and Autumn period) show that one must not force one’s way forward.

The sage acts only when composed and careful, and for that reason succeeds again and again. Why should one carry success on one’s back and stay proud of it forever? If one acts for the sake of a single age, one’s traces can become a disaster for ten thousand generations. If one simply lets things follow their course, the people’s nature is not impoverished: each has what is originally theirs, and nothing is left undone. They are pleased only when favors are granted and show ugliness when there are none; favors cannot last, and a single act of grace can become a lifelong disgrace. Such people are easily drawn toward striving and advancement, so one must not bestow favors rashly. Yinkuo was a device for straightening bent wood; here it means forcibly correcting others and pushing them forward. Where there is compliance, wholeness is possible; where there is stillness, rectitude is possible. When affairs do not stray from the root, achievement tends to endure. Self-congratulation is something one cannot bear to carry, so one relinquishes it and does not treat it as one’s own possession.

According to Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Laozi and Confus originally had no real divide. Later followers of Confus clung to outward traces and could not touch his inner heart; only then did Zhuangzi raise these points. From “the upper body tall and the lower part short” through “not knowing whose child he is,” people were trying to recognize sages by looks alone. “Gong jin” means being stiffly proud of one’s own conduct; “rong zhi” means letting cleverness show on the face—this is not the air of great virtue that seems plain and slow. Great disorder in fact began in the age of Yao and Shun. When one cannot bear one generation’s suffering and turns to purposeful action to save them, one instead stirs up calamity for ten thousand generations. The point is not that a rich enterprise is poor, or that plans are lost and strength falls short. Bestowing favors is not great wisdom; to boast of making people happy is a lifelong shame—and even so, there are things one still will not do. As for drawing one another on by reputation and bonding in secrecy, that is only ordinary people (zhongmin) going one step further; how could a person who embodies the Dao act so? Unless one can abandon sagehood and wisdom and forget both good and evil, every such move feeds ten thousand generations of trouble. The Dao by nature can do all things; turn against it once and nothing escapes harm. When one should practice Wuwei (non-action) yet acts rashly, nothing escapes perversity—what is there to praise? “Like hesitating to cross a river in winter, like fearing the neighbors on every side” (as the Daodejing describes one who embodies the Dao well)—that is “hesitation and caution.” How could one shoulder the Dao as private property and still think oneself free of pride? That way one cannot attain it.

According to Yidu’s commentary: Shoulders hunched and ears drawn back are the bearing of the noble; a gaze as if ordering the four seas means wide vision without selfishness. Gong jin and rong zhi are traces of engagement with the world not yet shed; only after shedding them can one’s work advance and enter the Dao. Benevolence, righteousness, sagehood, and wisdom were originally what the sages could not bear for one generation’s harm—they used them to rescue the age. Later ages relied on these outward traces to do harm. Governing the mundane world by the sages’ traces makes people insult one another, leaves them stiff, narrow, and poor, and makes them forget the plain principle so they cannot reach the true Dao. Those who rejoice in receiving favors feel shame when favors cease. The nature of zhongmin can rise or fall; with guidance it can ascend—why must one bestow favors? Bestowing favors is what petty minds fix on; the noble person does not take that path. Mutual drawing-on is chasing name; mutual bonding is fondness for hidden retreat: chasing name shares the people’s troubles, delight in hiding serves private desire—both are one-sided, so this is only zhongmin. When each guards against the other and praise is shut in, there is neither “this” nor “that.” Human nature, opposed, is injured; followed, is preserved. Rash movement is perverse; empty stillness is upright. Hesitation and caution mean not rushing, so one can follow the principle of nature-and-life (xingming) and succeed again and again; eager haste cannot reach the goal. Confus carried the great Dao in his time, yet inwardly showed a tinge of self-importance—so Laolaizi (the Daoist recluse) spoke these words to him.

Bi Xu (Chen Jingyuan, styled Master Bixu) comments: What is meant by “personally self-important” (gong jin) is that Confucius wanted to lay bare the filth of the mundane world so as to display his own purity. What is meant by “a countenance of wisdom” (rong zhi) is that his sage-like bearing would startle the foolish. That is why Master Laolaizi (a recluse of the Spring and Autumn period) told him to drop both. Confucius carried the Great Dao (Dao) as he traveled the states, and in his heart he could not help a touch of self-satisfaction—so Laolaizi admonished him in this way. Harm lasting a single generation is fixed by the times; stripping away a contrived outward show may barely ward off disaster. Calamity lasting ten thousand generations lies in the traces one’s conduct leaves behind: once pride and contempt for others set in, there is no remedy. He also asked Confucius: In your rounds among the states, repeatedly meeting hardship—was it because holding to the Way too rigidly brought you to such poverty, or because you lacked stratagem and could not keep pace with other men? Using favors to win people’s goodwill and then looking down on outward things is precisely what sages despise. The temperament of middling people is easily led astray: when the age is peaceful they pull one another along to seek reputation; when it is chaotic they band together and withdraw into hiding. Confucius’s writings always praise Yao (the ancient sage-king) and revile Jie (the tyrant of Xia); if the sage’s visible traces were erased, whence would slander and praise arise? Following the turn of the age without resisting it is how one preserves oneself; settling the mind so it is not stirred is how one sets oneself right. The sage moves at ease along the Way, and achievement completes itself; even when it is complete he does not take the credit—how much less when it is not yet complete? Forget words and there is no entanglement; set out deliberately to record and one will boast of one’s name.

Yanzhai (Lin Xiyi, styled Master Yanzhai) oral gloss: “Anxious as if ordering the four seas” means fretting over worldly affairs with deep worry. “Personally self-important” refers to your own affected, reserved conduct; “a countenance of wisdom” means wisdom dressed up on the outside; “ao” is arrogance. When you are like this, poverty is only fitting. Supporting one another through reputation and joining in secret schemes are the ways of ordinary people. If Yao and Jie are forgotten alike, there is no slander or praise. “Fan” (going against) means violating what one ought to uphold; when one moves and cannot be still, nothing is not perverse. The sage responds only when he must, and so he often succeeds. Why should you take pride in an arrogant frame of mind?

La Laizi’s disciple described Confucius’s bearing in three sentences; the last line seems truly to have grasped the sage’s inner intent—without vision that rises above the dust of the world, such words would be hard to utter. This resembles what the gate officer Qiu Zhang said in describing Wang Tong (Master Wenzhong) of the Sui, and his father had already understood as much. The hearts of sages connect; subtle foresight works just this way.

“Gong jin” means taking the preservation of one’s person as something to show off; pride in one’s countenance, and reliance on one’s own clever schemes, are enough to invite disaster—hence the call to strip these away. “Ao” (also written “wu”) points to anxious striving in competition: unwilling to endure hardship for a time, one rushes to help with benevolence and righteousness; later ages cling to these traces as fixed models, abuses pile up, and people run and chase without stopping.

Was it because they were poor to begin with that they came out to serve the world so lightly? Or was it that they had no plan at all, their thought never reaching this depth? Why does the heart that delights in bestowing favor show on the outside and cannot be hidden? This mocks Confucius’s restless touring from court to court seeking employment—only trapping body and spirit in vain—the lifelong ugliness of frantic striving, nothing but the ordinary person’s path taken to its limit.

In advancing, each summons the other by reputation; in withdrawing, each colludes through the fame of reclusion—hence the split between praising Yao and condemning Jie. If both blame and praise are forgotten, what difference remains between Yao and Jie?

“Fan” (turning back) means the opposite of what was said above: those who cannot forget both sides still keep love and hate in the heart, and both modest yielding and responding to things abroad are harmed. “Dong” (moving) means the inner mind has no fixed view: those who love praise and hate slander follow things in accepting or rejecting, and conduct turns crooked.

Therefore the sage waits for the right moment before acting, and undertakes affairs at ease—often succeeding. Why rely on one’s own talent and still end up unable to escape self-congratulation?

Confucius and La Laizi are like Yao in office and Xu You in hiding. The Nanhua Zhenjing uses allegory to warn people in the world who do not know the times yet force action to win a name—it is not truly demeaning Confucius.

Duke Yuan of Song dreamed at midnight of someone with disheveled hair peeking in from a side door, who said: “I come from the Zailu Deep Pool. I was an envoy sent from Clear River to the River Lord, but the fisherman Yu Qie caught me.” When the duke awoke, he had divination performed. The diviner said: “This is a divine turtle.” The duke asked: “Is there a Yu Qie among the fishermen?” His attendants said there was. The duke then summoned Yu Qie to court. The next day Yu Qie came to audience, and the duke asked: “What did you catch fishing?” He answered: “With my net I caught a white turtle five feet around.” The duke said: “Present your turtle.” When the turtle was brought, the duke wavered between killing it and sparing it, unable to decide. He divined again, and the result was: “Slaughter this turtle and use it for divination—auspicious.” So they opened the turtle and drilled and burned the shell seventy-two times; not once did the omens fail.

Confucius said: “The divine turtle could appear in the duke’s dream, yet could not escape Yu Qie’s net. Cleverness could make seventy-two divinations miss nothing, yet could not avoid the disaster of being gutted. Thus cleverness has its limits, and even spirits have what they cannot reach. However great one’s wisdom, one may still fall prey to the schemes of ten thousand people. Fish do not fear nets, yet they fear the pelican. Discard small cleverness, and great wisdom shines forth. Discard deliberate striving for goodness, and goodness completes itself naturally. An infant needs no master to teach it to speak, because it constantly keeps company with those who speak.”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: That spirits are not something one can rely on is exactly this. Only those who quietly stay within what they can do and do not scheme outward preserve themselves. Not using one’s private cleverness but adopting the plans of the many is like a fishing net having no selfish aim—therefore it can catch fish. Small cleverness springs from self-interest; great wisdom lets things be as they are. Remove intentional goodness, and there is nothing to covet; without covetousness, one is not arrogant, and goodness is naturally present. Being capable without deliberate practice is not standing on tiptoe to imitate others.

Lü’s commentary holds that those who possess cleverness still cannot escape calamity, and those who possess wondrous powers still cannot avoid the net—this is what is meant by wisdom having its limits and spirit having what it cannot reach. Therefore those who cultivate the Way should “abandon sageliness and discard wisdom” (jue sheng qi zhi—set aside sagely wisdom and cunning artifice). Even with the highest wisdom, when ten thousand people scheme together, the few cannot overcome the many, and the truth comes to light. Fish do not fear the net but fear the pelican (the fish-eating water bird); the pelican has mind-knowledge, the net has none. Thus when petty wisdom is removed, great wisdom shines; when deliberate goodness is removed, natural goodness appears. Then why should those who govern the realm rely on cleverness at all? Infants have no stone master (shi shi, a great teacher) yet can speak; if one lives among all the people of the world in that way, could they still be kept ignorant?

Yidu’s commentary holds that skill at foreseeing fortune and misfortune is the turtle’s wisdom; even when its shell is cut open, the spirit of the divine turtle is not diminished. Yet it still cannot escape Yu Yu’s net or avoid the distress brought by Lord Yuan (the ruler). Clearly wisdom has what traps it, and spirit has what it cannot reach. The sage gathers the goodness of the multitude and unites the wisdom of the world, and is therefore called ultimate knowing. Only when one does not mix private feeling into things can one truly grasp them. So fish do not fear the net but fear the pelican. Remove petty wisdom, and wisdom can pervade all things; remove petty goodness, and goodness arises from inborn nature. Infants speak without a teacher because they are gradually imbued without knowing it—how could that be won by using wisdom?

Bixu’s commentary holds that turtle divination has seventy-two omens, matching the numbers eight and nine; hence Guan Ziming’s (Guan Lang) Yizhuan takes seventy-two as the basis of calendrics. The toad can ward off weapons (folk belief that it avoids blades), yet cannot escape being killed at midsummer; the cock can crow at dawn, yet cannot avoid the pot and chopping block. Where efficacy lies on one side, blindness necessarily lies on the other—this is wisdom having its limits and spirit having what it cannot reach. The multitude dread excessive cleverness; fish fear those with scheming minds. If one can discard the wisdom of knowing others and nurture self-knowing clarity, discard goodness that departs from the Dao and keep the goodness of self-preservation, one draws near to the Dao. The infant’s simple purity gradually disperses because it keeps company with those who can speak; once speech comes and right and wrong are distinguished, benefit and harm follow.

Yakzhai’s Kouyi (Commentary on the Meaning) says: “A Gate” is a side door, a narrow entrance. Any cleverness that can be called “knowing” has its limit. However great a person’s wisdom, how can it surpass the combined scheming of ten thousand people? The pelican deliberately harms fish; it is not like a fish net. I have a mind, and the other party has a mind too. If one can drop one’s own petty cleverness and leave things to nature, great wisdom will then show itself clearly. Drop the intention of deliberately doing good in order to gain a name, and goodness will naturally turn toward you. Shi and shuo are cognate; shuo means “great.” The teacher can indeed teach, yet an infant needs no special instruction to learn to speak—these are all images of what happens of itself.

Zailu is the name of a pool; the divine tortoise lived there. It served as envoy of the Clear River and went to the River Lord because its intelligence made it useful—and going from a pure place into muddy waters, it could not escape disaster. Yet it could still appear in a dream to Lord Yuan of Song, which shows its spirit had not vanished. The tortoise is a yin creature, shelled, white in color and responsive to things; its body is round, about five feet, matching the Five Phases. In divination the tortoise was killed yet the omen was auspicious—showing that its efficacy was not for its own sake; though harmful to itself, it could still manifest responsiveness to people. After seventy-two drillings and scorchings without a single error, that meant its substance was excellent and accorded with heaven’s timing. Yet once caught in a net it could not escape, and disemboweling was unavoidable—because its spirit and its knowing both had limits and were not to be relied on. Had it not been the Clear River’s envoy but lived like one dragging its tail in the mud, preserving “knowing that does not know” and “spirit that is not spirit,” that would be the highest knowing and spirit—and where would the fear of nets be? This chapter is close to Records of the Grand Historian, “Treatise on Tortoise Divination,” except there the fisherman is written as Yuju—this is the same person.

Therefore even a person of the utmost wisdom must remember that the crowd’s plans can surpass one’s own and must not rely wholly on private knowing. When everyone schemes together against you, it is like a pelican toward fish—deliberate harm—not like a mindless fish net one might still dodge. To avoid disaster one should drop one’s own narrow, dim petty knowing and take the crowd’s counsel as one’s knowing; only then can wisdom be great and reach all things. Hence drop the goodness one advertises as one’s own, and the world’s goodness turns toward you. Like an infant long among people who speak: it gradually changes along with them, not knowing why, yet it happens naturally.

The above appears in Nanhua zhenjing yihai zuanwei, juan 88; in the Siku quanshu edition, juan 89 attributes it to Song author Chu Boxiu.

Nan Hua Zhen Jing Yi Hai Juan Wei (Collected Essentials of the Ocean of Meaning on the True Scripture of Nanhua), volume 89, by Chu Boxiu of the Song dynasty (the title on this fascicle reads “Juan Fang”). Nan Hua Zhen Jing is the honorific Daoist name for the Zhuangzi. This section presents the text of “Outer Things,” the third chapter in the Miscellaneous Chapters, together with commentary by Guo Xiang (a Western Jin scholar who annotated the Zhuangzi).

Huizi (Hui Shi, Zhuangzi’s friend and a skilled debater) said to Zhuangzi, “Your words are of no use.” Zhuangzi replied, “Only when you understand what is useless can you talk about what is useful. Heaven and earth are not too small—yet what a person actually uses is no more than the ground under the feet that can hold them. But if you dug away all the earth around the feet, down to the Yellow Springs (the deepest underground), would that little place to stand still be of any use?” Huizi said, “It would not.” Zhuangzi said, “Then the use of uselessness itself becomes clear.”

Zhuangzi also said, “If a person can you (move through the world with a heart aligned to nature—not ordinary sightseeing), how could they fail to you? If a person cannot you, how could they you at all? That kind of resolve to flee the world and the conduct of decisively abandoning society—alas, I fear that is not what the highest wisdom (zhi zhi) and the deepest virtue (hou de) are meant to bear! To fall and not turn back, to rush like fire and not look behind—even if for a moment one became ruler or subject, that was only a passing turn of fate; change the generation and there is no longer anyone to despise. So the zhi ren (person who fully embodies the Way) does not leave tracks fixed as lasting norms. Venerating antiquity and scorning the present is a one-sided habit of scholars. If people of the Xiwei clan type (legendary ancient rulers) looked at the world today, who could avoid rising and falling with the waves? Only the zhi ren can move in the world without turning strange, follow others without losing themselves. Teaching arrives in accord with the other person—there is no separate curriculum to learn; one receives their natural intention without treating them as an opposing ‘other.’”

Guo Xiang’s commentary means: the sage responds from within and only then expresses outwardly; once words are spoken, it is so that the real situation can run clear. When the real situation runs clear, affairs can be carried through; when the outer is understood, the inner can be put to use—the two rely on each other, and the pattern is just this. What nature can do, one cannot fail to do; what nature cannot do, one must not force. As long as nothing extra is imposed, each gets what suits them, without knowing how it came about. Unless virtue is extremely deep, one cannot bear such resolve and conduct, nor trust such unusual talent. People each have their preferences, do not shun right and wrong, and may even stake life and death on them; when the age turns, there is no one left to look down on—only then is it truly vast. Seeing equally and simply following what one meets, one can keep pace with change. Scholars who honor the old and belittle the new lose the root source. Following things as the time allows, differences quiet and dissolve. Adapting to the moment and answering what is urgent—wherever one is, that is the right path. Originally there is no “self” to cling to—what could be lost? Teaching rests on the other’s inborn nature, so it is not a matter of learning something from outside; the other’s mind arises from nature—receive it and apply it, and the myriad things each preserve their own natural “self.”

Lü Huiqing’s commentary explains that people habitually treat those with knowledge and ability as useful and those without as useless, yet fail to see that uselessness is precisely the root from which usefulness arises. From the perspective of the Dao, what the world calls cleverness, talent, and usefulness is vanishingly small—far narrower than the little patch of ground under one’s feet. Liezi said: the highest wandering does not insist on a destination; the highest viewing does not insist on an object. When all things can be wandered through and all things can be viewed, that is what I call wandering and what I call viewing. Zhuangzi’s wandering amounts to no more than this. For one who has attained the Dao, the myriad things are nothing but the Dao; hence every thing can be wandered and every thing viewed, and even the wish not to wander would be in vain. One who has not attained the Dao cannot wander in this way, however much they might wish to. A mind that drifts with the vulgar world looks base; conduct that abruptly rejects the world looks lofty. Neither stance can be sustained by supreme knowledge and profound virtue (houde). Blinded by a partial view, one topples and rushes ahead like fire that never turns back. Such people may for a moment be lord and subject to one another, but when the age turns they no longer have grounds to despise each other—yet in failing to accord with the Dao they are alike. One who truly possesses supreme knowledge and profound virtue does not drift with the crowd in low station, nor reject the world in high station, but simply follows the Dao. Therefore the perfected person—one who has attained the Dao to its utmost—does not race with the vulgar current, nor leaves tracks behind. To honor antiquity and scorn the present, measuring today’s thin age against figures such as Xihu (Weixu, a legendary ancient ruler), is to stir the heart so it cannot stay calm. Only the perfected person can move through the world without odd or eccentric acts: outwardly in step with others, inwardly without losing oneself. To guide by what the other already is is not to pour in learning from outside; to meet their intent and respond is not to treat them as an opposing “other.” What is taught is what they already have, not what is forced upon them from without. Where the minds of all under heaven cannot be penetrated, the oppositions of self and other, right and wrong, arise; where intent is met and received, where is “other”? This is the realm in which the perfected person wanders.

In the Commentary on Doubt and Solitude: the sort of “use” that counts as useful belongs to tools and implements; the sort of “use” that counts as useless is the Dao itself. Implements have bounds, so their effect is small; the Dao has no limit, so its effect is great. When Zhuangzi spoke of the Dao, his language was vast in scope, and Huizi (a scholar of the School of Names who often debated Zhuangzi) suspected that such talk was useless. Zhuangzi replied that one must first understand uselessness before one can discuss use. The ground may be vast, yet in walking a person truly relies on only the tiny patch under the feet; if there were no space beyond the feet, one would fear sinking and drowning and would not dare to step. Thus uselessness is itself a kind of use. The accounts of the great chun tree and the great gourd in “Free and Easy Wandering” (Xiaoyao You) express the same point.

What is called wandering (you) is the capacity both to go and to stop, free and unhindered. Everyone has an innate capacity for ease; whether it unfolds depends only on whether one learns or not. When learning returns one to the root, one can wander: even without chasing outward show, there is nowhere one is not at ease. Without learning, if one is obscured by things, then even if one fusses over appearances every day, one cannot be at ease.

Drifting (liu) means chasing externals and never turning back. Retreating (dun) means warding off harm and never advancing. Decisiveness (jue) means acting with excessive sharpness. Cutting off (jue) means erasing one’s own traces. Each of these clings to one side. Treat them as wisdom, and something remains unknown; treat them as De (virtue/power), and there is still what they cannot bear. Then vital spirit (qi) topples and the heart-mind races like fire. Even if for a time one holds the roles of ruler and minister, that is only the push of circumstances—what real nobility or baseness is there?

The perfected person simply adapts to change, accords with whatever meets them, and does not fix action in one place. View the present through the eyes of the age before the Three Sovereigns—who is not someone tossed in wind and waves? Only the perfected person wanders with the times from innate nature, and so can accord with things without losing themselves. When others come, they guide them, yet never treat “learning” as something to manage; they take up the other’s intent and follow it, without treating the other as an opposing “them.” The Inner Chapters say: “If he wants to be an infant, be an infant with him.” That is exactly this idea.

Bixu (Chen Jingyuan, Daoist name Bixuzi) comments: People treat everything beyond the ground under their feet as useless space. If everything outside where one stands were dug away, down to the depths of the yellow springs, leaving only a patch barely big enough for the feet, one could not take even half a step. It is like planting: one must leave plenty of open ground before things can flourish. Thus what seems useless has its use. When people wander and learn within the Dao, that comes from their inborn nature; how could one force them not to wander? When they cannot wander and learn within the Dao, that too comes from inborn nature; how could one force them to wander? People do not know their own measure and vainly toil and drift everywhere. The resolve to withdraw from the world and bold, decisive conduct—if deliberately staged and self-consciously lofty—are not what the highest wisdom and profound virtue go along with. “Falling into the abyss” means not wandering in study and neglecting one’s proper work; “racing like fire” means striving hard to wander and study and rushing for quick progress. Each rushes toward what they want and will not look back; it is only a fashion of the moment, with people taking turns as lord and subject—where is there any real high or low? Only the person of ultimate attainment (zhiren) finds fit in the Dao whether they go out or stay in, and each follows their own aim. Students, however, value the distant and neglect what is near, prizing the ancient and slighting the present—a fault long entrenched. Viewing the present age through the ancient sages and worthies, none fail to drift with the waves and lose their true nature. The person of ultimate attainment bows with the rise and fall of the times, responding outward to the ten thousand things while inwardly preserving true nature. The worldly ways others teach need not be learned, yet one still receives their intent without shutting them out, and so can preserve oneself in the world. This is what is called being able to wander.

Yizhai (Lin Xiyi) oral gloss: “Dian” means to dig out. If everywhere beyond where the feet fit were an abyss, one could not walk—hence the talk of “uselessness.” The person of ultimate attainment follows the flourishing and decline of the world, responding to things outwardly while inwardly keeping the whole truth; the ways of the world others teach need not be studied, yet one still goes along with their meaning without rejecting them, and thus can preserve oneself in the world—this is what is called being able to wander.

The Kouyi (Oral Explanations) of Yizhai—Lin Xiyi's commentary on the Zhuangzi—says: dian means to dig out or excavate. If everything beyond where the foot can stand becomes an abyss, people cannot walk; hence "the use of what has no use." You means to seek ease and contentment for oneself. Neng and bu neng (can and cannot) stand for whether one has attained the Way or not.

Some people drift with things and chase after objects; others break away and set themselves apart. Those of utmost knowledge, thick virtue, and natural self-cultivation simply act as circumstances allow. Worrying about falling, guarding against drowning, and rushing through the world like fire in pursuit of fame and gain—all belong to people who cannot return to themselves. Though for a moment there may be distinctions of ruler and subject, noble and base, what remains after the body dies? Only the conduct of the zhiren (person of utmost attainment) holds nothing in the world to cling to and treats past and present as one. Scholars honor antiquity and belittle the present without seeing that the age changes; if one viewed today through remote antiquity, one would treat everyone as people tossed about and deprived of their true nature. Wandering in the world without fixating—then one does not take past and present as right and wrong; complying with others without losing oneself—outwardly blending with the world, inwardly keeping something to hold to. What others teach, they take as correct; I do not learn in that way myself, yet I still go along with their intent, with no split between "them" and "me." This is the meaning of yin shi ("going along with what is so") in the Qi Wu Lun (Discourse on Equalizing Things).

You is to roam at ease in the place of "no use," thereby fulfilling one's great use—only one who has attained the Dao can do this. Those who neng (can) cannot but wander; those who bu neng (cannot) must not be forced. In the world at that time, many drifted with things and chased objects; otherwise they would act in ways of outright rejection. What is spoken of here is the meaning of yin shi.

Only one who can roam freely in the realm of “uselessness” while preserving their true great usefulness is someone who has penetrated the Great Dao. Those who can do this cannot help but wander; those who cannot should not be forced.

Most people in the world chase external things and drift with the current; otherwise they take the path of harsh rejection—rigorously polishing their conduct and posing as lofty, yet never at ease within themselves. They treat human life as a cauldron and pitfall (the cauldron as instrument of execution, a metaphor for peril), even loading stones on their backs to drown or embracing wood to burn themselves. How can such people speak of carefree roaming? None of this is what a person of the highest wisdom and deepest virtue follows.

Many rush headlong after fame and profit, only to soothe their inner unease. The distinction between ruler and subject holds only for a moment; when circumstances shift, high and low can no longer be told apart. Only the Dao is honored throughout the world; go against the Dao and you cannot be valued by the world.

Therefore the perfected person lets the myriad things flow without blocking them, and roams with them in the single breath of heaven and earth. Past and present are simply the way things are. If one can turn things around, the present can be returned to antiquity—why must one value what is heard over what is seen and arbitrarily split noble from base?

View the present from antiquity: who is not someone tossed by the waves? Forget the gap between past and present; wander in the world without eccentric conduct; follow others without losing oneself; take the hearts of the multitude as one’s heart, and one’s own heart finds rest. This is turning the present into antiquity. What nobility, what baseness remains?

When Confucius told his disciple Ran Qiu that antiquity and the present are the same, he meant precisely this.

So when someone comes to learn, teach according to their nature; do not force what they cannot do. Receive their intent and go along with it; do not treat them as alien. Then past and present, things and self, all roam together in one heaven-and-earth. Even across ten thousand years, ten thousand leagues, or among ten thousand people, it is as if sitting together under Master Zhuangzi (the “Master of Lacquer Garden,” who once served as clerk there), delighting in the way of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi.

This means: when the perfected person meets the world, they do not only roam the Dao themselves—they roam the Dao together with the ten thousand things, threading the kings of a hundred ages on one and the same Way, harmonizing with ten thousand generations to achieve pure oneness.

When the eyes are open and unobstructed, there is clarity (ming); when the ears are open and unobstructed, there is keen hearing (cong); when the nose is open and unobstructed, one can discriminate odors; when the mouth and tongue are open and unobstructed, one can discern sweet and bitter tastes; when the heart-mind is open and unobstructed, there is knowing (zhi); and when knowing itself is fully unobstructed, that is De (Virtue/Power). In general, no channel should be blocked: once blocked, things choke; when choking persists without relief, they trample one another, and all sorts of harm arise from this.

Sentient beings live by breath (qi); when breath is not properly attuned, that is not Heaven’s fault. Heaven bores open their orifices for them, without ceasing day or night; yet human beings, on the contrary, plug up their own openings. The womb already contains layer upon layer of empty space, and the heart-mind likewise originally has room to wander with Heaven (tian you) and not be bound. When there is no empty space in a house, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law quarrel; when the heart-mind lacks this “Heaven-wandering” openness, the six openings (liu zao—the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and the two bodily orifices) clash and violate one another. Great forests and hill ranges benefit people partly because the spirit-mind (shen) alone is not enough to overcome inner blockage; sometimes the pattern of nature (tian li) must rely on external things before it can flow freely.

When De overflows outward, it becomes reputation (ming); when reputation overflows further, it turns into showy display. Scheming is scrutinized only when circumstances grow desperate; cleverness arises from rivalry, congestion arises from clinging and guarding, and the business of government offices succeeds only because the multitude each has what suits them. Spring rain falls in season, grass and trees flourish vigorously, and people then take up hoes and weeders to tend the fields. Of plants that were planted upside down, more than half still survive—yet people do not know why.

Guo Xiang’s point is this: where openness is required, if it is stopped up, principle cannot be released and instead mutual crowding and conflict ensue. Plants that grow from the root have no consciousness and do not depend on breath. Yin here means “appropriate” or “fitting.” Breath is not originally set in motion by conscious knowing; once knowing is used to manipulate it, it becomes inappropriate, and after inappropriateness comes blockage. Thus knowing relies on breath, not breath on knowing. How knowing and desire are employed is something assigned to human regulation—it is not an unavoidable trust in “how things must be.” The pattern of Heaven runs constantly without partiality; when everything is entrusted to Heaven, the orifices open. Lang means spacious emptiness; you means not being tied down. Boxi is where contention flares; rang means going against. There are cases in which the natural pattern must lodge in external things before passage is achieved. The higher reputation rises, the deeper the profit involved—so those who cultivate De easily overstep their proper measure. When one deliberately restrains that outward display, reputation can end up looking finer than De itself. Plans are reexamined only when affairs grow urgent; when one goes forward smoothly, cleverness is not needed. Chai means blockage. What suits the multitude is not a single fixed thing, which is why official duties are established. Everything that arises has its source; affairs are triggered by principle as a matter of course, so people do not notice it.

Lu Huiqing’s commentary runs as follows: If a person’s ears, eyes, nose, and mouth are not stopped up by sound, color, odor, and flavor, hearing stays clear and sight stays sharp; the nose stays keen, the mouth can tell sweetness from bitterness, and the heart can know distinctly—knowing that then aligns with De (Virtue/Power). Once those openings are blocked, breath and qi choke and cannot pass; when the blockage is severe, the senses trample one another, gain and loss fight in the chest, and mutual injury and conflict are close at hand. The disasters of yin-yang falling out of balance begin here, and every kind of harm grows from the same root.

Whatever has awareness among living things lives while breath and qi remain and dies when they leave. Qi enters and leaves with the waxing and waning of the zi and wu hours—midnight and noon—and turns with yin and yang on the left and right, day after day in touch with primal qi. That is how Heaven keeps the openings clear, balances day and night, and never lets vitality fail. People plug those openings with sound, color, odor, and taste and refuse to let them stay open, so qi weakens and cannot flourish.

If one can be calm, empty, and free of clinging, true qi will come of itself; if one straightens the body and holds to single-minded attention, the harmony of Heaven will arrive. Then the body is like inner chambers within chambers—layered yet open—and secure enough that light arises within; nothing foul can break in. The heart has the “travel of Heaven”—spirit roaming freely with the Way in wuwei (non-action)—so outward affairs cannot stir it. A house must leave empty space so high and low each have their place; otherwise elders are slighted and quarrels flare. The heart, too, must keep that heavenly roaming if it is to rise above the dust; otherwise the six openings—ear, eye, nose, mouth, heart, and discursive knowing—clash and rob one another.

Whoever truly understands this heavenly roaming can live among people and still not be thrown off by the ten thousand things; spirit alone is enough to master them—why lean on vast groves and hills? Well put.

The highest De does not advertise that it is De, and therefore has no name; once there is a name, De has already spilled over. To display De and not gather it back in is again the overflow of naming. Then plans have to chase what is urgent, cleverness has to be born from struggle, and blockage has to grow from rigid holding. Things succeed when they follow what suits each person’s place. Sound, color, odor, and taste block the outside; thought, schemes, and clever knowing block the inside—and inside and outside cannot meet.

Those who cultivate the Way govern the heart before it falls into disorder. They do not wait until the grass has shot up wildly and only then take hoe and rake to cut it back.

Lin Yidu's commentary reads: “Thorough penetration” (che) means being unobstructed and free of entanglement. When the six—eyes, ears, nose, mouth, mind, and knowing—are all fully open, seeing and hearing are clear, scents and flavors are distinct, and the mind knows without limit; wherever one goes, one is at ease. This is what is meant by returning to the root. One can then look inward and listen inward, withdrawing the senses from outer things; nose, mouth, mind, and knowing all turn inward. The six roots are thereby released and no longer stained by outer dust—this is entering the Way. When the six are not open, outer things block them; they encroach on and belittle one another, and harm multiplies.

Living beings with awareness take breath as their master. Breath is the in-and-out of circulating primordial Qi (chongqi); its root is in the heart and passes through the nose. Earlier it was said that the six must be thoroughly open—breath is their master. When likes and dislikes fail to stay balanced, something is blocking them; this is not heaven’s fault. The pattern of nature runs through all things without pause day or night and does not wane; yet people use these six faculties to plug their own openings.

The bodily cavity must have layer upon layer of empty space before it can hold the five viscera and let Qi and fluids pass. “Heavenly roaming” (tian you) likens the mind to empty and unattached—there the Dao arises. When daughter-in-law and mother-in-law share a house without open space between them, rank fights rank; when the heart is besieged by cravings and the middle is not empty, the six apertures (liu zao) contend with one another. That is precisely what injures life. If the heart can be empty, birth, death, and fear cannot enter; wherever one goes, there is ease.

Mountains and great forests are where spirits lodge, so they benefit people. People know only that hills and woods are good, not that spirits preside there. Spirits dwell in mountains and forests as the pattern of nature dwells in the heart.

De (virtue/power) is what nature already has within. Once a name appears, De spills outward; when De spills outward, people no longer delight in De but in fame; striving for fame turns violent. “Hasty speech” (zhou) is rushed talk; contention is the tool that brings disaster. Scheming seeks speed, so it comes from hurried words; craft and rivalry come from struggle. “Firewood” (chai) means all sorts of cravings packed inside, so fixity and clinging arise from guarding them. None of this is natural. What each person takes as fitting differs; when public business aligns with what the many find fitting, it can be accomplished.

Commentary by Bixu (Chen Jingyuan, styled Bixuzi): If one can withdraw the gaze inward and listen back to the inner heart, regulate the breath and hold the circulating saliva, so that the mind stays empty and still while nurturing inner practice, the six faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—become fully open and penetrative, refined to the utmost. Otherwise they block and choke, disorder spreads above and below, and every kind of illness follows. Every aware creature lives by breath; when the six roots are clogged and breath weakens, the cause is excess in likes and dislikes, not Heaven’s fault. Primordial Qi runs through the ten thousand things; the body’s openings could rise and fall day and night in endless response, yet craving and desire plug them. When the passages stagnate, where can spirit (Shen) abide? Within the body are the Dantian (energy center), the three palaces, and the golden hall and jade chamber—the places where Qi and spirit are said to dwell in cultivation—layer upon layer of open membranes; in the heart is an aperture called the heavenly treasury, where spirit moves and rests. When the room is cramped, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law turn on each other; when the heart is obstructed, likes and hates scatter. A deep forest is the glory of hills and mountains, yet felling the woods mars the whole scene; rare talent is the glory of the gentleman, yet exploiting talent drains the spirit. Parading reputation leaks De (Virtue/Power); a rash, violent will damages one’s name. Planning should be deep and still—rush to investigate and it turns shallow; wisdom should stay hidden—step out to compete and it wrestles with things outside. Stand firm like stacked firewood, hold yourself, and you avoid harm from the outer world. Public work is done when each person gets what fits; fix on private intent and you resolve to sacrifice yourself. When a single act of De shows, name and cleverness surface and turn rash. Stillness like spring pools rising makes grass and trees grow and hoes come into use. People who oppose the Dao to grasp life are like grass planted roots-up yet hoping to flower. What is planted upside down has no way to live; when spring comes, what was inverted is set upright again—creation’s work, which does not know why it does so. All of this means aligning with the natural order.

Oral interpretation by Yizhai (Lin Xiyi): Gain the natural pattern and open fully—then what eye and ear take in is true clarity, what nose and mouth taste is true fragrance and sweetness, what the heart knows is true knowing, and De is true De. “Geng” means blocked; “jian” means footprints—when people feel the Dao is obstructed, they are dragged by traces and every harm arises. Breath (xi) is like “what gives life is called nature”: everyone has it; only with this living nature does awareness arise, so awareness depends on this breath. Sometimes action misses the mark—is that Heaven withholding? Heavenly principle shines in the person day and night, yet people stuff the heart’s openings with desire. The membranes are vast, the heart is master; when it rests at ease in heavenly principle, that is heavenly roaming (tianyou). A narrow house where mother-in-law and daughter-in-law fight images the obscured heart and the six roots disturbing one another. Great forests and mountains seem beautiful because in daily life eye and ear are narrow and cannot keep the natural spirit to prevail over desire. Chasing fame and profit makes De spill outward; a violent, hasty temperament makes reputation spill outward too—and the name is lost as well. “Jiao” suggests haste: haste comes first, then one turns to schemes; rivalry brings schemes; stubborn rigidity is like firewood jammed tight—painful blockage. Trying to make everyone’s affairs fit perfectly is itself stubborn obstruction, like obsessively finishing official business that never ends. Spring rain falls, grass and trees surge, people sharpen tools to hoe and protect—is that meant to harm the plants? For farming, one cannot do otherwise. What lives lives on its own; what guards guards on its own; clear the growth and what was sown rises again—completion is destruction and destruction is completion. From that view, gain, loss, life, and death should be left to nature. From the outward leaking of De downward, all are faults of a calculating mind; drop that calculating heart, and there is heavenly roaming.

The ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and heart can stay open and unobstructed because insight is thorough and De (Virtue/Power) is fulfilled. Without De to thread them together, all five choke at once—the orifices jam, desire runs wild, and harm multiplies.

Living beings have breath (qi) so that the body’s qi can circulate, exchange harmony with heaven and earth, and through ascent and descent of qi nourish life—hence long endurance and vigor even in old age. Health cultivators today uphold this principle yet fail to nurture the root and instead manipulate qi, blocking and severing the flow. That is not the Way that joins with heaven and earth’s primordial qi. The Dao runs through all things without pause. People decline and die because they use the “six things” (eyes, ears, and the other senses and cravings) to plug their own orifices. Animals live by breath; plants live by roots—both receive qi from heaven and earth and take it as their mandate of life.

The embryo sac is the bodily cavity; “double inner gate” means this body arises from emptiness and within it the hollows of the five viscera carry qi and fluids. “Heavenly wandering” means when the heart is empty, there is nowhere one cannot be at ease. If a room is not empty, high and low clash; if the heart is not empty, likes and dislikes invade each other. When one’s dwelling and heart have a true master, how can outer things disturb them?

Great forests and hills feel beautiful because daily sights are narrow and crude and suddenly one meets vast, luminous space—the heart must rejoice. Here spirit does not overcome things; things overcome spirit. Mountains and marshes delight, but before joy finishes, sorrow follows. The great transformation moves in secret—this is necessity. Only the perfected person (zhiren, one who has attained the Dao) does not depend on things for joy, so neither grieves when they change, because change is in oneself and one can turn outer things. Then is what things call “good” for people truly good? Is what people call “joy” in things true joy? It is only outward envy that makes “there” weighty and “here” light.

Fame is a public vessel—do not take too much. Once fame appears, De is lost; once fame is displayed, fame itself is lost. With both lost, one schemes in haste, and cleverness arises from rivalry—the very sign that many harms are brewing. Those who hold fast have another fault: blocking like stacked firewood, unable to adapt, clinging to private interest. Official duty demands what suits the many: the senses above must all be clear and selfless—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking shared with all under heaven. Otherwise cravings surge like spring rain on schedule, plants shoot up unchecked, and only then one repairs farm tools—meaning remedy comes too late. Though plants are checked, rain makes them grow again—that is the season’s work, which people do not understand.

Human life rests on qi. If qi sinks and cannot flourish, are there not ways to support and renew it? The crux is knowing the right moment. This again is the hidden key to nurturing life indicated in the Nanhua (Nanhua zhenjing, the Zhuangzi). Scholars should ponder it deeply. Chan and shan are the same; bian and dian are the same.

Volume 90 of Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning in the True Scripture of Southern Florescence) was compiled by Chu Boyiu of the Song; this passage comes from the Zhuangzi chapter “External Things” (Waiwu).

Stillness can nurse illness; gently massaging the corners of the eyes (zīwēi, a method of easing the eyes for nurturing life) can slow aging; calm can check impatience. Even so, these are things the toiling must still do—those who are truly at ease never bother with them. What sages use to stir the world, divine persons (shenren, inwardly transcendent and following things without a fixed mind) never inquire into; what worthies use to stir an age, sages never inquire into; what gentlemen use to stir a state, worthies never inquire into; what petty men use to pander to the times, gentlemen never inquire into.

At Yan Gate (Yanmen), someone lost both parents and, from grief so intense that it wasted the body, was appointed guanshi (an office held up as a model). Neighbors copied this mourning to excess, and half of them died. Yao offered the realm to Xu You; Xu You fled. Tang offered it to Wu Guang; Wu Guang was enraged. When Ji Ta heard of this, he led his disciples to withdraw to the banks of the Kuan River; feudal lords came to condole, and this continued for three years—whereupon Shentu Di threw himself into the river and died.

The fish basket (quan) exists for catching fish; once you have the fish, you can forget the basket. The rabbit snare (tì) exists for catching rabbits; once you have the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist for conveying meaning; once the meaning is grasped, you can forget the words. Where can I find someone who has forgotten words, so I may talk with him?

Guo Xiang’s commentary: Regulating illness, slowing age, stopping haste—these do not mean one was never ill, never aged, or never hasty to begin with. The practices themselves are still labor, which is why those at ease transcend and pay no heed. Speaking of the divine person refers to the inner; speaking of the sage refers to the outer—each has its allotted place, each rank its level. Mourning to the point of reward has already strayed far from what is genuine; this comes from over-praising worthies. When custom surges and injures nature, it can even drive someone to drown himself. If the sage’s intent is lost, there is nothing left worth saying.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary explains: stillness carried to the point of ceasing altogether—this layer really was present in the dao-methods of high antiquity. Yet motion comes first, and only then can one speak of stillness; complexity comes first, and only then can one speak of trimming and pruning (jian); intensity comes first, and only then can one speak of guarding against it; disturbance comes first, and only then can one speak of settling. These sayings were addressed to people worn by toil, to quiet their fatigue. Those who are genuinely at ease and free have never moved—why would they need stillness? They have never been complex—why trim or prune? They have never been intense—why guard against it? They have never been disturbed—why seek stopping or settling? Such people therefore never bother with these matters at all. Only after one has de (virtue/power) does ease and freedom follow; ease and freedom are what both spirit-persons (shenren) and sages (shengren) fully possess.

Confucius and Laozi were born in the same Zhou era; Zhuangzi and Mencius both traveled in Liang—yet their words never cross-reference one another, because when the dao differs, people do not plan together. Spirit-persons and sages differ in the traces they leave in the world; worthies and junzi (noble persons) differ in talent and capacity; junzi and petty persons are divided by righteousness versus profit. Officials and teachers used mourning and self-mortification to exhort their fellows, until some were harmed to the point of death; Xu You fled the throne, and those who imitated that outward trace went so far as to throw themselves into rivers—the harm of clinging to outward form had reached that extreme. Zhuangzi feared that later people would take only his words and not grasp why he spoke as he did, so he cited these two cases and finally used the fish trap (quan) and the rabbit snare (ti) as analogies, so that students of the dao would forget the language and seek the genuine meaning within.

The Yidu commentary holds that “ran” should be read as “mo” (silence). “Zifang” means keeping beard and sideburns trimmed and neat to fend off decline; in the text associated with Laolaizi, the ancient recluse, the same idea appears as “jianfang” (trimming as a guard against aging). Stillness and silence can nourish and restore illness—not because human beings were originally free of sickness, but because giving aging rest and calming impatience are deliberate human interventions, not the spontaneous way of things; they are the concern of those who wear themselves out with effort, while the truly at ease never bother with them. “Hai” is equivalent to “yu”—to drive or control.

Sages are what remains of the shenren, the “spirit-persons” who are attuned to the great Dao and live beyond ordinary cares; they possess only the accomplishment of ordering the world. Worthies carry on the sage’s virtue and work and achieve real governance. Junzi (noble exemplars) are the reputation and visible tracks of worthies and take on the tasks of governing a state. Petty people stand opposite to junzi. Therefore those at the higher levels never meddle in what lies below.

Yan Gate was a gate of the state of Song. Someone there, after a parent’s death, mourned until he was appropriately gaunt; the ruler of Song praised his filial piety and made him guanshi, an officer charged with moral instruction. Neighbors envied him, forced themselves to weep and feigned grief until they harmed their inborn nature—and half of them died. That is the harm of “dying for the trace”: sacrificing oneself to imitate outward signs.

The sage, though he has deeds that order the world, acts fundamentally from wuwei (non-action); hence through wuwei he accomplishes everything without contrivance. Xu You and Wu Guang, recluses of old who declined Yao’s and Tang’s offers of rule, were wuwei figures of their time; they fled Yao and Tang because they saw those rulers had not yet reached the stage of “doing everything without striving.” Ji Ta and Shentu Di went even further in that direction. The metaphor of the fish trap (quan) and the rabbit snare (ti) is already plain; it need not be spelled out again.

Bixu (Chen Jingyuan) annotation: Quiet rest and nurturing may repair illness, yet they cannot yet make spirit and mind whole. Rubbing and pressing the corners of the eyes may ease the signs of aging, yet they cannot turn old age back into infancy. Calm and stillness may check impatience, yet they cannot bring the heart to the stillness of “dead ashes.” The Zhen’gao says that if you often press the four corners of the eyes with your hands so that your gaze stays clear, that is a way to inspect the light of the eyes; practiced long enough, one may perceive the hundred numina. Aging shows first at the corners of the eyes; kneading those wrinkles can refresh an aged face. But such things belong only to those who strain at cultivation; those who are at ease and aloof do not bother with them.

Sages still leave a name; divine persons leave no trace. Worthies who honor righteous conduct are merely handling what sages leave as surplus; gentlemen who prize orderly principle are merely brushing the dust of worthies; petty people who act in slipshod ways are merely warts on gentlemen. The followers of the Yan school mourned beyond what ritual allows; forced weeping harmed their inborn nature—because they chased outer things and lost the true self, bound too tightly to salary and rank. Ji Ta and Shentu Di crouched by the waters of Kong and drowned themselves in the river, throwing away true nature—all from deliberate show, vaunting virtue, and hunger for reputation.

Once you have caught the fish and the rabbit, you can forget the fish-trap and the rabbit-snare; once you have entered the subtlety of the Dao, words and teaching should be dropped at once. Even hunters do not vainly ornament their nets and cords; how much less should those who seek and hold to the great Dao play clever games in disputation?

Yizhai’s oral gloss: When the heart can be still, what was lost before can be made whole; when material desire is cut off, trouble can be warded off into old age; when body and mind are settled, rash haste can be stilled. All of this concerns recovering after first losing, healing after first falling ill—matters for those who toil. Someone at ease already has quiet in the breast and does not bother with such things; that is not the concern of the leisurely person. Hai (same as “startle”) means to stir or alarm. The sage governs the world with benevolence and righteousness—that is stirring the world; the spirit person (shenren) has nothing of this. The worthy stir the world with great virtue (de); the gentleman stirs a whole state with reputation and name; petty men rush about seeking to fit in for a moment. Rise one level higher and none of this applies.

At Yan Gate, someone in mourning destroyed himself and received a noble rank; villagers envied him and “squatted” at Kuan Stream—“squat” here carries a note of contempt—and still wanted feudal lords to yield their states to him, which was already absurd. Three years later, Shentu again coveted a recluse’s fame and drowned in the river. This is pushing to the limit the error of craving fame. Once the point is fully made, the text closes with the fish trap and rabbit snare (words are only tools to catch meaning), the same structural move as the earlier section on “when words are enough, when words are not enough.”

Illness, convalescence, aging, stagnation, and urgency all come from having already worn oneself out through labor and depletion and then seeking to recover. That is not what someone who dwells at ease, free of encumbrance, should do. Therefore those who possess the Dao, when they meet such situations, do not go to investigate them. Shenren—those united with the Dao and spiritually transcendent—look upon sages; sages look upon worthies (xianren); worthies look upon gentlemen (junzi); the pattern is the same. If one single-mindedly seeks to fit the fashions of the age, one falls even farther from the level of a gentleman. All of this is viewing a smaller difference from the standpoint of a greater measure of De (Virtue/Power): when De is ample enough to embrace, one no longer presses with questions and ultimately lets each transform in its own way; ascending step by step in this way, higher realms can also be approached. As for things in the outer realm, sages do not treat what is not necessarily so as what must be so; only then, living in the world, are they free of disaster. Thus the sages of the three teachings—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism—though their methods of teaching differ, have never slandered one another’s doctrines; they only open the human heart, assist in governing, and together return all to goodness.

“Hai” (to startle or alarm) appears in variant spellings in old texts. In De Chong Fu (the Zhuangzi chapter on the full verification of virtue), the phrase about being loath to alarm the world—in Cui Yan’s recension the word is written with the horse-radical form of hai; the two spellings can be checked against each other.

At Yan Gate (Yanmen, a gate of Song) someone was skilled at mutilating his own body during mourning; people of the same district admired and imitated him, and many died as a result. Xu You fled the realm that Yao wished to yield to him; Shen Tu Di admired that example and threw himself into a river. In every such case people took outward deeds as real and lost their own true nature along with them—no different from pointing at the fishing trap (quan) and the rabbit snare (ti) while hunting for fish and rabbits; the confusion runs very deep. Therefore Nanhua (Zhuangzi) hoped to meet someone who could forget words and speak with him; once one is not bound by phrasing, the true meaning can be grasped.

This chapter first distinguishes the weight of inner versus outer, and clarifies what is close to the self and what is distant. What is external is tied to things; one cannot insist that it must turn out as wished. What is internal is up to oneself; seek it and you can obtain it. Yet most people seek outward; when they fail to get what they want, resentment reaches an extreme—hence these words to dispel confusion.

Loyalty and filial piety are virtues for establishing oneself, yet they still cannot guarantee that ruler or parents will understand, because one uses inner virtue to seek outer recognition. How much less can one use external things to obtain external things? From this we know: within nature and life there is nothing but the Dao; once awakened, nature and life can be preserved. Outside nature and life there is nothing but things; insist on forcing them and you will lose. Only by yielding to Wuwei (non-action) and secretly aligning with the Dao can one escape obstruction on both sides.

When Zhuangzi asked someone to lend him grain and told the parable of the crucian carp in the wagon rut, he meant that kindness must be timely. When Lord Ren fished for a great fish and looked down on those who fish for small ones, he meant that one who embodies the Dao should keep to what is vast and far-reaching. Confucians cite the classics and ritual, yet some go so far as to rob graves for pearls (digging open tombs to take pearls from the dead’s mouth). At first their study may not have been wrong; once pulled by desire for things, they break rules and ruin teaching without scruple—worse than the unlearned fool who still knows fear and can rest in his place. All this because those above govern the people with sage wisdom; in time, the worst among the crafty steal sage wisdom too. Then, through the fables of Old Master Lai and Confucius: forget both ruin and praise together, and worldly trouble naturally subsides—this is “I practice Wuwei and the people transform themselves.”

The white tortoise could appear in dreams yet could not escape the fisher’s net, showing that spirit cannot make itself spirit on its own—and people do not yet understand a “spirit that is not spirit.” The point: cleverness to escape disaster is inferior to forgetting cleverness so that there was never disaster to begin with. Next: only after knowing “uselessness” can one speak of “use”; the two layers explain each other.

What is meant by a person who can “wander” is that the heart wanders in plainness and emptiness; the wandering is inward. Everything before was parables; here it says “Zhuangzi says,” which fits the chapter’s theme: let those who study the Dao rise above the pull of outer things, enter a realm of emptiness and penetration, blend spirit and settle the mind, with nowhere they cannot go—then they approach the Dao. As the age grows worse, people often wander where they should not, even racing like fire, overturning and falling without turning back; even a sage reborn can do nothing. Those who occasionally take wandering for pleasure merely treat rivers and seas as leisure and mountains and forests as beauty, drifting all their lives. This is wandering in the world but off course, still unable to avoid outward pursuit.

Further instruction: cherish the self and keep the six openings (the clear passages of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) unblocked, for the Dao does not wish to be obstructed. Whatever has perception is sustained by breath; therefore one should value the empty chamber. When the empty chamber gives birth to whiteness (when the mind is empty, light arises of itself), everywhere becomes wandering with Heaven (the spirit wanders with Heaven). Thus what the toiling busy themselves with, the idle do not meddle with—just as gentleman, worthy, and sage each have their rank. A man at the Gate of Yan gained a fief for excessive mourning; Shen Tu Di fled King Tang by throwing himself in the river—both because those above prized extreme conduct and those below sought names for pure withdrawal. The intent was to stir the world and revive teaching, not knowing it would harm life and corrupt custom—hence these examples as warnings for later ages.

Measuring words by deeds is also a kind of outer harm. Yet without a finger to point, one cannot see the moon; so those who set forth teachings do not fear repeating themselves—the point is that learners grasp the essentials for themselves.

Essentials of the Ocean of Meaning of the True Classic of Southern Florescence (the True Classic of Southern Florescence is the Zhuangzi; this work is a Song-dynasty compilation of commentary by Chu Boxiu), juan 91, as preserved in the Imperially Commissioned Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. What follows is the opening of the Miscellaneous Chapter “Allegorical Words.”

Allegorical words account for nine tenths; words of authority account for seven tenths; goblet words are spoken day after day, in harmony with Heaven’s pivot.

Allegorical words must fill nine tenths because one speaks by borrowing another’s voice. A father does not act as matchmaker for his own son: when the father praises the son, it is not as convincing as when an outsider praises him. I have no choice but to speak through others’ mouths. This is not my fault; it is the world’s bias—what agrees with oneself is approved, what differs is rejected; what matches oneself is taken as right, what does not match is taken as wrong.

Words of authority fill seven tenths in order to settle disputes; those who speak them are elders in years. Though one’s age may rank ahead of others’, if one lacks the ordering of principle and root and branch befitting that age, one is not truly ahead. If a person has nothing by which to walk ahead of others, there is no way to be human; without the way to be human, one is called a stale person.

Goblet words pour forth daily and accord with Heaven’s pivot; from this they are extended and used to pass through a lifetime. When there is no speaking, the myriad things are originally equal; equality and speaking do not match, speaking and equality do not match—hence one must return to not speaking. One who can take not-speaking as speaking: all one’s life one speaks, yet it is as if one never spoke; all one’s life one does not speak, yet one is never not expressing. Possible and impossible, right and wrong—each has its source. Why call something “right”? Because it is inherently so. Why call it “not right”? Because it is inherently not so. Why call it “possible”? Because it is inherently possible. Why call it “impossible”? Because it is inherently impossible. Things inherently have their “right” and their “possible”; there is nothing that is not so, nothing that is not possible. Unless goblet words flow out day by day in harmony with Heaven’s pivot, who could endure long? The myriad things are all like seeds, succeeding one another in different forms, linked head to tail like a ring, with no place to find sequence—this is called Heaven’s equalizer. Heaven’s equalizer is Heaven’s pivot.

Guo Xiang’s commentary runs as follows. When you entrust the point to speech that comes through others, nine out of ten of what you say will be believed; among the sayings the world prizes, seven out of ten will be believed. A wine vessel full of wine tilts; empty, it sits upright—not because it deliberately keeps one fixed posture. Speech works the same way: it follows things as they shift, appears day by day as if renewed each day; when that renewal is complete, the natural allotment is fulfilled, and when the allotment is fulfilled, there is harmony.

What issues from one’s own mouth is often rejected by the world, so one must borrow outsiders. Figures such as Jian Wu and Lian Shu in the Zhuangzi are exactly those borrowed to carry the words. When a father praises his son, people mostly do not believe; even when someone does believe, habitual suspicion often remains, so one must borrow outsiders to make the case. Though you yourself may be trustworthy, those who always doubt in their hearts still will not accept; entrust the saying to someone else to speak it, and they believe. Listeners are caught in this: what agrees with them they approve, what disagrees they reject, each side negating the other. When three divergent views gather in one place, two sides dispute and inevitably look to the one who does not join the fight for the standard of “right”; everyone holds a different view yet trusts only what they take to be right—without borrowing outsiders, what could they rely on?

Chongyan—speech that borrows the voice of the aged—is jointly valued in the world because it comes from qi’ai, the old. Even without borrowing outsiders, seven out of ten statements will be believed. Years may precede things in time, yet if what remains in root and branch is not enough to command respect and expectation, one is not truly fit to lead. It is only that someone has lived long, and the multitude believes together—worldly habit resting in what is old and familiar.

Each thing has its natural allotment, yet right and wrong have no sovereign, so change spreads and cannot be pinned down. With the heart empty and unclinging, following and letting be, each can finish its natural span. Entrust the point to things themselves and use their own words; then mutual right and wrong level on their own. Set up doctrine to force sameness, and self and things become un-level again. What is said is what the other does not say, yet in the end I do not speak a separate set either—so one has neither spoken nor failed to speak. Self and other each lean one way; there is “may” and “may not”; the ten thousand things each accord with nature and constitute their own “may.” Taken together, there is neither “may” nor “may not”—only then does one arrive. Only one whose speech adapts to things and entrusts itself to natural allotment avoids withering and falling halfway. Change alternates back and forth, yet qi (vital energy) is one. What is a beginning for today was an ending for yesterday; the pattern has always been thus, with no fixed order to assign. What people call leveling—where is that invented? It is all natural allotment.

In Lü’s commentary, allegorical speech (words that lodge meaning in other people’s stories) accounts for nine-tenths of the text, so what is not allegory is only one-tenth; repeated or authoritative speech (words spoken through figures others already trust) accounts for seven-tenths, so what is not such speech is only three-tenths. Goblet words (words poured out like wine from a vessel, without fixed residue or prejudice) are spoken every day and harmonized by tian ni (the natural boundary or pivot). Then whether or not something counts as allegory or as repeated speech, it all becomes goblet speech.

What does it mean that allegory is nine-tenths? The Dao is close at hand in one’s own heart; if one speaks only from one’s own heart, the other person will doubt and not believe—as when a father cannot suitably act as matchmaker for his own son and must rely on an outsider to speak. It is not that I do not wish to speak plainly, but that others cannot receive plain speech.

What does it mean that repeated or authoritative speech is seven-tenths? What agrees with oneself is affirmed as right; what disagrees is rejected as wrong. When I speak to someone, I want agreement, not opposition, so I follow what that person already respects in the words of the aged and worthy. Speaking through what they honor is like speaking in one’s own voice. Every place this book cites the ancients works in this way. One honors qiai (the aged and worthy) because their seeing and hearing came earlier than mine—not merely because of years. If someone is ahead of others in the warp and woof, root and branch of principle, others will follow; if there is nothing by which to lead, one is only stale—what is there to honor?

Once words are uttered, they were never fixed doctrine to begin with; what is said day after day is merely like a goblet. A goblet is filled from the zunlei (wine vessels), poured out in due time, hollow in the middle—it does not store up. Tian ni is the utmost of wuwei (non-action) and the place where the sage rests. Harmonizing through this-and-that, resting in tian jun (natural evenness), then going out or staying in, speaking or silent—all is tian jun. Extend this by following the pattern, and one may pass through a whole life in this way.

Only without self and without disputation can there be equalization; once there is disputation, there is self and things—how can there be equalization? So equalization and speech, speech and equalization, have never truly been equalized. Not speaking seems like equalization, yet it still does not unify with speaking—it is not yet great equalization. Only by uttering wordless speech is there great equalization; goblet speech is just this. Thus one speaks all one’s life yet has never spoken; one never speaks all one’s life yet has never not spoken.

The permissible and impermissible, the right and wrong, each have their sources. Since there originally are what is so and what is acceptable, then there is nothing that is not-so and nothing unacceptable—and this can be known. The seeds of the myriad things sprout without inherent difference. Knowing this sameness, one knows that beginning and end join like a ring—this is called tian jun. Tian jun is where this-and-that are harmonized here, where the myriad things are equalized, and the utmost of wuwei—hence it is called tian ni.

Lin Yidu’s note: Yuyan (allegory) borrows names and roles to carry what one wants to say. Chongyan (repeated or authoritative speech) is what the world already honors and repeats. Zhiyan (spill-cup speech) is like what Laozi meant when he said that the finest words leave nothing to fault. A zhi is a wine vessel: full, it tips; empty, it rights itself again—an image for someone skilled in speech who shifts with the moment and keeps generating fresh meaning, like the sun rising day after day without end. Only in that way can speech be tuned to the natural divide (tian ni).

When people say “nine lines in ten are believed” or “seven in ten are believed,” that still stays within the fixed ratios of yin and yang and never reaches the boundless. What comes straight from one’s own mouth the world mostly disbelieves—so a father does not act as matchmaker for his son and relies on others to speak for him. That is what is meant by yuyan. Chongyan is like speaking through Confucius or Yan Hui: the words are still one’s own, but if others treat them as weighty, they count like the speech of a venerable elder respected for years and virtue. Without the weave of argument and the thread from root to branch, even an elder’s words are not chongyan. Learning that truly reaches the Dao can walk ahead of people; otherwise one is only someone out of date. The sage speaks as things require, fitting reason; having spoken, he does not cling—hence “daily sunrise.” Only when one harmonizes by natural divide can one unfold change and exhaust the years.

Zhiyan arises from “not speaking,” and then the myriad principles align; once it falls into fixed saying, they no longer align. Zhuangzi’s zhiyan is speech uttered after alignment—but “aligned” and “speech,” “speech” and “aligned,” still do not align with each other, so it is better not to speak. Though one does not speak, one is not thereby not speaking. Confucius wished to be without words—did he truly never speak? Words issue from non-speaking; even if one spoke all day, it would only be responding to things, not dwelling on wording; even if one did not speak all day, that would not hinder dealing with the world—how could that count as not speaking? That is what Zhuangzi means by zhiyan.

Where things have a “from which,” there is something affirmable; within affirmation there is a “from which.” Where there is a “from which,” there can also be denial; where nothing is affirmable, there is no fixed “from which.” What follows illustrates this. “Has a from which” and “is thus” are where right and wrong, self and other, begin. “May” and “may not,” “so” and “not so”—these are what we use to align self and other and unify right and wrong. Yet if one affirms the “so” by following what is inherently so and affirms the “may” by following what is inherently permissible, things each have their own “from which they are so” and “from which they are permissible,” and the myriad things then rest content in their own allotted life and nature. The “so” and the “may” lie in things, not in me. Unless zhiyan pours out day after day and is harmonized by natural divide, how could it last?

“Seed” (zhong) is where a kind of thing begins to generate. Myriad forms transform without end; transformation goes on without limit; they replace one another in unbroken succession, like a ring with no starting point—no order or principle can be pinned down. This is called natural evenness (tian jun)—the even turning of nature. Human effort cannot enter here. Tian jun names its leveling; tian ni names its beginning—they are both figures for the natural.

Bi Xuzi (Song-dynasty Daoist priest Chen Jingyuan) commented: Words lodged in stories are believed nine times out of ten; words spoken from the weight of character are disbelieved three times out of ten. That is the common view. When a wine goblet is full it tips, when empty it tilts back; only halfway between is it upright. When the sun first rises it slants, after noon it veers west; only when it runs through the center is it bright. Goblet words take that upright state; sunrise takes that central moment. When the noble person speaks, what comes forth is centered and clear, harmonizing only up to the limit of each thing’s own allotment. Borrowing another’s voice, people mostly trust it; when a father praises his son, however skillfully, it is hard to believe. The world does not sort right from wrong—it treats as good only what matches itself. Chong yan (words that carry weight) values qiai (the venerable aged); if one is merely ahead in years without virtue, one is not a true elder—only someone outmoded.

Goblet words are uttered day by day, centered and clear, harmonizing by the principle of De and each thing’s allotment, relying on speech that does not stick—therefore one can live out one’s years without regret. What is called “not speaking” is silence. In silence, yu yan (allegorical words), chong yan, and goblet words are equalized; they are equalized by “not saying.” The reason of non-speaking is itself equal; the three kinds of speech are not equal in themselves. Hence it is said: equalization and speech do not equalize each other—speech returns to speech, equalization returns to equalization. This broadly matches the sense of “the One and speech make two” (when a whole is joined to words about it, it splits in two). “Speech that is not speech” means words without private feeling. Goblet words are centered—how could private feeling be mixed in? Without feelings of right and wrong, love and hate, there are no words of right and wrong, love and hate; therefore one speaks all one’s life yet seems never to have spoken. If one merely seals the lips like a tied pouch (kuonang—a bag drawn shut, image of guarded silence), while centeredness never leaves the heart, that is speaking not all day yet seeming never not to have spoken.

“Can” and “cannot,” “so” and “not so,” each have their source: “so” and “can” because they accord with the Dao; “not so” and “cannot” because they do not accord with the Dao. Since things originally have their reasons for being so and being able, there is nothing that is not-so or unable. Hence goblet words are again said to endure long, to sum up the preceding chapter. Things differ in kind; the pattern shifts on its own—the formed turns formless, the formless again gives birth to the formed; the sentient and insentient interweave, the insentient again becomes sentient. At the start one cannot see the beginning; at the end one cannot see the terminus. The cycle cannot be fathomed—this is called tian jun (Heaven’s equal turning). Nature is equal from the start; what is taken is only each thing’s own limit of allotment.

Liu Kai’s commentary: Water in a zhi (wine cup) is like words held within De (Virtue/Power)—when the cup is not full, nothing pours out. Pour in from outside and you cannot truly increase what is there; what wells up from within, however much it is, does not spill over. Hence the saying that “zhi yan (words that issue naturally with fullness and emptiness) renew day by day.” Whatever has a limit must have a beginning and a sign; the natural sign loops end to beginning like a ring—hence “harmonizing with tian ni (heaven’s natural divisions, adjusting along innate boundaries).” Grass spreading and water overflowing image the weave of the natural order. When the Dao is whole, things are not injured, and one can fully live out one’s years. If speaking all one’s life is like not speaking, and not speaking all one’s life is like having said everything, then the Six Classics need not count as broken fragments, and Laozi (the book of La Dan) need not count as too terse. Using yuyan (words that lodge meaning elsewhere) to win assent and chongyan (words repeated for trust) to win belief are both intentional utterances—merely the twigs and leaves of language. Are not zhi yan the very root of speech?

In his Kouyi (Oral Explanations), Yizhai (the style name of Lin Xiyu) writes: A zhi is a vessel for holding wine; only when wine is stored in it does drinking have any savor. “Daily renewal” (richu) means that in every affair there is such speech, used to align people’s hearts with the principle of Heaven.

When a father arranges a marriage for his son, others will not believe him, so one must have an outsider speak on the matter. “Repeated words” (zhongyan) are meant to settle dispute and change. By leaning on qilao—the aged and virtuous—listeners dare not object. The ancient emperors and kings all counted as qilao.

“Warp and woof, root and branch” means grasping both the constant and the changing, the beginning and the end. “Qinian” refers to the year of qiyi, great longevity. Even if one’s years exceed others’, if one’s learning lacks real insight, one is not fit to guide others and is merely what people call old and useless. Manyan (easy rambling) means following along contentedly and passing one’s days in that way.

Only through wordlessness and wuwei (non-action) can one return to the same Dao. To speak the “One” as words, or to use words to debate this “One,” is already deliberate scheming and cannot achieve unity (qiyi). Only wordlessness can unify—which is speech without a deliberate mind. Hence one may speak all one’s life yet seem never to have spoken; within “not speaking,” one can still awaken others to the Dao, and that is not “not speaking” after all.

What people call acceptable or unacceptable, so or not so—each side has what it takes as right. Why should I judge again? One need only follow what is already so and already acceptable, and acknowledge its being-so and its acceptability. Things inherently have their so-ness and acceptability; there is no absolute not-so or unacceptable. The chapter “Discourse on Equalizing Things” (Qiwu lun) treats this at length. Without language that accords with nature to harmonize the many voices, how could it endure uncorrupted through the ages?

The seeds of the ten thousand things all issue from creation and transformation; between Heaven and Earth they circulate in beginning and end, succeeding one another—the subtle order of this cannot be exhausted. Tianjun (Heaven’s leveling) is that shared “so-ness” on the plane of heavenly principle.

Allegorical speech (yanyu—teaching through stories attributed to others) and weighty speech (zhongyan—teaching through the words of those with standing and reputation) have already been explained by various commentators. Among explanations that use the “nine-tenths” and “seven-tenths” formulas, some are relatively good; on that reading, words that truly come straight from one’s own heart are very few. Because ordinary people often weigh and value things according to what others do, one can only provisionally set up language, seize the right moment to guide them, and lead people from belief into gradual cultivation of a good disposition. In that way, concern for the age and care for the people can still be deeply meant.

Explanations of goblet words (zhizyan—speech that tilts with circumstances like a wine cup, holding to no fixed side) are not all the same. Using a goblet to hold water is a metaphor for language bearing the Dao. The Dao was never something language could exhaust, and water is not something a single goblet can measure out; yet it is also wrong to conclude from that “the Dao does not belong to language” or “water does not belong to the goblet.” So such speech, spoken day after day, never runs out, and people who hear it do not grow weary—unlike allegorical and weighty speech, which still involve choices of what to include and exclude.

When one harmonizes according to the natural divisions of things, one can align with the hearts of everyone under heaven. If I myself have no fixed mind, why must I distinguish sameness and difference, right and wrong? The line “a father does not act as matchmaker for his son” is enough to show what allegorical speech guards against in its selectivity: the reason I borrow others’ words to teach is that the other party finds it hard to trust me directly. Sameness and difference may show up in words, but their effect is seen rather in the traces of action; that is inferior to wordless wholeness, so that people do not feel they differ from me. Wordless completion is in turn inferior to speech without a fixed mind, which can transform things without clashing with people.

Weighty speech also comes from one’s own mouth, used to unfold arguments, appraise talent, and clarify the root and branch of what one has learned; it also carries admonition and encouragement for students. Goblet words are inexhaustible and can harmonize according to natural divisions, extending them at ease—thus passing through one’s years, how could the world’s entanglements fall upon one? At that point, it is enough.

What follows immediately sweeps this layer of meaning away, saying: the principle of things under heaven, so long as it does not fall into words, is equalized and one with the Dao. “Equalization” and “speech” are like “nonbeing” and “being”—coarse and subtle differ in principle; how can they be equalized? Only what transcends being and nonbeing and does not cling to coarse or subtle is great equalization. Hence “no speech”; read against the text below, the crux is this word “speech.” This again shows the subtlety of “never having spoken, yet never having failed to speak”: guiding in a wondrous way, not resting in the traces of either speech or silence, people under heaven follow like grass bending in wind or shadows matching form.

“Acceptable” and “so” in language both arise from what is inherently so. Since what is inherently so is acceptable, there is nothing “not so” and nothing “unacceptable.” That is why goblet words can embrace allegorical and weighty speech completely without omission; thus even if one spoke throughout the world, there would be no fault in one’s words. The final chapter of this classic itself says: use goblet words to extend meaning, weighty speech to embody truth, and allegorical speech to lodge teaching widely. Clearly, though what this book says is vast, deep, and endlessly changing, it does not go beyond these three modes.

Yet leaving no footprints is easy; walking without ever touching the ground is hard. Not speaking is easy; speaking without anything to criticize is hard. Nanhua (Zhuangzi) established these three modes of speech precisely to avoid being faulted. Relying on speech to avoid fault is still inferior to speaking in a way that both is and is not speech, so that there is nothing to fault. This means that though there is speech, one does not cling to speech—not a one-sided insistence on keeping silent. When discussion reaches this extreme, it comes close to Confucius’s wish “no longer to speak.”

The myriad things alike issue from one pivot; the forms they receive differ, alternating without end—like speech issuing from one mind while the positions argued differ and dispute has no limit. The sage simply accords and does not speak first; responding to the other, he opens his mouth, and those words are not “my” words. So it is like a circle with no starting point, impossible to trace to an end. I only harmonize right and wrong and rest at the natural divisions—that is the meaning of setting speech aside and no longer clinging to it.

Zhuangzi said to Huizi (Hui Shi): When Confucius reached sixty, he had already changed sixty times. What he first took as right, he later rejected; who can say that what he calls “right” today is not what he called “wrong” at fifty-nine?

Huizi said: That is because Confucius worked hard at his resolve and devoted himself wholly to what he knew and saw.

Zhuangzi said: Confucius had long ceased to attribute such changes to the power of knowing; he simply did not say so plainly. Confucius said: A person receives his endowment of nature from the great root (Da ben, the fundamental Way) and returns to clarity to come alive. When he makes a sound, it naturally accords with pitch; when he speaks, it naturally accords with measure. Profit and righteousness set before him, likes and dislikes, right and wrong—he merely lets people’s mouths assent for him. He could make people obey from the heart, not daring to oppose or resist, and thereby settle the stability that the world already has. Enough, enough! I still fall short of that level.

Guo Xiang took it thus: People change with the years and move with the times; when circumstances shift, custom and feeling shift too. One who rides things and roams the mind does not deliberately set himself apart from the common. Change never stops, so “rightness” cannot be held as a fixed rule. To say Confucius knew this through diligent resolve and devoted acceptance is not to trust self-transformation—and shows Huizi falls far short of the sage’s bearing. Confucius treated change as simply how things are, not as something made by knowing; hence he followed the time and yielded to things, without forging new doctrines. If one enslaves cleverness and does not return to the root clarity, the living pulse is lost. Crying arises from pitch, speech from measure; laws are what the multitude fixes, and the sage merely adopts them—so nothing fails to fit, while he himself never deliberately spoke or acted: from the start he was without words. Likes and dislikes, right and wrong, profit and righteousness arrayed before him—he only borrowed people’s mouths; the mouth expresses the heart, and using the multitude’s mouths is to align with the multitude’s hearts. When I align with their hearts, who dares to stand against me? Settling the world by the stability the world already has—why add deliberate doing? Acting thus by following along, nothing lies beyond reach.

The Lü commentary cites the old tradition: At sixty Confucius’s ear was attuned; at seventy he could follow what his heart desired. Having used the multitude’s mouths, the multitude’s hearts were thereby employed. Align with their hearts—who dares to defy and stand apart? Set the world by what the world itself has settled—why must there be deliberate action? Guiding by following along, therefore nothing is beyond reach.

Lü's commentary (Lü Huiqing's annotation) says: The ancient books say that at sixty Confucius's "ears were attuned"—he could accept all kinds of speech without resistance; at seventy, "what the heart desired did not transgress the measure"—whatever arose in the mind stayed within the bounds of propriety. When one truly reaches the stage of "following the heart," arbitrary thoughts in the mind no longer involve right and wrong, and arbitrary words on the lips no longer weigh gain and loss. If the Way has not yet reached "following the heart," one cannot avoid "transformation"—that is, one's judgments change with the years: what seemed right at first may later seem wrong. How can one know that what was "right" at sixty was not what was "wrong" at fifty-nine? Huizi (Hui Shi) did not understand that this was only the side on which Confucius resembled ordinary people; the side on which he was united with Heaven has never changed from antiquity to the present. Yet Huizi really believed that Confucius knew this through strenuous resolve and clever use of the mind.

"Xie" (to discard) means to set these aside; only when things thereby come to be generated is it called "de" (obtaining/realizing). What is meant by receiving one's endowment from the great root (the fundamental ground of creation) and living by recovering one's spiritual nature is this: before birth there is no qi and no form, so there is nothing one could call spirit; once one is born and has qi and bodily form, spirit can be recovered. Crying naturally conforms to pitch and rhythm without further tuning the voice; speech naturally conforms to measure and law without further explaining principle. When right and wrong confront profit and loss and one follows them with private likes and dislikes and judgments of right and wrong, that only makes people assent with their mouths. Because what one relies on is not yet settled, it is not transformation that happens of itself through non-action. If one can make people's hearts submit so they dare not oppose, and then fix the "ding" (what truly settles the world), that is letting people transform themselves—not merely making mouths agree. Saying "I still cannot match him" expresses that one has already discarded [something], yet never once used words to expose it fully.

The Ningdu commentary says: When Confucius was sixty and his ears were attuned, he no longer erred—nothing was not right. Huizi did not understand and thought this was achieved through diligent resolve and applied intelligence. "Xie" is like the alternating metabolism of Yin and Yang—it was never actually spoken aloud. The great root is creation itself; human endowment is all received from creation. One who can return to the root and recover spiritual nature has grasped the principle of life. If one is driven by external things and the root loses the protection of spirit, how can life be preserved? Pitch and rhythm express the qi of Yin and Yang; law and measure follow the virtue (de) of Heaven and Earth. The sage accords with the qi of Yin and Yang, so his voice naturally fits pitch; he accords with the virtue of Heaven and Earth, so his speech naturally fits measure. Nowadays, when right and wrong and profit and loss are interwoven before us and provoke private likes, dislikes, and judgments, one can only make mouths submit, not hearts. To make hearts submit, one follows and allows, not daring to stand opposite in defiance, and settles things along the tendency by which the world is already at rest—that is shun (accord). "Enough, enough" expresses the wish for wuwei (non-action): when I am without contrivance, the other naturally settles—hence "I still cannot match him."

Bixu Zi (Chen Jingyuan) notes: The longer the years, the clearer and purer one’s De becomes. This passage uses language close to the chapter on Qu Boyu (personal name Yuan), yet the meaning differs. Qu Yuan understood that what he first took to be right he later found wrong, yet he still could not let go of the self; Confucius (Zhongni), by contrast, moved and adapted without getting stuck, so that others found him hard to guard against or oppose. What he affirmed at first could shift with events; what he finally rejected still returned to the right Way. What was right before may not be right now; what is wrong now may still need correcting—thus the more one diminishes, the more one gains. If you only strain after the mind’s aims, change becomes rare; if you cling to views and knowledge, stiffness increases. Confucius had long left the world’s turmoil behind, yet he never spoke of these things openly. One who receives one’s endowment from the great Dao need not lean on the sage’s deeds; one who descends with restored numinous nature follows transformation and entrusts oneself to creation. Hence his voice accorded with harmony and his words became teaching. Setting righteousness and profit in the canonical records was not merely to win assent with the mouth—it could make people run to follow and submit in heart. Who would dare stand opposed if one followed the ancient Way and acted according to principle? With this kind of accommodating stance in the world, one can stabilize order where the realm is already settled. “I am not equal to him” is Confucius’s modest phrase.

Yanzhai (Lin Xiyi), oral exposition: To exhaust the mind in pursuing views and knowledge is “broad learning.” Confucius left broad learning behind and advanced toward the Dao—he simply did not tell others about it. “Endowment” (cai) is like the beginning of nature: the perceptive nature received from the creator. Only by returning to that original perceptive nature can one exhaust what it is to be human. “Voice” (ming) is speech; “measure” (lü) is standard or law. When righteousness and profit stand before you and right and wrong, liking and disliking arise, that is the opposition of self and other—you can satisfy people’s mouths, not their hearts. One must set aside righteousness, profit, right, and wrong before hearts can be won; when no one dares to oppose, then the fixed principle of the realm can be established. After Zhuangzi praised the Master’s frame of mind, he sighed to Huizi: “Enough, enough—how could I compare with him?” That is the deepest reverence for the Master.

People live in the world and change with the passing years; neither the wise nor the foolish can escape this. Inner cares multiply day by day, outward appearance alters day by day; gain and loss, benefit and harm clash against one another, and right and wrong, success and ruin keep turning into their opposites. Whatever rises suddenly before the eyes and vanishes just as suddenly—like a shadow, dust, or a bubble on water—is “transformation” (hua).

Confucius lived to sixty and thus underwent sixty rounds of change. Hence the way of his life renewed itself daily; he did not cling to traces of the past. He dwelt within transformation and differed from ordinary people. The Huangdi Shu (Book of the Yellow Emperor) says: The cosmos is originally one; people together with the multitude receive transformation, and the key lies in how one applies oneself—all myriad transformations arise from the person. These words are indeed trustworthy.

Sixty years is one full cycle of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (tiangan dizhi); measured against the traditional upper limit of one hundred twenty years of life, it is exactly the halfway point. When one has seen and endured much over long years, right and wrong may seem decidable—yet one still does not know whether what one holds right today is not precisely what one held right at fifty-nine and later rejected. When one calmly traces the root, the fault lies in clinging to “there is a self.” If one has not yet reached no-self, then what one takes as truly right after sixty may still not be so. That is why Qu Boyu (Qu Fuzi, the worthy of Wei in the Spring and Autumn period) also sighed that “for fifty-nine years, nothing was right.”

“Diligent in purpose” (qin zhi) means accumulating learning; “relying on knowledge” (fu zhi) means depending on talent. Confucius had long set aside what he had learned and what he could do, and silently cultivated this way—yet others did not know it. All people receive their endowment of nature from the transforming process of creation (zaohua); they must recover their original spiritual clarity (lingming), and only then can the way of sustaining life endure. Then they may enrich it with learning and adorn it with virtue and achievement, so that voice accords with pitch and speech accords with measure—that is, voice may serve as pitch and the body as a standard. All of this issues from spiritual clarity; the human way may then be said to be quite complete.

Yet once righteousness and profit are set before one, if one takes one’s own likes and dislikes as the measure of right and wrong, others can only submit in word. Students in the world often behave thus. Confucius, however, could make people admire him in heart and not dare to resist (the character e, following Fan Wuyin’s punctuation), and thereby establish stability under Heaven. This means that he transformed very swiftly. “Stop— I still cannot keep up with him!”—that is Zhuangzi’s exclamation of admiration for Confucius.

The above is from Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Cuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Meaning-Sea of the True Classic of Nanhua), juan 91. The Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasures) edition of the same work, juan 92, was composed by the Song author Chu Boxiu; its subject matter belongs to Zapian·Yuyan (Miscellaneous Chapters, “Allegories”), the second section.

Zengzi took office twice, and his state of mind shifted twice with those appointments. He said: “When my parents were alive and I held office, my salary was only three fu (a very small measure of stipend in antiquity), yet I felt quite content; later, when my stipend had grown to as much as three thousand zhong (far greater than three fu), I no longer had parents to support with it, and then I felt grief.” A disciple asked Confucius: “Can one say that someone like Zeng Shen was free of the fault of being bound by stipend?” Confucius replied: “He was still bound. Would someone truly unbound still feel sorrow? For such a person, three fu and three thousand zhong are no more than birds or gnats flitting past the eyes.”

Guo Xiang glosses “xian” (suspension, being hung up) as being bound or tied. Zeng Shen took office for his parents’ sake and did not err through craving stipend; if he was bound to stipend at all, it was only in order to provide for them. The point of supporting parents is to let them live at ease, not how much one supplies. If one can be wholly unbound, one does not set store by high or low rank; the heart’s qi stays level and smooth—only then has one fulfilled the way of serving them with a gentle countenance. The unbound person treats glory, rank, and stipend like gnats and birds passing before the eyes—how could joy or grief arise there?

Lu Huiqing comments: To rest in the times and follow change—then joy and grief cannot enter the inner person. The ancients called this “the Sovereign’s release from suspension” (di zhi xian jie)—loosening bondage by aligning with nature. Hence the unbound person originally has no sorrow. Life and death are already the greatest matters; if even joy and grief cannot enter the heart, then viewing three fu and three thousand zhong as one views birds and gnats in flight—their magnitude and amount are not worth reckoning—is perfectly clear.

Lin Yidu notes: Zengzi took office because he was poor. When stipend just reached his parents, though it was only three fu, he was glad at heart; when it later amounted to three thousand zhong, his parents were gone and the stipend could not be used for them, so his heart turned to grief—this is “the heart transformed a second time” (xin zai hua). The disciple thought he could nourish his parents without being dragged by stipend, and therefore asked Confucius. Confucius held that Zeng Shen’s filial piety sprang from love of kin, but he had not yet forgotten kin; joy and grief still lodged in his breast—how could he be without bondage? Only the unbound can be without sorrow; only then does one treat zhong and fu as so light. This is to say Zengzi had not yet reached that stage.

Chen Bixu comments: Now glad, now grieved—that is “transforming again” (zai hua). Filial feeling need not be argued in terms of wealth or poverty; attendance in service is not a matter of thick or thin provision. When Zengzi spoke in this way, his heart was still narrow (“a thatched heart,” peng zhi xin—a cramped outlook). On that view, since Zeng Shen is called consummately filial, he surely had no fault of clinging to stipend—so how could there be sorrow? If one sees zhong and fu like gnats, the bond can be released.

Lin Xiyi's Kouyi: The disciple’s question was whether, in light of Zengzi’s words, there remained the fault of being bound. If so, since Zeng Shen is called consummately filial, he must be free of the guilt of being tied to stipend—whence sorrow? If one views zhong and fu as gnats, the bond can be undone.

Yizhai Kouyi (Lin Xiyi's commentary on the Zhuangzi) says: The disciple asked whether Zengzi's words still counted as fault tied to attachment—doubting that he had changed back and forth and that his mind swung between sorrow and joy. “Having already been suspended” means that very sorrow and joy were the heart’s hanging and being bound. If one were truly without attachment, things passing before the eyes would be no more than gnats—how could they be worth sorrow or joy?

In antiquity, people finished their studies and then took office, intent on benefiting the people; salary merely replaced tilling the fields, enough to support parents above and raise children below. Unlike officials in decadent ages, who beyond their stipends still beat and squeeze for extra profit, indulging ears, eyes, mouth, and belly—some never even inquiring at their parents’ door. When Zengzi’s parents were alive, three fu of grain could support them and his heart was glad; later, when it grew to three thousand zhong and his parents were no longer there to be provided for, his heart was sad. Sorrow and joy hung on whether his parents lived or died, not on whether the salary was scant or ample. Yet the heart still could not avoid shifting again with circumstances—hence the disciple’s question. The Master (Confucius) said that between these two states Zeng Shen could not be entirely free of attachment: the bond to parents’ life and death was hard to escape, but thick or thin salary need not weigh on the mind. One truly without attachment—how could there be grief? To such a person, zhong and fu are only like gnats brushing past. Zengzi’s filial conduct is famed for ten thousand generations; that he ever received three thousand zhong in thick salary has never been heard. This parable in the Nanhua (Zhuangzi) also carries a reproach toward the worthy, urging people to honor filial conduct and treat office and salary lightly. Whether parents are present or not, whether salary reaches them or not—leave it all to one’s proper lot; what attachment remains?

Yan Chengzi You said to Dongguo Ziqi (a reclusive sage who embodied the Way in the Zhuangzi; Zi You was his disciple): Since I heard your words, in one year I returned to plain substance; in two years I could follow along; in three years my mind opened through; in four years I was one with things; in five years the genuine mechanism came of itself; in six years the subtle and numinous entered the inner heart (“gui” here means what is dark and unfathomable, not a harmful ghost); in seven years what is natural was complete; in eight years I no longer knew death or life; in nine years I entered great spirit-like subtlety.

Life that deliberately sets out to act is in fact death. I urge you to consider: death has a whence, yet yang qi when it arises has no whence—is that really so? What counts as going appropriately, and what as not? Heaven has calendrical cycles and seasons; earth has what people rely upon—where am I to seek? Not knowing where it ends, how say there is no fate (ming)? Not knowing where it begins, how say there is fate? If there is mutual response, how say there is no gui? If there is no response, how say there is gui?

Guo Xiang’s commentary: What is meant by “wildness” (ye) is to stand apart from worldly affairs; power and profit are simply followed as they come, without making one’s own decisions. Someone who can penetrate both the other and the self and arrive together with the myriad things is truly self-sufficient (zide). Going further still, to set the bodily form aside, letting everything arise from Heaven’s own completion, practicing non-action (wuwei), no longer distinguishing death from life—whatever one meets is entirely fitting. When one reaches the realm of the greatest subtlety, good and evil are originally the same; hence there is nowhere one goes that is not fitting.

This means that after long exposure to the Way, once one understands that Heavenly principle is naturally so, one suddenly forgets oneself; encumbrances and attachments fall away day by day until they are wholly gone. If one lives yet deliberately acts, one in fact obstructs one’s own life: death is summoned by purposeful action (youwei), and purposeful action arises from treating life as private possession. The reason for urging people to uphold “the public”—not holding life as private property—is precisely that death often stems from that private grasp.

What is called the yang of life depends on leaving no trace and on non-action; only thus does it suddenly come to be on its own, without any other origin. If that is truly so, then there is no fixed destination and no misfit; only then is everywhere fitting, and only when everywhere is fitting has one truly arrived.

Heaven and earth are each fully sufficient; principle necessarily completes itself—it does not come from knowing. What else is this if not fate (ming)? Not knowing why it is so, yet it is so—this is called ming. Yet to call it ming is as if something intended it; therefore one must also discard the name “ming” to show that things are self-so (zier), and only then is the doctrine of ming complete. Principle necessarily has its correspondences; it looks as if a spirit (shen) has come, but in fact principle responds to itself—it is not due to any cause. Thus, though there is response, there is no spirit within it.

The Lü commentary explains: Dao originally had no myriad things at all. Once things have already taken form, if one still wishes to return to a state without things, then “emptying the heart and keeping still” (zhixu shoujing—making the mind empty and quiet, holding to clarity and stillness) is not something that can be built up in a day or two. Master Ye says: Forget benevolence and righteousness; put ritual and music in the guest’s place and do not treat them as the master. What is called “following” is when minds do not go against each other but meet in silent accord; what is called “penetrating” is when the mind can penetrate through to all things. Then one may roam among all things and contemplate all things. When this arrives, Dao gathers in the person—this is called “the ghost enters,” meaning that ghosts and spirits come to dwell there; innate nature is thereby fulfilled, and De (Virtue/Power) aligns with Heaven.

Not knowing death and not knowing life means knowing how to rest in what one does not know. What is utterly wondrous is Shen (spirit); Shen is precisely what is meant by “speaking through the wondrous working in the myriad things”—only then can one truly grasp Shen. When there is life without deliberate doing (wuwei), one no longer feels that there is life or that there is death; when there is life with deliberate doing, then death appears. When one guides others with fairness and selflessness, people no longer fix their minds on death. Life with deliberate doing is exactly the source of death, so the sage sets the self aside and the body is preserved all the more; because there is no self-centeredness, the self is truly completed—this is why one exhorts people to be fair. Tracing the beginning and gathering up the end, one then understands the principle of death and life. Beginning and end join like a ring—it is simply the generating movement of yang qi; where is there a fixed “place of origin”? Taking deliberate doing as the origin is only a way of speaking from the perspective of how things feel—could it really be so? Thus those who embody the Dao and exhaustively plumb Shen no longer distinguish death from life—how could there be what “fits” and what “does not fit”? If one tries to find answers in calendrical reckoning and the cycles of fate, people’s grounds for judgment have never been the same—how then can one seek certainty amid fortune and misfortune and human affairs? Say there is no Ming (fate, the ordering of life)—yet in the end it seems as if something has arranged things; say there is Ming—yet when one pursues its beginning, nothing can be grasped. Say there are no gui (ghosts)—yet there is responsive contact; say there are gui—yet no trace can be matched to them. Therefore to rest in what one does not know, without the heart clinging—that is truly to have attained it.

Lin Yidu (Yidu, a commentator on this classic) says: Ye (wildness) means not adding artificial ornament; cong (following) means not going against what is so; tong (penetrating) means not being obstructed. In this way, both self and things are forgotten. When external things come, there is no need to deliberately turn away; when nature returns to luminous clarity, one accords with Heaven and completes oneself, and one’s De (virtue/power) merges with Heaven. No longer distinguishing life from death—this is sageliness (sheng); what is even more subtle is Shen (spirit); to reach the realm of Shen is the utmost. This is the sequence by which the learner enters the Dao.

As soon as a person intentionally acts, they burden life—and death arises from this. It is because one privately cherishes one’s own life that one goes and acts. The reason one is urged to be fair is that death often comes from selfishness. As for those who rest in ming (allotted span/natural limit), they are in great unity with the ten thousand things: public-spirited and without private aims, so for them there is nothing that counts as “death.” Life belongs to Yang, death to Yin; to know that life and death and Yin-Yang are originally one affair is to have no self to cling to. One who truly understands this does not rejoice excessively in life nor grieve excessively over death—so why ask again whether something is “fitting” or not?

The calendar’s numbers are the images Heaven displays; what people rely on are the implements of Earth. Human beings stand between Heaven and Earth; the Way of Heaven and Earth is sought only in one’s own person. Ming is the Way of Heaven; xing (nature) is the Way of humankind: always explain the constant with the Way of Heaven, and explain what responds with the Way of humankind. When Heaven and human beings communicate, the principles of Yin-Yang and of xing and ming are complete. To lodge this teaching between you and wu (being and non-being), without making rigid judgments—that is the person who deeply knows the great Dao. Bixu (Bixuzi Chen Jingyuan) also stated the same meaning clearly.

Bi Xu (Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan, styled Master Bi Xu) is explaining the stages by which learning the Dao moves from shallow to deep. “Wild” (ye) means the beginner’s mind is plain and unrefined. “Follow” (cong) means not going against others’ sincere intent. “Penetrating” (tong) means seeing through principle without obstruction. “Things” (wu) means the ten thousand things merge as one and arise naturally. “Coming” (lai) means people gather to align with one’s De (Virtue/Power). “Ghost entering” (gui ru) means plunging into what is hidden, dark, and profoundly remote. “Heaven completed” (tian cheng) means accomplishment through Wuwei (non-action), without deliberate striving.

When one no longer knows death or life, being and non-being become a single whole. “Nine years until the Great Subtlety” (da miao) means that, in terms of duration, practice reaches the limit of pure Yang; spirit and wonder transform in ways that cannot be fathomed.

While alive, if one keeps acting and contriving, one in fact drives oneself toward death—because of selfishness; hence the advice to follow the impartial Way. Those who turn from that Way must die through selfishness; can such death be without cause? What we call life is only a surge of strong Yang Qi (vital energy); it has no fixed place from which it comes. Can you truly arrive at the Great Subtlety? The Great Subtlety makes no split between public and private, life and death; there is nowhere one must go, and nowhere one may not go—it may be called the utmost peak.

Stars in heaven can be reckoned by calendrical numbers; forms on earth can be known through human measure—yet only when one is without deliberate mind can anyone gauge it? Some affairs have a beginning but no end; some have an end but no beginning—all are the decree of Heaven’s command. What is meant by “correspondence” (xiang ying) is the fruit of the nine years of learning the Dao described above—whether the subtle echo appears. Whether there is verification depends on the depth of effort and how quickly spirit responds. Though the path of learning has an order, what matters is solitary transformation by natural spontaneity. As for a fixed term, one may speak of nine years until awakening, yet in truth it does not exceed a single morning or evening.

In his Yizhai Kouyi (oral explanations of the Zhuangzi from the studio name Yizhai), the Southern Song commentator Lin Xiyi holds that ye (“the wild” or untamed simplicity) means returning to plainness, following nature, and thereby opening the way to thorough awakening. When a person or thing appears as quiet as a withered tree or dead ashes, the point is that within that still solitude something remains that is not extinguished. To hold creative transformation within one’s breast and to complete oneself by following what is natural is to merge with Heaven. Not to fixate on the distinction between death and life is to be at ease in every situation—an exceedingly subtle state. The numbers from one to nine are only borrowed to mark sequence; this matter cannot be reckoned by the length of years and months.

People treat “life” as something real that belongs to them personally—that is to cling to one’s own view and care only for oneself. To instruct them with the most impartial reasoning is to make them see that in the world nothing lives without dying. To speak of “death” is as if death had a source; yet if you press for where life begins, you cannot find any point from which it arises. Since there was never a beginning called “life” in the first place, how could there be “death”? “Yang” here means the onset of movement. To discuss the logic of life and death from this angle is still not enough to settle whether things are truly so.

“Suitable” and “unsuitable” are like saying “it is so” and “it is not so.” Viewed from the utmost limit, neither affirmation nor denial can yet be fixed. Calendars and human standards—can they really exhaust the principles of Heaven and Earth? The myriad changes of the world are all governed by the power that shapes and transforms things—how can one say there is no ming (destiny or allotted course)? In the obscure beginning, primal chaos originally had nothing at all—how can one say there is ming? Morning and evening, cold and heat: when the season arrives, qi responds accordingly—how can one say there are no guishen (ghosts and spirits)? Yet humility does not necessarily bring good fortune, and benevolence does not necessarily bring long life—how can one say there are ghosts and spirits? The point is that the ultimate truth of creative transformation cannot be known for certain.

Those who live immersed in the secular world wither along with custom, day by day losing their original nature. Students of the Dao keep reducing desires and artificial striving so they can return to how things were at the start. Several terms in the text can be read as follows: ye means gradually recovering plain authenticity; cong means going along with others without losing oneself; tong means seeing through affairs clearly; wu means forgetting the self; lai means that people all come to gather and align. When spirit and thought enter a dim, trance-like state, what completes itself does so in accord with nature. Once you no longer split death from life, there is neither departure nor arrival. When cultivation reaches “nine years of great wonder” (in Daoism, nine years often stands for completed work and entry into the utmost subtlety), the allotted span is exhausted and attainment enters the finest depth; spirit-transformation becomes unfathomable. Only when a person takes wuwei (non-action) as the root can they “ascend in transcendence” (deng jia)—rising above the mundane to that level. Ordinary people, by contrast, stay sunk in deliberate doing and every day walk further toward the realm of death.

The text urges a return to fairness and impartiality because death often comes from selfishness. Bixuzi (the Song-dynasty Daoist Chen Jingyuan), comparing the edition collated by Zhang Junfang (the Song scholar who edited Daoist canonical texts), held that after qi there should be another character, si (private, selfish), and that the sentence should break there. Si is excessive clinging to life and over-indulgence in nourishing the body: meant to help oneself, it can do harm like nothing else—so it must be dropped and one must return to impartiality. To treat life as something solidly “there” is one move; yet what the self gives rise to begins from non-being—that is wu (non-being). If what arises from the primordial state does so without selfishness, there is no death either: heaven cannot kill you, earth cannot bury you. Can you truly live up to that? From this it follows that those who do not make staying alive their main aim surpass those who obsess over life; there is no need to keep calculating whether conditions suit you or not. Heaven has its cycles and calendrical order, so fortune and misfortune (fou and tai) can be inferred; earth holds records of human affairs, so order and chaos can be investigated—why look anywhere else? Since heaven and earth—the Two Instruments (eryi)—were separated, for millions upon millions of years beings have been born and renewed without anyone knowing where it all ends—if that is not ming (fate, mandate of life), what establishes it? And no one knows where it begins—so from what is ming fixed? The correspondence of cycles and human events with weal and woe suggests that spirits and deities (gui shen) are at work. Yet the way of heaven is sometimes hard to trust completely, and human affairs sometimes lack a fixed rule—so people again doubt that any spirits exist. That is to say: creation is so fine-grained it cannot be seen; precisely because it cannot be seen, it counts as creation. One should simply do what is one’s own to do and then wait. That is why the highest teaching turns people back to inquire within themselves: the beginning and end of heaven and earth, the hiding and showing of the luminous within a single body; fully developing one’s nature until it opens onto ming, clarifying the subtle until it reaches shen (spirit). What matters is real practice and inner accord—then achievement can reach great wonder; there is no need to insist on a full nine years.

Wang Liang—the pale penumbra outside a shadow—asked the shadow: “You were bowing before but now you raise your head; you had your hair bound before but now it hangs loose; you were sitting before but now you stand; you were walking before but now you stop—why is that?”

The shadow replied: “It is simply moving of itself—why pick it apart? I may show all these changes, yet I do not know why they happen. I am like the cicada’s cast shell or the snake’s sloughed skin: I look like something real, but I am not the thing itself. Fire and sun make me gather and appear; shade and night make me dissolve and hide. Is that what I depend on? And how much more does that itself depend on something else! When it comes, I come; when it goes, I go; when it stirs with yang vigor, I follow that yang vigor. Since I move along with it in this way, what is there to question?”

Guo Xiang’s commentary: Movement is inherently like this—there is nothing to dissect. Because it is inherently like this, one does not know the reason. The cicada’s shell resembles a cicada, the snake’s slough resembles a snake, the shadow resembles the body yet is not the body. Push this principle to the limit, and what we now call “being dependent on something” ultimately comes down to just this.