《南华真经义海纂微》Vol. 5

This passage develops Zhuangzi’s idea of returning to purity and simplicity, using Huizi as a foil.

Because people still hope to “reverse course” and recover authenticity by some method, the text asks: if you do not scheme, what use is knowing? If you do not cut and carve, what use is glue? If you do not lose your original simplicity, what use is De? If you do not trade and hoard profit, what use is commerce? The tone is sharp, yet it pinpoints the heart of returning to purity and simplicity: should a sage appear again in the world, this teaching would not change. If one can shake off burdens like sticky glue and accumulated fault, one can walk with the Dao; how could worldly calamity then attach? One has a human form and eats, sleeps, and lives like everyone else; yet if one does not cling to human sentiment, right and wrong, liking and disliking no longer stir the heart. The body seems small within heaven and earth, while De—one’s innate nature and cultivated virtue—extends boundlessly through one’s temperament. Using one’s own temperament to return to one’s own naturalness—why borrow another’s force? When the Dao accords with you, you are at peace with beauty and ugliness alike; when heaven has given you this form, you accept long life and early death alike. Constantly following nature without “augmenting life” (yisheng: artificially adding to life), knowing that you do not augment, you surely do not harm—and then what need is there to settle those clever, calculating feelings?

Today Huizi does not fill himself with inner De; he relies on eloquence to win the feelings of everyone under heaven, until his spirit wearies outwardly and he leans on a tree and dozes (a image of exhausted mind). He is in fact enslaved by “knowing” and “ability,” trapping himself in hardship. Hence the admonition: heaven chose this form and gave it to humans, making them the spirit of the ten thousand things—is that only so they may clamor in the world with the “hard and white” sophistry (Huizi’s doctrines of “hard/white,” “sameness/difference,” and the like)? One should climb by steps until one reaches the depths of nature-and-life and Dao-and-De, becoming sage and spirit—only then is it within reach. It grieves one that Huizi is burdened by talent and drowned in disputation, dimmed in nature and confused in feeling—this is losing De through knowing, the great ailment of students. They do not see that human feeling at its utmost originally has no liking or disliking; liking and disliking arise because of things. When feeling and things are both forgotten, transformation is complete. Constantly following nature without augmenting life—this is called the passion that is no passion (wuqing zhi qing: not clinging to emotion, yet emotion is whole).

Why argue? To bring Huizi to sudden awakening—return to purity and simplicity, advance into non-knowing—then De can be full and nature restored; why worry that people will not harmonize with things and things will not respond to people?

When all things are able to live and thrive, that is called De (Virtue/Power)—the refined goodness Heaven bestows, from which form takes shape. Through honoring life and nurturing growth, De is filled out, and human nature can then hear and harmonize with the Way of Heaven. De has its root in Heaven, yet must be fulfilled in the person—how could one fail to cherish oneself? When the myriad things align with such a person, that is only a small responsive confirmation, a check that De is truly full; the great achievement is to stand alongside Heaven and Earth and assist in transforming and nourishing. That is why Wang Tai could make the Master (Confucius) sit up in respect; to lead all under Heaven to follow would require a cultivation far beyond the ordinary. He neither taught nor debated, yet learners came empty and left fulfilled—unless heart answered heart, life and death did not waver, and guarding the root while transforming things issued from oneself, could one reach this? Holding to the one and releasing what is lost shows the person who has attained the Way forgetting the body; only stillness can still all stillness—understanding how to use emptiness to mirror the vulgar world: all of this is the method of filling De.

When De is full and things gather to one, it is like pine and cypress among trees, or Yao and Shun among the people—is it only that living beings are lucky? The luck lies in being able to set the multitude straight, while one’s own life, death, fortune, and misfortune need not be clung to. Hence choosing a day for dengjia (ascending as immortal, departing this life), going or staying is in one’s own hands—how would one treat outer things as what matters? Shentu Wu drew the label “cripple” by being overly solitary and stark, yet seen as “cripple” he could still be whole; Zichan, proud in the dignity of ruling, though high in rank was still low. Without toes yet honored—feet preserve what is worth preserving; there is what outweighs the feet. When Heaven’s punishment cannot be undone, then simply resting in fate is no different from being a “whole person.”

When Ai Taituo’s union of yin and yang stood before him, Duke Ai forgot his ugliness and wished to yield the state—this was not love of his form but love of what gave his form being. Thus inner great harmony: where release is possible, resting in fate matches the whole person. Ai Taituo’s union before the duke made him forget ugliness and offer the realm—again, not love of the body but of what animates it. Inner harmony runs deep, outward flaws fade, De renews day by day, the Way opens to spirit-transformation, affairs succeed without claiming merit, and wherever one goes things gather. Duke Ai took Zhongni as friend—De was lofty and rank could be forgotten; Duke Ling saw Wushun as whole—De was lofty and form could be forgotten. Where the sage wanders merges boundlessly with things—great indeed, alone completing Heaven’s portion. To forget what others cannot forget, where refined goodness gathers, there is what one cannot decline.

Huizi was rich in talent but thin in De, and so asked about the feelings of liking and disliking; the answer spoke of the truth of nature and life, to deeply remedy his failing. Let the Way be like Heaven, so form is not harmed by likes and dislikes; there is form without emotional entanglement, always following the natural. At that point one must fill De and match things—the self and other are exhausted, right and wrong and the play of preference dissolve in forgetting words—why weary spirit and tax essence outwardly, and trumpet “hard and white” (Huizi’s paradox of hardness and whiteness) for oneself?

Preface (Closing Remarks at the End of Volume 13 of Yihai Zuanwei)

Laozi speaks of “upper virtue,” “supreme virtue,” “virtue of the sage,” “mysterious virtue,” and the like—all as manifestations of De (Virtue/Power) filled to different depths. “Good at binding and gathering yet not using cords and ink to constrain”—then people under heaven come of themselves; they arrive without being summoned—whoever holds the covenant with De accords with the Dao. Zhuangzi in the Nanhua Zhenjing (Zhuangzi) develops this layer with especial finesse; he even takes people marked by “crippled, stump-legged, leper, ugly” outward form or reputation to illustrate “discourse on the root,” precisely to warn those who prize the bodily frame and slight inner De.

Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei, Volume 14

Author: Chu Boqiu, Song dynasty

Text commented: Inner chapter “Da Chong Shi” (Great Master), first

Opening of “Great Master”

To understand what “Heaven arranges” and what “humans choose and make”—that counts as reaching the utmost.

“What Heaven does” means the side of us that receives mandate from Heaven at birth and is ruled by Heaven; “what humans do” means using what one knows within limits to nurture and settle what one still does not know, thereby exhausting one’s natural span without dying midway—that is the utmost of “knowing.” Even so, one must still worry: knowing often depends on external things and conditions, and only when conditions align does it seem fitting; yet what it depends on has no fixed standard in the first place. How dare one assert that what we call “Heaven” is not “human”? Or that what we call “human” is not “Heaven”?

Moreover, there must be a “True Person” (zhenren) before there is genuine “knowing.” What is a True Person? The True Person of antiquity: not relying on numbers to oppose the few and weak, not relying on success to dominate others, not using schemes to conduct affairs. Such a person, when wrong, does not regret; when right, does not congratulate himself.

Such a person, climbing high is not afraid, entering water is not soaked, entering fire is not burned—this is the power of “knowing” to ascend by the Dao and cultivate the real through the provisional. Such a person…

(The following scripture continues with “In sleep no dreams, in waking no worry…” and the like; this volume follows the original book’s order in continuing the commentary.)

Guo Xiang holds that what Heaven and people do all unfolds naturally. Inwardly one eases body and mind; outwardly one does not deliberately ward off things, letting events run their course—then nothing remains out of reach. Those who insist on “doing” cannot finish what ought to be done; affairs complete themselves. Those who insist on “knowing” cannot grasp what ought to be known; understanding appears on its own. The True Person drops clever contrivance yet still knows, refrains from forced action yet affairs still take shape, lives by following nature, and gains through zuowang (sitting in oblivion). Pushing “knowing” to the limit thus strips away artificial names and distinctions.

In the world, whatever Heaven gives cannot be absent for a single day; yet what belongs to the body and to knowing is sometimes clear, sometimes not. Principle shows itself in whether to act or refrain. People know little, while the body is entangled in much and the multitude does even more. Principle spans widely; people’s views need not match, yet in conduct none dare oppose principle—once they do, pretense stands and authenticity is lost.

Seeing that human action has its proper share, one lets it be without forcing; seeing that human knowing has bounds, one uses it without excess. Within one person, knowing and not-knowing secretly check each other. Even at this height of knowing, it is still not as good as forgetting cleverness and following Heaven—and even that still depends on something else.

If one wholly lives by Heaven, when what should be done arises one responds naturally. Life has its limit—that is Heaven; wanting a longer life—that is human. Nothing in the human is not of Heaven; order and disorder, success and failure are all natural. Only when there is a True Person does the world’s “knowing” each return to what is genuinely its own. Not opposing the few yet going with the many, not relying on force to succeed—not through deep schemes, but each keeping their due portion without overstepping, untroubled by gain and loss. To reach the Dao-realm to such depth is exactly this.

Notes by Lü Huiqing

To see clearly what Heaven is doing is also to see where “I” come from. What we call Heaven is the realm no one deliberately arranges and no human hand can reach—the side that knowing cannot fully grasp and can only be acknowledged as beyond complete knowledge. What humans do is the side that knowing can grasp and put to use. Zhuangzi holds that you should use what you already know to nourish and settle what you do not yet know—this is yizhi yangsheng (nourishing life through knowing), not letting life be dragged along by knowledge, so one can live out a full span and not die halfway. People in the world often take “best at seeking knowledge” to mean exactly this, yet even so later troubles are hard to avoid.

The difficulty is this: to split “knowing Heaven” from “knowing the human,” you usually need some prior scheme of “knowing” and take it as your measure—but that is not Dao itself, only something adopted for the moment. As long as you wait on and depend on a kind of knowing, what you depend on is not fixed—how then can you be sure that what you earlier called Heaven was not really the human, and what you called human was not really Heaven?

Only the True Person has true knowing: to take not-knowing as knowing, and no longer lean on an external standard. (The following aligns with Lin’s note.) If you still treat “knowing” as absolute, you have not yet reached Dao; the True Person, with true knowing, can borrow Dao to move above and below without leaning on outward things.

Notes by Lin Yidu (continuing “responding to the world” and “ascending by borrowing”)

In the world there is no single measure of right and wrong; if you only follow the multitude, it is hard to avoid ni gua—going against the few and against the true Dao. The “way of earth” has no fixed grip; if you stand in for the end and are too hard, it is hard to avoid xiong cheng—forcing success and contending for name and gain. If in every matter you seek unanimous counsel, it is hard to avoid becoming a mo shi—someone who only schemes and assents. These are all traces left when the sage responds to the world, not the sage’s substance itself.

The True Person embodies chun su (pure simplicity) and has no fixed “self”: when it is time to pass, they pass, yet not to excess; when it is time to stop, they stop, without forcing to stay—so in “passing” there is no regret, and in “what is fitting” there is no taking it as personal gain. At this level, climbing high is one’s own walking—whom would one fear? Entering water is one’s own wading—what drowning? Ordinary “knowing” was never Dao; the True Person’s true knowing is what can deng jia yu Dao—borrow and ascend upon Dao—so that water and fire cannot harm; that is what Zhuangzi means here.

Lin Yidu’s Commentary

What heaven does is something humans cannot fully grasp; yet people have no choice but to use what humans know to nurture themselves. Within the bodily form there is much we cannot articulate; outside the form is what we can grasp more readily. Eating, drinking, movement, and stillness—all serve to nurture that part we “do not know.”

Thought has shape; non-thought leaves no trace. Using shaped thought to apprehend non-thought clarifies what “nurturing the unknown with the known” means: what knowing can nurture is limited, yet what is unknown still cannot escape being nurtured—hence “fullness.” However full knowing may be, it cannot escape worry and still must “depend on something” to be settled. Once there is dependence, things are not yet settled; if both knowing and not-knowing are forgotten, what dependence remains? How can we know that what we call heaven is not human, or human is not heaven?

Only by not going against the flow, leading the many with few; not playing the hero, putting the many first; not scheming, so that knights and masses come of themselves—excess and fitness are both the natural course of principle, so what regret or gain?

Who can be like this fears no height, is not soaked in water, is not burned by fire—this is the utmost subtle principle, which only a True Person can know; this “knowing” is knowing that can ascend by relying on the Dao (rise with the Way and merge with it).

Chen Xiangdao’s Commentary

Knowing what heaven does is knowing fate (ming); knowing what humans do is knowing how, inside and outside the bodily form, people use the known to nurture the unknown and settle themselves by following principle. Fearing no height, not being soaked in water, not being burned by fire—this is the utmost subtle principle, which only a True Person can know; such knowing is knowing that can ascend by relying on the Dao.

Commentary by Chen Xiangdao

To understand “what Heaven does” is to grasp the mandate of Heaven and the limits that nature assigns; to understand “what humans do” is to grasp the boundaries one should keep and the path of moral propriety (yi). If one knows Heaven but not the human realm, one will let the mandate of Heaven override human affairs and discard yi; if one knows the human realm but not Heaven, one will let human affairs override the mandate and discard ming (fate, what Heaven allots). Both one-sided views seize only one face of the Dao—not the full truth.

What is already understood must nourish what is not yet understood, so that life can unfold in accord with the natural. Human action always depends on what it is nourished by before it can succeed; knowledge alone is not yet the Dao itself—there must be something to rely on before conduct can count as fitting. Even in what Heaven does, what it relies on is still the human realm. Even when one is right on the human side, if one does not know there is also “Heaven,” what one relies on is unstable; what one knows is bound to be partial and cannot count as true knowing.

The perfected person (zhenren) does not speculate in knowing, and so does not contend for superiority; in action they hold to wuwei (non-action), and so do not play the hero or force outcomes; they depend on nothing, and so do not use stratagem. Such a person may seem to err in ordering the world, yet one need not trace where the error comes from; may seem to act fittingly in following principle, yet one need not trace why it is fitting. Not knowing the danger of heights, they do not tremble when climbing high; not knowing the harm of water and fire, they are not soaked in water or burned in fire—this is knowing that can rise by resting on the Dao (dengjia yu Dao).

Commentary by Chen Bixu

What Heaven does is to send down refined, subtle qi (vital energy) to cover and nurture the ten thousand things; what humans do is to circulate harmonious qi to guard and sustain the bodily form. Only when one knows that Heaven’s wuwei is not empty and void, and that human action is not obstructive and stuck, has one truly arrived.

Refined, subtle qi is not known for where it begins—this is called “ solitary transformation” (duhua); duhua means arising naturally of itself. What is “known” has a boundary; what is “unknown” has no shore. To use bounded knowing to nourish unbounded knowing, and not overstep one’s place in reckless seeking, is the utmost of knowing. Yet one may still worry: knowing still has something it waits upon, still has what it deems “proper”; better to forget entirely and let things be. When how one meets circumstances is not yet settled, how can one say the natural must exclude the human, or the human must exclude the natural?

If so, the heart is guarded in vast stillness while one’s traces mix with the dusty world; one ascends into the Great Void (taixu), vast and without edge.

Annotation by Wang Bi

Those who possess “knowing” (zhi) often rely on clever scheming and thereby harm their life and destiny. Only students of the Dao grasp that knowing must not go outside the scope of the Dao—using the Dao to restrain and settle what cleverness cannot reach. This is called nourishing “what one does not know”; only then can one ascend by resting on the Dao (dengjia: relying on emptiness and stillness to draw near the Dao) and align with the Dao.

Annotation by Zhao Xuzhai

What Heaven does arises from nature and belongs to what knowing cannot fully master; what people do arises from individual contrivance and clinging and belongs to what knowing takes itself to master. If one uses “what is known” to nourish “what is not known,” one moves from knowing others to knowing Heaven, and from knowing Heaven to following Heaven and serving its way. One may then live out one’s natural span and fear untimely death less, yet anxiety about the changes of life and death remains—birth and death cannot be foreseen, and when the mind has something to rely on and something to await, it cannot be truly settled. If one can be “without contrived knowing and without contrived awareness” and follow the constant norm of Heaven and the Sovereign, then even to hear the Dao in the morning and die in the evening—what is there left to wait for? What Mencius expounds in the “Exhausting the Mind” (Jinxin) chapter is exactly this point.

Yizhai says in Kouyi: When human affairs are pushed to their limit, the principle of Heaven (Tianli) then shows itself. Therefore one should use “what knowledge can grasp” to nurture “what knowledge cannot grasp.” The idea is that “knowing is in oneself,” while “what one relies on is outside”—some things come without seeking, some require seeking to obtain, and in truth none of this can be pinned down. If you call it Heaven’s intent, it still seems that one must seek to obtain; if you call it human effort, there are cases where seeking fails to obtain. How could one know that Heaven is not the human, and the human is not Heaven? There must first be the True Person (Zhenren), and only then is there true knowing (Zhenzhi). These words are spoken for those who have the Way.

“Guarding insufficiency” (gua buzu): When one is in a state of insufficiency, even if the work of listening and yielding is accomplished, one does not use it to boast or show off. In Shitongshi and Dongshan shi, “do not let the scholar carry tally-sticks” (wu shi xing mei) means acting without deliberate intent; hence bu mou shi—not conducting affairs through deep scheming and forethought. Neither regret failure nor rejoice in success; leave both to nature.

Bu li, bu ru, bu zhuo (not fearing heights, not drowning in water, not burning in fire) expresses the meaning of “entering nowhere without being at ease.” Deng jia is like saying one advances deeply in the Way and ascends into a subtle realm.

Chu Shi says in Guanjian: From knowing oneself to knowing others, and from knowing others to knowing Heaven—this is the correct path of “knowing.” Heaven is originally Wuwei (non-action); when the text speaks of “what Heaven does,” it refers to how sun, moon, and stars move and how Yin-Yang and cold and heat alternate. What is called “what humans do” is how good and evil, compliance and opposition appear, and how fortune and misfortune, gain and loss take shape. Once these are understood, one should use the known to nurture the unknown—the known refers to what human affairs can anticipate and what Heavenly principle can infer; the unknown refers to what calculation cannot foresee and what numerology cannot deduce—that dim, obscure, marvelous, hard-to-fathom state. To live out one’s full years without early death is said with ordinary people in mind; hence “the fullness of knowing.” One still must rely on “knowing” to respond appropriately, so what one relies on is not yet settled. Again, how could one know that the Heaven we speak of is not the human, and the human is not Heaven? When Heaven and human blend into one, that is true knowing. The Qi Wu Lun says “knowing stops at what it cannot know”—that is the point. “Guarding” (gua) points to times of poverty and restraint; success and fullness are used as analogies: in want, one should yield—resistance breeds harm; in fullness, one should be modest—arrogance brings disaster. “Scheming” (mou) is explained through shi and shi (scholar/affairs); yi chang is what the classic means by “not pondering, not pre-planning.”

If it is like this, in meeting the world and handling things, when matters go too far it is only by chance—what is there to regret? When matters fit just right, likewise by chance—what is there to congratulate oneself about? Like a tile carried by the wind or an empty boat bumping someone: toward things there is no fixed mind, and things do not treat the other as an enemy. With such “knowing” one ascends toward the Way—and even so; how much more those who forget knowing and awaken in an instant?

In ancient times, what people called the True Person (Zhenren) did not have scattered dreams in sleep and did not wake filled with worry. They ate only to fill hunger, not to indulge the mouth and belly. Their breathing was deep, long, and even, and their Qi could sink all the way to the soles of the feet. Ordinary people’s breath stops shallow at the throat; those who bow and flatter speak as if choked in the throat, with Qi not flowing smoothly. The deeper desire runs, the more shallow become inborn clarity and the spontaneity of nature.

The True Person neither clings to living nor hates death. When it is time to go, they need not guard against it fiercely; when it is time to come, they need not block it. Coming and going are all easy and at ease—that is all. They do not fix in memory where they came from, nor obsess over where they will return. What they receive they meet with open delight, then let go and return to the ordinary, again and again. This is called: not using private mind to turn away from the Dao, not using human craft and contrivance to “help” Heaven; only one who can do this deserves to be called a True Person.

Guo Xiang’s commentary, in brief: no dreams means no stray thoughts and fantasies; no worry means being able to settle first when things arise; not savoring food means eating when hungry without excessive refinement; “breath to the heels” means the root of Qi is in the fundament, deep and steady; speaking as if choked means Qi is uneven and the heart is submissive. Becoming one with transformation and having few desires, then coming and going in birth and death is not difficult. It is not merely “not fearing death,” but also fading the attachment to life. Not asking what is received—whatever comes can be lived with in peace. External things confuse people without end; if people chase them without measure, the principle of Heaven is obscured. The True Person knows: the moment you use scheming you turn from the Dao; the moment you use human effort to assist Heaven you harm life—so they do not do these two things.

When nothing extraneous weighs on the mind, sleep comes without dreams; when there is no greed, eating no longer feels especially “delicious,” and one no longer chases after the pleasures of mouth and belly. At this level, breathing grows deep and heavy, as if the breath rose from the heels—here “heel” (zhǒng) points to the root of original qi (yuánqì) and the place where breath first arises: in bodily terms, taking the soles and heels firmly on the ground as the foundation; in terms of breathing, taking the point where breath naturally begins as the foundation—always starting from the deepest, lowest layer. Go deeper still, to the utmost depth, and one approaches a state where the usual sense of inhaling and exhaling almost disappears.

Ordinary people cannot hold to this naturalness: body and mind slacken and yield outward. Those whose speech sounds like retching, with qi surging upward, breathe shallowly and chaotically—how could they stabilize breath in the manner of “breathing from the heels”? Their Tianji (innate spiritual responsiveness, heaven’s subtle mechanism) runs shallow; when outer things touch them, they move at once, and the mind reacts immediately. If breath can truly sink to “the heel,” one stands farther from external things and is not so easily led about.

Yet once one rejoices in being alive and loathes death, guards against everything on going out and rejects on coming in, and drops the Xiàorán (unfettered ease, turning with natural flow) of which Zhuangzi speaks, one has used the mind to turn away from the Dao: loving life while forgetting how life arose in the first place; fearing death while scheming where death will “land.” Then one cannot accept with ease the turning of life and death, nor forget and return (wàng ér fù zhī—drop fixation and come back to the natural)—ignorant of ziran (naturalness/spontaneity) yet still trying to prolong life and force vitality by human effort, which in fact means using human cleverness to assist heaven and speak for heaven—letting human calculation interfere with the way of heaven, the opposite of “deep breath at the heel, wúwéi (non-action) and naturalness.”

Plain-Language Reading of Yihai Zuanwei on the Nanhua Zhenjing (Zhuangzi)

Sleep and waking in the “true person”

True persons sleep at night and wake in the morning like everyone else on the surface; the difference is that they neither dream nor worry.

Why no dreams?

With no idle thoughts in the mind, the hun (the aspect of soul tied to thought and dreams) stays at ease and does not wander among outer things, so sleep brings no dreams.

Why no worry?

The body does not force reckless action; the shen (the aspect tied to awareness and spirit) stays at ease and is not enslaved by things, so waking brings no anxiety.

Food and breath

True persons find food unappealing, as if they had no appetite; their breathing is deep and fine because qi is stored in the depths.

Miaozhong (“tip of the heel”) points to the lowest part of the body—the heel—and metaphorically to qi hidden in a secret inner place, not displayed outward.

Though breath enters and leaves through the nose, the heart-mind governs it; when qi is bent and broken by desire and emotion, one gets ai yan ruo wa—the throat (ai) does not speak smoothly, as if retching, and words do not flow.

Desire and “heaven’s mechanism”

Heavy indulgence scatters the spirit and dims knowing; to discern “heaven’s mechanism” (tianji), look only above the liver and diaphragm, before the face—and one is already far from the root.

Mencius said: those with many desires, even if they still have some self-cultivation, have less of it.

Not knowing to take life as joy, one cannot guard against “going out” (activity); not knowing to take death as hateful, one cannot refuse “going in” (stillness, death).

Thus one only shuttles through the world while the utmost spirit stays unmoved; neither forgetting where one came from (returning to the root) nor obsessively chasing an end—entrusting fate to nature—is not using the heart-mind to harm the Dao, not using human effort to assist heaven.

Life and death

In life one does not fuss over what one is, but accepts arrival with ease; at the end one does not brood over where one goes, forgets and returns to nature—this is called not harming the Dao with the heart-mind, not helping heaven with human artifice.

(Note: In the received text, a corrupted phrase should read as “therefore no worry upon waking”; the reading follows wakeful freedom from worry.)

Xiangdao commentary: The true persons of antiquity, when asleep, did not let their hun and po stir and clash, so they had no dreams; when awake, their bodies were not pulled apart by external things, so they had no worries. They could sense flavors yet were not led by them, so eating did not feel especially delicious; they nourished themselves in a direct, accord-with-nature way and did not drain their original genuineness, so their breathing ran deep. They did not cling to life or loathe death, leaving both to Heaven; when going out they did not arm themselves, when coming in they did not resist—going and coming, they moved with things as they were. People like this simply came and went at ease.

Those dragged down by externals forget their first origin; those chasing profit always hunt for outcomes. What they take on never quite fits—must they still lean on something else? Only the true person does not forget the starting point and returns to the root, does not fix on an end and goes with allotted fate, so receiving life is joy, and after forgetting, they revert to what is originally so—this is “no deliberate thought.” Not using the mind to turn away from the Dao is Wuwei (non-action); not using human artifice to boost Heaven is what is called the true person.

Bixu commentary: When spirit and intent are gathered, one does not dream; when the heart is empty, one is without sorrow. With no special cravings, one does not find food especially fragrant. In the true person, “fire” (yang) settles beneath “water” (yin), so breath can reach everywhere. Ordinary people have fire and water at odds, so they cannot rest. The deeper the craving, the shallower the “heavenly mechanism” (natural spiritual capacity); when the true water grows turbid, the light of Heaven dims. Those who cultivate the Dao do not delight in life or hate death; those who insist on self do not guard going out or resist coming in. Not forgetting the start preserves the root; not seeking an end avoids scheming ahead. Not using the mind to cast aside the Great Dao, not boosting life to invite ill omen—such is the true person’s conduct.

Xuzhai commentary: No sleep, no waking, no eating, no breathing—this is a way of describing the true person. Qi exiting through the throat is true of everyone; when deep asleep the throat gurgles—that is what is meant by “the throat’s speech like choking.” Delighting in life and hating death, guarding on the way out and resisting on the way in—that is craving deep and mechanism shallow. The true person has none of this, so coming and going is free, and one can fail to obscure the heaven that is originally so, endlessly interacting with things. To receive is to rejoice, not to be burdened by life; to forget and return again is to turn back to the root. Not using the mind to abandon the Dao, then mind and Dao are one; not using the human to assist Heaven, then human and Heaven are one. Toward the way of Heaven, the true person simply rests in what is natural.

Yizhai says: The perfected person sleeps without dreams because the spirit is settled; upon waking there is no worry, because in contact with the outer world the heart does not contend with others. Eating without seeking fine flavor means not striving to be full; breathing deep and long—much of what Daoist cultivation speaks of really begins here. When the spirit is settled, breath is deep and long, running from the heel all the way to mouth and nose; when the spirit is not nourished, breath stays only near the throat. Stillness and agitation differ, yet how they show in the body looks much the same to outsiders. Without genuine insight within, words stay on the lips, so one easily yields before others—look at those who sit in Chan inquiry and you will see.

Shiyu (craving and desire) means human desire; tianji (Heaven’s mechanism) means Heaven’s principle; deep and shallow speak of waxing and waning, fenshu of degree. In this passage each line is one thread strung through; many expositions in Daoist and Buddhist texts also grow from this root.

From “not knowing delight in life” onward, the text mainly treats the comings and goings of life and death. “Not forgetting the beginning” is not forgetting the joy when one first received form from Heaven; “not seeking the end” is not clinging when the time to return arrives. Form received from Heaven—how could one not rejoice? When wholly returning, the heart no longer attaches. Not using the heart to cast away the Dao means the heart is the Dao; not using human effort to assist Heaven—length of life has its Heaven-given lot, human effort cannot add to it. Sleeping without dreams is like being awake; waking without worry is like being with the Dao. “Food not sweet” means plain, without strong taste; “breath deep and deep” means not leaving the root. The perfected person’s breath is likened to the zhong (heel)—this is crucial doctrine in the art of nurturing life.

Nan Hua (Zhuangzi) pities people who chase externals and lose their true nature, whose spirit declines and qi is exhausted, and so was compelled to point this out. Fearing readers would doubt, the word zhong is hard to grasp, so a metaphor is used: the lowest part of the body; if one turns inward and sees breath deep and long, one knows what “zhong” means. Ordinary people’s breath is in the throat—everyone knows this; yet where breath truly comes from is actually at the zhong. Craving and desire steam and smother, the heavy gates block, breath leaves the zhong and cannot return, moving only back and forth at the throat—so a slight setback from externals makes qi bend and not extend, speech like something about to be spat out (ai yan ruo wa). The Xici of the Yijing says “he who loses what he holds to—his words bend”; all this is because deep craving locks in and damages tianji—not because tianji itself is shallow.

“Not forgetting the beginning” is rejoicing at receiving form; “not seeking the end” is forgetting and returning. “Not using the heart to cast away the Dao”—doubting whether juan should read yuan or xun (to pursue)—fits the following “not using human effort to assist Heaven”; “not delighting, not seeking, not attaching” in the Qiwu Lun (Discourse on Equalizing Things) supports this—likely a slip from similar sounds.

Brief glossary

• Yizhai: here, the name of the commentator or lecturer.
• Zhong: heel; in the text, metaphor for the body’s lower extreme, where breath originates.
• Nan Hua: Zhuangzi, also called Nanhua zhenjing.
• Tianji: Heaven’s native clarity, inherent wisdom—opposed to shiyu (craving).

Section 1 (Character variants and punctuation)

If we read it this way: the mind has something to hold to and is at ease, the form is quiet, and the forehead is broad; at times like autumn in its austere chill, at other times like spring in its warmth—the lines that follow, such as “seeming to forget yet returning to it,” mean not abandoning the Great Dao out of private motive and not discarding responsive affinity (ying yuan) because of doubt. Here “juan ying” should be read as “yuan xun” (being tugged by outer circumstances, bending with things), which matches the sense of “zhu” (pursuing) below and connects cleanly with “not using human effort to assist Heaven (bu yi ren zhu tian)” later. In the Discussion on Making All Things Equal (Qiwu Lun), “not pleased, not seeking, not clinging (bu xi, bu qiu, bu yuan)” supports this: the sound is still there; only the written form was corrupted in transmission.

Section 2 (Main drift of Zhuangzi’s text and Guo Xiang’s commentary thread)

If so, what the sage’s mind, bearing, and forehead display is in tune with the four seasons: joy and anger turn with the four seasons, and each thing finds its proper place with the myriad beings, yet no one can find the end of him.

Therefore when the sage uses troops: he may overturn a state yet not lose the hearts of its people; benefit and grace may reach ten thousand generations—not because he “loves people” that he bestows them—hence it is said “delight that penetrates things (le tong yu wu) is not the sage’s Way”; having partial favor is not benevolence (ren); cleverness that catches the moment is not worthiness (xian); when benefit and harm cannot run through the Dao, one is not a junzi (exemplary person); chasing empty fame and losing the true self is not the conduct of a shi (committed person); casting off the self and not holding to truth is not one who serves others rightly.

Hu Buxie, Wuguang, Boyi, Shuqi, Jizi, Xuyu, Jita, Shentu Di, and the like are all people who serve as “others’ servants,” follow “what others prefer, and cannot settle themselves in what they themselves should settle in.

Section 3 (Guo Xiang’s commentary)

“What one dwells in and is at peace—that is zhi (mind/intent)”: wherever one stays, the heart is at peace; that is called zhi.

“Though moving, without harm to stillness”: though acting, inner stillness is not injured.

“Qi sa ran” (broad forehead): a broad, level forehead describes great simplicity (da pu)—the undivided original state.

“Embodying the Dao, harmonizing with change, sharing warmth and severity with cold and heat”: united with the Dao, transforming with change, naturally warm or stern like cold and heat.

“No mind fixed on things, so one does not seize each thing’s proper share; when nothing is improper, no one knows its limit”: with no private grasping toward things, one does not break each thing’s allotment; when nothing is out of place, no one can measure its bound.

“When he ‘destroys a state,’ it is because people’s hearts already wanted it to fall that he lets it fall”: “destroying a state” means going along with a situation where hearts already wish to fall—not arbitrary violence.

“Warm as spring sun; those nourished do not decline; bleak as autumn frost; those who wither do not resent”: gentle like spring; recipients of grace do not refuse; stark like autumn frost; those who drop away do not complain.

“The sage has no deliberate ‘joy’—do not block, and things connect of themselves; he has no deliberate ‘kinship’—trust principle, and things preserve themselves”: the sage does not force “joy through all things”; without damming, the myriad things interconnect; he does not force “partial love”; by letting principle run, the myriad things each remain.

“One who ‘fits the times’ is still not as good as the worthy who forgets ‘fitting the times’ and naturally joins the Dao”: “responding to the moment” falls short of forgetting the idea of “catching the hour” and spontaneously aligning with the Dao.

“If one cannot hold a single path of right and wrong and only chases benefit and flees harm, virtue is harmed and one’s proper station is burdened”: failing to stay on one road of shi and fei (this and that, right and wrong) and only seeking profit and avoiding harm injures De and drags down what is fitting.

“One who is good as a shi leaves fame behind and finds sufficiency in oneself—so name matches reality, and blessing answers in one’s person”: the skilled shi releases empty reputation and is self-sufficient; name accords with fact, fortune rests on the person.

“Losing one’s nature and posing to follow things—one is enslaved in many ways; how can one serve others?”: giving up true nature and putting on airs to follow externals means being ordered about everywhere; how then can one rightly “serve” others?

“People like Hu Buxie and Wuguang all abandon their own aim to imitate others—they are those who are yoked to other things and thereby wound the true self”: such figures discard their own direction to copy others; they are pulled along by outer things (xun bi) and so harm the authentic self.

Plain-Language Reading

Commentary by Lü

The true person’s heart-mind is a mind set on the Dao. When the face is still, spirit stays gathered and does not wander; when the brow is level and plain, one returns to simplicity and drops all affectation. The bearing may seem austere as autumn—not because anything is hated; it may seem mild as spring—not because anything is specially loved. Joy and anger move with the four seasons and open with them; this matches heaven’s harmonious qi, so one can live at ease with all things.

(How the true person shows this:) A state may fall apart yet the people’s trust is not lost—not because one sets out to hate anyone. Kindness may reach through ten thousand generations without calling it “bestowing love”—not because one sets out to favor a single person. Toward things, one lets each follow its own nature and goes through with that; toward benevolence (ren), one lets the whole world forget benevolence; toward the times, whether to advance or withdraw, appear or hide, is one’s own to decide. Even in hardship one does not lose what is fundamental—what the noble person holds to is not what ordinary people hold to.

The scholar (shi) forgets what is lofty and deep and leaves life and death behind; the “servant person” (yiren, one who lives as another’s tool) is the opposite. So from sage, humane person, and worthy down to the servant person, though rank and honor differ, each name still needs a core called authenticity (zhen) to be worthy of the title. Figures such as Hu Bufu and Wu Guang do the work of a servant person yet never truly settle themselves—only “doing without doing for ulterior ends” (wu suo wei er wei zhi) is the way to truly settle oneself.

Commentary by Lin

The heart-mind means forgetting “self”; a still face means forgetting outer things; a level brow means forgetting the bodily form. Seeming bleak as autumn expresses the true person (as opposed to the servant person).

Doing the servant person’s tasks without truly settling oneself: only acting without ulterior purpose is the path to true ease for oneself.

Plain-Language Commentary

“Lin” (gathering) the mind and will is forgetting the self; the countenance is still—forgetting things; the brow and face are at ease—forgetting the body.

(“Lin” means the spirit-mind gathers inward and holds focus; “sāng tuí” refers to the forehead and face.) The perfected person’s spirit-mind turns inward and collects—that is forgetting “self”; the face is quiet—that is forgetting outer things; the brow and features are at ease—even attachment to the physical form is released.

Grave as autumn—that is the perfected person’s righteousness (yi); warm as spring—that is the perfected person’s benevolence (ren).

Stern as killing autumn shows the perfected person’s yi; gentle as spring shows their ren. Joy and anger follow the four seasons and flow freely; people, birds, and beasts each find their place; the spirit is not worn down, virtue is not harmed—where is any dead end?

When the sage (shengren) uses arms, it is not from inner delight in war.

The sage moves troops not because war is their heart’s desire, but because the other side has guilt and deserves chastisement—so they still do not lose the people’s hearts. The cases of Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou show this.

The sage’s benefit and grace reach far and wide, yet they never set out with a mind bent on “loving people.”

The sage’s favor is broad and extends far, yet they never deliberately set out to “love people.” The hearts of Yao and Shun illustrate this.

The sage lets things connect on their own—they do not harbor a mind that delights in forcing connection.

The sage lets the ten thousand things join and flow by themselves; they do not store up an intention to “make” everything connect.

One cannot be drawn near or pushed away at will—this is what is called utmost benevolence (zhi ren).

Whether near or far cannot be manipulated on purpose—that is called supreme ren.

The worthy person’s actions are in secret accord with heavenly timing; their caution is not a hunt to “match” the seasons.

The worthy move in tune with the times of Heaven, yet their guarding is not a contrived effort to “fit” those times.

If harmony in one household requires leveling benefit and harm to achieve it, the reverse is not the way of the gentleman (junzi).

If peace for one couple or one home must be bought by aligning profit and loss, that is not the junzi’s path.

Pursuing reputation means chasing name alone and losing self-cultivation—not the conduct of a scholar (shi).

Chasing fame, running only after name while neglecting self-cultivation, is not what a shi should be.

Those who command others think themselves enough to rule others, yet they lose their original nature and forget the self; those who play false are controlled by others—they are not truly commanders.

One who orders others may think they can dominate, but they forfeit their true nature and forget themselves; hypocrisy and pretense put one under others’ control—such a person is no true master of others.

Commentary by Xiangdao: With nothing inward to muddy them, the mind and will can gather; with nothing outward to stir them, the countenance stays still.

(“Mì” is the same as “gǔ,” to churn and disturb.) Xiangdao’s note: When the inner is not stirred, mind and will can collect; when the outer is not pulled by things, the face remains still.

Killing is not for show of might; nurturing life is not for display of ren; with brow and face so at ease, it is clear the perfected person is not moved by things.

Slaughter is not to impress with power; fostering life is not to parade ren; with forehead and features so settled, one can see the perfected person is not tugged by external things.

When the sage uses arms, they destroy what people already wish destroyed—so they do not lose hearts; that is the fullness of yi.

The sage goes to war along with what the people want gone (tyranny)—hence they keep trust; that is yi carried to its limit.

They benefit along with what people want benefited—so they are not “loving people” on purpose, yet that is ren at its height.

They give advantage in line with what people seek—this is not deliberate “loving people,” yet it is ren in its utmost form.

Toward things, they connect by not forcing connection; toward ren, they are close by not clinging to closeness.

With things, they use “non-connection” to achieve real connection; with ren, they use “non-intimacy” to achieve true intimacy—without forcing links or faking affection, connection and care become genuine.

Blinded by heavenly timing alone, human affairs decay—that is not worthiness.

If one is masked by timeliness of Heaven and only follows heaven without grasping human affairs, human order collapses—not the mark of the worthy.

Dark about benefit and harm, feeling and fakery split—not the junzi.

If one is unclear on gain and loss, sincerity and pretense divide—that is not the junzi.

Chasing name and fighting for “self” as reputation—the sort of Bo Yi and his kind.

Scrambling for fame and for one’s own clean name—that is the company of Bo Yi and those like him.

Throwing away the body without truth—the sort of Shentu Di and his kind.

Dying lightly without authenticity—that is the company of Shentu Di and those like him.

Commentary by Bixu (the annotator): What is called “single-minded focus” means simply a quiet inner state and a calm outward bearing, with emphasis on turning inward to reflect. The expression at the temples stays steady and unchanged; one is sincere and plain, like uncarved wood.

Know Heaven and you can align with the four seasons; know people and you can live at peace with the ten thousand things. Only when you stop chasing external profit can you gain what is inward; only when you carefully guard against harm from within can you keep clear of injury from without. When you can preserve yourself without damaging your good name, only then may you be called a “good person” (shanshi).

Those who forget themselves for the sake of outer things end up ruled by those things—such people are many. People like “Hu Bujie” belong to those who lose themselves to servitude and do not truly understand what it means to “forget the self.”

Zhao’s note: “Its mind and will”—perhaps read as “forget its” mind and will; its countenance still and silent; its temples full and solid; its spirit warm and harmonious, in accord with the four seasons and suited to things, while others do not know its depth. Wherever it goes, nothing goes against it.

Though the state perishes, it does not lose the people’s hearts, so killing it draws no resentment; its grace extends through ten thousand generations without calling itself loving, so it bestows benefit without claiming merit. Merely understanding things and grasping small nearby gain is not enough to be called a sage; partial affection in the heart is not enough to be called humane (ren); changing with every shift is not enough to be called worthy (xian); failing to see benefit and harm through is not enough to be called a gentleman (junzi); chasing fame and losing oneself is not enough to be called a scholar (shi). Where there is something one follows to the point of forgetting oneself, one cannot command the multitude or govern the movement of the group. People like Hu Bujie are those who forget the body without being genuine.

Yan Zhai says that “zhi” (intention/fixation) means having something that rules within and holding to one focus; when the forehead is broad, it resembles Laozi just after washing his hair—grief-stricken is anger, warm and bright is joy: joy and anger without deliberate mind, still like the four seasons and spring and autumn, responding to the moment and taking one’s place, each in its fitting season, yet with no fixed place to stop and rest—this is what is meant by “receiving and thereby giving rise to timeliness in the heart.”

Using troops with poison spread through the realm, or spreading kindness and love through the realm—if done without deliberate mind, then those whose states are destroyed do not resent; those who receive his grace also say, “What has the emperor’s power to do with me?” From “finding joy in oneself” through the passage on penetrating things below, all ridicule the sage and show that the way of the true person cannot be reached. Commentators’ explanations of “zhi” are mostly forced; Zhao’s view that it should properly be “wang” (forgetting), harmonizing with “calm composure” (rong ji), is very apt—the original text should read thus, with a small slip in transmission.

His forehead broad, his temples prominent, like Laozi coming out from bathing. From the earlier description of the true person of antiquity down to here, the point is that he is not moved by life, death, benefit, or harm, so outwardly he can be like this; joy and anger in tune with the four seasons, then he joins the Way with Heaven; in fitting relation with things, then he joins virtue with people—how could one know his limit?

Using troops, destroying states yet not losing people’s hearts—people forget about me; spreading grace through ten thousand generations yet not claiming to love others—I forget about people. The sage fully realizes his own nature and penetrates the nature of things; this arises from the natural, not from deliberate mind to take joy in using things.

Supreme benevolence has no partiality yet loves broadly; the worthy person is timely in every moment. The noble person treats benefit and harm as one, passing through without avoiding or seeking, and misfortune never wrongly falls on him.

Action is what makes a name; a name is what displays action. Lose yourself and there is no reality—such a one is no true scholar. Those who lose themselves and rush toward pretense are merely enslaved—how could they enslave others? One who is not enslaved by others yet is self-sufficient— is that not the true person alone?

End of Scroll Fourteen · Da Zong Shi (Master Who Embodies the Great), Second (continued)

Collected Essentials of the Sea of Meaning of the Nanhua True Scripture · Scroll Fifteen

Inner Chapters · Da Zong Shi (Master Who Embodies the Great), Second (continued)

In ancient times, the so-called “True Person” (Zhenren) had an outward bearing roughly like this:

The body appeared dignified, yet without deliberately forming factions or cliques; as if somewhat lacking, yet not forcing oneself to take on or cling to things; conduct had edge without being rigid; the heart-mind was open and empty, yet without putting on a show; the expression was gentle, as if joy were stored within; at times also strained, as if acting only under compulsion; vital fullness showed naturally in face and bearing; yet warmth and restraint were held in character and conduct; sometimes sharpness showed outwardly, like one engaged in the world; sometimes a stern presence made others hard to manipulate; sometimes continuity and closure, as if fond of deep concealment; sometimes as if words once spoken were already forgotten.

The True Person takes “xing” (the frame of law and limit, including the great bounds of life and death) as the root of self-cultivation, takes “li” (ritual propriety) as the wings for moving through the world, takes “zhi” (discernment) as the timely use of strategy, and takes De (virtue/power) as the path to follow.

“Taking xing as the body” means that on great matters such as life and death and right and wrong, one can be spacious and at ease—neither clinging to killing nor addicted to living, but dwelling in accord with what is natural. “Taking li as wings” means that only by borrowing the forms of ritual and righteousness can one act among people without falling into disorder. “Taking zhi as the timely moment” means deploying discernment only when events arrive and there is no alternative—not scheming in advance or constantly showing cleverness. “Taking De as the path to follow” means acting in accord with De, to a degree like this: someone with feet could naturally walk up a hill, yet onlookers might truly believe he got there only by strenuous trudging—yet what the True Person does often looks ordinary, while outsiders mistake it for deliberate effort.

(Note: This passage comes from the Zhuangzi, “Great Master” (Dazongshi), on the True Person’s bearing and the four layers of cultivation—xing, li, zhi, and De; Yihai Cuanwei elaborates the meaning on that basis.)

Guo Xiang’s commentary explains it this way: the True Person and the myriad things each attain their place and suit one another—not by forming factions or cliques. Though he seems to stand below, nothing is beyond what he can embrace from above; though he seems to fall short, he is not merely passively receiving what comes to him. He constantly moves at ease in “du” (self-sufficiency, a realm complete in itself), rather than rigidly clinging to one fixed posture. With a broad heart and nothing held back, he can settle into the real ground of things; body and mind flow freely and fit nature, so he always seems joyful. Whether moving or still, going or stopping, he dwells in the utmost of what must be so—never harmed by outer things and with nothing he must chase. The utmost person does not deliberately act harsh, yet walks the same path as the world, so to others he can seem stern. Proud and lofty, others cannot control him; free and far-reaching, he finds joy in himself. Linked with “hao bi” (fond of closing)—that is vast depth and distance, not shutting oneself in and holding fast. Likewise: only when vast and unburdened does one reach the real; only when flowing and at ease does one seem glad; in motion, stillness, going, and stopping one always stays at the extreme of necessity, not injured by things and with nowhere to tend. The utmost person has no harshness yet travels with the world, so he seems harsh—“ao” (proud, untamable), beyond control, high and free, self-content.

The line “lian hu qi hao bi” (linked with his fond of closing) speaks of boundless remoteness, not stubborn seclusion.

Xing (punishment, penal order) is the backbone of governing affairs—not a private standard set up by “me.” Li (ritual) is what people in the world practice on their own—not a rule imposed only by “me.” Zhi (knowledge, timely discernment) is the shifting of the times—not everything “I” must take on by force. De (virtue, power) is what others follow—not labels or things “I” manufacture.

Taking xing as the body of governance means handing rule back to the system of names and punishments—even when there is execution, leniency still remains. Taking li as support means going along with what people already do, so nothing fails to get through.

High and low mutually receive one another, like water’s flow that cannot be reversed; large and small depend on each other, like a situation that cannot be otherwise. It is like a dike that bears the obstruction of many streams.

One who stands at the extreme of “following others” entrusts the wisdom of the age to the age, commits what must happen to all under heaven, and for himself stops right there.

“Qiu” points to the root of xing (nature); when the myriad things each are complete in themselves, the cluster of virtues is returned to their self-cycling—then one arrives at the root together with “you zu zhe” (those who have sufficiency in their feet). When the root is reached, principle is exhausted.

Lu’s commentary says: Between the True Person and oneself, what matters is yi (what is fitting and one’s proper role), not the worldly “sworn brotherhood” of cliques and factions.

Perfect virtue seems insufficient: When virtue is full, one still acts as if it were not enough, and does not accept or take credit for others’ flattery.

The ancient sages lamented that “the gu is not gu-like” (the vessel is named gu but does not look like one). The True Person’s gu is truly gu—name and reality match. He moves with the times; without inner firmness, he could not stand on his own. His Dao fills heaven, earth, and the four directions, yet he does not cling to the ten thousand things as “outside” objects; still, he dwells in what is real.

(The note also says: Bing spoke of Bing—receiving and rejoicing; Cui is like one who moves only when pressed and cornered.)

Yu (fullness): when advancing, he carries his own “color” (bearing, manner) yet can embrace things. Yu (harmony): when stopping, he holds to De and does not lose himself.

What people fear, one must not fail to fear—what deserves awe still deserves awe; thus li (severity, sharp edges) seems still able to restrain the world.

Ao (arrogance, loud presence) then becomes great, and then restraint fails.

Lian (connection): fond of closing off, not communicating with things, hence mian (dullness, neglect) and forgetting what one has said.

All of this means: the True Person seems a certain way, yet cannot be captured or pinned down by outward form or labels.

The benevolent person, faced with killing, shows jin (pity, reluctance), because there is love in the heart; the non-benevolent, faced with killing, feels kuai (satisfaction), because there is hatred in the heart.

The True Person has neither love nor hatred; if we speak of killing, is it not spacious and at ease?—from this we see the level he realizes and where he rests.

Restraining the self and returning to ritual: then seeing, hearing, speaking, and acting—nothing falls outside ritual; taking ritual as wings is merely walking in the world.

If one speaks of entering neither antiquity nor the present, how can we still speak of timeliness (heshi)?

Things first show form and color, and only then is there “knowing”—this is being forced by events, having no choice.

De is like wheel ruts—one can follow them; anyone with feet can follow them to the qiu (mound). Qiu is what rises in the middle; to stand in the center and cannot but be elevated—that is De.

All of this is simply using my own authenticity; where is the need to toil at “practice”?

The True Person harmonizes with the ten thousand things yet shows no partiality toward any one side. Inwardly they seem modest and insufficient, yet their Way stands above the ten thousand things. Laozi said: “Put yourself behind, and you will come to the fore.” They seem lacking yet do not scramble for name or position. Those who give find their own ease; those who stand apart hold to themselves—and everyone may enter in. Hence it is said “not rigid”: not clinging to one fixed pole.

Their heart is open and expansive—empty yet not showy. When joyful, their expression is clear and bright; they act only when danger arises. They show their countenance without deliberately hiding it, and rest in De while constantly keeping to stillness. Because they advance their own De, they appear stern and imposing, as if about to enter the world; because they hold back their De, they are lofty and cannot be subdued, and in the end withdraw and hide in the depths—matching the Way of “closing well,” dim and wordless, reaching the utmost realm.

Those who take punishment as substance and function wield killing like the austerity of autumn and winter—what follows from principle as a matter of course; though they kill, they remain at ease with surplus. Ritual is the outward splendor of De, hence the image of “having wings”—as a bird’s wings help it fly. Those who use knowledge to align with the times follow what the time naturally brings and act only when they must. A mound is a high place on earth; anyone with feet can climb to the top—following De is the same idea. These are all how the True Person goes out into the world and walks among people—when have they ever passed through deliberate thought or forced effort?

This passage explains the image of the “True Person” in the Zhuangzi and clarifies where the way of the True Person actually rests.

The bearing and conduct of the True Person

The True Person acts in accord with the Dao. Outwardly there is principle, yet he does not form factions; others cannot win him over by “drawing close.” He seems open and spare, as if something were lacking, yet he does not rely on climbing to high position; neither can high or low status be used to pin him down. Like the horn of a gourd cup, he is not hard; in action he is not slick, yet he is not stubbornly unchanging. He keeps to emptiness and stillness and does not chase display; though ornament may seem unreal, the body of the Dao is not thereby extinguished.

His brightness seems touched with joy, yet he is naturally at ease; like a great mountain he stands tall, and only when he must does he respond under pressure. Like water brimming full, he does not show off outwardly, yet gathers refined essence within and lets spirit act outward. He harmonizes with the Dao, checks the outward rush of private virtue, applies his function outside himself, and is not stirred within. At times he seems stern, at times as if proclaiming loudly, at times as if things connect in sequence—these three, in the end, all point to “doing away with contrived action.” His words seem slow and obscure; in fact they are already “supreme speech,” and the point of supreme speech is “doing away with speech.” The crux of the True Person’s way lies in this kind of “removal.”

The ground of “removing action” and “removing speech”

That the True Person’s way can arrive at “removing contrived action and removing speech” is not empty talk. It takes punishment and law (xing), ritual, clever knowing (zhi), and De (virtue/power) as the root and performs subtraction and purification upon them.

The “mountain” and “hill” metaphors in the text

The classic often uses mountains to stand for the Dao and hills for De—for example Mount Miaogu (Miaoguye), the Hill of Fen, Mount Juci, the Hill of Kunlun, and the like—all using place-names to indicate the loftiness of the Dao and De and the reliance one should place on them.

Why people mistake the True Person for one who “labors in practice”

When the True Person applies this way, he is not worn out by toil, yet people often take the True Person for someone who “diligently practices.” That is because they see the myriad things so numerous and suspect heaven and earth are like a craftsman carving and toiling; they do not know that what the True Person does is precisely to follow the Dao without reckless action. Thus he may not look busy, yet he is already aligned with “removing contrived action and removing speech.”

Plain-language interpretation

Commentary by Bixu: The True Person’s outward appearance is not that of faction-mongering or clique-forming; yet he is gentle and unassuming, as if dull-witted—low in station but not servile, sharp-edged but not colliding with others, inwardly clear and empty without flashy pretense. Expressions like “ample and at ease” and “towering yet humble” describe a breadth of heart, contentment, and measured, restrained response to things. “Full and yielding” and “harmonious” refer to a mild countenance that teaches others; “ stern” and “ lofty” make people hear his voice and look up to his height. “Continuous, loving to stay closed” and “ absent-minded, forgetting words” mean the Way of the True Person is unfathomable and hard to measure.

Punishment, ritual, wisdom, and virtue are originally instruments for ordering the world; someone must employ them to assist the age and carry them out in practice. If punishment is not strict, the foundation of governance is lost; if ritual is not upheld, teaching cannot spread; if wisdom is not clear, affairs stagnate. One must take virtue as root and ritual as framework—only then can one walk the Dao. A mound piled high is called a qiu (hill)—a place people gather toward. Anyone with feet who can speak and act can walk there. The True Person, through wuwei (non-action), naturally accords with heavenly principle; the world only sees his accomplishments and assumes he achieved them through diligent effort—that is a misunderstanding.

Commentary by Zhao: “In accord with things” rather than forming factions—comprehensive, not partisan. When the inner is insufficient, outer things easily intrude; here it means nothing can enter in: inner fullness while outwardly seeming empty. A gu (angular wine vessel) has sharp corners and easily clashes with things; if “firm yet not angular,” there are edges but they do not wound. Empty without ornament, vast without self-praise. “Ample” and “towering” show ease on the face while the inside is full and moves only when pressed. “Full” is advancing through expression; “harmonious” is stopping through virtue—harmonious without drifting. “Stern” is like having a human form in the world but not human feelings; “lofty” is uncontrollable, so vast that nothing can overcome it. “Continuous, loving to stay closed” is like having no bolt yet the door cannot be opened; “forgetting words” is accomplishing in silence.

Punishment, ritual, wisdom, and virtue are principles for responding to the world when there is no alternative: taking punishment as the body, learning from the clarity of penal law yet keeping it stored unused; taking ritual as wings, knowing harmony and harmonizing, yet always restraining through ritual; taking wisdom as timeliness, so movement and stillness never miss their fit; taking virtue as the path to follow. It also says: going together with the footed to the hill—the hill is a mountain, and the footed can reach it; the one who walks with them is the footless, who only lodges in the shell of ears and eyes. People see that he does not walk yet arrives on his own and truly think he has feet—this is a metaphor for the world’s mistake in taking the True Person to be “merely diligent in practice.”

(One)

“Yu” suggests something trimmed and gathered inward: in matters of principle one stays level, neither forming factions nor serving private ends; one holds the middle way without leaning to either side. “Qie” suggests a kind of seeming insufficiency: outwardly one appears not quite enough, yet without belittling or slighting oneself. “Cheng” means to receive and hold fast; “gu” was originally a wine vessel without sharp corners—here it stands for virtue: though one has de, one does not show a cutting edge like the corners of a gu, but only keeps to the modest edges of virtue, without displaying the sharp “guijiao” of a jade tablet.

(Two)

“Zhang” is opening and spreading: the heart is expansive, empty and still as if “having yet as if not having,” without deliberate ornament or flaunting showy substance. “Bing” is as if there were pleasure and yet as if there were none: in dealing with others one carries a kind of unavoidable gravity and yielding (“cui xia”), not mere compliance. “Chu” is fullness and gentle joy: inner delight is like vitality rising in one’s complexion; “zui” is clarity showing on the face—hence “zi jin wo se,” virtue and bearing flow forth of themselves. “Yu” is self-possession and ease; “jin wo de” is de advancing on its own; “jixiang zhizhi” means stopping at what is auspicious, stopping where one ought to stop.

(Three)

Seen from afar, “li” is stern, no different outwardly from ordinary people, yet inwardly there remains something of “cui”—that sense of necessity, of not being able to follow the world entirely. “Ao” is lofty and hard for worldly norms to pin down, without bowing to vulgar fashion. “Lian” is close and hidden: one prefers to keep the mouth shut and not speak much. Before speaking it is as if one did not wish to speak; after speaking it is as if one had not spoken—hence “man” is nearly forgetting words: the two lines say the same thing—taking few words and forgetting speech as the norm.

(Four)

“Yi xing wei ti”: taking the bodily form and measure as the root of standing in the world; even when punishment or killing is involved, one remains ample and unhurried, not betraying the inner heart. “Yi li wei yi”: taking ritual as wings, moving in the world and having no choice but to go along with custom (“xun su”). “Shi hu yong zhi”: sometimes one employs cleverness—that is responding to events when there is no alternative, not a fondness for scheming.

(Five)

In sum, one follows the naturalness of “tiande,” Heaven’s virtue, without forcing human effort. It is like climbing a hill: where there are feet, one naturally arrives—there is no need to boast, “How much toil it took me to reach the summit.” The person of de is the same: arriving is self-arrival, not self-praise for labor.

This passage explains what Zhuangzi means by the “True Person” (zhenren): it begins with outward bearing and conduct, then turns to inner life and De (virtue/power).

“His heart is good and deep like a pool, and cannot be fathomed” means the True Person’s mind is both benevolent and profoundly still—others cannot read it. Outwardly, he is “righteous yet not partisan”: he upholds yi (rightness) but does not form cliques. He is “suited to all things yet not aligned with a faction”—he gets along with the ten thousand things without joining camps. Ordinary people tend to “take sides in every matter” and either shirk what is due or grab what is not; the True Person is the opposite, seeming “as if insufficient and not one to take on rank”—as though unworthy, yet not casually accepting honors that do not belong to him. The more he holds back and refuses credit, the more others respect him. Among the crowd he “fits with things and people,” while inwardly he remains “deep and unfathomable.”

“Like a gu (angular cup) yet not rigid; sharp-edged yet not cutting”: he has form and edge but does not clash or wound. “Empty without ornament; full yet seeming empty”: outwardly unpretentious, inwardly rich yet appearing modest.

“Bing hu, cui hu” describe his bearing: as if gladly going forth to help things and people, yet also as if compelled by necessity—response without contrivance is true response. “Fullness advances my color; clarity shines on my face”: De overflows, and a joyful countenance shows naturally. “When people are glad, they come to him”: others draw near when they are happy. “He rests in De; he loves people through De, and people are glad to receive his De”: he abides in De, loves through De, and others gladly receive it. All of this portrays how the True Person’s virtue and presence are great enough to transform the ten thousand things.

“Li hu” is hard to pin down; the Cui version reads “guang hu” (vast)—De is vast, embracing all, enough to hold this age, hence “How grand! Alone he completes Heaven” (du cheng qi tian)—he unites with the Way of Heaven by himself. “Lian hu—he loves to close; none see his root”: he seems always withdrawn and sealed; others cannot see his source or gate. If so, the True Person’s path does not need those external “voices”—ritual, punishment, knowledge, and De are tools of the ancient kings for governing the world; the True Person moves in spontaneity, accords with the people, and by following De can reach the heights. “Xun” is to go along in ease, without forced striving. Commentators Chen Bixu, Zhao Wen Ruhai, and the Zhang Junfang collated text write the three “hu” after “xi se shi” as “ye,” which fits the surrounding lines better—a plausible reading.

Whether one likes something or dislikes it, at the level of “the One” it is the same; whether one accords with “the One” or does not, in the end one still returns to “the One.” Those who can unite with the Dao of Heaven take Heaven as their companion; those who cannot unite with the Dao of Heaven take human gain and loss as their companion. Heaven and humanity do not lord over each other or vie for victory—whoever can dwell in such a state is called an Authentic Person.

Death and life are both fate; night and day alternate without ceasing—this is Heaven’s constant way. Much that people cannot reach or force belongs to the disposition and limits of each thing; there is no need to strain against them.

People need only take Heaven as a father to already cherish their own lives; how much more so the loftier, more primordial “transcendence”? People need only feel that having a ruler is “a little better” than being a common subject to be willing to die for that ruler; how much more so what truly ought to be upheld—“ genuineness”?

(This passage may be duplicated in manuscript transmission; the gist still turns on the Authentic Person, fate, Heaven, and the nature of things.)

When the spring dries up, fish crowd together on dry land, moistening one another with breath and wetting one another with spittle—far better to return each to rivers and lakes and forget one another in freedom. Rather than praising Yao on one side and condemning Jie on the other, better to drop such distinctions of right and wrong and dissolve together into the Great Dao.

Plain-Language Reading of This Passage in Nan Hua Zhen Jing Yi Hai Zuan Wei

Guo Xiang’s Commentary

The sage is constantly wuwei (non-action) in the sense of having no fixed mind of his own and yielding to things as they are, so his likes and dislikes, his sense of good and bad, are not at odds with things—there is no “not-one.” That state of being level with things is tian (Heaven/nature). “That” and “this,” each on its own side, belong to human discrimination; the true person aligns Heaven and human, self and other, and in that openness there is no “not-one,” and nothing he cannot accept.

Knowing that life and death are the bounds of ming (fate/destiny), he does not act rashly or at random. In daylight he abides in daylight; at night he abides in night, treating life and death like the alternation of day and night—what could he “fail to obtain”? When people today cannot get what they want and brood over it, that is wuqing (emotion stirred by outer things), not li (the perspective that accords with the Way).

“Zhuo” (transcendence/outstandingness) refers to duhua (each thing arising from its own root, not depending on something else). What humans inherit is Heaven; what Heaven duhua is the human. Taking Heaven as father, one is at ease with day and night, cold and heat, and dares not loathe them—how much more, in the vast realm where there is no fixed division, can one fail to leave duhua to itself? “Zhen” (the Real) means not borrowing from outside, being so of itself, impossible to violate—not only when it is the ruler’s command. Hence the parable of fish on dry land moistening each other with spit and foam: better, when there is abundance, to forget each other in freedom.

Praise and blame both spring from “not being full.” One who is full forgets good and bad, takes life and death and change as one body—how would he know whether Yao or Jie is higher or lower? (Lu’s note overlaps here: things see only what they share, not how they differ…)

The point continues: good and bad are really one matter; water stilled is “one,” waves are “not-one”—yet waves are still water. Understand this, and it is not the kind of stopping that “must stop something first before it stops.”

There is still “one” and “not-one”: the “one” is kin to Heaven and retires into the hidden; the “not-one” is kin to humans and shares the people’s fortunes and woes. What should come, comes—that is ming; what should be done, is done—that is tian. Life and death are day and night to each other, arising from ming and tian. When people cannot have their way, that too is the qing (disposition/feeling) of things—why must I grieve or rejoice in the midst of it?

Taking Heaven as what gives birth, one still cherishes the body—how much more what gives birth to that birth, the “father” who is more zhuo ( uniquely arising)? If one knows that zhuo and loves it, then life is nothing to exult over. People think themselves nobler because they have a lord; the body itself will die—how much more “the Real”? If one knows the Real and submits, then death is nothing to refuse.

When the source of life and nature runs dry, people are on the false “dry land,” using benevolence and righteousness like wet foam to moisten each other—better to forget each other in the rivers and lakes of Daoist practice, unaware of life, death, gathering, and scattering. Delighting in life and hating death is qing (emotion); having neither death nor life is Dao. Knowing the two-fold forgetting of praise and blame and transforming in the Way, those who forget life and death were never different to begin with.

Lu’s Supplement

Things look at “what is the same” and not at “what differs”: what they deem good gives rise to beauty and goodness; what they deem bad gives rise to evil and what is not good—good and bad were one from the start. “One” is like still water; “not-one” is like waves—waves are still water. Grasp this, and it is not the forced “stop only after you have stopped something first.”

Again there is one and not-one: the one is companion to Heaven (retiring into the hidden); the not-one is companion to humans (sharing the people’s weal and woe). What should arrive, arrives—ming; what should be done, is done—tian. Life and death are like day and night, from ming and tian; when people cannot have their way, that is the qing of things—why grieve or rejoice?

Taking Heaven as father, one still loves the body—how much more what is more zhuo? Know the zhuo and love it, and life is not worth rejoicing over. Taking the lord as superior to oneself, one still finds it hard to accept death for the body—how much more the “mother” of the ten thousand things (the Real)? Fish on dry land with spit and foam—better to forget each other in rivers and lakes: it images an age of the Great Way, each at ease in xiaoyao ( free wandering), hearing dogs and cocks of neighbors, people not crossing paths; later the Way scattered, simplicity fell apart, straining steps for ren ( benevolence) and mincing for yi (righteousness), father, son, and brothers harboring deceit—then they thought about how to govern, praising Yao and blaming Jie, contention without end—better to forget each other in naturalness.

Lin’s Supplement

This passage explains that punishment, ritual, knowledge, and de all issue from “the Real,” so it further clarifies that good and bad, and fang (the guard/set boundary between self and other, right and wrong) are fundamentally one.

“Its one-ness also one-ifies its not-one-ness”: “one” and “not-one” return again to one—Heaven and human are level, with no high or low; how could there still be victory or defeat between “one” and “not-one”? The principle of life and death is ming; the constant shift of Yin-Yang is tian. The true person entrusts himself to naturalness—day as day, night as night, life and death as day and night—originally nothing unobtainable; if worry still lingers in the heart, that is still wuqing, not li.

“Zhuo” can be read as ancestor of Heaven and earth; “zhen” as mother of the ten thousand things. Things are born from Heaven, take Heaven as father, rejoice in following and dare not violate—how much more Heaven’s ancestor? Taking the lord as above oneself, one still finds dying for the body hard—how much more the mother of the ten thousand things? Fish on dry land with spit and foam—better to forget each other in rivers and lakes: in the age of the Great Way, each thing xiaoyao; later ritual and righteousness multiply, the debate of Yao and Jie arises—better to forget both in naturalness.

One-sentence gist: The true person takes Heaven as root and duhua as “zhuo” and “zhen”; life, death, day, and night are all entrusted to ming and tian—there is no need to cling to life in the wet foam of benevolence and righteousness like fish on dry land; rather, one should forget each other within Daoist cultivation. Praising Yao, blaming Jie, delighting in life and hating death are all qing and “not full”; when both are forgotten, all return to the same Way.

The One leaves no trace in the world, yet stands apart in clarity and dwells alone in solidity. Heaven is clear because of it, earth is at peace because of it, and feudal lords and kings govern the realm because of it. Hence the ancients said: one who attains the Dao begins by zhiyi (reaching unity with the Dao), continues by baoyi (holding fast to the One), and ends by fanyi (returning to the One). That is why the True Person (the ideal figure who has attained the Dao) is everywhere “one.”

All things are originally one body, yet each splits into “not-one”—that comes from private bias and partial feeling in things. If you can guard against that “not-one,” you will see that the private bias and partial feeling of things are themselves nothing but a kind of “one.” So: inward unity makes you kin with Heaven; outward conformity to the world and “not-one” makes you kin with people. One who attains the Dao begins, continues, and ends in the One; the True Person therefore goes nowhere without being “one.”

If one only knows to follow Heaven without losing the One, or only knows to follow people without abandoning the Way of Heaven, then “one” and “not-one” will again resolve back into “one.”

Night is where day hides; death is where life begins. If night and day need not be bound to each other rigidly, what is there to cling to about death and life? The True Person does not tie heart and mind to birth and death as private feeling, but walks the same road as birth and death. What cannot walk together or share feeling with others is bondage by wuqing (attachment to outer things and worldly sentiment)—not the True Person’s feeling.

People know to take Heaven as father and the ruler as worthy of honor, yet do not know what most deserves cherishing—the zhuo (standing-apart virtue)—or what most deserves guarding—the zhen (original genuineness). Zhiren (the highest Benevolence) has no partial kinship; what lives by favor and mutual nurturing falls short of zhiren. Zhizhi (the highest Knowledge) shows itself as “without knowing”; what moves by likes and dislikes, praise and blame, falls short of zhizhi.

Jianghu (rivers and lakes) is often used to picture the vastness of the Dao, so when the Way is explained, water is often the image: fish out of water may moisten each other with spit, but in the jianghu they swim freely and forget one another; people who are blind to principle blame and slander one another, but once they have this Way they melt into one.

Zhao’s commentary says: To like is one thing, and not to like is also one thing. Like and dislike belong to the person; in the “true self” there is no like or dislike, and in Heaven there is no like or dislike either.

People naturally have likes and dislikes—what is there to win or lose?

To understand that the alternation of day and night is Heaven’s doing, and that the alternation of life and death is fate’s doing; to grasp the Way of day and night is to grasp the principle of life and death. Those who do not understand rejoice in life and hate death—that is how human feeling usually runs.

When children are filial to their father, they treat the father as “Heaven”; yet they do not know how to cherish the “Heaven” within themselves—is that acceptable? When ministers are loyal to the ruler and do not flinch even at death, they still do not know how to honor where the true ruler (the true lord, the original mind) really resides—is that acceptable?

Fish out of water long for water; people in turmoil long for order—both cannot help liking life and hating death. When in the rivers and lakes they forget each other, and when in the Way and its arts they forget each other, then life and death are one principle—what is there to cling to? What is there to rejoice or fear?

Yanzhai says: Here “the one” means nature and creation. The differences of like and dislike all fall within creation, so “one” and “not-one” in the end both return to “one.” If a person can refrain from dividing self and other through like and dislike, they know Heaven and belong with “Heaven”; if they take like and dislike as separation, they only know the human and belong with “people.” The true person has no like or dislike; sameness and difference do not split Heaven and human—they simply follow what is natural.

Fish in a drying pool moistening each other with spit is a metaphor for people in the world forcing effort and making do with one another; forgetting each other in the rivers and lakes is a metaphor for embodying the Way through Wuwei (non-action).

The line “praising Yao and condemning Jie” is where Zhuangzi’s unique insight stands out: no Jie, no Yao, no praise, no blame—forgetting both and entrusting all to the natural—that is transforming things through the Dao.

This passage argues that the True Person’s likes and dislikes arise from supreme impartiality, and therefore seem to have no private preferences; to approve is one, to disapprove is also one—the “one” is simply as it is. One and not-one alike return to one. To befriend Heaven is to root oneself in nature, where nothing fails to be one; if one is not one and befriends people instead, sometimes acting from self-interest or self-aversion, yet if that still proceeds from utmost impartiality, it still appears as having no likes or dislikes—approval is one, disapproval is one. Viewed from the Dao, one and not-one are nothing more than one. Heaven does not succeed because of human beings, and human beings do not fail because of Heaven—where is there any question of who wins or loses? The author fears that people will cling to the surface appearance of “not-one” and lose the “great unity” that reason itself already holds, and therefore uses a simile: human birth and death are like day and night in Heaven; everyone who stands beneath Heaven and covers the earth is subject to this, yet some imagine themselves “knowing” when in fact they are obscured by the feelings things arouse. If one can gather feeling back into nature and merge Heaven and human into one, one can see that birth and death are merely the ordinary alternation of day and night and need not be kept on the mind. If one honors and loves Heaven as father, how much more that self that stands apart and alone? The ruler is more honored than one’s own body, yet the body still dies—how much more that innermost layer of utmost truth within the body? Here the text again points directly at the substance of the Dao to open this up for everyone: if one can turn inward and seek that standing-apart utmost truth, one will know that our birth and death are nothing but the arising and perishing of a single thought, the coming and going of a single breath of qi. If one does not understand this point, one loses the root of life—like a fish out of water gasping on wet foam; how can that compare with forgetting each other in the water of rivers and lakes?

At the end Zhuangzi says of himself: my discourse here is also like praising Yao and condemning Jie—I have not yet forgotten each other and dissolved in the Dao. The intent is that people should forget words, meet in the heart, and sweep away the traces of such discourse as well.

Note on fascicle

Nanhuazhenjing Yihai Zuanwei, fascicle 15 (complete)

(Based on the Siku Quanshu edition)

Nanhuazhenjing Yihai Zuanwei, fascicle 16

Compiled by Chu Boxiu (Song)

Inner Chapters: “Great Master” (Dazongshi), section 3 (continued)

Nature—Heaven and Earth—gives me a body, wearies me with life, eases me in old age, and lets me rest in death. Whoever has settled life well is the same kind of person who settles death well.

Hide a boat in a valley or a mountain in a marsh, and people think it safe. Yet if a strong man should carry off the whole boat or mountain in the dead of night, the dull-witted would never know. Whether the thing hidden is large or small, each has a fitting place—yet it can still be moved away or lost.

Hide the world within the world itself, and there is nowhere to flee. That is the great constant truth of the ten thousand things. People happen to receive a human form and are already delighted; yet human shape belongs to endless change and has no fixed end—how could the joy in that be numbered?

Therefore the sage roams in the state where nothing can escape, so that everything may find its place and be preserved whole. Some are good at dying young, some at living long, some at a fine beginning, some at a fine end—even ordinary people still take these as models. How much more so what the ten thousand things rely on, and what the one great transformation awaits?

Guo Xiang’s note: Form, birth, aging, and death are different phases of the same “I”: form is the bodily shell that bears me; birth is toil, old age is ease, death is rest. Though the four change, at no moment is it not this “I”—so why cling and refuse to let go? Birth and death are both the mandate of fate (tianming). Without “good” the original state would always be present; only with “good” does “life” become meaningful—and not only living is good; dying is good too. The point is: you cannot escape the changes of birth and death, so one must first speak of the limit where there is “nowhere to flee,” then explain: since there are signs of necessary change, the mind should follow that flow without being tied down. No force is greater than “transformation”—heaven and earth are unveiled and tend toward renewal; mountains are shouldered and old forms cast off, so there is no pause; in a blink one is already in a new state. Heaven, earth, and the myriad things never cease renewing, yet we still think they are the same as before; boats and mountains change day by day, yet the eye treats them as unchanged; in the exchange of a single arm, the old self is lost—all passes in dim flux. The past “I” is no longer the present “I”; I pass away with today—how can I forever hold to the old self? If one does not understand becoming one with transformation yet tries to hide and prevent change, however deep and firm the hiding, it cannot block daily renewal. Not hiding, letting things be natural, then one shares the body with heaven and earth and the same stream with transformation—wanting to escape, one cannot. This is the great reason shared by all things, not the private calculation of one school.

Lü Huiqing’s note: The great clod (nature—heaven and earth as spontaneous process) is originally without feeling toward me; if I do good, then when I live it is good, and when I die I must likewise be equal with the myriad things and one with transformation, a joy to the world—is that not as it should be?

Heaven and earth, the great mass of the cosmos, have never favored me with private affection. If I spend my life in goodness, I naturally end in goodness—so why should I welcome or dread birth and death?

The ten thousand things have no fixed measure of large or small, heavy or light. While the heart remains, the person remains; when the heart is gone, the person is gone. Whoever turns away from the Dao cannot stay forever without eventually departing.

So one may hide a boat in a valley or a mountain in a lake and call that secure—yet the moment the mind stirs with a thought, they are suddenly lost. In the dead of night, at the darkest hour, if something here is shifted and hidden in the deepest depths, what could do that if not a presence of real power?

Even when small and large things are hidden as well as can be, they still go missing. To use a limited life to “store away” the boundless cosmos and expect it never to slip away—how could that match the ordinary way things work?

The world is where the myriad things return to the One. If you grasp that One and keep it in that place, then even a powerful being who tried to carry it off on his back—where could he run? Without genuine knowing, one cannot truly meet this truth.

In the commentaries, “the Great Clod” (Da Kuai) is taken as a name for the maker of things. From the side of form and speech, and of life and speech: those who toil all their lives, when old, lack strength to toil further and can only seek ease for themselves; when death comes, there is no need for deliberate arrangement—breath naturally stops. The True Person’s “no exhaustion” and “no ceasing breath” are aimed mainly at people who wear themselves out making a living. If one can truly settle the principle of life, then death can be settled in the same way; if in life one never fully honors life, how can one expect to honor death at the end?

What a boat takes from things is the capacity to float and move; what a mountain takes is the capacity to stay put and not shift. The image of midnight is about guarding against the slightest lapse—principle leaves no trace. “The strong carry it and walk away” refers to zaohua (making-and-transforming) pushing and shifting the ten thousand things from behind. Form follows transformation and moves on—how could things cling to one fixed shape? Thus between bowing and looking up, one has already passed through innumerable changes. Yet people entrust what is bound to change to a fate that never stops turning, carried along by transformation without knowing it. Hence Zhuangzi’s parables of boat, mountain, ravine, and marsh: one who can “treat things as things and not be treated as a thing by things”—use outer things as tools without being enslaved by them—even zaohua cannot shift such a person.

Yuxiong said, “Turning never ceases; heaven and earth secretly change—who notices?”—the same idea. If one “stores the world within the world,” there is nothing stored away and everything is simply entrusted; there is nowhere to flee. That is the great feeling of ordinary things, in accord with the principle of xing and ming (nature and life), unified with transformation.

To lodge a nature that is without birth and without death in a form that does change is only one encounter among myriad transformations—why favor form and life alone? A living form lasts at most a century, while the root that gives it shape originally has no beginning or end—how far can such meetings reach? The joy in this cannot be fully counted. The sage roams the way of “hiding the world in the world,” and so is nowhere not present. To honor early death, old age, beginning, and end—though not forgetting birth and death, one can still exhaust one’s nature, and thus serve as a model; how much more one who reaches ming (destiny/life-as-given), can “treat things as things,” is tied to the ten thousand things, and awaits each single transformation?

On the Four Phases of Life and the Dao

From birth to death, as one passes through the great transformation, life can be sketched in four stretches: when I live and wear myself out, others find it tiresome, yet I often still delight in it; when I rest and enjoy myself, others find it pleasant, yet I am often ill at ease. The reason is simply this—we do not use the Dao to nurture well this whole span of existence.

Birth, Death, and the Dao

Those who can nurture my life well are also those who can nurture my death well. Life is like floating on water; death is like coming to rest. What is “me” in me—let it abide as it will; there is no need to drive oneself to chase what lies outside. As for what is “there,” outward and external, there is no need to hoard it in secret, to grip everything and never let go, nor to adorn the body to show off one’s lot in life.

Hiding and Transformation

To hide a boat in a deep ravine is to hide something small; to hide a mountain in a marsh or lake is to hide something large—yet when change comes in the dead of night, it is not something sight alone can guard against; nor can human strength block the powerful agent (zàohuà, the transforming power of nature). Boat and mountain differ in motion and stillness, but once the powerful agent carries them off, the principle is the same. So when a person faces the great transformation, should one try to hide by stillness or by activity? Change is not something one can evade by activity or stillness alone. Better to hide the world within the world itself—to dwell in vast openness and become one with transformation.

The Great Sentiment of Things and the Sage

The great truth of ordinary things is that none fails to become one with transformation; only those burdened by things and sunk in comparing big and small cannot do so. The sage roams where things cannot escape, and therefore is not bound by things. What things bind does not wait on transformation; yet what transformation waits on… (This passage in Yihai Zuwei develops the themes of becoming one with transformation and not being bound by things, in line with Zhuangzi’s images of hiding boat and mountain, nurturing life and death well, and floating and resting.)

Bixu Commentary: “The great clod” (dakuai) refers to the primordial qi between Heaven and Earth; “I” (wo) is what we call a being endowed with spiritual intelligence. Such a being, in itself, has nothing that could be called birth, aging, or death—so why do we speak of them at all? Because once there is bodily form, we say “I”; originally one need not be bound by form, so originally one need not be burdened by “birth,” need not be tied by “aging,” need not be cut off by “death.” Seen this way, since the Dao is good at generating the myriad things, it must also be good at letting them return to completion. If today we take yielding to nature as good and knowing one’s allotted span as good, then what is there to reproach in death?

“At midnight a mighty force picks it up and carries it away” speaks of the unfathomable creative power of yin and yang, ceaselessly turning and driving change in the ten thousand things. Is there no way to hide things away? Yet they still slip away quietly—how could they be fully restrained? But things are not truly “stored” in some place; rather, an unchanging principle is at work—who can fully grasp it? What flies does not understand sinking, and what sinks is thereby hidden; this does not understand that, and that is thereby hidden—this is each thing hiding itself, not being hidden by something outside. This is the common pattern of the ten thousand things, not a lesson staged only for the perspicacious. The perspicacious take the cosmos as a single room and no longer cling to the notion of “owning” all under Heaven—if that is not “hiding,” what is? “All under Heaven” is the collective name for the moving and rooted kinds; what we call “hiding” is change proceeding in the dark while people remain unaware.

In a dream one becomes a bird and soars on high, or becomes a fish and dives into the deep—the transformations are endless and the joy unbounded; why is it only when one turns into a human form that one feels delight? What none of the ten thousand things can escape is the transforming work of creation (zaohua). The sage wanders in non-fixation and does not cling to the realm of transformation, so in his eyes every thing finds its place and is “present.” Worldly people imitate only what shows on the surface; as for “ultimate oneness,” even traces do not appear—that is where all transformation converges. Having “good” and having “waiting upon” are both not true “suspension and release” (xuanjie)—release from the bonds of the mundane.

Zhao Commentary: Birth is setting out on a journey; death is returning home. Since humans are born, they must die—going out, they must come back. That the Creator (zaowu) is good both at giving life and at giving death lies precisely here. One need only rest in what is natural. “Boat and ravine,” “mountain and marsh,” and the like are all explanations of this point.

Zhao’s commentary says: To be born is to come into the world for one journey; to die is to return. Where there is human life, there must be death; where there is going, there must be returning. The reason the Creator both arranges our birth well and arranges our death well lies here—simply resting in what is natural.

“Hiding a boat in a ravine, hiding a mountain in a marsh” means: you hide the boat in a mountain gully and the mountain in a swamp, thinking it is secure, yet in the middle of the night it can be moved away while you know nothing. This is a metaphor: however people scheme, however tightly they plan, there are times when they are not their own master—what they hide cannot stay hidden, what they flee they cannot escape. If you “hide the world within the world”—that is, wholly entrust yourself to nature and become one with heaven, earth, and the myriad things—then above and below, the four directions, past and present, you cannot be apart for an instant; how could you slip away?

Form and nature are linked: form is nature, nature is form—this is the great constant of the myriad things. A person has a full body and is human, and still rejoices in that—how much more the level that truly “employs” a person to take this form? The sage knows that the bodily form is bound in the world and cannot escape fate; the way to live alongside it is “without fixed direction”—not clinging to one place, roaming with transformation—so that the myriad things can each rest in their own being. Early death, old age, beginning, and end each obtain their “good”; people still take this as a model to follow—how much more the one who operates without form yet can complete this shape? That is the good among goods on which the myriad things depend and for which the one transformation waits—can one fail to honor it? Things are endlessly diverse, yet in transformation they are one—and that one is this principle.

Yizhai says: The metaphor of “hiding boat and mountain, carried off at midnight” means that however deep and secret human scheming may be, there are times when one is not free; if one “hides the world in the world” and entrusts it to nature, there is nowhere to flee. Where the myriad things truly abide is always like this. People often delight in having a visible form, unaware that the human body transforms in countless ways and that the myriad things are all present in oneself—the joy in that cannot be counted. The sage roams the heart in nature, without grasping and without guarding; hence it is said: to roam where things cannot escape and yet all are preserved—to treat early death, old age, beginning, and end each as good. When the Creator can do this, people still take it as a model—how much more the Dao? What the myriad things depend on and what the one transformation awaits is only return to the Dao. In this passage each layer of statement rises above the last; Zhuangzi’s brush was always like this.

The Creator, Form, Life, Aging, and Death

On this scripture’s meaning, “the great clod” (dakuai) does not mean soil alone but the Creator—who gives us bodily form as if using form to carry us: the hundred bones complete, spirit and consciousness riding upon them, unable to avoid being carried thus.

“He toils me through life”: to live is to be put to use—rising and resting, eating and drinking, pain and itch, cold and heat, all wear the body; one cannot avoid being worn.

“He eases me in old age”: when years pile up, blood and breath decline, the form daily weakens, intent and thought daily fade; one cannot but slacken and settle into idleness.

“He rests me in death”: when breath is spent and spirit departs, the four great (earth, water, fire, wind) each scatter; one lies still in the “great chamber” (the tomb, the place of return), unable but to rest.

From this we know: people in the world worry over life while alive and worry over death at the end—mostly misplaced feeling. While living, one should consider how to live one’s life well—whatever harms life, violates principle, injures people, or damages things, do not do it; then at death one naturally dies well. What gives me life is the Creator, but the one who lives my life well is myself; in this sense, what difference is there between life and death?

Hiding a Boat in a Ravine, Hiding a Mountain in a Marsh—and Transformation

“Hide a boat in a ravine, hide a mountain in a marsh” means: humans dwell within transformation (zaohua), yet wish to flee its shifts—they cannot. Things in the world that are stored must be lost; once stored and lost, they no longer endure as before. Only when nothing is stored do things “have nowhere to flee and yet all remain”—not that things truly do not transform, but when the heart does not cling to storing, it moves with change and stays present in it.

To store the world within the world, and wander in the land of nowhere (wuhe you zhi xiang) and the vast wilds of openness (guangmo zhi ye)—realms of emptiness without attachment—is this meaning: follow encounters without contrived intent, view with spacious ease, and wherever one goes one is together with transformation. This is the way of “using the world to store the world.” Though one enters and leaves the machinery of change and birth-and-death shifts in myriad ways, one sees only daily renewal—where could things “flee”?

People clinging to private views often treat things as privately owned, thinking mountains and rivers are “unfleeing” and ravines and marshes “can hide things,” as if form had some unchanging place; they do not awaken that the pivot of Heaven turns in secret, the shadow on the sundial never still, and things, earth, and form are all transforming while people themselves do not know.

Then, is there a way to step beyond shifting change? Answer: no storing, no clinging—let the heart wander with Heaven. Even “what is present now” cannot be grasped—how can one vainly speak of so-called “escaping transformation”?

Good at Early Death, Good at Old Age

Most editions read “good at early death, good at old age.” Chen Bixu’s edition, following Zhang Junfang’s collated text, reads “good at youth, good at old age,” which is preferable in meaning (youth has its good, old age has its good, each in its own way).

Dao has a real and trustworthy aspect, yet it is wuwei and formless; it can be honored, yet cannot be “held” like a physical object; it can be apprehended, yet its trace cannot be seen. It is self-rooted and self-founded; it existed before heaven and earth were born and has been firm since antiquity. Shen (the subtle numinous spirit) makes Tiandi (the lord of heaven, an image of heaven’s sovereign) what it is as spirit, and heaven and earth arise from this.

Dao is prior to Taiji (the primordial whole before heaven and earth were divided), yet does not pride itself on being “high”; it is below the Six Extremes (the utmost limits of above, below, and the four directions), yet does not belittle itself as “deep”; it was born before heaven and earth, yet does not boast of being “long-lasting”; it extends back to high antiquity, yet does not pose as “old.”

Xīwéi (an ancient sage said to have opened heaven and earth) obtained it and lifted up heaven and earth; Fúxī obtained it and carried on the “mother of Qi” (the fundamental breath that generates the myriad things); Wéidǒu (the Northern Dipper and such, master of order and law) obtained it and never deviated; sun and moon obtained it and run without ceasing through the ages; Kānhuài (said in legend to bear Mount Kunlun) obtained it and upheld Kunlun; Féngyí (the water god) obtained it and roamed the great rivers; Jiānwú (an ancient divine name) obtained it and dwelt on Mount Tai; Huángdì (the Yellow Emperor) obtained it and ascended to heaven; Zhuān Xū obtained it and dwelt in the Xuángōng (the deep, hidden palace); Yǔqiáng obtained it and stood at the north pole; Xīwángmǔ (Queen Mother of the West) obtained it and sat on Shǎoguǎng (a mythical immortal mountain); no one knows where she began, no one knows where she ends. Péngzǔ obtained it, reaching up to the age of Yǒuyú (Emperor Shun) and down to the Five Hegemons (the Five Lords of Spring and Autumn); Fù Yuè obtained it and assisted Wǔ Dīng (King of Shang), holding all under heaven, riding the Dōngwéi (eastern celestial region), occupying Jī and Wěi (star names) and ranking among the array of stars.

Guo Xiang’s commentary (explanation of the preceding text): What is called “without feeling” is the real that abides in wuwei; “formless” means the shared dwelling of past and present that cannot be monopolized or possessed—each thing only accommodates its own nature, and its fixed shape is not seen. Before heaven and earth existed it was already firm; one who understands “non-being” cannot treat “being” as solid reality—how then can one say that “Dao” gave birth to spirit? It is not that Dao made Tiandi spirit; Tiandi is spirit by itself. It is not that Dao gave birth to heaven and earth; heaven and earth are self-born. From this we know: if one treats “spirit” as spirit belonging to something outside, it is not truly spirit; not treating spirit as an external object is what spirit is. Where Dao is high there is nothing higher; where it is deep there is nothing deeper; where it is long-lasting there is nothing more enduring; where it is old there is nothing older—it is nowhere not present, yet wherever it is present is all “non-being” (nothing that can be grasped as a fixed entity).

From Xīwéi obtaining it and lifting heaven and earth, down to Fù Yuè occupying Jī and Wěi and ranking among the stars, this does not mean that “Dao” can be acquired; it means each obtains its own nature, each completes its own De (Virtue/Power), making clear that it is “self-obtaining” alone. The difficulty of being born is like independent transformation and self-obtaining; once one has obtained life, why must one fear not obtaining life and force things? Forcing things injures life.

The main thrust of Lü’s commentary is as follows:

Because ears and eyes have it, they can hear and see; because hands and feet have it, they can move. Does this not show that it has its own qing—responsiveness, the capacity to feel and respond? Because cold and heat have it, they alternate between chill and warmth; because the myriad things have it, they are born and multiply. Does this not show that it has its own xin—steadiness and trustworthiness?

Yet if you ask who is actually doing the acting, you cannot find any concrete agent—so it is said to be formless.

Sometimes without speaking one understands; sometimes at a single glance the heart knows—showing that it is not empty void and can be verified; yet it cannot be grasped in the hand or held in the arms, nor possessed like an ordinary object. One can only meet it with the heart in mutual accord, knowing without words, as if teeth and lips naturally fit together—only then is it said to be “obtainable”; yet its traces cannot be touched and its form cannot be seen.

When the myriad things are born, there is always a root cause; yet the Dao is root and foundation to itself. The myriad things appear only after Heaven and Earth exist; the Dao was already there before Heaven and Earth had taken shape, thus from antiquity.

The Yellow Emperor, the legendary sage king of high antiquity, relied on it to attain spiritual subtlety, yet the Dao does not for that reason belong only to the “spiritual” side—even the Yellow Emperor, if he took the Dao merely as external wonder-working, would not truly have spiritual responsiveness. Heaven and Earth rely on it to transform and give birth to the myriad things, yet the Dao itself is not bound by birth and death—even speaking of it today, it remains ever-present like Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate), the primordial root.

People describe its form as “high” or “deep” and its age as “long” or “old”; yet the Dao itself has no fixed appearance and no beginning or end in time, which is why Laozi says “the Dao is empty and has no name”—void, yielding, beyond naming.

The ancient sages, whether prominent or hidden, differed in manner, but none became sages without first obtaining the Dao; this is not limited to those from Xīwéi to Liè Yùkòu—the obtainers of the Dao named in the Zhuangzi.

The Dao is the mother of all under Heaven. From Heaven downward, nothing establishes its footing without obtaining the Dao, and it is not only the Dipper’s handle and sun and moon among the celestial signs that relate to the Dao.

None of this can be fathomed by ordinary feelings and common understanding; only those who have obtained the Dao can grasp it—which is probably why Zhuangzi calls it the “Great Ancestral Master” (Dàzōngshī), the fundamental teacher to whom the myriad things and those who study the Dao turn.

On Qing (disposition) and xingming (nature and life)

“Qing” refers to the inherent disposition of xingming; “xin” (trust/faithfulness) within it means inner truth without falsity—there is no need for deliberate effort, yet it always runs naturally, and even yin-yang cannot command it. The Dao has affection for the ten thousand things, so they are born without going against it; yet when the Dao completes its work it never claims to have acted, and in responding to things it never shows a fixed form.

What can be appreciated vs obtained, seen vs not seen

What is worth appreciating and what can be received still depend on concrete things; what can be obtained and what can be seen still depend on form and color. If in appreciating there is no clinging, there is nothing to call “receiving”; if in obtaining there is no greedy grasping, there is nothing to call “seeing.” The wheelwright’s son could not “receive” his father’s craft from him—because the craft never solidified into a fixed trace. Xiangwang sought the pearl: the pearl could be obtained, yet its form could not be directly “seen.”

The “Jing” (stillness) chapter: returning to the root and restoring life

“Jing” says: fu ming (returning to mandate) is returning to the root; each thing returning to its root is each returning to its own root. What has been firm from ancient times is what can be held without changing. Shen (spirit) in a person is called hun (soul); in Heaven it is called di (the sovereign). When a sage dies it is called shen—meaning death is no different from life; when an ordinary person dies it is called po (corporeal soul)—meaning life is no different from death. Put this way, exhausting human shen, I precede Heaven and Earth. Laozi said: “The gate of the mysterious female is called the root of Heaven and Earth.” So it is high yet without height, deep yet without depth, alive yet without birth, old yet without aging.

From Xikuangwei to Fuyue: a general account of those who attained the Dao

From the Xikuangwei clan to Fuyue, a general account of people who attained the Dao—the theme resembles Laozi’s chapter “In old times those who obtained the One.” In Taiyi there was as yet no visible qi; Taichu was the beginning of qi. What had not yet shown qi was “father,” what nourished was “mother.” The Dipper is the net of Heaven; Kanhuai’s spirit was named Pingyi (water god); Jianwu, the mountain spirit Yuqiang, the North Sea spirit’s name, Queen Mother of the West, down to Fuyue—all were ancient attainers of the Dao. Their stories cannot be fully verified; one should grasp them with the heart and not cling to outer traces.

This passage explains the nature of the Dao in the “Great Master” (Dazongshi) chapter of the Zhuangzi, and why those in antiquity who attained the Dao could be called “great masters of the Way.”

Responsive communion, trustworthiness, non-action, and formlessness. Commentary on the Dao says that because the Dao responds when there is “sensation” or responsive contact, it has “feeling” or responsiveness (qing); only with such responsiveness can one speak of xin—trustworthiness, something you can rely on and verify. At the same time, the Dao is utterly still and wuwei (non-action); because it is non-action, it has no fixed form. The “Discussion on Making All Things Equal” (Qi Wu Lun) says it “can be practiced and trusted, yet its form is not seen,” and also that it “has responsiveness yet no form.” Can the Dao be grasped easily with ordinary concepts? Precisely because of this, it can be kept in the heart-mind yet cannot be “handed over” like a physical object; it can be recognized from one’s nature yet cannot be seen with the eyes. What is meant by “keeping” is not storing it in a fixed place; what is meant by “obtaining” is not acquiring a concrete thing—hence “what is kept is nowhere kept, what is obtained is nothing obtained.”

Self-rooted from the origin; parent of Heaven and Earth. As to the substance of the Dao: it is self-rooted from the origin; it existed before Heaven and Earth were born and has been so from ancient times. As to its function: shen (spirit, the subtle and numinous) together with the “Spirit Lord” (shen di)—the master of creation—give birth to Heaven and Earth. Above and below there is no fixed location; it cannot be fully described with spatial notions such as “high” or “deep.” Its transformations have no fixed shape; neither can it be bounded by temporal notions such as “old” or “long-lasting.” Shen and the Spirit Lord are like the Dao in its aspect as “father” of creation; giving birth to Heaven and Earth is like the Dao in its aspect as “mother” of the ten thousand things.

Those who attained the Dao in antiquity and the great master of the Way. From Sovereign Xiwei down to Fu Shuo and others, people in antiquity who attained the Dao—whether ascending to Heaven, dwelling on mountains, or hiding in deep waters—could preserve long life and fully possess immeasurable spiritual power. This is the marvel praised in the “Great Master”: through embodying the Dao, one aligns with that self-rooted, wuwei, formless Way and thereby reaches a level comparable to the ancient sages.

Commentary by Bi Xu: To speak of “constantly practicing goodness to rescue things” is to say that the Dao responds to the ten thousand things and holds them in warm regard; to speak of “responding when touched and then penetrating through, with trustworthiness,” is to say that at one touch there is response, mutual penetration, a bond that can be relied on without needing visible proof. There is feeling yet no form, there is trust yet no image—therefore the Dao can be sensed and spoken of, yet cannot be grasped in the hand like a physical object; it can be inwardly received as “obtaining,” yet cannot be seen with the eyes like something before one.

Yin takes softness (rou) as its principle; yang takes firmness (gang) as its lord. The reason heaven and earth, yin and yang, are unfathomably deep is that within them Shen (spirit) is at work; the reason heaven and earth never cease in birth and growth is that within them the Dao is in motion. The Dao is lofty and deep, long-lasting and inexhaustible—by nature it is not suited to exhaustive debate with ordinary mind and tongue, yet it is nowhere absent. Laozi spoke of “obtaining the One” from the angles of heaven and earth, the valley spirit, the ten thousand things, and lords and kings; Zhuangzi (Master of Lacquer Garden), tracing the line from Xiweishi downward, also spoke of “obtaining it,” yet went further and even forgot that “One.” Thus the Dao’s transformations are boundless—even a thousand sages cannot exhaust them in words.

Commentary by Zhao: Feeling and trustworthiness can be spoken of only with difficulty through names and forms; Wuwei (non-action) and formlessness cannot be fixed by names and forms. Honorable yet not receivable—feeling and trustworthiness mean in truth there is nothing that can truly be “taken in hand”; obtainable yet not visible—Wuwei and formlessness mean in truth there is nothing that can truly be “seen.” That yin can communicate with spirit and yang can hold sway both depend on this point of Shen. What follows further unfolds the Dao’s practical use—the meaning is already clear, and there is no need to gloss every line.

Earlier sections had not yet focused on the word “Dao”; only here is “Dao” explicitly named, in correspondence with the “Great Master” (Dazongshi) chapter of the Zhuangzi. Feeling and sincerity are both real; yet in wuwei (non-action) there is no place to get a grip—formless, with no fixed shape. It can only be grasped inwardly, not forcibly transmitted; it can be realized, not seen with the eyes—only one who truly cultivates the Way understands this. Guan Yinzi has a chapter that explains “transmission” with unusual clarity: the Dao is self-rooted from the origin; it existed before heaven and earth were born—this is what is meant by “the limitless gives rise to the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji).” “Di” is the trace left by creation; “Di” is the lord of heaven—Di can be numinous because the Dao is at work. Heaven and earth also exist only because of the Dao, hence “Taiji gives rise to the two modes (liangyi).” Therefore there is no need to dispute how abstruse, how deep, or how ancient it is. From Xīwéi down to what this chapter records, all say that one must first obtain the Dao before one can do those things.

From the opening on the Way of the true person and how the Dao arises, down to this passage on the substance of the Dao, with ancient sages who obtained the Dao cited as proof—the language is strange, but the principle is clear, and commentators of every school have discussed it at length. Terms such as “spirit (shen)” and “Di” are especially uncanny; I offer brief views appended after each item: what is called “Di” is yin-yang—self-rooted from the origin, formless yet numinous; in movement heaven and earth are born, nameable and with form yet numinous. As to nature, it is neither present nor absent, wuwei yet leaving nothing undone—why fuss over depth, antiquity, or age? On reflection this meaning derives from the Daodejing: “the gate of the dark female (xuanpin)—that is called the root of heaven and earth.” Xuanpin is another name for yin-yang; to know the gate of xuanpin is to know the numinosity of “Di.” Then, dwelling within yin-yang as mutual substance and function—that is the unfathomable wonder without fixed direction. If one can truly know what gives birth to heaven and earth, then where one’s own life comes from need not be sought to be known. Once the source is known, how could departure be a matter of dark unknowing?

Nán Bó Zǐ Kuí asked Nǚ Yú, “You are very old in years, yet your complexion is like a child’s — why is that?”

Nǚ Yú said, “Because I have heard the Dao and truly taken it into myself.”

Nán Bó Zǐ Kuí asked again, “Can the Dao be learned?”

Nǚ Yú said, “No — how could it? You are not someone who can bear and carry this Dao.”

Nan Bozhai asked Nüyu, “You are very old, yet your complexion is like a child’s—why is that?” Nüyu said, “Because I have heard the Dao.” Nan Bozhai asked, “Can the Dao be learned?” Nüyu said, “No. You are not the sort of person who can learn the Dao. Bu Liangyi had a sage’s talent but not a sage’s Dao; I have a sage’s Dao but not a sage’s talent. I wanted to give him the teaching of the Dao, so that perhaps he could truly become a sage. Otherwise, to impart a sage’s Dao to someone with a sage’s talent ought not to be difficult. I still guarded the Dao and gradually told him: after three days he could forget the world; after I guarded him and taught further for seven days, he could forget external things; after I guarded him and taught for nine more days, he could forget life. Only after forgetting life can the mind become clear as at dawn (zhao che); only after that clarity can one see the Alone (jian du)—behold that undivided, unchanging ground; only after seeing the Alone can one be without past and present; only after being without past and present can one enter the realm where there is no death and no birth.

What is meant by “no death and no birth”: what kills does not die; what gives birth does not live. Toward the ten thousand things, there is no forcing to send away, no straining to welcome, no deliberate discarding, and nothing that cannot be accomplished. This is called “ying ning”—ying is disturbance and shock; ning is the true peace that is achieved only after such disturbance.

Nan Bozhai asked, “Where did you alone hear all this?” Nüyu said, “I heard it from the son of Fumo; the son of Fumo heard it from the grandson of Luosong; the grandson of Luosong heard it from Zhanming; Zhanming heard it from Niexu; Niexu heard it from Xuyi; Xuyi heard it from Ousong; Ousong heard it from Minghun; Minghun heard it from Canliao; Canliao heard it from Yishi.”

General meaning of the text

The exposition runs from “Mo” (fumo, the subsidiary commentary) up to “Fang.” “Fang” names a stage called Wu (Non-being)—yet Wu cannot be treated as truly “nothing.” Above that, one can only lodge it in Canliao (Sparse Participation), and beyond Canliao there is still another Canliao. By the way things naturally unfold, many levels are built up through long habit, so one must pass through seven layers before the name Wu is reached, and nine layers more before doubt arises at Wu—that is the real opening (Yishi, Doubt-as-Beginning).

What Lü’s commentary brings out

When someone hears the Dao, worry and harm cannot enter the body, so one may be “advanced in years yet fresh in countenance.” Those who have the sage’s Dao grasp the great root and great source; those who have the sage’s capacity can extend this Dao through the realm and the state. Bu Liangyi had capacity but not the Dao, so Laozi kept close and instructed him—from coarse to fine: first “outing” the world, then things, then life, and only then arriving at Zhao che (Dawn Clarity). Zhao che means sinking vigilance into the lived body and turning inward until everything is clear, like the break of day.

“Jian du” (seeing the Unique Alone) is when this and that each find their matching pair, with neither ancient nor present fixed, sharing in myriad years yet gathered into one purity. “Not dying, not living”: to say I have slain death is not to say I never die; to say I have produced life is not to say I never live. Welcoming completion and sending off ruin, though everything is stirred, I am not endangered—hence the name Yingning (serenity amid disturbance): only after being stirred can one settle into completion.

Only when the Dao is taken as substance is one aligned; what documents and brush discuss remains subsidiary. Luosong is reciting with the Luoshu threaded through; “descendants” means that what the Dao begets is rooted here. From fumo to Zhanming belongs to learning until there is insight; from Niexu to Ou belongs to practice until there is joy—none of these yet suffices as the substance of the Dao.

“Fang” is without seeing and without knowing; “Canliao” does not even posit Wu. To doubt that it is the beginning, and yet not know that it is the beginning—that is exactly why it counts as beginning (Yishi).

Commentary by Lin Xiyi (Lin Xiyi’s Notes)

“Dao” corresponds to Heaven’s mandate; “talent” (cai) corresponds to one’s inborn nature. To possess the sage’s talent is to fulfill one’s nature; to possess the sage’s Dao as well is to reach Heaven’s mandate. The sage’s talent is not without Dao—when acting in the world to benefit others, what one relies on is talent. The sage’s Dao is not without talent—when dwelling in the world in Wuwei (non-action), what one relies on is Dao. Using the sage’s Dao to guide the sage’s talent and lead it into Wuwei seems easy, yet one must still hold fast and transmit it: after three days one can “forget the world,” after seven days “forget external things,” after nine days “forget life and death.” Using the sage’s Dao to guide the sage’s talent into Wuwei looks easy, but still requires steadfast teaching: three days to put the world outside oneself, seven days to put things outside, nine days to put life outside. That one can forget the world and external things counts as relatively easy; life is what people find hardest to let go—if one can “put life outside,” then one does not live in the ordinary way yet can “give life to life”; this is the utmost of Dao. Nourishing the “night qi,” by morning one can penetrate thoroughly; only then can one “see the Alone”—“Alone” means a state beyond the opposition of Yin and Yang, without a pair, not something the eyes can reach. With no ancient and no modern, no change of ages can shift it; neither dead nor alive, one then arrives at fate (ming). To “fate” things without being fated by things is to be one who can “kill life”; to “thing” things without being thinged by things is to be one who can “give life to life.” What it is as a thing is only a forced name, hence one lets things come and go, succeed and fail.

Fumo: a copy in ink; “Luo” indicates the place of publication; “song” means memorization and practice.

Zhanming: having insight and seeing principle clearly. Niexu: agreeing with words whispered in the ear. Xuyi: waiting upon something and acting in song, as in ritual chant.

(The middle section on how when things are disturbed by things there is disorder and no peace, and only Dao can disturb and thereby complete—connects with the thread of Chen’s commentary above.)

: the substance of the subtle; fang: the hidden store of clarity; can: one thereby cuts off, two thereby empties; wuliao: a name for empty stillness—after that one doubts nothingness, which is the beginning. These nine names were devised to show that hearing Dao must proceed in stages.

Commentary by Chen Xiangdao

Things are a burden to the body, hence only after putting things outside can one put life outside; life is a burden to Dao, hence only after putting life outside can one achieve “morning penetration.” Because night qi is not lost, one can penetrate in the morning; because Dao has no pair, what one sees is the Alone. Merging ancient and modern into one time and threading death and life into one continuity, there is neither going to meet nor sending off, neither completing nor destroying; pure qi is not mixed within, nothing among the ten thousand things can disturb one from outside, and the complexion is like an infant’s—nothing strange in that.

That strand which “gives life” kills life, yet one who kills life does not die; that strand which “kills” gives life to life, yet one who gives life to life does not live in the ordinary sense. As a thing it is thus: what goes has never failed to come, what comes has never failed to be met, what completes has never failed to be completed, what is destroyed has never failed to be destroyed—this is completion through disturbance (ying).

Commentary by the Real Person of Jade Void (Bixu Zhenren):

The inborn endowment of a sage must be paired with the sage’s flexible, unfixed, situation-responsive subtle efficacy; and to bring that efficacy forth, one cannot do without the sage’s native capacity. If one only clings to simplicity and stubbornly refuses change, one cannot yet be called complete. Zhuangzi explains this to show that a person can, amid contact and friction with worldly affairs, nevertheless achieve genuine cultivation—what is meant by “formed only after being stirred and pressed upon.”

Further note:

“Setting the world outside oneself” lets one see the realm under heaven as clods and weeds—something one can release. “Setting things outside oneself” lets one see that surplus is not worth craving. “Setting life outside oneself” (lightening attachment to birth and death, not clinging to the bodily form) lets one awaken to the emptiness of drowning in sensory flavors (yan yin). Reaching the state of “dawn thoroughness” (zhao che), one can see the light alone and accord with the Dao.

“Seeing the Alone” (jian du): what is seen is solely this one undivided body; the Dao is viewed as matchless. “No antiquity, no present”: penetrating all ages, not standing at either end of time. “Neither born nor dying”: returning to the root of the myriad things (zong).

“Those who kill life do not die; those who give life to life do not live”: this is the Daoist counter-intuitive saying—those who greedily fear death and harm natural “life” can hardly preserve body and spirit; those who vainly seek to prolong life and forcibly “keep life alive” in fact hasten death. Things come and go while the heart stays at peace; they form and perish while the heart is not overturned. The above belongs to teaching in the “supplementary ink” (fu mo)—the appended, allegorical chapters.

“Luo Song”: reciting and rehearsing by rule; “Zhan Ming”: observing principle with the eyes; “Nie Xu”: receiving teaching with the ears; “Xu Yi”: awaiting the right time to act and carrying affairs through; “Yu Ou”: transmitting through song; “Fang”: silent self-guarding; “Can Liao”: inquiring into the far depths; “Yi Shi”: doubting and recognizing at the layer where “beginning has not yet begun.” All are allegorical designations—not to be taken as literal persons.

Zhao’s note:

“Setting the world outside,” “setting things outside,” and “setting life outside” share one word “outside,” differing only in order from coarse to fine, from outer to inner. Once one can “set life outside,” nothing remains that cannot be thoroughly illumined—this is what is called “dawn thoroughness.” Dawn thoroughness then makes what is seen stand out alone; seeing it stand out alone, then antiquity and present are one and constantly undying—why still cling to birth and death? Liezi says “what gives birth to beings does not itself be born; what transforms things does not itself transform”—exactly the same idea: welcoming and seeing off by oneself, destroying and completing by oneself, leaving things to their own course—no welcoming, no rejecting, no destroying, no completing—yet never failing to meet things.

“Entanglement yet peace” (ying ning): people are often bound up in such talk; suddenly they awaken and all principles unlock—precisely “formed after being stirred.”

Ziqi asked again: where did you hear this?—this belongs to “supplementary ink” (attached remarks). “Luo Song” refers to speech, “Zhan Ming” to sight, “Nie Xu” to hearing, “Xu Yi” to action, “Yu Ou” to song, “Fang” to silent guarding, “Can Liao” to seeking the far depths, “Yi Shi” to inferring the primordial beginning—all allegory; do not cling to the literal words.

Yizhai says: Among those who fully possessed both Dao and talent, aside from the legendary Five Emperors and Three Sage Kings, there were probably only a few such as Yi Yin, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius. The “three days, seven days, and nine days” in the text (referring to Zhuangzi’s stages of fasting and sitting in forgetfulness) need not be taken as fixed numbers of days; they only show that each stage of realization is higher than the last.

“Morning clarity” (zhao che): The chest is as clear and bright as early morning.“Seeing the One” (jian du): One has seen that unique root for oneself, though others may not see it.“No past or present” (wu gu jin): Without clinging to past or present, one also steps beyond the distinction of life and death. The phrase “what kills does not die; what gives life is not bound by birth” means: even when phenomena are called “killing,” the Dao-body does not fall into “death”; when phenomena are called “birth,” the Dao-body is not fettered by “birth.”

“No welcoming or rejecting” (wu jiang ying): Neither deliberately accommodating nor deliberately pushing away.“Success and ruin” (cheng hui): Success and destruction both follow natural change; there is no need for artificial contrivance. Amid turmoil and disorder, that stable, unchanging root is always present—this is the meaning of “completion through disturbance” (ying er neng cheng).

Because speech is fixed in writing on bamboo strips, writing is like a copy of speech; wrapped up and read again and again, whether read from the text or recited from memory, it is like a child begetting a grandchild—layer upon layer of derivation. What follows repeats the earlier explanation: Dao can indeed be approached through reading and through names and forms, but in the end one must return to the work of creation (to nature and the heaven-and-earth as they are), passing through Canliao, Wuming, and Yishi (Zhuangzi’s terms for stages where the Dao-body grows deeper and more beyond naming) all the way to “the beginning before any beginning”—showing that although Dao can be entered through words, it is originally present in the heaven-nature (innate nature and the Dao-body), not something imposed from outside.

Dao sets the standard of centered correctness and opens the human heart; talent and skill (cai) devise tools, complete undertakings, extend institutions, and found enterprises. The sage takes all under heaven as his heart and bears the weight of teaching and transformation—in neither respect can he neglect his duty.

If one must weigh the two, it is better to lean slightly toward Dao with a little to spare than to let cai outweigh Dao. Hence the teaching in the Laozi to “hold to the female” and “hold to softness”: even in contexts of divination one must still hold fast, and people are warned lest cai block Dao and make true entry difficult.

First, “treating all under heaven as external”—deliberately setting aside the coarse side of the world; “treating external things as external”—setting aside what in things belongs to “the other”; “treating life as external”—setting aside attachment to life on “my” side. If even “what is mine” is set aside, one is almost at the point of forgetting nothing (no clinging, nothing left out of forgetting).

Zhaoche (dawn-like thorough awakening)—awakening like daybreak, illuminating what things have not yet been illuminated; jian du (seeing the One)—alone seeing the One that all things uniquely keep. Here again the warning: fear that cai may block Dao and make entry hard.

It is also said: set aside the coarse aspect of all under heaven; in external things, only what belongs to “the other” is left behind; in “external life,” only what belongs to “the self” is left behind—if something of “the self” still remains, then one has still not forgotten everything.

Zhaoche illuminates the not-yet-clear; jian du sees what others do not see. With no past or present, time no longer binds; with no death or life, form no longer fixes you. If death is taken as cruel oppression, one cannot truly “kill life” (or rest in death); if life is taken as a favor, one cannot truly “give life to things” (or let life arise naturally). Only because there is no welcoming, no sending away, no completing, no destroying is there nothing unwelcome, nothing un-sent-away, nothing incomplete, nothing undestroyed. This is called ying ning (stirring yet stillness).

Guo Xiang’s commentary: ying here is the same idea as ying (entwining, being touched)—read as written. Living in the world, people daily meet things; rarely is the heart not stirred or disturbed. Ordinary people, once stirred, fall into disorder; the sage, once stirred, remains still. Stirring into disorder is exactly what Dao guards against; stirring yet remaining still is exactly how Dao accomplishes itself. This is like the meaning of “responding constantly yet remaining constantly still”—only the wording is more striking. The explanations from “duplicate ink” through “doubt’s beginning” are already detailed elsewhere; they need not be repeated here.

Zishi, Ziyu, Zili, and Zilai were together and said: “Whoever can take ‘nothingness’ as his head, ‘life’ as his back, and ‘death’ as his rump—who truly understands that death, life, survival, and perishing are one and the same—we will befriend him.” The four looked at one another, smiled in mutual understanding, their hearts fully in accord, and so became friends.

Before long Ziyu fell ill. Zishi went to see him. Ziyu said: “The Maker of things is really turning me into this shape—my spine bent, five large lumps on my back, my chin tucked into my navel, my shoulders higher than my crown, and a fleshy excrescence on my neck pointing skyward like a gooseneck. Yin and Yang are out of balance, yet my mind stays calm, as if nothing were wrong. He hobbled to the well to look at himself and said: ‘Alas, the Maker of things is going to make me into this cramped, twisted form again!’”

Zishi asked: “Do you resent this?”

Ziyu replied: “No—what would I have to resent? Suppose my left arm slowly turned into a rooster: I would use it to crow at dawn. Suppose my right arm slowly turned into a pellet: I would use it to shoot birds and roast owls. Suppose my buttocks slowly turned into wheels and my spirit into a horse: I would ride them wherever I went—why would I need another carriage? To receive (life) is timely fortune; to lose (it) is yielding to the way things go. Settling in what the times bring and resting in what is favorable—then sorrow and joy cannot enter the heart. This is what the ancients called xuanjie (suspension release)—as if untying what had been bound up in suspension. Someone who cannot release himself is tied up by outer things. Moreover, nothing in the world has ever outdone Heaven; it has been this way for a very long time—so what would I have to resent?”

Guo Xiang’s note (for understanding): When the body changes along with transformation, nothing cannot be accommodated; when there is no fixed form, nothing can block you. The age and circumstances one meets are called “receiving”; going along and passing on is called “losing.” Settling in the timely and resting in the favorable—that is “suspension release.” When a person cannot release himself, it is because various outer things together have knotted him up; when he can release, nothing remains that cannot be released. Heaven cannot do without day and night—how can people do without death? Why hate death?

The Lü commentary says: Being hunched, spine bent, or having a huge goiter hanging from the neck and a face pointing up at the sky—these are cases where illness has twisted and contracted the body and look distressing. In truth it is only yin and yang out of balance and turning perverse, nothing more. If the mind is at ease and not pulled by outside affairs, even if the legs are weak it does not stop one from using the well as a mirror—taking the well as a mirror and reflecting oneself in it, thereby grasping the principle of xing (innate nature). Why must one be stiff and awkward everywhere, as if disgusted with being alive, which is what leads Ziji to ask his question?

The “gradual transformations” are three, while what I preserve as my own root is always one—this is “myriad changes without end and never exhausted.” Since that is so, what is there for me to dislike?

Taking “non-being” as the head, “life” as the spine, and “death” as the rump—the shen (spirit, that which presides) is precisely what drives all this turning. Then with the rump as wheel and shen as horse, I ride along with it—why would I need another charioteer? When life comes, it cannot be foreknown; to receive it is only shi (timeliness). When it goes, it cannot be held back; to go along with it is only shun (accord). At ease with timeliness and accord, joy and grief cannot enter the heart, and the heart has nothing to hang on—this is what is called jie (release, untying the knot).

If one forces against the timely and resists when one should accord, outside things and one’s own mind tie knots that one cannot undo. Coming cannot be refused, going cannot be blocked—from this one can see: wu (affairs, the bodily form) cannot overcome tian (nature, Heaven’s mandate). Since that is so, why should I dislike it?

Lin commentary

Ziyu, Zisi, Zilai, and Zilai were four men who had penetrated the Great Dao. They could treat “non-being” and “being,” “death” and “life” as one whole, and so they became friends. From the “Qiulü” chapter through the “Zhitian” chapter, the story is of Ziyu’s illness: a person is born from receiving the two qi of Yin and Yang; when this sickness appears, it is because those two qi are out of balance and disaster has struck. Yet though the body is ill, the mind stays at ease. Zilai looked at Ziyu as one looks down a well, attributing everything to the Creator. Zhuangzi sighs at this to make a point clear: the body belongs to the Creator, so it follows Yin-Yang and changes step by step—if an arm slowly turns into a chicken or into a pellet, I will watch for the right moment and roast the owl to eat; if the buttocks slowly become a wheel and the spirit a horse, I will ride them and go, without refusing. In short, one settles with transformation—what is there to resist? Where there is life and death there is gain and loss—but “gain” is not “my gain,” it is simply how the times run; “loss” is not “my loss,” it is simply following the way things are. This is what is called xuánjiě (release from being hung up): when there is life one is tied on; when there is no life, one is untied. Ziyu said: what makes me like this is Heaven; Heaven is what outer things cannot overcome—why should I loathe it?

Xiangdao commentary

Head, spine, and buttocks differ in height, yet all belong to the same illusory form; they have nothing to do with living, dying, coming, or going, yet all belong to the same illusory events—this is the meaning of “death, life, survival, and perishing as one body.” The left belongs to Yang and governs birth, so the left arm is said to become a chicken; the right belongs to Yin and governs killing, so the right arm is said to become a pellet. When there is gain, treat it as something one can enjoy and rest in it, without being moved by joy; when there is loss, treat it as something one can mourn and accept it, without being shifted by grief. To have joy and grief is called being “suspended” (xuán); to have no joy and grief is called xuánjiě (release from suspension).

Water by nature does not freeze solid; when it freezes into ice, water loses its original flow. Earth by nature does not stand upright; when it is piled into walls and ramparts, earth loses its original ease. Human nature tied up by outer things is the same. The key is to “release” (jiě) the bonds so one can return to what is originally so.

Commentary by Bi Xu:

The human body of seven chi and the vast empty expanse are originally one substance; life and death are not truly separate—they are one continuous whole. When the heart accords with the Dao, nothing goes against the flow; once one turns against it, one falls into the oppositions of “having” and discriminating “this” from “that.” When the left arm turns into a rooster, one goes along with being the rooster that should announce the dawn; when the right arm turns into a pellet, one goes along with being the pellet fit to roast the owl; taking the softness of the buttocks as yin, likened to the yielding turn of a wheel, and the vigor of the spirit as yang, likened to the swift pace of a horse’s gait—I wander freely by following these transformations—why need any separate reins or driver? Life and death are already external things; how much more so sorrow and joy? One who grasps the way of transformation moves in harmony with the times; one who misses the principle of transforming and nurturing yields and rests in stillness. Such a person is one of clear vision and release. Those who cannot free themselves are people bound and knotted by the changes of life and death.

Commentary by Zhao:

The analogies Ziyu cites—turning into a rooster, a pellet, a wheel, a horse—and phrases such as “therefore seek to announce the dawn” or “seek to roast the owl” and “ride them and wander” were never meant as literal truths. They only show that if a person gradually changes into other things, it is merely a matter of suiting each thing’s proper role; why should the mind cling or stagnate? “Suspended” (xuan) means being tied down by the bodily form; “released” (jie) means that from today onward I know how to avoid such tying down.

The parable says: taking “non-being” as the head, “life” as the spine, and “death” as the rump—meaning from beginning to end, one continuous whole; humans go from non-being to being, and only after there is “being” do birth and death appear. How great the work of creation! What follows describes this condition of being “bound”: what makes me so tightly bound is the Creator.

The passage on “gradually suppose” (jianjia) is especially striking: suppose the Creator gradually transforms “my” body into something else—I go along and use it as it becomes. That is following transformation and not picking likes or dislikes. Though it is parable, it still makes sense.

“Suspended release” (xuanjie): one whose heart is not tied up and who cannot release himself on his own is bound by outer things; in the end nothing in the ten thousand things surpasses the way of nature.

Note: these four take non-being as head, life as spine, death as rump; knowing that death, life, persistence, and perishing are originally one body, they befriend that unity—same meaning as in Gengsang Chu: “Taking non-being-and-being as head, life as trunk, death as rump—whoever knows the guard of the unity of death and life, I befriend him.” Commentators have already treated this in detail; the rest is omitted here.

Guo’s commentary treats “you li” (having harm/illness) as one phrase; other commentators put the sound and sense of “yin zhi” (following it) in Cui’s text, break after “his heart,” and attach “at ease with nothing to do” to what follows—that reading also works.

Receiving form between Heaven and Earth, one is already bound by the Creator; now the illness that makes the limbs curl like this is being bound again by form. Though yin-yang qi outwardly shows li (discord, harm), if the heart is at ease with nothing to do and one stands with feet together gazing into a well, only then sighing that one is bound by form—perhaps one still has not forgotten emotion. Ultimately, if one can rest in what Heaven assigns, what is there to hate?

Suppose the arm turns into cock spurs (jiju—the spur bone of a rooster, used in fighting)—then seek the use of spurs; suppose the rump turns into a wheel and spirit (shen) into a horse—then seek the use of wheel and horse. Once one enters the machinery of transformation, one should go with what one meets and accept it; how can one refuse?

Gain follows the moment; loss follows change—this is “when the Master came, it was the moment; when the Master went, it was compliance.” What is called suspended release: “suspended” means being tied to the Creator; “release” means the Creator can no longer tie one. One who cannot release himself has something in things that binds him; only by following natural principle—neither delighted nor refusing—can that knot be undone. Hence: things do not surpass Heaven (outer things cannot overcome the Way of Heaven / nature).

Before long, Zi Lai fell gravely ill, gasping for breath and clearly near death. His wife and children gathered around him weeping. Zi Li came and said: “Go away! Do not crowd around him crying; do not grieve over hua (natural transformation).” He leaned on the door and said to Zi Lai:

How great the Creator is! What will it turn you into? Where will it send you? Will it make you into a rat’s liver, or into a bug’s arm?

Zi Lai said: When parents tell a child to go east, west, south, or north, the child has no choice but to obey. Yin-Yang’s command over a person is no less binding than a parent’s. They are about to end my life—if I refuse to listen, that would be defiance; what fault is theirs? The Great Clod (Heaven and Earth) gave me a body, used life to wear me out, used old age to give me rest, and uses death to give me peace. So what is good at arranging how I live is also good at arranging how I die. Now, when a great furnace is casting metal, if a piece of metal jumps up and cries, “I must become a Mo Ye (renowned sword)!” the caster is sure to take it for inauspicious metal. Once a person has received human form, he keeps shouting “A human! A human!”—the Creator must surely treat that as an inauspicious human. With Heaven and Earth as the great furnace and the Creator as the great caster, what place could one not go? Sleep in peace, then wake as suddenly.

Guo Xiang’s reading (in gist): Life and death are like sleep and waking: when it is time to sleep, one should not be startled awake. To die through transformation is not something to mourn. From antiquity perhaps someone has defied a parent’s command, but no one can defy the change of Yin-Yang. When it is time to die, one cannot refuse; to insist on “not listening” is only perversity—it cannot stop death, and the fault does not lie in death itself. What is good at living is good at dying; the principle is one. Crying “Human! Human!” means clinging only to human form and refusing to follow transformation. When metal leaps up, everyone knows it is inauspicious—yet life is not something we command for ourselves; if we pride ourselves on holding fast, that too is empty. People know that when metal has a fixed attachment it is inauspicious; they should see that one need not insist on being human only—in that, one is like the metal, and the bond of attachment can be released. Wake from sleep at ease, and do not let life and death burden the heart.

This passage explains the famous “mouse liver and insect arm” parable in the Zhuangzi and how various commentators have developed it.

Main sense of the passage

Mice and insects are what people despise most, while “mouse liver and insect arm” are forms people loathe after qi and body scatter and transform. When someone questions using what is despised and loathed, the point is to test how Zilai can be at peace with himself. One must understand: Yin-Yang govern a person no less than parents do, and one can only obey. Once one sees that the Great Clod (the natural world) treats one’s death as good, there is no need to ask again “why were you made like this?” or “where are you going?” It is like metal leaping out of the smelting furnace—people would surely find that ill-omened; wanting to keep the form of “being human” is the same kind of mind. If one takes the creative transformation of heaven and earth as a great furnace, then mouse liver and insect arm are fitting anywhere—why should I fret? Falling asleep as if at ease, waking with a start—as between life and death, one can be as unperturbed as between sleep and waking, without great upheaval.

Lin’s commentary

Mouse liver and insect arm illustrate how extremely small things are, in the same vein as the snake’s feet and the cicada’s wings in the Qi Wu Lun (Discourse on Equalizing Things): the transformations of creation are boundless and people cannot know them all. A child can only obey a father and dare not resist; receiving mandate from Yin-Yang is far more binding than from parents. Changes of life and death likewise can only be accepted as they come—sometimes becoming mouse liver, sometimes insect arm, settling wherever one meets. When the creator is about to take my death, how dare I resist? If I resist, the fault lies with the child; what fault has creation? The smelting of metal is used again: metal must not leap wildly in the furnace—it must become a fine sword (Moye)—to show that one need not be joyful or angry about life and death.

Xiangdao’s commentary

Mouse liver stands for anger stored within; insect arm for anger shown outward. Dwelling between heaven and earth yet wanting to defy the mandate of Yin-Yang and refuse to listen is no different from mouse liver and insect arm. Yin-Yang toward a person are no less than parents; one cannot but obey. Comparing the body to metal in a furnace, it must not leap about—it must become a sharp tool. All of this shows that one need not be joyful or angry about life and death.

Commentary by Bixu

The Dao is manifest even in excrement and urine—how much more so in things as tiny as a “rat’s liver” or an “insect’s arm”? In the world, one who defies a parent’s command is called unfilial; how then can one who defies the principle of life-and-death transformation be said to follow the Dao? When transformation approaches my death, if I refuse to yield and resist by force, I betray my innate genuineness (tianzhen)—what fault could that be toward “transformation”? It is like casting metal in the great smelter’s furnace: the mold cannot be defied; how could one resist the Creator?

When cheng ran (the soul fully joins), one sleeps; when qu ran (the form opens), one wakes. Joining and opening, form meeting form—they differ, yet the nature of that “stillness” is the same.

Commentary by Zhao

“On what grounds do you say you are you?” “What you just said is of no use to you either—you are about to become something as small and unknowable as a rat’s liver or an insect’s arm.” Only the great smelter can forge metal into a sword; only the Creator can command the shaping of a human form. Whether it is rat’s liver or insect’s arm—how could I know or be master of it?

“Cheng ran” in sleep means the hun (soul) is fully gathered and enters the dream state; “qu ran” in waking means rising from the dream.

Commentary by Yanzai

“Rat’s liver and insect’s arm” speaks of the utmost smallness of things—like Master Zhaozhou’s “after the fire, a single stalk of reed,” where the crux is yielding entirely to fate. If one “does not listen but resists,” that is the meaning of “things cannot overcome Heaven” earlier. Using “casting metal” as a simile is equally striking. Taking birth as sleep and death as awakening, closing the preceding with “cheng ran in sleep, qu ran in waking,” is extraordinary prose paired with an extraordinary brush.

In antiquity, what people called “friends” meant those whose hearts were in daily accord with no estrangement between them—so only when a friend was about to die could one speak frankly and set his mind straight. When Zile in Zhuangzi’s account was dying and his wife and children wept around him, his friend ordered them to withdraw and not disturb the process of his “transformation”—unlike what ordinary people would do.

The friend went on to explain: to live in the world is simply to be one thing among the myriad beings; those called “human” under Heaven are beyond counting—why grieve for this one person alone? This was to loosen their stuck thoughts and open their hearts.

“Mouse liver and insect arm” means life can be as slight as a mouse’s liver or an insect’s limb—nothing to cling to; if the Creator arranges it so, accepting in peace is enough—how could one resist? From this we see: truly seeing through birth and death, there is joy everywhere and ease at every moment. Carry this understanding further and it is enough to help friends in peril and dispel the confusion of worldly people—a benefit not small.

The text earlier restates: fearing that ordinary people dread death and cannot escape it, they plan ahead for a “next life”; fine threads of thought bind on like endless kalpas. It is like metal cast in the furnace—only because it is rare is it forged into a treasured sword, yet Mo Ye and Gan Jiang are not necessarily obtainable. So the perfected person takes Heaven and Earth as the furnace and transformation as the smith; the ten thousand changes are inexhaustible, and I am inexhaustible with them—why must one fix on “being human,” “being human,” and worry about failing to be human? Still less those images of mice, insects, liver, and limbs? See how the ancients lived thus—how could birth and death bind them? They took living as sleep and dying as waking; once dying is waking, when is one not awake?

Textual Information

This work is preserved in the Qing Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasures). Song scholar Chu Boxiu’s Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning on the True Classic of Southern Florescence), juan 18, explicates the fifth chapter of the Inner Chapters, “Great Master” (Dazongshi).

Summary of the Passage

Sanghu, Meng Zifan, and Ziqin Zhang became friends and once said: Who can be together in “no this-and-that,” and help each other in “doing nothing”? Who can ascend to Heaven, wander in mist, stir the boundless, forget each other yet live together, with no end? The three looked at one another and laughed, their hearts fully in accord, and became closest friends.

Soon Sanghu died, before burial. Confucius heard and sent Zigong to offer condolences and handle the rites. When Zigong arrived, he saw Meng Zifan weaving reed mats and Ziqin Zhang playing the zither; they sang together: “Ah, Sanghu! Ah, Sanghu! You have reached the genuine; we are still playing at being human!”

Zigong stepped forward and asked: “Singing facing the corpse—is that proper ritual?” The two looked at each other and smiled: “Do you understand the root of ritual?”

Zigong returned and told Confucius. Confucius said: “What sort are they? They cultivate ‘nothing,’ yet outwardly still look like ordinary people; they sing before the corpse with unchanged countenance—I cannot name them by usual ritual. What sort are they?”

He also said: “They are wanderers in the ‘beyond form’ (fangwai); I am a wanderer ‘within form’ (fangnei). Inside and outside do not communicate, yet I sent you to mourn—how shallow of me. They are one with the ‘Creator’ (zaowuzhe), roaming together in the single qi of Heaven and Earth; they treat life as a hanging wart, death as a burst abscess or draining sore. For such people, why would they care about the order of life, death, before, or after? They borrow form in different bodies, lodge in the same great Dao, forget liver and gall, discard ears and eyes, go back and forth between beginning and end without knowing where it starts, wander lost beyond the dust, roam free in the way of Wuwei (non-action). How would they fuss over worldly ritual to perform for the crowd?”

Zigong asked: “Then which side does the Master follow?”

Confucius said: “I, Qiu, am a vulgar man Heaven has marked for punishment. Even so, I roam within form together with you.”

Zigong asked: “May I ask what ‘form’ (fang) is?”

Confucius said: “Fish nourish each other in water; people achieve each other in the Dao. Achieving each other in water means digging a pool to sustain them; achieving each other in the Dao means being at ease through non-busyness. Hence it is said: fish forget each other in rivers and lakes; people forget each other in the Dao and its arts.”

Zigong asked: “May I ask about the ‘extraordinary person’ (jiren)?”

Confucius said: “The extraordinary person is one who differs from the common and is level with Heaven. So it is said: Heaven’s petty person, the human’s noble person; the human’s noble person is Heaven’s petty person.”

Guo Xiang’s Exegesis (Developed Along the Text)

Those who share one body with Heaven and Earth and guard against change without being enslaved by it—even if hands, feet, and the five viscera do not “deliberately help” one another, the hundred joints naturally harmonize: this is “being together in no this-and-that.” They need not “deliberately act for” each other, yet inside and outside both can support: this is “acting for each other in doing nothing.”

If you drive the mind to look after the limbs and use the four limbs to serve the five viscera, then “acting for each other” grows tighter and inner and outer grow more trapped. If you can forget your living, then nothing is not forgotten; follow change and trust transformation—what limit could there be? Looking at each other and laughing, hearts opposed to nothing, shows the closest kinship without clinging love. Crying when others cry is the trace of those within form; singing before the corpse is the intent of those beyond form. Whoever grasps the root of ritual must weave the within-form world by the beyond-form Dao, keeping the mother to preserve the child.

Note

“Within form / beyond form” (fangnei / fangwai) means the order of worldly ritual and teaching versus the great Dao’s realm that transcends life and death; “Creator” (zaowuzhe) here means the Heaven that generates the myriad things; “the single qi of Heaven and Earth” means the one source-qi from which all things emerge; “hanging wart” and “burst abscess, draining sore” metaphorically treat life as burden and death as release; “extraordinary person” (jiren) is not a freak but the perfected person who accords with Heaven and not with custom.