《南华真经义海纂微》Vol. 8

What those people relied on may still appear to be in place on the surface; yet once the deed is done, even if such things remain, they need not be used anymore. Later generations fix their hearts on a single thing as their support; once such expedients fall into the hands of schemers, what was meant to preserve life often brings danger instead—as in the case of Tian Chengzi (a powerful minister of Qi in the Spring and Autumn period who killed Duke Jian and seized power).

The sage withdraws to hidden places yet holds the highest authority to drive change in the ten thousand things, so his strength can turn heaven and earth while the world sees none of his craft; his awe subdues all under heaven, yet people do not speak of his martial force. This is nurturing the ten thousand things from within the arts of strategy—none under heaven can resist, so why display sharp weapons for others to see?

The Xiangdao commentary says: For strategic wisdom in governing a state, none was more renowned than Qi; for strategic wisdom in cultivating the self, none was more renowned than the “Four Masters”; for violent harm to others, none was more notorious than Robber Zhi. All claimed to have modeled themselves on the sage. Yet Qi in the end could not escape the Tian clan’s usurpation; the Four Masters could not escape being killed by the rulers of their day; Robber Zhi, by contrast, died a natural death. Clearly, modeling oneself on the sage to govern does not necessarily turn out well; imitating the sage’s traces to do evil does not necessarily bring harm. Then for the world, the sage is not enough to stop robbers and may even help them grow. Zhuangzi was not unaware that the sage merely responds to things and fits the time; later troubles followed like teeth growing cold when the lips are gone, or Handan besieged because Lu’s wine was weak—can one blame the lips because the teeth suffer cold? To besiege Handan and then blame Lu is to go beyond the sage and leave a burdensome “trace that can be followed.”

The Bixu commentary says: Once strategic wisdom is displayed, sometimes it benefits, sometimes it harms; once the sage is exalted, sometimes there is life, sometimes death. What neither benefit nor harm can confuse is “supreme wisdom” (zhì zhī); what neither life nor death can shake is the “supreme sage” (zhì shèng). People like the Four Masters all prided themselves on strategy and flaunted sagehood to their own ruin—how could they understand supreme wisdom or the supreme sage? The sage’s strategy and the great robber arise together and are tied to each other: when the sage’s strategy rises, the great robber rises; when the great robber stops, the sage’s strategy also vanishes.

(Zhuangzi advocated) overthrowing and discarding sage strategy, indulging and pardoning robbers, and not treating goods and wealth as precious. After sage strategy is extinguished, the people’s nature is simple and thick, and all under heaven is peaceful and without turmoil. Those who steal benevolence, righteousness, and sage strategy want honor; those who steal gold, pearls, and jade want wealth. Yet what heaven gives is originally common to all; what people take for themselves becomes private. If public stays public and private stays private, how could rank, salary, chariots, and robes entice them, or axes and punishments stop them?

Yan Zhai said: Those four worthy men, though virtuous in themselves, all met with guilt and disaster; yet Robber Zhi was able to use the situation to preserve himself. The point is that the worthy cannot be relied upon, and those who steal “sage wisdom” sometimes turn it to private gain.

“The Way of the Robber” is Zhuangzi’s invented satire on the world. The words are outlandish, but the insight is sharp: when he says there are more unkind people than kind ones in the world, and more who harm all under heaven than benefit it, he puts it with great precision. The analogies of lips and teeth, of valleys and streams, show that sages were never meant for robbers, yet their teaching becomes capital for great thieves—“If sages do not die, great robbers will not cease”: without sages there would be no robbers, and all under heaven would naturally be at peace. Yet people only honor sages more and govern the realm by them; once sages appear, their methods are taken up by the cunning and used more easily to deceive the world.

The feudal lords of the Warring States who seized the realm by usurpation were all great robbers. “Steal a belt hook and lose your head; steal a state and become a feudal lord”; once one is made a lord and founds a state, one still speaks of loving the people and benefiting things—equivalent to stealing benevolence, righteousness, sagehood, and wisdom along with the territory. Called great robbers, everyone wants to hunt them down; today the lords who stole the realm and stand above the multitude are therefore called “exposed.” No one in the world has truly used punishments to root this out—mostly it is said in the spirit of railing against the age.

What people call the “most clever” and “most sagely” often become hoards for great thieves all the same. Better not to claim “sagacity” or “wisdom” and to hoard nothing—then thieves have nothing to spy out. The text therefore cites four worthy men to show that relying on “sagely wisdom” alone is unreliable.

Heaven also sends loyal worthies who support the ruler, assist the state, keep integrity and righteousness, and would rather die than turn aside. Yet those above may not see them clearly, dislike words that jar or go against their wishes, first keep them at a distance, then in worse cases rebuke them; the loyal cannot clear themselves and may be killed before it ends. Alas—when the loyal are killed and scheming ministers hold power, how long can the state endure?

Do great villains and great thieves lack methods? Those methods, too, do not go beyond the repertoire of “sagely wisdom.” Because what they lean on is weighty, what they seize cannot be light. But the steps are not piled in a day: they read when the ruler can be fooled and officials deceived, ride the moment, and act against the Way—yet they still must borrow “sagely wisdom and benevolence-rightness” to govern, as founders of earlier dynasties said: one thing abolished, another raised, like the ebb and swell of valleys and heights. When a sage appears, thieving hearts rise too; when Lu’s wine was watered down, Handan was besieged—cause and effect chain together. Even if one used very heavy “sagely wisdom” to order the world, it would greatly benefit bandits of the Dao Zhi type; that is how the logic runs.

Petty thieves who steal a hook are bound by the “methods of sagely wisdom”; great thieves who steal a state seize those “methods of sagely wisdom” to control others. Then the good are few and the not-good many; chariots, robes, axes, and yokes are not enough to encourage virtue and punish vice. When one truly knows that “sagely wisdom” is the sharp tool of the realm and must not be shown to people, if others glimpse its mechanism they may turn it around and take it—as fish slip from the deep, and ants can trap them. An old saying runs: the people may be made to follow, but not made to understand—so when sages order the world, is there another way, divine and transforming?

From “How could they fail to take the sages as their model?” onward, the received text has “sage” (shengren) in eleven places; Chen Bixu’s and Zhang Junfang’s editions read “sagely wisdom” (sheng zhi) instead. Given the earlier “what the world calls knowledge” and “what the world calls sagacity,” reading “sagely wisdom” can work. For the chapter’s main theme—the straight critique of legislating—the received “sage” is preferable. The editor suspects Zhang, when guarding against censorship and Bixu’s presentation, feared that passages discussing “sage” might give offense and provisionally changed them to “sagely wisdom,” and the reading stuck. Yet some places must keep “sage,” such as “without the Way of the sage it does not stand” and “the sage is dead, the sage is not dead”—those cannot be swapped; elsewhere “sagely wisdom” has its own rationale. As for “the sage is the sharp tool of the realm,” that clearly points to “sagely wisdom.”

If “sage” and “clever scheming” are no longer treated as the state’s treasures for governing, great robbers will find it harder to steal under those names; if fine jade and pearls are no longer held up as supreme valuables, petty thieves will have little to grab. Burn the tally-tokens and smash the seals, and the people can return to plain simplicity; break the measuring vessels and snap the scale-beams, and they need not fight over profit. Abolish entirely the whole apparatus advertised under heaven as “sacred law,” and only then can people genuinely reason with one another. Confound the six pitch-pipes, discard the yu and se lutes, and stop up the ears of masters like Shi Kuang—then everyone under heaven can keep to his own hearing and not chase decadent music. Wipe out ornate prose, blot out the five colors, and seal the sharp eyes of men like Li Zhu—then everyone can keep to his own sight and not chase dazzling display. Destroy the plumb-lines and hooks, throw away compass and square, and break the fingers of craftsmen like Gongshu—then everyone can keep his inborn skill, which is why “the greatest skill looks like clumsiness” (da qiao ruo zhuo). Strip away the billboards of “filial conduct” modeled on Zeng Shen and Shi Qiu, clamp the tongues of Yang Zhu and Mo Di, and cast off the name-and-teaching of benevolence and righteousness—then the De under heaven will tend toward wholeness instead of each side clutching its own corner.

When each person keeps his clarity without parading it, the world will not scorch itself competing for “clarity”; when each keeps his keen hearing without parading it, it will not hobble itself competing for “keen hearing”; when each keeps his wisdom without parading it, it will not bewilder itself competing for “wisdom”; when each keeps his De without parading it, it will not slide into perversity competing for “De.” Figures such as Zeng Shen, Shi Qiu, Yang Zhu, Mo Di, Shi Kuang, Gongshu, and Li Zhu all erected “De” and talent outside themselves like shop signs—and the effect was like setting fire to the world, stirring hearts into greater disorder. From the standpoint of the Dao, such conduct is of little real use to the world.

Guo Xiang’s note: Remove what people rely on to commit wrongdoing, and there is no need for separate prohibitions—harmful conduct will cease on its own. Treat lightly the fame, profit, and sensual pleasures that are elevated high, and there is no need for extra punishments—extravagance and rivalry will also settle by themselves. Strip away the “precious things” that fraud depends on; when outward pretense no longer flourishes, the inner self can preserve its original simplicity and not lose its true nature. The beauty of color and sound is what people like Li Lou and Kuang (ancient masters of sight and hearing) excel at and what the world pursues—but each life has its own allotment; if these “valued things” are used to lure people, they will instead break through the defenses of life and nature. Spiders and dung beetles are tiny, yet one can weave webs and the other can roll balls—they need not learn from craftsmen. Each thing in the cosmos has its own innate capacity. Abilities differ, yet what is practiced need not be forced into one mold; if everyone is made to imitate master craftsmen, it looks skillful but is actually clumsy. One who uses people well follows what each can do and does not demand that all the people possess Gong Chui’s craft. Let each skill fulfill its own function without forcing others—this looks plain, yet the world turns by itself; this is “great skill.” Use what is naturally there, and rules can be set aside; the master’s pointing finger need not be rigid. Remove the models that disturb the masses, let everyone return to simplicity, and all revert together to the virtue of Nature—like Zeng Shen, Shi Qiu, Yang Zhu, Mozi, Li Lou, Kuang, and Gong Chui, each endowed with different gifts. If the world is made to compete in imitating them, imitation loses the truth of “self”; when “self” is lost, others take charge, and those others become sources of disorder. Where law applies, sight does not exceed what the eye can see, so all eyes see clearly; hearing does not exceed what the ear can hear, so all ears hear keenly; tasks do not exceed what strength can do, so all skills are adept; knowledge does not exceed what the heart knows, so every nature finds its place; virtue does not exceed what one’s allotment allows, so collective virtue is fitting. Why set standards beyond one’s nature, driving the world to chase without return?

Lü Huiqing’s note: When Zhuangzi says “sever sageliness and abandon wisdom,” he does not mean destroying the classics or abolishing government and teaching—only that these should not occupy the heart. “Pluck out jade and destroy pearls” does not mean throwing the jade and pearls of the treasury back into mountains and marshes—it means no longer holding jade and pearls as precious in the mind. “Burn the tally and break the seal” is not literally burning talismans and smashing seals—it means that if trust itself is taken as trust, the people’s nature is plain and straight, and talismans and seals need not be relied upon. “Split the bushel and break the steelyard” is not really splitting measures and breaking scales—it means taking fairness itself as fairness, so the people do not contend for profit and bushels and steelyards need not be clung to. Only then can the common people return to the feelings of their innate nature and life, and only then can one speak deeply with them. Stopping up Shi Kuang’s ears is for turning inward to listen to oneself—not for depriving the world of hearing. Gluing shut Li Zhu’s eyes is for inward vision—not for taking away the world’s clarity. Breaking Gong Chui’s fingers lets the world each keep its own skill. Cutting away the conduct of Zeng and Shi, clamping shut the mouths of Yang and Mo—then the world’s virtue can return together to Nature. The key is on “our” side: abandon cleverness and artifice, do not display what excites desire. Those who outwardly display virtue and dazzle the world are not people who hide their intelligence, know virtue, and return to the feelings of nature and life—they belong to what law need not use. If someone thinks Zhuangzi truly wanted to strike down sages, unleash robbers, and destroy all law and measure, it is not worth discussing with him.

General Meaning of Yihai Zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning on the True Scripture of Nanhua)

Some commentators emphasize that great thieves steal the fa (law/method), while petty thieves steal things. Theft of things is restrained by penal law; theft of fa must be transformed by the Dao. Tallies and seals were originally for establishing trust; bushels and steelyards were originally for seeking fairness—yet once people abuse them, acting in the name of trust becomes untrustworthiness, and seeking balance becomes gross imbalance. Zhuangzi therefore advocates burning, breaking, and splitting apart such tokens and names, so that the eyes are not led by colors, the ears are not enslaved by sounds, and the mind is not thrown into confusion by contact. When all such outward appearances are shut out and life and nature (xingming) are taken as the root, one gathers in sight and turns hearing inward—not envying “perfect” figures like Li and Kuang, but guarding what one’s own nature already possesses. This is what is meant by “great skill appears clumsy” (da qiao ruo zhuo).

Zeng Shen, Shi Qiu, Yang Zhu, and Mozi disturbed the world; hence one must trim their conduct and clamp their mouths, so that the multitude may together return to Heavenly De (tiande) and revert to the Dao, merging with the Dao in silence. If each person keeps to his own clarity, the world’s clarity is enough for self-illumination; if each keeps to his own keen hearing, the world’s hearing is enough for self-listening; if each keeps to his own knowing, the world’s knowing is enough for self-knowledge; if each keeps to his own De, the world’s De is enough for self-possession. Then there is no melting down, no burdening, no bewilderment, no perversity. Figures like Zeng, Shi, Li, and Kuang do not ask people to expand what they already have by nature; instead they make the world weary its spirit and rack its wits to conform to them—that is disturbing the world, with no benefit to fa.

(Following Xunzi’s point) Tallies, seals, contracts, and bonds were originally for establishing credit; if those above love stratagem, those below use them to deceive. Drawing lots and casting hooks were originally to show fairness; if those above love partiality, those below use them for bias. Weights and balances were originally to show evenness; if those above love overturning, those below use them for danger. Bushels, pecks, and measuring rods were originally to show equity; if those above love greedy profit, those below use them for meanness. Fa arose from the sages as something they undertook only when they had no choice, and it worked when later kings kept it well and people and fa supported each other. In high antiquity there could be “people without fa” and still good order; in the degenerate age of “fa without people,” theft and disorder cannot be avoided.

Zhuangzi’s argument does not wholly contradict the idea that people and fa assist each other; as for those who “make shi (right/this) by measure” or “make shi by distortion,” even stealing shi itself—only then wanting to burn, break, and split until finished—that is to gather in outward defenses and return to oneness, drop the flower and keep the fruit, and revert to the root of Dao and De.

Do you not know what the Age of Supreme Virtue was like? In antiquity there were the eras of Rongcheng, Dating, Bohuang, Zhongyang, Lilu, Lichu, Xuanyuan, Hexu, Zunlu, Zhurong, Fuxi, Shennong, and the like. For the people, knot-tying for records was enough; food tasted sweet, clothes felt comfortable, customs were joyful, and they lived at ease in their homes. Neighboring states could see one another, cockcrow and dogs’ barking could be heard across borders, yet people lived out their lives without traveling back and forth. That was the most peaceful the world could be.

Today people crane their necks and stand on tiptoe, saying “There is a worthy in such-and-such a place,” and set off with grain on their backs to join him. Within, they cast off parents; without, they leave their lord’s service. Footprints cover the marches of the feudal lords, and wheel ruts link up a thousand li away—this is the fault of those above who delight in clever artifice. When those above truly love cleverness but lack the Dao, the world falls into chaos. How do we know? When crossbows, hand-nets, and arrow-traps multiply, birds panic in the heights; when hooks, lines, seines, and bamboo traps multiply, fish panic in the depths; when snares, nets, pitfalls, and bird-nets multiply, beasts panic in the marshes. When deceit, gradual poison, slippery cunning, “hard and white,” and “separating knot from grime / sameness and difference”—such disputations multiply, the world is bewildered by war of words. So the world is often in great disorder, and the crime lies in “prizing knowing”—in exalting cleverness. All under heaven chase what they do not yet know and do not seek what they already know; all know to condemn what others do badly and do not know to examine what they themselves already do well—hence great disorder.

Thus above, the brightness of sun and moon is violated; below, the essence of mountains and rivers is drained; in between, the transforming work of the four seasons is broken—even creatures that breathe, tiny insects, and flying insects lose their inborn nature. To love clever artifice and disturb the world is going much too far! Since the three dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou, it has been so: they cast off those plain, natural folk and favored busy, scheming flatterers; they gave up tranquil Wuwei (non-action) and favored the “throaty, clamorous will”—ambition that grasps for rank and clamors without end. That throaty clamor has already thrown the world into disorder.

(Guo Xiang’s note: When the people used knot-tying, recording the main points was enough, so in that age they always found their food sweet and their dress fine. Cocks and dogs could be heard across borders without people traveling abroad, because they sought nothing outside. To cast off the various plain folk and delight in busy flatterers, to release tranquil ease and delight in the throaty, clamorous will—that throaty clamor had already disturbed the world.)

Guo Xiang’s commentary: In antiquity, people kept records with knotted cords, and that was enough for every need to be written down. Content with life as it was, they found their food sweet and their clothes fitting. The crowing of cocks and barking of dogs in neighboring villages could be heard on both sides, yet people had no need to go back and forth—this is the utmost of “seeking nothing.” Today some carry grain on their backs to flock to so-called “worthy” men, abandoning kin and leaving their masters; even the most ideally governed age can come to this, and the root cause is that those in high places overvalue cleverness and talent.

The tighter the pressure to attack, the craftier the evasion; even birds and beasts cannot get by on scheming against one another—how much less human beings? When too much is piled up above, those below can hardly rest in the modest portion that is their due. By nature one should keep to the less; chasing after more without stop is to lose one’s way. Instead of holding fast to the station one already knows, one pursues what is unknown and hollow—this is to discard oneself and copy others, with no end in sight. Each person clings to the “good” they define for themselves, and from that arises rivalry to outdo one another. Fortune and misfortune, gain and regret, all arise from reckless movement, and reckless movement is often set off by cleverness. If one truly believed one could shake heaven and earth and drive the myriad beings, how could the ruler of all under heaven fail to be wary and lay aside this “wisdom”?

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: When the sage governs the world, he constantly keeps the people without cleverness and without selfish desire: without cleverness, knotted cords suffice for records; without selfish desire, they find food sweet, clothes fine, customs secure, and dwelling pleasant, and the people live out their lives without traveling to one another—this is the age of “ utmost virtue.” When all under heaven agree that something is “beautiful,” ugliness appears; when all agree that something is “good,” what is not good appears. What people reject as “not good” and “ugly,” and what they reject as “already beautiful” and “already good”—once they fix on these distinctions, they depart from Wuwei (non-action); even beauty and goodness are no longer the spontaneous feelings of one’s nature-and-life. When the people do not visit one another but each forms its own clan, this is called “the various kinds of folk”; if someone carries grain to court the name of worthiness, that is the busy flattery of the sycophant; to teach as a father and remonstrate as a son—that earnest intent—is all the harm of exalting the worthy and prizing knowledge. Fortune and misfortune, gain and regret, arise from reckless movement, and reckless movement from cleverness. Therefore the sage says: Can one truly shake heaven and earth and turn the multitude of beings? As ruler, how can one fail to forget and lay aside this wisdom? Thus the whole chapter takes “removing wisdom” as its theme.

According to commentators, in the age when the twelve ancient emperors ruled, the people under heaven did not have to choose their food to find it sweet, or choose their garments to find them fine. They did not need to pick a place to suit custom and dwelling in order to live at ease; the sounds of neighbors’ chickens and dogs could be heard across the lanes, yet people seldom ran back and forth on long errands. Human communities and the variety of things in the world flourished of themselves, without chasing after anything outside themselves.

Laozi says, “Do not exalt the worthy, and the people will not contend.” Yet today there are those who load grain on their backs and travel far, unafraid of the road, to flock toward so-called “worthy” reputations—fame and profit stirring up and disturbing their inborn nature. That is the harm of those in high position being “fond of cleverness.” From cunning devices such as the crossbow, the hand-net, and the bow with its arrow, to argumentative talk of “scrubbing away stains” and “sameness and difference,” all of it shows how rulers who overly honor clever stratagems end with fish, birds, livestock, and the rest all thrown into disorder, each losing its proper nature.

Where they do not know, they force themselves to act as if they knew much; where they already know, they stamp it as “innate knowing”; what they take to be not good they reject as what ought not to be desired; what they call good they treat as something they can fully master. Zhuangzi is asking people to let go of clinging to “good” as something out there, to guard and fulfill the principle of what is naturally sufficient, and not to fix their eyes on those “goods” that lure and entice.

When those above love cleverness yet are without the Dao, sun and moon, mountains and rivers lose their regular measures, and the sequence of the four seasons is ruined as well; even tiny insects and minute creatures lose their nature—and greater disorder can be inferred from that. The common people, each in their way, originally lived according to the nature they had received, still plain and unspoiled; now they abandon that plainness for bustle, abandon quiet ease for dispute—and disorder under heaven is only to be expected.

The Xiangdao commentary states: When there are too many commands in an army, disorder follows; when there is too much fine talk, dispute follows. Therefore one who governs all under heaven should value clearing away small cleverness and letting great wisdom show forth. To seek only what one does not yet know, without reflecting on what one already treats as “known,” is for investigative knowledge to become a burden; to refuse to abandon faults that ought to be abandoned, and to refuse to criticize what is already deemed “good enough,” is for the benevolence of fully realizing one’s nature to suffer loss. When benevolence is impaired and knowledge becomes redundant, what is known is not true knowledge, and what is rejected is not what ought to be rejected.

The “Heavenly Revolutions” chapter says: The wisdom of the Three Sovereigns violated the brightness of sun and moon above, estranged the essence of mountains and rivers below, and in the middle disrupted the dispensing of the four seasons; their knowledge was more cruel than the sting of a scorpion’s tail or the bite of beasts like the gui—so that the ten thousand things could not rest in the disposition of life and nature—a point in the same vein as disturbances like “panting, soft, and restless creatures.” Tradition says: Many affairs breed enmity; many words steal De (virtue/power). Those who toil in petty tasks have many affairs; those who chatter have many words—how can all under heaven fail to fall into disorder?

Bixu cites the twelve clans of high antiquity—Rongcheng, Dating, and the rest—who governed through Wuwei (non-action), to show that today’s rulers, from the time they tied knots and made laws, cannot keep affairs still to the end; long stillness must turn to motion, until rulers above prize knowledge and all under heaven is in turmoil. Birds and beasts cannot even live in peace—how much less human beings? Craft and deceit rise up and violate heaven’s harmony; grass, trees, insects, and small creatures all suffer their poison. The Taishang (Supreme) scripture says: To govern a state with knowledge is the state’s bane; to govern a state without relying on knowledge is the state’s blessing—so it truly is.

Yanzhai notes: Among the twelve clans, only Fuxi, Shennong, and Xuanyuan appear in received classics and commentaries; the rest are not heard of elsewhere—or they may rest on other sources. The meaning still follows the passage above: governing through knowledge brings disorder, and things cannot rest in peace—hence the renewed emphasis on the saying that knowledge is the bane and not relying on knowledge is the blessing.

This commentary in Yihai Zuanwei unpacks the gist of Zhuangzi chapters such as “Jue Sheng Qi Zhi” (Discarding Sageliness and Abandoning Knowledge) and “Qu Qie” (Opening Trunks). The main points are as follows.

Antiquity and the classics

The text mentions the “Twelve Clans”; only Fuxi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor appear in received classics—the rest have no names in scripture. Some may have been oral traditions from high antiquity; some may be Zhuangzi’s own inventions. On a long axis of heaven-and-earth history, documented transmission since Fuxi spans roughly three thousand-plus years. Before Fuxi there may still have been something like the Six Classics in transmission, but it did not survive—we cannot rashly say “there was nothing at all.” Some carried grain on their backs to join so-called worthies; whispers even placed Confucius and Mencius among them. Geng Hua, Jian Bai, Jie Gou, Tong Yi, and the like were topics of the debaters of the day. Juxtaposing bird-catching and beast-hunting with the debaters is like Qi Wu Lun (Discourse on Making Things Equal) lumping Zeng Shen and Shi Yu together with dou, hu, quan, and heng in one satire—so that those who do not understand chase outward for marvels and oddities, while those who already understand see at once: that is the principle of nature visible to everyone. “What is not good in people” versus “what is already good in oneself” is exactly Qi Wu Lun’s point about “only seeing others’ faults, not one’s own rightness”; knowing only others’ wrongs and not one’s own rightness is likewise a bias.

The age of utmost virtue and the present

Xiao Yao You (Free and Easy Wandering) opens with “Tang’s question to Ge was already [enough]”; here the closing is “since the Three Dynasties downward, that is enough”—different opening and closing, same pivot. This chapter contrasts the age of utmost virtue, when above and below had no demands and the common people were self-sufficient, with how things are not so today. Among the twelve rulers, the records are incomplete; from Zhurong downward deeds become gradually traceable. The author surmises: before Fuxi the folkways were plain; knotted-cord governance had not yet arisen, so food tasted sweet and clothes felt fine, dwelling in peace without knowing the emperor’s power; neighboring states looked at each other without fear of war, cocks and dogs heard across borders with abundance to enjoy, people lived to old age without traveling back and forth, plowing and drilling for self-sufficiency without seeking outward—a few lines evoke primeval simplicity, echoing the Daodejing’s “small state, sparse people.” Later generations stretched their necks and stood on tiptoe, carried grain to pursue worthies, left lords and kin, traveled a thousand li for fame; once traces of “exalting the worthy” appeared, the people sought marvels and oddities, honored what ear and eye could not reach, and inevitably someone whose name floated above reality answered—leading one another into pretense; how could the realm not fall into disorder? What follows explains: fondness for cleverness harms things, makes the people lose their inborn nature, and birds, beasts, fish, and insects also cannot rest in the disposition heaven gave their lives.

Knowing and not knowing

“Seeking what one does not know” means seeking knowledge beyond one’s portion—measuring heaven and earth, questioning ghosts and spirits. “What one already knows” means innate knowing—discerning danger, honoring moral character. “What is not good in oneself” is taking oneself for wrong and demanding perfection of others. If one can here choose carefully and tread with care, then knowing goodness arises from true disposition, each returns to the upright, and without governing the realm governs itself. If one goes against this, sun, moon, mountains, and rivers would all turn perverse—how could the people rest secure? “The various kinds of people” means those who receive the upright qi of the ancestors and can serve as seed for the realm.

Qu Qie and sagely knowledge

The whole chapter takes “opening trunks” as its theme; commentators rarely discuss the character qu (flank/side); only Lin Yi alone says “stealthily opening.” In the Jian Yun (Supervisory Rhymes), qu means the flank; qu qie is prying open a trunk from the side to take things—the act of a thief. The scripture’s meaning: when governance loses the Way and laws multiply in display, those above use cleverness to guard the people and the people use cleverness to peer at those above; when guarding is not thorough, someone will surely exploit a gap. Hence “the sharp tools of the state must not be shown to the people.” Tian Chengzi stole Qi and took the “methods of sagely knowledge” along with them; he kept himself safe and the state hegemonic—showing that theft too has its Way, and worldly sagely knowledge cannot be relied on. The four masters did not escape execution—fittingly so. In the world, both paths of good and evil borrow the sage’s Way to establish themselves; if evildoers are many and those who turn toward good are few, then benefit to the realm is small and harm is great—waxing and waning like lips and teeth, valleys and streams mutually yielding. If one further weights sagely knowledge to govern the realm, the profit to robbers like Zhi would not be light. Make vessels to level things—they steal the vessels along with them; make laws to govern—they steal the laws along with them—what then? In truth because those who govern cannot expand moral virtue and share the realm’s feelings impartially, crafty heroes steal power for private gain.

The core of Nanhua and its limits

The core aim of Nan Hua (Zhuangzi) lies in discarding sageliness and abandoning knowledge, smashing measures and breaking scales—seeking to restore high antiquity’s wuwei (non-action). The gist of returning purity and reversing artifice lies in clarifying true knowing to set the direction and restoring true goodness to complete what one receives. To correct the abuses of the world, the wording inevitably goes too far—intending to jolt people into turning back. By the “opening trunks” metaphor the meaning is already extreme. The Way is hard to apply; empty words alone availed nothing; singing alone in front, in the end none harmonized—no wonder those who embraced the Way tread high into mountains and seas and do not return. If all who held governance were as earnest as Master of Lacquer Garden, why worry that the age would not rise or pure wind would not return?

Textual Note

What follows is material related to the chapter “Zai You” (Letting Be) from Chu Boxiu’s Nanhua Zhenjing Yihai Zuanwei (Collected Subtleties of the Ocean of Meaning in the True Classic of Nanhua), a Song-dynasty work; surviving editions label it as juan 29, juan 30, and so on. The content expounds and cites passages from Zhuangzi “Zai You.”

Main Themes of “Zai You”

One only hears of meeting the world with “letting be and resting in what is natural”—not of ruling the world by forceful control. “Zai” (being at rest in what is) means fearing that people under heaven will indulge and ruin each person’s original nature; “you” (preserving, not interfering) means fearing that they will alter and lose their innate De (Virtue/Power). If people do not dissipate their nature in excess and do not shift away from their innate virtue, why would one need a whole apparatus dedicated to “governing the world”?

In antiquity Yao governed the world and made everyone stir with delight, each rejoicing in their own nature—yet that was really to keep people from quiet and from inner stillness. Jie governed the world and wore everyone out with exhaustion, each suffering under their nature—that was really to keep people from joy. Without stillness and without joy, one cannot align with De; no one under heaven can long sustain such a state.

(What follows also treats joy, anger, and yin-yang.) When a person is wildly joyful, does that not lean toward yang qi? When wildly angry, does that not lean toward yin qi? When yin and yang both arrive at once and burst forth together, the four seasons cannot run properly, cold and heat cannot harmonize, and instead they harm the body’s qi and form. Then joy and anger lose their proper place, dwelling has no fixed ground, thought cannot rest in itself, and the middle way cannot be achieved or kept whole. Only then do contention, blame, and straining for novelty appear under heaven—and only then do “great evils” like Robber Zhi and “great goods” like Zeng Shen and Shi Yu emerge, each clinging to one extreme.

So even if you took the whole world to reward the good, you could not reward them all; even if you took the whole world to punish the wicked, you could not punish them all. The world is too vast for reward and punishment to cover everything. From the Three Dynasties downward, people have buzzed and scrambled, always treating reward and punishment as the heart of governing the world—when did they have leisure to settle each person’s qing of xing and ming (the life-and-nature disposition one is born with and ought to follow)? (“Xingming zhi qing” points to the affective disposition rooted in one’s given life and nature, to be honored rather than forced—close to what later Confucian discourse calls xingming, but here weighted toward natural feeling.)

Guo Xiang explains: What is meant by “letting the world be” (zai you) is allowing the ten thousand things each to rest in their own nature—then the world is at peace. If one tries to “govern” by force, things are only thrown into disorder. When the true Dao is not disturbed, nature and life do not overstep their bounds, and desire and aversion do not run wild. Yet those in high position often cannot achieve complete wuwei (non-action), so they lure the people with fame, profit, likes, and dislikes—and human nature is thrown into confusion. The worth of sages and emperors lies not in how well they manage things themselves, but in wuwei, letting the ten thousand things operate on their own. Only when there is “no governing” is native nature not disturbed. Though Yao nominally “let the world be,” traces of governance still showed on the surface. Governance and disorder differ, yet both lead later generations to sink into ease or rivalry, to revere, fear, and despise without finding rest in themselves—in that respect they are the same. Mood swings and unsettled dwelling are the harm that ways like Yao’s and Jie’s bring. Among heaven and earth, nothing disrupts living beings and shakes yin-yang more than the human heart-mind with its joy and anger. Between gain and loss, joy and anger pile up in the people’s hearts; cold and heat go wrong, the four seasons lose their order, every kind of rule decays, and myriad affairs die young. Admiring reward and fearing punishment can never fully supply or fully suppress; only when reward and punishment are forgotten and each rests in native nature is nature-and-life truly full. Reward and punishment are tools sage-kings use to match merit and fault—they are not meant to keep people forever in persuasion and fear; when the principle is realized, those tools should be set aside. After the three ages of Xia, Shang, and Zhou, the world busily chased the “footprints” of sage-kings, treating outward practices as the real business—who had leisure to settle the true disposition of nature and life?

Lü Huiqing says: The world is the whole that all things share; constant nature and constant de (virtue/power) are the nature-and-de each person already has. “Letting the world be” is rooted in “letting myself be”: “zai (being present)” is preserving without loss, trusting what is natural without forcing; “you (indulgence/restraint)” is releasing without licentiousness, as in an enclosure where things are kept but not slaughtered at will. Not disturbing, not uprooting—nothing more than wuwei. In wuwei there is no self; with no self, who is governing the world? So one must forget together whether Yao or Jie was right or wrong. People are born inherently still—where do fixed joy and sorrow come from? Once desire is indulged, nature-and-de is invariably shaken. The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang and take harmonizing qi (chong qi) as balance; humans too have harmonizing qi that communicates with heaven and earth. Yao let the people indulge their nature in pleasure—joy at the extreme leans to yang; Jie made the people suffer their nature in pain—anger at the extreme leans to yin. Both injure harmonizing qi, ruin the course of the four seasons and the balance of cold and heat, and in turn harm the human body. When thought cannot hit the mean and the middle way cannot be achieved, that is what is called “mutual injury.” Then the world produces lofty, exhaustive, surpassing, and fierce extraordinary conduct—“qiao” means exalting the far and high, “jie” means exhausting principle, “zhuo” means hard to reach, “zhi” means not fitting the flock—all of it not plain and centered. Here reward and punishment cannot reach, and the true disposition of nature-and-life cannot be settled.

All things under heaven grow and flourish on their own; each naturally finds its place and keeps its proper share. What people themselves preserve should already be sufficient—they need not seek it outside. The sage sees this clearly: soaring alone like a fierce bird, refusing the flock, or acting in eccentric, crooked ways—none of this is the path of balanced centrality. Therefore, using rewards and punishments to govern the world cannot reach people’s genuine disposition of life and nature (xingming zhi qing), and the common people cannot truly find peace.

The sage follows heaven and earth’s “spontaneous” nature and lets the myriad things each attain free ease; he also follows the world’s “self-preservation” (ziyou) De and lets people each rest in their own principle and each obtain their own delight. What is meant by “zai” (being established) is letting the world fulfill each thing’s own nature; what is meant by “you” (preserving) is letting the world follow each person’s own De, so that nature is not dissipated and virtue is not displaced. When the sage acts thus, he himself is also Wuwei (non-action)—why would he still need someone to “govern the world”?

When the heart is not enslaved by bitterness, it is called “tian” (ease)—with a sense of quiet; when the heart follows along without resisting, it is called “yu” (pleasure)—with a sense of joy. One burst of joy scatters the Qi and stirs the heart, so ease cannot remain; one burst of anger reverses and clogs the Qi and blocks the heart, so pleasure cannot remain. The human heart is originally empty; it falls into sorrow and joy because outer things stir it. Yao and Jie governed the world—one benevolent, one cruel—yet the way they moved people’s hearts was the same: both harmed original nature, neither matched the upright principle of the ancient kings’ “self-attainment” (zide), and neither could last.

When people are too joyful, yang Qi often disperses; when too angry, yin Qi often turns harsh. Joy and anger should not be empty and floating; that they reach extremes of sorrow and joy is also due to outer contact. Yao’s and Jie’s governance differed in good and evil, yet in touching the heart and harming nature they were alike—again not the principle of the ancient kings’ self-attainment, again unable to endure. Excessive joy and anger often arise when rulers’ policies lose the mean and the people’s conduct loses measure, disturbing the harmony of heaven and earth and harming the body. This is mutual causation. Then people’s thinking cannot find its own ease, the path of centrality cannot be achieved—all of this describes how form and Qi are injured and Yin-Yang fall out of harmony.

People like Qiao and Jie— lofty and far-reaching, exceptional in conduct—when the world admires Yao’s traces there appear “worthy” names like those of Zeng Shen and Shi Qiu; when they imitate Jie’s traces there appear violent disorders like that of Robber Zhi. Good and evil rise together; exhausting all things under heaven is not enough for rewards and punishments to drive people—how much less other means? If those in high position always take rewards and punishments as the root of governing the world, how can the common people rest in the genuine disposition of their life and nature?

Note by Chen Xiangdao:

Whoever holds the realm and wishes to align with the Way of Heaven without forcibly “opening up” the people, who bestows blessing without harming them through stratagem, has no better course than zaiyou—letting all things rest in their places, pardoning without compulsion. Without disturbance, innate nature is not loosened into ruin; people live naturally, not knowing why they live. Without pressure, virtue is not altered; people attain naturally, not knowing why they attain. If that is so, why must anyone “govern the realm”?

One who governs the realm yet cannot keep inner stillness surely cannot keep gentle harmony. Without stillness, excessive joy leans toward yang; without harmony, excessive anger leans toward yin. The qi of the human body communicates with Heaven and Earth; when yin and yang in a person lean this way, yin and yang in Heaven and Earth respond there—cold and heat fall out of tune. Harmony cannot be achieved; instead the physical form is harmed. Then in the realm appear those who chase height, probe depth, prize the strange, and rush for speed—all straying from the middle way: if they do not go too far in doing good, they must go too far in doing evil. Thus even if the whole realm were offered as reward for good and punishment for evil, it would not suffice—where would there be spare strength to let people settle the truth of their lives and nature?

Note by Chen Bixu:

Ancient rulers preserved the realm merely by leniency; they did not set out to “govern,” so people did not indulge their natures or shift their virtue—wuwei, and the realm transformed itself. Yao lost the way of self-preservation and pushed benevolence, so the people lost their true nature until they praised him “like a parent.” Jie lacked the virtue of leniency toward things and was harsh alone, so the people lost their constant virtue until fear and contempt arose. Never has a realm survived where nature was indulged and virtue altered.

Human joy and anger connect with yin and yang; when yin and yang are not harmonized, the body is harmed in return. Lofty talk and odd doctrines like those of Zeng Shen and Shi Yu; standing apart in boldness like Robber Zhi. Good cannot all be rewarded—then pretended good multiplies; evil cannot all be punished—then real evil multiplies, and the realm grows noisy. The qi of the body flows with Heaven and Earth; partial joy, partial anger, yin and yang out of balance—all alike injure the form. When the multitude races after profit and status, who has leisure to be calm and enjoy the years Heaven grants?

In his oral explication, Master Yizhai Lin explains that “zai” (being at ease) denotes leisurely freedom, and “you” (indulgence or letting-be) denotes lenient self-contentment. If the nature of all under Heaven is not disordered and De (Virtue/Power) does not stray, why impose governance at all?

“Tian” means quiet stillness, and “yu” means joy and delight. Joy belongs to Yin-Yang’s yang aspect and anger to its yin aspect; they feed off each other. Medical books speak of “illness from excess”: when the Middle Harmony is realized, Heaven and Earth each hold their proper place; when that harmony is lost, the four seasons go awry and people fall ill.

“Dwelling and conduct without constancy” means reckless movement without measure, losing the Middle Way. “Qiao” is reaching too high and going too far; “jie” is mutual cross-examination and blame; “zhuo” is standing apart in isolation; “zhi” is fierce harshness—all images of discord. Zeng Shen, Shi Qiu, Robber Zhi, and Jie are only stand-ins for the worthy and the unworthy. When the heart-mind is not harmonious, neither the worthy nor the unworthy are what they truly are. If we now reward the worthy and punish the unworthy, those called worthy are not genuinely worthy; this is so everywhere, yet we still reward them—and such people are legion. When everyone seeks rewards and shuns punishment, dealing with one another through pretense, how can they peacefully enjoy the natural order of life and nature?

“In” (zai) means letting what already exists rest securely in place without disturbance; “you” (preserving/forbearing) means treating the world with compassion and tender care. That is why the sage looks upon the people as one would look upon someone wounded and in need of gentle tending. Thus the sage-king sits upright in the hall with hands folded in repose, practicing Wuwei (non-action), while the common folk find contentment in the fields and peace of mind—their human nature is not indulged to excess, their virtue is not altered, body and voice respond in harmony, and Heaven and Earth resonate with them. This was the ethos of supreme governance in high antiquity.

From the Three Dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou downward, people were kept busy with rewards and punishments, so the people could no longer settle their qing of xing and ming—their innate nature and their natural allotted course of life. In the age of Warring States strategists, there were even cases where rewards could not motivate and punishments could not deter. When Zhuangzi framed his discourse on zai you (letting each thing abide in its place while the ruler intervenes little), was someone aiming to restore antiquity?

Living in the world, one meets things day after day; affairs go smoothly or against one, and joy and anger cannot be wholly erased—the key is to regulate them properly: when they arise, let them hit the mean without losing central harmony. If joy and anger are excessive and yin-yang skewed, even cold and heat fall out of season—how much more so for human beings? Tracing the root of such “excess,” it lies in the two styles of rule associated with Yao and Jie: one that makes the people light-hearted and eager, one that wears them down and embitters them—joy and anger are born from this. Hence good and evil are judged, rewards and punishments are erected, people’s conduct grows ever more strident, speech ever more forced and extreme, and outstanding fierceness shows in action; the good are compared to Zeng Shen and Shi Yu, the bad to the robber Zhi—yet the whole world is inadequate as a standard for encouragement and chastisement, and who still has leisure to settle each person’s xing and ming?

When those who wield the “way of governing” reach this point, they have nowhere to apply their art; yet recluses in rivers, seas, mountains, and forests still earnestly hope for medicine and stone that can heal. Their words may be strange and manifold, but their hearts are the hearts of Fu Xi and the Yellow Emperor—how can one lightly dismiss them merely because their tracks look different?

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, with Guo Xiang’s commentary. The gist is as follows.

The Eight “Delights” Are Actually Roots of Disaster

So-called “delight in clarity” means drowning the mind in forms and colors; “delight in sharp hearing” means drowning the mind in sounds. “Delight in benevolence” disrupts one’s innate virtue (De); “delight in righteousness” goes against the natural order. “Delight in ritual” means relying on each other’s artifice; “delight in music” means encouraging each other’s excess; “delight in sageliness” means flaunting each other’s skills; “delight in cleverness” means picking faults in each other.

If everyone in the world could truly rest in their own xingming zhi qing (the nature and feelings proper to life), it would not matter whether these eight things existed or not. But once people cannot rest in that nature, they begin to chop truth into fragments and pack it into rigid schemes (“luan juan cang nang”), using these to stir up the world; people not only fail to wake up but honor and cherish them—confusion in the world has gone that far! Is it wrong merely to say “having them is fine, not having them is fine”? What is worse is: when one should let go, one not only refuses to let go but also fasts, solemnly preaches, kneels and presents offerings, beats drums, sings, and dances in performance—if I acted like that, what sort of person would I be?

How the Noble Person Governs the World: Taking Wuwei (Non-Action) as the Foundation

Unless the noble person has no choice but to preside over the world, the best approach is wuwei. Only after wuwei do the people each settle into their xingming zhi qing.

Therefore, one who values his own person more than the realm can be entrusted with the realm; one who cherishes his own person more than the realm can have the realm placed in his care.

If the noble person can avoid opening the cunning of the “five viscera” (“wu jie qi wu zang”), avoid exalting the use of cleverness (“wu zhuo qi cong ming”), rest like a corpse and appear like a dragon, be silent like an abyss and sound like thunder when he speaks, let spirit move with things and align with the way of Heaven, and meet the world with easy wuwei, then the myriad things will each find their place like rice steaming in a pot (“chui lei”)—where would I find leisure to “govern” the world?

Main Points of Guo Xiang’s Commentary (Following the Text)

What should accord with principle accords with principle—do not let the mind be moved by these “delights”; once you delight, disorder and rebellion follow. Life and death need not be clung to; each follows the allotment received at birth, and xingming is settled. Yet if these eight delights remain in the heart, one cannot follow nature freely, and that is why phenomena like “luan juan cang nang”—cutting the world into pieces and stuffing it into bags—arise. Failure to discard them is already wrong; to honor and cherish them is extreme delusion. It is not enough to speak of “entrusting the realm” and stop there—they are treated as precious beyond measure.

Again: wuwei is not folded arms and closed mouth pretending silence; it is letting each thing follow its own nature so that innate allotments are at peace. “Having no choice” is not using force or imposing one’s form on others; it is embracing the Dao and holding to simplicity, following necessary principle, so the world comes of itself. Thus entering office, retiring, speaking, and silence are all entrusted to a mind without artifice; spirit moves with things, Heaven moves with principle, like motes in the air—only nature is allowed to take its course.

Lü Huiqing said: When one follows what cannot be otherwise, the world naturally gathers around; advance and retreat, speech and silence are all entrusted to mindlessness—spirit moves with things, Heaven moves with principle, like drifting dust, leaving everything to its own course.

Lü Huiqing also said: When people in the world do not rest in the authentic nature of life and destiny, what are called cleverness, benevolence and righteousness, ritual and music, and sagely wisdom are none of them the right path—they inevitably disorder virtue and violate principle. These eight (cleverness, benevolence and righteousness, ritual and music, sagely wisdom, and the rest) can be spoken of as kept or discarded without harming or helping true nature; when they are carved up, bound, piled, and tightened so they cannot unfold, that is the way to disorder the world—yet people honor and cherish them, fasting and proclaiming them, drumming and dancing over them, as if the utmost truth of the world lay here. Error runs deep over time—what can be done? If governing the world arises from necessity and one acts through Wuwei (non-action), why must one prize and cling to the body while courting the world? Only then can the world be entrusted to such a person. To prize is not to treat the body lightly; to cherish is not to endanger the body. Entrusting as one entrusts the body, lodging as one lodges a thing—then prizing outweighs cherishing, entrusting outweighs lodging. Without releasing the five viscera (the emotions governed by heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney), one does not guard inwardly and drifts into the excess of benevolence and righteousness; without pulling down cleverness, one does not lead upward and is sharpened by sound and color. Dwelling like a corpse, appearing like a dragon, silent like an abyss, sounding like thunder—all come from Wuwei and not speaking; when spirit moves, one responds after being touched; when Heaven follows, one comes without being summoned. Thus one is at ease in Wuwei, and the ten thousand things gather like smoke and drifting dust—as dust settles on its own, what leisure is there to govern the world?

Lin Yidu said: Benevolence and righteousness are the substance of ritual and music; ritual and music are the adornment of benevolence and righteousness. When nature is fulfilled within, one is one with the Dao; when one seeks outward through cleverness, one departs from the Dao and gains a name. If the world rests in the nature of life and destiny, then when these eight remain, human virtue is established; when they vanish, the way of Heaven is established. If one chases names and tracks, the eight are first carved, rolled, cramped, and bundled to disorder the world—all this speaks of their stiffness and lack of flow, yet the world honors and cherishes them, fasting even to dancing out that honor—and I too can do nothing about it. The noble person is where the world turns; when necessity brings one to preside, nothing surpasses Wuwei—Wuwei and nothing is not done: Wuwei to order oneself, “nothing not done” to respond to things; the way of Yao and Shun is no more than this.

The sage inwardly merges with Heaven—without prizing, without cherishing—so the world does not know there is someone to honor or be close to, and there is nothing to lodge upon. Outwardly he enters the human realm—with prizing, with cherishing—so the world knows there is one to honor and thus entrusts, one to be close to and thus lodges. Without prizing and cherishing, one guards spirit; with prizing and cherishing, one preserves the body. The body is where spirit lodges; the world also lodges in our body, our body lodges in Heaven and earth, Heaven and earth lodge in empty void. Whatever has form cannot avoid having something to lodge in. Laozi said, “He who prizes his body for the sake of the world may lodge the world in it; he who cherishes his body for the sake of the world may entrust the world to it”—same intent, different wording: Laozi speaks of one who already has the world; Zhuangzi speaks of one who does not yet have the world. “Ru ke” (as if one could) shows already having the world while the heart is not tied to it, like Yao and Shun; “ke yi” (one may) shows not yet having the world while the heart does not forget it, like Confucius and Mencius—each has its own emphasis.

Releasing the five viscera leaves spirit, soul, hun, po, and intent unguarded and incomplete; raising cleverness leaves ear, eye, nose, mouth, and form pursuing without return—is that the noble person’s way of ordering the heart and nurturing nature? Hence dwelling like a corpse, appearing like a dragon, silent like an abyss, sounding like thunder—all from mindlessness, responding to the time and following principle; moving like spirit responding to things, acting like Heaven following the season. Only because of this can one be at ease in Wuwei while the ten thousand things pile like cooking smoke—like drifting dust on its own—and what part do I take in it?

Plain-language reading

When it comes to using cleverness, sagely wisdom, benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and music to run the world, the sage does not force these things on people. Mostly he adapts to the times and changes measures as needed, and only when he truly has no choice does he act this way. Muddled people treat the straw dog used in sacrifice as a god and a thatched hut as the sage’s dwelling. They will not lightly let go of such things; they add fasting, preaching, drumming, and dancing—and then hope the world will not be confused. That is very hard.

The Laozi says “value your body more than the world” and “cherish your body more than the world.” The first means treating the world as less precious than your own body; the second means treating the world as less dear than your own body. That is the way of “forgetting the world.” If you are not in that “forgetting the world” state, you still have ways to accommodate others. But both of these still fall short of “having no self.” The Laozi also says: life is not preserved by “valuing” alone, and the body is not well nourished by “cherishing” alone. Once you can “have no self,” what is there left to say about valuing or cherishing? Still, valuing and cherishing one’s body, though a step below the sage, is what people are willing to do when they accept being rulers—so the Laozi says the world can be ji (entrusted) to such persons.

But when the Laozi writes “value the body” it uses ji (to deposit/entrust) and when it writes “cherish the body” it uses tuo (to rely on)—the tone is “as if one could,” “as if one could,” not a flat certainty. If it meant “can,” it should use ci (declining/refusing language); if it meant “as if can,” it should use yici (doubtful phrasing). Ji is handing over in trust; tuo is leaning on and depending. Speaking from both “forgetting the world” and “not forgetting the world,” splitting ji and tuo this way is coherent. As for which wording in the Laozi original “entrustment” (jituo) should follow, the Laozi’s own meaning should decide. (This passage repeats the point: ji is deposit, tuo is reliance—contrasted with forgetting or not forgetting the world to parse the “as if one could” phrasing; the characters for entrustment should still be judged by the Laozi itself.)

The sage does not inflate the five viscera (he does not use benevolence and righteousness to prop up morality), so virtue is not split off onto the side roads of benevolence and righteousness. He does not exalt cleverness, so eyes and ears do not drown in the falsehood of sound and color. Resting like a corpse, he is without affairs; appearing like a dragon, affairs arise from no-affair before there is yet affair. Silent like an abyss, he does not speak; sounding like thunder, speech arises from non-speech before there is yet speech. Thus he moves with things: movement does not depend on the heart but on Shen (spirit). He acts along with principle: action does not depend on Heaven but on the human. Easy and wuwei (non-forcing), the myriad things gather and turn like smoke in a bellows (tuoyue)—why bother to “govern the world” at all?

Chen Bixu’s commentary: When you gather sight and hearing inward, the sounds and colors of the outer world cannot beguile you. When you keep benevolence and righteousness in the heart, how could virtue leak away? When you restrain yourself with rites and music, deceit and falsity find no opening. When you cut off the traces of “sage” and “wise one,” illness and disaster cannot approach. These eight points the ancients rolled up to cultivate the self—

Only in decadent ages were they unrolled to guard against the root being severed and the flesh carved up. Rolling them up is hard; once the pouch is in disorder it is harder still: old traces are hard to roll away, and when the heart loses unity, disorder in the realm is inevitable. People under heaven do not value what is simple; they honor and treasure what is difficult instead—confusion runs very deep. Therefore in governing the realm, nothing fits better than Wuwei (non-action). There has never been a case where, through Wuwei, the truth of nature and life still failed to settle.

To take the attitude of valuing and cherishing the body and apply it to the realm is to value and cherish all under heaven, not to prize one’s private body alone. If it is truly thus, guard need not lie in outer things, and worry and joy need not cling to the private self—then one may entrust the realm to oneself without losing it. The corpse officiant (shi) does not speak yet brings order; the dragon transforms and manifests the great Dao. Nature stays silent as a deep abyss; commands respond in season like thunder. To love the body in this way—guard outside, joy and sorrow not for the self—likewise allows one to entrust the realm. The spirit of sound moves within, form appears without; broad and self-restrained, the myriad things stir and ascend—though this is not called “governing the realm,” the measure of governing the realm is already within it.

Lin’s Yanzhai Kouyi says that in “delighting in sheng,” sheng is close in sense to neng (ability)—as when one speaks of a “sage of the grass script” in calligraphy; hence even robbers could be called sheng. None of this should be forced into the moral sense of the word in Mencius. When one rests in naturalness (ziran), then even if these eight practices (the thief’s tools, fasting and purification, and the rest) are present, they do not become a burden.

“Carving up, rolling up, binding in bundles,” “crude satchels and fussy affairs,” together with fasting and purification, kneeling and sitting, solemn deferential speech, drumming and singing, dancing with hands and feet in oblivion—all this satirizes scholars of the time who clung solely to ritual form and outward show: “I have others in mind; if you too are like this, what then?” Only under constraint would he lower his aim and teach governance through wuwei (non-action) and the natural. These three words already echo the idea of “having the empire under heaven yet not holding it as one’s own.”

Because the body is to be valued as highly as “having the empire under heaven,” only then can one entrust the empire to that body. Because the body is to be cherished as deeply as “loving the empire for all under heaven,” only then can one lodge the empire within that body. These two lines are verbally striking yet upright in meaning. (Book of Rites: binding sinew and bone; to release the five viscera is precisely not to bind.) “Drawing out and plucking” means overusing cleverness. “Corpse-like sitting” is what the Rites calls “sitting like a corpse”; “dragon appearing” figures splendor and dignified bearing—what may be done, one then does.

Deep silence and stillness without rash speech, yet the voice is like thunder; the spirit stirs and heaven follows, so that with every word the countenance moves and in turning and advancing or retreating, nothing is not the principle of heaven (tianli). These three sentences are complete in meaning and bold in rhetorical force.

“All things like steam from cooking” is the same as “all things blowing on one another with their breath”: it means that I only practice wuwei from above, while the people themselves act and rest by themselves, like motes of dust gathering and scattering—why should one set the mind on governing them?

Cleverness, humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), ritual (li), music (yue), sageliness (sheng), and wisdom (zhi)—these eight are all human artifacts, yet each still carries a thread of “what it naturally is.” What matters is using each only along the path it is meant for—no extra fuss, no forcing.

If they are gone, that is not a real loss; if you cling to them and treat them as treasures, that is not a real gain. Once the heart craves and clings to them, you get stuck in forms and traces, and the harm is greater than you expect.

“Acting without being dragged by affairs” (xing qi wu shi)—doing things without being run by them—is how a person settles the qing (disposition) of their nature-and-life. The reverse: stuck in traces, hardened into harm—on one side binding people tight with ren, yi, li, and yue (what the text calls “luan juan,” carving and rolling up), on the other shaking cleverness and sheng-zhi like sacks and showing off everywhere (what the text calls “xiangrang,” a term variously read as chaotic jostling)—and the world follows into disorder.

If even one person up top is unsettled by all this, how can you expect peace under heaven? Yet the world envies, honors, and cherishes this very pattern: fasting and purification before speaking, kneeling and formal posture when presenting offerings, even drumming and dancing to transmit and to rejoice—delight with no end—a bewilderment that cannot be untied. “What am I to do with this situation?”—that is a sigh of helplessness: not love of meddling, but moved only when cornered into it.

Better wuwei (non-action): follow the nature of the ten thousand things; do not force change. One who governs all under heaven by valuing their own person will not treat the people lightly; one who governs by cherishing their own person can draw close to the people. At that point, the world can truly be entrusted. “Entrust” means each takes a share of responsibility and keeps their place—there is no need to split hairs over who is weighty or light.

Release the burden on the five viscera, gather what the five constants have scattered, and return to the one Dao—do not exalt cleverness, do not drown in sound and color, and preserve what is genuinely original. Thus: one skilled at dwelling steps forth only when the time is ripe, and when they step forth it joins the wondrous; one skilled at stillness sounds only when the time is ripe, and when they sound it is vast. All of this comes from inner cultivation having ripened, so one can meet the movement of supreme spirit (zhi shen)—Heaven itself is not violated, how much less other people?

Easy, unforced wuwei is finding one’s own place; the ten thousand things like cooking pots stacked one on another is each thing finding its place. When self and things each find their place, all under heaven is naturally ordered—why still bustle about “governing the world”?

Appendix: note on the graph “xiangrang” (often read as chaotic jostling)

Commentators on both passages treat the two graphs of xiangrang as meaning “disorder,” but give no pronunciation. In Mao Huang’s rhyme book, the second graph in xiangrang is listed under the entry for ning (fierce), with a citation from the Zhuangzi as gloss. Also compare Han shu, “Biography of Jia Yi,” “guo zhi qiangrang” (the realm’s turmoil): the upper graph is read cang (Middle Chinese sheng geng), the lower rang (nü geng), meaning disorder. Reading this section’s xiangrang closely, if the old gloss “disorder” holds, the sound and sense can align with qiangrang in the Han shu.

Cui Ju asked Laozi: If one does not make “governing the world” one’s business, how can people’s hearts be settled?

Laozi replied: You must not go and “stir” people’s hearts. The heart is naturally changeable: press it down and it sinks; lift it up and it rises; caught between high and low it is as if caged and strangled; sometimes soft as mud, sometimes harder than the hardest thing; upright integrity cuts like a knife, refinement carves like a chisel on wood—so anger blazes like scorching fire and cold freezes like solid ice; change is so swift that in the space of a bow and a glance it seems ready to sweep over all beyond the four seas. At rest it is deep and still as a pool; in motion it hangs in the void as if tied to Heaven. What is proud, unruly, and cannot be reined in is probably the human heart.

Long ago the Yellow Emperor began to use benevolence and righteousness to stir people’s hearts. Yao and Shun wore the skin off their thighs and calves bare to nourish the bodies of all under Heaven, yet still toiled their five viscera to practice benevolence and righteousness and strained their blood and breath to establish rules and laws—and still fell short. Yao then exiled Huan Dou to Mount Chong, banished the San Miao to San Wei, and sent Gong Gong to You Du—yet even that was not enough to “overcome” the world. When benevolence and righteousness reached the Three Sage Kings, the world was greatly alarmed; below were Jie and Zhi, above were Zeng Shen and Shi Qiu, Confucianism and Mohism rose together, and joy and anger doubted each other, the foolish and the wise deceived each other, good and evil condemned each other, the absurd and the sincere mocked each other—the world declined from this. Great virtue no longer fit together, nature and life were scattered and confused; the world prized cleverness, the people endlessly sought what they did not have, and so saws, ink-lines, awls, and chisels—the tools of punishment—were fully at hand, and the world was in crowded disorder, backs pressed to backs—because the fault lay in stirring the heart.

So the worthy hid beneath the steep cliffs of Mount Tai, while lords of ten thousand chariots trembled with fear in their halls. In the world today, those who die under punishment lie pillow to pillow, those in cangues push one another along, those awaiting execution face one another in rows—yet Confucians and Mohists still stand on tiptoe among the shackles, wave their arms, and argue—alas, too much! Without shame, without knowing disgrace—how far it has gone!

I do not know whether “sagely wisdom” might instead become the wedge in the pillory, whether “benevolence and righteousness” might instead become the mortise and tenon of the cangue; nor do I know whether “sages” like Zeng and Shi might instead become the whistling arrow that Jie and Zhi shoot first. Therefore it is said: discard sagely wisdom and abandon cleverness, and the world will be greatly ordered.

Guo Xiang’s commentary (in gist): “Press it and it goes down; advance it and it goes up” means the heart is easily shaken and tossed. Scorching fire and frozen ice mostly come from accumulated joy and anger; if there is no carving and no chiseling, each keeping its simplicity, whence such extremes of ice and fire? Bowing and looking up again to sweep the four seas is being dragged by custom. At rest it can be deep as a pool; in motion it is tied to Heaven and leaps—the changes of the heart are almost limitless: in office, release it and it is still and self-penetrating; in governance, tie it down and it struts and turns proud; that proud unruliness is a momentum that cannot be forced.

The Yellow Emperor originally did not act for benevolence and righteousness; guarding against things, the traces of benevolence and righteousness appeared; once traces appear, the age inevitably imitates them—that is letting outer things stir the heart. The names of Yao and Shun are also only traces; I entrust myself to traces, but traces are not me, so those who are alarmed alarm themselves—the more the world is alarmed, the coarser the traces. Coarse and subtle are like level and dangerous on a road—must travelers constantly change their feet? The sage is originally one, yet there are differences among Yao, Shun, Tang, and Wu; the difference is only the names of the times, the traces of stirring. Though there are traces of benevolence and righteousness, the source of “what makes traces” remains whole.

From “joy and anger doubt each other” through “the absurd and the sincere mock each other,” none can align in self-attainment; setting up small differences without stopping at division, knowing no boundary yet loving to seek—hence supplying what is sought. Then come the disasters of saws, ink-lines, awls, and chisels, carving nature and life to this point. If one entrusts things to the natural, each keeps his place, then the wise and foolish each guard their disposition, noble and base each tread their rank, ruler and minister above and below each reach their limit, and the world has no worry. Once these traces arise, they stir the hearts of all under Heaven, making reckless running unstoppable; the straight is hated, the upright is ugly, factions draw one another on, those who entrust themselves to the genuine lose footing, those who exalt the false steal the handle—so the ruler above is anxious and the people below suffer—a disaster from pedantic scholars clinging to traces. Not thinking to discard traces and return to oneness, they again wave their arms, using traces to govern traces—this is to be without shame and not know disgrace.

The pillory uses the connecting bar as its tube; shackles use mortise and tenon as their function; sagely wisdom and benevolence-righteousness are traces for keeping far from crime—when traces are distant the people esteem them, when they esteem them pretense arises, when pretense arises the tools for controlling treachery (punishments, stratagems) cannot be done without—this principle runs through.

Commentary by Lü Huiqing: “Letting things be” (zai you) means not ruling the world by force, and therefore not disturbing people’s hearts. Once you use “governance” to transform people, you are already disturbing their hearts: those who are rejected sink lower, those who are indulged climb higher, and no one can tell which way is up; above and below check and harm one another. When things reach extremes like scorching fire or frozen ice, they should not be stirred at all. “Looking down and up again to embrace the four seas” means coming and going without fixed times. In stillness one is silent as an abyss; in motion one hangs in the high heavens—indulging pride and unable to be reined in. This is what is meant by “holding fast” yet constantly “letting go.” The True Person (zhenren) feared that learners would take Yao and Shun as the final goal, so he also spoke of the Yellow Emperor using benevolence and righteousness to stir people’s hearts. The safeguard lies in “abandoning sageliness and discarding knowledge”—not something anyone can do casually; within it there is its own measure. As long as sagely wisdom is not abandoned, one cannot avoid using benevolence and righteousness to stir hearts; because “I have a mind,” having a mind leaves traces, and one inevitably sacrifices oneself for the world, even to the point of what is called “inauspicious virtue” that one must then reject. From “thighs without calluses” down to “regulating laws and standards,” those who thus sacrifice themselves for the world still cannot prevail, because they cannot abandon sageliness and discard knowledge. Extending to the Three Sage Kings, below there were villains as extreme as Jie and Zhi, above there were overscrupulous men like Zeng and Shi; Confucianism and Mohism rose together, mutually suspicious and deceitful, and no one grasped the utmost rectitude under heaven. Then nature and destiny were scattered, the people exhausted, and the disasters of axes, saws, mallets, and chisels became inevitable. Worthies withdrew and hid to escape harm; rulers of ten-thousand-chariot states were anxious yet did not know what to do—all because they could not practice Wuwei (non-action) and could not return to the true nature of life and destiny. In our age, the three phrases from “death by dismemberment” to “punishments and executions in sight” are again beyond comparison with the Three Dynasties; yet Confucians and Mohists strut and gesture among criminals and still debate with them—this is shamelessness at its height. If one tries to save the age yet still does not return to the nature of life and destiny, but instead adds sagely wisdom, benevolence, and righteousness, it is like bearing the “punishment of turning against Heaven”—the more one fixes it, the less it can be undone, heavily benefiting Jie and Zhi so they lead the chorus and the masses follow.

Commentary by Lin Yidu: Those who advance love heights; those who are rejected sink low—each has checks and guards, and so become prisoners and victims. Graceful yielding is soft before what is hard; sharp integrity guards against the genuine; carving and polishing damage simplicity—called governance, yet in fact there is stirring and disturbance. Then come the afflictions of Yin-Yang: scorching fire and frozen ice express the idea that agitation overcomes cold and stillness overcomes heat. “Looking down and up again to embrace the four seas” means that in sleep and waking, in an instant, gaining the world is like a dream in a southern catalpa or on a pillow. Abyss-like stillness is hidden silence; hanging in heaven means what one is tied to is far aloft; reckless pride speaks of unrestrained indulgence, the same figure as the heart-monkey and will-horse. Law began with Fuxi; by Yao and Shun its traces were clear, then they followed the Yellow Emperor’s traces in practice, until thighs were lean without calluses and shins bald without hair—they could only nourish the world’s forms, not settle the world’s nature. Worrying the five viscera in the name of benevolence and righteousness, restraining blood and qi to regulate laws and standards, Yin and Yang warring within one body—could life and destiny be at peace? If life and destiny are not at peace, can one overcome the world’s falsity and artifice? Then came exile and banishment. Extending to the Three Kings, the longer the law lasted the more its traces decayed, hence the split between Jie and Zhi below and Zeng and Shi above; Confucianism and Mohism competed, doubting and deceiving one another; pure custom was lost, the world declined, life and destiny scattered, and the people were spent. Axes and saws figure the barriers of benevolence and righteousness; ink figures ritual law; mallets and chisels figure punishments and penalties—all tools for stirring the human heart. So the world was in constant great disorder, and rulers of ten-thousand-chariot states had no way to secure their thrones; from dismemberment to punishments in sight, the image is of countless killings, yet Confucians and Mohists still followed the traces of benevolence and righteousness, strutting and gesturing among them trying to save the age—they did not know the root. To govern traces with traces is like fighting fire with fire; how can there be success?

Jiāqiè, jiào, liáng (small pegs, large beams, and ridgepoles): The Huainanzi says: large pieces serve as pillars and beams, small ones as jiāqiè (pegs and tenons). “Mortise and tenon” means the tenon head fits into the wood, like the ridgepole’s tenon. Hào shǐ is the whistling arrow. The yoke and pillory depend on jiāqiè before they take shape; fetters and cangues depend on mortise and tenon before they stand. Sagely wisdom, benevolence, and righteousness aim to keep people far from the traces of crime; when the people still prize traces, pretense and fraud arise, and then yokes, pillories, jiāqiè, and pegs are fully equipped. Only remove what stirs the human heart, and the world is governed.

When commenting on Mencius’s discussion of the “human heart-mind” (xin), Chen Xiangdao writes: hold fast to it and it stays; let it go slack and it is lost. Zhuangzi, on the same topic, says: once you loosen it, it turns proud and hard to rein in—as if it were about to capsize—and simply cannot be tied down.

The point is this: clinging in a death grip is human artifice; leaving it to itself, without bonds, is the Way of Heaven (Tiandao). One who governs the world must not use human cleverness to smother the Heavenly Way; to smother the Heavenly Way with human cleverness is not the path of zaiyou (governing by letting things be and interfering little). One who cultivates learning must not invoke the Heavenly Way to deny human affairs; to use the Heavenly Way to abolish human affairs is not the right road of chongyang (nourishing and expanding one’s inborn nature).

When the heart-mind is pushed down, belittled, and suppressed, it is imprisoned; when it is lifted up and praised, anger flares and integrity is wounded—it is cut and left incomplete. Further carving and polishing leaves ornament and loses plainness, and the yin–yang qi turns discordant. In stagnation it seems ready to overturn (fen); once it rises, pride cannot be controlled. Force it into bonds, tie it tight, keep it closed and unyielding—and the unworthy heart answers and stirs.

Benevolence and righteousness (renyi) belong on the inside, so they agitate the five viscera; law and measure belong on the outside, so they inflate blood and qi. Yet as soon as benevolence and righteousness are put into practice, treachery and pretense follow; as soon as law and measure are displayed, violence and disorder follow. Yao was hailed for supreme order and still had to punish the Four Evils—how much more so after the Three Dynasties? Jie and Zhou were Sons of Heaven yet did what even slaves would refuse; Confucius and Mozi were commoners, yet ministers feared their names. Rank high and low follows virtue, not position—hence the saying: “Below there are Jie and Zhi; above there are Zeng and Shi.”

Mutual suspicion and deceit until chaos spreads everywhere—this is “inner punishment.” Execution, fetters, and shackles—this is “outer punishment.” When outward restraint (shuo) is applied, inner punishment reaches its height; when inner punishment is present, outer punishment arises. Confucianism and Mohism rise together; the world grows more chaotic; those in office grow more endangered, and no one rescues them. Laws grow harsher day by day because hearts are stirred and disturbed; punishments and executions crowd the roads, often because of lofty talk among gentry and officials. At first sage wisdom and benevolence-righteousness were taken as gain; in the end they become the harm of pillories and shackles. Hence sage wisdom is likened to mortise-and-tenon (jiajie), benevolence-righteousness to chisel and socket (zaorui): mortise-and-tenon is not the pillory, yet the pillory is readied because of mortise-and-tenon; chisel and socket are not shackles, yet shackles are forged because of chisel and socket. Sage wisdom and benevolence-righteousness are not crimes in themselves; crimes are invited because of them.

Bixu (commentary) says: The human heart-mind is originally still; stir it once and it turns chaotic. “Pai” means to tear it down; “jin” means to praise it. Outwardly there is the heat and cold of fortune; inwardly, ice and fire. Once the scheming heart moves, it fills the empty sky; the formed heart runs wild, worse than a runaway horse. The Yellow Emperor first used benevolence and righteousness to stir the human heart; Yao and Shun toiled to nourish the world and set up benevolence, righteousness, and law—and still could not prevail. They banished the Four Evils; this extended through the Three Kings, and the world was shaken. Confucianism and Mohism rose together, suspecting and deceiving each other; virtue parted from truth and scattered, knowledge flowed and the people were drained. Sages and worthies hid to preserve their lives; those in power were anxious and endangered, with no one to save them. The severity of laws comes from stirring hearts; punishments and executions race together, mostly from lofty discourse among gentry and officials. Taking sage wisdom and benevolence-righteousness as profit ends as the harm of pillories and shackles. The worthy in office daily simplify the laws; the blind in office daily multiply commands—whether rule leaves a trace of decadence or purity depends on the person. A ruler without the Way also must borrow the names of sages, worthies, law, and measure to act out cruelty—is this not “Zeng and Shi as the whistling arrows for Jie and Zhi”? (Using Zeng Can– and Shi Yu–style name-and-teaching as the arrowheads with which Jie and Zhi shoot their evil.)

Yizhai says: Read this passage alongside Mencius’s line that the heart “comes and goes without fixed times, and no one knows where it rests”—and the fit is especially fine.

When the heart is pushed down and cannot get its way, it sinks; once it gets its way, it presses forward without stopping, and rises higher and higher. Whether sinking or rising, it is always imprisoning and tormenting itself—always stirring itself up.

Even a hard, unyielding person can sometimes be softened by graceful charm—Xiang Yu weeping before Consort Yu is an example. “Carving and grinding sharp corners like jade” means treating one’s edges as if they were gems to be cut and polished; in youth, when ambition first succeeds, the corners are many, but after the world has worn you down, those corners are filed away. “Blazing fire and congealed ice” describes joy, anger, worry, and fear surging back and forth in a single bow or lift of the head—the inner traffic so violent it feels as if in an instant you were again beyond the four seas; “deep stillness” stands for not stirring a thought—yet one thought arises and you hang as if tethered in the sky. Fen (same as fen in the sense of agitated ardor) names that excited, fierce state; xi here is like zhi (control)—the sense of holding the heart in check. This passage’s portrayal of the human heart is at its most marvelous.

“No flesh on the thighs, no hair on the shins” means the legs are worn to the bone—laboring the feet to exhaustion. “Choking the blood and qi with stiff restraint” is like stuffing the inside with firewood while taking benevolence, righteousness, and law as one’s measure; toil yourself to that point and still you cannot cope with the world. Hence there are punishments of exile—four criminals punished and all under heaven submit. That story belongs to Shun, yet Zhuangzi calls the ruler Yao; the wording is uneven but marvelously uncanny to read.

It extends to the three sage kings: below, petty men do what Jie and Robber Zhi did; above, gentlemen chase the reputations of Zengzi and Shi Qiu; Confucians and Mohists wrangle, doubting and deceiving each other, until the truth of nature and life lies in ruins. The common people are drained dry—there is nothing left with which to answer them. Unable to prevail over the world, they finally resort to punishments, so the worthy withdraw while the ruler toils alone, and those condemned multiply; Confucians and Mohists still hold themselves up as models, limping and contorted among the mass of convicts—one might say they no longer know shame.

How extreme! The xingyang (pillory) is a restraint, the jieqie (the wedge in the cangue) is a restraint, and the haoshi (whistling arrow) is today’s whistling arrow. Only when the world is not well governed does the name “governance” appear; only when people’s hearts are not good do “methods of making them good” get used. The machinery of governance arose with the lawgiving lords of middle antiquity and went bad in later ages.

When the world is already in disorder, people only then begin to speak of the need to govern; when people’s hearts are no longer pure and simple, only then are methods deployed to “make people good.” The arts of governance were devised by law-making rulers of middle antiquity, yet in later ages they were ruined by ministers who copied only outward forms.

The classic says: Would the nature of a tree want compasses, squares, hooks, and fences? Cui Ju did not understand that the human heart inherently holds supreme goodness, yet wanted to use politics to “improve the hearts of all under heaven.” Laozi told him: Simply stop disturbing them—why artificially perform what is called “doing good”?

Today the sickness of the human heart lies largely in loving to press down those below and elevate oneself, so contention, imprisonment, and killing never cease. People fail to see that “spacious ease” (chuoyue) is true softness, while the path of “hard strength” is like using a knife to cut one’s own edge or a chisel to carve one’s own substance. Joy and anger crash in from outside, and within it is like ice and fire at war—how long can that thread of harmonizing qi endure before it is worn away? Moreover, once a thought arises, ten thousand mountains and rivers stir; neither the stillness of an abyss nor the height of the sky suspended above can serve as likeness. This is what is meant by “proud and wild, hard to gather in—tie them and they still will not stay.”

In high antiquity, rule through Wuwei (non-action) let ruler and people each rest in their place, finding calm quiet (danmo) within primordial chaos (hunmang). When the Yellow Emperor began to govern all under heaven, he used benevolence and righteousness to stir the heart; by the time of Yao and Shun, political expedients were complete—the deeper the stirring, the fiercer the resistance below, until the Four Evils had to be executed and the realm was greatly terrified. Favor and harm beget each other—so it must be. When those above have diverse forms of “governance,” those below have diverse forms of De (Virtue/Power); xing and ming scatter and cannot be restored; the people are scraped bare and cannot sustain the burden. Then the calamity of axes, saws, augers, and chisels (punishments and forced labor) rises, the realm falls into great disorder, and medicine and stone avail nothing. Worthies hide alone to escape harm; rulers of ten thousand chariots live in fear and barely survive, until corpses lie pillow to pillow on the roads and punishments cannot keep pace—one can imagine the rest. Yet those in power still roll up their sleeves to show their prowess between stocks and cangues, thinking themselves equal to heavy affairs and skilled at quelling chaos—wholly unaware that the source of disorder is what they themselves invited, no different from pushing someone into a mire and then hitching up one’s robes to haul them out, taking oneself for a benefactor. Those saved are not only the trapped; those who save are also worn and exhausted.

From this one can see: what the world calls sage wisdom, benevolence, and righteousness may well be nothing but pillories and fetters (xingyang zhiguo); Zeng Shen, Shi Qiu, Yang Zhu, and Mozi may well be nothing but the sharp tools in the hands of Jie and Zhi. The Daodejing says: “When I am without action, the people transform themselves; when I am without desires, the people return to simplicity.” This is roughly what is meant by “governing without governing.”

When the Yellow Emperor had reigned for nineteen years, his policies were felt throughout the realm. Hearing that Guangchengzi dwelt on Mount Kongtong (a legendary mountain), he went to visit him and said: “I have heard that you have attained the utmost Dao—may I ask about the essence of the utmost Dao? I wish to gather the qi of heaven and earth to help the five grains grow and nourish the people, and also to regulate yin and yang so as to complete the myriad things—how should I proceed?”

Guangchengzi replied: “What you ask about is the ‘substance’ of things; what you wish to manage is what harms things. Since you have governed the realm, clouds have not waited to gather before rain falls, plants have not waited to yellow before they wither, and the light of sun and moon has grown dimmer—while the minds of the crafty and flattering are shallow and narrow. How can such people speak of the utmost Dao?”

The Yellow Emperor stepped down from the throne, yielded the realm, built a special chamber and spread white rush mats, and lived in seclusion for three months before going again to seek an audience. Guangchengzi lay with his head to the south; the Yellow Emperor approached from the leeward side, bowed twice, and prostrated himself, asking: “I have heard that you have attained the utmost Dao—may I ask how one cultivates the body to endure long?”

Guangchengzi suddenly sat up and said: “Well asked! Come—I will tell you: the essence of the utmost Dao is deep and still; the utmost point of the utmost Dao is dim and silent. Let the eyes not look, the ears not listen; embrace the spirit and keep still, and the form will right itself of its own. You must be still, must be clear; do not weary the body or shake the essence—only then can you live long. Let the eyes see nothing, the ears hear nothing, the heart know nothing; the spirit will guard the form, and the form will long endure. Carefully guard the inner mind and block outer desires—too much knowing leads to ruin. I will lead you to what is above great clarity, to the source of utmost yang; I will lead you through the gate of deepest obscurity, to the source of utmost yin. Heaven and earth each have their offices; yin and yang each have their storehouses—guard your body carefully, and the myriad things will thrive of themselves. I hold to the One and dwell in harmony, and so in cultivating the body for twelve hundred years my form has never decayed.”

The Yellow Emperor bowed twice and prostrated himself: “Guangchengzi, you are truly heaven itself.”

Guangchengzi said: “Come—I will tell you: that which is without limit, yet people treat it as having an end; that which cannot be fathomed, yet people treat it as having an extreme. Those who obtain my Dao ascend as emperors or descend as kings; those who lose my Dao, above, meet with light, below, become dust. Now the hundred things are born from earth and return again to earth. I will leave you, enter the gate of the infinite, and wander in the field without limit—sharing light with sun and moon, sharing constancy with heaven and earth. All people die while I alone remain.”

Background note (Guo Xiang’s commentary): “Asking about the essence of the utmost Dao” means inquiring into the nature of things; if one does not entrust oneself to their natural course but forcibly “administers” yin and yang, one damages the myriad things. When each person cultivates himself and does not make governing the realm his task, the realm is secure of itself. “Deepest obscurity” and “dim silence” both refer to wu (non-being)—what gives birth to things is not itself a thing; things arise of themselves. Laozi and Zhuangzi repeat wu again and again with this meaning. Forget seeing and one sees oneself; forget hearing and one hears oneself—entrust to the natural, keep still in seclusion, and one will not die young. Guard the inner and keep the whole true, block the outer and keep to one’s portion; too much knowing leads to ruin. When yin and yang are traced to their limit, there are indeed “offices” and “storehouses,” but one should entrust them to the natural. When nature and life are traced to their limit and the attainment of long life is reached, the body does not die young—only then can one reach others. Things are without limit yet people treat them as having an end—that is merely seeing one side. The titles emperor and king change with the age; to obtain the Dao of change and respond to the infinite is to hold to the “One.” To lose the Dao of the infinite is to cling to one partial view and fail to harmonize above and below—hence different hearts in looking up and down. Earth has no mind; things are born from no-mind—so one should turn back and keep to no-mind and go alone. To enter the infinite and wander without limit is to go together with transformation; to share light with sun and moon and constancy with heaven and earth is all to entrust to the natural. Coming and going of things is unnoticed—hence taking life and death as one body; wherever one goes, there is only presence.

Commentary by Master Lü: Above “empty communion” (kongtong)—the realm of void and pervasion—there is nothing outside; that is where the great pervasion (datong) resides. The Dao is originally nameless and plain, hence “substantial through yin and yang.” When the One of the Dao disperses, it takes the form of scattered cloud-qi; it need not wait for like kinds to gather. The more it piles up, the more desolate things become—that is not yielding to nature but rather a kind of loss.

Three months in seclusion and the utmost purification of fasting: enter with the wind at your back and seek from the root. If you want to cultivate the person and endure, only the Dao can do it—here the text is asking what the Dao’s “substance” (zhi) is.

Profound and dark, therefore without form: speech cannot tell it, intention cannot reach it. Within it there is what is called “essence” (jing). If you put it in ordinary words, you still have not hit the extreme. You must arrive at dazed, silent depth—only that is the Dao’s utmost limit. This is speaking of the Dao’s body: no seeing, no hearing—at that point one can live long, that is, unite with the Dao. Likewise: what speech and intent cannot reach yet is “essence”—put it in words and it is not the extreme; you must reach dazed silence—that is the Dao’s extreme. Again the Dao’s body: without seeing or hearing, one can live long and enter the Dao.

Embrace spirit (shen) in stillness: the body need not be forcibly straightened yet becomes straight; you must be still and clear and must not stir turbidity. When the form is untired yet whole and essence (jing) is unshaken yet restored, one can live long. Spirit is originally formless yet lodges in things; still it is not constrained by things—it returns to no seeing and no knowing. If you do not keep the form, where will spirit lodge? Guard the inner (shen nei): block the “dui” (the opening of mouth and pleasure), shut the outer: close the “gate”—this is the way to nourish spirit and preserve form. Turn it around—much knowledge and much scheming—and you spoil things instead.

Before one has awakened to the Dao, one is trapped in yin and yang and has never reached the source. No seeing, no hearing, no knowing—only then can one ascend above great brightness and enter the gate of profound darkness (yaoming). Having attained this and pursued it to the end, one knows that heaven and earth have an “office” (guan)—their office is here; yin and yang have an “inner store” (cang)—their store is here. Carefully keep your body, and the ten thousand things will naturally grow strong—why seek outside? The Yellow Emperor again explains what was said before about no seeing and no hearing and knowing the Dao’s body. As for its function: though there is no seeing, it is itself what sees; though there is no hearing, it is itself what hears; though there is no knowing, it is itself what knows.

The Dao, as existence, is boundless and unfathomable. If you stop at “no seeing, no hearing, knowing,” you treat the boundless as an endpoint and the unfathomable as a limit. One who obtains the Dao can become sovereign or king, because spirit and clarity raise royal enterprise; one who loses the Dao sees light like dust—the form does not step outside what covers and illumines. The hundred flourishing things are born from earth and return to earth—they are bounded by form. I will go away and enter the infinite, roam the boundless; if you take some place as the ultimate, you are not one who understands me. Share light with sun and moon, and brightness is not cut off; share constancy with heaven and earth, and endurance has no end. When I am deep and vast and do not know whether it is far, when I am dazed and dark and do not know whether it is far (or near)—all people die and I alone remain; sought in the body, one does not know what thing can reach this. Among the spirits of the ten thousand things, the human is foremost; in creating the human, creation itself is no ordinary event, so one can endure without end. When I am deep and do not know what is fitting, when I am far in dazed darkness and do not know what is far—all die, I alone remain; sought in the body, one does not know what can reach this. Among spirits, the human is foremost; in creating the human, one cannot say how many births and encounters it took—and among humans, how many births and encounters before one is bright, penetrating, and able to accord with this Dao? If you do not pursue it tirelessly, those who take compassion as treasure will not weary of repeating their earnest counsel.

Note: This passage is the Nanhua zhenjing yihai zuanwei’s collected commentary on the Yellow Emperor’s questions about the Dao’s “substance,” guarding the One, embracing spirit, no seeing and no hearing, and related themes. Several lines repeat in parallel; the vernacular translation follows the sense-stream and merges them. Terms such as dui, gate, yaoming (profound darkness), and great brightness are glossed briefly in context as they appear.

According to the Yidu commentary: when the Yellow Emperor ruled as Son of Heaven, he governed the realm with yin-yang and calendrical reckoning—so what is described is the path of ordering the world. Guang Chengzi did not govern the world, so what is described is the Dao. The Yellow Emperor wished to take heaven and earth as his model and keep yin-yang in hand—this concerns the cultivation of nature and life, of bodily form and of spirit. Speaking of yin-yang refers to qi (vital energy); speaking of heaven and earth refers to form. Qi is refined while form is coarse; jing (essence) is what carries shen (spirit), and yin-yang are the trailing traces of the Dao. What can question and answer readily tends to disperse and become heaven and earth; what can appoint and employ is shen dispersing into yin-yang. Rain before clouds have gathered is yin-yang straying from their constant pattern; leaves falling before plants turn yellow is the ten thousand things losing their constant way—and even the sun and moon growing dim is not the kind of order a spirit-person should preside over.

Dwelling at leisure without being dragged about by outer things: three months is a small completion. The refinement of the utmost Dao corresponds to Taiyi (the Grand Unity); the utmost limit of the Dao corresponds to Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate). Yin-yang arise from Taiyi; heaven and earth arise from Taiji. In the dark silence, before there are images or numbers, one speaks of refinement and of the utmost limit. When the eyes are not thrown into disorder by colors and the ears not by sounds, shen is whole and unmoved, noxious influences do not intrude, and form keeps to oneness. Do not weary the form—what Laozi calls “bearing and lodging the corporeal soul”; do not shake jing—what Laozi calls “embracing the One.” The po (corporeal soul) is master of form; the One is master of jing. Those who study the Dao should broaden their intent and not let the bodily frame be burdened, so that one constantly “carries the po” rather than “being carried by the po”; then one can embrace the One and embody shen.

People today differ after death in rising or sinking because some guard shen and some indulge form: when shen follows the po, one sinks into the dark yin and becomes a strange thing. One whose shen is complete, though the yin of the po is sluggish, still remains one with shen and reaches everywhere. When the eyes see nothing, one looks inward; when the ears hear nothing, one listens inward; when the heart knows nothing, one does not scheme. Dust is shut out from without and the roots are firm within—then form can long endure. Being careful inwardly keeps the genuine from scattering; closing off the outer keeps dust from entering—this is the meaning of “in practicing the Dao, daily decrease.” Much knowing makes affairs multiply daily—and that is how one is ruined.

Above great clarity is the manifest Dao; at the gate of dark silence is hidden De (Virtue/Power). Utmost yang has no yin; utmost yin has no yang. The primal origin is the root of yin-yang and the place from which the ten thousand things emerge. Those things are boundless and unfathomable, yet people treat them as having an end—only with respect to human judgment. The huang (august sovereign) is what the king proceeds from and belongs to the way of heaven; the king proceeds from the huang and belongs to the way of humankind. Light speaks of heaven; earth speaks of the ground. One who obtains the Dao may go forth and be a king or withdraw and be a huang—nothing is impossible. Lose the Dao and one becomes partial: above one is only light, below one is only earth.

The hundred things in the realm begin from earth and return to earth—does earth favor things with intent? Humans are born from the formless and die into the formless—how could they be tied to the human world? “I am about to leave you” means: though the body is still among people, the heart has already departed to wander with the Maker. Without limit one does not see a beginning; without end one does not see a finish. The gate is where going out and coming in originate; the wilds are openness without a fixed resting place. Aligning brightness with sun and moon and De with heaven and earth, the heart of the perfected person is like a mirror: when things come, it responds; when they go, it forgets. While “I” is present and things come, there is a subtle thread of attachment to things; when the sense of things is far from “me” and things depart, one is dim and forgets that sense of things—one is unaware whether things come or go. “Others may all die while I alone remain” means the spirit-person is one with creation, and death and life cannot alter that.

The commentary says: Heaven and Earth each have their proper office—they can be relied upon but must not be violated; yin and yang each have their place of nurturing and storage—they can be entrusted but must not be turned against. If one sets out to “manage” yin and yang in order to complete all beings, that is like using human intent to drive the Way of Heaven and go against what is natural—how could anything under heaven not be utterly ruined?

Laozi said: the Dao is originally level, yet people love crooked paths; he also said: forcing “life enhancement” is an ill omen. If one moves and seeks rashly, the more one adds the more one loses—like fixing a child’s name before the child has grown, or hoping for rain before clouds have gathered—it is like pulling up seedlings to make them grow. Thus one offends the brightness of sun and moon above, and below makes the ten thousand things ever more chaotic and depleted.

The Yellow Emperor abdicated and yielded the realm: he could let go of outer things, but could not yet let go of attachment to “life,” so he went to ask how to cultivate the person. Guangchengzi told him: one must be still and must be clear—only then can one obtain the Dao beyond outer things and beyond life. He also said: things are inexhaustible. In hidden silence, seeing and hearing cannot reach what is there; in deep guarded closure, what is gathered cannot be grasped. Ear and eye are “outer marauders” of the heart—so first achieve non-seeing and non-hearing, then embrace spirit in stillness. Reckless movement and turbid disorder are worms that eat form and essence—therefore in stillness the form is not worn out, in clarity essence is not strained. Hence what is valued is guarded closure and careful inwardness, not abundant knowledge and scheming. Yang governs manifestation, so one can “reach the great brightness above”; yin governs the hidden, so one can “enter the barrier of the dark profound.” Holding to oneness brings essence to its utmost; dwelling in harmony brings harmony to its utmost.

Casting off the root of De is like an infant at the utmost of essence and harmony—therefore one can live twelve hundred years without the countenance decaying. Losing the Dao, there is no beginning before and no end after—unlike things that can be counted; above there is no brightness, below there is no obscurity—unlike what has a fixed bodily form. Light is the refined aspect of yang; earth is the substantial quality of yin. Losing the Dao, above one is driven by yang and appears as light; below one is constrained by yin and turns into earth. The ten thousand things are born from earth and return to earth—I am about to depart, sharing light with sun and moon without showing off, sharing constancy with Heaven and Earth without setting myself apart.

What is near to me is like threads and cords linked together without my noticing; what is far from me is like a dark closed barrier—I do not know it. All people die, yet I alone remain—there, if branches and leaves flourish but the root is harmed; here, deep root and firm stem preserve the branches and leaves.

The Bixu commentary says: having desires and taking hold is not refinement but coarse substance; having models and governing is not complete authenticity and inevitably leads to injury. Governing the realm this way brings yang disasters and yin portents—the two luminaries of sun and moon lose their light—how then can one speak of the utmost Dao? The Yellow Emperor abdicated and gave away the realm, went on foot to ask about cultivating the person; Guangchengzi first spoke of yaoyao mingming (dark and still—forced to name it the refinement of the Dao) and hunhun momo (dim and silent—forced to name it the utmost of the Dao): not taking color as color, not taking sound as sound—therefore spirit is still and form upright. In stillness spirit is not exhausted; in clarity essence is not shaken; not seeing rashly therefore no sight, not hearing rashly therefore no hearing, not thinking rashly therefore no thought—the three return to authenticity, spirit dwells and form remains. Careful inwardness empties the heart; closing the outer seals the opening (closing the mouth)—the fear is that much knowledge ruins De—therefore one can transcend yin and yang and converge in the domain of the Dao. Sun, moon, and the five planets shining bright, the five sacred peaks standing firm—these are Heaven and Earth having their “officials”; the four seasons nourishing life, the ten thousand things completing their forms—these are yin and yang having their “storehouses.” Self-governance then the transformation of things grows daily stronger; pure oneness then what is gathered is centered harmony—therefore cultivating the person can last twelve hundred years without the form declining.

Li Chunfeng, from an astronomical angle, says: celestial patterns generate the ten thousand things; thin clouds—“twelve hundred” can be called one great limit; another reading takes it as a small cycle of yin and yang. The Dao originally has no beginning—how could it have an end? Not knowing whose child it is—how could it have an extreme? Above as sovereign, below as king—that is greatness within the realm; above appearing as light, below becoming earth—is the same kind of thing. The ten thousand things arise and perish by themselves; I too come and go in an instant. The gate of the great void is inexhaustible; the field of creation is boundless—sharing light with sun and moon without displaying myself, sharing constancy with Heaven and Earth without making myself different. When things meet me, it is like silk threads linked without my noticing; when things are far from me, it is like a dark barrier, dim—I do not know. People all die and principle ought to sink away—I alone remain—there is in me what does not perish.

Yanzhai’s “governing Yin and Yang” means letting inner Yin and Yang each keep its place and do its part—what the earlier text calls “ultimate Dao”: the natural state things originally have is called “substance.”

“Damage to things” means what harms the ten thousand things. Heaven-and-earth Yin and Yang are both natural principle; the five grains and living beings also grow and follow their course on their own. If you use the “heart-mind” to force Yin and Yang under control, you become a source of harm instead.

When clouds gather though they should not, then rain falls—that is imbalance of “having when the other lacks”; when leaves fall before they should yellow, that is missing the season. These all come from human interference with nature and disordering Yin and Yang.

“Deep,” “ward,” “dusk,” and “silent” point to what is subtle and unseen—one must “see nothing, hear nothing,” forget eyes and ears, be still and wuwei (non-action), and the body will right itself; spirit and intent must be clear and quiet. When form is not worn by toil and qi is not shaken, one can attain long life. Today’s cultivation teachings root here. “No toil, no sway” matches later “no with”—meaning prohibition, do not allow; “no seeing, no hearing, no knowing” can also be read as “embracing spirit”—being careful within, not moving the heart; closed without, not letting outer things move the mind.

When one is “without knowing, without awareness,” then De (Virtue/Power) is whole; much knowing ruins affairs. “Great clarity” is the great void; “deep ward” is the limitless. The person has heaven-and-earth Yin and Yang within: my heaven and earth each “official” does its office, my Yin and Yang each rests in its place—then this body can be guarded carefully; what is guarded is one and not mixed, where one abides is everywhere harmonious, so form need not decay for twelve hundred years—what Guangchengzi called “uniting with Heaven.”

Things have no fixed end, yet people insist on reaching their end; things cannot be fathomed, yet people insist on reaching their limit—using the bounded to chase the unbounded. The Yijing does not end on “Already Across” but on “Not Yet Across,” knowing things are endless and unfathomable. Confucius by the river said “it passes like this”—also speaking from endlessness and unfathomability.

Above is the sovereign (huang), below is the king (wang)—as in the “Inner Sage, Outer King” of the Tianxia pian: the sovereign is wuwei, the king youwei—not only the Three Sovereigns and kings of the three dynasties. Above, what shows light are sun and moon; below, what is earth is soil: dwelling between heaven and earth, blankly without knowing, raising the head one only sees sun and moon, lowering the head one only sees earth. The hundred things are born from earth and return to earth; wonder and rot transform each other in turn.

“Leave you” is leaving the human realm; “gate of the endless” and “wilds of the limitless” mean beyond heaven and earth—hence one can share long life with heaven, earth, sun, and moon. “Min” is the same as “ward,” meaning dim: when what meets me comes toward me and what leaves me goes away from me, I am utterly unaware of things coming and going.

“When it meets me” is coming toward me; “leaves me far” is going away from me—for the coming and going of the ten thousand things, one makes no distinction at all.

This passage from Yihai Cuanwei discusses the Guang Cheng Zi episode in Zhuangzi’s “In the World”: the Yellow Emperor goes to Kongtong (also written Kongtong or Kongtong) to ask about the supreme Dao and self-cultivation; Guang Cheng Zi first rebukes him for asking about “dregs,” then teaches embracing spirit and rectifying form, must be still, must be clear; the commentary also unpacks the meaning of Kongtong, twelve hundred years versus the inexhaustible, attaining the Dao / losing the Dao and the myriad flourishing beings, and criticizes later techniques of adding and subtracting and extracting and absorbing, stressing that the original self cannot be grasped through color or sound.

Kongtong is also written Kongtong. An old note by Sima says it lies where the Northern Dipper descends from the mountain. The Erya states that the northern peak where the Dipper’s pivot rests is Mount Kongtong. Though such a mountain has existed since antiquity, it also seems to carry intentional symbolism: the Dipper sits at heaven’s center and drives the transformations of the ten thousand things; the mountain bears the pivot of the Dipper—it is earth’s center. Kongtong corresponds to the center of heaven and earth, metaphorically the human heart-mind dwelling in the center to govern the outer; one who dwells there well finds nothing that will not obey.

Guang Cheng Zi: some say Laozi—there is no need to fix that identity; he is simply described as an ancient sage. When the Yellow Emperor asked about the supreme Dao, the answer was that the essence of heaven and earth, when undifferentiated, is called substance; when yin and yang qi have already separated, it is called dregs: “What you wish to ask still nears the Dao; what you wish to investigate (scrutinize, fathom) is merely dregs—already far from the Dao, unworthy of discussion.” The Yellow Emperor withdrew and lived quietly, then returned to ask the way of governing the body; only then was he told neither look nor listen, embrace spirit and rectify form, must be still, must be clear, no toil, no agitation, until reaching the root of yin and yang—the way of self-cultivation at its utmost. “Heaven and earth have their offices; yin and yang have their storehouses”—this refers to within the body, urging one to seek well there.

Twelve hundred years: merely measured against the brief span of human life, the count of one cycle; if one seeks the source where divided spirit descends and engenders transformation, it extends from antiquity to the present without end. Once there were heaven and earth and yin and yang, there were people and things; what comes after our body no clever calendar can reckon—that is infinite and without limit; yet people take endings and limits as ultimate because they view through form’s transformation and do not see what does not transform.

“Above he becomes sovereign; below he becomes king”—this speaks of attaining the Dao, not of holding rank and title; hence though times differ, commanding the ten thousand things’ transformation is one. “Above one sees light; below one becomes soil”—this describes one who loses the Dao: essence and soul turn to will-o’-the-wisp fire, flesh and bone return to dust—empty birth, vain death, wasting the cosmos’s forging for nothing. The birth of the myriad flourishing beings and earth returning to earth likewise hinge on attaining or losing the Dao: the Dao has no gain or loss; things come and go; exiting the mechanism, entering the mechanism—that is what we call transformation. “I am about to depart”—you say I do not return to earth but ascend to great emptiness, then share the lasting duration of the two principles and the two luminaries.

“When near me”—those close to me are aligned with the Dao; “when far from me”—those who turn away are dim, guarding darkness without knowing. “People all die in the end”—the multitude finally transform, while I alone remain: this “I” is not the I of the nine openings and hundred limbs, but the clear, still, luminous, subtle, empty, penetrating, responsive original I, which cannot be seen in color or sought in sound; therefore prior to heaven and earth, standing alone unchanging.

Only these two sages directly transmitted the essentials of the Dao, fully recorded in this chapter—at first nothing lofty or hard to practice, plain and clear. Later ages of shallow custom, curious for the strange, devised talk of visualization, adding and subtracting, sexual union, and extracting and absorbing, taxing spirit and tormenting the body to seek great stillness; until some lead the blind by the blind, racing an ice cart on a volcano without awakening—how could they not lose what gave them life? Alas, the world has long lacked a true mirror. On reverently reading Guang Cheng’s legacy, I venture these bold words, hoping someone bold enough may take them up.

Yun Jiang was about to travel east and, passing through the branches of Fuyao (the mythical eastern tree), happened upon Hong Meng. Hong Meng was patting his thighs and hopping about like a sparrow at play. At the sight of him, Yun Jiang immediately stopped with face upturned in respect, then flustered, stood firm, and spoke:

Yun Jiang, the spirit who governs clouds and mist, traveled east and passed by the Fusao tree, where he happened upon Hong Meng. Hong Meng was patting his thighs and hopping about like a sparrow in play. Yun Jiang approached with respect, then stood solemnly and asked, “Old sir, who are you, and why are you like this?” Hong Meng kept patting his thighs and hopping without stopping. Yun Jiang asked again, “What are you wandering for?” Hong Meng answered, “Wandering.” Yun Jiang said, “I wish to consult you.” Hong Meng looked up at him. Yun Jiang said, “Ah…” Hong Meng said, “…”

Yun Jiang said, “Heaven’s breath is out of harmony, earth’s breath is blocked, and the six qi (yin, yang, wind, rain, dimness, and clarity) are disordered, so the four seasons are not right. I want to harmonize the essence of the six qi to nourish the ten thousand things—what should I do?” Hong Meng patted his thighs, hopped, and shook his head: “I do not know, I do not know.” Yun Jiang got no answer.

Three years later Yun Jiang traveled east again to the outskirts of the state of Song and met Hong Meng once more. Yun Jiang was overjoyed and hurried forward: “Has Heaven forgotten me? Has Heaven forgotten me?” He bowed and kowtowed, hoping to hear a single word from Hong Meng. Hong Meng said, “Roaming freely, not knowing what to seek; indulging oneself, not knowing where one is going. Wanderers bustle and fuss, watching and acting rashly—how could I know anything?”

Yun Jiang said, “I thought I was indulging myself, yet the people follow wherever I go, and I cannot but go along with them. Now the people indulge themselves even more. I would like to hear one word from you.” Hong Meng said, “When you disturb Heaven’s constant way and go against things’ nature, you ruin Heaven and nothing is accomplished. Break up the herds of beasts and birds cry out at night; disaster reaches grass and trees, harm reaches insects. Alas—all this comes from the fault of ‘governing people.’” Yun Jiang asked, “Then what should I do?” Hong Meng said, “Alas, it is bad—go back.” Yun Jiang said, “I have met with great difficulty and wish to hear one word.” Hong Meng said, “Alas—use the heart to nourish you! Rest in wuwei (non-action), and the ten thousand things will transform themselves. Drop the bodily form, spit out cleverness, forget rank among things, and be one with vast chaos; undo the knots in the heart, release the spirit, dazed and without soul. Each of the ten thousand things returns to its root; returning to the root without knowing it, muddled and dim, never leaving the root for a lifetime. If you think you ‘know,’ you are in fact leaving the root. Do not press for names, do not pry into inner secrets, and things will grow of themselves.”

Yun Jiang said, “Heaven has bestowed De (Virtue/Power) upon me and has instructed me in silence.” He then bowed in quest of the Dao, and only today had he gained something. He bowed again, rose, took his leave, and departed.

Summary of Guo Xiang’s commentary (as adopted in Yihai Suanwei): Without seeking, one obtains what one seeks; without going, one obtains where one goes—when inner sufficiency is complete, whatever one sees is correct. Riding things and moving, footprints show of themselves; indulgence is not meant to draw the people, yet they imitate on their own, so Yun Jiang was “unable to do otherwise” but follow them. If one accords with things’ nature and does not govern rashly, feelings are not opposed and the constant order is not disturbed—accomplishment comes in silence and is gained naturally. Herds dissolve of themselves and birds need not cry at night; only then does one not leave stillness. Grass, trees, and insects would not suffer in vain. Once the traces of governing appear, disorder arises from that. Hong Meng lamented that the fault of governing people runs too deep and doubted that Yun Jiang could withdraw and let go utterly, so he sent him away. The heart is injured by too much use; to nourish the heart is roughly “not using the heart”: neither principle nor things are clutched in the breast—entrust all to the natural—and then wuwei self-transforms, one equals vast chaos, and there is no boundary with things. Sitting in forgetfulness and yielding to fate, chaos is without knowledge and each thing is allowed to restore itself—only then can one never leave the root for a lifetime. Thinking one knows and then “returning” contradicts returning to the root. Questioning and prying lose “self-generation”; silently embodying it, one constantly gains for oneself.

Lu’s commentary says: Those who make it their task to “spread benefit over the world and nourish the myriad beings” are like twitching the twigs at the tip of a great tree swaying in the wind—from the very label one can tell they mean to harmonize the Six Qi and nurture life, deliberately “ordering the world.” He also says: I do not know whether this counts as genuine knowing. People all have what they seek and where they go, yet I do not know what they seek or where they go—all of this comes down to nothing more than “not knowing.”

Hurried and bound, the body seems to roam yet is really as if tethered; in my view, the true import of “having the world” is no more than this. The ten thousand things arise together; I watch them return; in returning there is no disorder—what more can I know? To fancy oneself wildly free is to practice Wuwei (non-action) toward oneself; when the people are lax and unrestrained, they have still not reached Wuwei. Heaven is without deliberate action, things are without knowing; where there is knowing and deliberate doing, one disrupts heaven’s constant pattern, goes against the disposition of things, and ruins what heaven has brought to completion.

The year has its “point of attunement to heaven”—the winter solstice is one; the month has one—the day of new moon; the day has one—midnight; and human beings have one too. The ancients sought where the upright Qi (vital energy) gathers so as to preserve Shen (spirit) and nurture the root—none of them failed to understand this; it was not empty rhetoric. The trouble is only not seeing the mistake of “governing through Wuwei”: poison is for curing disease, but governing through Wuwei is like taking medicine when there is no illness. Light and easy—“go home!”—wanting to turn back to the root and seek it; no one lacks a settled mind in this; it all comes down to nurturing oneself. When one nurtures oneself, nothing need be done and things transform on their own.

Cast off bodily form and one no longer knows there is a body of six parts; spit out cleverness and one no longer knows there are ears and eyes. As for order, principle is in me and things are outside. In the vast, formless expanse of Qi (ximing—the empty breadth of vital breath, awaiting things to take shape)—when I and things forget each other and merge with that expanse, the mind is unbound and Shen (spirit) released, vast and as if without soul—this is how one abides in the way of Wuwei.

And so on: while things are just rising, I do not know them; even when I let things return to the root, I do not know that either—then primordial chaos spreads vast and all becomes one, so that one never leaves it for a lifetime; without questioning or peering, things arise by themselves. When one is truly without knowing, one does not know that one does not know—and to call this “the name ‘without knowing’”—is that not already asking its name? If this were really without knowing—is that not already peering into its inner state? It is like probing the root the moment something is born to look at it—nothing can live that way. The way heaven creates things is just like this.

The commentary notes separately that Yun Jiang and Hong Meng stand for the undifferentiated, chaotic Qi before Yin and Yang have separated; “fuyao” and “zhifeng” describe something without fixed form; and “you” (wandering) means letting things be as they are—ease and self-so alignment—what Liezi calls “ultimate wandering.” Yun Jiang has not yet seen the body of the Dao, so he questions worldly affairs and hopes to harmonize the six Qi to nourish all living things. Hong Meng replies that wandering cannot yet be entirely without any outward sign; in the end he says “I do not know”—and since he does not know, he no longer puts on a show. That is the utmost of the Dao.

“Yangzhang” means that at first there is restraint and guard, but in the end one is self-sufficient: what one meets is upright, without reckless movement. When Yun Jiang sees things this way, he again says “how would I know?”—to know by not-knowing is true knowing.

Heaven has its constant Dao; the ten thousand things have their nature and disposition (qingxing). Go against this and disorder follows; so heaven’s “not completing” (not forcing things into shape) is the height of subtlety. The earlier passage on “yangzhang” makes the same point: first there is control and defense, then self-sufficiency and everything upright without delusion. Yun Jiang sees this and again says “how would I know?”—knowing through not-knowing is true knowing.

Here “Heaven” (tian) means the natural world. Birds, beasts, and insects each have the principle of life; follow it and they are at peace; violate it and they fall into disorder. To insist on “governing” them now is like breaking up their herds and flocks and driving them to cry out in the night.

“Nourishing the mind” (xinyang): all methods arise from the mind; nourish it with principle and settle it with stillness—respond when things come, forget them when they go; only then can one practice Wuwei (non-action) and thereby “do nothing yet leave nothing undone.” Shed the body and drop cleverness, merge with the great flow; human relations and the patterns of things become one. Release the mind and free the spirit until one is blank and almost without soul—that is the limit of the human way, and from there one aligns with Heaven.

“The ten thousand things in flux” means each transformation returns to its root—this speaks of empty nature: transformations cease, but empty nature is not destroyed. As for “ming” (life-command, or fate), it is dense and undifferentiated and never leaves one for a whole lifetime; treat it as something to “know” as an object, and the Dao is lost.

At first there was restraint, and so names appeared; where nature-and-life (xingming) dwells, there is qing (emotion/disposition). Names and qing are not what the spirit-person’s “returning to ming” is about. Do not chase names, and names will not harm reality; do not pry into qing, and qing will not overpower xing (nature). “Things therefore generate themselves”—that is, each thing’s own principle is fulfilled of itself.

Yun Jiang heard this and understood: “Heaven” here means Hong Meng; “lowering virtue” and “showing silence” both describe how the spirit-person meets the world—gaining without holding gain—whereupon he bowed and left.

The True Person of Azure Void (Bixu Zhenren) explains in this commentary: Cloud Commander (Yun Jiang) is the lord who governs clouds and rain; when he travels eastward, the myriad things naturally come to life—this means that the principle of the ten thousand things has already been understood.

Cloud Commander heard Hong Meng’s words and awakened. Here “Heaven” refers to Hong Meng (primordial chaos): bestowing De (Virtue/Power), showing oneself through silence—all of this describes how the spirit-person (shenren) meets and responds to the myriad things. Realizing that “originally there was nothing to obtain,” he took leave and rose to depart.

It is also said: Cloud Commander was originally without deliberate mind (wuxin); when the people imitated him, that became having deliberate mind (youxin). Cloud Commander likewise acted only because he could not do otherwise (bu de yi); when the people copied him, there were traces and artifice (zuo yi). When the constant pattern is disturbed, disorder arises; when emotion drives the will, it goes against nature. With both disorder and opposition, the way of Heaven is hard to fulfill—so the mountains and forests lose their quiet, and the woods and marshes lack harmonious qi—all because law was too strict and cutting too deep.

“Nourishing the heart (xin yang)” means nourishing with compassion and gentleness; Wuwei (non-action) is what truly nourishes the heart, while youwei (deliberate action) turns “nourishing the heart” into a contrivance. The heart was never “mine” to begin with; nature is originally empty and still—neither movement nor stillness need be clung to; one is of the same substance as Ximing (the primordial, undifferentiated turbidity). When light and form are all extinguished, one still returns to the chaos of yaoming (deep obscurity); not leaving that chaos, yet clinging to “knowing” is to leave it. Without name, without attachment—what is there to question or peep at? In silence, what remains to seek? When Cloud Commander’s De “could not stay” (de bu de) and he rose to take his leave, that very act was subtle function (miaoyong).

Brief notes on terms:

• Cloud Commander (Yun Jiang): In Daoist legend, the god who presides over clouds and rain.
• Hong Meng (the text writes “Hongfang”): The state before chaos opens and before primordial qi divides; also one who keeps to the way of chaos.
• Ximing: Primordial qi before division, deep and unfathomable.
• Bixu (Azure Void): The author of this note or the commentarial line it follows, usually linked to the tradition of exegesis on the Zhuangzi such as Yihai Zuanwei.

What Yizhai calls the “branch of Fuyao” is Fusang—the legendary place where the sun rises and from which all things come forth. The “question” here carries the same sense as in the chapter where the Yellow Emperor posed his question.

“Yangzhang fenmi” describes worldly affairs as busy and chaotic, with truth and falsehood mixed together. Amid such disorder one must still be able to see one’s own true nature; one may wish to decline the people’s trust, yet cannot refuse it, because they already take you as the model they rely upon. The Way of Heaven and the disposition of things are naturally so; once you act with deliberate intent, things go awry and violate nature—so “assisting Heaven” fails to succeed, and the “assistance” is empty. It is as if one said: if you cannot follow the natural course of the ten thousand things but instead make them lose their nature, then plants, insects, and fish all suffer harm. This is the fault of governing the world with deliberate mind—hence the lament: “How harmful! How restless!”—people are driven to chase in haste and cannot return to what is natural.

The two words “xin yang” (mind-nurturing) mean: stop your restless, deluded mind and let it nourish itself—that is enough. The text does not say “yang xin” (nurturing the mind) but “xin yang”; one must ponder this carefully: you need only remain in Wuwei (non-action), and the ten thousand things will arise and transform on their own; spit out and discard every former trick and cleverness—“lun” and “lun” (oblivion) are the same—and melt away together, forgetting things and self, and you merge with “xingming,” the formless, breathless chaos of the primordial state.

Release the mind that acts with intent; let go of the spirit that clings to knowing—“no soul” means no knowing and no sensation. Each returns to its root: life necessarily entails guarding, yet though one guards, one does not fix on guarding—guarding itself is again a kind of arising, so the text says “each returns to its root” without knowing it. Muddled and dim, without knowing or sensation, one never leaves the Dao for a lifetime; once there is knowing and discrimination, one has left the Dao. Whatever involves discrimination is called “name”; whatever involves liking and disliking is called “qing” (emotion). Without questioning and without peering, there is no discrimination and no liking or disliking—this is Wuwei and naturalness, and then the ten thousand things each fulfill their life.

Heaven bestows on me the De (Virtue/Power) of nature and shows me the wordless principle. Turning inward to seek, I have already obtained this Dao and gained what is to be gained—and I take my leave with thanks.

Yunjiang wished to spread rain and harmonize Yin and Yang. He passed the branches of Fu Yao—using the branch as a metaphor for his haste to leave himself behind and go nourish the ten thousand things. Hongmeng (the primordial Qi personified at the dawn of chaos) moved and roamed like a sparrow hawk, meaning to act in accord with nature and find joy therein; once vital energy turns, rain falls of itself. It is like a sage ruler above while the people transform themselves. Yunjiang wanted to combine the Six Qi (Yin, Yang, wind, rain, obscurity, and clarity) to nurture all living beings, yet in the end he could not escape “having intent”—the same point as the earlier chapter’s “taking Heaven and Earth and officiating over Yin and Yang.” Hongmeng answered with “not knowing,” and the teaching stops there.

Yunjiang could not grasp it at once and had to withdraw. When he met Hongmeng again, he asked once more. Hongmeng said first: what you seek and where you go need not be sought outside—seek within yourself; there is no need to search far. Asking others, drifting in the world, rushing about in disorder—yet one can still find joy and enough to see the truth; why seek knowledge outward? These lines mean: though someone had already taught him, Yunjiang still could not understand, so he described himself as frantic and compelled to manage the people’s affairs. Hongmeng then rebuked him: by talking and acting too much, you disturb Heaven’s constancy and violate things’ nature, spoiling the original stillness, so birds and beasts, plants and insects all lose their proper place—this is the fault of “governing people.”

He admonished further: what use is governing the world? Go home and rest; ask no more. Yunjiang still doubted and begged one more word. Hongmeng told him: what you doubt is the heart; when the heart loses its root, the heart is the dwelling of Shen (spirit). Nourish it with Wuwei (non-action), and Shen is whole; only when Shen is whole can one transform and nurture the ten thousand things. Go so far as to forget the body, and the hun (soul) grows serene—this is the secret of nourishing the heart; at the utmost, even “nourishing” is forgotten. The ten thousand things are diverse, each returning to its root; extreme movement must turn to stillness—this is nature’s pattern, and “knowledge” has no room to intrude. Simply guard the muddy undifferentiated state and do not lose it; once knowledge sprouts, one leaves the Dao. Asking names and probing feelings belong to “knowing”; if you can cut these off, let things transform themselves—why cling to combining the Six Qi to nurture all beings?

Yunjiang then understood: much talk is enough to harm the Dao; showing others stillness is how virtue descends. The key is to turn and seek within oneself. From this we know: those who take nourishing things as their duty toil without success; those who leave the world to govern itself are at ease while the ten thousand things all transform. Nurturing the ten thousand things and harmonizing the world come down to fully guarding Shen and nourishing the heart. In antiquity the spirit person kept the ten thousand things free of blight and harvests abundant—by this alone.

Most people prefer those who think like them and dislike those who differ. They want others both to be like themselves and not like themselves—a mindset that actually takes “being different” as its starting point. Someone whose heart is set on standing apart has never truly risen above the crowd; they merely use the crowd’s momentum to settle their own views, and are not even as capable as what everyone already has. Those who would govern the world see only the benefits of the Three Kings’ rule and miss the disasters hidden in it—they treat the realm as a stake in a gamble. How many such gambles can you run before you lose the realm? The chance of keeping it is one in ten thousand; the chance of losing it is countless. Pitiful—rulers who hold a state do not see this.

One who holds a state possesses the “great thing.” One who possesses the great thing cannot anymore use ordinary things to command the ten thousand things; they must “not be thinged by things” (bu wu yu wu) before they can in turn encompass the ten thousand things. One who understands that “what thingifies things is not a thing”—what encompasses the ten thousand things is not itself a thing among them—is not merely someone who governs the people under heaven. Such a person can pass through the six directions and roam the nine provinces, coming and going alone—this is called being “unique” (du you). The unique person is what is called “supremely noble.”

The teaching of the “great person” (daren) responds as naturally as form to shadow and sound to echo: when someone asks, they answer; they pour out what is in their breast and harmonize with all under heaven; they dwell where there is no sound or echo and act where there is no fixed region.

(Also stated:) governing the people under heaven; passing through the six directions and roaming the nine provinces; coming and going alone—this is called being unique; the unique person is called supremely noble. The great person’s teaching is like form to shadow, sound to echo; when asked, they respond, exhaust what they hold within, and match all under heaven; they stay in the place of no echo, move in the place of no fixed direction; leading you back through the restless turmoil to wander in what has no beginning, going out and in without side, with the sun without beginning.

Praising and discussing the bodily form, it accords with the great sameness; in great sameness there is no me and no other—how then can one cling to “having”? Those who “have” and see “having” were the gentlemen of old; those who see “non-being” are friends of Heaven and Earth.

Note: The closing passage repeats sentences from earlier; this likely reflects overlapping citations or copyist duplication in the text’s layered structure. The vernacular explanation follows only the characters present in the source and does not supply missing passages.

Guo Xiang’s commentary holds that the human mind always wants to surpass the crowd and become the outstanding among the multitude, but instead it cannot truly stand out, because everyone takes standing out as the aim of the mind. Everyone thinks this way, yet the sage is in every respect the same as the crowd; precisely because of this he is greatly different from the crowd and becomes its master. An individual’s seeing and hearing do not match the crowd’s many skills, so one can be secure only by relying on the crowd; if one does not rely on the crowd, thousands upon thousands become adversaries. To wish to govern another’s state, if one does not accord with the people’s acting for themselves but acts on their behalf by one’s own strength, is merely to covet the benefit by which the Three Kings (Sanwang, ancient sage-kings) presided over the myriad things, while failing to see the disaster of acting in their place. How could the benefit obtained by the Three Kings depend on acting in place of others? It was simply according with and allowing the world to act for itself. To monopolize the world by one’s single self blocks the world; how then can one oneself be unobstructed? The result is that one’s own person is not completed and all beings are lost. It is pitiable that rulers who possess territory do not understand this.

One who possesses the “great thing”—the great authority of the world or a state—cannot treat things merely as things to be controlled; if one cannot use things, one is oneself merely a thing, not sufficient to possess the great thing. One who uses things is not used by things, and only then does one not fall to the level of a thing; not falling to the level of a thing, one can preside over the things of the world, letting them act for themselves without limit. People all individually advertise their differences, yet the sage alone can wander together with the crowd; this is truly to go alone and come alone, alone possessing his “aloneness.” To be mysteriously same (xuantong, profoundly blended) with the crowd is not to seek the crowd’s honoring oneself, yet the crowd cannot but honor him; this is the highest honor. If one trusts biased views and takes “being uniquely different” as one’s intention, even if it accords with some kind of uniformity, it is merely one thing among the vulgar, not a true possessor of aloneness. The minds of the common people are like forms and sounds; the teaching of the great person is like shadows and echoes. When has the great person ever had a mind of his own toward the world? He simply enables the myriad things each to exhaust what is in their hearts. The questioner is host, the responder is companion; the great person resides precisely in such correspondence of question and response.