《庄子口义》Vol. 1

Abstract of Zhuangzi Kouyi (Oral Exegesis of Zhuangzi) in Plain Language

The full title of this work is Zhuangzi Kouyi, in ten fascicles; it was compiled by Lin Xiyi of the Song dynasty. Lin Xiyi also wrote a Commentary on the Kaogong Ji, which is separately recorded in bibliographies. This book is one of his “Oral Exegeses of the Three Masters.”

The book opens with a preface by the author, whose main point is that reading the Zhuangzi presents “five difficulties.” One must first be thoroughly familiar with the Classic of Changes, Mencius, and texts such as the Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean, and have settled views on principle and meaning; one must also distinguish clearly the thread of the text and phrasing, and have some acquaintance with Chan Buddhist methods of interpreting scriptures, before one can grasp what lies beyond the literal wording. The author once studied under “Yuexuan” and, through Yuexuan, heard the teachings of “Aixuan”; he thus gained a rough outline of textual structure and phrasing. He also read Buddhist works for a time, and afterward understood the turns of their free-ranging transformations; on this book he had some gains that earlier people had not fully pursued.

Lin Xiyi’s learning traces to Chen Zao; Chen Zao’s learning came from Lin Guangchao. “Yuexuan” is Chen Zao’s style name, and “Aixuan” is Lin Guangchao’s. Whenever the book says “former teacher,” it refers to Chen Zao.

The preface also criticizes Guo Xiang’s commentary for “failing to divide chapters and parse sentences,” and Wang An’s and Lü Huiqing’s interpretations for leaving “the main purport unclear,” which only increases readers’ doubts about the Zhuangzi. Guo Xiang’s commentary aims at meaning beyond the furrows of the field; Lin Xiyi seeks it through chapter-and-sentence analysis—a narrower approach. Wang’s and Lü’s commentaries explain the Zhuangzi from within the Zhuangzi, without forcing alignment with Confucian doctrine; that is still letting Daoist speech answer to Daoism, and does not merge the two teachings within the Confucian school. Lin Xiyi, writing from within the Daoist tradition to comment on the Zhuangzi, perhaps feared that Confucians would use this as grounds for censure; hence he claims harmony with the sages and engages in strained reconciliation. In fact, explaining Zhuangzi on Zhuangzi’s own terms does no harm if each side clarifies its own meaning. Moreover, his exposition is lucid and fluent, not obscure or abstruse; he elucidates much in the Zhuangzi, and still surpasses later figures such as Lin Yunming, whose fragmented, narrow readings applied examination-essay methods to the Zhuangzi. Therefore this work is recorded and preserved as one school of interpretation.

(Collated respectfully in the eleventh month of the forty-third year of the Qianlong reign; chief compilers: your servants Ji Yun, Lu Xiong, and Sun Shiyi; chief collator: your servant Lu Feichi.)

Zhuangzi was a man of Song, named Zhou, styled Zi Xiu. He lived in the early Warring States period, roughly contemporary with Mencius. He withdrew from public life and spoke with unfettered boldness. The book he left bears his name and is divided into seven inner chapters, fifteen outer chapters, and eleven miscellaneous chapters. Though the divisions are arranged this way, the three modes of writing called parable, repeated saying, and goblet word run through the whole work. Outer and miscellaneous chapters often take their titles from opening words; the inner chapters each have their own theme and title, the prose is tighter than in the outer and miscellaneous parts, yet the main message does not fundamentally differ from chapter to chapter.

Chen Tongfu (Chen Liang) once said: the world cannot do without the man Zhuangzi, nor without the book Zhuangzi, if gentlemen are to speak seriously about great affairs under heaven. Though the book is called “unorthodox” (bu jing), in fact the world cannot spare it. Guo Xiang said it is “unorthodox yet the crown of the hundred schools”—bold words, and they hit a truth: the book must be read, and it is hardest to read well.

Su Dongpo drew much of his lifelong writing from insight into Zhuangzi; the five hundred and forty cases of the Buddhist canon can likewise be extended from Zhuangzi. The force of Zuo Qiuming, Sima Qian, and others can hardly outweigh Zhuangzi—how could such a book go unread? But why is it hard? Yichuan (Cheng Yi) said Buddhist books are like seductive music and beauty: they easily bewitch people because the language stirs and the surface is plain, so minds waver. All the more with Zhuangzi, where terms such as benevolence, righteousness, nature, and life often diverge in meaning from the Confucian classics—that is the first difficulty. Its aim is to rival Confucius in stature, and it often overstates—that is the second. It frequently addresses middling and lower listeners, as Buddhist texts speak of the “supreme vehicle,” so the tone is often pitched too high—that is the third. The brush turns in countless ways; one cannot read it by ordinary essay habits—that is the fourth. Its rhythm and turning points resemble the Chan sudden school’s “matter on the edge of the sword”—rare in Confucian books—that is the fifth.

So one must first read the Analects, Mencius, Doctrine of the Mean, and Great Learning until the principles sit firm in the mind and the textual thread is clear, and know a little of Chan interpretive moves—only with that eye can one see where each phrase and each idea in Zhuangzi finally lands. Though the tone leaps and falls like playhouse dialogue, the great theme and great aim never truly oppose the way of the sages. Without that eye, forcing one’s own views leads either to dismissing the book with heterodox contempt, or to being intimidated by it, or to using it to indulge the bizarre, or to drifting into emptiness—then Yichuan’s image of “seductive music and beauty” is a warning one cannot ignore.

I (Xiyi) in youth heard something from Lexuan (possibly a teacher in Zhang Shi’s line), and through Lexuan heard Aixuan (Lin Guangchao), so I grasped the outline of the textual thread; I also browsed Buddhist books and then understood its sweeping, shifting craft. I thought I had some hold on Zhuangzi—really gaps others had not yet fully opened. Finally I consulted Lü Jifu (Lü Huiqing), Wang Yuanze (Wang An), and other commentators. They parse chapters and lines a bit better than Guo Xiang, but the main drift stays unclear; and because of Wang and Lü, readers only doubt Zhuangzi more. By my limited view, this book could stand alone between heaven and earth without necessarily offending the sage’s gate. If Zhuangzi were alive again, he might say: a thousand years hence, Yang Xiong (Ziyun) could discuss the Dao with me—I dare not claim to be the author; I only share what I have found with those on the same path.

Lin Xiyi, Preface

Title note

This work is preserved in the Qing dynasty Siku Quan Shu (Complete Library of the Four Treasures).

Full title: Zhuangzi Kouyi (Oral Explications of the Zhuangzi), juan 1, by Lin Xiyi of the Song dynasty.

Inner Chapters: “Xiaoyao You” (Free and Easy Wandering)—first chapter

“Xiaoyao you” (free and easy wandering) is the title of this chapter.

The seven chapters of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi all have three-character titles.

“You” (wandering) means the heart can wander with Heaven and travel together with the Dao (the Way); “xiaoyao” (free and easy) means ease and freedom without constraint.

In the Lunyu (Analects), when Confucius’s disciples portray the Master, they often sum him up with a single word, le (joy); in the Shijing (Classic of Poetry), when people are described—as in “There is a bending tree in the south,” “On the southern hill there is a terrace,” “How joyful is the noble”—le likewise appears again and again.

The “xiaoyao you” spoken of here is the same thing as that le in the Shi and the Lunyu.

The whole Zhuangzi opens by settling on le / xiaoyao; from that you can grasp what Zhuangzi holds in his heart.

If you can taste a little flavor here, reading “Fuyi” in the Shijing becomes easier to enter.

“Fuyi” expresses inner gladness without even using the word le—that is a high point of poetic craft, like adding another story above a seven-tier pagoda: the meaning rises one level further.

In the Northern Sea there lives a fish called Kun. Kun is so vast that no one knows whether it measures thousands of li; when it transforms, it becomes a bird called Peng. Peng’s back is so broad that no one knows whether it spans thousands of li. When it beats its wings and soars, they are like clouds hanging at the edge of the sky. Whenever the sea surges with the tide, this bird sets out for the Southern Sea—the Southern Sea being the great pool formed by nature itself.

Qie Xie is a book of marvels and strange tales. It says that when Peng journeys to the Southern Sea, it strikes the water for three thousand li, rides a whirlwind and spirals upward ninety thousand li, and must fly for six months before it can rest once. Drifting mist and floating dust in the air are all things moved by one another through breath and qi. Is the deep blue of the sky its true color—or is it only that distance is so great that the eye cannot see to the end? Looking down from that height, Peng would see the world much as we do from the ground.

Again: if water is not piled deep enough, it cannot float a large boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow on the hall floor, and a blade of grass can serve as a boat; place a cup on the water and it sticks fast—because the water is shallow and the vessel too large. If wind is not gathered thick enough, it cannot lift great wings. So when Peng rises ninety thousand li, the wind lies beneath it; only then can it ride that force, bear the azure sky on its back, meet no obstruction, and set its course toward the south.

The cicada and the little dove laugh at this: “We leap up and reach an elm or a sandalwood tree and stop; sometimes we don’t even get that far and simply drop to the ground. Why go ninety thousand li up and then fly south?”

This passage describes the vast, boundless joy in the chest, but uses a metaphor to make the point: the range of human sight is too small, which is why people quarrel over the clamor of worldly affairs. If one knew that beyond heaven and earth there is a world this vast, and turned to look at oneself, even “a grain of rice in the Grand Storehouse” would not suffice to express one’s tininess—Dai Jinren’s phrase “snail-horn battles of the barbarian and the toucher” means the same thing.

“North” refers to the Northern Sea. The names Kun and Peng are also allegorical; if one forcibly fits them to yin-yang and the like, the labels are strained. A bird must fly by borrowing qi (vital energy); the word “nu” (surge) in the next line is used in a very unusual way. “Hai yun” (sea movement) means the sea in motion; folk songs on the coast still say “the sea moves in the sixth month”—when the sea moves, a great wind must rise, water surges from the seabed, and the sound carries for miles. The point is that only with such a wind can the Peng fly south. “South” is also a sea; Zhuangzi glosses it again as “Heavenly Pool.”

“Qi Xie” is a book title; what it records is mostly strange and extraordinary, like the Classic of Mountains and Seas in its wonder. The book may never have existed; Zhuangzi both composed this account and cited the book to corroborate it—again his love of “staging a play.”

“Tuan” means wheeling in flight; “fuyao” is the force of wind; “three thousand” and “ninety thousand” both describe height and distance. “Qu yi liu yue xi” means this bird’s comings and goings require a full half-year of rest before it can move again.

The three lines on “wild horses” and “dust” are among the strangest in his prose; if read strictly in sequence, much does not connect. “Wild horses” are drifting filaments—that is, water vapor; Du Fu has “fallen flowers, drifting filaments, the white day still.” The meaning: where do these wild horses and dust come from? All living things in the world blow one another with breath, so such sights appear in empty space. These three lines were meant to set up the next sentence but are laid down here first: a person looking up at the sky sees it blue—is that the sky’s true color? Only because sight reaches upward without limit, one sees a haze. When the Peng has flown to the sky and looks down at the human realm, who knows how many thousands of miles separate them; below, those breaths blowing one another like wild horses and dust must also appear as a haze, just as people below look up at the sky. These lines only describe how high the Peng flies; if old interpretations make the Peng large and the wild horses and dust small, the link to the prior lines breaks and the tie to what follows is lost—the odd force of his brushwork is lost.

“Shui zhi ji ye bu hou” sets up a comparison for the next talk of wind. “Ao tang” is a low dip in the hall; if water is too shallow, it can only float a stalk of grass; put a cup or bowl in it and it sticks and will not move (“jiao” read like jiao, meaning stuck fast). The Peng is in the sky; nine thousand miles below, wind rises from valleys and streams, then billows everywhere across the four seas; the Peng is above, the wind below. “Pei” means thick; only wind nine thousand miles deep counts as thick wind; wind this thick can bear the Peng’s wings. “Bei fu qing tian” means flying so high. “Mo zhi yao e” means without obstruction. “Tu nan” means planning to migrate south from the Northern Sea; “tu” is to plan.

“Tiao” is the cicada; “xue jiu” is a small dove learning to fly (“xue” or “xue,” pronounced yu, also a small bird—the two characters can interchange). “Jue qi” is to burst upward in flight; “qiang” is to dart. Bursting upward, it reaches only above the elm and sand pear—barely a zhang or so—and sometimes not even that, then falls back to earth—“kong” is to cast down, to drop. The meaning: what I fly is no more than this, and sometimes I cannot even do that; yet it would borrow a wind of ninety thousand miles to migrate south to the Heavenly Pool. “Xi yi” is the same as “xi yong”; shallow people’s measure is small, and they do not know how large the world is.

If you go play in the nearby meadows, three meals are enough for a round trip the same day, and you still feel full. To travel a hundred li, you must pound grain ahead of time and stay overnight; to travel a thousand li, you need three months to gather enough food for the road.

Huigu (a summer cicada with a very short lifespan) and chihue (a small bird—the “two creatures” in the text often refer to such small insects and birds)—what could they understand?

Small understanding (narrow vision and limited knowledge) cannot match great understanding (far-reaching vision and broad knowledge); a small year (a short lifespan) cannot match a great year (a long lifespan). Why say so?

Morning mushrooms (fungi that sprout at dawn and die by evening) do not know what “dark of the month” and “new moon” mean—the alternation of night and day through a whole month; huigu do not know what “spring” and “autumn” mean—the cycle of cold and warmth through a whole year. That is what a “small year” is.

South of Chu there is a tree called Mingling (a legendary tree of immense longevity): it takes five hundred years for one spring and five hundred years for one autumn. In antiquity there was also the Great Chun (a huge chun tree): eight thousand years for one spring and eight thousand for one autumn.

As for Peng Zu (a figure said to have lived more than eight hundred years), among people today he is already famous as one who lived “exceptionally long”; yet ordinary people still compare their own lifespan to his—is that not pitiful?

Main idea: How much food you carry for a journey depends on how far you go; small insects and birds live briefly and range narrowly, so they cannot grasp a “great year” or “great understanding.” The text stacks morning mushrooms, huigu, Mingling, Great Chun, and Peng Zu in contrast to say: do not use your own span of time and your own narrow view to measure all of heaven and earth and the Dao.

Mangcang means a broad stretch of land you can take in at a glance—hazy, almost indistinct. To go there and back takes no more than three meals; you are still guo (full)—satiated, the food not yet digested—so the journey is very short.

To travel a hundred li, you must pound grain overnight and set out prepared; three meals alone will not suffice.

To travel a thousand li, you need three months to gather provisions.

These three levels compare how far one walks and how much food one needs with how narrow or wide one’s view is and how near or far one’s aims reach. They also set up the contrast between the great peng (roc) and the tiao (cicada) and jiu (turtledove): those “two insects” cannot grasp the peng’s perspective—hence “small knowledge cannot match great knowledge; a short nian (year/lifespan) cannot match a long nian.” Those lines close the peng-and-bird parable above and lead into the next passage on short and long nian.

The text then takes zhaojun (morning fungus; commentaries also call it riji, a fungus on dung that sprouts at dawn and withers in the sun). It knows only morning and evening within a single day—how could it know hui (the last day of the month) and shuo (the first)?

Huigu is a kind of cicada; some live spring to summer, others summer to autumn, without seeing all four seasons—a “small nian.”

Penjun (commentaries read “Fangling,” treated as a fable name) and Dachun are also tree names in the story; no need to identify them historically. In the parable, Penjun counts one year only after a thousand years; Dachun counts one year only after sixteen thousand years. Peng Zu lived eight hundred years—among mortals that counts as extreme longevity, envied yet impossible to imitate. Again the small is measured against the large: short life is mistaken for long life, and the greater nian is unseen. Pi here means to emulate or measure oneself against.

This passage uses the famous story of Kun and Peng from the Zhuangzi to add another illustration to the argument in the preceding section.

Tradition says that Cheng Tang, the founding ruler of the Shang, once sought instruction from a man named Ji—and what he asked about was precisely the matter described below. In the commentator’s reading, shi yi (“on this basis”) means “speaking from this point,” and Tang’s question to Ji serves as the opening frame for the whole passage.

In qiongfa—the far north where nothing grows, not even an inch of grass—there is a great sea to the north, and in the sea a celestial pool. In that pool lives a fish whose body spans thousands of li; no one can say how long it is. Its name is Kun. There is also a bird named Peng, whose back is like Mount Tai and whose wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. Riding the fuyao (violent upward surge of qi) and the yangjiao (the spiraling, bending force within a whirlwind), it ascends ninety thousand li, pierces through the clouds, bears the blue sky on its back, and only then plans to fly south toward the Southern Sea.

A yan (a small bird) in a chize (tiny pond) mocks it: “Where on earth are you flying? I leap up and fall again after only a few ren—flying among mugwort and wormwood, that is already flying well enough for me. Why must you go somewhere else?” This is the difference between small and great.

The commentary also glosses terms one by one: qiongfa means barren land where nothing grows; fuyao and yangjiao both describe the force of wind; tuan means to wheel and soar; jue yunqi indicates that at ninety thousand li there is no cloud left—some say that above the summit of Mount Tai the clouds lie below, thunder sounding like an infant’s cry, and people today likewise say clouds exist only halfway up the sky, which follows the same logic. Tu nan means to plan and intend migration southward, then onward to the Southern Sea. The yan of chize is the little bird of a small marsh; fei zhi zhi means: flying thus among mugwort and wormwood, I am already as happy as one can be in flight—why fly far? The point matches the previous section: both use the outlook of the small to ridicule the ambition of the great, highlighting the gap between levels of vision.

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi chapter “Free and Easy Wandering” (Xiaoyao You). It describes how people at different levels regard “large and small” and “freedom”—each stratum higher than the last—until it arrives at the states of the Perfect Person, the Divine Person, and the Sage.

First level: those whose talent and virtue suffice for one office, one village, or one state

Those whose intelligence is enough for a single post, whose virtue is enough to set an example in one locality, whose ability is enough to assist one ruler and govern one country—they often look at their own achievements the way the little sparrow looked at the great peng: they feel they are already “big enough,” and their horizon stops at this level.

Song Rongzi: unmoved by praise and blame, but still not “without dependence”

Song Rongzi (a Warring States scholar of Song who taught about honor and disgrace) would laugh at this. Even if the whole world praised him, he would not try harder; even if the whole world reviled him, he would not sink lower. He could distinguish “inner” (one’s own proper role) from “outer” (external judgment), and draw a clear line between honor and disgrace—and with that he was content. In the world he did not rush to chase fame and profit.

Yet Zhuangzi says: even so, there is still a “root” that has not been established—meaning freedom that truly does not rely on external things has not yet been reached.

Liezi: riding the wind, yet still “having something to depend on”

Liezi could ride the wind, light and at ease, and return only after fifteen days. He also did not hotly pursue “seeking fortune, seeking gain,” and the like.

But Zhuangzi says: though he no longer needed to walk, he still had to depend on “wind”—when the wind stopped he could not fly. This is what is called you suo dai (“still having something to wait on or depend on”).

The highest level: mounting the correctness of Heaven and Earth, steering the changes of the six qi, wandering in the infinite

As for those who accord with the inherent rightness of Heaven and Earth, ride and guide the transformations of the six qi (yin, yang, wind, rain, dark, and light), and roam freely in boundless space and time—what would they still need to depend on?

So the Zhuangzi concludes:

• The Perfect Person (zhi ren): has no fixed “self”
• The Divine Person (shen ren): does not display merit
• The Sage (sheng ren): does not chase reputation

These three lines mean: true xiaoyao (free wandering) is not about who can hold office or who can ride the wind, but about no longer being bound by things outside, by praise and blame, or by fame—even a support like “wind” can be released.

Echoing the earlier “peng and little sparrow”

The little sparrow mocked the peng: “What’s the use of flying so high?” Those who hold office, govern a village, or rule a state often feel they are already “big enough.” Song Rongzi rises a step further: unmoved by honor and disgrace. Liezi rises again: he can ride the wind. But Zhuangzi holds that as long as there is still dependence (on wind, on name, on circumstance), none of this is the ultimate of xiaoyao you; only by wu dai—non-reliance—harmonizing with Heaven and Earth and wandering in the infinite does one approach the freedom spoken of in connection with the Perfect Person, the Divine Person, and the Sage.

Those who can fill an office, whose virtue makes them a model in one village, whose character suits a single ruler, or whose talent suffices to run a state—each of these relies on their own ability to get by, yet in their own eyes they are as small-sighted as the little bird (xuan yan).

Song Rongzi would only smile faintly when he saw such people. His way was this: whether the whole world blamed or praised him, he neither urged himself on nor felt downcast—he did not take external judgment to heart. In his view, those “capable people” in one village or one state were simply laughable.

Why could Song Rongzi be like this? Because he knew: the true mind is within, outer things are without, so he could separate inner from outer: what lies outside is honor and disgrace; the mind within knows no honor or disgrace. Once inner and outer are clear, one sees that honor and disgrace are all outer conditions. That is enough to say on the point—since he valued the inner mind and treated outer things lightly, how could he scurry anxiously after fame and gain like ordinary people?

Still, even Song Rongzi, for all this, had not yet truly found his footing or “established his house.” As for Liezi, he could ride the wind, travel in empty space for half a month and return; when he rode the wind he was light and drifting, a picture of that kind of carefree ease. “Lingran” means drifting lightly; “shan” means fine and beautiful. Because he could ride the wind, he also looked down on those who cultivated body and sought blessing for fear of falling short—not because he chased after things like others.

Ordinary people walk on the ground; Liezi moved in the wind. That spared him the labor of walking, but without wind he could not go, so he still depended on something.

As for following the right pattern of Heaven and Earth, steering the six qi—Yin-Yang, wind and rain, light and dark—and roaming from the time before things had yet arisen, without end—that is dependence on nothing. That is the gap between having traces and having none: when there are no traces, one is called a perfected person (zhiren), a spirit person (shenren), or a sage (shengren).

The closing “no self, no merit, no name” all speak of being without traces; the three lines that follow are praise repeated, then praise again.

Story of the Passage

Yao wanted to yield the realm to Xu You and said: The sun and moon are already shining—why still light torches and compete with their brightness? That would be wasted effort. The timely rain has already fallen—why still carry a jar to pour water on the fields? Compared with heaven’s own soaking, that would be pointless. With you in place the realm would be at peace, yet I still occupy the Son of Heaven’s seat; I see myself as lacking in De and unworthy. Please take the realm.

Xu You said: You have already brought the realm to good order; it is well governed. If I were to replace you, would I be doing it for reputation? Reputation is the guest of reality—like a visitor who depends on the host. Would I want to be that “guest”? The wren builds its nest in the deep forest and needs only one branch; the mole at the riverbank drinks until its belly is full and stops. Go back and rest, my lord—the realm is of no use to me. Even if the cook does not personally handle the kitchen, the presiding officer and the invoker at the sacrifice do not step over the altar and the meat block to butcher and cook in the cook’s place.

Commentary (Kouyi)

Juohuo (torch): A torch or firebrand. Once sun and moon give enough light, raising a torch means contending with them—Yao’s image for thinking Xu You has greater De while he himself no longer belongs in the Son of Heaven’s place.

Jinguan (pouring from a jar): Carrying a jar to water the fields. When the season’s rain is already enough, manual watering is labor without gain—the same figure for why one should not keep occupying the “chief seat.”

Shi (presiding role): Here means the one who holds the office and sits in the position—not the ritual “corpse” figure in sacrificial rites. Yao means he still occupies the Son of Heaven’s seat.

Zhi tianxia (handing over the realm): Entrusting governance of the realm to you, putting it under your charge.

Ming zhe shi zhi bin (name is guest of reality): Reputation comes from outside; it is what others grant. Reality is what is fundamental. Reputation is like the guest, reality like the host. Xu You says he will not trade his inner “reality” (a self-sufficient life) for external “reputation.”

Jiaoliao and yan shu (wren and mole): Xu You’s self-comparison. The wren needs one twig; the mole (yan shu, the ground-dwelling rodent) needs only a bellyful of water—little is enough.

Gui xiu hu jun (go back and rest, lord): Please return and rest; there is no need to seek me again.

Pao yu shi zhu (cook and presiding invoker): The cook handles cooking; the presiding officer and invoker handle sacrificial protocol—each keeps his role. Xu You says he will not give up the ease he enjoys to take the Son of Heaven’s place for Yao, just as the presiding invoker does not step over the sacrificial vessels to butcher and cook for the cook—he will not “overstep the altar and take the cook’s knife” by accepting the realm.

Jianwu said to Lian Shu: I heard something from Jie Yu that was grand in scope yet never touched ground—it only pressed forward and never looked back. I was frightened by it. Those words were like the Milky Way, with no end in sight, utterly beyond ordinary human sense, not like what people usually say.

Lian Shu asked: What exactly did he say?

Jianwu said: On Mount Miaoguye there lives a spirit being. His skin is bright as ice and snow, his bearing graceful and delicate as a maiden’s. He eats no grain, only inhales wind and drinks dew, rides the clouds and drives flying dragons, and roams beyond the four seas. His spirit is gathered and concentrated, so that the myriad things suffer no harm and the five grains ripen. I took this for mad talk and did not believe it.

Lian Shu said: Of course. The blind cannot join in appreciating pattern and color; the deaf cannot join in hearing bells and drums. Is it only the body that can be deaf or blind? The mind can be too. Jie Yu’s words are not something a person like you can grasp. The virtue of such a person is to spread broadly above the myriad things and let the age find its own order—how would he, like a harried man, take governing the world as his own burden? Outer things cannot harm him; when great floods reach the sky he will not drown, and in drought so fierce that metal and stone melt and hills of earth scorch, he will not be burned. Even the crumbs and chaff left over from such a person would be enough to mold and cast the achievements of Yao and Shun—how would he treat worldly affairs as real?

(Comment) Jianwu and Lian Shu may not be real persons; both are allegorical figures, and one need not force moral meaning from their names. A line or two in the middle can be explained, but the whole is not entirely of that sort.

“Wudang” means having no fixed referent; “wang er bu fan” means big talk that only goes forward and never turns back to the concrete.

“Hehan” is the River of Heaven; “hehan wuji” means the River of Heaven in the sky, with no known beginning or end. “Jingting” (same sound as “jingting”) simply indicates a realm far removed. “Dayou” means “very much so.” Saying it is not close to human feeling means it is not the kind of speech common in the world.

“Miaoguye” is a mountain name. “Bingxue” means pure and bright. What is cultivated is pure Yang qi, hidden and unmoving, hence like ice and snow congealed; among Daoists today who practice breath cultivation, some can achieve a little of this. “Chuoyue” means soft and lovely; “chuzi” is a maiden. The four lines beginning “does not eat the five grains” describe his marvel: spirit concentrated, wherever he dwells the hundred things naturally have no blemish or plague, and the year’s grain ripens of itself.

Jie Yu’s words are just this. “Kuang” is the same as “kuang”—Jianwu thought it was deception and could not be believed.

“Yue ran” means: it is naturally so; that you doubt and disbelieve is understandable.

“Pattern and color to behold, bells and drums to hear”—the crowd can see and hear; the blind and deaf have nothing to do with this—that is illness of the body. Is it only the body? There is this illness in the mind too—lack of insight, like deafness and blindness—so such words are not understood and are taken for lies. In “shi nǚ,” “shi” is “this,” and “nǚ” is the same as “ru” (you): such words are not for a person like you to understand—not referring to the maiden.

The virtue of such a person is to move freely above the myriad things while the world settles itself—how would he busily take governing the world as his own task? “Qi” is the same as “qi” (to pray); “luan” here means “zhi” (to govern)—to let the people of the age seek order for themselves, while I only practice Wuwei (non-action) and they govern themselves; why exhaust myself? “Bibi” means wearing oneself out.

“Nothing of the outer world can harm him”: outer things cannot shake his inner mind. “Ji” is utmost; when water is so great it reaches heaven, this person will not drown; when drought melts metal and stone and scorches earthen hills, he will not be burned—describing one who is at ease wherever he goes.

“Dust, dirt, chaff, and husks” mean what is left over, the remainder; to say that even the leftover traces of such a person suffice to mold Yao and Shun’s enterprise means he would not take worldly things to heart. “Wu” means things; “wei shi” means to engage in or be burdened by affairs. “Taozhu” means to shape and cast.

From this one line comes what Guo Xiang calls the “unorthodox” strain. But the author’s aim is to belittle worldly Confucians, so the language sometimes goes too far and cannot be judged strictly by it. When Li Bai wrote that “the deeds of Yao and Shun are nothing to marvel at, nothing compares to the purity of Bo Yi and Shu Qi,” it is the same kind of move.

A Song Merchant Sells Ceremonial Caps in Yue

A man from Song traveled to Yue to sell zhangfu—ceremonial caps worn in ancient ritual dress. The people of Yue were accustomed to cropped hair and tattooed bodies; such headgear was useless to them. Since they did not wear their hair long, they neither wore crowns nor dressed in the Central Plains style of cap and robe. The Song merchant nevertheless brought his caps as merchandise to sell, and naturally found no buyers. One cannot force a parallel from a story like this. Li Bai wrote that the deeds of Yao and Shun are hardly worth marveling at compared with the lofty purity of Boyi and Shuqi—the same kind of point: value depends on context; it cannot be imposed regardless of setting.

There was simply no market in Yue for selling ceremonial caps. Zhuangzi’s remark means that the realm he speaks of is vast and wide, while most people in the world have narrow vision—what use would such words be to them? The point is: the times are what they are; it is not worth explaining these matters at length to the crowd.

Yao Meets the Four Sages and “Forgets” the Empire

This chapter likewise says: only when your view grows wide do you realize how narrow you were before. Yao had governed the realm and brought peace within the seas—a pinnacle of good government praised by the ancients. Yet when he went south of the Fen River and on Mount Miaogushe met four lofty men, he became yaoran and “lost” his empire—as if he had forgotten it entirely. If even Yao could be so unsettled, what of ordinary people? Yaoran suggests emptiness, vagueness, a dazed forgetting.

The four sages are unnamed; some identify them as Xu You, Nie Que, Wang Ni, and Piyi. Others cite the Classic of Mountains and Seas, placing Miaogushe beyond the encircling sea and Fenyang as Yao’s capital—so meeting the spirits of Miaogushe near the capital is really describing the inner realm Yao touched. Later commentators who layered schemes such as “one root, two traces, three neither root nor trace, four neither-nor root and trace” only piled obscurity upon obscurity. They missed that Zhuangzi deliberately speaks in fangtouhua— roundabout, teasing language meant to make the reader ponder. Those who insist on literal names and geography fall into the trap he set; they are not fit to read Zhuangzi. The whole passage is allegory: people are often trapped in the corner of what they alone can see, yet do not know where they are lost; only with great vision can one break through one’s own fixations.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi: The king of Wei gave me a seed for a huge gourd. I planted it and the fruit could hold five shi. Used as a water vessel, the gourd was too hard and heavy to lift; split open as a dipper, it was too shallow and wide to hold much. It was not that it was not big—I felt it was useless and smashed it.

Zhuangzi said: You really do not know how to use “big.” In Song there was someone skilled at making a salve that kept hands from chapping. His family for generations washed cotton wadding for others for a living. A traveler heard of this and offered a hundred in gold for the recipe. The family met to discuss: we have washed wadding for generations and never gotten more than a few in gold; now we can sell the art once for a hundred—sell it to him. The traveler got the recipe and went to persuade the king of Wu. When Yue invaded, the king of Wu put him in command. In winter they fought Yue on the water and routed them, and he was rewarded with a fief. The same salve that prevents chapping—one man used it to win land, another washed wadding all his life. The difference is how you use it. You had a five-shi gourd—why not tie it at your waist as a great floating flask on rivers and lakes, instead of fretting that it was too shallow to hold things? Your mind is still stopped up like straw—you cannot turn the corner.

Extra glosses from the notes (to read the classical lines):

• Hu (gourd); piao is a ladle made from half a gourd shell. Hu luo describes a gourd split open—shallow and capacious. Pou means to smash or break apart.
• Shi wu shi: the fruit (or its capacity) equals five shi. Jian means the gourd was hard and heavy, hence “could not lift it by itself.”
• Bu cun shou: a drug so hands do not chap in winter. Ping pi ji: ping pi is rinsing; ji is cotton wadding—making a living washing others’ wadding.
• Zun: a wine flask that floats on water; tied at the waist it can ferry you—hence the saying that in midstream a single flask may be worth a thousand in gold.
• He bu lü yi wei da zun: lü is to consider, to think—why not consider using it as a great floating vessel?
• Peng xin: a heart plugged like peng grass—blocked thinking that only knows small calculations.

The whole passage, like the “non-chapping salve” contrast later, means: the thing is not useless—the person only knows small uses and cannot see the large one—seeing the small and unable to use the big.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi: I have a large tree that people call a chun—a species with coarse, loose wood that never quite makes good timber. The trunk is swollen and knobby; if you tried to measure it with inked string or compass, it would not fit any carpenter’s standard. The smaller branches twist and turn so much you could not mark a square or circle on them. If you stood it by the road, a carpenter would not even glance at it. The doctrines you preach now are vast and empty, like this tree in being “useless,” and people likewise despise them and turn away from you.

Zhuangzi said: Have you never seen a wildcat (also written lixing, a small fierce beast)? It crouches low and waits for prey, then darts east and west, up and down, heedless of height or depth—until it often steps into a trigger or snare and dies in a net. Now consider the great ox: its body is as massive as a cloud hanging from the sky—that is true “greatness”—yet it cannot catch mice. Today you possess this great tree yet worry that it has no use. Why not plant it in the “Land of Nothing Whatever”—that boundless realm of nonbeing—and in the Vast Wild of Nowhere, that measureless plain? You could wander freely beside it and lie at ease beneath it, napping in idleness. No axe would ever cut it down, and nothing would harm it. Since it is “useless” for ordinary purposes, whence would distress come?

Brief background: This exchange comes from Zhuangzi-related literature. Using the metaphor of a “useless” giant tree, it answers Huizi’s worldly standard of useful versus useless. Zhuangzi turns “great yet useless” into preservation and free wandering in the “Land of Nothing Whatever”—a familiar theme in Zhuangzi: the usefulness of uselessness.

On the passage about the chu tree (in reply to Huizi)

“Chu” is the name of a tree considered “no good.” “Great trunk” refers to a thick, massive bole. “Gnarl and swell” describes a twisted, knotty trunk, like goiter on the neck. Saying it “fits neither plumb line nor square” means it fails as lumber—it serves no use. Planting it “on the road” means putting it beside the path. Huizi joked with this tree as a metaphor for Zhuangzi’s “big talk,” which seems useless.

Raccoon-dogs, a kind of small cat-like beast, foxes, and the like are good at catching rats. “Roaming” means hunting freely, darting up and down. They watch for prey and strike when it appears; when they leap about, high or low, they do not hide. Though small, they seem fierce and unruly. Once they spring a trap or net, they lose their lives. “Bi” and “fa” here can mean traps and snares; “jibi” means mechanisms and devices.

“Liao ox” refers to the yak, huge in body yet unable to catch mice like raccoon-dogs or foxes. The point is that things in the world differ in size and each has its own use; you cannot treat everything large as useless simply because it is big.

“The Land of Nothing Whatever” and “the Vast Wilds” mean that within nature’s transformation and the utmost Dao there is a place where one can dwell at ease and find joy. Toiling in human affairs (“yiyi”), fortune brings misfortune; if one can soar high and far and find joy in the Dao, though of little “use” in worldly terms, harm often does not reach one. This resembles what later people called “no blade or saw applied, no heed of order or chaos”—not subject to punishment, nor disturbed by governance or turmoil. Hence “neither felled by axe nor harmed by things—whence would distress come?”: not cut by axe, not injured by outer things, distress has nowhere to arise.

Huizi asks and Zhuangzi answers, like the “riddles” later writers speak of: first a sharp exchange, then later people spin many words from it, but the root lies in this single question and answer.

Opening of “Inner Chapter: Discourse on Equalizing Things, Second”

“Discourse on things” means the various opinions people hold about “things” (right and wrong, principles); “equalizing” means making them one, blending many different views into unity. In the Warring States period schools differed and attacked one another; Zhuangzi held that one need not cling to either pole of right and wrong, forget both, and return to the natural—this is the intent of the title “Equalizing Assessments of Things.”

What follows—“heavenly pipes, earthly pipes, human pipes”—starts from “sound” as a comparison.

Nan Guo Ziqi leaned on his armrest and sat, breathed upward toward heaven, his breath like something withered (“gao”), his expression as if he had lost his “ou” (his conversational partner or paired counterpart—here, spirit detached from form, one with things). Yan Cheng Ziyou stood beside him—(the original text then turns to the main body of the Equalizing Things discourse, where Ziqi shows the “three pipes” and “I have lost me,” and so on; the oral gloss begins here, in one line with “forgetting both and returning to the natural” above.)

Scriptural text

Nan Guo Ziqi leaned on a table, face turned upward, breathing out softly, looking as if he had lost his companion. Yan Cheng Ziyou stood before him in attendance and asked: What is the matter? Can the body be like withered wood and the heart like dead ashes? The man leaning on the table today is not the same man who leaned on it before.

Ziqi said: Yan (Ziyou), you ask well. At this moment I have “lost my self”—do you understand?

Oral explication

“Yin ji” means sitting with support on a table. “Yongran” is a careless, unconstrained air. “Sang qi ou” means: ordinarily people oppose “self” and “things”; when that thought is let go, it is called losing the pair. Like withered wood is having no impulse to grow; like dead ashes is the mind not stirring into discrimination. When Ziqi says “the one who sits leaning on the table today is not the one who did so in the past,” he means: the person sitting thus today is no longer the Ziqi of old who still lived inside the split between “self” and “things.”

“Do you understand?” asks whether you grasp this principle.

The three words “I have lost my self” are crucial: he does not say “I lost me” but “I have lost my self,” because as long as the slightest private mind is not fully cleared, “I” and “self” still stand apart. Master Dongshan said, “That one is no longer me; I am exactly that one now”—that is the pivot of this teaching: subject and object both extinguished, not a merely verbal “no-self.”

Scriptural text continued

You have heard the “pipes of men,” but not the “pipes of earth”; you have heard the “pipes of earth,” but not the “pipe of Heaven.”

Ziyou said: May I ask what each is?

Ziqi said: Taken as a whole, the great earth is qi; when it gathers and blows, that is called wind. Only when the wind does not rise is everything still; when the wind rises, myriads of hollows clamor. Have you not heard the “liuliu” sound in mountain forests? The holes in a tree trunk a hundred arm-spans around are sometimes like nose, mouth, ear, bracket arm, ring, or mortar—some deep, some shallow. Some cry sharply, some rush back, some shout, some inhale, some wail long, some howl, some are deep, some bite; some lead with “yu,” some answer with “yong.” A small wind brings small harmony, a great wind great harmony; when the fierce wind passes, the hollows return to emptiness. Have you not seen how they go “diaodiao” and “diaodiao”?

Brief notes

• Renlai (pipes of men): bamboo tubes and the like—sound only when a person blows them.
• Dilai (pipes of earth): hollows in earth and trees— they cry when wind passes.
• Tianlai (pipe of Heaven): in this passage Ziqi wants Ziyou to ascend from renlai and dilai—wind is inherently without sound, hollows inherently empty, roaring all arises from “making”; to awaken to this is to approach tianlai (commentaries differ on this layer; oral teaching often links it to the line of “do not listen with the ear, listen with the mind” after “losing the self”).
• Weijia: often glossed as deep, winding corners of mountain forest.
• Ji: in architecture, the square timber that bears a beam; here a metaphor for the shape of a tree hole.

Plain-Language Commentary

Nan Guo Ziqi, through a question from Ziyou, saw that his companion also had the insight to grasp the Way, and wanted to lead him with the idea of the “Heavenly Sound” (tianlai). So he opened with this challenge: what, after all, is this “Way” really about?

“Great clod” (dakuai) means heaven and earth. Why is there wind between heaven and earth? It is like a person exhaling. The text stresses “only when there is no acting”—when nothing stirs, all is still; once something stirs, the whole world fills with the roaring of ten thousand openings. Those openings are the holes in every kind of tree; liuliu is the sound of a long wind; weijia (near in sound to “weijia”) is how the forest looks when the wind moves it. “A hundred arm-spans” describes a very thick trunk—two arms encircling the tree count as one “span.” The line above says “the whole world is full of it”; below, the text focuses on the ten thousand openings and takes one great tree as the example—the rest you can infer. That is how the chapter is written.

The holes in a large tree take many shapes: some like a mortise (ji), some round like a cup rim (quan), some cupped and hollow, some sunk low—all describing the outward form of the openings. From “ji” through “yao,” the text names the different sounds from the holes: the “yu” tone is light, the “yong” tone heavy—the wind that reaches first sounds like “yu”; what follows sounds like “yong,” light and heavy answering each other. A gentle breeze (lingfeng) is a small wind, and the answering sound is small; a driving wind (piaofeng) is strong, and the answering sound is large. Fierce wind (lifeng) is violent wind; “ji” means to stop. When the wind ceases, the sounds that had been in the myriad openings are no longer heard, so the text speaks of “emptiness” (xu).

Tiaotiao and diaodiao both describe trees swaying in the wind. The earlier “have you alone not heard” and the later “have you alone not seen”—this stretch of text locks together in front and back; that is where the passage holds together.

“And you”—the excellence of Zhuangzi’s prose is everywhere, but this passage is the finest of the fine; in the whole Zhuangzi it can rank first. Not only in Zhuangzi—among writers ancient and modern it is hard to find another passage like it. Poetry is said to be painting with sound, meaning it renders what is hard to depict; who has ever painted sound? From “ji” through “yao” are eight characters for eight kinds of sound; “yu” and “yong” are again answering tones. Wind in heaven and earth is formless and invisible, sound is heard but not seen—yet on the page it is painted. Unless it were the old immortal of Nanhua (Zhuangzi), who could wield such a brush? Every time I read this far, I almost forget myself for joy.

On the surface this section only discusses earthly sounds (dilai)—the natural voices of the great earth and the holes in trees—yet it naturally leads toward the Heavenly Sound (tianlai) later; that is the momentum of the writing. Some may say earthly sounds and natural voices count as Heavenly Sound too—in principle that can be argued, since wind always comes from creation; where else could it come from? But following the thread of the chapter, here the text still treats earthly sounds first, so the reader can see the backbone and main theme of the whole discourse.

In the passage where Ziyou asks about “heaven’s wind” (tianlai), Ziyou says: earth’s wind is the sound of various holes and openings; human wind is the sound of bamboo tubes and similar instruments. He then asks: what, then, is heaven’s wind?

The commentator explains: here “human wind” is compared to bamboo tubes, sheng pipes, reeds, and the like—only as one example. Human wind is not limited to bamboo, metal, stone, silk, or gourd instruments; any sound people make counts. The text just picks one kind to illustrate. When the text treats earth’s wind at length and heaven’s wind later, it often passes over human wind in a line or two—that too is Zhuangzi’s style. Reading Zhuangzi means tracking such turns in the argument; only then do you find a way in.

Ziji’s answer: “blowing the myriad things” (chui wan)

“Blowing the myriad things” means each thing in the ten thousand kinds gives its own sound. The point is: wherever the myriad things have sound, it is the “Creator” (zaowu) that blows; what blows is the Creator, yet each note seems to come from the thing itself. Both “blow” and “make” belong on the Creator’s side; “self-taking” (zi qu) is each thing drawing from itself and issuing sound; “each alike self-taking” (xian qi zi qu) means every thing thinks the power is its own, not knowing that one qi stirs them—who, in the end, is doing the making? Qi rises inward and becomes speech; the word “surge” (nu) here belongs with the “surge and fly” (nu er fei) of the opening peng passage—again the Creator’s work, not something humans accomplish alone.

“Great understanding is leisurely… petty words chatter on”

Great understanding (da zhi): people of the highest wisdom—“leisurely, at ease” (xian xian) means unhurried and settled, not cramped. Petty understanding (xiao zhi): people who fuss over small calculations—“narrow, calculating” (jian jian) means weighing every grain, splitting hairs on every matter.

Great words (da yan): speech with large scope and bearing, like flame with light and heat—the commentator reads Zhuangzi’s line as covering the big public discourse of figures such as Yi Yin, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, and Mencius: setting the large pattern and discussing the realm under Heaven.

Petty words (xiao yan): narrow views—“chattering” (zhan zhan) is looking before and after, talking this way and that—the commentator says the fine-spun doctrines of the hundred schools and idle market talk can also fall under this line.

These four lines sum up two kinds of people in the world: one kind uses insight into principle to guard and order practical achievement (governing real work with the great Dao); the other kind uses doctrinal talk to guard academic dispute (spinning in the clash of doctrines and school rivalry).

After the preceding four lines, the text turns to the human body for illustration. What is meant by “in sleep the hun soul commingles” (mei ye hun jiao) is that at night one’s spirit gathers in the heart-mind. What is meant by “in waking the form opens” (jue ye xing kai) is that by day the four limbs are all in motion. These two lines apply alike from emperors down to common people. Inwardly aligning with this and outwardly meeting it is called “connecting” (jie)—when a person sleeps peacefully at night and after dawn engages in encounters and exchanges, there is responsiveness in that meeting; the inner mind is driven like soldiers in battle, day after day. Hence it is said “joining connection as structure, daily using the heart-mind to struggle” (yu jie wei gou, ri yi xin dou). What Mencius said—“what one does from morning to evening, something fetters and makes it slip away” (dan zhou zhi suo wei, you gu wang zhi zhe)—states the matter plainly, yet Zhuangzi writes it in this style so that the spirit is magnified a hundredfold and the warning to the heart is especially sharp. Much of what later Chan teachers said comes down to much the same point.

“Man” (man, dragging), “pit” (jiao, trap), and “secret” (mi, tight): “small fear is timid and anxious” (xiao kong zhui zhui), “great fear is loose and diffuse” (da kong man man). “Man” refers to people who act in a dragging, sluggish way; another kind opens the mouth to speak and at once sets snares and schemes, hence “pit”; another kind calculates before and after with precision, leaving no gap, hence “secret.” All of these describe people in the world who cope with outer things and manipulate their minds, yet none are at ease—each carries worry, suffering, and fear in the heart. This is what “the petty person is long anxious” (xiao ren chang qi qi) means. Confucius meant that petty people are often full of sorrow; Zhuangzi’s point is that Yao, Shun, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius themselves are also described as anxious and sorrowful. When affairs are small one is timid and uneasy, hence “small fear is timid and anxious”; when affairs are great one broods deeply, as if something were lost or doubtful, hence “great fear is loose and diffuse.”

Plain-language reading

“Its release is like a trigger mechanism; what it means is that something governs and decides right and wrong”—when a person speaks, it is as if a crossbow’s trigger has been pulled; whatever rules and judges right and wrong is exactly this.

“Its lingering is like a sworn oath; what it means is the mind that must not lose”—that inner thought of “I cannot lose” is held as tightly as if one had sworn a curse-bound alliance with someone; this is what is meant by the heart that clings to victory.

“Its killing is like autumn and winter; it speaks of daily wearing away”—it is also like autumn and winter slaying the ten thousand things, a metaphor for how the heart is worn down day by day by worry and toil.

The three lines above are followed by different wording below, but the meaning is still metaphorical: once you are caught and sunk in external things, you cannot easily pull free again—hence “what drowning does” (ni zhi suo wei); the first zhi is a grammatical particle, the second zhi means “to go”; in “cannot make it return” (bu ke shi fu zhi), zhi again means “to go”—there is no way to haul it back.

Crushed and submerged by desire, like being bound tight with rope—often until old age it never comes undone—hence “old seepage” (lao xi): xi suggests falling into a deep ditch or mire. Such people’s bodies may still live, but the heart is as if dead—hence “near death” (jin si): there is no real vitality left in the chest. Yang here means the rising, life-giving yang qi—the heart is dead and will not revive.

All of this describes how ordinary people inwardly apply the mind. From “joy and anger” through the next twelve characters, the text turns to outward appearance: now pleased, now angry, now grieving, now delighted, now worried, now sighing—now hesitant and unable to decide (zhi is anxious doubt without movement), now seductive and flashy (yao), now reckless and loose (yi), now unrestrained (qi), now affected and play-acting (tai). The surface shows many forms, yet none of it is truly one’s own—like music arising from emptiness, like damp steaming up mushrooms—many kinds of people and many ugly postures all “grow” this way.

“They debate right and wrong, each with its own master, as if archers scheming to hit the bull’s-eye”—wrangling over right and wrong, each side holding to its own lord, like archers calculating how to strike the center. Hence “its release is like a trigger mechanism”: not a single word is idle; behind it is a si zhu—something that governs. The heart that must win stays unchanged inside, like a curse-oath alliance one refuses to break; worry and toil in the mind wear away day and month—that is self-torment. Things are born in spring and summer and killed in autumn and winter; the withered, killing season stands for “daily wearing away.”

Reading the Zhuangzi (Zhuangzi) calls for close attention: many kinds of people and many faults seem arranged by “the maker of things” (zao wu), as if “blowing on the ten thousand” (chui wan)—the ten thousand openings receiving the wind—blew them into being. But “maker of things” here does not mean a wholly natural process that ignores human beings; it means that if people cannot hold themselves by the Dao (Dao), they produce many ugly postures, as if ghosts and spirits were pushing from behind. Readers should keep that distinction clear.

The alternation of day and night unfolds before our eyes: it speaks of the coming and going of the Creator—the way of Heaven and Earth and nature itself—yet no one can say exactly where it first stirs. “Enough, enough” (yihu yihu), like our saying “let it be, let it be”: though the place of first stirring cannot be known, from morning to evening all we go through is simply “this”—and “this” means the Creator. That single word carries great weight and must not be passed over lightly.

In “without that, there is no me,” “that” (bi) picks up “this” (ci) from above: if there were no Creator, there would not be me as I am; yet what the Creator does must appear through the human body, hence “without me, nothing would be taken up.” Stated this way, it seems we are already close and have made things clear—but people still do not know what drives these phenomena, hence “this too is close, yet one does not know what makes it act.”

“True Lord” (Zhenzai) is the Creator. “As if there were one” means it seems there is something, yet one dare not assert it as something truly existent. “Connection” (lian) means the bud, the point of origin; “not finding its connection” means not knowing from where it sprouts. “What can be practiced” refers to the part of the Dao that can be seen and followed; “already trustworthy” means utterly real—the Creator’s activity truly is, yet its form cannot be seen, which is to say one does not know how it drives the ten thousand things. “Having reality” asserts that it exists; “without form” says its shape cannot be seen.

From “day and night succeeding each other” onward, the text keeps saying that the Creator’s activity is right before us yet people cannot see through it. The lines repeat and pile up, the tone urgent, the intent deep: it wants the reader to turn seriously inward and examine themselves at this very point.

Main idea of the original text

The whole person—baihai (all the bones), jiukou (the nine openings such as eyes, ears, nose, and mouth), liuzang (the six storehouses, the viscera such as heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys)—all come together and make up one living body. Among these parts, who should I be closest to? Do they each love only themselves? Are they like servants and concubines serving one another? Yet servants and concubines cannot truly govern each other. Do they take turns being lord and subject? Is there a true master hidden inside? Even if you chase after “who is the real lord,” whether you find an answer or not, for that “real” itself, is there any increase or decrease at all?

How the oral commentary (kouyi) explains it

“Baihai, jiukou, liuzang” means everything this body has. From here Zhuangzi pushes the argument one step further on the human body, in an especially striking way.

“Gai er cun yan” (assembled and thus existing): all parts are complete and present, existing as one whole.

“Wu shei yu wei qin” (who am I to be close to?): who alone do I treat as specially close? The word qin (close/intimate) is used with great depth—for example, when the hand is ill, the hand makes the whole body suffer; at that moment the hand seems the body’s “enemy.” The six roots—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—often work the same way.

“Ru jie yue zhi hu” (do you all delight in yourselves?): do these organs each rejoice in themselves? Do they each harbor self-interest and care only for themselves?

“Chenqie” (servant and concubine): on the body, who is noble and who is low? When the head itches you scratch with the hand—the hand is the head’s servant; when you go far you walk with the feet—the feet are the eyes’ servant. Those who are used are subject and concubine; those who use are lord. But that alone does not settle the issue.

“Bu zu yi xiang zhi” (not enough to govern one another): hands, feet, ears, eyes, nose, and tongue serve one another; none can by itself “run” the whole body well.

“Di xiang wei junchen” (in turn each other’s lord and subject): sometimes the hand should lead, sometimes the foot—so they take turns as lord and subject. Since among baihai, jiukou, and liuzang you cannot fix who is lord and who is subject, should you take the mind as master of the body? Yet the mind also cannot master itself; what truly masters is zaowu (creation, the Way of nature, the transforming process)—hence “there is a true lord that exists therein.”

The commentary adds: when people reason back and forth trying to locate where the “lord” sits, whether you see that situation clearly or not, it neither adds nor subtracts from the true lord’s reality—hence “whether you grasp its qingshi (how things really stand) or not, it neither benefits nor harms the real.”

The next line in Zhuangzi—“once it receives form and takes shape, not perishing but waiting till the end, with things it cuts and wears against each other, its going and stopping…”—continues the original: once a person has received form and become a body, they keep this frame until the end, grinding against outer things; in that friction, arguing over who is lord or who is “close” does the real no practical good (the oral commentary ties qingshi and zhenjun here to stress that point).

Once a person receives a body from the maker of things, that body does not vanish on its own—it can only be used up to the end. A whole life of rubbing against and being worn down by outer things, life like a galloping horse that cannot stop: who can truly halt? Is that not sorrow?

A lifetime of toil and yet no real “achievement” in sight; exhausted to the point of collapse, not knowing where all this rushing is supposed to return—is that not pitiable enough?

People say “people never die,” but what use is a long life? From strength to decline, from gray hair to old age, the outer form changes and the heart is dragged along, growing more weary and more confused. Is that not great grief?

Human life is like moving through fog, unable to see the way clearly. Am I alone in this dimness, or are there others who are not?

Main drift (what the passage is saying in plain terms)

The human body is not something “I” originally possessed—it must have been received from somewhere. Once one has received this body from the maker of things, that maker stays with the body until the body is spent and returns to its end. Yet people cannot simply follow that arrangement; they are pulled by external things, sometimes resisting and sometimes yielding, and so use up their whole span—like a colt flashing past a crack in the wall, not even able to pause for breath. Hence “they go to the end like a galloping horse and none can stop them.” “Mutual cutting” means mutual clash; “mutual grinding” means dragging each other down and sinking together.

“Toiling all one’s life” means people torment themselves; “not seeing any success” means seeing no real benefit. As the common saying has it: after gathering a hundred flowers into honey, one does not know for whom the bitter labor was sweet—that is the idea. “Weary and driven” also describes that bitter, exhausting motion that will not stop; “not knowing where one is headed” means not knowing which day one can finally rest. If life is self-inflicted suffering like this, what good is it even to live long? Hence “what use is not dying?”

“Form changing” is the shift from aging to white hair, from white hair to old age; the older one grows, the less one’s conduct keeps pace—that is the body changing while the heart does not awaken with it, but is instead more and more enslaved by the body. The form declines and the heart grows weary with it, hence “the heart goes along with it.” “Mang” means dimness, lack of insight.

Those who are confused ought to turn back and reflect: at birth, should the heart really be this wholly obscured? Am I alone in this dimness, while in the world there is no one who is not dim? The point is: heaven and earth give birth to the people, each with their constant norms; the heart has heavenly principle within it, and the virtue of loving goodness and beauty is not wholly extinguished—it is only covered by selfish desire that things reach this pass. One who understands the Dao does not remain in such dimness forever. This is what is meant by “scraping the film with a golden needle”—using a golden needle to scrape away the film on the eyes so that one truly opens them and sees.

Plain-Language Interpretation

First section

If everyone treats the fixed, stubborn opinions already formed in their own minds as teachers to follow, then who would lack a “teacher”? Why must one master the arts of the “dai”—the ancient term for those who understood change—and let the heart arbitrarily pick and choose on its own? Both the dull and the wise have this in them.

When the heart has not yet awakened to the undivided principle of Heaven (Tianli), yet people insist on drawing lines between right and wrong, it is like saying, “I only set out for Yue today, yet I claim I already arrived yesterday”—treating what is not as if it were, and what is absent as if it present. Even if Shen Yu (a stand-in for the ancient sage Yu the Great) were reborn, he could not make sense of what you mean; what could others do to you?

Second section

“Cheng xin” (formed mind) means: everyone has this kind of mind—Heaven’s principle is originally complete and undivided, lacking nothing. The point is: from birth, Tianli is already fully present; if one takes this undivided Tianli as one’s teacher, who would lack such a “teacher”? It is not only the wise; the foolish have it too.

“Zhi dai” was the ancients’ name for the worthy; “dai” refers to understanding the principle of change. “Xin zi qu” means the heart itself holds on and forms its own views.

If the heart has not yet seen this undivided Tianli, yet one forcibly sets up right and wrong—what one takes as right, one clings to as right, without knowing that principle is naturally so—it is again like “today I mean to go to Yue, yet I say I arrived yesterday”: where in the world is such logic? That is insisting one knows what one does not.

Thus one originally sees nothing, yet insists on treating it as seeing; having nothing to see, one imagines one sees— even if the ancient sage Yu were alive again, he would not understand your words; what could others do to you? “Shen Yu” in the text is Yu, borrowed to stand for the sage of antiquity.

First section (On “speech” and “blowing,” fixed mind, and right and wrong)

Speech is not the same as the noise that wind makes when it passes through holes and tubes; the one who speaks is expressing some meaning, hence “those who speak have something to say.” The weight of these four characters is: when people speak, whose words are they, and are they really true?—especially hard to say.

Discussion on Making All Things Equal aims to level all things and dissolve disputes over right and wrong. Earlier the “three kinds of sound” were explained: every sound in heaven and earth can be said to come from Heaven or from the maker; the same line of thought extends to the human body, and only stops when it reaches “fixed mind.” From here on, the text focuses on right and wrong.

When wind enters many openings or blows through bamboo pipes, the sounds differ endlessly—all that is merely “sound.” When sound takes on pattern and ornament, it is called “speech.” Speech is not blowing—blowing is passive and without intent; speech is each person voicing their own meaning, hence “those who speak have something to say.” These four words are the doorway into quarrels over right and wrong.

“What they say is especially unsettled”: though these words come from your mouth, is it you who speak, or the maker speaking through you? So it remains unsettled. Is there truly “your speech”? Or on your side there never was “speech of your own,” only being driven? A nestling’s cry, just out of the shell, has no self-awareness; human speech may likewise not truly be “knowing what one is saying.” If you insist human speech differs from a nestling’s call, probe further and the difference may not hold—speech and sound belong to the same kind; to split them absolutely, you cannot.

Second section (Dao, speech, and Confucian–Mohist right and wrong)

Where is Dao hidden, that true and false arise? Where is speech hidden, that right and wrong arise? Where does Dao go that it is not present? Where does speech stay that it cannot be spoken? Dao is often obscured by “small completion” (partial gains); speech is often obscured by “flourish and show” (ornate, empty rhetoric. Then come the Confucian and Mohist disputes, each clinging to one side: using what they reject to reject what others affirm, and trying to affirm what they reject and reject what they affirm—tangled in this, better to use “illumination”—seeing what each side rests on and how opposites arise together.

Things have no absolute “that” and no absolute “this”; look only from the side of “that” and you do not see the whole; know from “this” side and only then know there is “this.” So it is said: “that” comes from “this,” and “this” also stands because of “that”—right and wrong, this and that, are originally two faces of one whole; you cannot hold to one side alone.

The Dao in itself knows no division between true and false; disputes over what is genuine arise only because people do not grasp why it becomes hidden. Supreme speech in itself knows no right or wrong; wrangling over right and wrong arises for the same reason—because people do not see why it is obscured.

What is meant by “going forth yet not remaining”? In matters of great and small, fine and coarse, the Dao is everywhere. What is meant by “remaining yet not fixed”? That “this is right and that is wrong” and “that is wrong and this is right” can both be upheld—that is partial realization, a narrow view that clings to one side. Once bias sets in, the Dao is covered over and no longer clear.

“Glory and display” means mutual boasting and rivalry for name and gain; one-sided doctrines praise one another while the highest words are drowned out. From this came the Confucians and Mohists trading charges of right and wrong: what others reject I treat as right, what others approve I treat as wrong—how could any single verdict stand? To settle right and wrong one must return to the way things are of themselves (ziran); what alone can shed light is the norm of Heaven (tianli). Hence the advice: better to look at things through “clarity” (ming). “Things are all ‘that’” means: if I am “this” (right), the other becomes “that” (wrong). “Things have no right or wrong” means: what I call right, others call wrong.

“In the other’s account I do not pry; in what I know, I know for myself”—when self and thing are not set against each other, there is no right or wrong; when they are opposed, right and wrong appear. Hence: “that” comes out of “this,” and “this” also depends on “that”—a way of saying that “this” and “that” arise together.

Even so, just as there is birth there is death, just as there is death there is birth; just as “it fits” turns into “it does not fit,” “it does not fit” turns into “it fits”; from “this” comes “that,” from “that” comes “this.” Therefore the sage does not start from one-sided bias but illuminates by Heaven—yet in doing so still takes the side of “this” as the angle of illumination.

The earlier discussion of “having that and having this” belongs to the same family of ideas as the talk of “mutual arising” (fang sheng): “mutual arising” uses a single character as a handle—where there is birth there must be death, and the two cannot be pulled apart. If you speak only of birth and not of death, you see only one side; yet in principle they were never separable—birth brings death, death brings birth; where there is “acceptable” there is “unacceptable,” where there is “unacceptable” there is “acceptable”—how could they be split? Once you know these two ways of speaking cannot be parted, better to go along where others affirm and affirm, and where they deny and deny. The ancient sages did not rely on one-sided views; they used the pattern of Heaven to clarify, which means simply following each side’s “yes.” The earlier phrases “follow the yes” and “follow the no” appear here as only “follow the yes”—that is abbreviation; the sense is still: affirm what each affirms as yes, deny what each denies as no.

If you argue from right and wrong: his account is one set of yes-and-no, mine is another—how am I different from him? You may split person from person, self from self, yet in truth you cannot split them; hence: is there really a “that” and a “this”? Is there really no “that” and no “this”? Under the words, “that” and “I” have no fixed opposition. “Pair” means the relative; if “that” and “I” do not stand as opposites, if person and self are merged into one, that is the hub of the Dao. The hub of the ring must be empty; gaining the hub of the Dao is like standing in the hub of a ring—no end, no beginning, inexhaustible. “Yes too is inexhaustible, no too is inexhaustible” means letting things be as they are; that is the natural pattern of Heaven, hence “nothing beats clarifying by this.” That line closes the passage by gathering the previous one.

To show that “finger” is not finger by using “finger” is not as good as using “not-finger” to show that finger is not finger; to show that “horse” is not horse by using “horse” is not as good as using “not-horse” to show that horse is not horse. Heaven and earth may be taken as one “finger”; the ten thousand things may be taken as one “horse.”

Zhi means the finger and the act of pointing. The line above, “take the designation I recognize as designation,” closes this passage by tying back to what came before.

Using “designation” to illustrate that designation is not designation is inferior to using “non-designation” to illustrate that designation is not designation; using “horse” to illustrate that horse is not horse is inferior to using “non-horse” to illustrate that horse is not horse. Heaven and earth can be aligned in the one-finger sameness; the myriad things can be aligned in the one-horse sameness.

Here zhi is finger and pointing. If I alone treat the designation I affirm as “designation,” then in others’ eyes my designation becomes “non-designation”; those who hold that “designation is not designation” will likewise judge my designation to be non-designation. If I merely negate the other side from my own position, it is better to turn the mirror on the other party—they will negate me in the same way. Once other and self are set in opposition, right and wrong cannot be settled.

Ma here refers to the counters or stakes used in bo and sai—ancient games of chance such as casting lots and pitch-pot—to keep score; as in the Record of Rites, “Pitch-pot,” where “descending from the horse” differs in number, and what gamblers dispute is likewise a matter of right and wrong. If this logic is applied as analogy, then the roles of heaven covering and earth bearing can each be held to one side and mutually denied. The myriad things were never the same to begin with—what flies, what walks, what moves, what stands rooted—like different counters and horse-lots in play, can each be held to one side and mutually denied. The main point is: in the world there is no absolutely fixed right and wrong; they arise only because people each cling to a partial view and negate one another—not because heaven and earth can truly be cut in two along the line of self and other. All of this uses figurative language to show that discourse on things (how we see and judge the myriad phenomena) must be equalized and cannot rest on a single partial standpoint.

What can be affirmed, affirm as can; what cannot, affirm as cannot—hence “what can be can, what cannot be cannot.” Dao here means the natural way, the principle of how things proceed; it has no fine or coarse grade—walk it, act it, and it is accomplished, all as nature does. When we say “accomplished,” what is accomplished is just this; when we say “so,” what is so is just this. On what basis do I say “so”? I call it so along with how it is naturally so; on what basis do I say “not so”? I call it not so along with how it is naturally not so. Things inherently have their “so” aspect and inherently have their “can” aspect; since there is so and can, every thing is so and every affair can be affirmed—hence “nothing is not so, nothing is not can.”

Plain-Language Commentary

So when you compare a grass stalk with a roof beam, an ugly woman with Xishi, the broad with the narrow, the strange with the ordinary, deceit with honesty, the uncanny with the auspicious—they were never the same to begin with. A grass stalk (ting) is a crossbeam; a pillar (ying) is a vertical post. Beam and post differ in direction; ugly and beautiful, large and small, changeable and constant, fraudulent and upright, demonic and blessed differ in nature. Yet from the perspective of the Dao, what is horizontal and what is vertical each has its use; what is beautiful and what is ugly each keeps its own nature—and all can be seen as one continuous whole. The point is to understand every difference at the level of what creation (zaowu) brings forth.

Separation is pulling apart; synthesis is putting together—and to synthesize is also to destroy. Ordinary things have no absolute “completion” or “destruction”; in the end they can again be seen as one. Completion and destruction are two sides that oppose each other in things; yet without destruction there is no completion, and without completion there is no destruction. Wood in the mountains, once cut and used, is destruction for the tree; made into a house, it is completion for the timber. Again, when medicine such as fangji is chewed, divided, and then blended, it can become a remedy. A bow needs sinew and horn to become a bow—completion for the bow, but use and “destruction” for the sinew and horn. If Qin had not fallen, Han would not have risen; Han’s rise was Qin’s fall. Seen this way, at first there is neither completion nor destruction—hence the saying that again all is one.

Only one who has attained thorough understanding knows that all is one; then, without clinging (bu yong—to fixed views), one lodges all things in the ordinary—the ordinary is everyday use; use is penetration; penetration is hitting what fits. When each thing fits its place, one is close to it. Following “what is so” (yin shi) and stopping—stopping without knowing why one stops—this is called the Dao.

Only those who truly penetrate the Dao understand that principle is originally one whole. Then they no longer cling to “who is right and who is wrong,” and they do not wield “rightness” as a weapon—they place it within the “ordinary,” taking the constant Way as daily practice so that whatever arises can be carried through; once it flows through, the heart is self-sufficient. Hence it is said: “yong (the ordinary)” is “use,” “use” is “penetration,” and “penetration” is “attainment.” When attainment fits the situation, one nears fulfillment; nearing fulfillment is completion. Beyond this there is no other method: simply because one “yin shi” (follows each person’s own “this is right”), there is no strife of right and wrong—that is all. Going further, one need not even know “why it is so”; one only acts in accord with nature—this is what is called the Dao.

(The repeated “yi” in the text linking to the previous “yi” is a stylistic play in the author’s writing; there is no need to parse it deeply.)

“Exhausting spirit-mind to force unity” and “three in the morning”

“Spirit-ming” (spirit and mind) means spirit and mental faculties. To spend one’s spirit on stubbornly holding one side and forcibly dividing right from wrong, without knowing that the principle is the same throughout, is what is called “three in the morning.” What is “three in the morning”? A keeper of monkeys (jubing) divided acorns (xu, mountain chestnuts, i.e., acorns) and said: “Three in the morning and four in the evening.” The monkeys were angry. He changed it to: “Four in the morning and three in the evening.” The monkeys were pleased. The name and the actual amount given did not decrease; only the morning and evening counts were swapped, yet joy and anger followed. This too is a parable of “yin shi”: though the labels of right and wrong differ, the substance of principle can be the same; if one can “yin shi,” the world naturally has fewer pointless disputes.

“Harmonizing,” “Heaven’s equal measure,” and “two lines”

“Harmonizing with right and wrong”: harmonizing various rights and wrongs so they return to oneness. “Tian jun” (Heaven’s equal measure): like Heaven in evenness, without partiality toward either side. “Two lines”: letting differing accounts of right and wrong coexist and each follow its own course, without forcibly suppressing one side.

(Note: Hong Yechu held that Liezi’s version of “three in the morning, four in the evening” is better than Zhuangzi’s; the two books use the same metaphor, but judged by where the word counts shift, Liezi is not necessarily superior to Zhuangzi—this is the commentator’s view, offered for the reader’s comparison.)

Main Idea of the Original Text

People of old understood that the realm of knowing has levels. The highest level is the stratum where one holds that “there is not yet any thing”—at this level one has reached the limit; nothing can be added above it.

The next level down is to acknowledge that “there already are things,” but not to fix rigid boundaries between thing and thing, or between things and oneself (“feng,” sealing off). Still lower is to draw such “feng” between things and between things and self, but not yet to assert what is and what is not. Once right and wrong stand out clearly, the Dao is impaired; once the Dao is impaired, partial “ai” (attachment, likes and dislikes) takes shape.

So—is there really “completion” and “impairment”? Is there really “completion” and “impairment”?

Commentary

“Not yet any thing” corresponds to the primordial state before Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate) has differentiated. The “people of old” here means those who truly understood the Dao: viewed from the thought of “no thing,” the principles of the world are already fully spoken.

The next layer is “there are things”—comparable to Wuji giving rise to Taiji, when the ten thousand things first acquire form and name. The next layer, “there is feng,” is Taiji dividing into the Two Aspects (Yin-Yang); each keeps its place and fulfills its function, each following its own principle, with no inherent right or wrong.

Right and wrong arise from the selfishness of the human heart; once selfish intent shows, the natural Dao seems as if impaired. When the Dao is impaired, likes and dislikes appear: favor toward one’s own side is “ai” (attachment), aversion toward the other is “wu” (hatred). What Buddhists call the “river of love” is people drowning in partial attachment, impairing the Dao. This is spoken from the angle of human partiality.

Viewed from creation as a whole and from the Dao in its entirety, how could there be any completion or impairment? Hence Zhuangzi asks twice: Is there really completion and impairment? Is there really no completion and impairment? The point is: when people dispute over right and wrong, the dispute often ends by falling back on “originally empty.”

Though this passage begins with the opening of Heaven and Earth, those who guard body and embody the Dao can apply it immediately. Before a thought has risen, that is “not yet any thing”; once a thought rises, that is “there are things”; once “I” and “things” exist, that is “there is feng”; when likes, dislikes, joy, and anger follow from self and things, that is “there is right and wrong.” If one cannot return to the side where “the thought has not yet risen,” and sees only turmoil in the chest, that is impaired Dao and formed attachment; when that thought passes and all is still again, one sees: in truth there is no fixed completion or impairment.

Zhuangzi’s words sound vast and remote; understood in this way, they are all matters one can use in one’s own life.

Whenever you notice your mind churning and unable to let go, that is already a sign that the Way (Dao) has tilted and partiality has taken hold. When that thought passes, the world outside remains as it was, and you naturally see that there was never any absolute “success” or “failure” to begin with. Zhuangzi’s words can sound empty or remote; understood in this way, they apply directly to everyday life.

Because there is “success” and “failure,” there is the story of Zhao Wen playing the zither; because one can also release attachment to success and failure, there is the story of Zhao Wen not playing. Zhao Wen on the zither, Shi Kuang holding his tally slips (the music master’s tool for recording pitch and rhythm), and Hui Shi leaning against a parasol tree to debate—the talents of these three nearly reached their limit, which is why their tales appear in the latter part of the book. They were driven above all by a special love for their craft and a wish to stand apart from others; and because they tried to “make clear” what cannot finally be made clear, Hui Shi spent his life entangled in the “hard and white” sort of sophistry and ended in confusion, while his son went on wrestling with words and distinctions of names, never attaining anything that could truly be called “success.”

Can we call that “success”? Turn it around, and even I could be called “successful.” Can we call it not success? In truth, the ten thousand things and I have no fixed, unchanging “success” from the start. That uncertain, shifting gleam—the “slippery gleam of doubt”—is precisely what the sage attends to. The practice is not to cling to one side but to settle the mind in ordinary daily affairs; that is what is meant by “illuminating through this” (yi ming).

Since the text has already explained the principle of completion and loss, it uses playing the zither as a comparison—and nothing fits better. Suppose there is a zither: when you play it, a whole piece naturally has a beginning and an end; that “beginning and end” exists only after you start playing—if you never play, where would any beginning or end come from? Likewise, if a single thought never arises in the mind, there is nothing to say about sameness or difference between self and things.

Zhao Wen was a surname and personal name—an ancient master of the zither. Shi Kuang was a music master. Ce was an instrument used to beat time; a horsewhip was also called ce—in the Zuozhuan, Rao Chao’s gift of a ce and Yang Tan’s striking the Xizhou gate with a ce both refer to whips. Zhi also means holding a implement and striking; these two words probably come from old usage. Shi Kuang “zhi ce” means Shi Kuang beating the instrument. Because the passage above speaks of strumming the zither, it brings in these two figures (Zhao Wen and Shi Kuang); all three had skill pushed almost to the limit—wisdom in that art used to the utmost, craft so refined that their names filled the world, hence “each in his fullness.” Zai means to devote oneself to something; mo nian is late in life—speaking of spending a lifetime in one pursuit. What the three loved, they took to be different from everyone else, hence “only because they loved it did they differ from others.” Loving it as they did, they also wanted to make it clear to others, hence “in loving it, they wished to clarify it”—though they talked this way, listeners could already tell for themselves, yet they insisted on using that talk to “clarify” people, hence “what could not be clarified, they tried to clarify,” like Hui Shi’s forced disputation and self-befuddlement. “For their whole lives” wraps that up. Jian bai (hard and white): commentators often tie this to debates over hard stone and white horse—hard belongs to stone, not to “hard” alone; white belongs to horse, not to “white” alone; there is also “yellow horse and black ox make three.” A note to the Shiji, Biography of Su Qin, gives another angle: Longquan water tempers blades so they are hard and sharp, hence talk of jian and bai—a Qi debater said yellow is why it is not hard, white is why it is not sharp. The two accounts differ, but both belong to the disputationists. The passage ends with Hui Shi above and Zhao Wen’s son below—where the prose lifts and turns.

Zhao Wen spent his life at the zither; his son inherited that thread of craft and also spent his life at it—lun means that continuing line of work. Hui Shi above and Zhao Wen’s son below close the section—again where the rhetoric gathers force. “No completion for a lifetime” means each kept to himself alone and would not let others succeed, hence “no completion.” If we take only what we can manage right now as “settled,” then what lies before us can be called settled; if what we see before us is still not settled, then neither the world nor we can be called settled—cheng here is like “settled” or “done.” These two lines close out the three masters’ arts, but the meaning is broad: their arts are also a figure for disputes over things and right and wrong—not a narrow biography of three men.

Hua yi means tangled and seemingly guessable—seemingly clear yet not clear. Yao is clarity. What the sage holds in mind leaves no trace; what appears is as if there and not there—tu means desire—saying the sage’s desire is like this: strip away what is “not used,” and set it in the ordinary—this is called “clarifying by” (yi ming).

From “nothing is not that” down through “not one, yet infinite” explains the two characters yi ming; from “using a finger to point to a finger” down through “just getting it and stopping” explains yin shi (going by what is), until here, where “this is called clarifying by” closes again. The prose rises and falls, crosswise and lengthwise, yet the main thread stays clear. Someone once said the whole Discourse on Making Things Equal is one continuous piece of writing—look closely and the veins of the words show—and this section is exactly that.

Corresponding to the gist of the original Zhuangzi passage

Suppose someone sets forth a view here and now: it is unclear whether it belongs with the camp of those who say “right,” or with the camp of those who say “wrong.” If “right” and “wrong” already form two fixed sides, then your side and the other side are not really different.

Oral gloss (explanation)

From “words are not mere breath” through the earlier discussion, the thread changes here and the topic is picked up again. The line “suppose there is speech here and now” still follows from what came before.

The earlier question—whether something is “of a kind with ‘yes’” or “of a kind with ‘no’”—prepares the ground for how terms are used below.

The point is roughly this: treat “him” as “me” and “me” as “him,” and you see that he and I are much the same; hence “no difference from the other.” That is the sort of analogy of “using finger to talk about finger, using horse to talk about horse”: from each standpoint, the sides can be swapped and still look equivalent.

Gist of the continuation in Zhuangzi

There is “a beginning”; there is “what has not yet begun to be that beginning”; and there is even “what has not yet begun to be ‘what has not yet begun that beginning.’”

There is “being (you)”; there is “non-being (wu)”; there is “what has not yet begun to speak of being and non-being”; and there is “what has not yet begun to be ‘what has not yet begun being and non-being.’”

Suddenly both “being” and “non-being” appear, yet one cannot tell which is truly “being” and which is truly “non-being.”

I have already uttered some “so-called” words, yet I do not know whether what I say counts as “having said something” or as “having said nothing at all.”

Although Zhuangzi writes at turning points, his openings are also extremely skillful. The gist is: even though in principle one should not posit “this” and “that,” he still sets out the reasoning for the moment—hence openings like “let me try to say it.”

Starting from “there is a beginning”: first there is Taiji (Supreme Ultimate); above that is “there is not yet a beginning,” namely Wuji (the limitless); above that is still another layer—“there is not yet ‘there is not yet a beginning’”—abstraction one step beyond Wuji. When we speak of “there is something,” that “being” must arise from “non-being,” so we talk of you and wu (being and non-being). Above the word “non-being” lies still “there is not yet being and non-being,” again a layer higher than Wuji; what Liezi calls Taizhi, Taisu, and Taichu points to this same stratum. At first there was neither a single “being” nor a single “non-being”; suddenly there appears a “non-being,” as if a trace of name-and-form had sprung from non-being. Pushed this way, the original point is simple: at first there was no thing; because there is “me,” there are things; with the opposition of thing and self come right and wrong—the logic is not complicated, yet he unfolds it by peeling layer after layer, which is indeed masterful.

By the flow of the text here, one might expect “suddenly there is being,” but Zhuangzi writes “suddenly there is non-being”—exactly where the brush turns most subtly. Though this “non-being” is already spoken as “non-being,” can it truly be called “non-being”? Hence: one does not know whether “being” or “non-being” counts as being or as non-being. Though this “non-being” is hard to fix in solid meaning, once it is named “non-being,” it already falls under the names “being” and “non-being”—hence “now I have already spoken.” Though I have these words, this “speaking,” I still do not know whether these words count as “being” or “non-being”—the same line of argument as the passage in “Discourse on Making Things Equal” about “words” and the fledgling bird.

Next come another famous Zhuangzi line: nothing under heaven is greater than the tip of an autumn hair, yet Mount Tai becomes small; nothing lives longer than a child who dies young, yet Peng Zu becomes short-lived—breaking fixed distinctions of large and small, long life and short. He also says heaven and earth were born with me and the ten thousand things are one with me, in one breath with the earlier debate on you, wu, and “speaking”: from the perspective of equalizing things, one need not take one pole as the sole reality.

Plain-Language Interpretation

In all the world, nothing is more “great” than the tip of an autumn down feather, while a mountain as vast as Mount Tai counts as “small”; nothing is more “long-lived” than a child who dies young, while someone as long-lived as Peng Zu counts as “short-lived.” Heaven and earth were generated together with me in the cosmos, and the ten thousand things and I are originally one body.

Since we have already said “they are one body,” can we still speak of it in words? Since we have already used the word “one” to name it, can we still say “there is nothing to say”? One “one,” together with the speech used to designate it, makes two; those two, taken together with that “one,” make three. Push this onward and even the sharpest reckoner of numbers cannot count it all—how much less the ordinary person? So from the start, moving from “non-being” to “being” can already be traced to “three”—how much more when “being” is already there and more “being” keeps arising from “being”? On this view, only “wu shi” (no fixed adherence, no one-sided clinging) is right—what is “wu shi”? Simply “yin shi” (following what each side takes as so): looking along each thing’s own sense of right and wrong and the reasons by which it stands.

The two lines above use metaphor to explain the principles of right and wrong, being and non-being; they can be called the utmost truth under heaven. Before Zhuangzi, no one spoke like this; after him, few have been as penetrating—it is an unmatched insight across a thousand years.

“The tip of autumn down” is an extremely tiny thing, yet it is called “nothing greater”; Mount Tai is enormous, yet it is called “small.” The point is: once it is named “autumn down,” only the slightest margin remains—any larger and it would no longer be autumn down. If Mount Tai were shrunk the least bit, it should no longer be called Mount Tai. If Mount Tai is taken as large, heaven and earth are larger still, so calling Mount Tai “small” also makes sense. The name “shang zi” (child who dies young) refers to life cut off at the extreme; live a little longer and the name no longer applies. Peng Zu is famed as longest-lived, yet compared with heaven and earth, even Peng Zu counts as “short-lived.” From these two lines one can think further: from the angle of “what can be completed,” even “I” can be said to be “completed”; from the angle of “what cannot be completed,” outer things and I have no fixed, unchanging “completion.” If one guards and views things this way, then heaven and earth themselves are only born with me in the great void—they are not truly “great”; the ten thousand things are born with me between heaven and earth—even a blade of grass, a tree, a bird, or an insect is continuous with me, hence “heaven and earth were generated with me, and the ten thousand things and I are one.”

Having spoken one word, “one,” we then press on that “one”: when all is already blended into one, can there still be speech? The meaning is that in total blending there should not even be the word “one”; now that the word “one” exists, how can we say “there is nothing to say”? The blended One and the “one” named by speech are already two, hence “one and speech make two.” With those two, plus the statement “one and speech make two,” there is a “three.” From these three, generation can go on without end—thousands, ten thousands, trillions—beyond what the finest calendar reckoner can exhaust, let alone ordinary people. Seen this way, at first a single word “non-being” was lifted up; the chain ran through “being,” from “being” to “one,” from “one” to “two,” from “two” to “three”—already so much; how much more when more “being” arises from “being” already there? On this contemplation, only “wu shi” is fitting—what is “wu shi”? Stopping at “yin shi”: each side rests in its own “so,” without forcing a single unified label on top.

Having reached “yin shi,” the text draws the thread tight once more.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Kouyi (Oral Explanations)

Section 1: Dao, “Sealing,” Boundaries, and the “Eight Virtues”

Dao originally has no side-by-side “this versus that”; speech originally has no fixed formula. Once the thought “this is right” appears, boundaries show up. What are those boundaries? There is left and right, there is human order and what is fitting, there is analysis and there is disputation, there is rivalry and there is struggle—this is what is called the “eight virtues.”

This passage again grows from the word “is” (shi): where there is “sealing” (feng), there is self and other; where there is “constancy,” there is a master standard. The utmost Dao and utmost speech originally know no “sides,” but because the human mind is partial, one extra “is” produces many marches and borders. Zhi here means a border or demarcation. Names like the eight virtues only point at the stance of object versus subject; Zhuangzi writes with rhetorical force—about four parallel lines—to parade pairs that face off against each other.

Lun means human order and roles; yi means what is fitting and how one ought to act. Once self and other are fixed, reasoning and conduct each get their own “this is how it must be.” Fen is to analyze; bian is to discriminate—close in sense, with different weight in the wording. With fixed views come analysis and dispute. Jing and zheng are on the same track, but jing is fiercer than zheng. Where there is discrimination, the large necessarily compete and the small necessarily quarrel.

With this kind of prose, a little sorting of word-meanings and a little arranging of the pairs is enough for it to read smoothly. If you insist on asking what lun “really is,” what yi “really is,” what fen “really is,” and what jing and zheng each “really are,” you have missed Zhuangzi’s point. Besides, lun, yi, fen, bian, jing, and zheng do not differ all that much—why force them into exactly “eight virtues”? You understand Zhuangzi when you see the debunking in his wording and are not trapped by parallel structure and antithesis. Even if Zhuangzi came back, he would say: give yourself back your own eyes.

Section 2: Inside and Outside the Six Directions, and the Sage

Matters outside the six directions—beyond heaven, earth, and the four quarters—the sage keeps in mind but does not take up for discussion. Matters within the six directions—within the world—the sage may discuss, but does not lightly pass final judgment or fix right and wrong.

(Note: In the received text, “sage character” here is likely a damaged form of “sage”; the sense is restored accordingly.)

Here too you must see through the rhetoric and not be caged by it—that is reading Zhuangzi correctly. Zhuangzi returning would again tell you to take back one of your own eyes.

Section 3: Discussion, Deliberation, Disputation, and Ordinary People

The Spring and Autumn Annals governs an age and embodies the former kings’ intent; toward that the sage deliberates (yi) but does not dispute (bian). Hence: where there is “division,” there is “non-division”; where there is “disputation,” there is “non-disputation.” Why? The sage holds the principle in the heart (huai zhi); ordinary people use argument to display themselves and overpower each other. So it is said: where there is disputation, there is “not seeing”—the more you argue, the less you see what is real.

Reading Hint (Throughout)

The author of the Kouyi is teaching that when Zhuangzi uses labels like the eight virtues, he is showing that once “is” and opposition arise, left/right, order/fitting, analysis/disputation, rivalry/struggle follow—not offering an eight-door lecture with dictionary definitions for each term. The sage stores what is outside without discussing it, discusses what is inside without contentious judgment, and toward the intent of ordering the age deliberates without disputing; ordinary people do the opposite and love debate to show off. In this passage, grasp “from ‘is’ come borders” and “do not fight with others in words,” rather than counting eight separate “virtues.”

The preceding discussion of “other” and “self,” “right” and “wrong,” opens a fresh passage meant to show how much lucid clarity and ease Zhuangzi carries in his mind.

Matters outside the six domains, outside heaven and earth, he stores without debating—cun er bu lun: held in mind, not forced into dispute, much as Buddhist teaching speaks of what lies beyond the four directions and above and below, beyond reckoning. Within the six domains, within the cosmos, there are indeed many principles the sage does not refuse to speak of. What he refuses is to treat the boundary between “inside and outside the six domains” as a fixed verdict and compel everyone under heaven to master it.

“Chunqiu” is the name of the Spring and Autumn Annals. The line turns again: once lord and subject, high and low, are in place, whatever appears in the historical record expresses the former kings’ intent to order the world—how could the sage fail to establish such discourse? Yet the sage never joins the world in fighting over right and wrong. Principle under heaven is such that only what is not argued becomes supreme speech; the moment you fall into discrimination, it shows your inner view is still not clear enough. Hence: within “distinction” there is what is not distinguished; within “debate” there is what is not debated.

At this point the author asks again “why?”—this is the sense of “holding it inward” (huai zhi): to retreat and store in the hidden. Here the sage rolls the teaching up and holds it in the heart (juan er huai zhi); here the crowd insists on debating it through and displaying it for praise. Once you debate, you are already in the place of limited insight—hence “there is what is not seen” (you bu jian ye): a side of things that need not be brought into view or forced into dispute.

These passages explain several counter-intuitive claims in the Zhuangzi—such as “the Great Dao is not labeled” and “great disputation does not speak”—and unpack them line by line.

Overall meaning

The Great Dao does not need a fixed name to advertise itself; genuine great disputation does not show itself through much talk; true great humaneness does not wear the outward form of benevolence; true great integrity is not like hoarding things in secret (the “xian” of clinging and keeping); true great courage does not appear as resentment and belligerence (“zhi”). When the Dao is made plain and pointed to by name, it is no longer the Dao itself; once words turn into disputation, something has already been missed or skewed. If humaneness leaves traces that can always be seen, it cannot be fully great humaneness; if integrity is so “pure” that people doubt it is real, it is not true integrity; if courage shows up as “zhi,” it cannot be great courage. These five were originally like one round, blended whole; as soon as even a trace appears, they come close to something with corners and edges—in other words, opposition and sharp angles arise. Therefore the most genuine knowing is knowing that stops at what one does not know; that is the utmost of knowledge. Who can understand “disputation without words” and “the Dao that is not spoken as a name”? Whoever can is called the Tianfu (Celestial Treasury): pour in and it is never full, draw out and it never runs dry, yet one cannot tell where it comes from or goes—this is called bao guang (preserving the light).

Plain language aligned with the first half of the original, line by line

The Great Dao need not be proclaimed by a name; great disputation need not be carried out in words; great humaneness need not display the shape of benevolence; great integrity need not act like hiding and keeping things to oneself; great courage need not show itself as resentment and combativeness. If the Dao is made obvious and pointed out, it is not the Dao; if speech becomes disputation, there is already what it cannot reach. If humaneness leaves traces one can always see, it is hard to call it great; if integrity is so clear and clean that people suspect it is false, it is hard to call it true integrity; if courage appears as “zhi,” it is hard to call it great courage. These five are originally like something round and whole; if they near what has square corners and edges, they almost become “xiang fang” things—things with sides, opposition, and sharp angles. Hence knowing must stop at what one does not know; that is where knowing reaches its limit. Who can know “disputation without words” and “the Dao without naming”? Knowing this is called Tianfu: filling it does not make it full, taking from it does not exhaust it, and yet one does not know where it comes from—this is called bao guang (keeping the light hidden, not flaunting it).

Therefore, in ancient times when Yao sought instruction from Shun, he could gain no further increase; hence the saying that “pour into it and it will not overflow,” and that “scoop from it and it will not be exhausted.” The ultimate principle and subtle meaning have neither end nor beginning; thus one cannot know whence it comes. “Treasuring the light” (bao guang) refers to the gleam of slippery doubt; bao means to store away—keeping the radiance hidden and not displaying it outward, hence the term bao guang.

Therefore in ancient times Yao asked Shun, “I wish to campaign against Zong, Kuai, Xu, and Ao, yet when I face south my heart is ill at ease—what is the reason for this?” Shun said, “Those three small states still live among weeds and wild grass; if their people cannot be won over with sincere gladness, what is so strange? In former times ten suns rose together and every thing was illuminated—how much more so when virtue surpasses the sun!”

The word gu (“therefore”) is added before xizhe (“in former times”) to draw a citation from what precedes. The affairs of Zong, Kuai, Xu, and Ao do not appear in the classics; they too are allegory. Bu shiran means not at ease, not pleased. Penghao zhi jian (among weeds and wild grass) likens being blocked by material desires and not knowing there are Heaven and Earth. The point is that those three states are self-blinded by desire and have not submitted to transformation, while if I harbor displeasure, then self and things stand opposed. The ten suns rising together also appears in the Huainanzi; this is likely Zhuangzi’s allegory, which the Huainanzi then elaborates. The meaning is that the sun illuminates all things without partiality; how much more should my virtue, which surpasses the sun, not tolerate those three rulers? This illustrates the opposition of self and things and of right and wrong; the sage therefore leaves it undiscriminated, using Heaven to illumine. The story of the ten suns is the metaphor of “nothing better than clarity” (mo ruo yi ming).

Nie Que asked Wang Ni, “Do you know what it is that all things agree on?” Wang Ni said, “How would I know?” Nie Que asked, “Then do you know what you do not know?” Wang Ni said, “How would I know?” Nie Que asked, “So is there nothing among the ten thousand things that can be known?” Wang Ni said, “How would I know? Even so, let me try to say: could what I call ‘knowing’ not be not-knowing? Could what I call ‘not knowing’ not be knowing?”

This passage continues from the earlier theme of "knowing oneself" and "stopping at what one does not know." Nie Que questions Wang Ni, and Wang Ni answers with "not knowing"—that entire exchange is itself an illustration of "stopping at what one does not know." This is typical of Zhuangzi: inventing names and elaborating freely, which is precisely what gives Zhuangzi his distinctive style. The phrases "how could I know?" and "even so, let me try to say something" both turn on subtle rhetorical pivots. The two lines "knowing is not not-knowing; not-knowing is not knowing" push "stopping at what one does not know" one step deeper: the point is that not-knowing is true knowing.

He goes on: let me ask you—if people sleep in damp places their waists ache and they become half-paralyzed, should they live like pigs to guard against moisture? If they dwell in trees they feel uneasy and afraid, should they live like monkeys? Among humans, trees, and monkeys, who knows what counts as the "right place"?

Humans eat the five grains and domestic animals; deer eat grass; centipedes finds millipedes delicious; owls, crows, and mice each prefer their own fare—among these four, who knows what counts as the "right taste"? Gibbons seek gibbon mates, deer mate with deer, minnows swim with minnows—each follows its own nature. Maoqiang and Liji are beauties in human eyes; fish see them and dive deep, birds see them and fly high, deer see them and gallop away—among these four, who knows what counts as "true beauty" under heaven?

From my (Zhuangzi's) perspective, the beginnings of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of right and wrong lie jumbled together—how could I clearly judge their disputes?

“And let me try asking you” again serves as a phrase to open the discussion. The question is this: fish are at ease in water, monkeys are at ease in trees—how could a human being possibly live in those places? Each of the three is at ease only in what suits it, and none can be at ease in what does not suit it—so none of their situations counts as the one “correct” way to be. Therefore you cannot use the human being as the standard and judge monkeys and fish by it.

Fodder and plants are one kind of food; meat from domesticated animals is another. Different creatures feed differently—elk eat grass, porcupines eat snakes, owls eat mice, and people eat fodder and domesticated meat. What each finds sweet and delicious differs, so among those four “tastes,” which one is “correct”?

(The text below uses the names of various animals to talk about male–female pairing: in that pairing, one kind takes the monkey as mate, while the elk is another kind of creature. Here “fang” and “fish” are not two separate things; the language simply follows the analogy.) That stretch about male and female pairing then turns to Maoqiang and Liji, famous beauties of old: people who are greedy for beauty—how are they fundamentally different from birds and fish in what they desire in “color” (beauty)? The way I look at monkeys and deer is just the way monkeys and deer look at me. Yet when it comes to beauty, among humans, birds, fish, and beasts, whose standard of “correct” beauty could you uphold?

“Jue” and “meng” describe dashing and galloping at speed. The three sections above are all analogies about the relativity of right and wrong and of self versus things, so they conclude: viewed from my side, the divisions of benevolence and righteousness and the disputes over right and wrong are tangled and confused, just as tastes and ideas of beauty differ—how could you sort out a single absolute right and wrong? “Fanran” means chaotic and jumbled; “xiao” means mixed and muddled together.

Nieque said: “If you do not know benefit and harm, then does the perfected person (zhiren) also simply not know benefit and harm at all?”

Wang Ni said: “The perfected person is numinous (shen). When great marshes burn, he is not scorched; when the Yellow River and Han River freeze solid, he is not chilled; when violent thunder splits mountains and wind shakes the seas, he is not startled.”

(The question is asked again, and Wang Ni answers again:) “The perfected person is like this: he rides cloud-qi (vital energy), mounts sun and moon, and roams beyond the four seas. Even life and death do not alter what is settled in him—how much less the petty tips of benefit and harm!”

Qu Quezi asked Chang Wu Zi for guidance, saying: “I heard from the Master (Confucius) that the sage is not enslaved by worldly affairs, does not deliberately seek profit, nor deliberately shun harm; does not rejoice because something is sought, nor treat ‘walking the Way’ as a visible exercise. What is called ‘speechless’ yet holds speech within, and ‘speaking’ yet seems speechless—they roam freely beyond the filth of the mundane world. The Master took such talk to be mènglàng (reckless, groundless) empty chatter, but I take it to be the true practice of the subtle Way. What do you think?”

Chang Wu Zi said: “This is something only after hearing it from the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) could one’s mind become clear and penetrating—how could Kongzi (Confucius) truly be equal to understanding it?”

(The oral exegesis unpacks the point as follows.) Here, through the Perfect Person’s further question, the text also rebukes the habit among later followers of the sage’s school of being “devoted to affairs.” “Not engaging in affairs” means not taking merit and achievement as ultimately real; “not pursuing profit, not violating harm”—if that were truly so, there should be no “pursuing” or “violating,” for that already implies knowing benefit and harm—without knowing benefit and harm, how could there be pursuit or violation? “Not delighting in what is sought” means not rejoicing when things come seeking you; “not clinging to the Way” means leaving no trace of practicing the Way. “The speechless that has speech, the speaking that is speechless” is speech without words, words without speech. Mènglàng means not grounded in what is solid and real. “The Master” refers to Confucius: when I spoke to him in the sage’s Way, he may have sensed something of the subtle Way in it, yet still treated it as mènglàng talk. Chang Wu Zi’s “What do you, my friend, think of this?” is asking the other to declare his view. Yíng means luminous clarity: the meaning is that only after Huangdi himself heard this teaching could one become clear—not something shallow learning can grasp all at once.

He also said: “You are counting your chickens before they hatch—seeing an egg you want it to crow that very night; seeing a pellet you want it already roasted as meat. I spoke to you recklessly—listen to me recklessly too. Why must you single out sun and moon, clutch the cosmos as proof of fit? Force a match in what is slippery, murky, and confused, and treat a pestle (chong) as mutual honor between the two sides? The masses toil and bustle; the sage seems dull and plain yet holds to unity. He joins the principle of ten thousand years into one purity—all things are naturally thus, yet you insist on making this into mutual entanglement and mutual nourishment.”

(In the context of this oral exegesis, the closing line “all things are wholly thus, yet you take this as mutual entanglement” often means: all things already fulfill themselves in their own way; there is no need to treat “mutual entanglement” as something actually binding. Paired with “forming one purity” above, it warns against prematurely turning the subtle Way into fixed doctrine, or taking a fragment of speech as the final verdict.)

You too count among those who “calculate too early”: as soon as something barely takes shape, you rush to treat it as if the subtle Way were already at work—that is seeing a sliver and fancying yourself accomplished. It is like waiting for a chick to crow before the egg has hatched, or planning to roast and eat an owl before the slingshot has even hit one—all images of “calculating too early.”

At night the watch is struck according to the drum beats of the night watches. I will speak to you in a loose, offhand way, and you listen in the same spirit—“offhand” means neither taking my words as ten-tenths truth nor your hearing as ten-tenths certainty. What follows—how does it strike you?

The character xi (“how/what”) is odd: beside it stand sun and moon, yet it also clings to sun and moon. Xie yuzhou (“embracing the cosmos”) means carrying the universe in one’s bosom. Wenhe (“seamless fit”) means wholly one, without crack or gap—it speaks of utmost principle blended into unity. Hua is slipperiness, unsettled flow; mimi is murky confusion. Hunhun is likewise dim obscurity. People in the world mimi and hunhun, using “honor” to lift one another up—here “honor” always means looking upward, measuring against what is higher.

The scholar honors the grandee; the grandee treats the scholar as the object of “honor.” The grandee honors the minister; the minister treats the grandee as the object of “honor.” Layer upon layer, each side “honors” the other while fixing rank above and below. The multitude is lost in this worldly tangle, toiling without rest. The sage knows by not-knowing, and so stays muddled and thick, like yuchi—the look of ignorance and blunt simplicity.

Can means to join and meet; joined with ten thousand years, the horizon stops at this one principle, with nothing else mixed in between—hence yichengchun (“one formation, pure”).

Wanwu jinran means the ten thousand things each are what they are; every person has private heart and private view. Thus between heaven and earth, from antiquity to now, endless “yes”-claims pile up—hence yishi xiangyun (“thus-ness heaped upon thus-ness”). Xiangyun means mutual piling, mutual pressing down.

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi and treats the themes of life and death and the distinction between dreaming and waking.

Life and death may not be what you assume

How do I know that taking being alive as a joy is not a delusion? And how do I know that fearing death is not like losing your way as a child and forgetting the road home—when “home” was always elsewhere, yet people treat their present situation as the only normal state?

The story of Lady Li

Lady Li was the daughter of a household in the Aidi Fengjiang region. When the state of Jin first took her captive, she wept until her collar was soaked; but once she entered the royal palace, sharing the king’s bed and fine food, she regretted having cried at all. How do I know that the dead do not regret having struggled so hard to stay alive?

The great dream and small awakenings

You dream you are drinking, then wake and find yourself weeping; you dream you are weeping, then wake and go hunting. While dreaming, you do not know you are in a dream; within a dream you may dream again. Only after waking do you realize it was all a dream. A greater awakening is needed to see that this human life too is a great dream. Fools fancy themselves awake and smugly declare, “I understand! I understand!” Ruler and shepherd boy are alike in this—and Confucius, you, and I are all dreaming. When I say “you are dreaming,” that saying itself is still within a dream.

Paradox and meeting the sage

Such words may be called diaogui (paradoxical discourse—speech that overturns ordinary reason and startles the listener). Ten thousand generations from now, if a great sage appears who truly grasps this deep meaning, it will be as though morning and evening must meet that person—meaning whoever can unlock this principle, though separated by myriad ages, shares the same truth.

Brief context: This passage does not describe specific Daoist ritual; it uses Zhuangzi’s familiar argument for “equalizing life and death and distinguishing dream from waking.” Lady Li’s reversal of feeling shows that clinging to “life” may be no clearer than rejecting death; “great awakening” stands for seeing through life as dream—not urging contempt for life, but loosening rigid, absolute splits between life and death, joy and sorrow.

From the line “death and life make no change for the self” onward, the text is talking about leaving one’s homeland and living long in a strange place.

Ruosang means leaving home while still young. Staying abroad so long that one forgets the old country often belongs to the same frame of mind as fear of death and clinging to life.

Liji was the favored consort of Duke Xian of Jin; she came from the Lirong people, hence “Liji of Li.” Ai is a place in that region; a fengren is a border guard. When she first came from Rong territory into Jin she wept; later, honored and sharing bed and board with the ruler, she looked back on those tears as something to regret—Zhuangzi uses her to illustrate the relativity of life and death.

Books on dream interpretation often say: dream of feasting and wake up weeping; dream of weeping and wake up to go hunting. Such is the shift between dreaming and waking. While dreaming one does not know one is dreaming, and may even interpret one’s own dream inside the dream; only after waking does one see that the good or ill read from the dream was still inside a dream. These passages exhaust how human feeling works. Whoever sees through this here will grasp that answers in the vein of Wei Jie’s question to Yue Guang are not yet fully penetrating.

This too is a major matter in learning: if one stops at Yue Guang’s kind of reply, what then of Shang Gaozong dreaming of Fu Yue or Confucius dreaming of Duke of Zhou? Those belong to great awakening and seeing the Way—what Chan calls great enlightenment.

The ruler is lofty; the muyu (horse-keeper) is low. Fools live in the world yet take themselves to be awake, fussing over high and low—is that not stubborn blindness? Qieqie describes petty, narrow vision.

What you and I say to each other is all within a “dream”; my speaking like this now—calling you a dreamer—is dream-talk too. The point: the human world is like one vast empty dream; only the writing turns strange, even uncanny.

To speak this way is extremely odd; yet within that extreme oddity there is extremely fine reason. If after ten thousand generations a great sage appears who can understand this view of mine, meeting me would be a matter of a morning or an evening. This also means that if in later ages there is someone like Yang Xiong, he will surely understand my explanation (jie).

If we suppose you and I have already debated: if you win against me, does that mean I am wrong and you are right? If I win and you do not win against me, does that mean I am necessarily right and you necessarily wrong?

Maybe you are right and I am wrong, or you are wrong and I am right; maybe we are both right, or both wrong—we simply cannot verify for each other who is right and who is wrong. People are already trapped in confusion and cannot see through it; who can we call on to be the judge?

If we call someone who sees things your way, since they stand on your side, how can they be fair? If we call someone who sees things my way, since they stand on my side, likewise they cannot be fair. If we call a third person who is like neither you nor me, they differ from both of us and still cannot settle who is right and who is wrong. Even if we add a fourth person who is like both of us, it still cannot be settled.

So you, me, and any “third party” we bring in—we still cannot make things clear to one another. Can we only look again to that which is external to us?

(Commentary / oral explanation)

This section grows out of the tangle of each side insisting “I am right”—what was called earlier the “beginning of profit-and-loss stakes”: arguing over who wins and who loses, over who is right and who is wrong, starts from there.

Victory and defeat by themselves do not show who is truly right or truly wrong; so the two sides in “you and I debate” in fact cannot see each other clearly. What is called “dim and murky” (dian an) means that what each sees is murky and dark. When two people’s views are both murky, who can serve as the correct standard? Someone on your side cannot judge; someone on my side cannot either; someone unlike both of us still cannot; someone like both of us still cannot.

One is you, one is me, and when a third person is pulled in, all three still fail to know one another—we have to rely again on “bi,” that which is beyond you and me. Hence questions like “and must we wait on that other?”

Here “bi” (that/other) in the Zhuangzi system points to zao hua—the creating-and-transforming work of Heaven and Earth—and also to Tian Ni, the “demarcation” or pivot that Heaven applies. Tian Jun (Heaven’s equilibrium), discussed earlier, belongs to the same line of thought as Tian Ni here: true right and wrong cannot be fixed by the win or loss of human debate; they must be referred back to the level of “Heaven” to be grasped.

What does it mean to “harmonize by Heaven’s dividing line (tianni)”?

“Is” and “is not,” “so” and “not so,” can originally stand side by side—this is the “walking both paths (liang xing)” spoken of earlier. Once you use cleverness to decide “this is right” and also decide “only this way is right,” “wrong” and “not so” spring up at once, and quarrels over right and wrong begin.

When people influence one another through words, if that turns into standing opposed and competing, how can it compare with following each one’s own sense of “right” without treating each other as enemies? So the classic says “as if not opposed”—those two words are finely chosen; “as if” is like saying “why not?” To seek agreement without opposition, yet still try to defeat one another with words—how can that compare with going along with each one’s “is” and not being hostile? Hence “as if not opposed.” Harmonize by Heaven’s dividing line, and you can wander freely as you please, and you can also live out a whole lifetime—hence “by following it in manifold wandering, one exhausts the years”: follow it, go along with it; manyan is free wandering; qiong nian is like Du Fu’s “seeing off sun and moon in ease.” To do this is not only to live out the years but to forget the years; not only to forget the years but to forget principles and distinctions. When years and principles are both forgotten, one is stirred and uplifted in the realm of no-thing—this “stirring” (zhen) is the meaning of carefree wandering (xiaoyao). Once carefree in the realm of no-thing, the whole lifetime is entrusted to that realm of no-thing.

Penumbra (wangliang) asked Shadow (ying): A moment ago you walked, now you stop; a moment ago you sat, now you rise—why are you so without fixed conduct, so unlike something that decides for itself?

Shadow said: Is it because I depend on something that I am like this? What I depend on—does it too depend on something? I depend on things like the scales under a snake’s belly or a cicada’s wings (layer upon layer of dependence)—how could I know why it is so? How could I know why it is not so?

Brief background notes:

• Heaven’s dividing line (tianni): The natural boundary of judgment, not a human-imposed right and wrong.
• Walking both paths (liang xing): Right and wrong, so and not-so, can coexist at once without clinging to one side.
• Wangliang and ying (shadow): In Zhuangzi’s parable, the faint trace beyond the shadow questions the shadow; often used to show that all things are “dependent”—arising only through something else.
• Snake’s belly scales and cicada’s wings: Zhuangzi often uses the snake moving by scales on its belly and the cicada flying on thin wings to illustrate dependence level by level, with no independent “root” that truly masters itself.

This passage again develops the discussion from the word “dai” (dependency). When it turns to the shadow and wangliang—the faintest trace at the margin of a shadow—“having no fixed constancy” means they have no settled measure. “I am like this because I depend on something” means the shadow’s movement depends on the body; though I depend on the body, the body in turn depends on something else—and that is dependence on the Maker of things. That the body is a body is no more than snake scales or cicada wings; can I be said to depend on those alone? The cicada and snake have already transformed, yet the snake’s scales and the cicada’s wings still remain as what is left after sloughing skin or shell—how could they move by themselves? Since I depend on the body, and the body has its own dependencies, how can I know the reason for “this” versus “not this”? That is using “not depending on that thing alone” as a simile.

Long ago Zhuang Zhou dreamed he had become a butterfly, fluttering about—exactly the manner of a butterfly; pleased with himself and at ease in mind, he no longer knew there was any “Zhuang Zhou.” Suddenly he woke, rigid in bed, clearly Zhuang Zhou again, yet unable to tell whether Zhuang Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhuang Zhou—between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be a distinction; this is called wuhua (transformation of things). This section again unfolds from the earlier talk of dreams: xuxu describes the butterfly’s fluttering; “pleased with oneself” is finding joy in oneself, and “zhishi satisfied” means the mind is content. The point is that in the dream as a butterfly one is utterly delighted and no longer aware of “I,” hence “not knowing Zhou.” Ququ is the stiff, straight posture—how one lies in bed just after waking; these touches are like brushwork in a painting. From Zhuang Zhou’s side, the ease and pleasure of the night are put as dreaming one is a butterfly; yet lest the butterfly’s side take “my waking now” as its dream, the text says one cannot know whether “Zhuang Zhou dreamed the butterfly” or “the butterfly dreamed Zhuang Zhou.” Between dream and waking there is always some distinction, so Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly “must differ.” That line seems about to conclude but stops short—precisely so the reader may investigate here, like raising a huatou (meditation phrase) in Chan. Wuhua means precisely the principle by which the myriad things change and transform into one another.

Purpose of This Chapter Title

This chapter title takes its main theme from the end of On the Equality of Things; the author adds two further analogies—the prose is extraordinarily bold, the reasoning extremely deep. Once one sees through this point, what need is there to wrangle over right and wrong? That is precisely what is meant by “birth and death do not alter the self, so how much less the tips of benefit and harm.” Head and tail echo each other: as if broken yet connected, as if cause and effect continue yet do not truly link end to end—the whole piece moves in this rhythm of language. Read it through, and the meaning never exhausts itself.

Zhuangzi Oral Exposition, Volume One

(Bibliographic entry)

Zhuangzi Oral Exposition, Volume Two

Inner Chapters: “Nourishing Life,” Chapter Three

“Master” (zhu) is like what Chan Buddhism calls the “true master”; “nourishing the master” means cultivating this root that gives life without ceasing. What Daoists call the “foundation of the elixir” (danji) is the same idea. Earlier, the text first speaks of the joy of free wandering, then of being without this and without that; only here does it turn to work done on oneself. These three chapters seem to follow an order; the chapters below do not entirely do so.

Vernacular Reading of the Scripture

“My life has a limit, yet knowledge has no limit; to use what is limited to follow what is unlimited is perilous! Already perilous, and still to be one who ‘knows’—peril upon peril!”

• Ya (limit): boundary, extent.
• Zhi (know/knowledge): here, mind, thought, the impulse to know.

Human life each has its end—that is finite; mind and the pursuit of knowing seem never to end—that is infinite. To use a finite life to chase infinite thinking is dangerous. The “yi” in “dai yi” is a particle strengthening the tone of “danger.”

“Already perilous, and still to be one who knows—peril upon peril”: knowing that such pursuit is dangerous, yet still devoting oneself only to “knowing and using cleverness”—then the danger is all the greater. “Yi” again is a particle, echoing the “yi” above; read it as “Perilous—perilous!”

“Ya ji” means boundary and limit. Each person’s life has its own measure, and living also comes to an end. Yet thought and scheming seem to have no end—using a finite life to chase endless ideas, turning this way and that, when will you ever stop?

In “dai yi”, “dai” means danger and unreliability; “yi” here is mostly a modal particle, used like “yi” in Discourse on Making All Things Equal—you have to read it with what comes before. People are clearly already in peril, yet still strain to think and calculate, convinced they are very clever and full of solutions—I say in the end they still stay stuck in peril and cannot get out.

Continuing with “dai” is meant to wake later generations deeply: the “dai” here is the same line of meaning as “wei” (peril) in the old saying “the human heart is only perilous”—the heart easily runs toward danger, and people easily drive themselves into a dead end.

As for those “yi wei zhi” (the sort who take themselves for “people who understand”), like the folk saying “thinking yourself clever”, they then scheme on purpose and act with forced intent. Later lines in Nourishing Life such as “do good without courting fame, do ill without courting punishment, take following the central line as your constant” are precisely urging people not to use that kind of “cleverness” to push themselves toward fame, punishment, and peril—only yuan du (following the middle way, neither leaning left nor right) can preserve the body and keep life whole. This section of oral commentary is saying: a body with limits must not race thought without limits; when knowing turns into self-serving cleverness, the outcome is dai (peril)—the same lesson as “only peril.”

These lines describe exactly the kind of self-cultivation Zhuangzi practiced—the way of living that worked for him.

“In doing good, do not approach fame”: Even when you do good, do not do what easily wins you a reputation for goodness or gets you praised as a moral exemplar. “In doing what is called evil, do not approach punishment”: Even when something falls on the “evil” side, do not do what would bring legal penalty or crime. This matches the Pianmu chapter: above, do not deliberately put on the show of ren and yi; below, do not indulge in lewd or crooked behavior.

“Du” here should be read as “po”—being pressed by circumstances. “Respond only when pressed; act only when you have no choice”: Answer only when the world pushes you; move only when you truly must. Wandering in the world this way, you leave no trace that others can label as good or evil; you simply follow heavenly principle and what is natural. When forced, you respond; when you respond, you harbor no private agenda, and you treat this as ordinary. “Take following this ‘respond when pressed’ as your constant way”: Make this pattern of responding only under pressure your everyday rule.

Thus you can preserve the body, preserve life, support your parents, and live out your full span of years—what Mencius meant by “Do not double-guess long life or early death; cultivate the self and wait”: do not guess at length of life; only cultivate the person and await fate. Mencius speaks from mind-nature in a solemn tone; this book speaks from naturalness in a more free and easy tone. The wording differs, but the aim of teaching self-cultivation is the same.

Zhu Xi (Huian) glossed “du” as “middle” (zhong), felt the lines on “approaching fame” and “approaching punishment” were not fully explained, and then said: if fear of reputation’s burden keeps you from giving yourself fully to learning, you slip slightly toward “evil”; “do not approach punishment” in doing evil sounds like picking deeds unlikely to be punished and doing them on the sly, and when punishment looms, finding clever ways out—as if Zhuangzi were a reckless middling person. Read against this book’s thread and Pianmu, that is not Zhuangzi’s intent. “Du” can mean “middle,” but “forced/pressed” fits better; on the evidence of this text, “po” is especially apt.