《庄子口义》Vol. 6

The Yuanchu Bird and the Owl (The Parable of Xiang Liang)

When Huizi served as prime minister of Liang, Zhuangzi went to see him. Huizi feared Zhuangzi had come to take his post and had the realm searched for three days and three nights. Zhuangzi went to see him and said: In the south there is a bird called yuanchu—do you know it? Yuanchu sets out from the southern sea and aims for the northern sea; it will not roost except on the wutong tree, will not eat except bamboo fruit (the fruit bamboo bears), and will not drink except from sweet springs. Just then an owl had gotten hold of a rotten rat. Yuanchu flew past over its head; the owl looked up and gave a “he” cry—as if to say: Are you trying to “he” me with your state of Liang?

Commentary on the wording: “He” is the threatening cry of one afraid its food will be snatched. Using an owl guarding a rotten rat to scare the phoenix stands for Huizi guarding the post of prime minister to scare Zhuangzi—one wonders where the old master found so many fine comparisons; after Zhuangzi, writers have all learned this sort of wit. This Zhuangzi—can the world do without it? Huizi was closest to him; the episode may never have happened and is mostly playful mockery. Lian shi here means bamboo fruit (zhu shi).

Watching Fish from the Hao Bridge

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling on the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said: The minnows swim at ease—that is the fish’s joy. Huizi said: You are not a fish—how do you know the fish are joyful? Zhuangzi said: You are not me—how do you know I do not know the fish are joyful? Huizi said: I am not you, so I indeed do not know you; you are not a fish in the first place, so your not knowing the fish’s joy is fully settled. Zhuangzi said: Please return to the root of the question. When you asked “how do you know the fish are joyful,” you already knew that I knew—and only then came to ask me; I tell you, I knew it from the bridge over the Hao.

Commentary on the wording: This exchange is especially ingenious. “Xun qi ben” (return to the root) means go back to the beginning: when you first asked “you are not a fish, how do you know they are joyful,” you had already grasped my meaning—that is why you asked; since you “knew me” in that way, on the Hao I “knew the fish” in the same way. The two understood each other best; their repartee at the time must have been a sight worth seeing.

This opening sets up a comparison between the dialogue between the River God (He Bo) and the Sea God (Hai Ruo) in the Zhuangzi, and the exchange in the Record of Transmitting the Lamp in which National Teacher Zhong speaks of “the dharma preached without emotion” and “buddhahood without mind.” Chan Master Dahui says: on Laozi’s (Zhuangzi’s) side there is “soft stubbornness,” and when it meets that monk’s “soft stubbornness,” the two tangle together. The lines about “asking whether that house’s lively great gate, great waves, and broad life-root are cut off”—the Zhuangzi can actually bear that weight (see Dahui’s Recorded Sayings, in the Pujue fascicle).

Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, “Perfect Joy” (Zhì Lè), Section 18

Is there “perfect joy” (zhì lè)—the highest happiness—in the world? Is there a way truly to nourish the body and preserve life and fate?

Why do people live as they do and choose as they choose? What should one avoid and where should one stay? Where should one go and what should one leave? What counts as joy and what as suffering?

What people in the world value are wealth, long life, and a good name; the joys they pursue are bodily ease, rich food, fine clothes, beauty, and pleasant sounds. What they despise are poverty, low status, short life, and bad reputation; what they find bitter is when the body lacks comfort, the mouth cannot enjoy rich flavors, the form cannot wear fine dress, the eyes cannot see beauty, and the ears cannot hear sweet sounds. When they fail to obtain these, they grow greatly anxious and afraid—for the sake of this physical form, how foolish!

The rich toil with their bodies and work desperately, amassing wealth they never exhaust, while the form is worn down by external things. The noble worry day and night, scheming over gain and loss, and the form is estranged by constant thought. People are born together with care and fear; those who live long grow dull and heavy, long afflicted yet unable to die—what bitterness is that? The form is dragged far enough as it is.

Those who die for a name are seen by the world as good, yet that may not preserve the person. I do not know whether that “good” is truly good or in fact not good. If taken as good, it is not enough to keep one alive; if taken as not good, it may be enough to keep one alive. Hence it is said: when loyal remonstrance is not heeded, withdraw circumspectly and do not contend stubbornly—Wu Zixu (Wu Yuan) contended and his form was maimed; not contending for fame, fame also fails to form. Is there any real “good”?

As for what the world now practices and calls joy, I again do not know whether that is truly joy or not joy. What I see as the world’s so-called joy is crowds and noise, as if done under compulsion, yet all call it joy—I have not seen that it is joy, nor that it must not be joy. Is there joy at all? I take wuwei (non-action) as true joy.

The great suffering of the world lies here too. Hence: perfect joy is no [ordinary] joy; perfect fame is no [ordinary] fame—the highest joy does not appear as worldly pleasure, and the highest reputation does not appear as worldly honor. Right and wrong in the world cannot be fixed once and for all. Even so, wuwei can settle right and wrong; perfect joy that can preserve the person—perhaps only wuwei comes close to preserving body and life.

Note (woven into the reading above where possible): He Bo and Hai Ruo—the river spirit and sea spirit in Zhuangzi, “Autumn Floods” (Qiū Shuǐ), debating largeness, smallness, having, and not having. Wu Zixu: minister of Wu in the Spring and Autumn period; remonstrance brought disaster and death—Zhuangzi cites him to show that “contention” does not necessarily preserve the form. Wuwei: not laziness, but refraining from artificial striving and forcing worldly joy and fame, settling in what is naturally so.

This piece develops the metaphor from the previous section on “not letting external things harm oneself.” The four lines under “what to do and what to rely on” spell out how one should act and what one should stand on. The rhythm is close to Qu Yuan’s Bu Ju (Divination).

Wealth, rank, long life, and goodness are four kinds of people; good and evil, fame and disgrace; exhausting labor and bitter toil; weighing public affairs and worrying over outcomes; growing dim and never clearing until old age—the lieshi (martyr) is one who dies for reputation. The four metaphors share one meaning: being harmed by external things. After the first three metaphors (wealth, rank, long life) are finished, the author brings in the martyr metaphor from another angle, shifting the tone—a deliberate move in the writing.

“Dunxun” is the same as “junxun” (hesitating, holding back). To strive is to maim the body; not to strive for fame is not to succeed—these two lines expose worldly wisdom: mutilating oneself for fame cannot count as goodness. The passage beginning “what the world does today” gathers the four metaphors. “The whole crowd rushing together” means everyone in the world runs in a herd toward one thing; “pengpeng ran” (eagerly, insistently) expresses the must-have-it attitude. They could stop but do not, hence “as if they could not help it.” “I have not yet called it joy, nor yet called it not joy” means I still cannot say for sure what the world calls joy or not joy—a deep contempt. I take wuwei (non-action) as joy, while ordinary people take it as great suffering. “Supreme joy lies in having no joy; supreme honor lies in having no honor”—how many in the world grasp joy without joy, honor without honor? So right and wrong in the world may not be fixed; yet only wuwei, perhaps, can settle right and wrong—read these lines for the give-and-take and rise-and-fall in the wording, and the craft shows.

“Ji cun” means: with wuwei, one can almost preserve that joy. Try saying this: Heaven is clear through wuwei, Earth is at rest through wuwei; Heaven and Earth’s twin wuwei meet, and the myriad things are transformed—dim and dim, not knowing whence they arise; again dim and dim, with no visible form. Each thing keeps its office and grows from wuwei, so it is said that Heaven and Earth are wuwei yet nothing is left undone. Who among humans can truly attain wuwei?

These lines bring together the ideas discussed earlier: when the two kinds of wuwei (non-action) align, they can give rise to the myriad things—this is “wuwei and yet nothing left undone.” Where the myriad things come from has no clear starting point we can see. Zhi means to grow and to multiply—everything is generated within nature, which is why the text says “all are propagated from wuwei.” This chapter runs from “there is supreme joy in the world” to “how utterly wuwei,” with language that rises and falls; it repays close reading.

When Zhuangzi’s wife died, Huizi went to offer condolences and found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs spread, beating on a pottery basin and singing. Huizi said, “You lived with her, raised your children together, and grew old side by side. When she died, not weeping would be one thing—but beating a basin and singing is going too far, isn’t it?”

Zhuangzi said, “No. When she had just died, how could I not have grieved? But tracing her back to the beginning, she originally had no life; not only no life—originally she had no form; not only no form—originally she had no qi (vital energy). Amid the dim, indeterminate mix of what almost is and almost is not, a change produced qi; qi changed and produced form; form changed and produced life; and now again a change leads toward death. This is like the succession of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She is already resting securely in the great room of heaven and earth, while I follow behind wailing and sobbing—I would be failing to understand Heaven’s decree, so I stopped weeping.”

Huaji means something like “playful” or “comical”; names of this sort are mostly later fabrications attached to the story. Legend says the Yellow Emperor once rested in this place; liuyang was probably what ancients called ailments like boils on the body. Juejue describes grave illness and a body worn down by suffering; jiajie (provisional borrowing) means the human body is temporarily assembled from external things—in the work of creation it is no more than a speck of dust, not worth esteeming. The Buddhist idea of the body as a provisional combination of the four conditions (si yuan jiahe), a false body to be relinquished and contemplated, is essentially close to this. Guanhua is to contemplate the transformation of all things; hua ji wo means that I too will transform along with creation. Earlier the text loathes illness; here it asks “why loathe at all”—the tone seems inconsistent, yet loathing illness when ill is still ordinary feeling; only by seeing the root between life and death does one take the Dao-heart as what truly matters.

Zhuangzi went to Chu and saw a skull (doulou) on open ground, flesh gone, only the frame remaining. He tapped it with his whip and asked: Did you end up like this from craving life and straying from constant principle? Or from a fallen state and execution by axe? Or from unworthy conduct, ashamed before parents, wife, and children, disgraced in your village? Or from cold and hunger? Or simply because your years were fulfilled? (The question is repeated once, in the manner of the original’s oral rhetoric.) As soon as he finished, Zhuangzi lay down with the skull as a pillow; at midnight the skull appeared in a dream and said: What you just said sounds like a debater’s tone; the ties that bind the living vanish when one is dead. Would you like to hear the good of death? Zhuangzi said: Yes. The skull said: After death there is no ruler above, no minister below, no toil of the four seasons; at ease one takes heaven and earth as spring and autumn—even the joy of facing south as king cannot compare. Zhuangzi did not believe him and said: I will ask Siming (the spirit who governs lifespan) to restore your form, return flesh and bone and skin, give you back to parents, wife, children, and neighbors who knew you—would you want that? The skull deeply furrowed its brow and knit its forehead and said: How could I abandon the pleasure of facing south as king and go back to those human burdens?

Zhuangzi went to Chu and saw a skull (doulou) on open ground, flesh gone, only the frame remaining. He tapped it with his whip and asked: Did you end up like this from craving life and straying from constant principle? Or from a fallen state and execution by axe? Or from unworthy conduct, ashamed before parents, wife, and children, disgraced in your village? Or from cold and hunger? Or simply because your years were fulfilled? (The question is repeated once, in the manner of the original’s oral rhetoric.) As soon as he finished, Zhuangzi lay down with the skull as a pillow; at midnight the skull appeared in a dream and said: What you just said sounds like a debater’s tone; the ties that bind the living vanish when one is dead. Would you like to hear the good of death? Zhuangzi said: Yes. The skull said: After death there is no ruler above, no minister below, no toil of the four seasons; at ease one takes heaven and earth as spring and autumn—even the joy of facing south as king cannot compare. Zhuangzi did not believe him and said: I will ask Siming (the spirit who governs lifespan) to restore your form, return flesh and bone and skin, give you back to parents, wife, children, and neighbors who knew you—would you want that? The skull deeply furrowed its brow and knit its forehead and said: How could I abandon the pleasure of facing south as king and go back to those human burdens?

Xiaoran describes a state of empty clarity, quiet stillness, and inner steadiness; congran describes ease, composure, and contentment in oneself. The lines about “what various sons and ordinary sons say” and so on mean that Zhuangzi, using the principle of life and death, invented the episode with the skull (tóulóu) as a parable—the style is very unusual. Readers should see this as allegory, not as a factual record; taking it as literal history would miss the point.

Yan Hui was about to go to Qi, and Confucius’s face showed worry. Zigong left his mat and asked: “Your disciple ventures to ask: Yan Hui is going east to Qi—why does the Master look troubled?” Confucius said: “A good question. In the past Guan Zhong said: ‘A small bag cannot hold large things; a short rope cannot draw from deep water.’ (Chu means a pouch; gěng means the well rope.) Such sayings mean that each person’s allotted portion has its own completion, and form and qi each suit their proper place—they cannot be casually added to or taken away. I fear that when Yan Hui goes to speak to the Lord of Qi about the ways of Yao, Shun, and the Yellow Emperor, and adds the lore of Suiren and Shennong, the lord will search inward and fail to find it; failing, he will be confused, and confusion leads to harm. Have you not heard?

Once a sea bird alighted in the suburbs of Lu. The Duke of Lu received it in a carriage, feasted it in the ancestral temple with wine, played the Jiushao, and set out a Tailao (the grandest sacrifice of three animals) as food. The bird stared blankly, fearful and anxious, daring neither a bite of meat nor a sip of wine, and died in three days. This was raising a bird the way one raises a person, not raising a bird the way one raises a bird. To nurture it according to its nature, one should let it roost in deep woods, roam open plains, float on rivers and lakes, eat small fish, and rest with the flock of birds as it will. It naturally dislikes human chatter—why fill the wilds of Dongting with endless talk and with Xianchi and Jiushao until the music covers the land? Birds hearing it would fly away, beasts would run, fish would dive to the bottom—they all loathe that human clamor.

Humans must live on land; fish must live in water. Put a person in water and they die; put a fish on land and they die. Their natures and likes differ, so treatment cannot be the same. Therefore the ancient sages did not force everyone’s talents into one mold and did not compel all to do the same kind of work; names matched reality, and principles suited each person’s fit—only then is the way smooth (tiaoda) and blessing sustained (fuchi).

Note: In the transmitted text, the passage about the sea bird, Xianchi and Jiushao, and birds flying, beasts fleeing, and fish diving appears twice in copyist repetition; the above merges it into one reading to avoid redundancy.

Liezi was eating by the roadside when he came upon the skull of a man who had lived a hundred years. He pulled a stalk of couch grass (peng) from the tangle of weeds and, pointing it at the skull, said: “Only you and I know that in truth there has never been death and never been life. Were you really ‘nourishing’ yourself? Am I really ‘rejoicing’?”

“Pulling up peng” means that the man stood among the couch grass and lifted a stalk to point at the skull. Eating while alive is called yang (“nourishing”); passing into stillness at death is called huan (“rejoicing”)—here huan treats quiescence and extinction as a kind of ease and contentment.

“Species have their kinds” means that between Heaven and Earth the myriad things are born and transform, each kind unlike the others. What follows begins from the most minute things; this is not using the small to stand for the large, but saying that the greatest and the smallest have no essential difference—that is, nothing is fine or coarse, nothing noble or base. The meaning is no more than that, yet the artistry of the prose is rare in any age: order appears within disorder, disorder within order, like fang, like flying clouds and broken geese, like a lone peak and a broken slope—the more one reads, the better it gets. Liezi’s version adds two lines in the middle; it is not as clean as Zhuangzi’s, which omits them.

Fang is when floating dust first gathers on water and moss has not yet formed—already fine threads intertwine; the thing is extremely tiny. The garment of the frog and snail is moss; the border of water and land is where water meets the shore—the bank often thickens into a continuous sheet, hence “garment.” These two lines first describe moss, then shift to ling tun (high ground in the fields): ling xi is marsh pennywort; yu qi means dungy soil. Marsh pennywort grows in dungy soil and becomes wu zu grass; the root of wu zu in turn becomes qi cao (a grub-like insect, a kind of scarab larva), and its leaves become hu die (butterflies); xu is another name for the butterfly. Adding the line “xu also” beneath “butterfly” is especially ingenious.

Below, transformations continue: under the stove there is an insect that lives purely by spontaneous transformation, called qu duo—its body is soft, without skin or shell, hence “like shedding” (ruo tuo), like today’s citrus worms. Qu duo can also become a bird named gan yu gu; the spittle of gan yu gu becomes the insect si mi; si mi in turn arises in shi yi (in vinegar); yi lü arises in vinegar; huang kuang arises in jiu you; mao rui arises in fu qu—here “arises in” (sheng hu) is used in a chain, saving two syntactic turns. Huang kuang, jiu you, fu qu, and mao rui are all names of insects. The point is that the myriad things change and generate without end. After the long passage above is already complete, it closes with utterly strange names on purpose—to startle the worldly; it must not be read as literal history.

Yang xi is a plant name; bamboo-like but producing no shoots is bu sun jiu zhu—shoots of the edible kind can be eaten; this kind cannot. Qing ning is an insect; cheng is also an insect; ma here is a plant name, as in purslane or horseweed; ren is also a plant name, as in ginseng or the “human-face” fruit tree—clearly many plant names are used, yet the characters ma and ren are deliberately turned into bizarre labels. Commentators through the ages have said “details unknown,” when in fact countless readers across ten thousand generations have been fooled by Zhuangzi’s verbal sleight of hand and never seen through it. Among transformations in the world, sparrows become clams, hawks become turtledoves, rotten grass becomes fireflies, fang becomes bats—what is there that does not happen?

Entering the mechanism (ru yu ji) speaks of the ultimate limit; exiting the mechanism and entering the mechanism are exiting death and entering life—like fuel burned out in a furnace, where even the ash no longer knows what “burned out” means.

Those who truly tongda yu sheng (are fully attuned to life) do not chase what life itself does not require; those who truly tongda yu ming (are fully attuned to fate) do not force what human power can never grasp.

To care for the body one must first have external things—food, clothing, utensils, and the like—yet many people lack nothing outwardly and still fail to nourish the body well. We are born to preserve the bodily form first, yet some still have the form while life is already gone. Coming into life cannot be refused; leaving death cannot be halted—how lamentable. People assume that nourishing form is enough to preserve life; if nourishing form really were insufficient to sustain life, what would worldly striving be worth? Even so, some things are “not worth doing” yet cannot be left undone; once done, toil is unavoidable.

If you wish to escape being enslaved by the bodily frame, nothing surpasses qishi (releasing attachment to the world). Qishi is not hiding in deep mountains and ignoring human affairs; it is acting in the world while the heart is not pulled by outer things. Without entanglements the mind is zhengping (upright and level); when level, it flows with the ceaseless renewing of zaohua (the creative process), and flowing with it one nears where the Dao is almost fully realized. Affairs need not be deliberately cast away, nor life deliberately renounced; if you can respond when things come and forget when they go, the form is not worn down; if you do not fix on ideas of birth and death, Jing (essence) is not scattered.

When form is whole and essence restored, one is one with the way of Heaven. Heaven and Earth are parents of the ten thousand things: united they compose this body, dispersed each returns to its beginning. Beginning is the start before there are things. When form and essence are not dissipated, this is called neng yi (being able to transform); essence refined upon essence turns back to xiang tian—to assist the way of Heaven. The two characters jing here differ in meaning from jing in xingjing (form and essence); fan (return) means giving back, restoring to Heaven.

“Sheng zhi suo wu yi wei” (what lies outside what life needs) refers to things beyond life itself—how many pairs of shoes or spoons one uses in a lifetime, and such. “Zhi zhi suo wu nai he” (what knowing cannot help) refers to what human effort cannot reach.

People commonly think: nourishing form must rely on externals, and having life one must first complete the form. Yet externals are often ample while the form does not long endure; though the form is whole, life still has an end. Hence “there are those with surplus things whose forms are not nourished,” and “there are those whose forms do not leave them yet life is lost.” The earlier “nothing is worth doing yet cannot be undone” points to this; “its doing cannot escape hardship” means whether one acts or not, self-burden is hard to avoid. To escape self-burden, qishi is indispensable. Qishi is not bishi (withdrawal from the world); it is in the world, sensing things with no deliberate mind, then responding—moved only when pressed, rising only when there is no choice—so “I” remain “I” and the world remains the world.

Zhengping means the heart holds no bias of high and low, grasping and rejecting—akin to what Buddhist teaching calls “this dharma is equal.” Geng sheng (renewing life) is renewing without end together with That (the maker), assimilating to the maker, day after day new again and again—hence renewing life together with it. At this point one has almost exhausted the Dao.

Who grasps this meaning finds that affairs outside the self and attachment to “life” need not be deliberately dropped—they fall away of themselves. Jing fu (essence restored) means spirit no longer drifts outward; “united they form the body” means the four greats provisionally combine into this person; “dispersed they return to beginning” means each returns to its first state. If form and essence (form and Jing) are not dissipated, one can transform—hence neng yi. Having embodied the Dao to this point, essence upon essence, one can praise zaohua and xiang tian—complete the way of Heaven together with it. The closing note—“the two jing here differ from jing in xingjing; fan is return, giving the matter back to Heaven”—clarifies the wording: jing in “essence upon essence” is not the same as jing in xingjing; fan is return, handing the affair back to Heaven.

Liezi asked Guan Yinzi: “The perfected person can dive underwater without drowning, walk on fire without being burned, and tread upon all things without fear—how can one reach such a state?”

Guan Yinzi replied: “This is guarding pure Qi (chunqi zhi shou)—preserving primordial Qi and keeping the mind single and undivided. It is not something that people who rely on cleverness or boldness can achieve. Let me explain: whatever has form, appearance, color, or sound is a ‘thing.’ Things ought not to be cut off from one another; how then can one stay only at the level of the visible? There is first ‘form’ (xing)—the text has the four words ‘appearance, image, color, and sound’; here only ‘form’ is mentioned, a common classical device of citing one to stand for all. The Creator has no form, so we say things arise from ‘the formless’ and cease at ‘no transformation’ (nothing changes, one and not two). To grasp this and exhaust its subtlety is the principle of creation (zaohua); once one reaches it, one leaves behind all visible ‘things,’ and things can no longer bind him.

He stays within the measure of no excess (buyin zhi du)—order without disorder, with a fixed norm—and hides in the realm of no beginning (wuduan zhi ji)—the state before things, the principle of creation—moving between the beginning and end of all things: unifying his nature (yi qi xing), nourishing his Qi, harmonizing his De, and becoming one with the Creator. Hence it is said he penetrates what things are created by. Such a person’s heavenly guard (tianshou) is complete and his Shen (spirit) has no crack (shen wu que)—no gap, no interval—so how can external things enter? Even when struck by things from outside, his Shen does not stir, and so he does not fear.

A drunk who falls from a cart may be going fast yet often does not die. His bones and joints are the same as others’, and the accident is the same, but the harm is not—because his Shen is whole. When riding he does not know he is riding; when falling he does not know he is falling. Life, death, shock, and fear do not enter his breast, so he meets things without being shaken. If he can preserve his Shen even in wine, how much more one who attains wholeness in Heaven (de quan yu tian)? The sage hides in Heaven (cang yu tian), so nothing can harm him—this is the earlier idea of “not letting things harm oneself,” put in the guise of Wuwei (non-action).

“Diving without obstruction” (qian xing bu zhi) means moving in silence with no hindrance. “Walking above all things without trembling” (xing hu wanwu zhi shang er bu li) is like riding the wind. Guarding pure Qi is guarding primordial Qi and keeping the mind single and undivided; cleverness belongs to the mind and boldness to force—they are not what “accommodating mind and accommodating force” can do. The words may sound far-fetched, but the point holds; one need only look at today’s practitioners of fuqi (breath-holding) to see a hint of it. Appearance, image, color, and sound are all marks of form. If one confines oneself to one body and cannot see the beginning of all things, one is bound by those marks—hence “it is form alone.”

When Confucius traveled to the state of Chu, he passed through a grove and saw a hunchbacked old man catching cicadas with a pole and sticky tip as easily as picking things up off the ground. Confucius asked, “You are truly skillful—do you have a method for this?”

The old man said, “I do have a method. I practice by piling sticky pellets on the tip of my pole: when I can balance two without either falling, I rarely miss a cicada; when I can balance three without falling, I miss only about one in ten; when I can balance five without falling, catching cicadas is like picking them up. I plant my body as if it were a wooden stake driven into the earth; I raise my arm as if it were a withered branch that does not move. Though heaven and earth are vast and the myriad things are many, in my mind I know only the cicada’s wing—I do not turn my head, I do not glance sideways, and I do not let other things pull my attention away from that wing. How could I fail to catch them?”

Confucius turned to his disciples and said, “When the will is unified and undivided, the spirit can gather and concentrate. That is what this hunchbacked old man embodies.”

(According to Guo Xiang’s commentary, the two phrases “not turning back” and “not glancing sideways” are also finely chosen.) “Like a stake fixed in the ground” refers to what we today call a wooden post—“stake” (jue), “wood” (zhu), and “fixed” (ju) together mean planted and held fast, like an ancient post driven firmly into the ground so it does not shift. “Not turning back, not glancing sideways” simply describes a mind and will held steady: while catching cicadas, the body stays like a stake, the arm like a dead branch, and the heart keeps only to the cicada’s wing, unaware of anything else. When such singleness reaches its utmost, it is “using the will without division”—the will does not split in two—and “spirit gathering into subtlety”—spirit concentrates until it becomes marvelous. Though this is explained through a metaphor about guarding pure qi, such things really exist in the world; even today some people can do it, yet they treat it only as a craft and do not realize that it also embodies a deeper principle. “Hunchback” (julu) means a person whose spine is bent.

Yan Yuan asked Confucius: I once crossed a deep pool like “Shang Shen,” and the boatman’s skill seemed almost supernatural. I asked whether one could learn to handle a boat; he said one could. Someone who already knew how to swim could pick it up after a few tries; as for someone skilled at diving underwater, I had never even seen a boat yet he could still manage one. I pressed him but he would not explain in detail—I venture to ask what principle lies behind this.

Confucius said: Someone who can swim, after long practice, can “forget the water.” Someone skilled at diving can take to the boat without special training in boat handling, because he treats the deep pool as level ground; if the boat capsizes, it is as ordinary to him as backing a cart. Capsizing, pitching, and every sort of mishap may unfold before his eyes, yet none of it enters the “she”—the heart, the place where spirit dwells. That is why he can be so at ease.

(Later the text uses archery wagers as a parallel:) When the stake is a tile, the archer is very nimble; when the stake is something with a hook, he grows timid; when the stake is gold, he grows confused. The skill is the same, but once there is something to cherish, the center of gravity shifts to outer things—the heavier the outer stake, the duller the inner mind.

Wang Qinruo glosses “zhu” as wagering on the shot—saying to stake everything on Your Majesty is exactly this sense of zhu. With a tile as stake, there is no weighing of gain and loss; with a hooked object as stake, there is already attachment; with gold as stake, affection weighs heavier and confusion comes more easily. “Jin” here means to cherish or hold dear. The archer’s technique is one and the same; when there is something to cherish, what is valued lies outside and the inner self is clouded; when the inner self is clouded, even skill can sometimes turn clumsy. After answering Yan Yuan’s question, the passage closes with this analogy: not only are both comparisons among the greatest principles under Heaven—the way the piece opens and closes is also remarkably striking.

Tian Kaizhi had an audience with Duke Wei of Zhou. The duke said: I hear that Zhu Shen studied the Way; you associate with Zhu Shen—what have you heard? Tian Kaizhi replied: Kaizhi maintains… (what follows connects with commentary on “the greatest principle under Heaven” and the like, continuing the thread of the boat and archery-wager analogies.) The commentator adds: see how the rhetorical movement at the opening and closing is likewise quite singular.

Tian Kaizhi Visits Duke Wei of Zhou

Tian Kaizhi went to see Duke Wei of Zhou. The duke said, “I hear that Zhu Shen studied the Dao with you. You associate with Zhu Shen—what have you heard from him?” Tian Kaizhi replied, “Kaizhi holds a broom and waits in the courtyard—what could I have heard from the teacher?” The duke said, “Master Tian, do not demur—I wish to hear.” Kaizhi said, “I heard the teacher say: One who is good at nurturing life is like a shepherd watching the flock—he keeps his eye on the sheep that lag behind and drives them on with the whip.”

The duke asked, “What does that mean?” Tian Kaizhi said, “In Lu there was a man named Shan Bao who lived in a cliff cave and drank from a spring, took no profit from the people, and lived to seventy with the complexion of an infant—yet he met an ill fate when a starving tiger mauled and devoured him. There was also a Zhang Yi who rushed to every great house and every curtained gate—nowhere high or grand was he absent—and at forty he died of an internal illness. Bao nurtured only the inner and the tiger consumed his outer form; Yi nurtured only the outer and disease attacked him from within. Neither of these two ‘whipped the sheep that lagged behind.’”

Commentary: “Broom” (bì) means the sweeping brush; “holding the broom and waiting in the courtyard” refers to a disciple’s duty of sweeping and serving. In shepherding, one lets the flock follow its natural course, but if a sheep falls behind and will not keep with the group, one whips it. The point is: follow Heaven’s principle, yet also fulfill human effort to the full. Though Shan Bao cultivated the inner, he was still killed by a tiger; though Zhang Yi had no injury from tigers, his inner turmoil and frenzy brought internal disease and death—both show that people still have unfinished business and cannot lay everything on fate. Using students of the Dao to make the distinction is most apt; extend this and you see Zhuangzi’s purpose in laying out Heaven’s way and the human way throughout. First a metaphor, then two cases to prove it—the rhetorical structure is striking too.

Confucius said: Do not go inward and hide; do not go outward and blaze forth; stand like dry firewood at the center

Confucius said: Do not sink inward into concealment and cling only to stillness; do not rush outward into display and cling only to activity; stand like withered wood, mindless, in the middle between movement and stillness. When all three of the lines above are fulfilled, one may be called a perfected person (zhiren)—hence the text says that if these three attain their proper meaning, one reaches the utmost.

Commentary: “Do not go inward and hide” means not to fix on stillness alone; “do not go outward and blaze forth” means not to fix on activity alone; “stand like dry firewood” is the appearance of standing without deliberate mind, form like dead wood. Movement and stillness have no fixed rule—one does not lean to either side—hence “stand at the center.” “The three” refers to the three lines above; fully realizing these three earns the name perfected person, so the text says that if the three attain their names, one must reach the extreme—“extreme” meaning the utmost limit.

On the “Dreaded Path” and the Ultimate Person

What is called the “dreaded path” is a dangerous road: in such a situation neither movement nor stillness has a fixed norm, and one cannot lean to either side—hence the advice to “stand in the center.” The “three matters” refer to the three statements above; only when all three layers of meaning are realized can one be called the ultimate person. Thus: if these three truly match name and reality, one will necessarily reach the utmost.

The Metaphor of the Dreaded Path and the Warning of the Mat and Couch

On a dreaded path, one person in ten may be killed, so fathers, sons, and brothers warn one another: one must travel with many attendants and full arms before daring to set out—is that not obvious? Yet what people ought to fear often lies right on the mat and couch, in the midst of eating and drinking, and they do not know to guard against it—that is the mistake.

Using the “dreaded path” to illustrate the “mat and couch” carries the sense of “moth eyebrows as the axe that cuts down one’s nature”—moth eyebrows stand for beauty, cutting down nature for harming life. It is a warning to moderate desire. Zhuangzi’s words, even if heard by sages, would mostly win assent; could that be called “heterodox learning”?

The Parable of Zhu Master of Sacrifice Duan and the Pig in the Pen

Zhu Master of Sacrifice Duan, wearing his ceremonial cap, went to the pigpen and spoke to the pig: “What is so strange about your fear of death? I will fatten you for three months, keep ten days of abstinence and three days of purification, and lay white rush matting on your shoulders—then place you on an ornate sacrificial stand. Would you wish for that?”

If planning for the pig, one would say: better to feed chaff and keep you in the pen.

If planning for oneself, one would rather live with the honor of carriage and official cap, and when dead willingly lie in foot shackles and in curved gathering baskets (lou, such as bamboo bins and tubs).

One way of planning for the pig, another for oneself—how does that differ from the pig?

Note: Here “Duan” means wearing the cap correctly (ceremonial dress); “fang” means the pen, the pig enclosure; “resting on the carved sacrificial stand” means being placed on the ritual vessel; “zhuan” is interchangeable with “dui,” meaning punitive gear; “dun” refers to stocks and execution frames; the earlier “bian bo” (woven thin containers) matches this kind of “ben ju” basketware. In Zuozhuan, Duke Xuan year 2—“the cook’s bear paw was underdone, so he was killed and placed in a ben”—that “ben” is this sort of vessel.

Summary

In life one may hold the rank of carriage and cap, yet die by punishment and willingly accept the body on foot restraints and in ben baskets and thin containers—what Han Yu called “dwelling in filth without shame, touching the penal code and being executed—just like that.” Planning for the pig one way and for oneself another: the likeness in this saying is apt.

This passage belongs to the same family of stories as “mistaking a bow’s reflection for a snake in the cup”: the mind frightens itself, and illness follows; once understanding clears, recovery may need no medicine.

Background

Duke Huan of Qi went hunting in a marsh; Guan Zhong drove the chariot. The duke said he had seen a ghost and asked Guan Zhong what he had seen; Guan Zhong said he had seen nothing. After returning, the duke retched and vomited (the term eiyi refers to vomiting and the sound of reversed breath), fell ill, and for several days did not go out.

A scholar of Qi named Huangzi Gaao came to see him and said: You have frightened yourself into illness—how could a ghost truly harm you?

He then used common explanations of the time for where illness comes from:

• When pent-up, angry qi disperses and cannot return, that is called “insufficiency”;
• When qi rises but does not descend, a person tends toward anger;
• When it descends but does not rise, a person tends toward forgetfulness;
• When it neither rises nor falls but blocks the center of the chest, illness results.

The duke asked: So do ghosts really exist?

Huangzi Gaao said: They do. He listed name after name—Shen, Lü, Zao, Ji (spirits tied to the stove god, thresholds, and the like), household nuisances in the soil, thunder, Bei’a and Guilong in the northeast, Yiyang in the northwest, Wangxiang in the water, Feng on the mounds, Kui in the mountains, Fanghuang in the wilds, Weishe in the marshes, and so on (all sorts of spirits and odd beings in old books—there is no need to match each name to a fixed meaning; it is enough to know these are “a catalog of ghosts and marvels the ancients assembled”).

The duke asked again: What does Weishe look like?

The answer: As large as a chariot wheel’s hub, as long as a chariot shaft; dressed in purple, wearing a vermilion cap. It hates thunder and the rumble of war chariots; when it hears them, it holds its head upright. Whoever sees it may become a hegemon.

The duke’s face changed at once; he smiled and said: That is exactly what I saw!

He straightened his robes and cap and sat facing Huangzi Gaao in proper form; within a day his illness was gone—he hardly noticed when it had disappeared.

What it shares with “doubting the cup’s snake”

The closing comment makes the point: this episode and “doubting the snake in the cup” (taking a bow’s shadow for a snake and frightening oneself into illness) are the same kind of case—not that outer things truly harm people, but that suspicion and stagnation become sickness; once the matter is explained, the name fits, and the knot in the mind loosens, the body often recovers.

This episode is akin to stories such as “Mistaking a Bow’s Reflection for a Snake,” though the strange sight here is even more bizarre. “Eiyi” describes an ailment like modern retching or hiccups—qi surging upward against its proper course; “fenyü” means pent-up stagnation: the illness lodges in the body and reaches the heart, the sort of trouble people call disorders of the middle burner or the middle conduit. “Shen” is ditch mud; “Lü,” “Ji,” “Leiting,” “Bei’a,” “Guilong,” “Yiyang,” and the like are names of spirits associated with various directions of a household or common domestic places; “Wangxiang” is the spirit of water, “Shen” the spirit of small mounds and earth heaps, “Wei” the mountain spirit, “Panghuang” the spirit of the wilds, and “Weiyi” the name of a spirit of great marshes. What Duke Huan saw was in a marsh, so he especially asked about the form of Weiyi. At first he suspected demonic harm, feared it, and fell ill; later, hearing that “whoever sees it is sure to become hegemon,” he turned glad and the illness lifted on its own—“zhǎnrán” means a face bright with smiling delight. The parable here again differs from the line about “seeing a pig smeared with mud, a cart loaded with spirits”; yet since the sages put such language into the hexagram texts, there are indeed such reports in the world, and there is no need to find them strange.

Ji Xiaozi (Ji Huanzi) trained fighting cocks for his lord. After ten days the king asked whether the bird was trained; the answer was: not yet—it still bluffs and relies on brimming qi to contend. Ten days more, asked again: still not—it still answers to every sound and stirs at every shadow. Ten days again: not yet—it still glares fiercely with surging spirit. Ten days again: nearly enough—when other cocks crow, it does not respond; to look at it is like a wooden cock; its De is complete, and the other cocks dare not fight but run away instead. Answering to noise and moving at a shadow show this mind still pulled by outer things; “glaring sharply with full qi” means spirit and qi already flourishing. Earlier it was “empty show of defense while leaning on qi”—qi still outwardly displayed; here “glaring sharply with full qi”—qi already gathered inward. “Sharp glare” suggests an angry fixed stare, not the same as a common man hand on sword, eyes bulging in rage. To seem a wooden cock is to have spirit and qi both sufficient. This is discourse on guarding qi and nourishing the inner—using the fighting cock only as metaphor.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Kouyi (Oral Explanations of the Zhuangzi)

The Fighting-Cock Metaphor for “Guarding Qi”

What is meant here by “kong qi” (holding the breath/Qi inward) is gathering and nurturing Qi within the body.

The word ji (“swift,” “fierce”) carries a sense of anger; here it means a fixed, piercing gaze and a sharp, intimidating look. Yet the “fierce stare” trained into a fighting cock is not the same as an ordinary person glaring as if about to draw a sword.

When onlookers see a bird that looks as dull and still as a wooden cock, that shows spirit (shen) and vital energy are fully collected.

The whole passage is about the art of “guarding Qi”—using the cockfight only as a comparison.

Confucius at Lüliang Watching the Water

Confucius watched the water at Lüliang (one tradition takes this as a place name for dangerous waters). The depth was thirty ren; foam and spray were churned for forty li; turtles, crocodiles, fish, and soft-shelled turtles could not swim across.

He saw a man swim the crossing, thought the man was courting death and would nearly drown, and told his disciples to go downstream with the current to rescue him.

After several hundred paces, the man shook out his hair and walked along the bank below, singing. Confucius caught up and asked: “I took you for a ghost; you are a man. May I ask: is there a method to treading water in such danger?”

The man said: “No—I have no method. I shi yu gu (begin from what is already so), zhang yu xing (grow in my xing, nature), cheng hu ming (come to completion in ming, destiny). I enter the water together with the whirlpool and leave together with the rushing current. I follow the way of the water and do not act from private intent—that is why I can tread water.”

Confucius asked: “What do ‘begin from what is already so,’ ‘grow in nature,’ and ‘complete in destiny’ mean?”

He said: “I was born among hills and am at home on hills; I grew up in water and am at home in water—that is xing (nature). I do not know why I can be this way, yet I can— that is ming (destiny).”

The Commentator’s Note

This story is close in meaning to the earlier “handling the boat” episode. “Bing liu” means going with the current; “fang” here means to ford or swim across. “Gu” means what is so of itself, the natural state.

Mencius said, “When we speak of xing, it is simply gu (what is already so)”—the principle of nature and life as it naturally is.

“Qi” names where water spins and turns in eddies; “mi” names surging, urgent currents. Going in and out with the water’s rise and fall is “following the way of water without private intent”—compliant, not contrary.

Being born among hills and at home on hills, growing up in water and at home in water—all is following what is natural without knowing why; so in this commentary xing and ming are not sharply split at first—they are written this way for flow only.

If one forces “birth,” “growth,” and similar words into other meanings, the reading goes off track.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Kouyi

Ziqing Carves Wood into a Bell Stand

Ziqing—a craftsman named Qing in the state of Lu—carved a bell stand (ju, the base from which bells and drums are hung) out of wood. When it was finished, everyone who saw it marveled that it seemed as if spirits had touched the work.

The Marquis of Lu asked him: “By what method did you achieve this?”

Ziqing replied: “I am only an ordinary artisan—what special art could I have? Still, there is one thing: when I make a stand, I never dare let my heart-and-Qi (xinqi) scatter and drain. I must use purification and fasting to settle the inner mind. After three days of fasting, my heart no longer dwells on rewards, rank, or salary. After five days, it no longer dwells on others’ praise or blame, or judgments of skill or clumsiness. After seven days, I open up completely—even the awareness of my own four limbs is forgotten. By then it is as if there were no court or public office; attention is wholly single, and every factor that could disturb the spirit is released. Then I enter the mountains and forests and observe the natural bent of the trees. When I see a trunk whose form already holds the shape of the stand, only then do I take it in hand and work it. If not, I follow things as they are and do not force them. This is using my own naturalness to meet the naturalness of things. That the finished piece could startle people like something divine—probably comes down to this.”

Commentators’ Notes

Jiazhong (one of the twelve pitch standards in ancient music)—commentators have been incomplete here: bells themselves are cast in metal; how could carving wood make a bell? I follow the Da Guan chapter: a ju is the base (fu) of bells and drums—the part of the frame (sunju) from which bells and drums hang. The frame as a whole may be shaped as birds or beasts, carved from wood with extreme refinement, as detailed in the Kaogongji (Artificers’ Record).

“Startled as if by ghosts and spirits” (jing you gui shen)—means so exquisite that it seems beyond human power.

“Drain the Qi” (hao qi)—the heart-and-Qi is unsettled and scattered.

“Purify through fasting to reach stillness” (qi yi jing)—through fasting and purification, the mind is steadied.

“Not cherishing rank and salary” / “not cherishing blame or praise”—the heart no longer clings to office and pay, or to others’ approval and disapproval.

“Forget the four limbs” (wang qi si zhi)—purely guarding the one Qi; outer things cannot enter the inner mind.

“No public court” (wu gong chao)—likewise not knowing that a court exists. Because of this, the artisan’s ingenuity can be single-minded, and everything that might slip and confuse the spirit is cleared away.

“Enter the mountains and forests and observe Heaven” (ru shanlin guan tian)—observe the natural disposition of the trees.

“Observe the nature of the wood” (xing guan mu zhi xing)—each tree’s form has its own innate image, as if the shape of the stand were already present; only then is it taken and worked.

“Apply the hand” (jia shou)—take it in hand and shape it.

“Use Heaven to meet Heaven” (yi tian he tian)—use my naturalness to meet the thing’s naturalness.

“Why the vessel seems divine in its wonder” (qi zhi suo yi yi shen zhe)—that the object can amaze like something numinous is probably for this reason.

The Zhuangzi Kouyi on Zhuangzi’s passage on “forgotten fittingness” (wang shi)

“Shi” means that body and mind are at ease and in harmony.

When feet have long worn shoes that fit, one no longer feels the shoes as an obstacle—this is called forgetting the feet, forgetting the shoes. When the waist has long been girdled with a belt that suits it, one no longer feels the belt as a constraint—this is called forgetting the waist, forgetting the belt—as if those things were never there at all.

When the heart is no longer pulled by right and wrong or busy with constant reckoning, that is the ease of the heart. Inwardly, not turning over and changing one’s mind again and again; outwardly, in dealing with affairs, not guarding against everything or performing on purpose—that is ease in getting along with the world.

In the Kouyi, “hui” is read as “zao,” meaning a course of cultivation that aligns with the Dao until the inner state is unified and no longer whirls about with every circumstance. Even when one meets people and things in the outer world, one no longer constantly notices “I am handling some affair”—action flows naturally.

“Beginning in shi and never having been un-shi” means that from the first one is already within ease and has never truly felt ill at ease. A step further is when even the feeling “I am very at ease right now” fades—this is called “the shi of forgotten shi.” It is like newly putting on shoes that fit: one clearly feels “the shoes suit me”; after wearing them a long time, one no longer recalls that original awareness of “just right”—ease remains, but the mind is not filled by “being at ease” itself.

Zhuangzi uses ordinary examples such as wearing shoes and tying a belt so that people may experience for themselves in daily life: the Dao need not hang far off. Think through clearly how body and mind move from “noticing that they fit” to “forgetting that they fit,” and you will see how finely and truly he speaks of human feeling and the patterns of things.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Kouyi

A man named Sun Xiu came to the gate to see Bian Qingzi and said: In my village no one says I neglect virtue; in hardship no one says I lack courage. Yet when I farm, the harvest is poor; when I serve a lord, the times are bad. I am shut out in the village and rejected in the district—is this Heaven’s fault? Why is my fate so unlucky?

Bian Qingzi said: Have you not heard how the perfected person (zhiren) conducts himself? He forgets liver and gall, sets aside ears and eyes, wanders lost beyond the dust of the world, and roams freely in business that is no business—this is what is meant by “having toil yet not taking credit, occupying the senior place yet not lording it over others.” Now you use cleverness to startle the foolish and cultivate the body to show yourself apart from what is foul, bright as if carrying the sun and moon in your hands. Your body is whole and your nine openings intact; you have not died halfway nor gone deaf, blind, lame, or crippled—you are already luckier than most. What leisure do you have to blame Heaven? Be on your way.

Sun Xiu left. Bian Qingzi came in and sat a while, then looked up and sighed. A disciple asked: Master, why do you sigh?

Bian Qingzi said: Sun Xiu just came. I told him of the perfected person’s virtue. I feared he would be alarmed, but instead he grew only more confused.

The disciple said: That cannot be right. If what Sun Xiu said was wrong and what you said was right, he would not have been confused in the first place. If what he said was right and what you said was wrong, he came already confused—what fault is his?

Bian Qingzi said: No. Once a bird alighted in the suburbs of Lu. The Lord of Lu entertained it with the grand sacrificial feast (tailao), had the Jiu Shao music played for it—and the bird only grew anxious and sad, dared not look and dared not eat. That is feeding a bird the way you feed a person. If you feed a bird the way you feed a bird, you let it roost in deep forest, float on rivers and lakes, give it small creatures that swim freely to eat, and let it find food on open ground—that is enough. Sun Xiu is an ordinary man, kuanqi guawen—narrow aperture, shallow hearing—yet I spoke to him of the perfected person’s virtue. It is like hauling a mouse in a chariot or playing bells and drums for a quail—how could he not panic?

Glosses on the marginal notes (sentence by sentence):

• Bin yu xiangli: Rejected in the village, not accepted.
• Ming wu: In foul worldly society, marking oneself off as clean and special.
• Shi zhi jing yu, xiushen ming wu: Deliberately using cleverness to startle the foolish and cultivating the body to draw a bright line against vulgar dirt—seeking fame by standing apart.
• Ruo jie ri yue: Like holding up the sun and moon—displaying one’s reputation for all to see.
• Bi gu huo er lai yi: He came already in confusion; the master did not confuse him—what fault could Sun Xiu bear?
• Kuanqi: A small hole—metaphor for vision as narrow as a pinhole.
• Guawen: Shallow learning and limited experience. What he had seen was already small; I spoke too high—how could he not panic, doubt, and grow more confused? The point is to mock scholars of the day: their horizon is too small; they do not yet grasp the Great Dao.
• Shi zhi yi weiyi: Let it find food in its own way, at ease. Weiyi: at ease, eating as suits the occasion.
• The bird-feeding parable: Same idea as the bird-feeding story in the Zhuangzi “Perfect Joy” (Zhi Le) chapter.

While walking in the mountains, Zhuangzi saw a large tree with lush foliage. A woodcutter stood beside it but did not cut it down. When Zhuangzi asked why, the man said the tree was good for nothing. Zhuangzi remarked that this tree had lived out its full span precisely because it was “not useful timber.”

After leaving the mountains, Zhuangzi stayed with an old friend. The host was pleased and told his servant to kill a goose for the pot. The servant asked which to kill—one could honk and one could not. The master said to kill the one that could not honk.

The next day a disciple asked Zhuangzi: yesterday the tree in the mountains enjoyed its full years because it was “not useful timber,” yet today the host’s goose was killed for the same reason. How, Master, do you intend to place yourself?

Zhuangzi smiled and said: I intend to stand between “being useful timber” and “not being useful timber.” Yet that middle ground looks like a safe position and still is not truly safe, so one can still be caught up in trouble. If one drifts and wanders in accord with Dao and De, it is not like that: one does not court praise or fear blame; sometimes like a dragon, sometimes like a snake, changing with the times and refusing to cling to one fixed role; one may rise or fall, taking harmony as one’s measure; one wanders freely in the root of the ten thousand things—treating outer things as outer things and not being enslaved by them—then how could the affairs of people become a burden? This was the way of Shennong and the Yellow Emperor.

As for closeness and distance among the ten thousand things and the tangles of human relations, it is not so: where there is gathering there is parting; where there is success there is ruin; where one holds to integrity one meets setbacks; where one stands high one draws criticism; where one acts one invites disaster; where one is capable others plot against one; where one is unworthy others bully one—how can one be sure of keeping whole? Pitiful! Remember this: only by turning toward the realm of Dao and De can one be safe.

This passage revisits a familiar theme in the Zhuangzi: what is “useful” often invites disaster, while what is “useless” may be spared and live out a full span of years. The text has already said many times that bucai—having no talent that others can exploit, not displaying one’s usefulness—is what allows one to enjoy a complete natural lifespan. Here it adds the example of the wild goose, to make the point from another angle: whether one is “talented” or “untalented,” one is still caught in the tracks of “useful” versus “useless,” and so still entangles oneself. Only when even labels of good and bad reputation fade, when there is nothing left to praise or blame, does one truly “preserve one’s natural years.”

What is meant by “riding Dao and De” is living in accord with nature. As Dongfang Shuo put it: when employed, be like a dragon; when not employed, be like a snake; when put to use, be like a tiger; when set aside, be like a windbreak—use and non-use shift with the times, without fixed opinions in oneself, so one is neither slandered nor praised. Once you insist on “doing one thing only,” the mind holds a fixed obsession; if you refuse to cling to a single role, you are free of attachment to name and rank. Whether you rise or fall, advance or retreat, take harmony as your measure and nature as your standard—this is the law Shennong and the Yellow Emperor followed, and the inherent disposition of the myriad things. (Here qing means each thing’s private inclinations and habits, not a moral judgment.)

The habits of human relations work the same way: where there is gathering, there is parting—hence the saying that no feast fails to break up; where there is success, there is ruin—hence the idea that unless something is cast off, how can a ruler rise? Those who lu guijiao—show their sharp edges—will in the end be broken; those in high place will always be talked about. If the heart is occupied and one chases reputation, people often resent success and rejoice in failure. In such a world, the worthy must scheme and deliberate to preserve themselves—hence “the worthy will calculate”; the unworthy grasp and fear loss in every way, turning to deceit—hence “the unworthy will cheat.” Once a name is established, people hate its success and welcome its fall—the same pattern. Living in the world, events are not ours to command; how can we demand that things always go one way? So beifu—“how sad”—laments the ugliness of the vulgar world, the flux of human affairs, and the dread of danger. Because this hits close to the person, the teacher tells disciples to remember: only by following nature can one escape harm. That is the daode zhi xiang—the homeland of aligning with Dao and De, where one is at peace with things and contends with nothing.

Shi Nan Yiliao’s Audience with the Duke of Lu

Shi Nan Yiliao went to see the Duke of Lu, who wore a troubled look on his face. Zi of Shi Nan asked: Why do you look worried? The duke said: I study my teacher’s Dao, carry on my predecessors’ work, respect the worthy and honor the virtuous and put that into practice without letting up for a moment—yet I still cannot escape misfortune, so I am troubled. Zi of Shi Nan said: Your way of removing harm is too shallow. The great fox and the patterned leopard dwell in mountain forests and hide in rocky caves—that is seeking quiet; they move at night and lie low by day—that is being on guard; though hungry and thirsty, living in remote places, they still go to the river and lake margins to find food—that is settling where they stop; even so they do not escape nets and traps—what is their fault? It is their fur and pelts that bring disaster upon them. Lu today—is it not precisely your “skin”? I wish you would strip off form and shed skin, wash the heart and drop desire, and wander in a wild where no one lives.

Oral gloss: “Juran” means at ease and secure; here it carries the sense that one should not have worry yet cannot avoid it—hence the duke’s sorrow. Yue means a remote, secluded place; though hungry and thirsty they still go to river and lake to feed, and must keep distant from others (xu: mutual, “with”). This is what Han Yu meant by bowing the head to peck and looking about on all sides—living deep and going out little. To be burdened by one’s own hide: having name and rank in the world can all draw trouble; these words cut to the heart—only those who have truly waded through the world understand.

The Land of Jian De

In the far south there is a place called the Land of Jian De. Its people are simple and plain, with little selfishness and few desires; they know how to farm but not how to hoard, they deal with others without demanding return, they do not know where duty should lead them, they do not know how ritual ought to be performed—they wander freely yet tread upon the great Dao; life is a joy, death is a burial. I wish you would leave your state and cast off custom, and walk in step with the Dao.

Oral gloss: The “wild where no one lives” spoken of before is the beginning before things; here the Land of Jian De is used to say: reckless in action yet stepping on the great square, glad in life and fit for burial in death—the wish is that the lord leave the state, drop name and position, draw near to nature, and follow the great Dao, rather than continuing to “cultivate the work” within Lu’s kind of “skin.”

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Kouyi (Oral Explication of Zhuangzi)

Preface

“No-man’s wilderness” is the starting point where things have not yet been distinguished and chaos has not yet opened up; here it is also called by the name “the country of establishing De (virtue/power).” Later notions such as “pure land” or “ideal state” can be traced back to this image. In the Warring States period, southern Yue had not yet been linked with the Central Plains; the author only borrows a distant place-name as a metaphor and does not mean any actual territory.

“Knowing how to work but not how to hoard”: people only farm to feed themselves and do not privately stockpile wealth.

At that time there were not yet labels like “ritual and righteousness,” so the text says “not knowing where righteousness leads” and “not knowing where ritual is headed” (“jiang” means “to go, to proceed”)—not that they truly did not understand, but that those normative teachings of name and instruction did not yet exist.

“Wild and unrestrained in conduct”: it looks like license, but in fact it follows the genuine heart; acting as one wishes yet harmonizing with the Dao, hence “treading the great square” (walking the great Way). Mutual support with the Dao and going forward together means encouraging one another with a heart that honors the Dao, wishing to reach such a state.

Dialogue

The ruler said: That road is far and dangerous, and there are rivers and mountains—I have no boat or carriage; what am I to do?

Ninanshi said: Do not cling to a fixed image of yourself; do not be arrogant; do not long stay in one place—take that as your carriage.

The ruler said again: The way is deep, remote, and without human habitation—who can be my neighbor? I have no grain and nothing to eat; how can I get there?

Ninanshi said: Reduce your expenditures and lessen your desires; even without grain, the heart is self-sufficient. You cross rivers and float on the sea; looking out, you see no shore; the farther you go, the less you know where the end is. Those who see you off turn back at the cliff’s edge, and from then on you truly travel afar.

(In essence: one need not rely on boats, carriages, grain, or social obligations; first lessen desire and drop fixed forms and attachments, and when the heart is self-sufficient, one can walk the Way of “establishing De.”)

Section One: On “Formlessness” and a Heart That Is Enough

When there is no fixed form, one does not take “self” as a fixed body with shape; when one does not dwell in one place, one does not treat any country as “my” land. Whoever can hold such a heart can move freely. Hence it is said: take the heart as sovereign—when the heart wants nothing, nothing is lacking. Hence it is said: spend little and desire little—even without stored grain, the heart is enough. Crossing rivers and floating on the sea, one sees no shore; the farther one goes, the less one knows where it ends—the three words “wandering without limit” unfold exactly in this way. Those who see you off turn back at the cliff’s edge, while you go on from there—this line is most subtle: after one who studies the Way has awakened, what once helped one awaken is like people seeing you off and boarding the boat—they have already turned back at the sea cliff. Awakening at the strike of bamboo or at the opening of a scroll—both are “those who see off.” For example, seeing someone wield a sword and thereby awakening to cursive script: at first one awakens through the sword; once awakened, the sword is only what “sends you off.” Reading books, too, is borrowed as something that “sends you off.”

Section Two: On the Burden of “Having Someone” and the Empty Boat

Therefore, “having someone” becomes a burden; “seeing that there is someone in others” gives rise to worry. Yao was neither “someone” nor one who “saw someone in others.” I wish to remove your burden and dissolve your worry for you, and wander alone with the Way in the great empty land. When a boat crosses a river, if an empty boat collides with you, even a narrow-minded person will not rage; if there is someone on the boat, one calls out “Zhang Xie!”—call once with no answer, call again with no answer, call a third time with ill intent, and one will surely answer with harsh words. Before there was no anger and now there is anger—before it was “empty” and now it is “substantial.” If a person can empty the self and wander in the world, who could harm him?

What is meant by “having a person” (you ren) is treating oneself as the master and driving external things; “seeing that there is a person in others” (jian you yu ren) is treating oneself as an external thing and being driven by things—neither accords with the Dao that follows nature. Someone like Yao neither uses a private mind to drive the ten thousand things nor is driven by them, so it is said that Yao was neither “having a person” nor “seeing a person in others.”

“The land of greatest nothingness” and “the ground of vast empty void” are the wilds where no one is present; they correspond to “the realm of establishing virtue (jian de zhi guo)”—these phrases wrap up the meaning of the previous chapter. By then enough has been said, and the text continues with similes.

The parallel boats (fang zhou): Two boats travel side by side. My boat is under way when an “empty boat” (xu zhou)—a boat with no one aboard—bumps into me. Since that boat is empty and nobody is on it, even if it hits me I do not grow angry. But if someone were really there, I would surely call to that person to push the boat aside (zhang) or pull it back (she). If he does not answer the first call, and still not after a third, I am bound to curse. With no person the situation is empty (xu); with a person it is solid (shi): before, with no person there was no anger; now, with a person anger cannot be avoided—human feelings are like that. This simile is excellent: it means that if I am without deliberate mind, I naturally do not clash with things; moving through the world with the heart emptied, why worry about harm? After a long stretch of hypothetical argument, closing with this simile is exactly how a piece of writing opens and closes. Liezi contains the same kind of figure.

Beigong She collected taxes for Duke Ling of Wei to cast bells, built an altar outside the city gate, and took three months to finish; bells were hung above and below (xuan, “suspended”). Prince Qingji saw this and asked: By what method did you accomplish it? She said: Within a single-minded interval I dare not set up another artifice. I have heard: having already carved and polished, one must return to simplicity (pu); muddled as if without discernment, dazed as if idle, doubtful as if gathering, dim as if coming and going—what arrives is not refused, what departs is not blocked; follow what is overbearing, go along with what bends (qu fu, clinging to the crooked), and by leveraging circumstances lead things where there is no road left. So collecting taxes morning and evening, not a hair was harmed—how much more so for one who walks the great Dao?

Gathering money from the people to cast bells requires first setting up an altar and offering sacrifice, and only then beginning the work—hence casting the bell only after “making the altar.” The casting itself often takes three months. Bells are hung on frames with upper and lower tiers, which is why the text speaks of what is “suspended above and below”; this refers to bianzhong, the ranked bells hung in rows and ordered by pitch.

“By what method can it be finished so quickly?” The answer lies in “single purity”: following the natural course, one keeps pure unity from beginning to end and does not mix in anything else—hence “within this one, nothing else may be inserted,” as if to say that in this single layer no extra business can be stuffed in.

“Having carved and polished, one returns again to simplicity”: edges are filed away and one comes back to the simple, unadorned state of nature.

“Innocent, like the face of unknowing; easygoing, as if idle, as if hesitant”: outwardly like dull ignorance, like slackness, like uncertainty—that is the bearing of not storing fixed views in the heart and not performing cleverness.

“Now coming, now going—neither escorting nor welcoming.” “Gathered yet empty, vast yet formless”: as if assembled in the void; mang is the look of what has no shape and no thing. “Let the comers not be barred; let the goers not be stopped”: what ought to arrive is not blocked; what ought to leave is not held back—one follows nature and neither greets nor sees off.

“The violent and overbearing who leave and will not comply”—let them go. “Those who wind their way round and attach themselves to me”—I go along with them and yield to them, however they may be. “What must exhaust itself will reach its end of itself”: what must run its course will arrive at its own limit. Whether compliant or contrary, in the end there is nothing to force; what should come will come of itself.

“Though I levy and gather, I do not harm people by so much as a hair”: even when collecting resources (as for casting bells), one still tries not to cost the people the slightest injury.

The great highway means the broad, level road of going along with affairs as they are; because one handles them with no deliberate contrivance (wuxin), the task can be done both swiftly and well.

Confucius was besieged between Chen and Cai and went seven days without cooked food. Taigong Ren came to visit and asked, “You must be near death?” Confucius said, “Yes.” He asked again, “Are you afraid of death?” Confucius said, “I am.”

Taigong Ren said, “I once heard the principle of ‘not dying.’ In the eastern sea there is a bird called Yidai—a name that suggests deliberate sloth and not showing off. When this bird flies, its wings beat weakly and feebly, as if it had little skill; it needs the draft from its flock-mates to stay aloft, and when it roosts it squeezes into cramped spaces. It never dares to go ahead when moving forward or lag behind when retreating; at mealtimes it never dares to taste first and only eats what others leave. Because of this the flock stays in order, outsiders cannot harm it, and it escapes disaster. Straight trees are cut down first; sweet wells are drained first—if you deliberately use displayed wisdom to startle fools and cultivate body and mind to parade purity, shining like carrying sun and moon as you walk, you will hardly avoid trouble. Long ago I heard persons of great accomplishment say: those who praise themselves have no real merit; when merit is done, reputation is ruined; when reputation peaks, it declines. Who can drop merit and fame and return to being like ordinary people? The Dao flows like water and does not boast; dwelling in attainment it does not claim a name; pure yet more pure, ordinary yet more ordinary—almost like a kind of “madness.” Erase your tracks, lay down power, do not seek merit and fame—then the world will not blame you, and you need not blame the world. The Perfect Person seeks no fame—what is there for you to be glad about?”

Confucius said, “Well said!” He then parted from his companions, dismissed his disciples, fled to a great marsh, wore rough hide and ate wild chestnuts; entering beast herds he did not disturb them, entering bird flocks he did not break their formation—birds and beasts did not dislike him, still less people.

Note: In this passage Taigong Ren uses the bird Yidai as a metaphor for a way of living that weakens itself, does not contend, and never takes the lead, criticizing Confucius for “adorning knowledge to startle the foolish and polishing body and mind to display impurity,” and pointing toward the Perfect Person’s ideal of “shedding merit and fame and returning among the multitude.” Confucius’s final response—fleeing to the great marsh and “not being hated by birds and beasts”—is often read in commentaries as approval of reclusion and hiding one’s light. The received text has some duplicated lines; the narrative above follows a single coherent thread.

“Are you afraid of death?”

When you are in such peril, on the brink of death, does your heart also turn against life and fear? What is called “the way of not dying” means finding peace in yourself and being free from calamity.

“Mind slackens (yi dai)”

Nowadays these swallows fly wing to wing, flock upon flock—that is how a flock in flight looks. “Leading and following” means flying together in a group. “Nesting under constraint” means drawing close to people and building nests under their eaves. “Advancing without pushing ahead, retreating without falling behind” means they move to and fro in flight, neither fighting to be first nor lagging behind.

“Leftovers (xu)”

Refers to what is left over from eating, what is discarded. “Catching insects to eat what the world casts aside” means they feed on what others leave behind. “Neither rejecting nor wanting more” means they do not refuse it nor demand abundance—though they also fly in formation, unlike wild geese they do not form huge flocks; each pair attaches to a household, and outsiders do not harm them.

“Straight trees and sweet wells”

Uses “upright trees and sweet wells” as a metaphor for being harmed because of what one is known for.

“The person of great accomplishment”

Means one who cultivates the great Dao. “Those who boast and show off cannot succeed”; those who take pride in fame and merit will in the end harm, ruin, and diminish themselves—all self-inflicted injury.

“Returning to be among the multitude”

Stepping back to be like everyone else, following the Dao while dimming one’s light. Hence it is said: the Dao spreads abroad yet does not flaunt where it dwells; though it fulfills one’s aim, it does not exalt itself by reputation. Hence: dwelling and acting according to one’s will, yet not taking name and rank as one’s own—“not dwelling, not possessing” means this.

“Pure and ordinary (chun chun chang chang)”

Single-minded and plain, as simple as “one,” almost wild, as if without deliberate intent.

“Erasing traces and relinquishing power”

Not relying on merit and fame to stand in the world—meaning to transform until no trace remains. “I do not blame others, and others also forget me”—that is the perfected person (Zhi ren). The perfected person never meant to leave a name in the world; why then treat “having a name” as something to rejoice in?

Closing passage

The lines that follow connect with the passage on “eating pork like eating people”; through Confucius’s mouth the point is driven home. This is chong yan (saying the same thing again).

Confucius asked Zisanghu (the syllable “hu” is written with the graph conventionally read hu in this personal name): “Twice I was driven out of Lu; in Song I suffered the humiliation of having a tree felled against me; in Wei I was reduced to silence and obscurity; in the regions of Shang and Zhou I knew hardship; and between Chen and Cai I was besieged. After so many calamities, my kin grew more distant and my disciples and friends scattered even further. Why should this be?”

Zisanghu said: “Have you not heard what happened with Lin Hui? When someone from a jia guo—a sham or fictitious state—fled after his state perished, Lin Hui abandoned a jade disk worth a thousand in gold and instead carried an infant on his back as he fled. Someone asked him: Was it for cloth? An infant uses little cloth. Was it because the infant was a burden? An infant is far more burdensome than a jade disk. Why reject the disk and carry the child? Lin Hui said: That other person (referring to a fellow fugitive) stayed with others for profit; the child and I are joined by what Heaven allots (tian shu—a bond of nature). Those united for profit, once poverty, disaster, or harm arrives, cast one another off; those joined by nature’s bond, once poverty, disaster, or harm arrives, gather together and rely on one another. The difference between gathering in and casting off is vast. Moreover, the gentleman’s intercourse is thin as water yet affectionate, while the petty person’s intercourse is sweet as ceremonial wine yet easily breaks off.”

Confucius said: “I respectfully receive your instruction.” Then he strolled at leisure and returned home, no longer bound by what he had learned, casting aside the books he had treasured, and his disciples no longer needed to perform the bowing and pouring of respect before him—yet mutual regard among them grew deeper still.

(The oral commentary drives the point home: the metaphor of abandoning the disk and carrying the child fits perfectly—those who unite through Heaven often come together, those who unite through profit often part. The gentleman is plain yet close, the petty person is sweet yet breaks away; human ties are fully laid bare. Though this comes from the Zhuangzi, one can also feel it in the parts that touch on Mencius. It also says, “When there is no reason for union, there is no reason for separation”—the Book of Odes, too, shows this principle, another general thread. “Wu yi yu qian”—not insisting on the ritual of pouring and bowing before one—means not being confined to such visible courtesy; the feeling of mutual care grows stronger still.)

Another day, Zisanghu said: When Shun was about to die, Zhen Ling Yu (or Zhen Ling Yu in an alternate transmission of the narrator’s name) said to him: “Be on your guard! For the body, the best way to keep company is like yuan—clinging or following along appropriately; for feeling and intent, the best way to keep company is like shuai—frankness and naturalness. When the body can yuan, it does not part; when feeling can shuai…” (Here the original text has repetition and corruption; the gist is to warn one not to bind body and feeling through gain and loss, but to rely on what belongs to nature.)

On Shun’s Deathbed Admonition to Yu (and Commentarial Notes)

One day, Sang Hu said to someone: When Shun was about to die, he passed on the way of “true awakening” (zhēn líng) to Yu and told him to stay vigilant.

“For the form, nothing surpasses yuan (fitting and responding in accord with nature); for the qing (feelings/disposition), nothing surpasses shuai (following and guiding without forcing).” When one can yuan, there is no separation; when one can shuai, there is no strain. Without separation and without strain, one does not use outward “ornament” (wen) to serve or prop up this bodily form; when one does not use outward ornament to serve the form, one need not depend on external things in the first place.

Note: Here líng is read like líng (zero), with the sense of “awakening to truth”—hence the name “true awakening,” pointing Yu toward the real Way. Yuan is responding in accord with what is natural; shuai is guiding along what is natural without coercion. “Not separating” means being one with the Way. The xing (form) is “I”; wen is what lies outside the person. Not using things outside the person to “dai” (serve, rely on) the self is why it says “not seeking ornament to wait upon the form.” When people today entertain guests they speak of “dai ke” (receiving guests); that dai means to attend to or lean on. If one does not take outward cultural refinement as one’s support, one need not demand things from objects—hence “gu (originally) does not dai (depend on) wu (things).” The three occurrences of dai in the passage: the first two share one sense (serving the bodily form); the last has another (depending on external things).

Zhuangzi Meets the King of Wei

Zhuangzi wore a great robe patched with coarse cloth and tied his shoes with hemp cord as he passed before the King of Wei. The king asked: Why is the master so worn and depleted?

Zhuangzi replied: This is pin (poverty), not bei (exhaustion of spirit—the heart-mind sunk and unable to act). When a scholar has de (virtue/power) yet cannot put it into practice, that is bei; patched clothes and shoes with holes are pin, not bei. This is called not having met the right season.

Your Majesty has surely seen apes skilled at leaping among trees. On fine trees such as nan, zi, and yuzhang, they grasp vines and branches and reign as kings, living among them—even Yi and Peng Meng, master archers, could not hit or even aim at them. But once they fall among thorn trees—zhe, ji, zhi, gou—they can only sidle along, trembling with fear. Their bones and sinews have not turned stiff or inflexible; rather, the situation is unfavorable and they cannot deploy their skill. To stand today between a benighted ruler and disorderly ministers and expect not to be bei—how could that be possible? This is like Bi Gan having his heart cut out—a proof clear enough.

I. Commentary on the Ape and Bi Gan (Opening Section)

“Dabu” means coarse cloth; “xiangdai” is the formal sash, tied in the middle; “xilü” means mending shoes with string when they are worn through; “bei” means weak and ill; “lan” and “ba” mean to grasp and hold; “man” means to twine and climb—these two characters depict the ape moving among trees, not in a casual way. Wang Chang (in the story, one skilled at keeping apes) said they were fully satisfied in will and intent. Zhe, ji, zhi, and ju are all thorny trees; “zhendong kong” is startled and uneasy. Adding “jiaji” (stiff urgency) to “bu rou” (not supple) fits medical language well: in medical books there is the pattern “head and nape rigid and stiff,” which is “jiaji” without suppleness—applied to the ape, it especially brings out its spirit and omen. “Fuyan yi Bigan zhi shi bi zhi”: comparing with the affair of Bi Gan (the loyal minister of Yin-Shang, whose heart was cut out), one can see this correspondence and verification. These three characters are also used in a striking way.

II. Main Sense of the Passage (The Distress at Chen and Cai)

Confucius was trapped between the states of Chen and Cai; for seven days he did not kindle a fire to cook. He rested his left hand on a withered tree (as a low table) and struck a dry branch with his right hand, singing the “Yanshi zhi feng” (an ancient tune, sometimes written as Yanshi, Shen Nong, or similar archaic names). There were implements (wood, branch) but no complete rhythmic count; there was sound but it did not align with gong, shang, jiao, and the other five tones—yet the knock of wood and the human voice were upright and apt, as if they matched the human heart exactly.

Yan Hui stood with hands joined in respect and turned his eyes to steal a glance at Confucius. Confucius feared that he might honor him too highly and inflate him without limit, or pity him too much and sink into grief, and therefore said:

“Hui, not being harmed by the ‘Heaven’ outside is relatively easy; not being ‘benefited’ by human affairs (honor, praise, and the like) is harder. There is no beginning that does not take ‘death’ (ending) as its home. Person and Heaven are originally one. Who, then, is singing now?”

III. Oral Exposition on the Terms

• Withered tree (gaomu): Used as a low table.
• Dry branch (gaozhi): Used as a “fang” (staff or barrier-branch); the “fangzhi” in the Qi wu lun is this sense. Striking dry wood with a dry branch is why it says “there are its implements.”
• Without its number (wu qi shu): He struck but there was no full beat, hence no “number” (rhythmic structure).
• Without gong and jiao (wu gongjiao): The sound did not match gong, jiao, and the rest of the five tones—that is, it did not conform to the pitch pipes.
• Wood sound, human voice: Wood sound is the knocking; human voice is the singing.
• Liran: Upright, fitting, and in place.
• Guang ji, zao da: Viewing “me” as too lofty and pursuing what follows without bound—hence fear that Yan Hui would “honor me and inflate me.”
• Ai ji, zao ai: Thinking from the angle of loving oneself necessarily leads to sorrow—hence fear of “loving me and making grief.”
• Zao: Here read like “cuo,” meaning to reach or fall into.
• Person and Heaven are one (ren yu tian yi): What is in me is all Heavenly principle; it is not that “I” alone hold sway.
• “Who is singing now?” (jin zhi ge zhe qi shei hu): The one singing now is not “I” who sings—hence the question “who is singing,” to reveal that person and Heaven are one and that “I” does not act alone.

Yan Hui said: May I ask—is it easy not to be harmed by Heaven?

Confucius said: Hunger and thirst, cold and heat, poverty and hardship, punishment and bondage, inability to move freely—these are all manifestations of how Heaven operates, natural outpourings in the turning of the ten thousand things. What is meant by not suffering harm from Heaven is that one’s words pass through together with these conditions, traveling with them and vanishing with them.

One who serves as a minister does not dare to go against this; if even holding to the way of a minister is like this, how much more so when it comes to accepting one’s allotted fate from Heaven?

He asked again: What is meant by its being hard not to receive benefit from others?

Confucius said: From the very start the roads lie open in every direction, rank and salary arrive in an unending stream—yet profit that comes from outside things does not belong to oneself; there is a portion of one’s lot that lies beyond one’s control. The gentleman does not act like a thief; the worthy person does not act like a greedy osprey swooping to seize. If I went and took such things, what would I be after? That is why it is said: Among birds none understands this better than the wren—where its eyes judge it unfit to perch, it does not so much as glance; even if fruit drops right before it, it leaves it and goes. When a person feels fear yet still goes to snatch what the human realm has entrusted to its institutions, that is truly dangerous.

He asked again: What is meant by there being no beginning that is not also an ending?

Confucius said: One who nurtures and transforms the ten thousand things yet does not know who takes over and carries on from whom—how can one know the end? How can one know the beginning? Straighten yourself and wait in peace—that is enough.

He asked again: Are the human and Heaven a single whole?

Confucius said: There is the human side of Heaven, and there is Heaven as Heaven in its own right. A person cannot fully possess the nature of Heaven. The sage peacefully follows the body to its departure, not knowing who takes over and carries on from whom—how can one know where it ends, how can one know where it begins? Straighten yourself and wait in peace—that is enough.

(The question “What is meant by the human and Heaven being one?” and Confucius’s reply appear twice in the original with the same meaning; the above presents that sense once.)

Ordinary people assume that not indulging oneself while in wealth and rank is relatively easy, while remaining at ease in poverty is harder; Zhuangzi turns this around—when Heaven’s diminishment (tiansun: heaven’s reduction, ill fortune) has run its course, if one can achieve “not receiving” (wushou: not rigidly taking on or clinging to what comes), one can be joyful even in poverty; when human gain (renyi: worldly increase, wealth and honor) arrives, if one “does not receive,” wealth and rank do not corrupt. Read this way, the meaning runs deep.

When speaking of Heaven’s diminishment, matters are not in one’s hands; one cannot simply choose not to receive. If one truly did not receive, the heart could not contain or settle into poverty—so Zhuangzi says that “not receiving” in the time of Heaven’s diminishment is instead “easy”—in fact he means that such a state is hard; here “easy” is irony or a further layer of meaning. In human gain, wealth and honor come day by day, fame and position rise daily; one cannot push them away, and pride and extravagance often arrive uninvited—so “not receiving” in prosperity is what is “hard.”

“Qiong zhi” means blocked and bound, pushed yet unable to escape. “Yun wu” refers to the turning of the myriad things; “xie” is venting and dispersing—the ebb and flow of qi and fate are Heaven’s affair. I move and wane together with Heaven, hence “xie shi” (departing together)—keeping pace with the times, reaching the limit with the times. If a lord’s command to a minister cannot be refused, how much less can Heaven’s command to a person be refused—this is one layer of meaning in “not receiving is easy.”

“Si da” means the mind reaches everywhere without obstruction; “shi yong” means as soon as intent arises, affairs follow without blockage. Benefits from things arrive together without end, exchanges come without ceasing; I do not seek profit yet profit comes of itself—hence “it is not oneself.” Rank and salary come from outside; it is the mandate of the times—hence “my mandate lies in what is outside me.” Receiving emolument without merit, the noble person takes as shame, viewing it like stolen goods. Wanting not to take yet unable to refuse—Gongsun He (a historical figure) wept when appointed chancellor; is that not “hard not to receive human gain”?

“Yiyi” (also written yidai, a kind of small bird) “bu gei shi”: not worth looking at; where one should not stay, though the eye sees, one should treat it as unworthy of gaze and leave. When fruit falls, birds must startle and fly, fearing harm to themselves—hence “abandon it and flee.” Though it fears people, it yet lives close to them—hence “mingling among human dwellings”—xi is drawing near, blending in. She (earth god) and ji (grain god) are places of sacrifice; though there is nothing to fear and nothing to take, people themselves revere and preserve them; like swallows in human homes—though no benefit, no harm, people also tolerate them. If those in wealth and rank could be like yiyi, neither benefiting nor harming, they would suffer less scorn; but once called wealthy and honored, how can one be wholly without benefit or harm? Hence “hard.”

“Wu shi er fei zu”: not knowing beginning, not knowing end. The myriad things transform and succeed one another—who knows end from start? One can only “wait in the middle”—“zheng zhong” is standing within creation-and-transformation.

“What is meant by ‘human and Heaven are one’?” Humans are born of Heaven, hence there is “human” and there is “Heaven”; Heaven too is formed by creation-and-transformation, hence there is “Heaven” and also “Heaven.” “Xing” means the nature Heaven bestows. This word xing connects to sheng (life): human nature, what one has from birth, all issues from Heaven—how could a person arrange it beforehand? The sage knows only what humans cannot have (such as coerced wealth and rank, fate against Heaven), and therefore dwells at ease, exhausting this one body alone. Mencius said: this is “nature,” and there is also “ming” (mandate)—the noble person does not call all of it simply “nature,” i.e. what one cannot do, what belongs to Heaven’s mandate. Yanran is at ease; accepting the time and dwelling in accord, to finish one’s life—hence “embodying departure and ending”—following creation-and-transformation through a whole lifetime.

While strolling among the fence of the orchard at Diaoling, Zhuang Zhou saw a strange bird flying in from the south. Its wings spanned fourteen feet, its eyes were as large as an inch across, and it brushed past his forehead before alighting in a grove of chestnut trees. Zhuangzi said: What sort of bird is this? With wings so vast it does not fly away, with eyes so large it seems not to see. He hitched up his robe and hurried forward, taking his sling to bring it down. Then he noticed a cicada that had just found a good perch and forgotten itself; a mantis, sheltered by the cicada’s shade, was seizing the cicada and, seeing its prey, forgot its own form; the strange bird followed behind, intent on gain, and seeing advantage forgot its true nature. Zhuangzi started awake with a sigh: Alas—things in the world naturally entangle one another, and beings of different kinds also draw each other on. He threw away his sling and turned back, but the keeper of the orchard ran after him and scolded him. Zhuangzi went home and for three months did not leave his courtyard.

Lin Ju came along and asked him: Master, why did you just now keep to your courtyard for so long? Zhuangzi said: I ought to have kept to my form and forgotten my body, yet I went to gawk at the turmoil in muddy water and lost my way in a clear deep pool. Moreover I have heard the Master (Laozi) say: When you go to another’s place, follow the customs of the land. Now, playing at Diaoling, I forgot myself; the strange bird grazed my brow; playing in the chestnut grove I forgot my true self, and the orchard keeper took me for a thief—so I did not leave the courtyard.

Supplementary glosses from the commentary: “Fan” is the fence of an orchard; “gan Zhou zhi e” means the bird flew past the forehead; “yin” means large and “shi” means to depart—the huge wings that do not fly away and the large eyes that do not see depict the way one chases things and loses oneself. “Zhi dan er liu zhi” means holding the sling and waiting to catch the bird. The mantis, because of the cicada, forgot its form; the strange magpie, because of the mantis, forgot its true nature—hence “does not depart” and “does not see.” Mantis and sparrow are not the same kind yet they attract each other; all are forgetting form and true nature, mutually entangled. “Yu ren” is the orchard keeper; “sui” is to scold; “bu ting” is not leaving the courtyard. Keeping to form is the practice of nurturing life; I study nurturing life yet, chasing the bird, forgot my body—desire disrupting order. Muddy water stands for human desire, the clear deep pool for heavenly principle. Laozi said to ask about customs and prohibitions when entering a state, hence “enter their custom, follow their custom.” Straying into another’s orchard breaks a prohibition; being insulted as a thief by the keeper is using the event to teach the point—whether the object pursued is great or small, to chase something is to be lost. This is a warning for learning and for conduct in the world.

When Yangzi traveled to Song, he lodged at an inn. The innkeeper had two concubines, one beautiful and one ugly; the ugly one was treated with respect, while the beautiful one was slighted. Yangzi asked why, and a young servant at the inn said that the beautiful woman thought herself beautiful, so others no longer saw her as beautiful, whereas the ugly woman thought herself ugly, so others no longer saw her as ugly. Yangzi told his disciples: Remember this—when you cultivate virtue by dropping the manner of “thinking yourself worthy,” where would you go without being welcomed? “The beautiful deeming themselves beautiful” means self-praise; “the ugly deeming themselves ugly” means always feeling inadequate. To act virtuously while renouncing the sense that one is virtuous is to have real merit without self-conceit, so that people gladly draw near. These chapters feel very close to everyday life; some hold that the outer chapters are not by Zhuangzi—is that necessarily so?

Outer Chapter: Tian Zifang, Section 21 (opening)

Tian Zifang sat with Duke Wen of Wei and repeatedly praised a man named Xigong from the district of Wuzhe. The duke asked whether Xigong was his teacher’s teacher. Tian Zifang replied that he was not—merely a man from Wuzhe’s village who, when he spoke of the Dao, often hit the mark, which was why Wuzhe mentioned him. The duke asked again whether he had a teacher and who that was. Tian Zifang said: Dongguo Shunzi. The duke said: Then why have you never spoken of this teacher? Tian Zifang said: In person he has the bearing of a zhenren (True Person); inwardly he is empty and still like Heaven, follows circumstances while holding to genuineness, and is clear-minded enough to embrace things. When someone’s words run against the Dao, he adjusts his expression and awakens them until their misguided thoughts fall away. How could Wuzhe be worth holding up for praise?

After Tian Zifang left, the duke spent the day withdrawn and silent. He called his close ministers and said: The distance is vast—this is what a gentleman of complete virtue is like. I had taken the words of sage wisdom and the practice of benevolence and righteousness to be the highest reach; after hearing how Master Zifang’s teacher conducts himself, my body feels slack and unwilling to move, my mouth as if clamped shut and unwilling to speak—what I had learned was no more than the doctrine of clay figures and wooden puppets. For me, the state of Wei has become a real burden.

When we speak of the Dao and its principles, we should expound them in fitting ways; every sentence and every thought should match and suit the Dao.

To live like this is to be inwardly sincere and unfeigned; outwardly one looks like an ordinary person, yet one’s bearing is as Heaven bestows—though in the human world, one keeps the natural “heavenly De” one was born with. The heart is empty and unattached; it follows things as they come and is never pulled off center by outer things. That is what is meant by preserving authenticity (baozhen: keeping one’s true nature, without pretense).

“Bao” means to nurture and uphold; “qing” means to hold oneself and not drift with what is turbid. When the heart is clear, it is not easily stuck to things, yet it can still embrace all things—this speaks to the breadth of mind. When someone does not accord with the Dao, one does not rebuke them with words; one lets them awaken through bearing and presence alone, and unworthy thoughts naturally dissolve. Hence it is said “to make the other person’s intent dissolve.”

The skill of the stream-worker can still be put into words; the virtue of Shunzi cannot be fully captured in language. So it is said “how could words be enough to name it?”—the fully virtuous person is someone like Shunzi. “Xingjie” means that (ordinary people’s) form and spirit scatter and lose what is originally so.

Things like the “earth clod” only grasp the crude and miss the refined meaning. Because one is burdened with governing a state, one cannot probe deeply into the way of Wuwei (non-action) and naturalness. Hence: “Wei” is truly a burden to me—having a country and government becomes an obstacle to awakening to the Dao.

Wen Bo Xuezi (Wen was his surname, Bo his given name, and Xuezi his style name) was on his way to Qi and stopped to rest in Lu. A man of Lu asked to see him. Wen Bo Xuezi said, “No. I have heard that gentlemen of the Central Plains know ritual and propriety but are poor at reading people’s hearts—I do not wish to meet him.”

When he came back from Qi and stayed in Lu again, the same man once more asked for an audience. Wen Bo Xuezi said, “The first time he was eager to see me; now he wants to see me again—there must be something that can lift my virtue and truly benefit me.” So he went out and received the guest. After the guest left, he returned indoors and sighed. The next day the guest came again; after the meeting he went inside and sighed once more. His servant asked, “Every time you have seen this guest, you always go back inside and sigh—why?”

Wen Bo Xuezi said, “Did I not tell you already? People of the Central Plains understand ritual and propriety but are clumsy at knowing the heart. The man who saw me yesterday moved forward and back as if guided by compass and square, at ease in his bearing, now like a dragon, now like a tiger. When he admonished me he was as direct as a son to a father; when he guided me he was as earnest as a father to a son—that is why I sighed.” (In one reading of the commentary: ritual and propriety belong to deliberate learning; to be “crude at knowing the human heart” is not to recognize the original mind; such a person may be flawless in ritual and splendid as dragon and tiger, yet prone to speaking deeply when the bond is still shallow.)

Confucius also went to see Wen Bo Xuezi. After they met, he did not speak. Zilu said, “You wanted to see him for a long time; having seen him, why not a single word?” Confucius said, “With a person like this, as soon as eye meets eye, the Dao is already present—there is no need to adorn or explain it further with words.” (In that reading, “the Dao is present at a glance” means that upright bearing stills wandering thoughts; “one need not give voice to it” means there is nothing more that need be said.)

Yan Yuan asked Confucius: “When you walk, I walk; when you hurry, I hurry; when you run, I run. But when you break into a sprint and leave the dust behind, I can only stare and fall back.”

Confucius asked: “Hui, what do you mean by that?”

Yan Yuan said: “When you walk, I walk, and when you speak, I speak along with you. When you hurry, I hurry, and when you debate, I debate along with you. When you run, I run, and when you expound the Way, I expound along with you. Yet once you sprint and leave the dust behind, I can only gaze blankly and lag behind. You need not say much, yet people trust you; you need not measure yourself against others one by one, yet you are complete in yourself. It is as if you had no fixed ‘vessel’ or role, yet the common people naturally gather before you—and you yourself cannot say why; it is as if it could not be otherwise.”

Confucius said: “Can one fail to examine this closely? Nothing is more lamentable than the death of the mind; the death of the body comes second. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west—all things arrange themselves by this direction. Those with eyes and feet must wait on this pattern before each can find its place. When the sun is up, it seems to ‘be there’; when it sets, it seems to ‘be gone.’ All things are the same: only with something to depend on can we speak of dying; only with something to depend on can we speak of living. Once I received form and became a body, I could not change back—I can only wait until my allotted span is finished. I move with outer things, day and night without pause, yet do not know where the end is. Having taken shape like this, I cannot even see clearly how fate will unfold ahead. Confucius too goes day by day toward that. I spent a lifetime in friendship with you, yet it is like passing with only a shoulder’s width between us and parting forever—how can that not be grief? You are probably still ‘stuck’ on something: living by ‘waiting on’ something. Once I received form and became a body, I could not change back—I can only wait until my allotted span is finished. I move with outer things, day and night without pause, yet do not know where the end is. Having taken shape like this, I cannot even see clearly how fate will unfold ahead. Confucius too goes day by day toward that. I spent a lifetime in friendship with you, yet it is like passing with only a shoulder’s width between us and parting forever—how can that not be grief? You are probably still ‘stuck’ on something.”

“I stuck on what? That other side—the true realm—has already passed; you still treat it as present and still go looking for it. That is like the horse having already returned to being a horse, yet you still go to the horse market to find a horse. I learned from you in a very ‘forgetful’ way; you learned from me in a very ‘forgetful’ way too. Even so, what is there for you to worry about? Even if the ‘old self’ is all forgotten, there is still what cannot be forgotten.”

Without comparing yet harmonizing: There is no need to cozy up or pull strings first; words can still naturally fall in step, and affection completes itself.

One without a fixed “vessel” cannot be named by outward tracks: A person with no settled “frame” cannot be labeled by external deeds. When the people tread ahead, others come of themselves: When common folk naturally follow in front, people gather on their own—such images show how lofty Confucius is, beyond comparison.

Not knowing why it is so, and that is all: At this point I too cannot say exactly what he is; I can only stop at “it is simply thus.”

Galloping free, leaving dust behind: Like running or racing at full speed; leaving dust behind means so fast that even the dust kicked up cannot be seen. Staring: eyes wide, looking back. Later walk, trot, and gallop are all horse analogies.

How can one fail to examine this? Heart-death: when the heart is dead, nothing is seen; to live yet see nothing is worse than the body dying. Hence: there is no grief greater than heart-death; only after that comes death of the flesh.

With a measure, things can be counted: Once there is a standard, length and size can be reckoned to the end. Once the sun is bright: when the sun rises, long and short, large and small, all come into view—hence nothing fails to be measured—from rising in the east to setting in the west, from dawn to dusk. Having eyes and feet: living things that move all wait on seeing the sun before they act—hence they succeed only after “this”—“this” means the sun that appears and vanishes. When this emerges, they live; when this withdraws, they perish: the rise and fall of human affairs follow sunrise and sunset—out at sunrise, at rest at sunset. The myriad things depend on the Dao as human affairs depend on the sun: the myriad things are likewise—birth and death follow this natural Dao—hence they wait to die, they wait to be born. Once form is received and life begins, this Dao is in the body and no longer shifts; one only waits until life runs out—hence unchanging, they wait for the end—“unchanging” means no further transformation. Effect: to imitate. To move by imitating things is to be pulled by events. Things means affairs. Without gap: no break in between. Not knowing its end: this whole body, in its oneness, is nothing but harmonious principle—hence gently formed into shape—“gently” (xun) means moistening, nurturing influence.

Though one knows that all affairs are fixed by ming (fate), in daily life one does not take “fate” as the rule—that is what is meant by the sage does not speak of fate.

Day by day onward: day after day, moving together. Linked arm to arm: standing shoulder to shoulder. A lifetime of turning with you, and you still have not awakened to this Dao—hence lose it in the crossing of one arm—miss it in a single shift of the arms.

The manifest: only the layer one can see and touch. You see only where I am “manifest” and do not know there is also what cannot be seen—hence you are perhaps stuck on what I am stuck on.

Exhaustion means nothingness: speaking of the Dao reaches completion only at “nothing.” If you always seek with “something,” you never reach the end—hence that side is already exhausted, yet you seek and treat it as something.

Market stall: a place to trade, to leave horses. Open hall: a roofless enclosure. In the Odes, “tiles in the central hall”—hall and stall are roughly like today’s wayside pavilion; horses for hire come and go and do not stay until “the end.” Hence that side is already exhausted, yet you seek and treat it as something—you hunt for “something” where it is already finished, like marking the boat to find the sword.

Forgetting: even letting go of “what cannot be known.” Extreme forgetting of what cannot be known is utmost forgetting. Service: to practice. What I practice with you, and what you practice with me, must both go to the extreme of “what cannot be known.” Hence I serve you with utmost forgetting, and you serve me with utmost forgetting too—this matter I cannot explain to you, nor you to me; only forgetting words can say it fully.

The turn of the discourse: though you have not yet arrived, you need not fear. Since you know the one who gallops free and leaves dust behind, others stare wide-eyed as if behind him—which shows you know this level exists, but have not yet penetrated it. If here one can forget the former self: though how I was then differs from what is seen today, what was not lost in my heart is still there. The Buddhist phrase after awakening, still the same is exactly this—seeing “no place” is reaching the end; “still the same” is precisely having a time—the point lies here. Hence though the former me is forgotten, what I do not forget remains. Here the two “I” words are spoken from Yan Hui’s own person; they are not the same “I” as in the earlier “I serve you, you serve me.”

(Commentary) The two instances of “I” (wú) in what Confucius says here are spoken from looking back at himself through Yan Hui (Master Yan); they differ in usage and context from the earlier pair of “I” and “you” in “I revere you, and you revere me.”

Main text

Confucius went to visit Laozi. Laozi had just finished bathing and was letting his hair hang loose to dry; his bearing was quiet and absorbed, not like his usual manner among people. Confucius withdrew and waited to one side. After a while Laozi came out to receive his guest. Confucius said: “Just now, Master, your body seemed withered like dry wood, as if you had cast the outer world behind you and stood alone in a realm where no other person is present.”

Laozi said: “I let my mind wander in ‘the beginning of things’—that state before the ten thousand things have taken shape or received names.”

Confucius asked: “What does that mean?”

Laozi said: “When the mind is trapped by things, it cannot truly understand; when the mouth is opened, words cannot be spoken to the full. I once tried to explain it to you: at the utmost yin there is solemn stillness, at the utmost yang there is brilliant radiance; the solemn stillness seems to descend from Heaven, the brilliant radiance seems to rise from Earth; yin and yang meet and blend into harmonizing qi, and only then do the ten thousand things come to be through this. Sometimes it is as if a single guiding thread holds it all together, yet no form can be seen; waning, waxing, fullness, emptiness, dark and bright in turn, day replacing month in change—operations go on every day, yet no one can be seen applying force. Birth has the place where it sprouts forth; death has the place to which it returns; beginning and end oppose each other and circle back, yet no end can be found, and no one knows where the ultimate limit lies. It is not only the kind of ‘standing apart from others’ that you saw a moment ago. So in the end, what is to be taken as the root?”

Context: This passage belongs to the Zhuangzi-style story in which Confucius meets Laozi through ritual and human affairs, while Laozi, having just “bathed and loosened his hair,” embodies the Daoist view of the mind roaming in “the beginning of things,” yin-yang in union, and the cosmos transforming the ten thousand things though no form is seen and no agent appears to exert force. The commentary reminds the reader to distinguish who is speaking to whom in the several uses of “I” and “you” in the text.

Letting the hair hang loose and dry in the wind—this is what the Li Sao calls “sun-drying the hair.” Yiran means standing in concentrated stillness. Feiren means not yet merged with ordinary people, not yet entered into worldly life. Ju means standing alone, stubbornly holding fast. Yiwu is casting off external things; liren is keeping away from the crowd. Li yu du is standing apart, above the people of the age.

The beginning of things points to the moment before anything has taken shape, when things are close to “nothing.” Bi means keeping the mouth closed and not speaking—the heart knows nothing, the mouth does not wish to speak, hence kun yan, bi yan: what is profoundly subtle cannot be put into words; one can only sketch an approximation.

It is also said: the person has already left the group and stands alone; pursuing the beginning of things, one nears the start of no-thing. The heart knows nothing, the mouth does not wish to speak—still trapped and sealed—what is deep and subtle is hard to say; one can only infer what is near.

“Speaking of what is about to come” and “its barrier, its wind”—this is speaking of “what will happen next”; the meaning turns here. Susu is stern, cold qi; hehe is brilliant manifestation. This is “one yin and one yang—that is called the Dao.” The four lines below speak of yin and yang harmonizing and then the ten thousand things being born; jiaotong is mutual coming and going, chenghe is harmonizing and completion.

Yin alone cannot generate; yang alone cannot complete—hence interchange and harmonious completion. Ji means the thread, the master principle; as if something presides yet cannot be seen—hence “perhaps something sets the order yet no one sees its form”—what sets the order is creation (zaohua).

One dark, one bright—day and night; waxing, waning, full, empty—the seasons’ circulation. Day changes, month transforms; each day unlike the last, each month unlike the last. “Each day something is done yet none see its achievement”—day after day like this, who can exhaust the work of creation? “Their ends and beginnings oppose each other yet differ”—beginning and end may differ, yet their starting point cannot be traced. Like the sparrow transforming into a clam: speak of the sparrow’s end, and the clam is really the beginning; speak of the clam’s beginning, and the sparrow is really the end. On the grand scale, even imperial abdication and succession work this way—how can it be fully told? Hence “end and beginning oppose each other without a beginning, and no one knows where it reaches its limit.” Clearly speaking of a “maker of things” without naming it, then saying “it is not that”—succession is the same; how can it be fully told? Still “end and beginning oppose each other without a beginning, and no one knows where it reaches its limit.” Still speaking of the maker without naming it, again “it is not that.”

Who is its ancestor?—“Ancestor” here means the maker of things; if the question is not that, then who is in charge? Zhuangzi’s writing lands in every line on lived experience; the hardest passages are exactly these.

Confucius asked: How can one roam in “supreme beauty and supreme joy”?

Laozi replied: Whoever can awaken to this has supreme beauty and supreme joy. One who attains supreme beauty and roams in supreme joy is called a realized person (zhiren).

Confucius said: I wish to hear the method.

Laozi said: Grass-eating beasts do not mind moving to another patch of meadow; water creatures do not mind moving to another pool. Where they live shifts slightly, yet they do not lose their great constant (dachang)—their inherent nature. Joy, anger, sorrow, and delight do not enter the breast. All under Heaven is where the myriad things return to oneness; one who awakens to this “One” and merges with it treats the four limbs and hundred parts as mere dust, and birth, death, beginning, and end as no more than the alternation of day and night—nothing can disturb the heart, still less the petty knots of gain, loss, fortune, and misfortune.

To treat a servant like mud one can cast aside is because one knows the body is more precious than a servant; what is precious is one’s own self, which is not lost through change in outer things. Moreover, the myriad transformations are endless and have no limit. What could disturb the heart? One who has united with the Dao can resolve this here.

Commentary (kouyi) in brief:

This praises the beauty of the Dao: without haste, without weariness—changing meadow or waters does not alter the constant. “Slight change in where one goes” still means changing thicket or water while food and grass stay the same; all life under Heaven is under Heaven, so one should follow what Heaven does and not set oneself apart from Heaven. Hence “All under Heaven is where the myriad things are one”: knowing this “One” comes from Heaven and that all things share one return, even life and death cannot unsettle the heart—how much less gain, loss, fortune, and misfortune? “Jie” means a petty grudge; “nu” means a servant. Servants come and go—cast aside like mud—because one knows the body outranks the servant. If one knows the true worth of the Dao lies in “me,” how could the changes of the myriad things steal my supreme beauty and supreme joy? Between Heaven and Earth transformations follow one another forever—what end is there? Gain, loss, fortune, and misfortune are simply nature—why make them heart-troubles? So the myriad transformations never begin to have a limit; what could trouble the heart? Only people of the world cannot resolve this; only one whose body is one with the Dao can understand. “Ji” means the body; body and Dao are one, hence “self as Dao.”

Confucius said: Your virtue can stand comparison with heaven and earth, yet you still depend on supreme discourse—the most exalted teaching—to nurture the inner heart. Among the gentlemen of old, who could truly do without that?

La Dan (Laozi) said: That is not how it is. Water in rivers and streams rests on wuwei (non-action); its native endowment is simply what it is by nature. For the zhenren (perfect person), de (virtue/power) need not be deliberately cultivated; outer things cannot come between him and it—just as heaven is high, earth is thick, and sun and moon are bright by themselves, so what need is there to “cultivate”?

(The oral commentary explains:) “Jia” means to borrow. “Zhiyan” refers to the words spoken earlier. The point is: even Laozi’s de had reached such a level, yet he could not leave speech behind to nurture the heart—how much less could others dispense with speech in seeking the Dao. “Shuo” is the same as “tuo,” meaning to escape or be free of it. When La Dan says “not so,” he means that relying on speech to nurture the heart is wrong. “Zhuo” is the same as “zhuo” (to ladle out): water in rivers and streams can be ladled without end because in essence it is wuwei and natural. “Cai” means native capacity; water is water because of this natural quality. The zhenren’s de is rooted in nature; though he does not borrow artificial cultivation, outer things cannot divide him from it—heaven, earth, sun, and moon are the same, so why exert effort? Hence “what need is there to cultivate?”

The “xiji” is the tiny creature in a vinegar jar, sealed inside the jar and unaware of how vast the world outside is—an image of how small one’s horizon can be.

Zhuangzi visited Duke Ai of Lu. The duke said: Lu has many Confucian scholars; those who “draw the square” for you, sir, are few. Zhuangzi said: Lu has few Confucian scholars. The duke said: The whole state wears Confucian robes—how can you say few? Zhuangzi said: I have heard that Confucians who wear round caps understand the seasons, and those who wear square shoes… (The oral commentary links this to the earlier image:) grand talk from a small field of vision.

Zhuangzi Visits Duke Ai of Lu on “Ru” (Confucian Scholars)

Zhuangzi went to see Duke Ai of Lu. The duke said, “Lu has many Confucian scholars, yet few practice the kind of method you teach.” Zhuangzi replied, “In Lu, Confucian scholars are actually few.” The duke objected, “The whole of Lu wears Confucian robes—how can you say they are few?”

Zhuangzi said, “I have heard that whoever wears the round cap should understand the seasons and heaven; whoever wears square-toed shoes should understand the land; whoever wears the sash with pendant jade should be able to decide affairs. A gentleman may possess the Dao without wearing that dress, and one who wears that dress may not truly grasp the Dao. If Your Highness does not believe this, why not issue an order throughout the state: anyone who wears that dress without possessing that Dao shall be punished by death?”

The duke did as suggested. Five days after the decree, no one in Lu dared wear Confucian robes—only one man still wore them and stood at the palace gate. The duke summoned him and questioned him on state affairs; amid countless threads and ever-shifting complications, the man answered without running dry. Zhuangzi said, “In all Lu, only this one man qualifies as a ‘Ru’—can you still say they are many?”

(According to the oral gloss: the “method” here means what Lu Confucians study, which differs from Master Zhuang’s way. “Sash with pendant jade” suggests acting with ease while wearing jade; the jade stands for the power to decide and cut off doubt. “One man” refers to Confucius. The point is: many wear the robe, few truly know the Dao.)

Baili Xi, Youyu Shi, and “The Heart Unmoved”

Baili Xi did not set his heart on rank and stipend, so while he tended cattle the herd grew fat; Duke Mu of Qin likewise forgot his low birth and entrusted him with government. Youyu Shi did not set his heart on life and death, and so was fully able to move and transform others.

(Oral gloss: while tending cattle, was he angling for rank? Precisely because he did not seek it, Duke Mu employed him. “Move others” means to touch and guide people. When life and death do not enter the heart, that is governance through wuwei (non-action)—the heart stays unmoved. The text inserts these two lines in passing at this point.)

Lord Yuan of Song and Choosing a Painter

Lord Yuan of Song wanted painters summoned; the painting officials all arrived, bowed, and stood by while ink was ground and brushes readied—half of them were still outside the door. One painter came late, unhurried; after bowing he did not remain standing but went into an inner room and settled there. The lord sent someone to look in and saw him loosen his robe and sit cross-legged, nearly bare. The lord said, “This one will do—he is the one who truly knows how to paint.”

On “One Who Truly Paints”

“Chánchán” describes a relaxed, unhurried bearing—someone at ease, taking things slowly. “Receiving bows yet not standing firm” means exchanging courtesies with the recorders without rigidly holding postures or fussing over etiquette. The point is that only someone not chasing fame or flashy skill is a true painter. Su Dongpo (Su Shi), writing on painting bamboo, said something like “when spirit is at leisure and the will is settled, then one sweep of the brush”; Du Fu’s poetry carries a similar idea—the heart must first be quiet and steady before the brush moves naturally.

King Wen at Zang

King Wen of Zhou visited Zang and saw a man fishing—but he was not “fishing for fish.” He was not clutching a rod to hook anything; he was simply dwelling in a steady, natural state of “fishing.” Wen wished to invite him to govern, yet feared unease among his ministers and elders; if he never employed him, he could not bear to leave the people without a “Heaven”—without proper care and good rule. So at dawn he told his grand officers: “Last night I dreamed of a worthy man, dark of countenance, riding a piebald horse with one hoof reddish, who cried aloud: ‘Entrust affairs to the old man of Zang—perhaps the people can be healed.’” The officers changed color and said: “That was the former king.” Wen said: “Since it is our forebear’s command, we need not divinate further.” He went to welcome the old man of Zang and handed him the governance of the state.

Three Years of Rule

Laws and statutes were unchanged; partial, self-serving orders were not issued. After three years Wen looked again at the realm: “Officers ceased clinging to factions and scattering into cliques”—meaning a turn toward “upholding unity,” ruler and subjects of one mind; “local chiefs no longer vaunted private virtue”—officials no longer each flaunted personal merit and competed for credit—meaning a turn toward “shared tasks,” handling public business together; “false weights and measures dared not enter the borders”—meaning the feudal lords had no second heart, inside and outside aligned. Wen then honored him as Grand Preceptor (Taishi), faced north, and asked: “Can such government reach the whole world?” The old man of Zang answered vaguely and deflected; having received charge at court, that very night he withdrew and hid; for the rest of his life his name was never heard again.

Note

The middle passage of the classic text has repetition and corrupt lines (for example, a stretch beginning “first ending yet releasing…” overlaps what came before). This vernacular explanation follows only the readable sentences in sequence and does not guess at missing or damaged characters.

This passage retells the story of Jiang Taigong in another register: what is meant by “always fishing” is that the rod never leaves his hand; yet though the rod is in his hand, his mind is not on fishing—hence the line that he was “not holding the rod in order to fish.” Sentences of this kind are treated in the oral exegesis as well wrought and skillfully deployed.

“No Heaven above” means there is no supreme ruler pressing down on you or governing you from on high. “One hoof reddish” refers to a dream omen in which only one hoof turns red; “the former king and lord” denotes King Wen’s father, the figure who appears in the dream. The commentary also says that institutions and standards need not be changed back and forth, and that orders need not be issued as “partial commands”—not a separate edict for each single affair. “Ruining groves and scattering herds” means not forming factions or setting up separate cliques; “not completing virtue” means not crediting merit and moral achievement to oneself, in the spirit of the Yijing line “Or one follows the king’s business: without claiming success, yet there is completion”—doing the same work as the multitude without striking out on a new path (“shared task”).

“Zhan” is explained as “yu,” a foreign measure whose sizes differed; the feudal lords dared not bring nonstandard measures into their territories, so all knew to align themselves—hence “no divided heart.” “Morning command” means: upon hearing King Wen’s command in the morning, he felt it would reach the whole world, fled, and from then on no one heard of him again—like the Documents phrase “When it came to the end, no fame appeared.”

“As for assigning him to the grand officers,” some ancient texts read “fu fu” for the officers; Sima reads “fu” as “da,” since one stroke turns “fu” into “da.” On the Mount Tai inscription, “Censor fu fu” appears; in seal script “fu” and “da” often interchange (see the Wenjian).

Yan Yuan asked Confucius: Surely King Wen was not yet fully complete—why did he still have to rely on a dream to instruct people? Confucius said: Say no more. King Wen had already done what needed to be done—what is there to criticize? He merely adapted to the momentary situation so the people could more easily follow (“following the instant”). How could that be taken as grounds for censure?

Lie Yukou—the figure in the Liezi tradition famed for archery—performed before Bo Hun Wuren: he drew the bow to full extension, held his forearm level, and could balance a cup of water on his elbow without spilling; as one arrow flew, the next was already on the string, shot after shot in rapid succession, astonishingly fast. Even so, he still resembled a skilled artisan who lacked inner vitality—a “puppet man.”

Bo Hun Wuren said: This is the archery of one who knows how to shoot, not yet the kind of shooting that does not grasp at shooting. He had once said to Lie Yukou: If we climbed a high mountain together, stepped on perilous rocks, and faced a hundred-ren abyss, could you still shoot? So Bo Hun Wuren truly went up the mountain, stood at the cliff’s edge, turned his back to the chasm, with most of his foot hanging over empty space and only a small part still on the ledge, then invited Lie Yukou to come forward. Lie Yukou prostrated himself on the ground, sweat running to his heels.

Bo Hun Wuren said: The perfected person can look up and observe the blue sky, look down and discern the yellow springs, let spirit roam to the eight extremities, yet spirit and vital energy remain unmoved. You, in this moment, are filled with terror; your gaze darts about—your heart is already in disorder. In such a state, to seek to hit the mark, hitting the center will be very difficult.

The oral exegesis explains: “Drawing it to full draw” means opening the bow completely; “placing a cup of water on the elbow” means the leading hand straight and the elbow level, with steadiness such that the elbow can bear a cup of water; “when released, the arrow goes and another stacks in place, square arrow upon square arrow” means as soon as one arrow leaves, the next is already on the string overlapping it—describing extremely rapid successive shooting. “Puppet man” is like a wooden figure—form without spirit. “Back retreating hesitantly, two-tenths of the foot hanging outside” means facing away from the abyss, as if retreating yet not retreating, with two-tenths of the foot suspended in empty space—danger to the extreme—while Bo Hun Wuren remained composed; this is what is called guarding the pure qi in oneness. Shooting while standing on ordinary ground is the usual method, hence it is called “the shooting of shooting,” not yet “the shooting of non-shooting.” Whether the perfected person looks up to heaven or down to earth or roams the eight extremes, the heart does not turn with circumstances; when you meet danger your eyes move and your heart startles—you have not yet learned the perfected person’s oneness. With such archery you still wish to penetrate the principle of the center—the heart is already perilous and disordered, hence “you will hardly succeed at the center.” “Chu” means fear; “xun mu” means the eyes startled and shifting restlessly.

Jian Wu asked Sun Shuao: “You served three times as chief minister without showing delight on your face, and you were dismissed three times without showing worry on your countenance. At first I doubted you, but now I see your breathing is easy and your bearing serene—what is going on in your mind?”

Sun Shuao said: “In what way do I surpass others? I think that what should come cannot be pushed away, and what should go cannot be held back. I treat gain and loss as none of my business, so I do not wear them on my face. In what way do I surpass others? Besides, who knows whether what we call honor belongs to the other party or to oneself? If it is on their side, it has nothing to do with me; if it is in myself, it has nothing to do with them.” He went on: “I am about to wander and look around, my spirit roaming far—where would I find leisure to bother with whether others call someone noble or base?”

“Pixixuan in the nostrils” means that breath is not sought outward but nourished inward—there is the sense of self-cultivation. If the chief minister’s dignity lay only in the office of chief minister, it would have nothing to do with me; if my worth lay only in me as a person, it would have nothing to do with the chief minister. Hence the lines “Is it in that other? It is absent in me; is it in me? It is absent in that other,” which state the point very clearly. “Hesitating and looking all around” means gazing in imagination at the space between heaven and earth—who would still care about human notions of noble and base?

When Confucius heard this, he said: “The True Persons of antiquity— the wise could not move them with words, beautiful women could not ensnare them, robbers could not coerce them, and Fuxi and the Yellow Emperor could not befriend them in worldly fashion. Life and death were great matters, yet could not alter their inner core—how much less rank and stipend? Such a person’s spirit could pass through Mount Tai without being blocked by any gap, dive into deep waters without being soaked, and dwell in humble, petty circumstances without feeling worn out. The Dao fills heaven and earth; having extended it to others and given it to the world, they themselves become all the more full.”

“The wise cannot persuade them”—not because words could exhaust them; “beautiful women cannot seduce them”—not because beauty could bewitch them; “robbers cannot plunder them”—not because violence could break them; “Fuxi and the Yellow Emperor cannot befriend them”—because they stand apart from the mundane and do not treat the world as their concern. “Jie” means a crack; though stone has no crack, qi can pass through—hence “passing through Mount Tai without jie.” Dwelling in poverty and low station without taking it as affliction—hence “in humble, petty places without weariness.” When the Dao within oneself already fills heaven and earth, and one then extends it to transform others, it is inexhaustible in use—hence “having given it to others, one has it all the more.”

Main Idea of the Passage (Plot of the Zhuangzi Original)

The King of Chu and Lord Fan are seated together. Before long, attendants on the king’s left and right report three times: “Lord Fan has disappeared.” Lord Fan says: “Lord Fan’s ‘not being seen’ is not enough to destroy my inner ‘cun’ (self, authentic being). Since Fan’s ‘loss’ cannot destroy my cun, then Chu’s ‘preservation’ also cannot preserve true cun. Seen this way, Fan has never truly ‘perished,’ and Chu has never truly ‘existed.’”

Oral Commentary

The meaning can be compared to what Zhuangzi says elsewhere: a man punished by amputation loses his feet, yet the dignity of “foot” remains; here the point is shifted to say: the Dao is in oneself—there is no need to ask whether one has a state or a rank. Lord Fan does not “perish” because of the name Fan; the King of Chu does not “exist” because of the state Chu—gain and loss, fortune and misfortune in the world are all external things. Yet the commentator still keeps the weight on the line that Chu is not enough to preserve true preservation.

Loss (perishing, bereavement) is not enough to make one ashamed of oneself; gain (preservation, glory) is not enough to make one proud of oneself—shame is self-reproach, pride is self-praise. These two lines are especially rich in flavor; they are learning that can be applied to oneself and put to use in the present, not empty talk.

Background: From the twenty-second section of the “Knowledge Wandered North” (Zhi Bei You) chapter in the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi. Lord Fan was a vassal or dependent ruler under Chu; the attendants’ report that “Fan is gone” means he has left the king’s side. Lord Fan uses this to show that true preservation is inward, not outward—whether a state exists or perishes are relative, provisional names, and cannot decide whether a person has “preserved” the Dao and held onto themselves. The oral commentary then pulls this one step further toward the self-cultivation of not feeling ashamed or proud because of external gain and loss.