《庄子翼》Vol. 12

Fortune, misfortune, and “clinging to one side”

“The virtuous receive blessing, the wicked receive calamity” is real principle, yet events sometimes go against expectation and turn out fitting after all—like “when the old man lost his horse, who could say it was not a blessing?” Each person clings to private intent and walks a separate path; faces are not alike to begin with, yet if you force one standard to “correct” them, you only create distortion.

“Narrow view” and “words of the hamlet and village”

In every hamlet and village there are elders of virtue and years who weigh the real circumstances of the people and set forth judgments—like the so-called “Moon Dawn ratings,” and local proverbs that record customs and human affairs. This is words of the hamlet and village (qiuli zhi yan): gathering diverse opinions into a shared way of speaking.

Each person holds private intent and goes their own way; faces differ yet one tries to unify them by force—and that misses the mark. (This point was already made above.)

From hamlet and village to all under Heaven

In every hamlet and village there must be respected figures who examine circumstances and establish judgment; people may share one hamlet and one village, yet among them young and old, worthy and foolish, gain and loss are not uniform—sameness holds difference within it.

All under Heaven is vast, yet it arises from hamlets and villages; the Dao is vast, yet it runs through the ten thousand things. To scatter “sameness” into “difference” is like dismantling a horse into a hundred parts; to gather “difference” back into “sameness” is like assembling those hundred parts and still calling it a horse. In the end, principle has an utmost limit—one cannot add another word.

Hills and mountains form from lowly soil heaped up; rivers and seas form from many waters joining. The great person’s gathering lies in “publicness (gong)”—able to unite the feelings of hamlets and villages appropriately, and likewise to unite the feelings and circumstances of all things under Heaven; the key is the single word “gong.” Laozi said, “When gong is complete, one becomes king”; as king, all under Heaven turns to you—how could you refuse?

What enters from outside is learning: the noble person’s learning takes the Dao as its master, and that too is nothing other than this—uniting hamlet and village appropriately, then uniting the feelings of all things under Heaven, still within the meaning of “gong” and Laozi’s “gong becomes king.”

What issues from within is reflection: the noble person’s reflection, when aligned with principle, meets nothing it cannot reach; like the four seasons with different qi completing a year, or the five senses with divided roles completing governance—all resolves in the great person’s virtue made whole, expounding the Dao’s lack of partiality. How could that be fully captured by names and forms? Without name, hence Wuwei (non-action); Wuwei and yet nothing left undone—this is where principle must arrive.

Yet times shift and fortune turns: some things fit because they go against the grain; some go wrong because they are forced straight—all from indulging private feeling, so people inevitably walk divergent paths. Compare a great marsh where a hundred kinds of timber are combined for the stonemason’s use—different yet one; or a great mountain whose wood and stone are scattered for use everywhere—one yet different.

If one merges silently with principle and returns to the Dao, why argue sameness and difference?

The Dao and the perfected person

The name Dao cannot exhaust the Dao; the count of things reaches ten thousand yet cannot exhaust things—each is spoken of by its greatest aspect. Of forms, the greatest are Heaven and Earth; of qi, the greatest are Yin and Yang; the Dao further embraces Heaven, Earth, Yin, and Yang—how could its greatness be measured? Once there is the name “Dao,” it cannot be compared with what has no name; hence the perfected person’s Dao acts in the nameless, and all under Heaven cannot name it.

Shaozhi asked: Within the four directions, within the Liuhe (the six directions—heaven, earth, and the four quarters), where do the myriad things arise from, and where do they return when they perish?

Dagongdiao replied: Yin-Yang mutually illumine, mutually embrace, and mutually check one another; the four seasons rotate, and the myriad things both beget and destroy each other. Liking and disliking, leaving and approaching—all of this arises from that; then, like a bridge suddenly linking two shores, male and female unite; then safety and danger swap places, fortune and misfortune breed each other, haste and ease grind against each other, and scattering and gathering take shape. Names and realities can be noted, states of affairs can be described; change follows an ordered sequence, and mutual replacement and mutual culmination run their course in linked alternation. When things reach their limit they turn back; when they end they begin again—this is the inherent pattern of things, and also the utmost that words can say and the mind can grasp—nothing beyond this. One who sees the Dao does not hunt for where things have utterly ceased, nor trace back to where things first arose; discussion ought to stop right here.

Shaozhi asked again: Jizhen holds to mo wei (“nothing acts with deliberate intent”), while Jiezi holds to huo shi (“perhaps something acts as driver”). Of these two doctrines, which fits the facts more closely, and which reaches further through the affairs of things?

Dagongdiao replied: The cock crows and the dog barks—everyone knows this. Yet even with the greatest wisdom, one cannot use words to exhaust how they “transform of themselves,” nor use the heart-mind to reckon what they “are about to become.” Push analysis to the finest point and it reaches where nothing can be classified; speak on the largest scale and it reaches what cannot be encircled. If you say huo shi, then the myriad things truly have fixed allotments; if you say mo wei, then the myriad things seem almost empty and insubstantial. To have name and to have reality is where things dwell; to lack name and lack reality is, for things, to verge on emptiness. One may speak and one may intend—but the more one speaks, the more scattered it becomes. What is not yet born need not be dreaded; what is already dead cannot be blocked. Birth and death are not far apart in themselves, yet their principle cannot be seen straight on. Huo shi and mo wei are both makeshift labels born of doubt. I look to the root: its going has no end; I seek the tip: its coming has no stop. Without end and without stop—they are no different from words, and they share the same principle as things. Huo shi and mo wei are the root of discourse; with things they share one beginning and one end. The Dao cannot be fixed as “being”; “being” cannot be fixed as “non-being”; the name “Dao” is only a borrowed handle by which we proceed. Huo shi and mo wei each cling to one corner of things—why must one insist on speaking from the grand comprehensive view? If words were self-enough, then speaking all day would exhaust the Dao; if words were not enough, then speaking all day would exhaust things. At the utmost of Dao and things, neither speech nor silence can fully bear them—what is neither speech nor silence is the limit that discourse ought to pursue.

Someone once asked: Where do the ten thousand things come from? Some said that the Dao gives birth to the ten thousand things. Guo Xiang, the Wei–Jin commentator on the Zhuangzi, explained it this way: yin and yang, the four seasons—all are each as they are, naturally so of themselves; they are not produced out of nothing in empty space. When we speak of such matters, we say the Dao is at work; yet if we push to the root, it is only yin and yang responding to each other and the seasons succeeding one another. Push further still and it comes down to ziran—why things are naturally as they are; who can say exactly why? What we call mutual ordering and mutual driving is what things themselves possess; it happens of itself, not that “nothing” gives rise to “something.” Beyond things there is no other substrate, so knowing means exhausting inquiry at things themselves.

The rise and fall, beginning and end of things are all thus of themselves; there is no source further to pursue. The limit of such discourse is to acknowledge “thus of themselves” and stop—there is no need to argue further.

Ji Zhen said: the Dao does not actively “receive” or arrange the ten thousand things. Jiezi said: the Dao may appear as “perhaps there is something that makes things so”—meaning that the Dao seems to fashion and drive things. Yet things inherently have their own nature; they are not accomplished by anyone’s deliberate doing. From this angle, Ji Zhen is right. As for “ utmost refinement” and “utmost greatness,” neither depends on anyone’s doing to be as they are; when things seem to drive one another, that too is ziran. So “nothing deliberately acts” (mo wei) does not deny things themselves—every kind of thing passes through mo wei; if it were “something that makes things so,” it would become “real,” as if someone truly were making things; if it were mo wei, it would seem “empty,” as if there were no maker. If we stay only at the level of names, reality, and where things are located, that is actually the most empty; the more meaning clings to words, the more distant it becomes—so we must seek beyond speech and thought to understand.

Suddenly one is born—I cannot forbid it; suddenly one dies—I cannot resist it. Even within oneself one cannot see this ziran, yet people worry over it—“perhaps something makes things so” and “nothing deliberately acts” are what people most often doubt. The principle of things is inexhaustible, so discourse too can be inexhaustible, until it can share the same ground as things. What shares beginning and end with things is what is always non-fabricating and naturally so. The Dao cannot give a person “having”—the one who has is always nature itself. Hence it is said: the Dao cannot be grasped as “something”; “something” also cannot be called “nothing”; what things follow in their course is what we borrow a name for and call the Dao. Hu Wei said: a person of great breadth needs only one example to see the whole. If you seek the Dao outside speech and thought, words cannot exhaust it; if you keep only meaning without speaking, meaning too is insufficient for the Dao. The utmost of things is usually mo wei and ziran—not a matter of speaking or not speaking; exhausting inquiry at ziran is not something silence or speech can settle by debate.

People with limited understanding, as soon as they hear the word “Dao,” already form a concept of “Dao” in their minds. They compare that concept to the real Dao and find no match, then doubt whether there is anything at all in the world.

Asking “where do the ten thousand things come from” is trying to fix rules and find a starting point within emptiness (xu). Sun and moon come and go, rise and fall, wax and wane—they illuminate and constrain each other. Cold and heat expand and contract; the Five Phases (Wuxing) generate and overcome one another—they both give life and destroy. Things are born between heaven and earth, turning with Yin-Yang and the four seasons, so there is desire and aversion, coming and going, male and female joining, constant motion and rest—and thus safety and danger, fortune and misfortune, gathering and scattering. These names and realities can be recorded and distinguished; they are not utterly beyond inquiry.

What follows in sequence is called “order”; when things adjust to one another without disorder, one goes along with that flow; when they cycle and turn, one borrows that passage. They drive one another yet never stay fixed. When exhausted, they reverse; when ended, they begin again—Yin-Yang is like this, the four seasons are like this. This is change inherent in the ten thousand things; it does not mean that “there is nothing in the Dao.” To say that the limit of what “knowing” can reach is here—that is the level of “the named: the mother of the ten thousand things.” As for one who sees the Dao: it is not that there are no things, so one does not chase what is cast off; nor is it grasping things, so one does not turn back to pursue “where it began.” Quiet and without name, arising beyond the four directions of heaven and earth—how could ordinary knowing touch that?

The Jizhen line speaks of “Mo wei” (non-artificial action) and easily follows the side that gets discarded; the Jiezi line speaks of “huo shi” (perhaps something makes it so) and loves to trace “where it begins.” Cocks and dogs crow and bark because they were transformed into this and already are this way—yet behind crowing and barking there is still the question of “who transforms, who acts.” Pursued to the utmost fineness there is “no within”; extended to what cannot be enclosed there is “no without.” Where do “huo shi” and “Mo wei” truly lie? So one still cannot escape “things”—because if one does not cling to the solid, one clings to the empty. Taking the named and the real as the dwelling of things is not knowing that there never was anything truly there; taking the unnamed and unreal as the void of things is not knowing that there never was anything truly absent. The more one explains with names, the more scattered the talk becomes.

Birth and death cannot be pushed away or stopped—then one goes beyond words; it is close on the body yet invisible. “Huo shi” and “Mo wei” are both borrowed phrases from doubt, not the substance of principle itself. Going toward the infinite, one cannot see a “head” ahead; coming without end, one cannot see a “tail” behind—this is the principle of things, not their shape. “Huo shi” and “Mo wei” can both be spoken and intimated, but once fixed on things there is only beginning and end—how can one still speak of “without end” and “without limit”?

The Dao cannot be seized as “being,” because it was never inside “being and non-being”; nor can one say “non-being” makes it impossible, because it abides beyond being and non-being—and that is not something “I” can annul. Given this, “Dao” is only a provisional name; how can a name be taken as the Dao? Mo wei and huo shi both remain in one corner of things—how could they measure up to the great Dao?

To exhaust the Dao in words, better to speak little—that is what is natural; to exhaust things in words, when words multiply the reckoning goes wrong. Viewed from things, the Dao is not a thing; viewed from the Dao, not one thing is not the Dao—this is the utmost of Dao and things. Speech cannot exhaust it, silence cannot exhaust it: a lifetime of speaking is as if nothing was said—that is not “speaking”; a lifetime without speaking is as if speaking never stopped—that is not “silence.” When discussion reaches this point, it has come to the end.

Tracing to the Root (Qiao Commentary)

Section 1

Tracing to the root means seeking the fundamental source. When the Dao extends to the utmost of the myriad things, neither speaking nor not speaking can fully carry it. If one spends a lifetime “speaking” yet has never truly spoken, that does not count as speaking; if one spends a lifetime in “silence” yet has never truly been silent, that does not count as silence. When discussion is pushed to this point, it has reached its limit.

Section 2

(“Bridge” has the sense of raising and joining:) Like an arched bridge lifted high, it is also partial joining and parting. What can be recorded of essential meaning is a recording of the subtle. When words reach their end and knowledge reaches its limit, that is only the utmost of things—where speech ends and knowing stops is merely stopping at things. Only one who sees the Dao does not follow things to their end or trace them to their beginning, but returns to non-being; then debate finally rests.

The two positions “not willed” (mo wei) and “perhaps caused” (huo shi): Those who say something is “done” cite Mencius—“What is done without anyone doing it is Heaven”; those who say something is “perhaps made to happen” cite Mencius—“Going, or perhaps being made to go.” The gap between the two teachings is like splitting with an axe. The Classic of Poetry speaks of using axe and wedge; the wedge enters and splits, fine beyond compare, vast beyond encircling. Yet the Doctrine of the Mean says even hair has its pattern; what Heaven covers is without sound or odor—that alone is the ultimate. So-called “not willed” and “perhaps caused” still cannot avoid resting on things; in the end there is still error.

Tracing to the Root (Jingchuan)

“Not willed” corresponds to the Buddhist idea of inherent nature; “perhaps caused” corresponds to the Buddhist idea of dependent origination. Clinging to verbal positions, one gets stuck on things. Between “perhaps caused” and “not willed” lies where speech can arise; hence it is called “the root of speech.”

A General View

This essay begins with a passage from Zeyang concerning Wang Guo: it praises the virtue of one who dwells in seclusion among mountain ridges, able to restrain the scramble for fame and profit in court and marketplace; the perfected person penetrates the myriad things and brings people back to ease and contentment—that is, “to harmonize and moisten others, so that they are transformed without knowing it.” The benefit to governing the world is great. Yet people often chase external things at the cost of themselves, drifting daily farther from the “old capital” (their original peace); though the view ahead seems open, before all is utterly lost they still think of how to return; if they could personally see what they have seen and hear what they have heard, the joy would be easy to imagine.

On How This Benefits the Way of Governance

(The opening theme is the same: the virtue of the mountain recluse stills reckless competition; the perfected person transforms things; drinking harmony transforms people; all of this benefits the way of governance.) People sacrifice themselves to things and lose themselves, day by day farther from the old capital; before everything is scorned and exhausted they still seek restoration—what they could see and hear, and the delight they would feel, can be understood.

Cultivating the self is like governing the state: when the heart is upright as ruler, the five senses each keep their proper order; when the state has an upright ruler, all assistants are worthy. The benefit is not only for one generation—it can raise up transformation for later ages—as when Tang of Shang had three worthy ministers before him, and Confucius (the Master) after; as when the four seasons complete the year’s work—why fuss over splitting “inner sage” and “outer king”?

Then, because Qi and Wei broke their alliance and took up arms, the parable of “the clan of Touch and the clan of Man” (fighting over land on a snail’s horn) is invoked to wake the war-loving rulers of the time: what they practice is narrow and crude, and what they fight over is not worth fighting over. When Confucius met Ant Hill and turned aside, discussion left traces that invite blame; the border guard spoke of “tending the grain” and warned that craving and aversion breed harm—all showing what matters in responding to the world and ordering the body.

As for Bo Ju becoming a robber and lamenting the condemned man, taking “the fault lies in oneself” as his theme—correct yourself to correct things; Qu Yuan changed with the years, relying on “knowing what one does not know” and using the knowledge of things—again a strategy for governing people and transforming things. Duke Ling of Wei was called “Ling” because burial arrangements were settled before the event; whatever is done must be done—the Creator has its allotted pattern, entrusted to human hands, that is all.

The words on “Hill Village” unite what is scattered and align what differs; “the horse is not” treats the hundred parts as one yet names the whole; the great person merges and becomes public—myriad things differ yet the Dao is complete—like a great marsh with a hundred timbers, Mount Tai with wood and stone: some share origin but differ in use, some differ in origin but share one end—all within the differentiation of form and Qi, yet the ultimate principle is fully present.

Finally Ji Zhen and Jiezi debate emptiness and fullness, each clinging to one side, hardly escaping circularity with things. One must therefore surpass the realm of speech and silence, heart merged and meaning attained, reaching the utmost of Dao and things; holding this view, it is clear that what can be spoken or named is not the true constant, and that neither speech nor silence alone can fully carry the Dao.

Chapter 26: External Things (Wai Wu)

Events involving external things follow no fixed rule. Thus Long Feng, a worthy minister of Xia Jie, was put to death; Bi Gan, uncle of King Zhou of Shang, had his heart cut out; Jizi, Bi Gan’s elder brother, feigned madness to escape harm; E Lai, a favored minister of Zhou, also died—and Jie and Zhou lost their states. No ruler fails to want loyal ministers, yet loyalty is not necessarily trusted: Wu Yuan (Wu Zixi) was cast into the river; Chang Hong, a worthy grandee under King Ling of Zhou, died in Shu—legend says his blood, hidden for three years, turned into green jade.

The same lack of fixity applies elsewhere. No parent fails to want a filial child, yet filial piety does not necessarily win affection: Xiao Ji lived in worry, and Zeng Shen, famed among Confucius’s disciples for filial piety, also knew grief.

Wood rubbing against wood kindles fire; metal meeting fire melts and runs. When yin and yang fall out of order, heaven and earth are thrown into chaos, and thunder and lightning follow. Tradition even tells of fire in water that burned a great locust tree.

When a person’s cares cut too deep, it is like being squeezed from both sides with nowhere to turn. Fearful qi surges and churns (chongrong: the breath of dread unsettles the mind); the heart cannot settle, as if suspended between heaven and earth—depressed, stagnant, caught in deep difficulty (wei names this suffocation; chen tun names the weight of hardship). Benefit and harm grind against each other and spawn much “fire”; people burn away what is harmonious and yielding. The moon was never meant to outshine fire—yet people drift with external things, and the Dao is exhausted (zhui means to follow along, to yield to things).

Guo Xiang’s commentary reads: when goodness does not contend with the world, one need not cling fixedly to external things. Above, chongrong denotes fearful qi in turmoil; wei is oppression, chen tun is profound difficulty; zhui is yielding. The gist: only when inwardly one stops wrestling with the world need external things not be “necessary” to the self; otherwise, amid benefit, harm, and fear, the heart hangs between heaven and earth, harmony is consumed by fire, and one can only follow things until the Dao is spent.

Guo Xiang says: Outcomes of good and evil cannot be predicted with certainty. “Blood turning to jade-green” is the utmost of sincerity and devotion; yet loyalty is not necessarily believed, and filial piety is not necessarily cherished. Therefore the perfected person does not cling to fixed views in the heart, but adapts as circumstances shift. Thunder and lightning, water and fire, and the burning of the locust tree are all what is called “errant movement”—Yin and Yang each going their own way. If one cannot forget the bodily form, one is pulled along by the physical frame, spinning in worry and joy; neither left nor right feels right. The more one holds oneself in reserve and the more one esteems oneself, the harder every situation becomes; not knowing what to hold to, one cannot “secure lodging” in heaven and earth. What one longs for is often vast and lofty; when the heart is sunk in gloom and heaviness, it is no longer clear, peaceful, smooth, and unobstructed. Inner heat is like “kindling fire”; if the mind still harbors benefit and harm, even that bit of harmony will be burned away. The moon cannot overcome fire—like being large yet dim, burdened with excess, whereas being small yet bright means knowing where things divide. Only when one is at ease without self-importance, leaving the form behind and finding oneself in that, has the Dao truly reached its end.

Lü Huiqing says: Whatever does not belong to the “disposition of nature and life” (xingming zhi qing) is external thing; toward others and toward oneself, nothing in it is “inevitable.” Long Feng and Bi Gan treated benevolence as something reliable and insisted on certainty; E Lai and Jie Zhou treated lack of benevolence as reliable and insisted on certainty—and all alike could not escape disaster. If one does not take punishments and names as the measure of good and evil, why cling to “inevitability”? Rulers and parents all wish their ministers and children to be loyal and filial, yet loyalty is not necessarily believed and filial piety is not necessarily loved—loyalty and filial piety rest in oneself, not in others’ certain response. Before the Dao has “come to complete ease” (tui ran er jin), even what one wants for oneself still counts as external and is not inevitable—how much more so hopes placed on others? Wu Yuan (Wu Zixu), Chang Hong, and the like put “inevitability” in others’ hands, and so came to death and grief; blood turning to jade-green is the extreme of loyalty, yet still cannot guarantee that one who wishes to be loyal gets what he wishes—is that not lamentable? Wood rubbing against wood catches fire; even of the same kind, harm cannot be absent. Metal held to fire melts; even of different kinds, harm cannot be absent. From “Yin and Yang errant in their courses” onward, the text says the great calamity has nowhere to flee in heaven and earth: thunder quakes and lightning flashes, whether arising from what differs or harming what is alike, even to the point of kindling fire and burning harmony—yet moonlight is not enough to overcome it. The great trouble lies in “having a body”—how can there be no worry? Bound sometimes to what is alike, sometimes to what differs—this is “double entrapment.” The insect chirong cannot achieve what it desires; the heart hangs as if suspended between heaven and earth; sunk in gloom and heaviness without release, like Yin and Yang errant in their courses, heaven and earth in great entanglement, benefit and harm grinding against each other, fires kindled in abundance—yet there are still times of thunder and lightning, of water and fire burning the locust tree. Even clarity bright as the moon is not enough to overcome the fire that burns harmony. All of this comes from “having a mind”; in complete ease one lets the mind go until there is no mind—the Dao is exhausted here.

Doubt and Isolation

Like the chánchú—a creature slow to move and quick to doubt—when the heart is full of suspicion, nothing gets done. Ease comes only when things go your way; when they do not, you brood. Hard circumstances drag you down; contact with the outer world snags you. When profit and harm tangle in the chest, “fire” flares up, burns away harmonious qi, and sincerity and trust cannot hold.

Jade Emptiness

The Dao lives in the inner heart, yet affairs tie you to what is outside. Even what is “in me” cannot always be grasped—how much less what is outside? If benevolence and righteousness always brought reward, Bo Yi and Shu Qi would not have starved. If wisdom always spared disaster, Bi Gan would not have had his heart cut out. If full loyalty always kept one safe, Wu Yuan (Wu Zixu) and Chang Hong would not have been killed. The loyal and worthy and the fawning and crafty often share the same “cannot be counted on”: Wu Yuan and Chang Hong knew only loyalty to their ruler, not that opposing him brings ruin; Xiaoji and Zeng Shen knew only filial duty to their parents, not that a parent’s displeasure brings grief—all missed that outer things are inherently unreliable.

E Lai went along with King Zhou and helped his kind, yet still met disaster, like trees rubbing together. Long Feng opposed King Zhou, good against evil, yet was executed, like gold beside fire. When Yin and Yang are out of order, heaven and earth fall into chaos; when loyalty and filial piety are punished, the state collapses. Loyalty and filial piety are what subjects and children owe—but with a muddled ruler or harsh parent, against reason and cruel, it is like “fire in water,” which burns the great locust tree—Huainanzi tells of an old locust tree catching fire. Loyal remonstrance brings worry of harm to the minister; fawning flattery brings worry of harm to the ruler—both land in the trouble of youwei (purposeful action). Worry and fear multiply; aims are hard to fulfill. The heart meant to shine between heaven and earth, but the age rots together—blocked, trapped, drowned—so talent and will have no room. Loyalty and sycophancy grind against each other; resentment grows; human harmony is cast aside and burned. Loyalty and filial piety are like the moon, tyranny like fire—the moon cannot quench fire. Only one who is yielding in heart and wholly follows nature fully attains the Dao.

Literal meaning

In the reigns of Jie and Zhou, both the worthy and the unworthy suffered alike—showing that good and ill fortune are not fully within human control. Chang Hong was exiled to Shu and died by disembowelment; the people of Shu kept his blood in a casket for three years until it turned into green jade. When Emperor Yuan of Jin could not get grain supplies, he executed his ministers and their blood flowed upward along the pillars. When Northern Qi executed Helü Guang at Mingyue Fort, blood fell on the ground and could not be washed away—all of this echoes what was said earlier: Xiaoji, son of King Gaozong of Yin, was driven out by his stepmother; Zeng Shen fled when his mother beat him with a heavy staff—both were “filial” yet harmed in body, showing that external outcomes have no fixed rule.

Wood by nature has no fire; fire appears only when things rub together. Metal is originally extremely hard yet melts in fire—both illustrate “nothing is inevitable.” In great thunderstorms, trees are sometimes struck and burned, hence “there is fire in water” that can burn the great sophora. These are all cases where yin and yang run awry and give rise to calamities and anomalies.

Tracing the root

Thunder and rain together are “fire within water”; lightning-fire can also burn wood. The text singles out the great sophora because sophora wood was used for fire-drilling. What follows speaks of fire in the human heart: when someone is gripped by extreme fear—like the earlier “wood rubbing wood” and “metal meeting fire”—there is ultimately no escape, because the mind cannot let go of profit and loss.

The larva of the cicada-like insect has just roused from hibernation and is not yet fully awake—an image of something that cannot succeed, utterly feeble. When affairs fail, the heart hangs between heaven and earth: depressed, forced and restless, sunk and blocked—such ailments arise; profit and loss rub against each other and the inner fire grows without end, unstoppable, like fire in water that flares only for a time. In this way the multitude burns away the harmony of their original nature; the moon belongs to yin, yet can be pressed by so much “fire” as if it turned to fire—the yin cannot withstand the blaze.

The subtle pattern of heaven cannot match the flood of human desire, and so this Way is suddenly lost.

Hong Mai’s note: Guo Xiang held that “what is large and dim is inferior to what is small and bright”—a reading Hong Mai finds shallow. The line Su Shi (Zizhan) cites should read instead: “The moon indeed cannot overcome fire.” The sense is that what shines brightly on a grand scale necessarily looks dim on the finest scale; the moon can light heaven and earth yet cannot reach the tip of a hair—hence it cannot “overcome” fire. Still, in the end, is it fire that wins over the moon, or the moon over fire?

I recall Zhu Yuancheng’s Pingzhou Ketan: when Wang Anshi was directing the bureau for explicating the classics, someone cited a candle and noted that Buddhist scriptures speak of a “Buddha of the brightness of sun, moon, and lamp”—how could lamplight compare to sun and moon? Lu Huiqing replied: the sun is bright by day, the moon by night, and the lamp where sun and moon do not reach; each has its use without rivalry. Wang Anshi strongly agreed.

I venture that Zhuangzi’s point is this: the human mind is like the moon—originally clear, empty, and still; once pressed by gain and loss, a fierce fire flares and burns away inner peace—then the moon cannot overcome fire. This is not a contest of which is brighter.

Sub-commentary: Among the qi of the Five Phases, fire is the most violent. The Cantong qi says “wood and fire are paired”: fire takes yin as root and yang as function, lodged in wood; stirred by agitation it activates and in turn harms its mother—hence wood rubbing wood kindles flame. The Yinfu jing says “fire born from wood; when disaster breaks out, it must destroy”—the same idea. Even metal, hardest by nature, melts when it stays with fire.

When yin and yang tangle and stagnate without release, thunder rolls; fire can even blaze from water and burn the great locust tree—locust is wood of the east, and when aged it gives birth to fire. In the human body this is the so-called “fire of the five wills (wuzhi),” hard to extinguish by blunt means.

Therefore one who embodies the Dao is empty, still, plain, and wuwei (non-action); the fires of the five wills for a time all lie hidden; gain and loss cannot disturb the heart, life and death cannot alter the will. Ordinary people cannot do this—they do not know that outer things cannot be forced, grind against each other on the blade of gain and loss, fire mounts ever higher, and the natural harmony of qi is burned away.

“The moon indeed cannot overcome fire”—the moon symbolizes water; water cannot overcome fire, the same as the medical saying “one water cannot overcome five fires.”

Zhuangzi’s household was poor, so he went to the River Overseer (jianhe hou)—the official in charge of river affairs, sometimes identified as King Wen of Wei—to borrow grain. The River Overseer said, “Fine. Once I’ve collected the rent from my fief, I’ll lend you three hundred gold pieces. How does that sound?”

Zhuangzi’s expression changed. He said, “Yesterday on my way here I heard someone calling out. I looked back and saw a crucian carp (fuyu) in a rut left by a cart wheel. I asked, ‘Crucian carp, what are you doing here?’ It said, ‘I’m a minor official who tends the waves in the Eastern Sea. Can you give me a dipper or a ladle of water to save my life?’ I said, ‘Good—I’ll go south right away to see the rulers of Wu and Yue and have them divert the waters of the Western River to welcome you. Will that do?’ The carp’s face changed too: ‘I’ve left the water I’m used to and lost my companions; a dipper or ladle would be enough to keep me alive. Talk like yours—you might as well look for me early at the market of dried fish (kuyu zhi si).’”

Guo Xiang’s commentary, in essence, is that one should give what is needed, no more and no less—reasoning does not turn on magnitude; if the timing is wrong, even a vast gift cannot meet an urgent need.

Lü Huiqing’s note sharpens the point: Zhuangzi’s episode on borrowing grain is about yangsheng (nourishing life)—seeking only to keep the body alive, not to accumulate surplus. The River Overseer’s promise of “three hundred gold” is like water far away; for someone hungry right now, it is no match for a dipper of water at hand.

Vernacular paraphrase of the scripture

Lord Ren (a figure in the parable who aims at great undertakings) fashioned a huge hook and thick dark fishing line, used fifty oxen as bait, crouched in the region of Kuaiji, cast his rod into the East Sea, fished day after day, and for a whole year caught nothing. Later a great fish swallowed the bait, was pulled down by the massive hook, then surged upward and thrashed its back; white waves rose like mountains, the sea water churned, the sound as if it startled spirits, its power shaking a thousand li. Lord Ren caught this fish, cut it open and dried it, and from east of the Zhe River to north of Cangwu, there was no one who did not eat some of this dried fish.

After that, later generations of “quan cai” (petty talents who love to judge and gossip about others) and “feng shuo” (people who can only repeat conventional sayings) all marveled and told one another about it.

By contrast, someone takes a small rod and fine line, runs to irrigation ditches, waits for loach and small crucian carp—wanting to land a great fish that way is hard. Using shallow “xiao shuo” (minor tales and tricks) to please the “xian ling” (here: to fit the slogans and rules laid down from above) puts one even farther from penetrating the great Dao. So one never hears of Lord Ren’s way being taken as the model for ordering the world; using small skills and small trials to govern is equally far off.

Paraphrase of commentaries from various masters

Guo Xiang’s note: Ambitions differ in scale; what method fits ordering the world depends on whether the affair is large or small—each has its proper place, and one need not insist on a single standard.

Lu (Huiqing)’s note: Lord Ren’s fishing speaks of one who orders the world setting his mind on great completion, not expecting instant results; what follows adds quan cai, feng shuo, small rods in irrigation ditches, xiao shuo pleasing the xian ling—all to show the gap between petty talent and petty skill on one side and the great Dao and great enterprise on the other.

Yidu: “Jian” refers to oxen; from the great fish swallowing the bait to “awe shaking a thousand li,” the point is that one whose mind is vast may gain late but can shake the realm and bless the four directions; later people “marvel and tell one another” is like Yi Yin or Taigong—those who gain the realm and whose names pass to later ages. Both passages argue from “wai wu” (outer achievement) in positive and negative ways: the first says a person of resolve sometimes has his fate hanging on a tiny matter; the second says his resolve can wait for boundless greatness—one need not fixate on choosing between small and large. When it is time to fish for minnows, a peck or a pint counts as “big” and Lord Ren’s way counts as “small”; each fits its season.

Xuxi: Both passages keep circling on outer things: the resolute sometimes stake their fate on very little, sometimes their aim must wait for the boundless—same idea throughout. There is also a layer of “when the time and fortune fit, one need not force a split between large and small”: in the season for guarding tiny fish, a peck or pint is already great, and Lord Ren’s gear is already small.

Some Confucian scholars built wealth on learning tied to the Shi and Li—the Classic of Poetry and the Record of Ritual. A senior scholar called down: “The east is bright—how far along are we?” A junior answered: “We have not yet loosened the skirt at the dead person’s lower body, but the mouth already holds a pearl.”

The Shi itself says something like: “Green wheat, growing on the embankment.” Later readers used that line as a barb: if you would not give while alive, why keep a pearl in the mouth after death?

So they arranged the hair at the temples, pressed the area below the chin—yi names the zone around the jaw—and the scholar set a gold awl against the cheek and slowly worked the jaws apart to take the pearl from the mouth, trying all the while not to scratch the pearl itself.

Appendix: sense of the marginal notes (to read the satire)

When someone is as stranded as a fu fish in a dried-up pool, a dou or sheng of grain weighs like a fortune and a great net like Ren Gong’s is useless—meaning that in extremity, small things loom large and grand tools do not help. Lu is to pass a message downward, to proclaim; ye is to press with the fingers; tai names the whiskers below the chin, here the jaw and chin region. Guo’s note: the Shi and Li are traces left by the former kings; unless people match those kings in spirit, the Way does not travel the world in vain—but if Confucians wield those traces for crooked ends, the traces themselves are no warrant. Lü’s note: petty Confucians hide injustice behind the words of the former kings; that is no different from prying a pearl from a corpse’s mouth.

Laolaizi had a disciple who went out to gather firewood, met Kongzi (Confucius), and reported back: “Over there is someone with a long upper body and short lower half, head or back slightly stooped, ears set far back, eyes as if taking in the whole world under heaven—I do not know whose son he is.”

Laolaizi said: “That is Kong Qiu. Bring him here.”

When Kongzi arrived, Laolaizi said: “Qiu, drop the stiffness in your bearing and the ‘I already understand’ look on your face—then you will resemble a junzi (gentleman).”

Kongzi withdrew with hands folded in salute, his expression changed, and he came back to ask: “Can my undertaking”—his path of living and acting in the world—“still be pushed further forward?”

Laolaizi said: “If you cannot bear a moment’s harm yet invite calamity for ten thousand generations, is that because you narrow the people and strip them of self-direction? Or because your plan does not reach far enough and you force what will not take? Using favors and pleasing others instead breeds arrogance; one act of ingratiation brings shame for a lifetime. What is called the conduct of middling people—give them a push and they rush ahead—people rope one another with reputation and bind one another with disaster. Rather than praising Yao and reviling Jie, it is better to let go of both sides and shut away what you parade as your standard. Sheer opposition always harms someone; reckless movement always turns crooked. The sage acts with ease, so things often come off; yet if you keep shouldering merit and stay self-satisfied without end, what good is that?” (Note: mo refers to the head, or in some readings the back; xu denotes affliction; chouchu means unhurried, at ease. Even when one acts at ease and succeeds, traces of harm may remain and poison may flow for a hundred generations—how much more when one moves in self-satisfaction and keeps “carrying” good deeds on oneself without stopping?)

Main drift of Guo Xiang’s commentary: The phrases about “lengthening the upper and shortening the lower,” ears turned back and upper body bent, sketch Kongzi; seeing him ruli ruran—as if exclusively minding the world’s business for others—Laolaizi took him to be someone who could forget form and discard clever knowing, and so called him junzi. Kongzi received the lesson with folded hands and withdrew. “The undertaking can advance” is a deliberate question so that Laolai can make the point: one must not lightly push forward. To force things for one age is to bequeath trouble for ten thousand generations. “Yi gu ju” and “wang qi lue fu ji” mean: if you suppress and cling stubbornly, human nature is cramped and everyone loses what they can do within their own place. If you simply trust what is natural, the people are not narrowed, each has their own strategy, and nothing is beyond reach. Using delight to bestow favor—when favor is gone, ugliness shows; favor cannot last, and one favor can mean a lifetime of shame. The “advance” in the conduct of middling people means they are easily pushed forward, so one must not rashly hand out small favors. Xu means to gather and press forward; bi means to block and close off. Go against the grain and you harm; move rashly and you turn perverse; follow the natural course and you are whole; stay still and you are upright. When affairs do not stray far from the root, merit often succeeds; self-satisfaction cannot be carried forever, so one succeeds without clinging to possession.

When people study Confucius, they often cling only to the outward traces of his words and conduct and never reach the inner meaning he lived by—which is why Zhuangzi raises these points. The passage runs from self-cultivation all the way to “whose son is he?”—those who look for the sage by appearance alone. They hold their bodies stiff with propriety and perform propriety in every step; they think they understand, yet they are far from the state where “supreme virtue seems like foolishness.”

Great disorder was brewed in the age of Yao and Shun. Unable to bear one generation’s pain, people set out to fix things by deliberate action—and ended up inviting calamity for ten thousand generations. Was it that undertakings meant to enrich everyone turned into poverty instead? Or that their plans and strength fell short? Zhuangzi says the weight of his words does not lie in these questions.

Huishi was no man of great wisdom, yet he took quick wit for pride and merriment for arrogance; he spent his life in unseemly posturing, and still refused some things. As for those who pull each other in by reputation and bind each other through profit—that is merely the path of middling people. Could a gentleman who truly embodies the Dao act like that?

So long as one cannot fully release “sage” and “wisdom,” and cannot step free of the standoff between Robber Zhi and good versus evil, all of this is the kind of arrogance that poisons age after age. When the Dao rests in wuwei (non-action) and returns, nothing is harmed; when the Dao moves from wuwei, nothing goes crooked—so what is there to flaunt or praise?

“Yu” (caution) is like crossing a river in winter; “you” (wariness) is like standing in awe of neighbors on every side—“hesitation and holding back” mean just that. Yet people treat it as a load to carry on their backs, believing that without putting on restraint they cannot succeed—and in doing so they turn away from what the Dao was meant to be.

Duke Yuan of Song dreamed at midnight that someone with disheveled hair peered in through a side door and said: “I come from the Zailu abyss; I was originally an envoy of the Clear River. When the fisherman Yu Ru was fishing for the River Lord (Hebo), he caught me.” When the duke awoke, he had the dream interpreted; the diviner said it was a divine turtle. He asked whether there was a fisherman named Yu Ru among his people; told there was, he ordered Yu Ru summoned to court the next day. When Yu Ru arrived, the duke asked what he had caught; Yu Ru replied that that morning he had netted a white turtle about five feet across the shell. The duke first wanted to kill it, then to release it, unable to decide; he divined again, and the oracle said that killing the turtle for divination would be auspicious. So they split the carapace and bored seventy-two holes for scapulimancy, and not one omen was missed. Yet in the end the divine turtle could not escape the disaster of being gutted and disemboweled.

Confucius (called Zhongni in the text) commented on this: the divine turtle could appear to Duke Yuan in a dream yet could not escape Yu Ru’s net; it could read the fortune of all seventy-two borings yet could not escape the calamity of being split open—showing that “knowing” has its limits and that “spirit” (shen) also has what it cannot reach. Even the highest wisdom cannot withstand the scheming of many minds each pursuing its own aim. Fish do not fear nets but fear pelicans—water birds that scoop fish while “washing” the water; Su Shi once said that what fish truly fear is “Heaven” (nature’s net), the same idea. Likewise Hou Yi shooting sparrows and Yang Youji shooting gibbons: skill still leaves one bound by a larger pattern. In the text, the characters for “stone” and “large” were sometimes used interchangeably in antiquity.

Guo Xiang’s gloss on this passage is roughly: relying on godlike cleverness is not trustworthy. Only to rest calmly within one’s proper share and not reach beyond it is to preserve oneself; one need not parade small cleverness but may borrow the plans of the multitude—like a net, which has no intent, yet catches fish. Small cleverness springs from private motives; great wisdom accords with the ten thousand things. If one does not make a show of “goodness,” goodness has nothing to be admired for; with nothing to admire, those who act well need not pose and naturally do good—as when an infant is born without a teacher of writing yet learns to speak by dwelling among speakers, not by standing on tiptoe to imitate others.

(“River Lord” [Hebo] is the water god who governs rivers; “envoy of the Clear River” can be read as a divine emissary embodied in the river; the seventy-two borings refer to the traditional practice of drilling the plastron, burning it, and reading the cracks for divination.)

Even if you have supreme wisdom, you still cannot outmatch the crowd when they plan together—one against many, and human affairs often go that way. Fish do not fear the net, yet they fear the pelican; the pelican “has knowledge,” while the net “has none.” So discard petty cleverness and let great wisdom show; do not advertise “goodness,” and goodness completes itself naturally. Those who govern a state need not treat “stratagem” as their capital. An infant has no great teacher, yet learns to speak—because day after day it stays among people who speak. Though a person has talent and insight, they should consult the many, not decide alone.

Even supreme wisdom is no match for deliberating with the multitude. Fish do not fear the net but fear the pelican—this is the fish’s “not knowing”: it only knows the pelican can harm it, while the net comes from a direction it does not notice, and it fails to see that harm from the pelican is small while harm from the net is great. People can drop petty cleverness and let great wisdom be clear; they need not boast of goodness yet naturally act well. Like an infant who learns speech without a great teacher of learning, because it lives among those who can speak. Though one has knowledge, one should still plan together with others.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi: Your teaching is “useless.” Zhuangzi said: First understand what “useless” means, then you can discuss “useful.” The earth is not lacking in breadth or size, yet what people use is only enough to set their feet. If, just to place the feet, you dug the whole ground down to the yellow springs, would there still be any “use” for people? Huizi said: There would be none. Zhuangzi said: Then how “useless” turns into “useful” is also clear. (“Setting the feet” means where the feet rest; “digging down” means excavating downward; “reaching the yellow springs” means digging to the utmost depth.)

Guo’s commentary: The sage responds inwardly to things and only speaks outwardly when something arises; when feeling is fully expressed, the matter opens; outward clarity then inward function—the inner and outer need each other. That is the principle.

In worldly terms, having knowledge and ability is called “useful,” and lacking them is called “useless”—yet people do not see that “useless” is precisely the root of “useful.” From the perspective of the Dao, what the world calls knowledge, ability, and usefulness is pitifully small compared with “the space for the feet upon the great earth.”

Zhuangzi says: If a person can truly “wander” (you), how could they not wander? If they cannot wander, how could they wander? A mind that drifts away from the world and a course of action taken to the utmost—unless borne by someone of utmost wisdom (zhì zhī) and profound virtue (hòu dé)—will be like a fall from which there is no return, or like fire racing ahead with no turning back. Even when ruler and subject seem well matched for a time, once the age changes, there is nothing left by which to despise one another. Therefore the perfected person (zhì rén) does not cling to one fixed way of acting.

Venerating antiquity and belittling the present is the habit of pedants. If one views the present through the eyes of the Xishi lineage alone, who could avoid being pulled up and down by the waves of the times? Only the perfected person can wander in the world without leaning to one side, following others yet not losing their own root. What is meant by “that teaching” is not learning something from outside, but inheriting its intent and not setting oneself against it. [“Wave” (bō) suggests rising and falling with the current.]

The gist of Guo Xiang’s commentary: What nature can do, one cannot help doing; what nature cannot do, one must not force. If the sage is not mastered by external things, they are the same as ordinary people—each gets what is natural without knowing how they got it. If virtue is not profound enough, one cannot sustain such resolve and conduct, nor trust abilities that differ from others’. “Overturning and falling” and “fire racing” describe how, when likes and dislikes take over, people no longer distinguish right from wrong or care about life and death. As ages turn, there is nothing by which to despise each other, so one aligns with others. The perfected person has no “fixed course” (liú xíng): whatever they meet, they respond accordingly, and so they can move with change. Antiquity has no fixed object of reverence, the present no fixed object of contempt; scholars who honor the old and scorn the new lose their root. Adapting to the time and to things, high and low can be levelled. The perfected person handles affairs as the moment requires; wherever they are is right, so they can wander in the world without bias. Originally there is no self—how then speak of losing the self? Thus they follow others without losing themselves. Teaching means going along with that nature, not learning from outside; hence “that teaching is not learned.” The meaning is inherently natural; receiving and applying it, the myriad things each return to their own self—hence “receiving the intent, not opposing it.”

Liezi said: When wandering reaches its utmost, one no longer fixates on “where to go”; when contemplating reaches its utmost, one no longer fixates on “what is being contemplated.” The ten thousand things each wander on their own; the ten thousand things each contemplate on their own—this is what I mean by wandering and by contemplating. Zhuangzi’s wandering is largely the same in spirit.

In the eyes of one who has attained the Dao, nothing among the ten thousand things is not the Dao, so everything wanders and everything contemplates; even if you tried not to wander, you could not. If a person has not attained the Dao, no matter how much you wish to wander, you cannot.

Drifting entirely with custom pulls the will downward; cutting oneself off from the world in stark withdrawal makes conduct look lofty and aloof—neither is the burden that “utmost knowledge and thick virtue” should bear. Clinging to one side until one topples and falls is like fire racing ahead without turning back. Even the roles of ruler and minister are only what the times make them; when generations change, there is no fixed high or low. Whatever does not accord with the Dao is “one-sided bias.” Those of utmost knowledge and thick virtue do not grow base by following custom, nor lofty by leaving the world; they only follow the Dao. Hence the Perfect Person “does not linger in his going”—no clinging, no attachment, passage without a trace. In Buddhism it is said, “Do not lodge three nights under the same mulberry tree”—the same idea: do not tie the heart dead to one place.

Those who honor antiquity and belittle the present, viewing the present through eyes like those of Xi Wei Shi, must have narrow, thin hearts—who can say that accords with the Dao? That too is one-sided bias. Those of utmost knowledge and thick virtue still only follow the Dao, so the Perfect Person does not linger in going and leaves no wheel ruts.

Those who honor antiquity and belittle the present, using the ways of the ancients to judge the present age, mostly have thin hearts—who can keep the heart’s waters unrippled and truly level? Only the Perfect Person can wander in the world without eccentric novelty; outwardly he goes along with human feelings, inwardly he does not lose himself. Teaching according to what the other already has is not bookish “learning”; receiving and carrying forward by penetrating the meaning is not hard splitting of “this” from “that.” What is taught is what the other originally has, not what is forcibly imposed though absent. If one cannot penetrate the intentions of all under Heaven, “that side” and “this side,” right and wrong, spring up; when one penetrates and receives, where is there need to set “that” against “this”? This is the wandering of the Perfect Person.

Jingchuan said: Among names and roles, ruler and minister are the strictest—when generations change, roles change; how much more for other principles—how can one cling rigidly? Here he only uses “the Perfect Person does not linger in going” as a lead-in. Not lingering in going is not dwelling or sticking—the same meaning as “not three nights under the mulberry tree.”

Fumo said: That teaching need not be learned in petty detail, but one must receive its meaning without clinging to “that” versus “this”; worldly teaching, though not learned scrap by scrap, also receives its meaning. What is taught lies in what the other has, not in what they lack; failing to penetrate the meaning of all under Heaven gives rise to “this” versus “that.” The wandering of the Perfect Person lies here.

Marginal note (commentary)

The other side’s way of learning need not be followed line for line, but one should grasp its intent rather than wrangle over wording. What they call “worldly teaching” need not be copied in every detail; one can still carry its meaning forward without clashing on the surface of language. Why? The way of leaving the world and the way of living in the world were never two separate things. Where there is picking and choosing, taking and rejecting, that is not what Zhuangzi meant by “roaming in the world without leaning to one side, going along with others without losing oneself.” Seen this way, the “roaming” Mengzi (Zhuangzi) speaks of is certainly not a doctrine of cutting off from things and leaving the world behind; within it there is a principle of following along without losing the self—hence it is called “supreme knowing and thick virtue.”

Fang Sian

One who can “roam” may sink deep yet does not stop there; one who cannot “roam” goes and never returns. Here “roaming” is roaming in the world, not the carefree roaming of the mind alone. Thus one current is drifting escape, another is resolute withdrawal from the crowd. To be drowned and fallen without turning back is the fault of the resolute type; to rush like fire without looking back is the fault of the drifter. The two—one lord, one minister—each take themselves as noble and others as base; change the age or the standard of judgment and they stand on equal footing—that is not what “supreme knowing and thick virtue” is about. Therefore the perfected person is good at “roaming”: he does not alter his root as the times change, does not lose himself because of outer things, and has no split between ancient and modern, self and other. Why? The ancient is not necessarily worthy of honor, the present not necessarily worthy of contempt; viewed from the perspective of an emperor, a king seems lowly; viewed from a king’s perspective, a lesser lord seems lower still. Ancient and modern take turns as higher and lower—who can avoid rising and falling with the waves? Hence the perfected person roams in the world without leaning to one side.

When the eyes are penetrating, there is clarity; when the ears are penetrating, there is acuity; when the nose is penetrating, there is discernment of fragrance; when the mouth is penetrating, there is taste of sweetness; when the heart-mind is penetrating, there is knowing.

When the eyes penetrate fully, there is brightness; when the ears penetrate fully, there is sharp hearing; when the nose penetrates fully, one distinguishes fragrant from foul; when the mouth penetrates fully, one tastes sweetness; when the heart-mind penetrates fully, there is wisdom. But if knowing penetrates yet one clings to high and low, that is the same as “viewing an emperor from the throne of a king, viewing a king from below”—ancient and modern, each higher then lower in turn; who can avoid being carried by the waves? That is precisely why the perfected person can roam in the world without bias: he does not take one pole as absolute, and does not trap himself in rank and contempt.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Yi

Only when the eyes are clear can one truly see; only when the ears are clear can one truly hear; only when the nose is clear can one keenly distinguish qi; only when the mouth and tongue are clear can one taste flavors; only when the heart-mind is clear is there genuine wisdom; only when wisdom is clear does it accord with De (Virtue/Power).

The great Dao (the Way) is most afraid of being blocked. Once blocked, one chokes; if choking continues without relief, one staggers and loses step—and once one loses step, every kind of harm follows.

Sentient beings all depend on a single breath to stay alive. If vital breath is not full and smooth, that is not entirely heaven’s fault—heaven ceaselessly opens and clears the passages for the myriad things day and night; it is people who plug those openings themselves.

The womb already holds many barriers; only when the heart can wander with heaven is one at ease. If the inner chamber cannot be empty, even mother-in-law and daughter-in-law turn against each other; if the heart has no heavenly wandering, the six openings—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—fight and interfere with one another.

Great groves and high hills are naturally beneficial to people; even the spirits cannot exhaust their bounty.

When De overflows, it flows into reputation; when reputation overflows, it turns toward cruelty. Scheming hides in cunning; cleverness is born from strife; official duty breeds constraint, yet achievement in affairs still depends on others deeming it fitting.

When spring rain comes in season and sunlight is right, grass and trees suddenly shoot up—that is when one should hoe and weed with the dipper-shaped tool. People trim plants, fill gaps in plantings, and often finish most of the work, yet may not see that nature does it thus—not wholly by human effort.

Notes on terms in the commentary (for reading the original):

“Jian” (also written as another form) means trampling or stumbling; “yin” here follows the Shangshu sense of fullness in mid-spring—saying disorder is not heaven’s crime; “bao” refers to the womb; “bo xi” means perverse mutual contention (Sima Biao’s gloss). In the closing passage, Guo Xiang repeats the line about trimming plants without knowing it is so, and explains the characters above.

This passage is Guo Xiang’s commentary on the Zhuangzi, in substance as follows.

Through-flow and blockage; knowledge and breath

Where there should be through-flow but things are blocked shut, principle is pent up and mutually tramples on itself. Sheng (arising): whatever has roots and grows does not depend on zhi (“knowing” or deliberate intellect); some read this as shi xi (relying on breath). Yin means what is fitting. Breathing is not something zhi governs in the first place; once zhi tries to govern it, it misses what is fitting; missing what is fitting, there is no through-flow. Hence it is zhi that leans on xi (breath), not xi that leans on zhi. When zhi is used to suppress desires, however, that is human contrivance—it is not a sign that appears only when one has no other choice.

Heaven penetrates; humans block

Tian chuan wu jiang: the Way of Heaven is unobstructed; there is no downward damming; principle has its constant movement. Ren se qi dou: people block their own openings—they do not follow their natural disposition and go against Heaven; only when the openings are open is there through-flow. Lang is vast openness; tian you is roaming in Heaven, not tied to things. Bo xi is a place of quarreling; rang is going against, disorder.

The great grove and lodging in things

Da lin is a fine setting such as hills and mountains; the principle of nature lodges in things and connects with them.

De, fame, and violence

De yi hu ming: when reputation runs too high, profit runs deep, so cultivating De (Virtue/Power) easily overshoots and misses what is fitting. Ming yi hu bao: the name for restraining violence overshadows De itself. Zhou is haste; mou ji hu zhou: only after haste does one turn plans over and over. Zhi chu hu zheng: intelligence appears only when there is contention; in ordinary times with nothing amiss, one need not rely on intelligence. Chai is to block or plug.

Official business and what the multitude finds fitting

Guan shi guo hu zhong yi: what the multitude finds fitting differs, so offices and public business exist to decide. Cao mu sheng er yao nou xiu: as soon as grass and trees grow, hoeing and trimming follow; for the ten thousand things, where there is arising there is the order that responds to it.

Daozhi

Daozhi bu zhi qi ran: affairs arise along with principle, and people are unaware of why it is so.

(Repeated lines)

The later lines “hou kao qi mou ye… jie you you ye” repeat the sense of “mou ji hu zhou,” “guan shi guo hu zhong yi,” and “cao mu sheng er yao nou xiu” above. Guo’s note here stresses again: plans after haste, intelligence after contention, offices because of diverse “what is fitting,” and tending affairs because there is a reason—they all have their you (ground or cause).

The eyes, ears, nose, and mouth of human beings, if they are not blocked by sights, sounds, scents, and flavors, stay clear, harmonious, and endowed with wisdom and virtue (zhide). Once they are blocked, the passages choke; when choking reaches an extreme, gain and loss trample each other in the chest, and conflict (“treading on one another”) becomes hard to avoid. That is the disaster of Yin-Yang imbalance and the root of many harms.

Whatever has perception lives while Qi remains and dies when Qi departs. Qi’s coming and going follows the waxing and waning of midnight and noon (zi and wu), shifts with Yin and Yang to left and right, and exchanges with primordial Yuan Qi day after day without exception. It is like the orifices on a dog’s body, which stay open and stay roughly balanced day and night, so they do not naturally decline. Humans use sights, sounds, scents, and flavors to plug these orifices and refuse to let Qi pass, and so they decline instead of filling up.

If a person can be empty and tranquil (tandan wuxu), true Qi will follow; the form is upright and unified, and one sees that heavenly harmony is about to arrive. Then the womb has its double gate (chongmen) held shut so defilement cannot enter; the heart has heavenly wandering (tian you) so outer things cannot disturb it; the inner chamber must hold emptiness before it can differ from clinging to rank high and low. Otherwise it becomes like mother-in-law and daughter-in-law slighting and quarreling with each other.

The heart must have heavenly wandering before it can rise above worldly grime; otherwise the six openings (liu zao—the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, mind, and knowing) will clash and fight one another.

If someone truly understands what heavenly wandering is, then even while moving among people, the myriad things cannot stir the heart; spirit is enough to master them—why must one go only to great forests and hill country to count as “good”?

The highest De (virtue) does not display De, and so has no name; once there is a name, that is De overflowing; overflowing without storing is also the name overflowing. Then scheming cannot avoid being tied to strife, cleverness cannot avoid arising from scrambling for firewood (i.e., gain), and guarding that gain cannot avoid being born—thus one becomes “filled with what the crowd approves”: sights, sounds, scents, and flavors block the outside, while thought and clever plans block the inside, and inner and outer cannot communicate.

Those who cultivate the Dao govern the heart before disorder appears; they do not wait until the plants are already raging upward before taking hoe and hand-weeder (niao) to them.

Tracing the root: This refers to choking fits, being trampled underfoot, and the like. When the feet cannot move freely, it is as if one has been injured by being stepped on. All three Yin meridians of the leg begin at the toes and ascend through the throat; when pathogenic qi follows these channels, incessant choking can turn into disorders of the feet—and once the feet are afflicted, every kind of harm follows, not choking and trampling alone. The foot ailment is a metaphor: the Dao must not be blocked. Block it, and illness takes exactly this form.

Yin (abundance): Some read this as “plentiful, numerous.” Others say: sentient beings live because qi circulates within them; when that breath cannot be sustained, it is not that Heaven deliberately wills it so, but that people themselves have sealed their openings shut.

Descent (jiang): The qi of the human body naturally rises from below; if it only descends and never ascends, the person dies. Here “breath” (xi) is used to speak about the “heart-mind” (xin).

Lang (pronounced xian): “Heavy threshold” (zhong lang)—like a door sill. The womb (bao) is originally empty; where it opens resembles the inner gate of a room. When the womb has its heavy threshold, the heart has “Heavenly wandering” (tian you). If a room has no open space, daughter-in-law and mother-in-law press face to face and jostle each other; when the heart has a place for natural roaming, the six fu organs do not grab at one another. Again: when someone “delights in” (shan) great forests and hills, it is because day to day the breast is narrow and spirit (shen) cannot master outer things; if spirit is sufficient, why need one “delight” in them at all?

De (Virtue/Power) belongs within; because of reputation it overflows outward. Name is originally not displayed; because of self-exposure and boasting it overflows outward—overflow, like water brimming and spilling over.

Scheming (mou) need not originally involve much calculation; because desire entices, one delays and digs in all the deeper.

Chai (stockade): As in the “stockade fence” (chaizha) passage of the Heaven and Earth chapter—the barrier posts officials erect at detention posts for guard duty. The stockade need not originally be raised; it is raised because officials must hold the place. Affairs need not originally be forced solid; they are decided and carried through because the multitude approves—in each case, naturalness (ziran) is lost.

When spring rains fall, grass and trees naturally surge upward; hoes and weeders are what ought to be readied then. If one instead injures their growth and goes against their nature at that very season, that is “inversion” (dao)—turning things upside down.

If the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and heart-mind can stay open and unobstructed, that is largely because thorough insight (zhiche) and De (inner virtue) run through and unify them. Without De to hold them together, all five become blocked, and harm multiplies.

Living beings have xi (breath and vital rhythm) to connect the body’s Qi (vital energy) with the harmony of heaven and earth. When action clogs this flow, it no longer accords with the way yuanqi (primordial Qi) moves through all things without pause or rest. When there is decline or cutting-off, it is often because people themselves use the six things (here, the senses and their related passageways) to plug their dou (orifices) from within. Animals rely on breath; plants rely on roots—each has what it depends on to stay alive.

The beauty of great forests, hills, and mountains affects people this way: what they usually see is narrow and mean, and when they suddenly meet vast, bright openness, the heart is inevitably moved—that is really Shen (spirit) failing to master things, and being overcome by the outer world instead. Mountains, forests, and open country make people glad, yet before joy is finished, sorrow follows. Then, are things truly “being good” to people? Is that real goodness? Are people truly rejoicing in things? Is that real joy? Outward longing empties the inner store; prizing what is outside lightens what is within.

Name (ming) is a public vessel—not to be grasped in excess. Once a name is spread abroad, De is lost; once one yearns for a name, the name itself is lost. With both losses, hurried scheming follows, understanding goes outward and strife arises—this is proof of how myriad harms are born. As for those who can guard what they have achieved, they still suffer from being chaisai (blocked and sealed) with no change.

The text goes on to say that though grass and trees are uprooted, they live again when rain comes—the season makes it so, though people do not know it. Human life rests on xi (breath); if breath were made to sink without being yin (full and ample), would there be no way to support, guard, and renew it? The key is zhi shi (knowing the timely moment) alone.

The eyes, when obscured by colors, cannot see clearly; the ears, when disturbed by sounds, cannot hear truly; the nose, when overwhelmed by odors, cannot tell fragrant from foul; the tongue, when sunk in flavors, loses the mind to wandering; when the heart sets up discriminating calculations, that is not genuine zhi (knowing)—knowing that carries discrimination is not the knowing that accords with the Dao.

The six faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—and the six sense objects—color, sound, scent, flavor, touch, and mental objects—must all be seen through and washed clean before the original luminous aware illumination can be restored. At the gate of each of the six faculties one may speak of a single word, che (penetrating thoroughly); in truth, when one place opens, every place opens—resolve one matter and a hundred matters fall into place.

The Dao does not wish to be blocked. If people cannot penetrate thoroughly, they are stopped up by outer things, like someone choking—choking without pause, they stagger and fall, and every kind of harm follows. When a person’s empty subtle spirit is packed full with material desire, they sink in craving and cannot pull free; those who can guard this point of luminous clarity are few.

All things live by the principle of generation and breath (shengxi). Today few keep to that principle, so generation and breath are weak and not flourishing. That lack of flourishing is not Heaven punishing people—Heaven in fact day and night “pierces through” and communicates without cease; it is people themselves who plug up their own orifices.

This thread of luminous spirit is always showing itself: the ears ought to be clear on their own, the eyes bright on their own—that is Heaven day and night communicating through, like a room with windows and openings through which sunlight naturally enters. Only when people themselves stop up the orifices does the light seem covered over and no longer seen.

Fang Sishan’s Commentary

People stay alive through xi (breath and the breath of life), and xi in turn is governed by xu (inner clarity and not clinging to things). Xu is where the Dao gathers. When the heart can hold xu, the six roots—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—serve us; when it cannot, those six roots become thieves that rob us. When they serve us, shen (spirit) stays within and is not drained; when thieves take over, shen is lost. Those who lose themselves inwardly always scramble to make up for it in outward things. Thus: when de (virtue) overflows it shows up as striving for fame; when fame overflows it shows up as violence; enterprise arises from restlessness, cleverness from conflict; toil comes from clinging to office, busywork from pandering to the crowd—all of this is outer things outweighing spirit, thief-qi disturbing the heart that should keep xu.

“Spring rain on schedule” can also mean timely rain and sun, climate in harmony. All things grow by xi; when the season arrives they sprout on their own—even hoeing and weeding cannot stop it. Why? Because it accords with tiansui (the Way’s own sequence). When there is tiansui, one moves like tianyou (wandering with Heaven): even planted upside down one may live; forced drilling and scraping block the blessing of rain. So those who nurture things keep the root; those who nurture life keep xi—this is why the perfected person values tianyou (going with Heaven, not letting things enslave the spirit).

Classic Text

Stillness and stability can nourish illness, massage can ease aging, calm can check haste. Even so, such things are what the busy cannot avoid doing—not what the truly idle bother with. The sage shakes the world, yet the spirit-person need not attend; the worthy shakes the realm, yet the sage need not attend; the gentleman shakes a state, yet the worthy need not attend; the petty person panders to the times, yet the gentleman need not attend.

(Variant readings: sometimes “silent stillness,” “trim and rub,” etc.)

Guo Xiang’s Commentary

“Repairing illness” does not mean never being ill; “resting from age” does not mean never aging; “stopping urgency” does not mean never being urgent—if one still fixates on these, there is still exertion, so the truly idle rise above and ignore them. The spirit-person is the sage: the sage speaks of outward ordering, the spirit-person of inward cultivation. Going and staying each have their station; high and low each have their rank—so they need not inquire of one another.

Lu Commentary

“Quietly arriving at rest” means that the ancients’ essential point in governing the Way and governing methods lies right here. Although there is motion before stillness, complexity before simplicity, blazing before extinguishing, and disturbance before peace, when speaking to busy people, the aim is to let them pause. People already at ease have hardly moved—why preach stillness to them? If they have never been caught in complexity, why speak of simplicity? If they have never burned hot, why speak of extinguishing? If they have never been disturbed, why speak of peace? That is why (Zhuangzi) does not press the question further. Only after establishing De (Virtue/Power) can one truly be at ease; such ease is what both spirit-persons (shenren) and sages (shengren) can share. Spirit-persons and sages differ in outward conduct; worthies and junzi (noble persons) differ in talent and capacity; between junzi and petty persons there is the divide of righteousness versus profit.

Bicheng (Brush Notes)

An old commentary took zi (the corner of the eye) as eye disease. Xu Xi said: stillness is not medicine, yet it can nourish the eyes; when the eyes see nothing, though ill one can recuperate. Older readers did not know the character zi; it probably refers to yangsheng (nourishing life) practitioners’ methods for the eyes. According to the Zhen Gao: often press with the hands the four corners of the eyes (the four zi), so that inwardly one sees brightness—this is a method for checking and gathering the spirit in the eyes (jingshen); after long practice one sees myriad spirits, and signs of age first issue from the corners of the eyes; pi zi (wrinkling at the corners of the eyes) can be used to judge whether one may bathe to alter an aged appearance.

Yan Gate (name of a Song city gate)

Inside the gate, when a close relative died, someone was promoted to guanshi (master of officials) for observing mourning to the full in ritual; in the same faction, those who imitated him in mutilating the body to show extreme filial piety died—nearly half of them. Yao offered the realm to Xu You; Xu You fled. Tang offered the realm to Wuguang; Wuguang grew angry. When Ji Ta heard of this, he led his disciples and fled to Kui water; when the feudal lords came to condole, three years later Shentu Di likewise threw himself into the river and died. (“Bo” means stiff collapse or sudden fall—here, going into the river.)

Guo Commentary

Practicing filial piety while courting praise and reward is already far from true nature (zhenxing)—this is the harm of exalting the worthy (shang xian); waves that injure one’s nature can even end in throwing oneself into the river.

Lu Commentary

The guanshi urged people of his faction to mutilate their bodies, until mutilation led to death; Xu You fled once, and his followers ended by throwing themselves into the river. The evil of dying for outward traces (xun ji) can reach this extreme.

The fish trap exists for the sake of catching fish; once you have the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists for the sake of catching rabbits; once you have the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist for the sake of conveying meaning; once the meaning is grasped, you can forget the words. Where am I to find a person who has “forgotten words” so that I can have a word with him?

Guo Xiang’s commentary: As for the two sages (the realm Zhuangzi commends), they originally had no intention of setting up doctrines in words; in the end it is “nothing need be said”—when the meaning is exhausted, words may be set aside.

Lü Huìqīng’s commentary: Zhuangzi feared that later people would only remember his phrasing and not understand why he wrote as he did, so at the end of the chapter he uses the fish trap and rabbit snare as analogies, urging students to set aside language and exhaustively pursue the true meaning within.

A General Discussion of Humble Views

This chapter opens by clarifying which matters more—“inner” or “outer”—and thereby distinguishing what is near from what is far regarding “things” and “self.” What belongs to the “outer” is tied to external objects, so one cannot insist on obtaining it. What belongs to the “inner” is in one’s own hands: seek it and you may attain it. Yet people mostly chase outward; when they fail to get what they seek, resentment arises. The author therefore sets forth this discussion to dispel such confusion.

Loyalty and filial piety are fine virtues for establishing oneself, yet even these cannot guarantee recognition from ruler or parents—because one looks outward for what lies within. How much more so when all hope is pinned on external things and one demands them from outside? From this it follows: within nature-and-life (xingming) there is nothing that is not Dao—realize it and nature-and-life are preserved; outside nature-and-life there is nothing that is not “thing”—treat external things as things one must possess and one loses Dao. Only by being unobtrusive and practicing wuwei (non-action), silently aligning with Dao, can one avoid being trapped on both the inner and outer sides.

Zhuangzi uses the parables of borrowing grain from another and the fish in the ruts of a cart track to show that kindness must come in time; Lord Ren, fishing with a great hook and disdaining small fish, shows that in pursuing Dao one should keep to what is great. Confucians cite the Odes and Ritual yet go so far as “opening a tomb to take pearls”—beginners may start correctly, but once turned by desire for things they violate prohibitions, harm custom, and fear nothing—worse off than the utterly unlearned who still know restraint and rest in their allotted place. All this stems from those above governing the people with “sagely wisdom” for too long, so the strong among the crafty steal even “sagely wisdom” for themselves. Further parables concerning Old Lai and Zhongni discuss two kinds of praise and blame, suggesting worldly troubles may cease on their own—this is the meaning of “I practice wuwei and the people transform themselves.”

The white colt (or white steed) may appear in dreams yet cannot escape the net—thus “spirit” (shen) is not spirit on its own; one does not know there is also “spirit that is not spirit.” It illustrates that relying on clever schemes to escape trouble is inferior to forgetting knowledge and thus having no trouble. The text then says “only when one knows the useless can one speak of the useful”—the meaning before and after mutually clarifies each other. As for saying “people have the capacity to wander,” it means the heart wanders in plainness and wanders within; much of what precedes is parable, but here it says “Zhuangzi says”—right at the chapter’s core—so that learners may transcend the burden of external things, enter a realm of empty openness, spirit merging and intent at ease, taking nothing as not a standard, and thus draw near to Dao.

As custom declines, people often wander where they should not, racing like fire and overturning without looking back—even if a sage appeared again, rescue would be hard. Occasionally those who delight in wandering merely take rivers and seas as leisure and mountains and forests as good, drifting through life—this is what is called “wandering in the world yet eccentric”; it still cannot avoid clinging to the outer. Further instruction on “honoring the body” and “six penetrations” shows that Dao does not wish to be blocked; where there is knowledge that relies on breath, people should honor the “empty chamber”—empty whiteness arises of itself, and there is nowhere that is not heavenly wandering. Thus the laboring labor on their own, the idle do not inquire—just as gentleman, worthy, and sage differ in rank.

As for Yan Gate gaining a fief through slander, or Shen Tu avoiding Tang and stumbling into the river—all because those above prized supreme conduct, common people then established names of purity and cultivation; the intent was to temper the age and uplift teaching, not knowing it would instead harm life and injure custom—so these are held up as warnings for later generations. Judging words by deeds still belongs to external things; yet without the finger one cannot see the moon—therefore the gentleman who sets forth doctrine does not shrink from repeating himself; the learner need only seek the essential point.

Main Points of the “Yuyan” (Allegories) Chapter in the Zhuangzi (as Recorded in Jiao Hong’s Zhuangzi Yi)

The gist of this chapter can be summed up as follows: “Allegories” appear in nineteen places, “weighty words” in seventeen, while “spilled-cup words” emerge day after day—Zhuangzi’s way of speaking is largely these three kinds.

I. Yuyan (Allegories): Using Outer Things to Speak of Principle

Yuyan means to discuss by way of things outside oneself, without tying one’s own person directly to what is said.

For example: a biological father does not act as matchmaker for his son; when the father praises the son himself, the effect is often worse than when someone who is not the father praises him—because listeners easily suspect partiality.

This is not the speaker’s (“my”) fault, but human feeling: people tend to trust only the neutrality of “outsiders.”

So the world often goes: what agrees with oneself is approved, what disagrees is rejected; what matches oneself is called “right,” what does not match is called “wrong.”

Yuyan is a way to avoid this trap of “taking oneself as the standard,” and to speak through stories and through others.

II. Chongyan (Weighty Words): Speaking Through “Elders’ Mouths”

Chongyan looks like repetition or putting words in others’ mouths; in fact it borrows authority and “what has already been said” to establish one’s own saying.

Here Zhuangzi uses qiai (venerable elders of age and virtue, senior in standing) as a figure:

If one takes the seat of “right and wrong” merely because one is older, without regard to the order and structure of the matter itself (warp, woof, root, branch), that makes “who spoke first, who is older” the standard of truth—which is wrong.

If one cannot win others by rendao (the way of being human, a shared measure for discussion) but relies only on “I came first, I am old,” one becomes a “chenren” (stale person)—like old goods, with only age and no new life.

III. Zhiyan (Spilled-Cup Words): Like a Wine Cup—Full or Empty, Renewed Daily

Zhi is a round wine cup; Jiao Hong notes: zhiyan takes the sense of changing with the situation—speech is not nailed to one place but turns with circumstance.

“Zhiyan emerges daily, harmonized with tian ni”—such words arise every day, in tune with tian ni (the natural boundary, heaven’s natural dividing line).

The ten thousand things differ in countless ways, yet in different forms pass on to one another (xiang chan: transmission, transformation); beginning and end are like a ring, with no fixed order to be found. This is called “tian jun”—the natural balance and leveling. Tian jun is tian ni.

IV. Equality, Speech, Being and Non-Being (The Core of Zhiyan)

Through manyan (spreading and unfolding, elaboration) one speaks through the year (qiong nian):

If one does not speak, each side holds one corner and instead becomes “equal” (all stuck in the same rigidity);

If one speaks, speech and that “equality” easily fail to align—once words leave the mouth, that “equality” is broken.

Hence Zhuangzi says “no words”—

Not never opening the mouth for a lifetime; rather for a lifetime one is “speaking,” yet never clinging to a single fixed saying; for a lifetime one is “not speaking,” yet never truly keeping silent.

(The point: not grasping speech as a settled verdict is true speaking and true not-speaking.)

Again on “you zi” (having one’s own view, private intent):

Some matters may have “you zi” (one may have one’s own stance); some must not have “you zi” (one must not be stubbornly opinionated);

“So” and “not so”—

How is it so? So in what is so. How is it not so? Not so in what is not so.

“Permissible” and “impermissible”—

How is it permissible? Permissible in what is permissible. How is it impermissible? Impermissible in what is impermissible.

Things inherently have what is “so” about them, things inherently have what is “permissible” about them;

No thing is absolutely “not so,” no thing is absolutely “impermissible”—from another angle, there is nothing absolutely “not so” or absolutely “not not permissible.”

Jiao Hong’s Brief Notes

• Yiyan: Words used to stop the world’s endless quarreling.
• Zhi: A round wine vessel; here also the sense of following, borrowing—speech follows the vessel’s shape, not clinging to one side.

The above is a plain-language digest of the passage in the twenty-seventh chapter “Yuyan” on “allegories nineteen, weighty words seventeen, spilled-cup words daily emerging harmonized with tian ni,” rendered according to the text as recorded in Jiao Hong’s Zhuangzi Yi; terms such as tian ni, tian jun, manyan, qiai, chenren, and the like are briefly explained in Zhuangzi’s usual senses.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: When you put words in someone else’s mouth, roughly nine out of ten statements will be believed; when you speak for yourself, only about seven in ten will be. A cup brimming over spills; only when it is empty can it be filled—this is not a deliberate reversal of what one says. Speech works the same way: follow how things change and only go along with the other party’s situation, which is why Zhuangzi speaks of “daily sunrise”—“daily sunrise” means renewing day by day. Renew day by day, and you can fully comply with each thing’s natural allotment; when that allotment is exhausted, harmony is reached. When a father praises his son and the words come from his own mouth, that is called “daily renewal”; daily renewal exhausts natural allotment, and exhausted allotment is harmony. Yet when words come from oneself, ordinary people mostly refuse to accept them; even when someone does accept them, suspicion often lingers because of the usual distrust between father and son, so one must borrow an outsider’s voice. Speak for yourself and few believe; put the words in another’s mouth and many believe—people hear others’ speech with just this difference. Same pitch resonates; different pitch clashes, and they reproach each other. Three people together and two dispute right and wrong—the side they call right must lie with the one who is not disputing; both differ yet each trusts only their own judgment of right and wrong. If one already borrows an outsider’s mouth, why still need “double speech”? Because the mouth borrowed is that of someone venerable in years, the world together holds them in esteem; even without borrowing another, there would still be about seven-tenths belief. So-called venerable elders are merely those whose years precede the rest of things; in essence and branch there is nothing that truly deserves prior credence—expecting others to believe because of age is not a genuine reason to be “prior.” Here he simply says “one long tested by worldly affairs,” and the world together believes—that is why the vulgar rest content in habit.

Each thing naturally has its allotment, while right and wrong have no fixed master; without a master, right and wrong spread without end—who can fix the standard? Therefore, open and without contrivance, comply with nature, and each completes its allotted span. Entrust speech to things and adopt the way they speak, and mutual right and wrong naturally align; if one cannot establish speech according to the other party to align them, then self and things are again unaligned. What is said is what the other party would say, so though there is speech it seems as if there were none. Freedom arises because the dispositions of self and other each lean one way, hence there is allowable and unallowable, while things each are natural and each allowable in their own way; taken as a whole, there is neither allowable nor unallowable, and through neither allowable nor unallowable one arrives at equality. Only one whose speech follows things and leaves each to its natural allotment can avoid premature cut-off; though forms change in succession, their qi remains one. Beginning today and ending yesterday are both how principle has always been, so no fixed order can be obtained—this is called “heavenly balance.” Is heavenly balance something falsely made? It is all naturally given demarcation.

Commentary by Lü Huiqing: “Allegorical speech accounts for nine tenths; what is not allegory but speaks directly accounts for one tenth; repeated speech accounts for seven tenths; what is not repeated speech but speaks directly accounts for three tenths.” All of these belong to zhi yan (goblet words)—speech that pours out like an empty cup, following the moment without clinging to a fixed view. What does “allegory nineteen” mean? The Dao is in one’s own heart; if you use your own mind to judge others, when they doubt, they will not believe. It is like a father not acting as matchmaker for his son—you must borrow an outsider to speak. It is not that I do not wish to speak plainly, but that one cannot speak plainly to people. What does “repeated speech seventeen” mean? What agrees with oneself one approves; what disagrees one rejects—when I speak to others, I hope they will respond in kind, not oppose. So one speaks along with what the other holds dear (ai, referring to elders and those gone before). Whenever the text cites the ancients, it treats such ai (those honored in years and virtue) as weighty—they heard the Way before us, not because they were old. Having warp and woof, root and branch, enough to lead others, people follow them; if a person has nothing by which to lead and is merely long stale (old without anything new), how could they be worth honoring? Once words leave the mouth, there was never any fixed wording—then their rising like the sun is no more than pouring from a zhi (wine vessel). The zhi vessel draws from the zun and lei and pours at the right time; in the middle it is empty, with nothing stored. Tian Ni is the utmost of wuwei (non-action), where the sage rests. Using “harmony” to still right and wrong, resting in tian jun (natural equality), then going out or staying in, speaking or silent—all is tian jun; from this manyan (easy unfolding), one follows the pattern and extends it, and so can qiong nian (carry on to the end of one’s years). Only when there is no self and no speech can one speak of equality; once there is speech, there is self and things—how can there be equality? So “equality” and “speech,” “speech” and “equality,” have never truly been equal. Not speaking may seem equal, yet still is not equal with “speech,” and is not enough to count as great equality. Outward words and silence are nothing but tian jun; from this manyan, following reason one extends, and so can qiong nian. Only no self and no speech is equality; once there is speech, there is self and things—how can there be equality? Thus equality and speech, speech and equality, were never equal from the start; not speaking may seem equal, yet still is not equal with speech, and is not enough for great equality. Only when one “speaks” its “non-speech” is there great equality—zhi yan is just this. So one speaks all one’s life yet it is as if one never spoke; one never speaks all one’s life yet it is as if one never stopped speaking. The so-called acceptable and unacceptable, so and not-so, each has its own “so” and “can”; where there is originally “what is so” and “what is acceptable,” there is no not-so and no unacceptable—from this one may awaken. The myriad things in their kinds, at birth’s first moment, are originally the same; knowing this sameness, one knows beginning and end join like a ring—this is called tian jun. Tian jun is where right and wrong are harmonized and made one; what the myriad things are equalized to is the utmost of wuwei, hence the name tian Ni.

Brief glossary of terms:

• Yuyan (allegorical speech): using other people and other events to state one’s own meaning.
• Chongyan (repeated speech): using the repeated words of honored elders and ancients to establish one’s argument.
• Zhi yan (goblet words): speech like an empty zhi that pours as it is filled, not holding to one side.
• Tian jun / Tian Ni: natural equality, and the even measure or dividing line that aligns with “Heaven” (ni carries the sense of starting point and boundary).
• Manyan: following the pattern with ease, developing and extending the argument.

Modern English Interpretation of Zhuangzi Yi

Liu Kui’s commentary (on “goblet words” and “heavenly bifurcations”)

Water held in a cup is like virtue embodied in speech: if the cup is not full, the water will not spill. Pouring in from outside only fills it—it does not create “extra water” inside the cup. Flowing out from within, no matter how much runs out, the cup’s own nature is not emptied. Hence Zhuangzi’s “goblet words day by day” (zhi yan ri chu): as a cup naturally brims and overflows, so words flow out in season, following the moment.

Where things have boundaries, there must be beginnings; the threads nature already provides link head to tail like a ring. Hence “harmonize with the heavenly bifurcations” (he yi tian ni)—align with the grain of the Dao’s natural order. Again like creeping vines or flowing water (as the commentaries illustrate), they extend along that natural grain; when the Dao is kept whole, outer things are not harmed, and one can live out a full span of years.

If one could truly “speak all one’s life yet never have spoken, never speak all one’s life yet never have been silent,” the Six Classics would not be carved into scattered fragments, and Laozi would not be dismissed as merely “abbreviating”—meaning speech and silence both accord with the Dao, not a literal count of more or fewer words.

Main text: Zhuangzi and Huizi on Confucius

Zhuangzi said to Huizi: Confucius lived to sixty; for sixty years his views kept shifting—what he once took as right he later treated as wrong. Who knows whether what he affirms now will be the next of those fifty-nine “turnings”?

Huizi said: Confucius worked hard to set his will and used knowledge to win people over.

Zhuangzi said: Confucius had long moved beyond that approach; he simply did not always use the same rhetorical hook to say so plainly. Confucius once said, in effect: people receive the stuff of the great Dao and regain spiritual clarity to live; when they give voice, it should match pitch; when they speak, it should match measure. They set righteousness and profit before others, and over likes, dislikes, right, and wrong they do not merely fight to win mouths—they seek to win hearts. That is truly “winning people,” not gagging them (“e” means to stop the mouth, to suppress).

(Later passages repeat and are damaged; the gist remains that what Confucius valued was winning hearts and fixing the boundaries of all under heaven, not victory in verbal sparring.)

Note: Images such as “water in the cup,” “goblet words,” and “heavenly bifurcations” belong to the Zhuangist tradition of “lodged tales” (yuyan) and “goblet words”; this section weaves Liu Kui’s notes together with material near Zhuangzi, Great Master (Dazongshi), on Confucius. Individual graphs (e.g. “water vine”) may be corrupt in transmitted copies; read the passage with “following the natural grain; speech and silence in accord with the Dao” as the main thread.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: “Following the years” and “following transformation” mean changing together with the age; when the age shifts, the habits of the world shift with it. Someone who roams the heart by leaning on external things—how is that different from ordinary people? Change never rests, so one must not cling to a single fixed norm. Confucius once diligently kept the Way in his heart and wore it on his breast, yet later understood: it was not a matter of using knowledge to force oneself into a new shape. This shows that Huizi could not reach the profound resonance of the sage.

What Confucius declined was the side where change happens on its own—not fabricating things through intellect and ability. Therefore, adapting to the moment and yielding to things does not mean inventing one’s own doctrines. If one only enlists one’s talents and never returns to innate spirit, life is lost.

As for “name”: vocal tone arises from statutes, and speech arises from norms; yet norms are what the multitude jointly establish. The sage merely draws on them—hence nothing is inappropriate, yet he has never truly spoken from his own mouth or acted from his own initiative. “To wear” (fu) means “to use.”

“I have no words of my own”: what I would say is only conveyed by borrowing others’ mouths and ears. The display of likes and dislikes, right and wrong, righteousness and profit has never truly issued from my mouth. The mouth expresses the heart, so to use the multitude’s mouths is to use the multitude’s hearts; I follow the hearts of all, and those hearts trust and follow—who would stand against that and assert themselves? Because the realm would settle of itself, one makes it settle—why add needless interference? One further rides the momentum—the layout of profit and advantage likewise never issued from my mouth… (The remainder repeats the theme of following the hearts of all, settling because the realm is already settled, and riding what is already there so nothing is missed.)

The gist of the whole passage: the sage does not use private wisdom to force discourse, but adapts to the time, yields to things, and follows the collective heart, letting change transform itself; if one relies only on talent and knowledge without returning to original spirit, one loses true life. Huizi, trapped in names and disputation, therefore never reaches this level.

Lu Huiching’s commentary puts it this way: what people usually mean when they quote Confucius—“at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I could follow what the heart desired without overstepping the bounds”—is that in the mind one no longer gets tangled in right and wrong, and in speech one no longer weighs gain and loss; one has reached that stage.

But if the Dao has not yet reached the level of “following what the heart desires,” a person cannot avoid being pulled this way and that by external things—and such change often feels right at first and only later turns out wrong. What you take to be right at sixty—how do you know it was not what you took to be wrong at fifty-nine? Huishi did not grasp this point.

What is discussed here is the side on which Confucius is the same as other people. As for the side on which he is the same as Heaven, from antiquity to the present there has never been that sort of “transformation” driven by external things, yet there really are people who think one must rely on strenuous discipline of the will and on chuan zhi (parading one’s cleverness) to align with the Dao.

Master Xie (or the commentator referred to as “Xie”) says: only when what ought to be released is released can life be nourished—this is called De (Virtue). What is meant by receiving one’s endowment from the great root, returning to spiritual clarity, and thus living—before birth there is no qi and no form, so where would “spirit” be? Only with birth do qi and form arise, and then one returns to spirit.

(Birds) cry in accord with the pitch pipes without deliberately adjusting the voice; (people) speak in accord with measure without piling on doctrinal explanation. When profit and righteousness are set before one and one follows likes and dislikes and judges right and wrong, in truth one is merely going along with what the mouth and tongue say.

Because what one relies on (standards, standpoint) is not yet settled, this is not “wuwei (non-action) and natural transformation.” If one first makes people’s hearts submit and dare not oppose, then establishes rules, and only then settles the disorder of the realm, that is making people be “transformed” while being led—not simply obeying the mouth and tongue. I (Confucius) still cannot do as “that other” (the person of a higher realm) does—this is precisely what the commentator says Master Xie had not fully brought out: when what one relies on is unsettled, it is not wuwei and self-transformation; to win hearts, establish order, and then fix the realm is to cause self-transformation, not merely to satisfy people’s words; and that I am still not the equal of “that other” is also a meaning Master Xie never stated plainly.

Lü Commentary (1)

If one can rest in the times and follow what is natural, joy and grief cannot enter the heart. What the ancients meant by “the Celestial Sovereign loosens what was suspended” is this: if the heart still holds onto something, grief ought not to arise in the first place. Birth and death are indeed great matters; yet if joy and grief cannot enter the heart, then even when three great tripods and three thousand bells—the most exalted ritual vessels—pass before one’s eyes, it is like watching sparrows or gnats fly by: great or small, many or few, none of it is worth reckoning. The principle is perfectly clear.

Lü Commentary (2)

Same idea: however splendid external things may be, for one whose heart is not bound to them, they are no more than insects or birds skimming past.

Kou Commentary

A disciple asked Zengzi: Does this count as the fault of “being encumbered by ties”? He suspected a change of attitude—now joyful, now grieved. If one has already said “it was suspended,” then this single joy and single grief are themselves a form of encumbrance; if there is no encumbrance, things passing before one are like gnats and mosquitoes—how could they be worth joy or grief?

Main Text — General Meaning

Yan Chengzi You said to Dongguo Ziji: Since I heard you expound the Dao, in one year my heart returned to wild simplicity; in two years I followed along; in three years I penetrated; in four years I was one with things; in five years I came into my own; in six years ghosts entered; in seven years heaven’s completion was achieved; in eight years I no longer knew death or life; in nine years I reached the great subtlety.

He also said: Life arises from contrived action (youwei); in death one is urged toward public service—or toward merit—through that death. There is a “self” from which yang life springs; without a “self,” things simply are so—what is there to suit, what not to suit? Heaven has its calendrical reckonings; earth has people each holding their domain—where shall I go seeking beyond that? Not knowing the end—how can that be called no fate (wuming)? Not knowing the beginning—how can that be called fate (youming)? When there is mutual response, how can one say there are no ghosts? When there is no mutual response, how can one say there are ghosts?

Liu Commentary (On Heaven and Earth)

On heaven: calendrical reckonings and celestial timing. On earth: each person holds one region and guards its boundaries—they do not trespass on one another.

Guo Commentary

Guo Xiang’s treatment of the closing debate over “when there is response / when there is not” and “ghosts / no ghosts” follows a similar line: whether “there are ghosts” depends on whether there is mutual response. He likewise cites “heaven has calendrical reckonings, earth has people holding their domains”—each person occupies their ground and keeps their allotted place; there is no need to seek wildly outward.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: “Wild” (ye) means letting oneself drift outward; “expediency and profit” (quanli) means adaptation and gain—neither should be exercised alone or as the sole authority.

“Penetrating” (tong) means thorough connection; “other” and “self” are relative; all things are fundamentally one, each arising naturally from its own nature.

“Entering the outer” means going beyond the physical form; “heaven’s completion” (tiancheng) means things are already naturally accomplished, with no need for deliberate contrivance. Not knowing where birth and death lead, yet each finds its place and ease—this is subtle goodness. Good and evil share one source in reality, so there is nowhere that cannot be penetrated.

This passage means: someone who has long heard the great Dao and understands that the “heavenly sound” (tianlai) is inherently natural will suddenly forget the self; the dust and burdens of attachment gradually fall away until complete liberation.

If life clings to contrived action (youwei), it blocks life’s natural unfolding; contrived action gives rise to death, and private clinging to life gives rise to contrived action. The admonition to the ruler here is precisely to show that his death comes from selfish attachment to life.

The yang qi of life flows smoothly; by leaving no trace and practicing Wuwei (non-action), it suddenly stands alone—not arising from “being.” Once it is thus natural, nowhere is wrong; then everywhere is right, and that is the ultimate state.

Heaven and earth are already self-sufficient; principle must complete itself and does not depend on the knowing mind—if not “fate” (ming), then what? Not knowing why it is so, yet it is so—this is called ming, as if something arranged it; hence the name ming is also set aside, to show that things are inherently thus; only then are “fate and principle” (mingli) fully realized.

Dao was never fixed in the shape of “things” to begin with. Once people treat the world as a collection of concrete things and then try to return to a state of “no-thing,” attaining emptiness and guarding stillness is not something that can be built up in a day or two.

“Wild” here means letting go of benevolence and righteousness and treating ritual and music as guest etiquette imposed from outside—not as what truly grounds a person. From “minds not set against one another,” one goes further to “the mind threading through all things”: then one may roam through the ten thousand things and quietly observe them all. When Dao arrives, it is called “the Dao gathers”; when it enters, “ghosts and spirits take lodging”; when virtue merges with Heaven, it is “Heaven’s completion.” Not knowing death and not knowing life—that is knowing to stop at what one does not know; to speak of “great wonder” is to speak of Shen (spirit). Only by speaking from “wonder beyond the ten thousand things” can one then grasp what “spirit” means.

Life with only birth and no Wuwei (non-action) becomes “not knowing there is life, not knowing there is death”; life with deliberate action is what gives rise to death. Urging people with “impartial and without private ends” leads to “not knowing there is death.” Life with action is exactly where death comes from. Hence the sage “puts the self aside yet the self is preserved”—through selflessness fulfilling what is one’s own. That is why one urges people with “the public good.”

Seeing the end from the origin, one can speak of life and death: beginning and end are like a ring; only the side of “life” belongs to Yang—where is any fixed “self”? If one takes “having action” as “self,” that too is said from the angle of human feeling and the feelings of things—is it really so? Those who embody Dao and exhaust the spirit do not know life and death; what is there that must be gone to or avoided? If one searches among calendrics, rulers, and ranks, there was never one fixed doctrine to begin with—where would one search?

Fortune and misfortune are the same: where is any fixed “self”? Taking “having action” as “self” is likewise speaking from the feelings of things—is it really so? Those who embody Dao and exhaust the spirit do not know life and death; there is no question of what fits or does not fit. Among human affairs, to say “no fate” seems to leave one constrained in the end; to say “there is fate” is to seek a beginning and not find it. To say “no ghost” yet seems to meet response; to say “there is ghost” yet finds nothing to respond to. Therefore one stops at what one does not know and no longer forces the heart to hold anything else—only then is it called having attained.

Two people questioned their shadow: “You were bowing your head a moment ago, but now you look up; a moment ago your hair was tied up, but now it hangs loose; a moment ago you were sitting, but now you stand; a moment ago you stayed still, but now you move—why is that?”

The shadow replied: “I do not understand it myself—why bother with such fine points? I have the form of a shadow, yet I do not know why I am like this. I am like the empty shell left when a cicada molts, or the skin shed by a snake—something that looks alive, but is not really alive. Where the sun and firelight reach, I gather there; when cloudy weather and night come, I change along with them. Perhaps I exist only by clinging to these things? And how much more so for things that already depend on all sorts of other things! When that thing comes, I come with it; when it goes, I go with it; however it moves and changes, I move and change the same way. Something that moves entirely in step with the outer world—what is there to ask ‘why’ about?”

Commentary: “Having dependence” (youdai) means relying on something else in order to exist; “strong yang” (qiangyang) here refers to a state in which yang qi is vigorous and in active motion. Guo Xiang’s commentary, in essence, is that the shadow simply follows the body’s natural movements—there is no need to hunt for a cause; pursued to the end, even what we take to be “dependent” can be understood as “without dependence” (wudai), each thing transforming on its own—the shadow merely goes and comes with the form; from the start there is no fixed “answer” to be sought.

This passage explains the Zhuangzi story of the “shadow” and wangliang (the even fainter trace beyond the shadow).

Where the shadow comes from: A shadow is something attached to a body. When the body moves, the shadow follows—rising, falling, stopping, walking—without knowing why. A body “has” a shadow the way a cicada has a cast skin or a snake has an old skin, but the shadow is not the cast skin itself; it is only what shows up as something clinging to the form.

What the shadow depends on: With sunlight or firelight, the shadow gathers and appears; on cloudy days or at night, it is displaced and hidden. These are the outer conditions the shadow “relies on”—sun, fire, shade, night. Yet for the shadow, those conditions are not really a solid youdai (dependency on something else). Even what the shadow leans on does not amount to a truly existing youdai—still less should youdai be treated as a separate thing in its own right.

From shadow to form: If you trace youdai to its root, it comes down to where the shadow arises—namely form. Look with the wudai (non-dependency) insight associated with wangliang: the shadow does not have its own fixed “I must depend on such-and-such.” If the shadow is wudai, then the form that gives rise to the shadow, in principle, need not be chained to the idea of “form”—a person need not be weighed down by their own body.

Moving with things without clinging to “I”: Outer things come and go, and one comes and goes with them; outer things show vigor and outward flare, and one shows vigor and outward flare with them—none of this is a constant “I” in charge. Since there is no such solid “I,” what is there to keep asking, “Who is making me like this?”

Brief terms: Wangliang (the text writes fang liang, same as wangliang): the faint trace outside the shadow, or “shadow of a shadow”; youdai / wudai: Zhuangzi’s usual pair—whether one must rely on outer things or conditions to exist or act; qiang yang here: appearing active and outward as one follows outer things.

Commentary following the original text:

“Shao” is a form of address for an old man; here the words “fa sou” (the grey-haired elder) are omitted. “Bi” refers to the physical form (xingti).

Moreover, if one glosses the text with “yi zhi,” “qiang yang” means a yang force that is not upright—yang that strives and asserts itself by force. Wangliang (the dim penumbra at the edge of a shadow) and the shadow are like two old men facing each other: when two elders meet, how long can they remain in this world? When they question each other, it is only for a brief moment—why must you keep asking?

“Yu” is the shadow speaking of itself. The shadow says: although I have this shadow, I do not know how it came to be.

If one says the shadow is born from the form, it is like the cicada’s cast skin coming from the cicada’s body or the snake’s sloughed skin from the snake’s body—that seems right, but it is not. The cast skin truly falls from the cicada; the sloughed skin truly comes off the snake. But the shadow? When firelight and sunlight gather, it appears; in cloudy weather and at night it vanishes. Without fire and without sunlight, even if there is a form, my shadow cannot be produced. Seen this way, that form can indeed produce a shadow for me, yet the shadow must depend on something (it depends on light). How much more so wangliang, which in turn depends on the shadow as something that itself “waits upon” another!

That form comes and goes—I, the shadow, naturally follow it coming and going; that form forces its yang assertively, and I follow it in that forcing. What is called “qiang yang” is not the yang of blood and qi in its proper state, yet the shadow appears along with it—form and shadow are both not real existents, so why question them further?

(This passage is a feigned repetition of text already given, yet its meaning is especially transcendent.)

Yang Ziju (a disciple in the Yang Zhu line, named Rong, courtesy name Ziju) was traveling south toward Pei. Laozi was about to go west into Qin; the two met at the outskirts of a city, and again at Liang when their paths crossed. Halfway along the road, Laozi suddenly looked up to heaven and sighed: “At first I thought you were worth teaching—but now I see you are not.” Yang Ziju said nothing.

When they reached the inn, Yang Ziju brought water for washing, a towel, and a comb, left his shoes outside the door, and stepped forward with full respect to ask: “Just now your disciple wished to inquire, but while we were walking it was awkward to speak, so I did not dare ask; now there is leisure—may I ask what this was about?”

Laozi said: “Your gaze is haughty and your spirit overbearing (‘sui sui’ and ‘xu xu’ both mean lifting the eyes to look down on others in an arrogant way)—who would want to stay close to you? ‘Great whiteness seems stained; overflowing virtue seems insufficient’—someone truly pure often looks as if slighted, and someone of deep virtue often looks as if lacking. The way you used to carry yourself—who could bear it?” Yang Ziju’s face changed at once, and he said: “Your disciple will listen respectfully to the Master’s instruction.”

After that, when he stayed at inns again, the host personally saw him in and out, the household set out mats and brought washing gear, and even those tending the stove stepped aside from the hearth; when he returned having reformed and shed his pride, the people at the same inn dared to jostle for seats with him and no longer treated him as an honored guest to be waited on.

Main ideas from traditional commentaries (for reference)

Guo Xiang’s commentary: “Sui sui” and “xu xu” describe a domineering, self-important bearing; others fear this and keep their distance. Seeing oneself as set apart makes innkeepers afraid and eager to flee; only when one drops pretension does one reach the point of disputing seats with others—showing one has come to stand on equal footing with companions.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Acting “sui xu” and setting oneself apart is what draws hosts to rush out to welcome and send off guests; if Yang Ziju had shown off his edge like “the body spying, forming light,” he would have attracted crowds as if “outdoor shoes filled the doorway”—hence Laozi’s sigh. This matches the point in the Zhuangzi where Bohun Wuren has Yuke (Liezi) drop his display of skill and live among ordinary people—the same lesson.

Passage cited by Jiang Su

Confucius said: Someone of low rank who does not master ritual and propriety will not win another’s true sincerity. Advancing with washed hands, straightened cloth, combed hair, shoes removed, kneeling and walking—all of it is finally a way of seeking that sincerity. On the body, nothing shows the inner self more clearly than the eyes, where spirit (Shen) is housed. When those who have attained the Dao meet, a single exchange of glances holds the Dao; those who read people well often see it in the space between brow and lashes. That is why Laozi found Yangzi (Yang Zhu), with eyes wide and looking everywhere, hard to teach.

To be clear and penetrating in every direction is called “great whiteness” (dabai); the lower one stays, the more one seems shamed—this is “as if disgraced” (ruo ru); empty and not brimming over, so great virtue looks like insufficiency. A person like that should look steady and solid—nothing like Yang Zhu’s staring about.

“Yielding the mat” is not simply refusing to compete; “fighting for the mat” is not simply refusing to yield. Once one accepts a command and changes, the one who yielded may be the one who contends. Qin and Liang are not far apart; today’s Yang Zhu is still yesterday’s Yang Zhu—there are not two Yang Zhus. Two people meet and their manner flips at once—from this we see that the utmost Dao hides in the ordinary; form and mind can shift; people live inside it all the time without knowing.

Going south to Pei is heading toward what outer things make you guard; returning is coming back to the root of nature and life (Xingming). Avoidance and contention both sit in the movement between “going out” and “turning back.”

Summary of personal views

This piece uses allegory throughout. Scenes such as the Old Immortal of Nanhua crossing the water mean to show that the journey south to Pei leans toward guarding things as they come; return restores the root of life and fate. Avoidance and contention alike belong to that shuttling between going and returning.

This essay takes a parable as its theme, drawing on the image of the Nanhua Zhenren (Zhuangzi) crossing water without wetting his feet. The author reflects that his own written opinions have already grown numerous; he fears later readers will fixate on the traces of words and phrases and turn that into a bad habit. So even as he writes, he sweeps those traces away. Parables and “repeated words” are both devices borrowed from outside only when there is no other way to argue; zhiyan (“cup language”—speech that pours like water from a cup, without clinging) is like water in the cup: guarded yet not lost. What is said comes from within, so it can be spoken day after day without weariness. Same and different, right and wrong each keep their place; speech that arises from “no speech” is also like not speaking at all. If one says this is acceptable, that is only the shifting preference of things—who can declare that it is “necessarily so”? Even if it were “necessarily so,” would it have to be so in every case? Therefore one must speak of “not speaking” before one can talk of equalizing and making the same.

When the age declines and the great Dao grows hidden, people refuse to believe; aspirations cannot be enacted in the present world, yet one still hopes to leave instruction for the future—and worries that later people cannot know for certain. So where weight is placed, safeguards are set to win trust: one enters through the lodged meaning to preserve the true, ascends from subtle intent to the wondrous realm—and success is one. Next the text treats how Confucius’s traces transform with the times: beginning is also end; it is not that what belongs to one’s own lifetime cannot be held constant—how much less can one insist on being believed in later ages? Zengzi served in office again and again and transformed again and again; his heart still could not avoid attachment, joy and grief showed outside—whether for parents or for salary. If one hears words and awakens, like Ziyou who in one year reached wild simplicity and then the greatest subtlety, then the heart grows emptier day by day and the Dao gathers day by day.

Further discussion of allotted fate, whether the rope exists or not, and shadow following form—all illustrate the unfathomable wonder of creation: if a person can fill out what creation has given and not be blocked by Heaven, then the heaven-and-earth within the single body, the immeasurable spiritual thing, is the same. The conclusion speaks of arrogant staring and “with whom can one dwell?”: hearing fate and turning back to yield, contending for a mat to sit on—then ear and heart awaken in a single phrase. Who says that carrying the Dao to show later ages has no one who, having caught the fish, forgets the trap (understanding the principle and leaving words behind)?

Yao wished to yield the realm to Xu You, but Xu You refused. He then offered it to Zizhou Zhifu. Zizhou Zhifu said: “I could accept being sovereign, but I have a hidden worry lodged in my heart that I must tend and settle—I have no leisure to govern the realm. The realm is the weightiest thing, yet he would not let it damage his essential life; how much more so for lesser external things! Only someone who does not treat the realm as something to clutch can be entrusted with the realm.”

Shun in turn wished to yield the realm to Zizhou Zhibo. Zizhou Zhibo said: “I have a hidden worry I must tend and settle—I have no leisure to govern the realm.” Thus the realm is a great vessel, yet one does not exchange it for one’s life—this is where those who have the Way part company with ordinary people. (The text below repeats Shun’s offer to Zizhou Zhibo, Zizhou Zhibo’s refusal on account of hidden worry, and the idea that the great vessel of the realm is not traded for life; the meaning is the same.)

Shun wished to yield the realm to Shan Juan. Shan Juan said: “I live between Heaven and Earth. In winter I wear furs; in summer, ramie. In spring I plow enough to eat and enough to work by; in autumn I harvest enough to rest on. I rise with the sun to labor and lie down at sunset—wandering freely within Heaven and Earth, my mind is fully at ease. What would I do with the realm? It is a pity you do not understand me.” He therefore refused, departed, and went deep into the mountains; no one knew where he was.

Shun wished to yield the realm to his friend the Farmer of the Stone Household. The Farmer of the Stone Household said: “You are a truly strenuous man—one who preserves bodily strength—yet you think Shun’s virtue has not yet reached home.” Thereupon he shouldered his wife, took his child by the hand, and went out to sea, never to return in his lifetime.

Great King Danfu, ancestor of the Zhou people, dwelt in Bin. When the Di people attacked, he sent them silks and furs—they would not accept them; he sent dogs and horses—they would not accept; he sent pearls and jade—they still would not accept. What the Di wanted was the land. Danfu said: “To dwell with another’s elder brother yet kill his younger brother, to dwell with another’s father yet kill his son—I cannot bear it. Do your best to remain and live here. What difference is there between being my subjects and being the Di’s subjects? Moreover, I have heard: do not harm the life you nurture because of the things you use to support it.” So he took up his staff and left. The people followed him in unbroken succession; later they established their state at the foot of Mount Qi. Great King Danfu may be said to have been able to honor essential life. One who honors essential life, though rich and noble, does not harm the body because of lavish maintenance; though poor and lowly, does not burden the bodily form because of greedy profit.

People today who hold high rank and enjoy titles and stipends all prize such things and rashly cast away their essential life—is this not foolish?

Through three generations in the state of Yue, rulers were assassinated by their own kin. Prince Sou was distressed by this and fled to the Dan Cave. When Yue had no ruler and could not find Prince Sou, they tracked him to the Dan Cave. Prince Sou refused to come out. The men of Yue burned mugwort to smoke him out and brought the royal carriage. Prince Sou gripped the rope ladder as he mounted the carriage and cried to Heaven: “Sovereign, O sovereign—can you not leave me in peace?” Prince Sou did not dislike being ruler; he disliked the calamities that being ruler brings. Someone like Prince Sou may be said not to harm essential life for the sake of the state—and that, in the first place, was why the people of Yue wanted to make him ruler.

(Note: “Hidden worry” (youyou), as Gao You explains, means a concealed anxiety, the same sense as in the Odes’ “as if there were a hidden worry.” “Juanjuan” describes an appearance of strenuous exertion. “What is used for support” refers to external things such as land; “what is nurtured” refers to human essential life. “Not harming the body through support” and “not burdening the form through profit” mean that though the rich have means of support, they do not harm the body through foolish maintenance, and though the poor lack profit, they do not drag themselves down in pursuit of gain. Sou is the prince’s personal name; the Huainanzi writes it as Yi, and the Erya says that in the south, wearing the sun on one’s head is called the Dan Cave.)

Lü’s Commentary

At the end of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, fathers, sons, and brothers fought over the realm and killed one another; so-called “men of service” often risked their lives for profit and office. That is why Zhuangzi wrote the chapter “Yielding the Throne” (Rangwang). Figures like Xu You and Zhi Fu refused to trade their lives for the empire. Yang Xiong held that if the sages of old had truly prized Yao’s yielding the throne to Shun, they would not have valued that act more lightly than Xu You’s refusal. Does “prizing” something really require repeated trials before handing over the realm? In fact, what enabled Yao to choose Shun did not lie in “testing”—testing was merely the usual way of a ruler; putting the candidate before the people for all to see was that routine. If Xu You had not meant to withdraw from Yao’s offer, how could one know that putting him to the test might not have shown him no less fit than Shun?

Yidu’s Explanation

Where there is a body, it cannot go uncared for; where there is life, it cannot avoid weariness. The rich and noble delight in pampering themselves, yet excess in nurturing harms the body; the poor and lowly are pulled by profit, and when profit is lost the body is dragged down. Whoever can escape these two harms may be called “honoring life”—but that is still only the thread the sage leaves for people to see, not the sage’s most authentic depth. The sage’s authentic ground is this: forget “preserving life” and life is all the more preserved; forget “deliberately nurturing life” and what should be nurtured falls into place on its own. Even if the empire and the state were entrusted to him, it would only be because the times happened to be so—what is there to worry or hurry about?

Record Following the Original

On Cang Mountain south of Wuling County in Changde Prefecture, Hunan, there is the Shan Juan altar. In the Zhenghe reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, Shan Juan was granted the title “Master Who Hides from the World and Walks on High,” and Prefect Li Fang composed an altar record; a tomb said to be his is still pointed out near the altar today.

Main Text Fragment

Han and Wei were fighting each other over seized territory. Zihua Zi visited Marquis Zhao Xi, who looked troubled. Zihua Zi said: Suppose the people of the empire were to inscribe a text before you, and the inscription read—if the left hand grabs, then… (the original passage breaks off here; the sense involves a metaphor about seizing gain with the left hand and contention between left and right, urging the marquis not to be trapped by struggle over land.)

When Han and Wei were fighting over seized territory, Zihua Zi (a scholar of Wei) went to see King Zhao Xi of Han and found him looking troubled. Zihua Zi said: Suppose everyone placed before you an inscribed tablet reading: “If you grab with the left hand, the right is forfeited; if you grab with the right, the left is forfeited—but whoever grabs gets the realm under heaven.” Would you grab? Zhao Xi said: I would not. Zihua Zi said: Good. From this we see that both arms weigh more than the realm, and the body weighs more than both arms; Korea compared with the realm under heaven is far lighter still. The ground you are fighting over now is lighter than Korea—by a great margin. Yet you wear out your body and harm your life, anxious and unable to find peace. Zhao Xi said: Well said. Many have taught me, but I have never heard this. Zihua Zi truly understands what is heavy and what is light.

Main gist of Lü’s commentary: If Zhao Xi could heed Zihua Zi and hold lightly what he contends for, among those who would not trade the realm for a single life he would still rank as second tier. He had never heard such words; Zihua Zi understood heavy and light. (Zihua Zi was a man of Wei. “Seize” means to reach out and take; “forfeit” means to cut off or abandon.)

Explanation cited by Bixu Zhenren from Honglie (in the vein of the Huainanzi): Which is closer—reputation or the body? Which matters more—the body or goods? Why struggle over borders while fields lie waste and land goes unused? Examples follow: killing a warhorse to catch a fox, ruining a divine tortoise for two turtles, breaking the right arm over a hair’s breadth, snapping the sword Moye over a awl or knife—all this is called not knowing heavy from light.

When the ruler of Lu heard that Yan He was a person who had attained the Dao, he sent someone ahead with gifts to visit him. Yan He lived in a humble lane, wore coarse hemp cloth, and fed his own ox. When the envoy of the Lord of Lu arrived, Yan He answered the door himself. The envoy asked, “Is this the home of Master Yan He?” Yan He replied, “This is He’s home.” When the envoy presented the gifts, Yan He said, “I’m afraid the listener got it wrong and would make the envoy take the blame—better verify first.” When the envoy went back to check and came again, Yan He could no longer refuse. Someone like Yan He truly despised wealth and rank.

Thus it is said: the pure essence of the Dao is used to cultivate oneself; what remains of the surplus is used to govern the state; only the dregs are used to order the world. From this perspective, the great achievements of emperors and kings are merely the “leftover business” that the sage finishes along the way—not the proper path for preserving the body and nourishing life. Yet the so-called gentlemen of the world today often risk body and life to chase external things—how is that not pitiful? In every move, the sage first sees clearly where he is going and for what he acts.

Suppose someone used the Suihou pearl—the most precious gem in legend—to shoot a sparrow a thousand ren high: everyone would laugh at him, for what he used was too weighty and what he sought too slight. Is life not more precious than the Suihou pearl?

(Note: “Lord of Lu” may also read as “Marquis of Lu”; “ju” refers to coarse hemp; “tu ju” metaphorically means dregs like manure and straw.)

Liezi lived in deep poverty, hunger written on his face. A guest said to Ziyang of Zheng: “Lie Yukou is likely a man of the Way. He lives in your state yet is so poor—are you perhaps failing to honor worthy men?”

When Ziyang heard this, he at once sent officials with grain.

Liezi received the envoy, bowed twice, and declined the gift; the envoy had no choice but to withdraw. After Liezi went inside, his wife looked at him and beat her breast, saying: “They say the wives and children of men of the Way enjoy ease and comfort—yet we go hungry. The ruler sent food especially for us, and you refuse it. Is this not simply our fate?”

Liezi smiled and said: “The ruler does not know me for himself; he sent grain because he listened to others. If someday he punishes me, he will punish me for the same reason—because he listened to others. That is why I cannot accept.”

Later the people of Zheng did rise in rebellion and killed Ziyang.

[Ziyang was prime minister of Zheng. His enforcement was severe: guilt meant punishment, with no pardon. A household retainer damaged a bow, feared Ziyang’s wrath and penalty, and stirred up the people under the pretext of chasing a mad dog, seizing the moment to kill Ziyang.]

Commentary by Bixu: A true scholar of integrity is content to remain hidden and unknown—how could he bend his purpose to take stipends that are not rightly earned or properly given? If one only for wife and children’s sake wavers and lingers in the snare of calamity, that is another matter entirely.

When King Zhao of Chu lost his state, Tu Yang Shuo, a goat butcher, fled and followed the king into exile. After the king returned and restored his throne, he wished to reward those who had accompanied him, Tu Yang Shuo included.

Tu Yang Shuo submitted: When Your Majesty lost the state, I lost my butcher’s trade; when Your Majesty came home, I returned to selling goat meat. My rank and livelihood were already restored—what reward is there to speak of?

The king insisted on rewarding him. Tu Yang Shuo said again: When Your Majesty lost the state, it was not my fault, so I dared not accept punishment; when Your Majesty regained the state, it was not my merit, so I dared not accept a reward.

The king said he would summon him for an audience. Tu Yang Shuo replied: By the laws of Chu, one must have performed great service and received substantial reward before one may see the ruler. My wisdom was not enough to preserve the state, and my courage was not enough to die fighting when invaders came. When the Wu army entered the capital at Ying, I fled from danger—I did not follow Your Majesty out of deliberate loyalty. If Your Majesty would break the law and set aside established practice to receive me, that is not the Way I have heard honored under Heaven.

The king said to Sima Ziqi: Tu Yang Shuo holds a low station, yet his reasoning is lofty. Please invite him with the rank of “Three Banners” (the honor accorded to the three highest ministers who bear jade tablets at court, each with distinct emblems on carriage and robes—hence “Three Banners”; some texts read “Three Jade Tablets” instead).

Tu Yang Shuo said again: I know the Three Banners rank is nobler than a butcher’s stall, and ten thousand zhong of salary is richer than profit from goat meat. But how could I, for the sake of rank and stipend, let the king acquire a reputation for granting rewards arbitrarily? I cannot accept—I only wish to return to my butcher’s shop—and so he refused.

Bixu commentary: In every age there have been those who recite poetry and study books yet rise to prominence, and those who keep to a butcher’s stall yet hold to righteousness. Those who claim others’ achievements through power, or demand heavy reward through scheming, should feel ashamed when they hear this story.

Oral gloss: When the king returned home, Tu Yang Shuo went back to the butcher’s stall—each kept his proper place. “Three Banners” denotes the three highest ministers; their carriages and robes each bore distinct emblems, hence the name.

Plain-Language Reading of Zhuangzi Yi

Yuan Xian and Zigong

Yuan Xian lived in the state of Lu in a ring-wall cottage: a thatched roof, a door not fully hung, mulberry wood for the pivot, windows no bigger than a jar mouth, two rooms screened with coarse cloth; rain leaked from above and the floor was damp below. He sat upright and played the zither.

Zigong arrived in a splendid carriage drawn by large horses—deep green within and plain white without. The lane was too narrow for the tall carriage, so he went on foot to see Yuan Xian. Yuan Xian met him at the door wearing a tall cap, broken shoes, and leaning on a staff of wild vine. Zigong said, “Alas, Sir—what has brought you to this?” Yuan Xian replied, “I have heard: having no money is called poverty; learning yet being unable to put it into practice is called illness. I am poor now, not ill.” Zigong was uneasy and looked ashamed. Yuan Xian smiled: currying favor with the age, forming factions for reputation, learning to show off and teaching to serve one’s own gain, as well as the pretense in benevolence and righteousness and the display in carriages and horses—Yuan Xian would do none of these.

Master Zeng (Zengzi)

Master Zeng lived in Wei, wearing a single-layered ragged robe, his face swollen and mottled, his hands and feet calloused; for three days he did not kindle a fire to cook, for ten years he made no new clothes. When he straightened his cap the hat cord broke; when he pulled his lapel his elbow showed; when he wore shoes his heels burst through. Still dragging the heels of his shoes, he sang the Shang Song, his voice filling heaven and earth like the sound of metal and stone. Neither the Son of Heaven could make him a minister nor the feudal lords could make him a friend. Therefore it is said: one who nourishes aspiration forgets the body; one who nourishes the body forgets profit; one who cultivates the Way forgets private aims.

Confucius and Yan Hui

Confucius said to Yan Hui, “Come back—your family is poor and your station low; why not take office?” Yan Hui said, “I do not wish to serve. Fifty mu outside the city wall is enough for gruel; ten mu inside is enough for hemp and silk; playing the zither is enough for self-amusement, and the Way learned from my teacher is enough for self-contentment. I do not wish to take office.” Confucius’s expression changed, then he said at once, “Good! Hui’s meaning. I have heard: one who knows sufficiency is not dragged down by profit; one who can truly settle himself is not afraid of loss; one who cultivates inwardly is not ashamed without rank. I have long kept these words in mind; only on Hui have I seen them with my own eyes—this was Confucius’s reward.”

(Note: “Dragging the shoe heel” means walking with the heel of the shoe trailing; “meeting at the door” means opening the door oneself to receive a guest; “seeking the age’s favor” means craving worldly praise; “swollen and haggard” describes a withered, unkempt face.)

New Commentary (Philosophical Elaboration)

Wealth and honor are what people desire; poverty and low station are what people detest—desire and detest both arise from the mind. If the mind can be emptied, desire and detest can be forgotten; once they are forgotten, one in wealth and honor does not feel their weight, and one in poverty and low station does not feel their sting; the breast flows freely and at ease, and only then can one wander freely between heaven and earth. Figures like Yuan Xian, Master Zeng, and Yan Hui may be called “without deliberate mind”: Yuan Xian in his ring-wall cottage and jar-like windows; Master Zeng withered in form and tattered in cap and clothes; Yan Hui with family poor and rank low, with only enough for gruel and hemp and silk—yet none of the three, because of poverty, hated the world or forgot the Way; hence one sang, one played the zither and forgot the body, each at ease in himself. This differs from worldly people who sacrifice themselves for things and harm their lives. Therefore it is said: those who attain the Way forget the heart.

Zhongshan Gongzi Mou said to Zhanzi: “Though one’s body dwells in rivers and seas in seclusion, the heart still clings to the court and to wealth and rank—what is one to do?”

Zhanzi said: “Take life as heavier than all else, and gain will naturally weigh less.”

Gongzi Mou said: “I grasp the point, yet in my heart I still cannot quell that attachment.”

Zhanzi said: “If you cannot quell it, first go along with it for a while; do not wrestle against your own spirit-intention—forcing the issue will wrong Shen as well. If you cannot quell it yet still forcefully repress and refuse to follow, that is called ‘double injury’ (zhongshang). One who is doubly injured will find it hard to live long.”

【Xiangwei and guanque: the lookout towers flanking the ruler’s palace gates; here “weique” (the tower gate) stands for court rank and power. The Huainanzi reads “guique”; Xu Shen explained this as the Son of Heaven’s paired towers. Zhanzi was a worthy of Wei; Gongzi Mou held his fief in Zhongshan. The human mind is the hardest thing to tame, so though Mou’s body was among rivers and seas, his heart still bound itself to the weique—he himself felt he had not yet become indifferent to wealth and honor. “When life is held heavy, profit is light”: truly valuing and prizing life makes fame and profit feel light. Mou knew that life is heavy and profit light, yet his heart could not master itself. When one cannot master oneself, it is better to follow along for the time being and not force suppression; forced suppression injures Shen, and Shen resents it too. Failing to master oneself is one wound; forcing suppression on top of that is a second—hence “double injury,” not the way of nourishing oneself, hence “no span of years.”】

Wei Mou was the son of a lord in a state of ten thousand chariots; expecting him to hide deep in mountain caves like an ordinary scholar was no small matter. Though he had not yet arrived at the Dao, one could say he already had a mind inclined toward it.

【Zhanzi’s advice should not be treated as a rule every student of the Dao must obey—like a skilled physician who must examine the patient before prescribing, with curing the illness as the sole aim.】

Confucius was stranded between the states of Chen and Cai. For seven days he had no fire to cook with and could only drink thin vegetable broth without a grain of rice in it. His face was gaunt and worn, yet inside the house he still plucked his zither and sang. Yan Hui was outside picking vegetables while Zilu and Zigong talked together. They said: “The Master was twice driven out of Lu, in Wei his traces were erased so he could not stay, in Song he suffered the humiliation of having a tree cut down around him, in Shang and Zhou he found no opening, and now he is besieged between Chen and Cai. To kill Confucius would not count as a crime, and to hold him back would not be forbidden—yet he still plays and sings without ever breaking the tune. Can a gentleman really be this shameless?” Yan Hui did not know how to reply. He went in and told Confucius. Confucius set down his zither, drew a long breath, and said: “You and Ci are men of small vision. Call them in; I have something to say to them.” When Zilu and Zigong entered, Zilu said: “To fall into a state like this—can we call it destitution?” Confucius said: “What kind of talk is that! When a gentleman’s mind is clear through the Way, that is what we call clarity; when he cannot advance on the Way, that is what we call being blocked—not destitution in your sense. Today I embrace the way of benevolence and righteousness yet meet with the disasters of a chaotic age—how is that destitution? Therefore he looks within and does not feel lacking on account of the Way, and facing hardship he does not cast off his virtue. When the cold deepens and frost and snow fall, then one knows how the pine and cypress flourish. This narrow pass of Chen and Cai—for Qiu, it may be a piece of good fortune.” When he had finished, he calmly picked up his zither again and went on singing. Zilu suddenly took up a shield and danced. Zigong said: “I did not know how high Heaven is or how deep Earth is.”

Among the ancients, those who had attained the Way were joyful in hardship and joyful in success alike; what delighted them was not hardship or success in themselves. When virtue is rooted here, hardship and success alternate in turn like cold and heat, wind and rain. Thus Xu You found his own joy on the sunny bank of the Ying River, while Gong Bo realized his aim at Qiushou.

This passage uses Confucius’s plight between Chen and Cai—still playing and singing without pause—to show that “destitution” means losing the Way, not losing position; and it uses pine and cypress standing firm through frost and snow as a image of how those who hold to the Way show their true quality in adversity.

Commentary (Lu)

From Yan He serving Duke Ling of Wei through to Confucius, these men did not lightly accept rank and stipend from others; even when reduced to poverty, cold, and hunger, they did not change the joy in their hearts. Next, figures such as Gongzi Mou had not yet reached the level of the Dao, but already showed the inclination to turn toward it. People sunk in worldly pretense, when they hear the lofty conduct of Xu You and Shan Juan, take it for arrogance and refuse to believe—so the author lists sages in order, showing that none fail to delight in the Dao to the point of forgetting body and life; “forgetting body and life” is already hard, yet they still did it—then not using all under heaven and the state to harm one’s own life is plainly easier still. From this one can understand.

Sima Biao’s commentary (Gongbo He)

Gongbo He’s given name was He. He cultivated virtue and loved worthy men. When King Li of Zhou fell into crisis and the Son of Heaven’s throne stood empty, the feudal lords all invited him to become Son of Heaven. After fourteen years on the throne a great drought came; houses were burned, and when they divined to the sun god, the omen said King Li’s ghost was at work, so the Duke of Shao enthroned King Xuan. Gongbo He returned to Mount Gong and wandered freely, content in himself. Gongbo He refined his conduct and loved worthy men; in the disorder of King Li, when the Son of Heaven’s place was vacant, the feudal lords all asked him to be Son of Heaven. After fourteen years on the throne (amid great drought and the like), he still did not forget life—and forgetting life is difficult; he nevertheless acted thus—then not using all under heaven and the state to injure his life is easier still, as one can see. (This passage aligns with the narrative above, stressing that Gongbo He did not cling to the Son of Heaven’s throne but went back to free wandering.)

Meaning of the main Zhuangzi text (Beiren Wushi, Bian Sui, Wu Guang)

Shun wished to yield all under heaven to his friend Beiren Wushi. Beiren Wushi said: How strange—this man Shun! He originally lived in the fields, yet went to walk in Yao’s gate; and more than that, he wants to stain me with that humiliating way of his—I am ashamed to see him—and so he cast himself into the Cold Clear Abyss.

Tang was about to attack Jie and consulted Bian Sui. Bian Sui said: This is not my affair. Tang asked: Who can (discuss this with me)? He answered: I do not know. Tang then consulted Wu Guang. Wu Guang said: This is not my affair. Tang asked: Who can? He answered: I do not know. Tang asked: What about Yi Yin? The answer: (Wu Guang does not reply further in the received text—or in some versions there is a reply; here the classic stops at “What about Yi Yin? he said.” In plain terms, for the words we have: Tang then asked whether Yi Yin would do.)