《庄子集解》Vol. 10

This passage tells a story of a father siding with Mohism in a dispute between Confucian and Mohist camps over right and wrong, and uses commentary to explain Zhuangzi’s point about nature (tianxing) versus human artifice (renwei).

Confucians and Mohists argued with each other, yet the father took the Mohist side. Cheng Xuanying explains: Confucians uphold the institutions of King Wen and King Wu and take Yao and Shun as models—strict in ritual and prolific in words. Mohists follow the path of Yu—frugal, industrious, and generous. The two schools differ in method and each clings to one extreme; the father stood with the younger son (the Mohist) and backed Mo Di rather than Huan.

Ten years later, Huan—the elder brother who studied Confucianism—killed himself. The father saw him in a dream. Huan said: “You let your younger son become a Mohist; it was I, Huan, who taught you to be like this. Why not look at my grave—I have already turned into the fruit on an autumn cypress!” Hehu is a common reduplication in old usage, like shangyou or weidu—there is no need to split it into two separate words. Hu means “how” or “why.” Chang means to try or to attempt. In some texts liang is written lang, read like lang, meaning a mound or tomb. In the dream Huan tells his father: that the younger brother mastered Mohism is the “fruit” of my path; go to my grave and see—the autumn cypress I planted has borne fruit. The wronged spirit speaks plainly, venting bitter resentment.

Zhuangzi then develops the theme (Guo Xiang holds that what follows is already Zhuangzi’s own voice): the Creator’s retribution falls not on “the person” as such, but on that in the person which is Heaven. Cheng Xuanying says the Creator is not a separate being but the nameless power that nurtures the myriad things. Human intelligence and disposition come from this transforming process; they are not assembled line by line through studying under a teacher. Learning only assists nature; retribution targets innate disposition, and credit should not all be assigned to human instruction. Mo Di already had the root of Mohist inclination—it was not produced by Huan’s teaching. If Huan claimed he had taught it, he would be wrong: “That is why that one became that”—only with that disposition does one walk that road.

It is also said: some people, feeling they “have” something and are unlike others, look down on kin—here furen means “this person.” Cheng Xuanying says Huan relied on his reading and achievements and his sense of being extraordinary, so he slighted his father and was disrespectful toward him.

“Qiren zhi jing, yinzhe xiang zhuo”—When people of Qi dug a well, passers-by drew water to drink; the well owner guarded the water and even grabbed the drinker by the hair—not understanding that the water originally welled up from the earth. The image stands for Huan’s failure to see that Mo Di’s nature leaned toward Mohism, while he blamed and hated instead.

Hence: “Jin zhi shi jie huan ye”—In the world today, most are like Huan, mistaking another’s innate disposition for their own achievement.

From here on, even those with De (virtue/power) invite trouble through “thinking themselves wise”—how much more those who think themselves “possessed of the Way”! (Zhi here equals zhi, intelligence.) Yi and yi (already) are interchangeable. De means “attainment.” If one must boast even of “having attained something,” that is already unwise; toward those who truly accord with the Way, one should follow innate disposition and not force against it.

The ancients called this situation “dun tian zhi xing”—the punishment of turning against Heaven. Above it says “the skilled toil, the clever worry”—that is Heaven imposing punishment; the chapter De Chong Fu also says “Heaven punishes—how can it be undone?” Only by not arming oneself with the title “possessed of the Way” can one hope to escape this “punishment for going against Heaven.” The same phrase appears in the chapter Yang Zhu Zhu (Nourishing Life).

The sage settles where settling belongs and does not settle where settling does not belong; ordinary people do the opposite: they settle where they ought not to settle and fail to settle where they ought to settle.

Cheng Xuanying explains: “An (to settle at ease)” means ren—allowing each thing to follow its own inherent nature and not imposing one’s own will on external things; what is not originally present in one’s nature, one does not force into place. That is how the sage acts. Ordinary people, by contrast, discard themselves to chase after things—they abandon their proper role to pander to externals, hence they “settle where they ought not to settle”; they also fail to keep to their usual station, hence they “fail to settle where they ought to settle.”

Zhuangzi says: “Knowing is easy; not speaking of it is hard.” Cheng Xuanying says: Using intellect to “know” is still relatively easy; forgetting what one has grasped and no longer putting it into words is hard.

Knowing without speaking is the path that leads toward Tian (Heaven, the natural and spontaneous); “zhi” means to go or tend toward. Cheng Xuanying says: this is entering the realm of natural spontaneity. Knowing and then speaking is the path that leads toward ren (the human, the artificial and crafty). Hence the ancients were “Tian rather than ren”—they took Heaven as their root and did not indulge human artifice. Cheng Xuanying says: the true persons of old who truly understood the Dao were naturally plain and sincere and were no longer dragged about by worldly human feelings.

Zhu Pao Man went to Zhi Li Yi to learn dragon-slaying (the art of killing dragons). Sima Biao’s note: Zhu Pao Man and Zhi Li Yi are personal names.

Zhu Pao Man exhausted (dan, “to the limit”) his family’s ten thousand in gold, studied for three years, and mastered the skill—yet nowhere could he apply his craft, for in the world there was no dragon to kill. Xuan Ying says: therefore there was no dragon to slaughter. For this reason the noble person does not esteem freakish, extreme skills; he esteems the Way of the Mean (zhongyong).

The sage does not treat even what seems “there is no other way” as an iron-clad necessity, so no thought of contention or killing arises in the mind—and there is no occasion to resort to military force. Guo Xiang says: although reason may make something look inevitable, the sage still does not take the word “must” as absolute truth; in that way one is most aligned with heavenly principle—where would “arms” be needed?

Ordinary people, by contrast, treat what is not necessarily so as something that must be done; each holds to one side and refuses to yield, so disputes multiply and the use of force multiplies as well. Xuan Ying says: when what is not logically necessary is turned into a bias each side insists on as mandatory, perversity and strife arise.

When the mind is wholly bent on the path of “using force,” every move is aimed at satisfying private desire and winning. Xuan Ying says: sunk in military contention, at the first stirring of thought one wants to get what one wants done.

The thing called “military force”—the more tightly one grasps it and relies on it, the less one can preserve what one seeks to protect. Even if one momentarily holds military power, it cannot be treated as a dependable support.

In Zhuangzi: Collected Commentaries, the text explains the following.

The petty person’s small cleverness never strays from gift-giving, bribery, and drafting letters for social obligations. Such people exhaust their spirit on trivial, shallow worldly affairs, yet still hope to benefit all under Heaven, guide the ten thousand things, and even align formless emptiness with the principle of the Great One (Taiyi)—the primordial source of the cosmos. People like this are already bewildered and weighed down by the manifold forms of the ten thousand things; how could they grasp the subtle principle of the Grand Beginning (Taichu)—the original state before Heaven and Earth were divided?

As for the perfected person (zhiren), they gather spirit back into a source without beginning or end and dwell at ease in the “Land of Nothing-at-all”—a vast, empty realm beyond fixed place. Guo Xiang’s commentary says: “without beginning” is the subtle root; the Land of Nothing-at-all is the realm of the Dao. Others note that “sweet slumber” (ganming) means “sweet sleep,” the same sense as “sweet rest” (ganqin) in Xu Wugui—the perfected person rests in the Dao like one in deep sleep, not rushing about in worldly business.

The perfected person flows naturally like formless water: arising from the Great Void (Taiqing) and returning to the Great Void—a image that their movement and stillness both follow nature and do not cling to outward traces.

How pitiful! You apply “knowing” to matters as small as hairs, yet do not know Great Tranquility (Daning)—the state of non-action (wuwei) in which one is calm and at peace. “You” refers to the petty persons above; Great Tranquility means universal peace within the cosmos through non-action. The point is that people often see only the small and lose the Great Dao.

Duke Ai of Lu asked Yan He: “If I treat Confucius as the pillar of the state, can the realm be set right?”

(Note: “Zhen gan” and “zhen gan” both mean the timber that props up the state—the indispensable pillar.)

Yan He replied: “Dangerous—utterly dangerous! Confucius is about to take feathers and use them for ornament, take pigments and use them for painting. Feathers already have their natural pattern; to add deliberate ornament and brushwork is to chase artificial cleverness. He busies himself with florid language, treats side issues as the main point, and takes branch-level rhetoric for genuine principle. He suppresses his inborn nature in order to ‘show’ the people an example, yet does not see that true trust cannot be won that way; he would have people take this into their hearts and let it rule their spirit—how can that qualify him to stand above the myriad folk? “Shi” and “shi” here mean the same: to display. To bind people’s native intelligence is called ‘not knowing’; to habituate them to pretense and artifice is called ‘not believing.’ To suppress and decorate one’s nature for display, when that path is one of not knowing and not believing, and then to have the people accept it inwardly and be governed by it in spirit—can that qualify him to stand above the myriad folk? Should he be employed by you, or should he wait for me to sustain him? Even a mistaken choice might still be excusable. ‘He’ refers to Confucius, ‘you’ to Duke Ai; ‘yi’ means to sustain or support—the point is whether Confucius ought to be used by you or ought to wait for me to sustain him. Such a mis-elevation could still be tolerated. But now to lead the people away from what is real and train them in what is false is not the upright way of showing the people how to live. For the sake of later ages, better drop the idea and not treat him as a pillar—hard to govern!” Difficult to bring order.

To bestow favor on others and not forget it is not the selfless giving of Heaven. To bestow favor and expect the other never to forget, intending that they remember your virtue, is not the great Way of Heaven’s giving. The world looks down on merchants because they have the merchant’s mind of chasing profit; therefore they are kept low and not ranked with scholars and commoners. Even when they are placed on a par for some occasion, in the inner “spirit” distinction there is still contempt for the trader. Now to bestow “de” on one another reciprocally—how is that different from merchants! The phrase “shen zhe” matches the usage of “shen zhe zheng zhi” below; Zhuangzi often uses this kind of phrasing.

(This passage, in Yan He’s voice, criticizes treating Confuscius as the state’s governing pillar: emphasis on rhetoric and false display toward the people, opposed to the virtue of “Heaven’s giving”; and it likens favor that keeps score to the disdain in which merchants are held.)

So-called external punishment refers to metal and wood (instruments of punishment). Guo Xiang explains: metal means blades, saws, axes, and halberds used as punitive tools; wood means beating implements together with stocks, cangues, and shackles. So-called internal punishment refers to reckless action and overstepping one’s proper place. The gist aligns with sayings of the sort “the spirit within can be verified.” In Zhuangzi’s prose, the pattern “taking X as Y” appears very often.

Those who undergo external punishment are subjected to interrogation and bodily torment with metal and wood implements. Xiao and xiao were often used interchangeably in ancient writing; li here is the same word as li (to suffer or incur); xun means to question, examine, or torture by interrogation. Those who undergo internal punishment are “gnawed” by Yin-Yang (natural forces such as cold and heat) working against the body—Cheng Xuanying says: if one cannot rest in one’s allotted role and stop restless movement, cold and heat stagnate within, and the two qi of yin and yang torment one like leftover scraps.

Only the Real Person (zhenren, one who has attained the Dao and become one with it) can escape both external and internal punishment. Cheng Xuanying says: when the heart is like dead ashes, the inner store is undisturbed; when the form is like a withered tree, the outer frame is not bound by fetters—only the Real Person can reach this state.

Confucius said: As a rule, the human heart is more treacherous than mountains and rivers and harder to fathom than knowing Heaven. Heaven at least has the cycles of spring, summer, autumn, and winter and of morning and evening; people, by contrast, often wear a thick mask over deep, hidden feelings—what shows on the outside and what lies within are not easy to read.

So you find those whose looks are respectful and cautious, as if quite honest, while inwardly they are arrogant and that arrogance spills outward; those who are genuinely solid within and have the bearing of an elder, while outwardly they seem unformed and inconspicuous; those who appear gentle, even hurried on the surface, yet inside understand affairs clearly; those who look strong outside but are weak and slack within; those who seem leisurely and slow outwardly but are fierce and bold within. That is why Confucius said that someone who “rushes toward righteousness as if thirsty” may also “leave righteousness as if scalded”—when they retreat, they retreat fast; they advance fiercely and withdraw just as quickly.

Therefore the noble person observes others in nine ways: send someone far away on a task and see whether they are loyal (distance makes deceit easier); keep them close at hand and see whether they are respectful (too much familiarity breeds disrespect); burden them with messy, demanding work and see whether they can handle it (only when things are tangled and heavy does real ability show); question them suddenly and see whether they are clear-minded (in a flash, pretense is hard); set a tight deadline and see whether they keep their word (under pressure, people easily break promises); entrust them with property and see whether they are generous and fair (where money is involved, greed easily arises); tell them of danger and see whether their integrity holds (only in crisis do you see whether they change their principles); urge them to drink until drunk and see whether their conduct still follows proper bounds (what is meant by “proper bounds” is that they do not lose correct demeanor); mix men and women together and see whether their expression stays upright.

When all nine of these tests have been applied, even the most unworthy person cannot keep their true character hidden.

Zheng Kao Fu (Confucius’s tenth-generation ancestor, a minister of Song) grew more deferential with each promotion: on his first appointment he bowed slightly; the second time he bowed lower; the third time he nearly bent double and walked hugging the wall. When reverence and yielding go that far, who would dare treat him with impropriety or disrespect? Cheng Xuanying explains that a shi received one level of mandate, a dafu two, and a qing three; yu lu (bent posture) and xun qiang (walking along the wall) are expressions of utmost respect.

As for ordinary people? Guo Xiang says er fu refers to the common run of men. On the first appointment they swell with pride and show off (“lü ju”: in dialect lü means long and ju means large and stiff—picture someone puffing himself up); on the second they dance on their carriage; on the third they address elders among their peers by personal name. Who can match the reverence for yielding shown by Tang Yao and Xu You? The gloss says xie means “same”; Tang is Tang Yao and Xu is Xu You, both famed for yielding—the point is, who can compare with Tang and Xu?

The greatest harm is when De (Virtue/Power) is mixed with deliberate intent, and when the mind sprouts “eyelashes” (Xuan Ying: if De still carries a trace of contrivance, it is no longer natural; when the mind grows extra openings like lashes, the harm grows worse). Once those “lashes” appear, one scrutinizes and calculates again and again within the fang cun (the inch-square of the heart); so-called inner vision (nei shi) in fact spoils oneself—mostly the harm of inner turmoil.

“Xiong de” (injurious De) has five forms, with “zhong de” (middle De) at their head. The five are ear, eye, mouth, nose, and mind; mind ranks first. What is middle De? Guo Xiang: whatever the mind takes as right, one holds to; whatever one refuses to do, one denounces (zi). Cheng Xuanying: taking “self-righteousness in the heart” as attainment—that is why it is called middle De.

“And when there are lashes, there is inner vision; when there are lashes, within the fang cun scrutiny multiplies. Inner vision, and one is ruined”—with “lashes,” one over-inspects inward, weighs too many sides, and is corrupted instead.

(Note: The opening bracketed “one” is a textual note: yu was wrongly written as shu and is corrected per Guoyu, “Discourses of Zhou.”)

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi; commentators such as Guo Xiang and Cheng Xuanying each offer explanations along the following lines.

Adversity and Flourishing

“There are eight extreme forms of ‘adversity’ (qiong), and three inevitable patterns in ‘flourishing’ (da).” (Cheng Xuanying: When the mind holds something to be right, one clings to it; when it holds something wrong, one criticizes it—taking one’s inner sense of being right as “attainment”; this is called “virtue in the middle.” Here the commentator is giving one reading of the “three inevitables.”)

The Body’s Six Stores and Eight Ways of “Surpassing Others”

The human body has “six stores” (liu fu—commentators often discuss this in terms of form, qi, and dispositions). Beauty, goodness, height, size, strength, splendor, courage, and boldness—these eight are all excellences that exceed ordinary people; yet if one relies on them and makes much of oneself, one can instead drive oneself into “adversity.” (Xuan Ying: Because one prides oneself on these qualities, it turns out this way.)

Three Kinds of “Penetrating Success”

Yuanyou (following along)—going along with outer things and deferring to others, unable to stand on one’s own (Cheng Xuanying: xun is to follow; to follow things and defer to others). Yanyang (bowing and yielding)—deferring in posture and attitude, keeping to one’s place and returning to unity (Guo Songtao: yanyang is bowing and yielding, i.e., looking up and down in submission to others). Kunwei (timid restraint)—being weak and fearful of not measuring up. These three appear on the surface to be “not as good as others,” yet they often lead to success in worldly terms. Contrast this with the earlier eight “all surpassing others”: the former set elevates the self, the latter lowers it—but in practice the latter often fares more smoothly.

Straining the Spirit and Inviting Resentment

Chasing cleverness outwardly wears out the shen (spirit); loving bravery and restless action increases grievances; being fond of benevolence and righteousness weighs heavily on others with demands.

Penetrating Life and Penetrating Fate

One who penetrates the truth of sheng (life) appears open and plain (Guo Xiang: kuiran is the look of great release; Wang Niansun: kui is “large,” and xiao should be read as “small”—in dialect usage xiao means small. Kui and xiao are opposites: entrust yourself to Heaven and you are great; entrust yourself to cleverness and you are small). One who penetrates the “great mandate” (da ming) can follow along—the great mandate refers to the subtlety of Heaven’s command; to penetrate it is to yield to nature. One who penetrates the “small mandate” (xiao ming) can rest in fate—the small mandate is each person’s own allotted portion; to penetrate it is to be content with what one meets, without resentment.

Someone went to pay his respects to the ruler of Song. The ruler rewarded him with ten chariots, and from then on he put on airs before Zhuangzi and looked down on him. Zhuangzi said: There was a poor household by the river that made a living weaving reed screens. The son went diving in deep water to catch fish and brought up a pearl worth a thousand in gold. His father said to him: “Fetch a stone and smash it! A pearl worth a thousand in gold must lie in a pool nine layers deep, hanging under the jaw of a black dragon. You could take the pearl only because the dragon happened to be asleep. If the dragon wakes, what will be left of you?”

“The power and standing of Song today are deeper than that ninefold abyss; the ruthlessness of the ruler of Song is fiercer than that black dragon. You gained chariots and horses merely because you caught him while he was ‘asleep.’ If King Song wakes, you will be crushed to dust.”

Someone wanted Zhuangzi to accept an official post. Zhuangzi said to the envoy: “Have you seen the ox prepared for sacrifice at the ancestral temple? It is draped in embroidered trappings and fed on soybeans and fine fodder—yet when the time comes to be led into the Grand Temple, even if it then wished to be a solitary calf again, could it still manage that?”

Zhuangzi on His Deathbed

When Zhuangzi was near death, his disciples wanted to give him an elaborate funeral. Zhuangzi said: I take heaven and earth as my coffin, the sun and moon as paired jade disks (lianbi), the stars as pearls and gems, and the ten thousand things as my funeral goods. Are my burial fittings not complete enough? Why add anything more? The disciples said: We fear crows and eagles will eat you, Master. Zhuangzi said: Eaten by crows and eagles above, or by ants and mole crickets below—taking from one side to give to the other, how partial is that!

Commentary on “Ping” and “Zheng”

Using what is not level (buping) to seek level, that level is still not level; using partial views to level the world, that leveling is still not level. Using what is not responsive (buzheng) to meet affairs, that response is not a true response either. Guo Xiang said: “Zheng means to respond.” Cheng Xuanying said: The sage has no fixed mind; when there is stimulus, there is response—that is true response. If one keeps a deliberate mind to respond to things, one cannot truly respond.

Ming and Shen

Those who rely on cleverness (ming) are fit only to be used by others. Cheng Xuanying: Flaunting one’s cleverness to handle affairs, driven by outer things—how can such a person command others? Relying on spirit (shen)—the natural order of spirit—to respond, then nothing goes unanswered. Xuan Ying: Whoever follows the order of spirit responds wherever they go. Ming has never surpassed shen; yet fools trust the eye alone and lean only on their own wit, drowning in human affairs and spending all their effort outward—how sad!

“Tianxia” Chapter 33 (opening)

Many under heaven study the arts of the Way (fangshu). Cheng Xuanying: fang means the Dao. Each thinks their own learning cannot be surpassed. Xuan Ying: “What they have” refers to what they have learned. Where, then, is the Way spoken of by the ancients? It is said: … (the original text continues with an unfinished sentence)

"There is nowhere it is not."

(Someone adds:) It is everywhere.

"Then by what path do spirit and clarity descend and emerge?"

(The text asks again:) If it is everywhere, from where do spirit, sagehood, clarity, and kingship descend and appear? Why are they alone unlike ordinary people?

"The sage has a source; kingship has a fulfillment; both trace back to the One."

(Answer:) The sage has an origin; royal achievement has a completion; both spring from the same "One"—the way of inner sagehood and outer kingship spoken of below all arises from this root.

Not departing from the root and source is called the Heaven-and-human person.

Not leaving the fundamental root and master principle is what is meant by the Heaven-and-human person. (As when Confucius said Yan Hui did not betray the master principle—this is the idea.)

Or it can be understood as unity with nature.

Not departing from essence (Jing) is called the spirit person.

Not mixing in impurity but holding to oneness in purity is called the spirit person. (Cheng Xuanying: pure and unmixed—this is what is meant by spirit-like subtlety.)

Not departing from genuineness is called the perfected person.

Solid and unpretending, wholly authentic—this is the perfected person. (Cheng Xuanying: firm and without pretense—this is what is meant by utmost perfection.)

Taking Heaven as master, Virtue (De) as foundation, the Dao as gate, finding the first hint in transformation—transformation unfathomable, following things to show their beginning—is called the sage.

Taking Heaven as master, De as foundation, the Dao as gate, seeing the first trace in change; change cannot be measured, showing the thread as things arise—such a person is the sage. (Cheng Xuanying: the Heaven-and-human person, spirit person, perfected person, and sage are essentially one; only their functions differ, hence four names.)

Taking benevolence as grace, righteousness as pattern, ritual as conduct, music as harmony—warmly and kindly benevolent—is called the noble person (junzi).

Taking benevolence to bestow kindness, righteousness as order, ritual as practice, music as concord—gentle and benevolent in manner—this is the noble person. (Xuan Ying: the noble person is the "remainder and branches" of the Dao.)

Taking law as division, names as outward form, credentials (or "what one holds") as verification, examination of what is held as decision—their ordering is one, two, three, four without fail.

Using legal standards to classify, titles as the outward model, documents in hand as proof, and audit of what is held to decide cases—their sequence is as clear and fixed as one, two, three, four. (Xuan Ying: this is yet another kind of person.)

Officials are ranked by this tooth-by-tooth order,

The hundred offices are arranged in this sequence of names and laws. (Xuan Ying: "tooth-by-tooth" means taking this as the order; office titles are the traces left by names and laws.)

taking routine affairs as the constant way,

Taking daily business as the ordinary path.

making food and clothing primary, multiplying goods and storing wealth, with the old, weak, orphans, and widows in mind, so that all have support—

Taking food and clothing as the basis, increasing produce and accumulating goods, caring for the aged, weak, orphans, and widows so everyone has provision. ("Multiplying" refers to produce; "storing" to goods and wealth.)

In governing the state, the ancients also recognized another kind of situation: the people all had sources of food and clothing—the land could multiply its produce, storehouses could accumulate wealth, and the state could also support widowers, widows, orphans, and the childless who had no one to care for them. Only then did governance accord with the principle of caring for the people. Xuan’s commentary says this was the approach of “yet another class of people.”

The people of highest antiquity were probably the most complete in this respect. Above they accorded with the spirits and gods; below they harmonized with heaven and earth in simplicity. They nourished the ten thousand things, brought harmony to all under heaven, and extended their grace to the common people. They understood the fundamental patterns of number and principle, yet did not depart from the norms at the level of detail (Guo’s note: when the root is clear, the branches do not go astray). Through the six penetrations and four communications, whether in what was large or small, fine or coarse, their operation was nowhere absent.

Those who were clear about number, measure, calendrical reckoning, and law—along with the old institutions and hereditary recorders handed down through generations—still survive in no small number today. The principles preserved in the Classic of Poetry, Documents, Rites, and Music, and what the scholars of Zou and Lu and the gentry officials in court (those with tablets and broad sashes) can for the most part explain, all belong here. The Dao in each case resides in its classic: the Poetry is used to guide intent; the Documents to set forth affairs of government; the Rites to regulate conduct; the Music to harmonize the heart; the Changes to clarify Yin-Yang; the Spring and Autumn to rectify names (the order of noble and base, high and low). These teachings were scattered throughout the realm and practiced in the central states; the various schools also frequently drew on them and developed them.

Later the realm fell into great disorder. The way of the sages and worthies was not made manifest, standards of virtue and conduct were not unified, and people often seized on one partial insight and treated it as their entire doctrine. “One narrow insight” means the bit of light seen through a single crack. It is like the ear, eye, nose, and mouth, each excelling in its own way yet unable to substitute for one another; or like the many arts of the hundred schools, each with its specialty and sometimes genuinely useful. But in the end they cannot be comprehensive and all-round—they are merely “masters of one tune”: people who know only one art and hold to one corner.

This passage mainly explains how to view the splitting of the arts of the Way, and the line of ancient meaning carried on by the Mohists.

Distinguishing the beauty of Heaven and Earth and analyzing the principles of the ten thousand things—Guo Xiang’s commentary says that each school masters only one segment of expertise, hence this distinguishing and analyzing.

To observe the whole virtue that the ancients possessed: few could at once embody the beauty of Heaven and Earth and a bearing worthy of the spirit-like; Cheng Xuanying says that even people in antiquity whose virtue was complete could rarely fully manifest the nurturing and completing of the two modes (liangyi tingdu), to say nothing of those who cling to one partial gate.

Therefore the great Way of inner sagehood and outer kingship appears hidden and not manifest, knotted and hard to unfold; people everywhere follow their preferences and take partial views as their own “methods.” That is the background to the splitting of the arts of the Way.

Alas! The hundred schools of the philosophers each go their own road and do not turn back; they cannot easily meet again. Scholars of later ages, unhappily unable to see the pure wholeness of Heaven and Earth and the great pattern of the ancients’ Way, saw the arts of the Way torn into many pieces by the world.

(Characteristics of the Mohist line) They did not indulge the luxuries of later ages, did not waste substance on the ten thousand things, and did not compete for brilliance in ritual and institutions—Cheng Xuanying cites the “Explanation” commentary: they did not display luxury, did not pursue extravagance, did not strive for showy splendor. They took ren and yi (humaneness and righteousness) as plumb line and ink line to temper themselves—Cheng’s note: “jiao” means to encourage oneself, using ren and yi as plumb line and ink line to sharpen intent and conduct—thereby preparing for the world’s emergencies. Guo Xiang notes: diligent thrift leaves goods in surplus, so in crisis there are reserves.

In the ancient arts of the Way there was indeed this strand. Mo Di (Mozi, a grandee of Song, who honored frugality) and Qin Guli (a Mohist disciple who rejected the music of the Five Emperors and Three Kings as too lavish) heard this tone and rejoiced. But they overdid it; for themselves they were excessively compliant (“da xun” means great compliance): Cheng’s note says their “great excess” was only making themselves greatly compliant—it was not enough to teach and set the world right.

“Against Music” (Fei Yue) and “Moderation in Expenditure” (Jie Yong) are titles of two chapters in Mozi’s writings. While alive one should not sing—hence the stance of fei yue (opposing music); when dead one should not wear mourning garments or insist on lavish burial—hence jie yong (economizing use). Here fu refers to burial goods such as shrouds, coffins, and outer casings used in funerals.

Mozi advocated jian ai (impartial, universal care) and jian li (shared benefit for all) and opposed aggressive conquest and annexation. Some commentators link “extending care and shared benefit” with “transforming others to share one’s own frugality”: if everyone is diligent and thrifty and has enough, then taking fighting as right is wrong. Guo Xiang stresses another angle: once you take yourself as the measure, you want all things to become like you.

Other features of Mozi’s program include restraining selfish desire and not resenting or raging at external things; loving study and amassing wide learning, yet not allowing others to differ from oneself—not endorsing the former kings, not taking ancient sages as the standard, and rejecting the ritual and music of antiquity.

Each age in antiquity had ceremonial music: the Yellow Emperor had Xianchi, Yao had Dazhang, Shun had Dashao, Yu had Daxia, King Tang of Shang had Dahu, King Wen of Zhou had the Biyong music, and King Wu and the Duke of Zhou composed Wu. Ancient mourning rites also graded rank: the Son of Heaven might use seven nested coffin layers, feudal lords five, grand officers three, and common officers (shi) two.

Mozi, by contrast, prescribed: no singing in life; no mourning dress and no lavish burial in death, with a coffin of only three inches of paulownia wood and no outer casing—and treated this as the norm. Teaching others by this measure hardly counts as loving people; practicing it oneself hardly counts as loving oneself—it goes against human feeling and pushes the self to an extreme of austerity.

To be sure, Mohist teaching had not wholly failed in its day. Still, the question remains: when one ought to sing, not singing; when one ought to weep, not weeping; when one ought to rejoice, not rejoicing—what category is that? Is it really of the same kind as what human nature ordinarily expects? Zhuangzi is raising a doubt here: lopping off ritual, music, and mourning dress across the board, under the labels “moderation in use” and “against music,” can miss the fit between emotion and measure—is that not another kind of one-sidedness?

Source: Zhuangzi, “Under Heaven” (with collected commentaries such as Guo Xiang’s and Cheng Xuanying’s)

Mo Di (Mozi), founder of the Mohist school, toiled diligently all his life; even after his death his funeral was kept extremely simple and cheap. The “Way” he advocated was excessively harsh and austere—the character hu suggests something worn thin and meager—enough to worry and sadden people; ordinary folk could hardly follow it. People feared this could not serve as the Way of the sage: it went against what everyone under Heaven wanted, and the world could not bear it. Even if Mozi could take it all upon himself and live it out alone, what was to be done with the masses under Heaven? Estranged from the hearts of the world, it was far indeed from the “Way of the true king” (commentators such as Cheng Xuanying hold that this is not the path by which one reigns and orders the realm).

Mozi once described the pedigree of his teaching thus: “In antiquity Yu the Great controlled the flood, dredged the rivers, and sent the waters through to the four quarters—the barbarian lands and the Nine Provinces. There were three hundred great rivers (Yu Yue argued that mingshan ‘famous mountains’ should read mingchuan ‘famous rivers’), three thousand branches, and countless smaller streams. Yu himself took up the tools for moving earth—the gao (often written tuo, a basket for soil) and the si (the iron share of a farm implement)—and the vessels for carrying water (si is also glossed as a water vessel), gathering all the waters of the realm into the great rivers (jiu za means collecting and merging them so they all flow into the main streams). He wore away the flesh on his shins until there was none left and the hair on his calves was rubbed off; only after braving violent rain and fierce wind did he settle the myriad states.” Yu was a great sage, yet he exhausted his body for the world to that degree.

Later Mohists often wore coarse hemp short garments and animal-hide tunics, with qijue (a kind of straw sandal suited to long walking) as everyday footwear, imitating this habit of making the body suffer.

This passage explains how the Mo School later split and how its branches competed with one another.

Most Mohists of later generations wore coarse fur coats and straw sandals. The commentary notes: later followers of Mo were largely disciples of Mozi; “qiuhe” refers to rough clothing; shoes with wooden soles were called “qi,” and straw sandals “jue.” They worked without rest day and night, treating deliberate self-hardship as the highest standard, and said: “If you cannot live like this, you are not on Yu’s path and do not deserve to be called Mohist.” The Mo School used disciplinary rules to make disciples follow this way of life.

The line of Xiang Li Qin and his disciples, the branch associated with the Five Hou, and the southern Mohists led by Cheng Yun (the commentary: Xiang Li Qin was a master of the southern Mohist line; the Five Hou were people who studied Mo under him). In Han Fei’s Illustrious Schools chapter it is written that there were the Mo of the Xiangli clan, the Mo of the Xiangfu clan, and the Mo of the Xiangling clan.

People such as Ku Huo, Yi Chi, and Deng Lingzi (the commentary: Ku Huo and Yi Chi are personal names; on textual grounds Deng Ling may be the same figure as “Xiangling,” with similar graphs causing corruption) all recited the Mohist Canon, yet each branch’s doubled strangeness and divergent doctrines differed, and they called one another “separate Mohists”—branches they regarded as Mohist offshoots. They attacked one another with “hard and white” and “sameness and difference” (familiar topics in the School of Names associated with Hui Shi and Gongsun Long); the note says this was “denying the other side’s view.” They also matched arguments with “skewed pairs that do not align” (deliberately paired formulas that look parallel but do not fit); the note says this was “affirming one’s own view.” Qi here is the same as ji (“odd”). The phonetic gloss reads “formulas of skewed pairs that do not align.”

Brief background: Warring States Mohism after Mozi divided into many lines—some stressing mourning rites, frugality, and coarse dress and self-hardship (close to “the way of Yu”), others drawn into disputation over names (hard and white, sameness and difference), mutually rejecting one another as “separate Mohists.” This collected commentary strings together Mohist figures and book references (such as Han Feizi, Illustrious Schools) and School-of-Names terminology as they appear in Zhuangzi or related accounts.

“Wu” here means “the same.” On this reading, odd and even numbers are not the same by nature; if you force them into one-to-one pairing, there is nothing that cannot be called “the same.”

The Mohists take Juzi (the head of the Mohist school) as a sage. Guo Xiang’s commentary: Juzi was a leading disciple of Mohism, comparable to a great Conf scholar in Confucianism. Everyone wanted to be his “shi”—the one who presides at sacrifice and stands for the lineage (Cheng Xuanying: taking him as master of the school); they also hoped to become his later followers and carry on the teaching (Guo Xiang: thinking to inherit his line). This matter has never been settled (Guo Xiang: Mohist teaching did not die out). The intention of Mo Di and Qin Guli was right; their methods were wrong. Cheng Xuanying says: the aim was to save the world, so one says “yes”; they went too far in practice, so one says “no.”

This makes later Mohists bound to torment their own bodies—calves so thin there is no flesh, shins rubbed bare—each vying with the others in bodily hardship, and nothing more. “Xiang jin” means mutual rivalry. Among ways to disorder the world this ranks among the worst; among ways to order the world it counts as the lowest grade of method. Guo Xiang: the faults that disorder the world are many; the merit that teaches the world is small.

Even so, Mozi truly had the world at heart and truly could love others for the sake of the world. Yu Yue says: this is what Mencius meant by “Mozi’s universal love.”

If you want that goal yet cannot reach it, can you not still seek a way to save the world? (“Ye” and “xie” were interchangeable in old writing.) Yu Yue: there is a sense of “sincerity moves heaven—seek with a sincere heart.” Even to wear oneself down to skin and bone and not give up. Yu Yue: like Mencius’s “rubbing bald the crown and wearing out the heels for it.” Truly a man of talent! One may say he exhausted his powers.

Not weighed down by worldly affairs, nor tethered to external things; they did not dress themselves up in outward show, nor put on airs of self-display. Toward others they need not stoop to ingratiation, and in the heart there was no perfunctory dealing. Toward the multitude they harbored no jealousy or intent to harm. Their aspiration was to settle all under heaven, so the people could preserve life and body, holding the lives of all under heaven as the weightiest matter. What they and others needed for sustenance was enough—there was no need to chase after surplus. To declare such a mind outwardly is what is meant by openly stating one’s aims and showing there is no other design.

What the ancients called the “methods of the Dao” (daoshu) had a side that accorded with this. Song Xing and Yin Wen were greatly pleased when they heard this current of teaching. (Cheng Xuanying notes that Song and Yin were both men of King Xuan of Qi’s time, lecturing together at Jixia; according to the Bibliographic Treatise in the History of the Han, Song Xing wrote one book and Yin Wen two, both following the Mohist follower Mozhi. Their natures matched the teaching, hence their delight on hearing it.) They took the name “Mount Hua” for themselves (Guo Xiang: Mount Hua is level above and below, symbolizing their ideal of leveling and unity). In engaging the myriad things, they made “discerning good and evil and pardoning what falls short” the foremost task (“foremost” means primary; Cui Zan: distinguish good and evil and extend leniency to those who do not measure up). Whatever the heart could embrace and they could speak out, they called “conduct of the heart” (Cheng Xuanying: naming; in speech and words, constantly letting the heart embrace the myriad things—this embracing they termed conduct of the heart). The sense is: the heart is thus, and in practice it is carried out thus. With a gentle, generous bearing they harmonized with people; when the myriad things were in harmony, there was joy (hehou, “harmony and depth,” sounds like “er”; when in harmony with the myriad things, things too are pleased). With this they ordered all under heaven, vigorously applying their doctrine to harmonize and subdue. They wished that rulers would all take this heart-conduct as their guiding principle. To see insult without taking it as disgrace, to rescue the people from strife; to forbid aggression and lay down arms, to save the world from the turmoil of war. To take harmony as joy, to order the realm within the seas, vigorously to advance their way—in petition they asked that present lords all set this heart as master. Seeing insult without shame, saving the people from combat; forbidding attack and resting weapons, saving the world… (the original here repeats the preceding lines and appears incomplete; the sense is stopping war and settling the people, with heart-conduct as the root.)

They hoped the rulers of their time would treat this set of ideas as the foundation of governing the realm.

Core proposals included: When insulted, not feeling dishonored—not treating oneself as someone who has been shamed; stopping private brawls among the people, forbidding aggressive warfare, and putting an end to military campaigns, rescuing the world from the chaos of war. (“Qin” here means to stop or to bring to rest.)

Carrying these ideas everywhere, they admonished those above and instructed those below. Even when people under Heaven would not adopt or accept their teaching, they still pressed on with preaching and would not let up. Hence the line: “Both high and low dislike them, yet they still force themselves forward.” Here “high” means the rulers of the time, and “low” means their strategists and ministers.

Even so, they did too much for others and too little for themselves. They often said things like: “Please leave only five sheng of rice for the Master—that is enough; the Master may still not eat his fill, but even if the disciples go hungry, they do not forget the world.”

Cheng Xuanying explained: Song Xing and Yin Wen called the common people “Master” (xiansheng) and called themselves “disciples” (dizi)—putting others first and themselves last is exactly what this means. On this reading, Song and Yin were like people setting out food for others: the point was to ask that only five sheng be kept for the Master; they toiled day and night without rest, yet still said, “I can probably get by and stay alive!”—a posture of proud self-assurance before those who devote themselves to saving the world. Guo Xiang (or Cheng’s account) adds: they also said “I must be able to live on this,” aiming to save the people’s lives, yet appearing proud before those who labor to save the world.

Brief background: This passage comes from an outer chapter of the Zhuangzi, commenting on the Song Xing and Yin Wen school. Close to Mohism, they advocated “seeing insult without feeling dishonored” (jian wu bu ru), rejecting aggressive warfare, and ceasing military campaigns—calming strife and pulling the people back from the ravages of war. At the same time they stressed self-denial and taking little, even to the point of “five sheng of rice” being enough for the Master while disciples went hungry yet never forgot the world. Zhuangzi grants their good intentions on one hand, but on the other criticizes their “forcing speech without rest,” pressing on though both above and below are weary of them, and the near-arrogant savior’s stance within “too much for others, too little for oneself.”

“The noble person does not engage in harsh, nitpicking scrutiny, nor rely on external things to prop up the self.” The point is: for matters that bring no real benefit to the world, however clearly one argues the principle, it is still better not to meddle at all. It also says: the noble person should not scrutinize in a harsh way, so when others slight or dislike him he does not turn back to look; he does not take external things as his support, and thus neither hunger nor fullness weighs on him—while ordinary people each parade their own cleverness. Yet when calculation runs too far, even where something might help the world, often no one will act; therefore the Song and Yin line of thought held that for things of no benefit to the world, to explain the principle too brightly and examine too severely is worse than stopping where one ought to stop.

Outwardly, they took “forbidding aggression and putting an end to the use of arms” as the way to save the world (as one commentary puts it: “outwardly, by this they saved the world”); inwardly, they took “few desires and a light, plain heart-and-mind” as self-restraint (as another note: “inwardly, by this they restrained themselves”). Whether the teaching was coarse or fine, large or small, their conduct in practice roughly went no further than this. Once conduct stops here, then as to size and refinement of their dao-craft, it too amounted to no more than this.

“Gong er bu dang” (“impartial yet not ‘fitting’”): In one manuscript tradition the character is written as “dang” in the sense of faction (dang), with a gloss: “Ultimate impartiality admits no faction.” Another commentator reads the graph as “dang” in the sense of “appropriate/fitting” (dang). (This is a note on variant wording and meaning in textual collation across editions.)

Plain-Language Commentary

“Not forming factions” (bu dang) means handling affairs in an even-handed way and not favoring one side. “Smooth and without selfish partiality” (yi er wu si) carries the same idea. The mind decisively lets go of every tie and burden and no longer clings to any single fixed “master” or standpoint (jue ran wu zhu). It moves with things as they come and does not set up a split between “this” and “that” (qu wu er bu liang). There is no need to look left and right in anxious calculation, and no need to use clever schemes or contrived knowledge (bu gu yu lu, bu mou yu zhi). Toward the myriad things one does not pick and choose; one changes and goes along with them as they are—there really was this strand in ancient Daoist teaching. Peng Meng, Tian Pian, Shen Dao, and others heard this current and were drawn to it (according to later accounts, Peng Meng may have been Tian Pian’s teacher; the Yinwenzi quotes Peng Meng: when wild pheasants and hares are chased in common and “shares” (fen) are not yet fixed, people contend; when the market is full of chickens and pigs and “shares” are already fixed, no one fights over them—illustrating how strife arises only while roles and allotments are unsettled). They took “equalizing and unifying the myriad things” (qi tong wan wu) as their chief aim and said: Heaven can cover but cannot bear up; Earth can bear up but cannot cover; the great Dao can embrace everything yet cannot be fully distinguished in words one by one. They knew that each thing has what fits it and what does not, and therefore said: where there is selection, coverage cannot be complete—something will necessarily fall outside what is chosen; where there is deliberate teaching, it cannot reach everywhere—something will necessarily not accept the teaching; only the Dao leaves nothing out—this is what they meant by “equalizing” (qi).

Accordingly Shen Dao (Shiji, “Biographies of Mencius, Xunzi, and others,” records him as a man of Zhao, author of twelve treatises; the Hanshu “Bibliographical Treatise” lists him under Legalists in Shenzi in forty-two sections, name Dao, before Shen Buhai and Han Fei, whom Shen and Han also respected) held that clever knowledge is not enough to govern the world. A disciple asked why. He answered: clever knowledge is like people such as “Tail-holder” Wei Sheng—Wei Sheng clung to a pillar until he drowned; one may call that faithful, but it does nothing to help govern the world. He also said: the people’s cleverness is like the horns of beasts—the horns help in fighting but do nothing for the whole body. So one should discard clever knowledge and private bias. Shen Dao’s followers said: “The Dao is not a tool for producing the people; it is what completes their wholeness.” Therefore they did not select the worthy, did not exalt the capable, and let the block-like simplicity (kuai ran zhi pu) run its course. They mocked the world’s esteem for worthies, rejected benevolence and righteousness, and together with figures in the same spirit as Mohists related to Shen Dao said: “The great Dao cannot be displayed; ancient benevolence and righteousness—knowing does not work, acting has no fixed preference, trouble has no fixed measure.” Like something dim and undifferentiated: where there is “this,” there is “not-this”…

Commentators such as Cheng Xuanying gloss “even and smooth,” “decisively removing ties and having no partial master,” and “following things without producing dual intent” as explanations of the “not factional, no master, no duality, no picking” just described. Their note that “the recluses who jointly equalized all things, all wandered at Jixia, each writing several books” refers to Peng Meng, Tian Pian, and Shen Dao operating in the orbit of the Jixia academy.

This passage uses commentarial material to explain what Zhuangzi—or this strand of his teaching—means by “abandoning knowledge and losing the self.”

Abandoning knowledge and losing the self

Cheng Xuanying explains it as quieting thought and discarding cleverness, forgetting the body and dropping attachment to “I.” Yet one still cannot avoid meeting things and people when circumstances require it. One then treats persons, things, and affairs through lingtai—sifting them layer by layer, as sand through a sieve—and takes that as a rule for living in the world. The commentators hold that even after knowledge is abandoned and the self is lost, one still, out of necessity, first “sifts” outer things and other people, then holds to this single principle.

One line runs: “To know is not to know; to keep even a thin layer of knowing is already to verge on harm.” The point is that “knowing” should be like not knowing at all; if one retains even a little knowledge, one is already close to “injury”—the more one deploys cleverness, the more easily one harms others and oneself. That is what “abandoning knowledge” means here.

Esteeming the worthy and employing people

Cheng Xuanying: lin means “near.”

“Xièkuǒ has no office fit for him, yet he mocks the world’s esteem for worthies”—xièkuǒ suggests a crooked, unseemly bearing: in appointing people one may look skewed and name no one as truly “worthy for great trust,” yet one turns the world’s esteem for worthies into a joke. The note says: employment may be irregular and confer no name of real delegation, while the world’s “honoring the worthy” is treated as laughable.

Unrestrained release and demoting the sages

“One may be wildly free in oneself and show no fixed conduct to praise, yet reject the world’s great sages”—one can live loosely without established virtue to one’s credit, and still reduce the sages of the world to having no lofty doctrine left to teach.

Pounding with a mallet, rounding the break, and losing the self

“Pound with a mallet and round the break; turn with things as they are”—Guo Xiang says: needing even to pound with a mallet shows one is not yet fully merged with things. Where there is a break, round it so no crack shows; all of this is yielding and circling with things. That matches “losing the self”: not forcing one’s own will, but turning with things.

Letting go of right and wrong

Let go of yes and no; what matters is only escaping entanglement (without clinging to right and wrong, one suffers less constraint).

The text then repeats the same idea: do not force what does not fit to fit; round the break so no rupture shows; turn with things—again the meaning of “losing the self.”

Let go of right and wrong—if you can, you suffer less

The commentary says: not clinging to disputes over right and wrong, one is probably not dragged down by them.

Do not take clever scheming as your teacher, and do not go chasing causes and effects from start to finish

Textual note: the “knowing” (zhi) in the earlier line should read “cleverness” (zhi).

In meaning: do not imitate other people’s schemes, and do not keep asking how things began and how they will end.

Standing tall in self-sufficiency—that is enough

Great fairness and plainness—therefore one can appear solid and unmoved.

Push and it moves; tug and it goes

Like a whirlwind spinning

Note: the spin has no fixed direction.

Like a feather whirling in the air

Note: a feather falling from the sky turns unpredictably.

Smooth as a polished stone

“Polished stone bored for a tunnel” uses smoothness as the image.

Preserving oneself without inviting blame, so one stays whole and is not faulted

In motion and rest one never oversteps; there is no offense.

Rest does not overstep; motion does not overstep—where would guilt come from?

Why is it so?

This is a rhetorical question: why can one be like this?

Things without knowledge or awareness have no disaster from “setting up a self,” no entanglement from “deploying cleverness”; motion and rest never leave ordinary principle, so there is no calamity for a lifetime—is that so?

(Same as above—still a question.)

Things without knowledge or awareness have no disaster from setting up a self, no entanglement from deploying cleverness; motion and rest never leave ordinary principle, so for a lifetime no one praises them.

Things without knowledge or awareness are things like wood and stone.

The point: like what has no perception, they do not take “establishing oneself” as their standard, so they do not draw reproach; they do not use cleverness to guess and compete, so they are not caught by envy and strain.

Shift them and they move; leave them and they stay still—always within physical nature, clear to see—so for a whole life no one praises them; without praise, there is no blame either.

So it is said: “Push the inquiry to the point of ignorant things—that is enough; no need for sages; a clod of earth does not leave the Dao.”

Why bother with sages? That lump of earth never departed from the Dao.

Heroes and men of action laughed among themselves and said: “Shen Dao’s teaching is not the path of the living—it reaches the logic of the dead; no wonder it looks strange.”

Those capable heroes said together: “Master Shen’s Dao is not what the living should walk—it arrives at the reasoning of the dead; no wonder it seems odd.”

The general meaning of this passage is: not forming factions or being partial, being level and easy without selfishness; resolutely casting off entanglements and not holding partial or self-interested opinions; moving in accord with things without giving rise to a divided heart; not looking about in all directions or deliberating, and not employing cleverness or scheming intelligence; not choosing among the myriad things, but moving along with them. Among the ancient arts of the Dao (the Way) there were those who belonged to this line. Peng Meng, Tian Pian, and Shen Dao—all scholars of the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi—heard of this trend and were delighted and won over by it. Cheng Xuanying’s commentary says that they were all hermits from Qi, associated at Jixia, and each wrote several works. Yu Yue believed that Peng Meng must have been Tian Pian’s teacher, and he quotes Peng Meng’s words in the Yin Wenzi: pheasants and hares in the wild are pursued by everyone because their name and status are not yet fixed; chickens and pigs in the marketplace no one schemes for because their name and status are already fixed.

They took “equalizing the myriad things” as their foremost concern, saying: Heaven can cover the myriad things but cannot bear them; Earth can bear them but cannot cover them; the great Dao can encompass the myriad things but cannot differentiate them. They knew that all things have what they can affirm and what they cannot, and therefore said: selection cannot be all-inclusive—there are always those not selected; teaching and transformation cannot be complete—there are always those not taught and transformed; only the great Dao omits nothing. Only the Dao can embrace everything, and this is what is meant by “equalizing.” Thus, when it comes to Shen Dao, Yu Yue cites the Shiji, “Biographies of Mencius and Xun Qing”: Shen Dao was a man of Zhao and wrote twelve treatises; the “Treatise on Literature” in the Hanshu lists Shenzi in forty-two chapters under the Legalists; his given name was Dao; he was earlier than Shen Buhai and Han Fei, and both Shen and Han cited him.

Plain-Language Commentary

Abandoning Knowledge and Dropping the Self

Cheng Xuanying explains: stop scheming and discard cleverness; forget the body and shed the fixation on “I.”

When Unavoidable, One Sifts Through Things with Lingtai

Yet people still cannot help meeting the outer world; they then handle affairs and the ten thousand things through lingtai—layer by layer, like sifting sand, choosing and discarding—and treat this stance as the way to live in the world.

Note: Lingtai (same sound as “zero”) means sorting and weeding out people, affairs, and things as one would when washing sand.

“To Know Is Not to Know; Slight Knowledge Already Nears Harm”

It is also said: what passes for “knowing” is really knowing that one ought not to know too much; even a little cleverness already comes close to “harm”—craftiness easily hurts people and things.

Cheng Xuanying: lin here means “near.”

This is the Dao school’s teaching on qizhi (abandoning knowledge).

Qieluo Unfit for Office, Yet Mocking the World’s Esteem for Worthies

In appointing people, one may seem qieluo—askew and hard to classify, as if there were nothing to employ—yet turn around and mock the world’s habit of honoring the worthy.

Note: Qieluo describes a posture that will not straighten, something that resists norms.

Unbridled Release Without Conduct, Yet Denying the World’s Great Sages

In one’s own person, one may be loose and unrestrained, with no conduct worth praising, yet reject outright the so-called great sages of the world and push “lofty discourse” down to the lowest rung.

Chui Pai Wo Duan: Turning with Things

Guo Xiang says: it is like striking with a mallet—wherever the joint does not quite fit, a heavy blow makes it fit; that is chui pai: forcing what does not match to match.

Wo duan: though broken, the break is rounded so no crack shows—both phrases mean going along with things and circling among them.

Note: wo means round.

This is the Dao school’s practice of quji (dropping the self) and yielding to outer things.

She (Relinquishing)

(This segment in the source seems tied to “chui pai wo duan” above; in gist:) relinquish stubbornness and merge with things—whatever does not fit must still be made to fit.

Note

This passage collects views associated with Dao (grouped with Peng Meng, Tian Pian, and others): stress stilling thought and abandoning knowledge, forgetting the body and the self, yet because one cannot avoid involvement, taking lingtai through human affairs as one’s “principle”; and it uses “qieluo wu ren,” “zong tuo wu xing,” “chui pai wo duan,” and similar phrases to show how that line mocks esteem for worthies, rejects great sages, and yu wu wan zhuan (turns flexibly with things). Cheng is Cheng Xuanying, Guo is Guo Xiang; shiwen (commentarial glosses) are mostly on pronunciation and character forms—their sense is woven into the translation above.

This passage explains that one should let go of stubborn attachment to “right” and “wrong”; if doing so frees you from entanglement, there is no need to take human cleverness as one’s teacher, nor to investigate every cause and effect—simply rest in that state.

The Great Dao is even and level, and so it can appear vast and unmoving. Pushed, one moves; dragged, one goes—like a whirlwind that spins without a fixed direction, like a feather falling from the sky and tumbling unpredictably, or like the smooth groove on a millstone. One can preserve oneself without being blamed; in motion or stillness one never oversteps the mark—what fault is there?

Why is this possible? Consider things without awareness—wood and stone, for example. They have no disaster of “establishing a self,” no burden of “deploying cleverness.” When they move, they move with the situation; when they rest, they rest in their place. They never depart from the constant pattern of things, so throughout life they receive no “praise.” Without praise, there is no blame. Hence it is said: push to the limit, and being like unaware things is enough; there is no need to rely on the sage or worthy—a clod of earth does not depart from the Dao. Why must there be sages and worthies? A lump of clay never loses the Dao either.

Heroes and champions mock one another, saying: Shen Dao’s doctrine is not a way to live as a human being—it is the principle of dead things, utterly bizarre.

Those who could attend upon the heroic followers of Shen Dao would laugh together and say: “Shen Dao’s path is not a path for the living to walk; it reaches only the sort of principle that belongs to the dead, and at most makes people find it strange.” Tian Pian was much the same: his manner of speaking matched Shen Dao’s, and Shen Dao’s positions were used to characterize Tian Pian as well. They studied under Peng Meng and received a teaching of “non-teaching”: they did not look at words but only at how people acted; by following along in practice, the heart naturally gained something. From Peng Meng’s disciples and transmission line, one can infer what sort of person Peng Meng was.

Peng Meng’s teacher said: “In antiquity, those who cultivated the Dao achieved no more than neither judging right and wrong nor affirming or denying—that was all.” This differed little from Shen Dao’s “like a thing without awareness.” That style of instruction was like the rustling of wind blowing against the wind (Guo and Xiang’s note: huì denotes the sound of adverse wind)—a flash and gone; how could it be clearly articulated or widely handed down? They often violated ordinary human feelings and were not highly regarded; they often stood at odds with people’s views and likewise won no praise. The text further says they “took opposing people as solid truth,” yet in the end they still could not avoid decisive judgment. Even when they had no choice but to judge, they only turned with external things, and still could not escape Shen Dao’s approach of “hard cutting like a wheel hub” (wǎn and duàn share the same sense in the commentary).

The Dao they spoke of was not the Dao; even where they were correct, error was unavoidable (Guo’s note: wěi means “correct”). In other words, within Peng Meng’s teacher’s words, the correct still contained the incorrect; as for the Dao itself, they had in truth not yet seen it. Peng Meng, Tian Pian, and Shen Dao did not understand the Dao—so these three men, stated plainly, did not know what the Dao is.

That said, in broad outline they had all at some point heard and received teaching. If one speaks only in general terms, shadows of the older doctrines still remained. Formulas such as “abandon craftiness and discard the self” were not necessarily wholly without lineage; only they followed that introductory thread of exposition further and further from the original meaning.

This passage expounds an ancient Daoist line of thought along the following lines.

Essence and the crude: Treat “non-being” (the root, the subtle Way) as what is essential, and “being” (concrete things) as what is crude. Take the wuwei (non-action) of the subtle Way as the foundation, and the youwei (deliberate doing) of fabrication as the branches.

Surplus and insufficiency: Guo Xiang says: when you entrust things to the space between heaven and earth, everywhere appears as surplus; if you only hoard and possess, you instead appear insufficient. The heart should be tranquil and alone in communion with the spirit and with the qi of the great Dao—this is what Xuan Ying called the way of emptiness, mystery, and wuwei.

Guan Yin and La Dan: Guan Yin (Keeper of the Pass Yin Xi) and La Dan (Laozi) were both delighted to hear this teaching. Cheng Xuanying explains: during King Ping of Zhou, the clerk of Hangu Pass—hence the title Guan Yin (“Keeper of the Pass”). Yu Yue notes: the “Daoist works” section of the Book of Han: Treatises on Literature lists Guanzi in nine chapters; the commentary gives his name as Xi and his office as pass clerk—treating “Yin Xi” as a full personal name is mistaken. Also, that bibliography has no work titled “Laozi in nineteen chapters.” The Lüshi Chunqiu, “Unequaled” chapter, says “Guan Yin valued purity”; Gao You’s note: Guan Yin was the pass keeper, named Xi, skilled at reading wind omens; foreseeing the coming of a divine man (Laozi), Xi was overjoyed and asked him to compose a book—up to the scripture of five thousand words; the title “Up to the Scripture” is rarely seen in other sources.

Establishing the teaching and its aim: To establish verbal teaching, with realizing “constancy, non-being, and being” as the aim (constancy: the enduring; non-being: emptiness; being: formed things); to grasp where it leads, with merging into “Taiyi” (the unified Way, the origin of the cosmos) as the main thread.

Outward appearance and inner meaning: Outwardly one appears soft and humble; inwardly the mind is empty, neither harming nor destroying the myriad things—using “emptiness” to hold all that exists, rather than using force to break them.

Take yielding softness and modest retreat as the expedient wisdom for dealing with the world; take empty clarity, luminous insight, and unobstructed roundness as the genuine wisdom within.

Guan Yin said: When the heart does not stubbornly fix on “I,” outer things naturally each return to their proper place. (Xuan commentary: One does not make oneself the master of private intent; one dwells together with things as they are, and things attach of themselves.) In action, be like water that shapes itself to circumstances; at rest, be like a mirror that clearly reflects without holding anything outside; in response, be like an echo that rises at the sound and leaves no trace. (Xuan commentary: All of this is because there is no deliberate mind.) In vagueness one seems not to exist; in stillness one seems pure and unstained; in accord with things there is harmony; in grasping for gain on one’s own, there is loss. (Xuan commentary: With things in accord there is harmony; in self-reliant possession there is loss.) Never pushing ahead of others, yet often following behind them.

Cheng Xuanying’s commentary: Harmonizing and following along, without singing one’s own tune in the lead.

Laozi said: Know what is strong and firm, yet abide in softness and yielding (Xuan commentary: having ability yet gladly occupying the position of “unable”), and become the valley-stream of the world (Xuan commentary: dwelling below to await pouring-in, possessing without hoarding). Know what is pure white, yet abide in disgrace and lowliness—pure without taking oneself to be pure—and become the valley of the world. (Xuan commentary: dwelling in emptiness to receive impressions, responding to things without storing the response as one’s own.) While others all scramble for the first move, you alone take what comes last—this is called bearing the world’s filth; while others all take solid fullness and profit, you alone take emptiness; because you do not store up, you paradoxically have surplus, self-sufficient and therefore appearing to have more than enough. (Guo Xiang’s commentary: self-sufficiency means not relying on outer things. Xuan commentary: saying it again in different words.) In establishing yourself and acting, be easy and unhurried without waste (Xuan commentary: not pushing ahead, therefore easy; not pushing ahead, therefore few affairs; few affairs, therefore no exhaustion), and with wuwei (non-action) you may smile at those who rely on clever contrivance. (Wuwei looks clumsy, yet can laugh at the clever.) Everyone seeks blessing; you alone bend and yield to preserve yourself, saying, “It is enough to escape calamity.” Others keep seeking blessing; you bend and yield to keep peace, saying, “I only ask to avoid disaster.” Take profound mystery as the root of De (virtue/power), take frugality as the guiding thread of conduct (Cheng’s note: take profound mystery as the root of De, take frugality as the norm of action), and also say: too hard will break, too sharp will blunt. Be generally tolerant toward things, not cutting others down (Cheng’s note: tolerant toward things, not diminishing people).

This passage teaches that in cultivating character and virtue, two threads must be held firm: taking depth as the root and restraint as the rule—treating profound depth as the foundation of moral character, and simplicity and moderation as the discipline of conduct. “Depth” here is not affectation or mystification for show; it means having inner grounding and not living on the surface. “Restraint” means temperance and avoiding extravagance, holding oneself accountable to proper bounds.

The text also says: “What is hard will break; what is sharp will be blunt.” Too rigid and forceful, and one breaks; too pointed and aggressive, and one seems clumsy and collides with everything. So rather than striving to dominate, it is better to keep to softness and simplicity.

It further stresses: be habitually lenient toward things and do not encroach on others—be gentle and sparing in judgment toward the world, and toward people do not strip away or seize what rightfully belongs to them. The commentary sums this up as knowing sufficiency and keeping one’s place: when one knows what is enough and stays within one’s proper share, one will not “cut into” others or take what is not one’s due. To live this way is to reach the utmost—a very complete attainment. (Some editions vary in wording, e.g. reading “can be said” as “although not yet”; that belongs to textual criticism.)

Finally it names two figures: Guan Yin (Guan Yinzi, traditionally a disciple or companion of Laozi) and La Dan (i.e. Laozi), praised as great sages of antiquity who embodied breadth and truth—people of old whose minds were open and who were united with the Dao. The whole section uses the Laozi school’s view of virtue to explain why depth, restraint, softness, tolerance, and knowing sufficiency deserve to be taken as the highest standard for human conduct.

(Dao) is vast and formless; change follows no fixed pattern. Birth and death are one whole, as enduring as heaven and earth. As the Discourse on Equalizing Things says: “Heaven and earth were born together with me.”

What is wondrous cannot be fathomed; it comes and goes without a trace—where in the boundless expanse could it be heading? In a flash, whither does it drift? It moves like a spirit, free to come and go, yet never settles into any fixed abode.

All things are gathered within it (note: older commentators take “biluo” to mean that nothing is left out), yet nothing can serve as a final support; no place can be found where one may forever rest.

In antiquity there was a body of learning whose core lay in these truths. When Zhuang Zhou caught wind of it, he was deeply delighted.

So he used “miaoyou” speech—language that seems to forget feeling and fact—and grand, open “huangtang” words (“huang” suggesting vastness, “tang” emptiness); he spoke in headless, edgeless ways, at times roaming freely without clinging to one side, and did not display himself from a single fixed angle (“qi” means leaning to one corner, not standing squarely in the center).

He judged that people under heaven were sunk in muddy common views and could not be addressed with straight, serious discourse (“zhuangyu,” proper weighty talk). Therefore he unfolded his teaching through three devices: zhi yan (cup-like words that empty and refill, renewed day by day) to extend and develop meaning; chong yan (words repeated from honored elders and sages) so listeners would find them credible; and yuyan (words through allegory) to open the sense. These three uses were already explained in the Allegorical Words chapter.

“Manyan” means following the thread of things and extending layer upon layer—what is called “zhi yan issued daily, and thereby manyan.” “Chong yan” is the relaying of words from respected predecessors, which listeners easily take as true—hence “therefore what has already been said.” “Yuyan” borrows outer things and stories to bring out the inner point—that is, “discussing by way of what is outside.”

(Zhuang Zhou) alone kept company with the spirit of heaven and earth—letting his spirit wander with heaven and earth and lodging his mind in the most far-reaching heights.

Scholar Yao says: Zhuangzi regarded Guan Yin and La Dan as at most the kind of perfect person (zhiren) spoken of at the opening of the chapter—one who “does not depart from authenticity (zhen)”—and not yet at the highest level. Only someone like Zhuangzi, communing alone with the spirit of Heaven and Earth, reaches what is called “not departing from the root (zong)—called a Heaven-and-Earth person (tianren).”

He does not face the myriad things with an arrogant, condescending air (ao ni, the same sense as looking down from on high), never despises the myriad things, and carries no proud, overbearing stance in the heart.

He also does not treat right and wrong as fixed law to censure others; he is willing to mix and live alongside the ordinary world. Cheng Xuanying glosses qian as “to blame”: he does not press others with his own standards of right and wrong, so he can dwell in peace with the world.

His book, though the wording is striking and the lines run on in winding turns (guiwei, lianpai), does not harm anyone; his teaching sometimes seems empty, sometimes solid, uneven from passage to passage, with a flavor of the grotesque and uncanny (chugui), yet it holds up and has savor.

His thought and literary qi are full to overflowing—they cannot be contained or stopped.

Above, he roams together with the Creator (zaowuzhe); below, he befriends those who treat birth and death, being and non-being, beginning and end of outward things as one.

Regarding the root (ben)—the fundamental, the Dao (Way)—his discourse is vast and open, deep and broad, and free-spirited (shenhong er si; si suggests release and expansion).

Regarding what he takes as ultimate (zong), one may say he has already harmonized and smoothed the path, ascending straight through to the end (choushi er shang sui; chou/diao is harmonizing, sui is reaching completion). Su Yu says: this is exactly the meaning of “does not depart from the root (zong)” at the chapter’s opening.

Brief notes on terms

• Guan Yin, La Dan: Guan Yin (often the figure Guan Yinzi or the tradition around Yin Xi) and La Dan (Laozi)—Daoist forebears often paired.
• Perfect person / Heaven-and-Earth person: levels of personhood in Zhuangzi; the perfect person stays close to zhen (authenticity); the Heaven-and-Earth person stays close to zong (root/ultimate).
• Creator (zaowuzhe): the power or lord that creates and transforms Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things—a common Zhuangzi phrase.
• Cheng [Xuanying], Guo [Xiang]: shorthand for commentators Cheng Xuanying and Guo Xiang (here “Cheng yun” usually means Cheng Xuanying, “Xuan yun” often Guo Xiang).

Nevertheless, the sage responds as transformation unfolds and finds release within things; principle and function in him are never exhausted, and nothing he meets is left aside. Subtle and hard to fathom, he seems invisible, yet no one can exhaust his wonder.

Hui Shi, a leading figure of the School of Names and a master of disputation, had many techniques; his writings would fill five cartloads. Yet the Way he talked about was mixed and impure, and what he said often missed the point. Among the claims in his program of “surveying all things” were these: he called what is greatest so that nothing lies outside it the “great one,” and what is smallest so that nothing lies inside it the “small one.” He held that what has no thickness cannot be piled up layer by layer, yet can still extend a thousand li—as if, could it truly be stacked without limit, it would be far more than a thousand li. He said heaven and earth are equally low, and mountains and marshes equally flat—in a certain view of equalizing, high and low, noble and base can be treated alike. He said the sun is at once at the zenith and off to the side, and that things are dying the moment they are born—people in the west call it “midday,” people in the east call it “to one side,” so there is no absolute “center” or “side”; the living call the dead dead, the dead call the living living, so birth and death can also be spoken of relatively. He distinguished “small sameness-and-difference”: “great sameness” and “small sameness” are in some respects the same and in some different—when you say “great sameness” and “small sameness” are the same, finer analysis still finds difference; sameness and difference interwoven belong to a smaller scale of sameness and difference. He also spoke of “great sameness-and-difference”: all things are wholly the same or wholly different—as with cold, heat, day, and night, things in change are both same and different; that is sameness and difference on a larger scale.

This passage comes from the Collected Commentaries on the Zhuangzi (Zhuangzi Jijie). It explains the disputations of Huishi (Hui Shi) and cites earlier notes by Guo Xiang (“Xuan”), Cheng Xuanying (“Cheng”), Sima Biao, and others. The gist in plain language is as follows.

“The south has no limit, yet it also has a limit.”

Guo Xiang says: once you call something “south,” a boundary is already fixed; from one formulation you can infer several others (“propose one and turn it into three”).

“Going to the state of Yue today is not the same as yesterday” (in one reading: “great sameness and difference”).

Also: “Today I am going to Yue, yet my mind has already arrived.”

Guo Xiang: as soon as a person knows there is a place called Yue, the mind has already reached it.

Note: the same idea appears in Discussion on Making All Things Equal (Qiwu Lun), where the character for “come” is written as “arrive.”

“Linked rings can be taken apart.”

Cheng Xuanying says: when rings interlock, they interlock in “emptiness,” not in the solid ring itself. Both rings rest in empty space; they do not truly thread through each other, each merely turns in its own void—so one may say they “can be separated.”

“I know the center of the world: it is north of Yan and south of Yue.”

This imagines the world as a sphere suspended in the middle; land routes connect, so “north of Yan” can also count as “south of Yue,” unlike Zou Yan’s talk of the four seas and outlying seas.

“Universal love for the ten thousand things; heaven and earth are one body.”

Guo Xiang: heaven and earth are not especially large, and I am not especially small.

With these “grand views,” Huishi instructed disputers under heaven, and disputers everywhere favored such lines. He took himself to be alone in grasping the large pattern of principle under heaven and used these themes to guide debaters, who were glad to follow.

Huishi also had famous paradoxical theses; commentators explain them roughly as follows:

“Eggs have hair.”

Guo Xiang: if you say eggs have no hair, where do birds’ feathers come from? (The argument turns on the possibility of hair already implicit in the egg.)

“Chickens have three feet.”

Sima Biao and others: a chicken has two feet for walking, but walking is not motion of “feet” alone—it also requires the spirit (shen) to direct them. Though it has two feet, it must rely on mind-spirit to move; hence “three feet” (two feet plus “spirit” as the third).

“Ying (capital of Chu) possesses the world.”

Guo Xiang: treating one kingdom’s capital as if it held the title to all under heaven—an image of a king who magnifies himself.

“Dogs can be sheep.”

Guo Xiang: the names “dog” and “sheep” are human conventions; if you first agree to call dogs sheep, then they are sheep.

“Horses lay eggs.”

Cheng Xuanying: viviparous, oviparous, moisture-born, and transformative birth differ in human eyes; from the perspective of the Dao they need not differ. If bird eggs can be said to “have hair,” why cannot mammal embryos be called “eggs”?

This passage explains a set of Zhuangzi-style paradoxical arguments and cites commentaries from various exegetes.

“The tadpole has a tail”

Cheng Xuanying says: In Chu, people called the frog “dingzi.” Everyone knows frogs have no tail—but from the perspective of the Dao, having no physical form does not equal “nothing”; if “nothing” can still be called nothing, then what is “not-nothing” (what seems absent) can also be said to have a “tail.”

Note: When a frog is newly hatched, it has only a tail and no legs yet; when it hears thunder, its legs grow and its tail disappears.

“Fire is not hot”

Guo Xiang says: People use fire to cook food; in ordinary usage, fire does not present itself as “scalding people” in that sense (here the text is splitting words and concepts—not denying physical heat).

“The mountain has a mouth”

Guo Xiang says: An empty valley echoes; it is as if the mountain “opens its mouth” to speak.

“The wheel does not tread the ground”

For a wheel to turn, the whole rim cannot be in contact with the ground at once; if every point stuck to the surface, it could not rotate.

“The eye does not see”

Guo Xiang says: The eye is for “seeing outward”; the eye itself cannot turn back and “see itself,” hence “the eye does not see” (does not see its own self).

“Pointing does not reach; reaching does not cease”

Where there is pointing, something must be left out—so “pointing” cannot cover everything; yet affairs, sounds, and names in the world are inexhaustible, so “reaching” cannot be cut off.

(Note: The following lines repeat the character for “reach”; this is likely a misprint for “ear.” These lines originally concern the bodily senses: though the ear has moments when it hears nothing, events of past and present never stop flowing—hence “does not cease.” Because the preceding character was wrongly written as “reach,” the sense breaks down.)

“The tortoise is longer than the snake”

Cheng Xuanying says: Long and short exist only by comparison; there is no absolute length. Saying the snake is long and the tortoise short merely clings to appearances. Here the text deliberately inverts the usual view to break such confusion—“the tortoise is longer than the snake.”

Yu Yue says: This serves the same purpose as “the tip of an autumn hair is larger than Mount Tai”—on the plane of equalizing things and mystical unity, large and small can be reversed.

“The square is not square”; “the compass cannot make a circle”

Guo Xiang says: The world already has squareness and roundness; they are not produced solely by the carpenter’s square or compass. Tools are only approximations; they cannot exhaust the forms of heaven and earth.

“The mortise does not encircle the tenon”

Cheng Xuanying says: “Mortise” is the hole, “tenon” is the peg. The tenon has its own squareness; it is not produced by “encircling” with a square. The fit of hole and peg cannot be captured by simple “encirclement” either (like the “square and compass” entry above, this contrasts names and tools with actual things).

Plain-language explanation

Tenon and mortise: “Mortise” (zao) means the socket or hole; “tenon” (rui) is the wooden peg that fits into it. Cheng Xuanying says the tenon wedges itself in on its own—it is not that the mortise is “embracing” it from outside. The point is that fit comes from natural mutual accommodation, not from forcing one piece onto another.

The shadow of a flying bird: “The image of a flying bird has never moved”—the shadow of a bird in flight seems never to shift. Birds mostly fly by day, so people often say the shadow looks as if it does not move. Sima Biao cites the Mozi: the shadow does not migrate or “walk” on its own.

The speed and rest of an arrow: However fast an arrow flies, there is always an instant when it is neither advancing nor stopping; the arrow’s motion and rest come from the person who shoots it. If you speak only of the arrow itself, you must admit there are moments of “neither moving nor stopping”—a School of Names example for debating motion and rest.

Dog and hound: Cheng Xuanying: “dog” and “hound” (quan) refer to the same kind of animal under different names. When name and thing align, you say “dog” and I say “hound,” but we mean the same animal; when name and thing are pulled apart, debaters may treat “dog” and “hound” as different concepts. The Mozi has lines like “A dog is a hound; yet a dog is not a hound”—deliberately splitting terms in name theory.

Yellow horse and black ox as three: Xuan Ying: one yellow horse and one black ox—if you count the two color-names “yellow” and “black” separately, plus “horse body” and “ox body,” the debaters argue you get “three” items (color and form counted apart).

White dog, black: Xuan Ying: “white” and “black” are names people give—how do you know the “white” you speak of could not be called “black” in another naming scheme? The issue is whether names and things line up absolutely.

Orphan colt without mother: Li Yun: A foal is born with a mother; if you call it “orphan,” it has no mother; once you use the label “orphan,” the mother is removed from the account—hence “an orphan colt has never had a mother.” This plays with definitions, not biology.

One-foot stick (chui): Sima Biao: chui is a walking staff. If you think it can be halved without end, there is always “another half”; if you think it cannot be divided forever, some length always remains—hence “it can never be fully divided through ten thousand generations”—a paradox like infinite division.

Debaters and Hui Shi: The debaters toss such propositions back and forth with Hui Shi and never finish arguing in a lifetime.

Huan Tuan and Gongsun Long: Cheng Xuanying: Huan Tuan and Gongsun Long were debaters of Zhao who served under Lord Pingyuan; Gongsun Long wrote works such as the “Discourse on Guarding Whiteness,” which circulated at the time.

Limits of the debaters: They “adorn the human mind and alter human intentions”—using words to unsettle others’ thinking; they can win in speech but not win hearts. Cheng Xuanying says debaters are trapped in their circle and cannot get out; Xuan Ying says they are lost in it and cannot free themselves—the boundary of name-debate: winning mouths is not winning minds.

From the perspective of the great Dao of Heaven and Earth, Hui Shi’s abilities amount to no more than a small insect toiling in vain—what use are they for grasping the principle of the ten thousand things? Cheng Xuanying explains: “Yong means ‘use’ or ‘function.’”

In truth, it is enough to keep the heart fixed on the One (the fundamental unity). Guo Xiang says: inner sagehood and outer kingship both spring from this One; hold fast to it and that suffices—why chase after external things everywhere? The word “yue” in the text is an introductory particle. The meaning is: the more highly people prize themselves and the more they talk, the closer they actually come to the Dao—yet Hui Shi could not use this teaching to settle his mind; he scattered his spirit among the ten thousand things and still was not satisfied. Cheng Xuanying says: this is a scattered, unsettled spirit. In the end he became famous for clever disputation.

Alas! Hui Shi’s talent was unrestrained and free-flowing, yet he gained nothing. Lu Deming notes: tài is read like dài, meaning indulgence or letting oneself go; Guo Xiang says “bu de” means not attaining, having no real gain. He pursued the ten thousand things without knowing how to turn back—like shouting louder to overpower an echo, or running faster to shake off a shadow: hearing the echo swell, he shouted still louder, not knowing that the louder the voice, the louder the echo; seeing the shadow chase him, he ran all the harder, not knowing that the faster he ran, the faster the shadow kept pace. Pitiful!