《庄子集解》Vol. 5

The matter of the Nine Lo: when governance is accomplished and virtue complete, it oversees and illumines the realm below

This describes the matter of the “Nine Lo” (the nine domains of the Luoshu): when rule is fully achieved and moral cultivation complete, it is like heaven’s light shining down upon the earth. Yang Shen said: “The Nine Lo means the nine domains of the Luoshu.” When all under heaven embrace such a state, that is called “Supreme Sovereign” (Shanghuang)—the highest ideal of good government. Guo Songtao said: This means that heaven’s operation is naturally so; the sovereign need only follow nature and respond with the Dao.

The Grand Steward Dang of Song asked Zhuangzi about benevolence

The Grand Steward of Song, named Dang, asked Zhuangzi what “benevolence” (ren) is. (Sima Biao’s note: Shang refers to the state of Song; Grand Steward is the office; Dang is the personal name.)

Zhuangzi said: “Even tigers and wolves are benevolent.”

The Grand Steward asked: “How so?”

Zhuangzi said: “Father and son cherish each other—how can that be called un-benevolent?”

The Grand Steward asked again: “May I ask what ultimate benevolence (zhiren) is?”

Zhuangzi said: “Ultimate benevolence has no partiality of closeness or distance.”

The Grand Steward said: “I have heard that without closeness and distance there is no love, and without love there is no filial piety. If ultimate benevolence is said to be unfilial, does that make sense?”

Zhuangzi said: “It is not so. The realm of ultimate benevolence is higher; the single word ‘filial piety’ cannot fully describe it. Filial piety is only one aspect of benevolence—it is not that filial piety is overstated, but that filial piety does not yet reach ultimate benevolence. If, following your earlier point, one takes cherishing kin as ultimate benevolence, that is not exaggerating filial piety either—it is that one has not yet spoken to the depth of filial piety.”

(The commentary adds: It is like going south as far as Ying yet looking north—you will not see Mount Ming. This illustrates that if one understands only from the side of “cherishing kin and filial piety,” one cannot see the whole picture of “ultimate benevolence without partiality.” Filial piety is only one end of benevolence; this is not saying filial piety is too much, but that filial piety falls short of ultimate benevolence.)

Mingshan is the name of a mountain in the Northern Sea (Beihai). Here “too far from the mountain” is used as a simile: calling ordinary affection “ultimate benevolence” (zhi ren) works the same way.

So it is said: showing filial piety through formal deference is still relatively easy; filial piety from genuine love is hard. Filial piety that still feels like “love” is relatively easy; what is hard is the kind of closeness where you forget the roles—“I am the child, you are the parent.” Forgetting that kind of “closeness” is still relatively easy; what is harder is for both parents to forget too—“I am the parent, you are the child.” Getting parents to forget you is not yet the hardest; harder still is forgetting the whole world along with yourself; harder yet is getting everyone in the world to forget you along with you—that is hardest of all.

The sage keeps De (Virtue/Power) at a level like that of Yao and Shun without deliberately imitating Yao and Shun—this is “I forget the world.” Blessings extend through ten thousand generations yet people do not know it—this is “the world forgets me.” Can one merely sigh and talk emptily about benevolence and filial piety? Benevolence and filial piety are not worth dwelling on. Filial piety, sibling respect, benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, trustworthiness, integrity, and purity—all of these depend on forcing oneself and being driven by the label of “cultivating De” (Xuan commentary: they are enslaved by the name of cultivating virtue); none is worth boasting about. Therefore it is said: the most honored state is to discard rank within the state together with everything else; the most abundant state is to discard wealth within the state together with everything else. In the exegesis, “together with” (bing) is glossed as “to screen out and cast away”—ultimate honor lies in oneself, so why be tied to rank? Ultimate wealth lies in oneself, so why be tied to goods?

The highest aspiration is to discard reputation together with everything else. The highest aspiration need not be defined by fame; when nature is self-sufficient, reputation too is not worth discussing. Hence the Dao does not change because of external things (Cheng commentary: when De is deep and plain, it does not turn with circumstances).

Beimen Cheng, a minister of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) (Cheng commentary: surname Beimen, personal name Cheng), asked the Yellow Emperor: “When you unfolded the music of Xianchi in the wilds of Dongting, at first hearing I was afraid; hearing it again my heart’s agitation subsided (Cheng commentary: fearful mind stilled); hearing it a third time I fell into confusion (Cheng commentary: close to this sense). My spirit swayed; I fell silent and could not speak—I could hardly keep myself together” (Xuan commentary: spirit could not settle, mouth could not speak—losing the normal state).

Slackness means the heart retreats and ceases out of fear.

The spirit scatters and falls silent, and one can no longer hold oneself or find one’s place.

The Sovereign on High said: You are probably just like that!

I set it going through human affairs, verified it against heaven’s timing, carried it forward through ritual and righteousness, and established it upon the Great Clarity (supreme clarity of the Way).

Supreme music first responds to human affairs, follows heavenly principle, is enacted through the five virtues (benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness), and resonates with nature—only then can the four seasons be harmonized and the myriad things brought to great harmony.

The five tones rise and fall in turn with the four seasons, answering one another in succession.

The various instruments stand for the myriad things, sounding in cycles.

One flourishing, one decline—spring’s culture and autumn’s martial order follow the constant pattern. Flourishing in summer and declining in winter, with spring as wen and autumn as wu: the logic of generation and killing is heaven’s constant law.

Clear tone paired with muddy tone, like yin and yang harmonized; at the moment of their interplay, radiance overflows in the sound.

When hibernating creatures first stir, I startle them with thunder; the music has no tail at its end and no head at its start—one death, one birth, one fall, one rise; what is constant is endless, and you cannot wait on any single fixed point.

Guo Songtao remarked: … (the quotation is incomplete in the source text.)

This passage uses thunder as a metaphor: when thunder breaks forth, no one knows where it starts or where it ends. Its starting point is like the “head,” the beginning of life; its endpoint is like the “tail,” the destination of death. Death and life are the great constant Dao shared by all things, endless like Heaven; yet when it suddenly arrives, that is the end. This sudden arrival is also something that all things cannot await and cannot resist. This is used to illustrate the transformations of music, which are rooted in nature. Yu Yue said that “yi bu ke dai” (“one cannot wait”) means “jie bu ke dai” (“all cannot wait”), and that “yi” carries the sense of “jie.” Guo Xiang said that if change is taken as the constant Dao, then what is constant is infinite. You therefore felt fear. So I again performed the music of Yin-Yang harmony and illuminated it with the light of the sun and moon; Guo Xiang says this is “using the Dao of Heaven.” This sound can be short or long, soft or hard; its transformations are equalized and return to unity, and it does not cling to old conventions. In a valley it fills the valley; in a pit it fills the pit. Guo Xiang says that the way of supreme music pervades everywhere. “Tu xi shou shen” — blocking the crevices and guarding the Shen (spirit): the Jingdian Shiwen says that “xi” has the same meaning as “gap” or “crevice”; Cheng Xuanying says that “tu” means to block, to block the crevices of mental knowing and guard the concentrated, unified spirit. To take all things as the measure is the meaning of the earlier “fills the valley in a valley, fills the pit in a pit.” This sound moves with breadth and generosity; Guo Xiang calls it “chan xie” (expansive harmony); Cheng Xuanying says that “hui” means movement and “chuo” means breadth, like thunder shaking, with a broad sound. Its name is high and bright; Cheng Xuanying says it is high as Heaven and bright as the sun and moon; since the sound is vast, its name is also high and bright. Therefore ghosts and spirits each keep to their dark, hidden places.

This passage broadly describes a certain presence—usually the Dao or the state of the perfected person—as lofty as heaven and bright as sun and moon, with a fame that is both wide and honored. For that reason ghosts and spirits each keep to dark, hidden places and stay in their proper stations without interfering with one another. Commentators cite Laozi’s line that when the Dao presides over the world, its ghosts are not numinous: when the world is governed by the Dao, spirits no longer act up. Sun, moon, and stars also each follow their own courses and do not miss their regular measure.

It also says: what should stop stops within limits, and what should flow flows toward the boundless. Commentators take stopping and flowing both as following nature, so there is no need to force a sharp divide. When I try to grasp it with thought, I cannot make it out; when I try to see it, I do not see it; when I try to catch up to it, I cannot catch up. Then, in a dazed, drifting way, I stand on the Dao that opens into emptiness on all sides. Commentators explain tangran (heedless, spontaneous letting-be) as a mindless, unforced manner of being—settled in the vast, empty Dao. Leaning on a withered paulownia, one chants in this state—a mood that can be read alongside the Qiwu Lun (Discourse on Equalizing Things) in the Zhuangzi.

It goes further: what the eye can see has been seen to the end, and what strength can chase has been chased to exhaustion—I ultimately cannot catch up! The body may fill empty space, yet becomes sluggish and winding. The other party (or the self questioning) says: you are winding and slack, and therefore lazy.

The whole section portrays the Dao as not to be thought through, not to be seen, and not to be pursued. If one keeps using sight and bodily force to chase it, one only exhausts strength and wears down the form. Only by standing without contrivance in the fourfold emptiness and chanting while leaning on dry wood does one align with the Dao. If one copies only the outward winding sluggishness and misses its inner spirit, one sinks into mere laziness.

If you bend and twist along with the twists of the music, you appear slack and indifferent.

I then played again in the key of “never slack,” harmonized it with “the mandate of nature,” and explained it thus: “All living beings take nature as their life and fate. One who plays this kind of music is harmonizing the mind of Creation and transformation with the life and fate that follow nature.” Therefore, when mingling in pursuit and clustering together, the forest-like ensemble has no visible form. Guo Songtao said: “The Shuowen says: ‘Trees clustered together are called a forest (lin).’ Forest music means gathering together in mutual delight. The five tones mass and interweave so that one cannot tell from which sound they come—hence ‘no form.’” Scattered and lavish, like something stretched longer and longer yet never actually held at length; dim and murky, almost without sound—this describes a faint tone-color. It touches everywhere without exception, dwelling in depth and hidden darkness. Some call it death, some call it life; some call it substance, some call it glory. Flowing, spreading, shifting, it does not cling to one fixed tone. Guo’s note: “It changes with things.” When people were puzzled by this, they asked the sage. Ji means to examine and compare. Look at the sage’s realm, and you know the wonder of supreme music—no need to doubt further. The so-called sage is one who penetrates the nature of things and follows the mandate of Heaven. Cheng Xuanying said: “Understanding the disposition of the ten thousand things and complying with the mandate of nature—therefore called sage.” The heavenly mechanism need not be displayed, yet the functions of the five senses are already complete—this is called the music of Heaven. Guo’s note: “Forget music and music is already sufficient; it is not that display makes it complete.” Without words, the heart is pleased. Guo’s note: “The heart’s pleasure lies in fittingness, not in speech.” Hence the Yan clan (Shennong) composed a hymn (Shiwen: Yan is also written as Yan in another form): “Listen—you cannot catch its sound; look—you cannot see its form. It fills Heaven and earth and embraces the six extremes.” Such is hymn-music. You want to hear it but cannot receive it—hence confusion. Here “you” again means you. As for music: at first it makes people afraid; fear is why it seems haunted. Before music fully harmonizes, one listen makes one tremble with fear, as if there were a baleful spirit. I then continued with the stage of “slackness”; slackness is why it seems to vanish. Its sound withdraws and disappears, as if one did not wish to listen and grew indifferent. Finally one reaches bewilderment; bewilderment is why it seems foolish; foolishness is why it accords with the Dao. Cheng Xuanying said: “The heart without discrimination, like dim bewilderment—vast and silent, resembling foolishness, yet precisely in accord with the true Dao. The Dao can be borne and traveled with.” Su Yu said: “Taking chaos as the Dao, therefore from slackness one nears foolishness, and then the Dao can be received. The crux of this chapter lies here.”

Confucius traveled west from Lu to the state of Wei (Cheng Xuanying explains that the journey from Lu to Wei is why the text says “traveling west”). Yan Yuan sought advice from Master Jin—Master Jin was Lu’s Grand Music Master, surnamed Jin—and asked: “From what you can tell about our teacher’s trip this time, how do you think it will turn out?”

Master Jin replied: “What a pity—your teacher will likely find himself in deep trouble!”

Yan Yuan asked: “Why do you say that?”

Master Jin said: “Before the straw dog prepared for the altar (the prop shamans and ritual specialists use in ceremonies) is brought out for the rite, it is stored in a bamboo chest or small bamboo case and covered with a patterned embroidered cloth; the master of the rite and the invoker walk ahead, holding it with utmost reverence. But once the sacrifice is over and the straw dog has done its job, people on the road take its straw head to sit on, and those gathering firewood haul it away to burn—who would still treat it with the same honor as at the beginning?”

(Master Jin used the straw dog as a metaphor: while something is in use it is treated with great ceremony; after it has served its purpose it is cast aside like old rags. He meant that if Confucius were not put to use in his own age, he would be despised like the straw dog after the offering—and so he foresaw that the Master’s journey would probably not go well.)

This passage comes from a commentary on the Zhuangzi and runs roughly as follows.

On the straw-dog analogy

Someone twists straw into a dog for sacrifice, puts it in a bamboo chest, and covers it with an embroidered cloth. After the officiants fast and purify themselves, they solemnly bring it out for the rite. When the rite is over, the thing is thrown on the ground: passersby step on its head and back, and people gathering firewood take it for fuel. If you pick it up again, put it back in the chest, cover it with the embroidered cloth, and have someone live and sleep beneath it, that person—whether or not they dream—will keep being troubled by nightmares or malign influences (“mi” means something entering the eye and causing illness, or being oppressed by nightmares or possession).

Turning to Confucius

Your master now does the same: he treats the worn-out “straw dogs” of the former kings (obsolete rites and doctrines) as treasures, gathers disciples, and has them live and sleep beside them all day long. That is why in Song his lecturing tree was cut down, in Wei he was driven away, and in the lands of Shang and Zhou he found no footing—isn’t that like sleeping under a discarded straw dog and having nightmares? Trapped between Chen and Cai, with no fire lit for cooking for seven days, life and death pressed together—isn’t that “mi,” being bound by something uncanny?

The boat-and-land analogy

On water, the best way to travel is by boat; on land, by cart. A boat moves on water; if you insist on pushing it onto dry land to use it there, you may never cover even a “chang” of ordinary distance (eight chi make one xun; two xun make one chang). Past and present differ as water and land differ; Zhou and Lu are no more matched than boat and cart. To impose the whole ritual system of Zhou on Lu today is like dragging a boat overland: exhausting, useless, and a source of harm to yourself. He still does not understand that kind of teaching without a fixed form (wufang zhi chuan: no set pattern, able to meet every change).

The well-sweep analogy

Have you never seen the well sweep (the lever for drawing water)? Pull it down and it sinks; let go and it rises. People pull and release it; it does not pull people—so whether high or low, it never “blames” anyone.

(Note: The whole passage uses the straw dog, boat-and-land, and well-sweep images to show that treating obsolete rites as sacred and forcing them everywhere is like sleeping under a discarded straw dog and having nightmares—fruitless labor that also invites disaster.)

Therefore, what made the rites, righteousness, and laws of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors valuable was not that they were identical in every detail, but that they could govern the realm well. Cheng Xuanying said: “‘Jin’ means admirable and worth praising; rites, music, and ceremonial need not be copied generation after generation.” Guo Xiang said: “It is enough that they fit what the age requires and suit the body politic of governing.” So we may compare the rites, righteousness, and laws of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to zha, pear, orange, and pomelo: the flavors differ, yet all can be eaten. Rites, righteousness, and laws were meant to change with the times in the first place. If you catch a monkey and dress it in the Duke of Zhou’s ceremonial robes, it will surely bite and tear until it has ripped them off and feels at ease—qian meaning satisfied and content. The gap between past and present is like the gap between a monkey and the Duke of Zhou. When Xi Shi had a pain in her heart, she frowned in the neighborhood; an ugly woman there thought it looked beautiful, went home, pressed her hand to her chest, and frowned for her family to see. The rich family saw her and shut their doors; the poor family saw her and fled with wives and children. She knew only that frowning looked good, not why it looked good. Alas! The Master (Confucius) is likely to find himself with nowhere to turn!

Confucius was fifty-one and still had not awakened to the Dao. He therefore went south to Pei to visit Laozi. Sima Biao notes that Laozi was a native of Xiang in the state of Chen; Xiang later belonged to Ku County, near Pei.

Laozi said, “So you have come. I hear you are a leading scholar of the north—have you also attained the Dao?” Confucius said, “Not yet.” Laozi asked, “Where have you sought it?” Confucius said, “I sought it in ritual, law, names, and measures, and for five years I did not find it.” Laozi asked again, “Where else did you seek it?” Confucius said, “I sought it in the transformations of yin and yang, and for twelve years I still did not find it.”

Laozi said, “It is so. If the Dao could be presented like tribute to a ruler, everyone would present it to their lord. If it could be used to seek promotion and wealth, everyone would use it to honor relatives and friends. If it could be told casually to others, everyone would tell their brothers. If it could be passed on like property to descendants, everyone would leave it to their children. The reason it cannot actually be done is simply this: within, there is no true master, so when the Dao passes through the mind it cannot be held; without, there is no proper footing (commentators suggest the word rendered ‘proper’ may originally have read ‘match’ or ‘counterpart’), so even when one has the Dao it cannot be walked or applied.” Exegetes link this to the need for inner impulse and outer action to match—emotion arising within and conduct going outward must have a fitting occasion and steady holding—a theme close to the “Zeyang” chapter of the Zhuangzi and related passages.

Plain-Language Interpretation

What arises from within, if it does not match (“pi”) the outer situation, cannot be carried out; conversely, if one speaks only of the outer world yet it does not align with the heart-mind or the times, that too will not work. This is the same kind of point as in the “Ze Yang” chapter: “What comes in from outside has a master within yet does not cling; what goes out from within has a match yet does not refuse.” (Commentators take the character read as “zheng” here to mean “pi,” the same slip as in the passage above.)

What goes out from within need not pander to the world; what the age does not call for need not be forced into play—so the sage does not impose what is his on others (“does not put it out”). What comes in from outside, if it cannot stand as master in the heart-mind, is not the subtle refinement of your own mind—the sage does not store that in the heart either. One must grasp inwardly the subtle refinement of one’s own mind and outwardly accord with the flexible adaptation the times require; inner and outer as one, substance and function aligned—that is how the sage accords with the Dao.

Fame is a vessel the world shares; one must not hoard it. Ren and yi (humaneness and righteousness) are temporary lodgings (julü, like a post station) that the ancient kings borrowed for a night—they are not places to stay long. If one always meets others under the banner of ren and yi and blames people often, resentment and reproach are sure to follow.

The ultimate person of antiquity: traveled a stretch by the road of ren and yi, lodged briefly within ren and yi, wandered in the realm of carefree wuwei (non-action), made a living in the field of “rough simplicity” (knowing where to stop and being content), and established himself in the garden of “neither lending nor squandering” (not harming people or things, not wasting recklessly). Carefree wandering is wuwei; rough simplicity is easy self-nurturing; “not lending” is not paying out outward. The ancients called this “wandering in gathering the true”—not enslaved by appearances.

The above completes one section. Those who treat wealth as their counterpart cannot yield profit; those who treat prominence as their counterpart cannot yield fame; those who cling to power cannot hand power to others.

I. Anxious grasping and fear of loss

When you clutch something tightly and refuse to let go, the heart fills with dread and trembling. Cheng Xuanying explains that this is fear that the moment you relax your grip you will lose whatever you rely on to compete with others. Those who take wealth as their life’s measure cannot bear to yield profit and salary; those who take fame as their measure cannot bear to yield rank and title; those who cling hard to power cannot bear to hand authority to anyone else. Cheng adds: what is meant by “when you grasp it, you tremble” is shaking from terror of loss.

Yet the moment they must truly let go, grief follows at once. Guo Xiang explains that this is clinging and unwillingness to release. Such people see nothing clearly in terms of principle—they only fix their eyes outward and chase what never stops receding. Cheng Xuanying says: though they may not suffer formal execution like those punished in Chu, their inner nature has already been hollowed out—this is what is called “those whom Heaven marks for punishment” (tian zhi lu min).

II. The eight “tools of the upright person”

Resentment, favor, taking, giving, remonstrance, instruction, nurturing life, and taking life—these eight are instruments for correcting and governing human affairs. Only someone who can move with great transformation and is not blocked by private motives is fit to wield these means—for only then does one match what the time requires. Hence the text says: correct what should be corrected, and correct it according to the affair and the occasion. Those whose hearts do not genuinely align with this have the Gate of Heaven (Tianmen—the seat of the mind and heavenly spontaneity) shut; they cannot truly penetrate and connect.

Confucius went to see Laozi and spoke at length about benevolence and righteousness (ren and yi). Laozi said: If you scatter chaff in someone’s eyes, their sight will blur and even the directions of heaven and earth will seem turned upside down. When a mosquito bites the skin, one cannot sleep peacefully all night. However small the external disturbance, the harm to one’s original nature is great. The whole apparatus of benevolence and righteousness makes people inwardly miserable and restless; there is no disorder greater than this—it injures the heart more than getting dust in the eyes or being bitten by mosquitoes. If you wish the people under heaven not to lose that plain, natural state—

you should move with the wind and stand firm in the great De, following nature as it is. Why must you wave your arms and loudly preach benevolence and righteousness, like beating a big drum while searching for a lost child? (Laozi says something similar in the “Heaven’s Way” chapter: why urgently hoist up benevolence and righteousness and startle the whole world, as if beating a drum to find a missing child?)

Swans need not bathe daily to stay white; crows need not dye themselves daily to stay black. Black and white come from their own nature and are not worth arguing over as beauty or ugliness. Reputation and praise—those outward appearances—cannot enlarge a person’s true nature.

When the spring dries up, fish are stranded on land, keeping each other alive with moisture and spit—a poor substitute for each going back to the rivers and lakes and forgetting one another in their own element. The point is: petty favors and forced mutual aid are nothing compared with returning to chaotic simplicity and each resting in its own nature. That kind of ease—what need is there for the petty fuss of benevolence and righteousness?

“When the spring dries up, the fish are left together on dry land, moistening each other with spit and wetting each other with foam—better to forget each other in the rivers and lakes.”

Cheng Xuanying explains: this is a metaphor for clinging to petty favors and forcing mutual dependence; it is better for each to return to innate ease, forget one another in the vast undifferentiated whole, and each find their place—then joy follows—rather than being bound by the fine labels of benevolence and righteousness.

After Confucius had seen Laozi and returned, he did not speak to his disciples for three days.

Cheng Xuanying says: his mind was not at ease; he was still digesting and turning over what he had witnessed.

A disciple asked: “When the Master went to see Laozi, how did he intend to set his own learning straight?”

Cheng Xuanying: meaning “by what means to correct and align oneself.”

Confucius said: “Only today have I truly seen a dragon. Gathered, it is one whole body; scattered, it takes on every kind of form. It rides cloud and breath, nourished by Yin and Yang. My mouth hangs open yet I cannot get a word out—what could I use to admonish Laozi!”

Zigong said: “Then among people there really are those who outwardly seem like corpses sitting still while inwardly a dragon appears, whose hearing is like thunder yet whose depth is like a silent abyss? (The lines ‘sitting like a corpse yet a dragon appears; thunder in the hearing yet silence like a deep pool’ appear again in the Zai You chapter.) And are there those who set heaven and earth in motion? Could I go and meet such a person too?”

So, in Confucius’s name and borrowing his prestige, he went to call on Laozi. Cheng Xuanying: using Confucius as introducer and go-between.

Laozi was seated upright in the hall and answered coolly: “My years have already passed along this road—what do you intend to use to warn and admonish me?”

Zigong said: “The Three Kings and Five Emperors governed the realm; their methods were not the same, yet the reputations they left were alike. Only you, Master, hold that they were not sages—how is that to be understood?”

Cheng Xuanying: meaning Zhuangzi (or Laozi) rejects the Three Kings and does not treat them as sages.

Textual note: one manuscript reads “Three Sovereigns” for “Three Kings”; per the commentary it should be “kings”; elsewhere many read “Three Sovereigns.”

Laozi said: “Young man, step forward a little and tell me: on what grounds do you say their ways of governing differ?”

Zigong replied: “(The original text continues here but is not recorded in full; typically Zigong lists how Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, and others each ruled differently.)”

Yao handed the realm to Shun, and Shun to Yu. Yu governed by force and exhausting the people; King Tang relied on military campaigns. King Wen of Zhou faced King Zhou of Shang with submission and did not dare resist; King Wu went against Zhou and would no longer submit—so each age did not act the same way.

Laozi said: “Young man, step a little closer! Let me tell you how the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors ruled the realm.”

When Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor) ruled, he kept people’s hearts unified and plain. People did not love only their own kin or cherish only their own children, so when someone’s parents died and they did not wail, others did not blame them for being unfilial. (Cheng Xuanying explains: under the Three Sovereigns the Great Dao prevailed, hearts were thick and unified, and forced wailing was unnecessary; if one insisted on criticizing that, many would have faked mourning instead.)

When Yao ruled, he shifted people’s hearts toward favoring kin. People would kill to avenge kin, and others did not think that wrong. (Guo Xiang and others say: elevating “kin” lowered other ethical ties relative to it, and discriminating awareness gradually opened.)

When Shun ruled, people’s hearts turned toward rivalry. It is said that women still carried about ten months, but infants could speak after only five months—unlike the old norm. (Cheng Xuanying: in antiquity pregnancy lasted about fourteen months and children spoke at two; by Shun’s time this no longer matched the old way.) Before children truly knew innocent “childish laughter” and play, they could already tell “this one” from “that one”—that is, they could divide self and other, right and wrong. (Guo Xiang: “who” means distinguishing outsiders.) From then on people began to die young and their primordial qi was harmed first. (Lu Deming and others: the human heart was exhausted too early.)

When Yu ruled, people’s hearts changed again: once cunning arose, using armies was called “responding to Heaven and following the people”; killing bandits was not called indiscriminate slaughter (some explain: it was taken as natural then). Each side formed its own faction yet imagined that was “all under Heaven”—the realm in truth became the sum of private factions’ interests.

Therefore all under heaven was greatly alarmed, and the Ru and Mo schools rose up in turn—the Ru exalted Yao and Shun to paper over error, while the Mo followed the way of Yu and took themselves to be in the right. At first there was still some order in human relations; now people behave like women—at first there was still ethical propriety, yet what is practiced today is men adopting women’s ways. What more is there to say! I tell you: when the Three August Ones and the Five Emperors governed the realm, they called it “good order,” yet there was no disorder worse than this. The wisdom of the Three Kings (if one reads “Three Kings” here rather than “Three August Ones,” the sense holds; otherwise the line is hard to reconcile) turned against the clarity of sun and moon above, cut off the vital essences of mountains and rivers below, and in between spoiled the seasonal transformations of the four seasons. Their cleverness was more venomous than a scorpion’s sting, more savage than the man-devouring beast known as xiangui (the creature is unclear in the sources—it seems to mean some beast that harms people). No one under heaven could rest secure in the innate disposition of their own life, yet they still styled themselves sages and felt no shame. They truly did not know shame!”

Zigong was cramped and uneasy and could not stand firm.

Confucius said to Laozi: “Qiu has studied the Six Classics—Poetry, Documents, Rites, Music, Changes, and Spring and Autumn—and has long believed himself well versed in them; who could know the reasons within them? Who agrees, who is truly at home in them? Taking them to offer counsel to seventy-two rulers, …”

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi. It tells how Confucius asked Laozi about the Dao, and how Laozi used one analogy after another to show that the Dao cannot be copied like old footprints. What follows is a plain-language summary of the main ideas.

Jian (offense, violation) here means the same as fan—to transgress or offend. Confucius spoke at length to the ruler about the ways of the ancient kings, citing the deeds of the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Shao as proof, yet the ruler had nothing he could truly take up and use (gou means to hook, to seize, to adopt). Confucius sighed: “How hard this is! People are hard to move, and the Dao is hard to make clear!”

Laozi said: “You were lucky not to meet a ruler who treats governing the state as his top priority. The so-called Six Classics are only the chenji—the old tracks and written records left by the ancient kings. Are those tracks the same as the lü—the actual steps, the living practice—of the kings when they walked the Way? What you speak of is still only traces. A trace is the print left by a shoe; how can the print be the shoe?”

Laozi then gave examples from nature of mutual influence and transformation: bai yi (a kind of water bird)—male and female gaze at each other without moving their eyes, and through mutual resonance they conceive (fenghua here means pregnancy through yin-yang resonance between mates, not the usual sense of “customs and moral transformation”). Some insects are male and female in one body; the male calls from upwind and the female answers from downwind, and through sound and breath they conceive. The classics also mention beasts and birds such as shilei and qilei that can be both male and female and reproduce by themselves. This shows that xing (nature) must not be casually altered and ming (fate, allotted life) must not be rashly changed—this is speaking from the side of zhenchang (what is truly constant). Yet shi (the times) do not stand still, and the Dao cannot be blocked—this is speaking from the side of change and flux. Those who have the Dao find no place where it fails; those who lose it are obstructed everywhere.

Before three months had passed, Confucius came to Laozi again and said: “I think I understand. Wuque hatch eggs; fish breed by moistening each other with foam from their mouths; the xi yao (narrow-waisted wasp) ‘incants’ a caterpillar on a mulberry leaf into its own larva—and when a younger brother is born, the elder brother weeps, fearing he will lose his parents’ love. All of these are distinct natures that cannot be forced into sameness. For a long time I have failed to ‘yu hua wei ren’—to become one with transformation—so how could I transform others?”

Laozi said: “Good. You have grasped the point.”

The notes above weave in the meanings of the shiwen (glosses on individual terms) and various commentators (Sima, Guo, Xuan, Li, and others) into readable prose. Proper names and phrases such as the Six Classics, the Dukes of Zhou and Shao, fenghua, and yu hua wei ren are kept as in the original and briefly explained where helpful.

Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, “Ke Yi” (Deliberate Purpose), Section 15 (excerpt) — vernacular interpretation

Some people deliberately elevate virtue: their minds are harsh and exacting, their bearing lofty and aloof; they live apart from others and unlike the common world, talk in grand terms and rail against the age. Li Yi said: it is not that there is no Dao in the world, but that they resent not finding a place that suits them. That is only a kind of proud temper. This is the path favored by those who lodge in mountain valleys and look down on the world; figures who wither themselves in hardship, throw themselves into deep water, or make their will known through death—such as the legendary Bao Jiao, Jie Zitui, and Shentu Di—belong here too.

Some devote themselves to benevolence and righteousness, loyalty and trustworthiness, respect, frugality, yielding, and deference, all to cultivate the person. That is what people who live in a peaceful age and take teaching others as their work prefer—like Confucius teaching at Zhu and Si, or Zixia teaching west of the He.

Some devote themselves to great merit and great fame, to the rites between ruler and minister and the order of high and low, all to govern the state. That is what court officials who honor the ruler, strengthen the country, and win merit by annexing rival states prefer.

Some retreat into marshes and wild places, dwell in open emptiness, fish and live at leisure, and take ease without striving (here, wuwei means quiet, self-contented idleness) as enough. That is what those who wander rivers and seas, withdraw from the world, and seek quiet leisure prefer.

Some use warming breath, regulated exhalation and inhalation, and “bear-hanging and bird-stretching” (daoyin: moving the body like a bear hanging from a tree or a bird stretching its legs in flight) to nourish the form and extend life. That is what daoyin practitioners and those who nurture life prefer; long-lived figures such as Peng Zu follow this path.

Then there is needing no deliberate effort yet being naturally lofty; needing no talk of benevolence and righteousness yet being cultivated; needing no pursuit of fame and merit yet the world already well ordered; needing no flight to rivers and seas yet the heart already at ease; needing no daoyin yet still living long—forgetting what should be forgotten, lacking nothing that should be had. (Guo Xiang’s commentary at this point is incomplete in the received text and is omitted.)

Only through forgetting can one truly gain and truly achieve.

Tranquil without limit, and all beauty follows: when the mind is calm and unstuck on any single point, every kind of goodness gathers of itself. Xuan Ying explains that if you do not fix one standard or extreme, beauty and goodness are complete on every side. This is the way Heaven and Earth run, and where the Sage’s virtue rests.

So tranquility and plainness (tiandan and dan) are really one thing. Solitude, emptiness, and non-action (wuwei) are Heaven and Earth’s impartial nature, and the root (“substance”) of Dao and De.

So the Sage rests in cessation—abiding in the Way and quieting the heart; in that rest the mind becomes even and plain, and evenness brings quiet simplicity. When the mind is even and quietly simple, worry and harm cannot enter, perverse influences cannot invade, so virtue is whole and spirit is not depleted.

So the Sage, while alive, moves with Heaven (Guo Xiang: acting as nature moves); in death, transforms with things (Guo Xiang: like shedding a skin, no longer bound). In stillness he shares Yin’s quiet virtue; in movement he shares Yang’s surge (Guo Xiang: in motion and rest there is no deliberate mind—Yin and Yang are simply allowed to be). These four lines also appear in the “Heaven’s Way” chapter of Zhuangzi.

He does not rush ahead for blessing or lead the way into disaster. He responds only when something truly touches him, acts only when circumstances press, rises to act only when there is no choice. He strips away cleverness and contrivance (from Guanzi, “Art of the Heart”; Huainanzi, “Main Techniques” glosses “gu”” here as artifice and falsehood—the same sense is used here).

Following the principle of Heaven (xun tian zhi li)—the commentary glosses xun as shun, “to follow.” Then one is free of heavenly calamities, unburdened by external things, uncensured by others, and untouched by punishment from ghosts and spirits. These four lines appear in the Tiandao (Way of Heaven) chapter as well; there the character for “calamity” (zai) is written as “resentment” (yuan).

“In life one is like something afloat; in death like rest”—living is as light as drifting on water; dying is as settled as repose. There is no need to scheme ahead or plan early. One has inner light but does not flaunt it; one keeps faith without rigid deadlines (Cheng Xuanying: the mind holds no obsession of “I must seize, I must win”). Sleep brings no dreams; waking brings no anxiety. Spirit stays pure, and hun and po do not wear out. These lines too appear in Tiandao.

“Empty, still, and quietly indifferent—thus one accords with Heavenly Virtue (tian de).” Hence it is said: sorrow and joy are skewings of De; pleasure and anger are slips against the Dao; fondness and dislike are leakages of De.

“When the heart knows neither sorrow nor joy, that is the utmost of De”—Guo Xiang: when De reaches its height, feeling is no longer tugged by sorrow and joy. “One and unchanging—that is the utmost of stillness.” “With nothing in the heart that resists or jars—that is the utmost of emptiness.” “Not entangled with things—that is the utmost of quiet indifference (dan).” “With nothing opposed or defiled—that is the utmost of purity (cui).” Guo Xiang adds: once turbid desires are mixed in, one cannot be wholly at ease.

“If the body toils and never rests, it breaks down; if essence is spent without cease, it wearies; weariness leads to exhaustion.”

“The nature of water: unmixed, it is clear; unmoved, it is level.” If it is dammed and cannot flow, it cannot stay clear either (Cheng Xuanying: it turns foul)—that is the face Heavenly Virtue shows (Cheng Xuanying: still, yet turning day by day).

Therefore it is said: to be pure without admixture, empty and still, concentrated and unchanging, tranquil and plain in Wuwei (non-action), and when acting to follow natural spontaneity (Guo Xiang’s commentary: to move in pursuit of desires is human artifice)—this is the method of nurturing Shen (spirit). One who possesses a fine sword from Wu and Yue (Gan and Yue refer to Wu and Yue, which produced fine swords) stores it in a box and treasures it, not daring to use it lightly, because he values it exceedingly. The human Shen should be like this too: when Shen penetrates the four directions and reaches everywhere, joins with Heaven above and pervades Earth below, transforms and nurtures the myriad things yet cannot be grasped by form or trace—this is called “same as the Heavenly Emperor” (sharing the function of the Heavenly Emperor). The Way of pure simplicity lies only in guarding Shen; guarding it without loss, one becomes one with Shen; Jing (essence) is unified and penetrating, and one accords with the principle of nature. As the saying goes: ordinary people value profit, people of integrity value reputation, worthies exalt aspiration, and sages treasure Shen. Thus “plain” means without admixture, and “pure” means not diminishing one’s Shen. One who can embody and realize pure simplicity is a Zhenren (True Person) (Cheng Xuanying’s commentary: “to embody” means to comprehend; when one wondrously accords with the principle of pure simplicity, wherever one is is the true Dao). The sixteenth chapter of the Outer Chapters, “Shanxing” (Cultivating the Nature), discusses cultivating one’s original nature; cultivating one’s nature amid the secular world and using worldly learning to seek to restore one’s original beginning—its ultimate aim still lies in realizing and according with pure simplicity and uniting with the true Dao (the Way).

Repairing one’s original nature within the secular world means relying on the kind of learning the world prizes in an attempt to pull oneself back toward one’s first, undivided authenticity. Cui’s commentary glosses shan as “to govern and repair.” Guo’s commentary says that once xing (nature) has already been stained by the secular, people still try to use secular learning to restore the root of xing and ming (life). On the text: one edition of Xuan’s version drops one occurrence of su (secular/vulgar); following Guo’s note, the original had two su characters; some also suspect an extra character was inserted in the middle. Su Yu argues that the sense calls for an extra su as a likely interpolation—xue (learning) and si (reflective thought) are meant as a pair: xing and desire have both been tainted by the vulgar, and even if one applies learning and reflection together, one only grows more confused. Reading su xue and su si as separate clauses, as Xuan does, seems unsatisfactory.

Indulging desire within the secular world while using reflective thought to chase “clear insight” and “penetrating understanding”—such people are called the deluded masses.

Those in antiquity who cultivated the Dao used tranquility and simplicity (tian) to nourish discriminating cleverness (zhi)—here zhi usually means artful knowing and dividing things up, not “knowledge” in the modern academic sense. Cheng Xuanying explains zhi as wisdom in the sense of cleverness; the Wang commentary says that only when the mind is settled (ding) can genuine insight (hui) arise.

Once that cleverness has come forth, yet one does not wield it to fabricate or to show off, that is called using cleverness in turn to sustain that same tian—not becoming more cunning the more one studies, but letting the heart return to quiet.

What follows picks up the earlier line that “those in antiquity who ordered the Dao nourished knowing with tian”; it restates the same point in another turn of phrase.

Fixed concentration (ding) can give rise to wisdom (zhi). Once wisdom has arisen, do not parade “knowing” everywhere or show it off—that is using wisdom to nurture inner quiet (tian). When wisdom has risen, do not lean on it or let it run loose—that is using wisdom to nourish that stillness.

Knowing and quietude nourish each other; harmonious order then flows naturally from one’s inborn nature. When knowing and tian mutually sustain each other, De (Virtue/Power) and the Dao (the Way) arise from that same nature.

What is called De is harmony and compliance; what is called the Dao is pattern and order (Xuan note: De and the Dao, at bottom, are harmony; “principle” here means compliance and accord). When De can embrace all things, that is Ren (humaneness); when the Dao leaves nothing out of place, that is Yi (rightness). Once De and the Dao are established, Ren and Yi spring from them. When rightness is clear and the ten thousand things relate in kinship, that is zhong (loyalty or wholehearted integrity) (Xuan note: only then is one truly said to have De and the Dao). When the inner mind is pure and solid and constantly returns to genuine feeling, that is le (joy) (Cheng note: though it involves outer things, it always returns to true feeling; what is achieved is fitting harmony, hence it is called joy). When there is sincerity in speech, bearing, and conduct, and one follows the natural forms of ritual proportion, that is li (ritual propriety) (Shi note: though involving outer things, one always returns to true feeling—fitting harmony is joy; sincerity in bearing and following natural ritual form is li).

If one takes a single style of li and le, or a single bodily deportment, as the only standard and pushes it across the world, the world instead falls into disorder. Commentary: the character read as “bian” (everywhere) should be “pian” (one-sided). Guo’s note: to walk the path one body treads or the joy one will pursues across the world is to satisfy one region and lose the myriad regions. Yu’s note: following Guo, it should be the “pian” of one-sided bias, hence Guo’s reading; the pronunciation in the commentary is mistaken. Verdict: the original should read “pian”; in Tang it was miscopied as “bian,” and Lu followed the written form in giving the pronunciation, which makes no sense in meaning. Xuan’s edition already corrects it to “pian.”

When the other party corrects themselves and is moved by my De, that is De responding to De—not pressing my virtue down to cover or override others. If one forcibly uses one’s own De to smother and cover the world, imposing one’s rightness upon others, then things that lose their true nature will be many.

The ancients lived within vast, undifferentiated obscurity—muddled and hazy, mutually resonant—without using their De to force others or wrap them over. If one forcibly covered the world and imposed one’s correctness on others, those who lost their nature would surely be numerous.

Primordial Obscurity and “Supreme Unity”

In antiquity, people lived in primordial obscurity (hunmang)—chaotic and undifferentiated, as when Heaven and Earth were first separating. They shared with the whole age a state of tranquil stillness (danmo). Cheng Xuanying explains: tranquil stillness and silence are the way of Wuwei (non-action).

Then Yin-Yang were harmonious and at rest; ghosts and spirits did not disturb; the four seasons each kept their proper measure; nothing was harmed among the ten thousand things, and living beings did not die before their time. People had understanding, yet could not put it to use—this is called supreme unity (zhiyi): merging into one, without discrimination. No one acted with deliberate purpose, yet things were habitually spontaneous (ziran)—without artificiality.

The Decline of De and Three Stages

As De (Virtue/Power) declined, by the time of Suiren and Fuxi people began to “govern all under Heaven”—and so they followed human hearts yet could not return to supreme unity. Suiren taught cooking with fire; Fuxi drew the trigrams, invented writing, and knotted cords for nets—cunning and desire arose, appetites grew; they went along with the common people’s inclinations but could not restore oneness.

De fell further with Shennong and the Yellow Emperor—they sought to settle the realm yet could not fully accord with all living beings. Shennong faced Gong Gong’s rebellion; the Yellow Emperor fought Chiyou—mere expedients for peace, not a great accord with the myriad beings.

De declined again with Tang and Yu—the stream of governance and transformation arose, but the source was lost (estrangement from the Dao). Tang and Yu established the five classics to order the Five Phases, appointed officials to regulate the people—the Five Phases were thereby worn thin, the people became corrupt and deceitful, and pure simplicity was scattered and lost (some texts read “corruption” for “purity” in this phrase; see textual notes).

Leaving the Dao, Endangering De, Following the Heart

Leaving the Dao to chase reputations for goodness, putting De in peril to constrain conduct—figures like Wuguang and Shentu Di: abandoning the Way to display virtue, risking De to regiment behavior.

Then they abandoned innate nature and followed the human heart (Guo Xiang: forsaking nature to obey mind).

Heart recognizes heart, yet that cannot suffice to settle all under Heaven—the more people grow clever and false.

Main idea: Zhuangzi, through Cheng Xuanying and related commentators, sketches a history of decline: from primordial obscurity and supreme unity, through Wuwei and spontaneity, via Suiren and Fuxi, Shennong and the Yellow Emperor, to the governance of Tang and Yu—pure simplicity lost, the Way abandoned for cleverness, human hearts no longer adequate to fix the world—setting up the later debate between the sage and “all under Heaven.”

The Classic of Poetry says “without knowing and without scheming”—the two characters shi and zhi must be read as one phrase: only when one is in a state of not relying on cleverness and not acting rashly or willfully can the realm be settled in peace. If various interpreters break the line after shi, they miss the point.

Then people piled “ornament” onto the body and stuffed “breadth” into the mind. When ornament piles up, plain authenticity is covered over; when miscellaneous learning fills the mind, the original heart is drowned. Then the people grow confused and disordered and can no longer return to true nature or recover the original condition.

Seen this way, the age lost the Dao, and the Dao also lost the age (Xuan commentary: treating what is not the Dao as the Dao). Age and Dao drag each other down—how could a person of the Dao rise in the world? How could the world flourish because of the Dao? When the Dao cannot flourish in the world and the world cannot flourish because of the Dao, even if the sage need not withdraw into mountains and forests, his De is already hidden (Cheng commentary: if the sage falls among the vulgar and is no different from the crowd, hides his sage-De and no one can employ him, then whether in court or market he is as if in the wilds). The “hidden” here is not the sage deliberately concealing himself, but the turn of fate when “the Dao is hidden from the world”—without self-concealment he is already concealed (Xuan commentary, same idea).

What ancients called a “recluse” was not someone who crawls so as not to be seen, who keeps silent, or who hoards wisdom and never speaks out—it was that the times were greatly out of joint and the great Dao did not prevail. If the times were right and the Dao could prevail throughout the realm, one would return to oneness and leave no trace; if one returned to an age of utmost oneness, there would originally be nothing visible as a trace. If the times were not right and the realm was utterly exhausted, one would deeply secure the root and rest in the utmost good, waiting for the moment—deeply securing the root of nature, holding to the extreme of highest good until the time came: that is the way to preserve oneself.

In how ancients lived, they did not use flowery disputation to adorn petty cleverness (Cheng commentary), did not use clever stratagems to burden the realm (Cheng commentary), and did not use clever stratagems to drag down their own De (Cheng commentary: knowing limits and one’s proper share, not burdening what one has attained with boundless knowing). Weiran—upright and alone—they guarded what should be guarded and returned to their nature; what else would they stir themselves to do?

The Dao by nature is not to be practiced with petty cleverness and petty methods; De by nature is not to be established with petty views. Petty views injure De (Cheng commentary: petty knowing injures deep, abstruse De); petty methods injure the Dao. Hence it is said: straighten yourself and that is enough.

“Joy in completeness” is called attaining one’s aim—taking joy in the completeness of one’s nature is attaining one’s aim. What ancients called attaining one’s aim did not mean rank, chariots, and horses, but that nothing could add to his joy—that is all (Guo commentary).

In autumn, when the floods came on time, the many streams all poured into the Yellow River. The river grew broad and its current vast; between the two banks, among the islands in the water and the cliffs along the shore, even cattle and horses could not be distinguished from afar. Thereupon the River God Hebo (surname Feng, given name Yi) was delighted and congratulated himself, believing that all the beauty under heaven was gathered in him. He followed the current eastward until he reached the North Sea. Facing east, he looked out and could not see where the water ended. Only then did Hebo change expression, raise his head toward the sea god Ruo, and sigh: “There is a saying among people: ‘Having heard a few teachings, one thinks no one can compare with oneself.’ That describes me. Moreover, I once heard that some belittled Confucius’s learning and made light of Boyi’s lofty righteousness; at first I did not believe it. Now I have seen how vast and inexhaustible you are. Had I not come to you, I would have been in danger—I would have been laughed at forever by the great masters who understand the Great Dao.” The North Sea god Ruo said: “You cannot discuss the sea with a frog in a well, because it is confined by the place in which it lives.”

This passage is textual criticism by a Qing scholar glossing the Zhuangzi, debating whether a line should read jing yu (“well fish”) or jing wa (“well frog”).

Main claim: the older reading should be jing yu.

1. Parallel citations

In the Imperial Readings (Yulan), sections on seasonal order, scaly creatures, and insects all quote the Zhuangzi as jing yu bu ke yi yu yu hai—“one cannot speak of the sea to the fish in a well.” If the ancient text read thus, yu (fish) is the more plausible word here.

2. Order of entries in Lu Deming’s Classic of Interpretation

Before this passage, the Classic of Interpretation gives no phonetic gloss for wa (frog); only at the later phrase kan jing zhi wa (“frog in a dried-up well”) does wa appear, with a note “wa, text also written as …” and Sima Biao’s comment that the frog is a water creature resembling a toad. If the original here were wa, the phonetic note and Sima’s gloss ought to appear here first, not only at kan jing zhi wa. The editor therefore holds that yu is correct and wa is not.

3. Other works keeping jing yu

Huainanzi, “Origins of the Way”: “Well fish cannot be told of the vast; they are confined in narrowness.” Commentary on the Water Classic, Gan River: “to broaden the hearing of well fish.” Liang-dynasty Zhang Juan’s prose: “Well fish do not know the great sea; summer insects do not see winter ice”—all in the Zhuangzi mold and supporting the view that Zhuangzi originally had jing yu.

4. Jing yu in classical and miscellany texts

Zhouyi, Hexagram Jing, third line jing gu she fu (“shooting fu at the well’s gully”): Zheng Xuan (Han exegete) glosses that fish born in the well gully are not large; mostly small fu (crucian carp).

Record of Difficult Learning cites Yulan’s Zhuangzi: “For one whose intent is like a well fish, I will cast hook and snare.” Lüshi Chunqiu, “Instruction on the Great”: “There are no large fish in a well.” These all reinforce the image of fish in a well.

5. Why later readers changed yu to wa

This chapter has kan jing zhi wa; Xunzi, “Correct Theory” has kan jing zhi wa (“frog in a pit-well”) and “cannot be told the joy of the eastern sea.” Later copyists and editors therefore replaced jing yu with jing wa in related lines to align with the wa (frog) topos.

Summary (as the critic argues): From citations, the order of phonetic glosses, and historical usage, jing yu fits better here; the shift to wa is a later harmonization under the influence of kan jing wa and kan jing zhi wa.

This passage is modern scholarly commentary on the “well fish” (jing yu) anecdote in the Zhuangzi, not Zhuangzi’s original wording.

“Well frog” versus “well fish”

Some editors changed the original “well fish” to “well frog.” The commentator argues that wells naturally contain fish, so there is no need to substitute a frog. Once that change spread, people only repeated phrases like “the frog at the bottom of the well” and “summer insects cannot be told about ice,” and forgot that Zhuangzi originally used “well fish”—creatures confined to a well who do not know how vast the sea is—as the image.

Wang Niansun’s philology

The character for “xu” (empty/void) is interchangeable with “xu” written as the homograph meaning “ruins/old site” (often glossed as ju, “dwelling”). Hence the Shiwen notes: “xu, the text also writes xu [as ruins].” In the Guangya, that graph means a place of residence (an old form related to “ju,” to dwell). The Wenxuan, Xizheng fu commentary cites the Shenglei: “xu, the place where one formerly dwelt.” When classics speak of “qiu xu” (mounds and ruins), they mean former settlements. Here, the well fish is bound to the place where it lives and does not know the sea’s immensity—a parallel to He Bo (the god of the Yellow River), who stays at the riverbank and sees no farther. Cui’s commentary glosses “confined to the emptiness within the well” by taking “xu” as “empty/void,” which differs from the “dwelling/limit” reading.

Summer insects, “where one dwells,” and the He Bo analogy

“Summer insects” likewise stand for beings who live only in their own habitat and see little of the world. A well fish trapped in a well, unaware of the sea’s breadth, mirrors He Bo trapped at the water’s edge (yasi), thinking all under heaven lies within the Yellow River. Cui’s note on “confined to the emptiness within the well” follows the sense of xu/xu as “place of residence, bounded ground,” not merely “hollow nothingness.”

(The closing sentence in transmitted texts is repetitive and partly damaged; the gist remains a restatement of the same point: the well fish bound to its dwelling as a figure for He Bo’s limited horizon.)

This passage discusses the relationship between the scope of one’s vision and the Great Dao, and uses the sea as a metaphor for a person’s place between Heaven and Earth.

The well frog, the summer insect, and the local-minded scholar

Some gloss xu (emptiness/void) as mere “hollowness,” saying the frog in the well can only grasp the little space inside the well. You cannot explain “ice” to a summer insect—not because it is stupid, but because it is bound by its season: an insect born in summer has no place in its life for the whole register of winter. Likewise, you cannot discuss the Dao with a xiangqu zhi shi (a person who has lived all his life within the norms and horizons of one village), because he is tied down by the little teaching and fixed views he has received.

Only after reaching the seashore can one speak of the “great principle”

Now you have come out from mountain cliffs and riverbanks and seen the ocean with your own eyes; only then do you know how narrow you were before—and only then can one discuss great principles with you. Guo Xiang explains: because he already understands his fenji (the boundary of his own measure) and knows how large he truly is, he can discuss principle.

Why the sea is “beyond measure”

Among all the waters under Heaven, none is greater than the sea. Myriad rivers pour in without cease, yet the sea never seems full; the Weilü (the “tail drain,” a place in legend at the Eastern Sea where the waters of all rivers are said finally to discharge overseas—also called Wojiao, the “Blazing Cleft”; in the Classic of Mountains and Seas it is described as a stone that can burn dry whatever water is poured on it) constantly releases water without cease, yet the sea never seems empty. Some say its spring and autumn never change and it is unaffected by flood or drought—compared with rivers, it simply cannot be matched by quantity.

Why the sea does not boast of itself

Yet I have never taken myself to be vast on that account. I place myself between Heaven and Earth and amid the qi of Yin and Yang, like one small stone on a great mountain or one short piece of wood on a huge tree; I already stand in a position where I appear very small—on what grounds could I boast?

Overall intent

The passage first criticizes those fixed in one place and confined by the teaching of their time—they cannot discuss ice, cannot discuss the Dao. It then uses seeing the sea and recognizing one’s former narrowness to show that the heart’s scope must be enlarged. Finally, the sea does not count itself vast, and a person is even smaller relative to Heaven and Earth relativizes “greatness”: if even the sea should not be used to condescend to others, how much less the human body. This is Zhuangzi’s usual method of likening things to virtue and breaking attachment and pride.

This passage is from Zhuangzi, “Autumn Floods” (Qiushui): a dialogue between the River God and North Sea Ruo on how large and small are relative.

North Sea Ruo said: “If you measure it, are not the four seas within heaven and earth like one little clod of earth in a vast marsh? And if you measure again, is not the central kingdom within the four seas like one grain of millet in a great granary? The number of things is reckoned in the tens of thousands, and human beings are only one kind among them. People fill the nine provinces, eat the five grains, ride in boats and chariots—yet among the myriad things they still occupy only a single share. Compared with the ten thousand things, is a person not like the tip of one hair on a horse’s body? The succession of the Five Emperors, the three kings contending for the realm, benevolent persons in anxiety, men of responsibility toiling—the objects of their contention, worry, and labor amount to no more than this. Boyi yielding the throne to win a name, Confucius discoursing to win breadth of learning—they too overestimate themselves, just as you a moment ago took water to be abundant.”

The River God asked: “Then may I take heaven and earth as great and the tip of a hair as small?”

North Sea Ruo answered: “No. The large and small of things have no end—each has its own scope. Time has no limit—each moment is in flux. Names and roles are not fixed—what one is allotted shifts with the age. Beginning and end have no fixed cause—change renews itself day by day.”

What is called "great knowledge" (da zhi) treats far and near as one perspective: it sees that knowing (zhi) and wisdom (zhi in the sense of sagacity) are ultimately the same, and views distance without fixating on a single corner of the world.

Therefore the small need not be despised as too little, nor the large as too much, because measure itself has no final limit. One does not divide more and less by size alone, but understands that each thing has enough and each finds its proper place. Guo Xiang glosses "zheng xiang jin gu" as follows: xiang is clear discernment; jin gu is like past and present—once one grasps the great Dao that runs unchanged through past and present, one no longer traps "time" within the span of human life and death, and knows that temporal order has no end.

Thus though antiquity is distant, the heart need not be vexed, and one need not force oneself to "make antiquity one's teacher." What is near at hand need not be reached by standing on tiptoe. Observing fullness and emptiness (ying xu), one does not wildly rejoice in gain or grieve over loss, knowing that status and circumstance are inherently inconstant. The Dao of Heaven naturally alternates fullness and emptiness, so gain and loss have no fixed pattern—why cling to them in resentment? To understand the "level path" (Guo Xiang: birth and death are nothing but the right way of daily renewal) is to see that living need not be excessively joyful and dying need not be treated as disaster and ruin—for beginning and end alike lie within constant renewal, and what is old cannot be grasped and held fast.

Consider: what a person knows falls far short of what he does not know; knowing has boundaries, while not-knowing has none. The stretch of a human lifetime is not even as "long" as the time before one was born; life has an end, while Heaven and Earth are without limit. To use one's minimal personal knowledge to exhaust the maximal realm is to be confused and unable to rest at ease (Cheng Xuanying: the boundless domain is not yet fully traversed, while finite intelligence is already exhausted). Seen in this light, how can one insist that the tip of a hair fixes the boundary of the utmost fine? How can one insist that Heaven and Earth fully exhaust the utmost great domain?

A hair’s tip is not really “small,” and heaven and earth are not really “large.” Size and scale are feelings from a relative standpoint, not fixed facts.

The River Lord asked: “People who talk about such things often say, ‘The finest things have no shape; the greatest things cannot be bounded.’ Is that really so?”

Note: here xin means “truly, really,” not “belief” in the religious sense.

The Lord of the Northern Sea replied: “If you look at the vast from the tiny, you cannot see the whole, so it seems ‘unbounded’; if you look at the tiny from the vast, you cannot see the fine detail, so it seems ‘without form.’ Jing (subtlety) is the refinement on the side of the small; fu (bulk, thickness) is the fullness on the side of the great. So large and small each have what suits them: the small find the measure of ‘large’ awkward and settle into the small; the large find the measure of ‘small’ awkward and settle into the large. That is a difference built into the situation itself; by that alone you still cannot argue the matter through to the end.”

“Fine and coarse can be talked through only where there is form—where reason still has something to trace. What has no shape and cannot be numbered to an end belongs on the ‘fine’ side; what cannot be enclosed and whose count runs out belongs on the ‘coarse’ side. What words can say is the coarser face of things; what mind-intent can hold is the finer face. Where speech cannot reach and intent cannot probe, there is no need to split fine from coarse—beyond intent and word lies the subtlety of the Dao.”

“So the way of great De (virtue/power) runs like this: it does not set out to harm others, yet it does not pile on benevolence or parade kindness; it does not act for private gain, yet it does not treat gatekeepers as worthless— not for profit, and not elevating oneself by looking down on those who seek profit. It does not fight over goods, yet it does not treat deferring and refusing as a high virtue. In dealings it does not pick at or pry into people (shi yan bu ci), and it does not live off others’ labor or boast of its own ease; it does not despise everyone who is greedy or corrupt— not harming, not overdoing benevolence, not for profit, not despising servants, not contending for goods, not over-yielding, not needling people, not over-consuming others’ strength, not despising corruption: one attitude throughout—not clinging to one pole, not turning any single kind of conduct into moral capital.”

In action, one does not rely on others but supports oneself through one’s own labor; one also does not treat deferential yielding as a supreme virtue. In conduct one is not “sparing of others” in the sense of deliberately exploiting them, yet neither does one look down on oneself for having used a bit more strength or taken a slight advantage; nor does one despise others simply because they are corrupt—what is meant is: not borrowing others’ strength while living on one’s own effort, being content with what is enough, and not treating the insatiably greedy as uniformly base.

One’s way of acting differs from the common run, yet without deliberately seeking novelty; one does not drift with vulgar custom, yet neither does one take eccentricity as a mark of superiority. One moves with the broad current of affairs without lightly despising those who fawn and flatter; one accommodates popular sentiment without necessarily treating all sycophants as contemptible.

Rank and stipend in the world are not enough to count as genuine encouragement, and punishment, disgrace, and shame are not enough to count as genuine humiliation—for one understands that right and wrong cannot be cut apart cleanly, and the minute and the vast cannot be marked off by a fixed boundary. The tracks of right and wrong do not separate; the beginnings of the small and the great cannot be seen. Only the great person understands this.

(Note: Cheng Yun says that the principle is lodged in others’ words, hence the phrase “it is said.” Guo Xiang is also cited: the person of the Way need not personally witness everything; if one lets things be, their natures disclose themselves of themselves, and fame and merit belong to things, so one need not hear and see every single matter. The same saying appears in the “Mountain Tree” chapter, where “the Way” appears as “the utmost.” Utmost virtue does not seek “getting”; Guo Xiang says: getting arises from losing, and when each thing has no loss, the name falls away. The great person has no fixed self; Guo Xiang says: one simply lets things be—this is the utmost of restraining oneself and each returning to its allotted place.)

He of the River asked: When it comes to what lies outside things and what lies within them, whence come the distinctions of noble and base, large and small?

Ru of the North Sea replied: From the perspective of the Dao, the ten thousand things have no noble or base; from each thing’s own standpoint, each takes itself as noble and others as base (things feel this way toward one another, hence “mutually”); from the perspective of common opinion, noble and base are not in one’s own hands but depend on honor and disgrace coming from outside; from the perspective of distinctions, distinctions are inherently without end—whoever feels large enough takes that as largeness (taking self-sufficiency as largeness).

Vernacular Interpretation

On “great and small”: If you take something as already big enough in your own eyes and then go on calling it big from that self-sufficiency, you conclude that nothing in the ten thousand things is not big. If you take something as already small enough in your own eyes and then go on calling it small from that lack of remainder, you conclude that nothing in the ten thousand things is not small. Once you see that heaven and earth in the whole are no more than a single millet grain, and that the tip of a fine hair can be treated as a hill or mountain, then the difference between great and small is equalized in the way you look at things.

On “function”: The arrow and the shield each have their own side of usefulness. If you speak only from the side of “having”—who holds the field of use—then nothing among the ten thousand things is not “having.” If you speak only from the side of “not having”—who is overcome—then nothing among the ten thousand things is not “not having.” (Su Yu’s note: People often call what can be put to use “having” and what is overcome “not having,” as when arrow-makers think shields can be done without and shield-makers think arrows can be done without. But if the arrow counts as “having,” the shield’s stopping the arrow is also a kind of “having”; if the shield counts as “not having,” the arrow’s being blocked by the shield can likewise be called “not having.”) Once you see that east and west oppose each other yet cannot cancel each other out—without east you cannot fix west—from this “opposing yet mutually needing,” the boundaries of function can be settled.

On “orientation”: The multitude each has its own bent. Follow what each person takes as “how things ought to be,” and nothing among the ten thousand things is not “so.” Follow what each person takes as “how things ought not to be,” and nothing among the ten thousand things is not “not so”—that is, right and wrong are fixed by following people’s likes and dislikes. Once you see that Yao and Jie each rely on their own nature to deny the other, then how commitments and conduct are fixed becomes clear: Yao denies Jie, and Jie denies Yao; those who attach themselves to Yao or Jie each hold one end, so nothing among the ten thousand things is not “not so”; and again, if you fix right and wrong by following people’s judgments, the same point appears—Yao and Jie each had a “natural” stance of their own and stood opposed, so inclination and conduct have no fixed, unchanging standard.

In the past Yao and Shun abdicated and were honored as emperors; Zhi and King Kuai of Yan (imitating abdication) lost the state and cut off the sacrifice (Sima Biao’s note: King Kuai of Yan listened to Su Dai, modeled Yao and Shun in yielding the throne to his prime minister Zhi, and after three years the state fell into chaos). Tang and Wu fought and were honored as kings; Lord Sheng of Bai fought for power and was destroyed.

Plain-Language Explanation

The commentary states that Pai Gong Sheng was a grandson of King Ping of Chu. He once raised a rebellion and ended by failing and dying; the story appears in the Zuo Zhuan, Duke Ai, year 16.

From this we can see that the ritual norms of striving versus yielding, and conduct like that of Yao or Jie, and what counts as noble or base, high or low, all shift with the times. No single way of acting can be treated as a fixed standard forever. Cheng Xuanying explains: if noble and base are like this, then large and small, high and low can be understood by the same logic.

Timbers as large as roof beams can be used to ram city walls but cannot be used to plug a small hole. The point is that things have their own uses and must not be mixed up. Commentaries also note that “liang li” refers to ridgepoles and great beams; only wood of that size suits battering a wall, so one need not fixate on the literal wording alone.

Steeds such as Qiji and Hualiu can run a thousand li in a day, yet for catching mice they are no match for wild cats or weasels. Here the point is that skills have their specialties.

Birds of the owl kind can hunt fleas and lice precisely at night, missing not a hair’s breadth; but if you ask them to do the same by day, they may not do as well. Various editions differ on characters such as “chi” and “xiu,” but the gist is the same: nocturnal raptors are good at hunting tiny insects at night. Like the thousand-li horse and the great beam, each fits its use; you cannot measure everything by one standard.

The overall meaning aligns with Zhuangzi’s usual line of thought: high and low, good and bad, useful and useless all vary with time and place. There is no fixed scale that applies everywhere and always.

Beihai Ruo said: From the perspective of the Dao, what counts as noble and what as base? This is called fan yan (inverse mutual transformation)—nobility and baseness originally turn into each other and pull on one another (Guo Xiang: the way of noble and base repeatedly seeks each other out; Cui Yi: one need not fix who is noble and who is base; when things reverse, that can itself be beautiful. Some versions write pan yan, meaning all mixed together as one family).

Do not let noble and base tie up your mind; if you cling to one side, the Dao becomes hard to follow (great obstruction with the Dao).

What counts as little and what as much? This is called xie shi (declining to contend over shares)—simply receiving what Heaven gives, without fighting over more or less. To act by only one fixed measure is to fall out of step with the Dao (misaligned with the Dao).

(One who has attained the Dao) is dignified like the ruler of a state, yet does not favor anyone in granting favor; he does not single out one thing for special kindness, yet all things can share in De (Virtue/Power). He is at ease like the local earth god in a sacrifice, yet does not privately bestow blessing on one person alone—many people together serve one altar to the community god, yet each feels the spirit is blessing him personally. He is vast like the four directions without end, without borders, like water spreading without shore.

Embracing all things together, who then supports and assists whom? This is called wu fang (no fixed bias)—no set partiality. All things are held in the embrace; who supports me, who assists me? Things are originally equal in kind; who is long, who is short? (This explains the point of “no fixed bias.”)

The Dao has no beginning or end; things have birth and death—one need not rely on a moment’s success so it never fades. Full and empty alternate; form and appearance have no fixed place. Years cannot be piled up and kept; time cannot be halted. Waning and waxing, empty and full—when one phase ends, another begins again. These are precisely what point the direction of the great meaning and discuss the principles of the ten thousand things.

When things arise, it is like galloping at full speed—there is no movement that does not change, no moment that does not shift. Why then insist on “doing” or “not doing”? They will transform on their own in any case.

Cheng (the commentator) says: Settle the mind and let nature take its course—things will transform on their own. Why rack your brains or rush about? He means that change is swift. There is no motion that is not change, no instant that is not shift. So what should one do, and what should one not do? Transformation happens by itself in any case. Cheng also says: Quiet the mind and leave things to nature—they will surely change of themselves. Why torment yourself over the choice between “acting” and “not acting”?

Hébó (River Lord) asks: If one cannot tell non-action (wuwei) from deliberate action, what is so valuable about studying the Dao?

Běihǎi Ruò (North Sea Lord) replies: One who understands the Dao can certainly grasp how things hang together; one who grasps that can certainly see how to adapt; one who sees how to adapt will not let outward things harm the self. When de (virtue/power) reaches its height, fire does not burn, water does not drown, cold and heat do not afflict, and wild beasts do not injure—not because fire, water, cold, heat, or beasts stand “thinly” (far) from the person, nor because they are near yet somehow cannot harm, but because one discerns safety and danger and stays at ease amid fortune and misfortune, careful about going and staying, so that nothing can harm one. Hence it is said: the workings of Heaven (tianji) lie in what is unseen (“Heaven within”), human affairs show in visible conduct (“the human outward”), and the highest de takes nature as its root.

Only those who truly understand the relation between Heaven and the human take nature as root and rest in self-sufficiency. Advancing, retreating, bending, and stretching change with the moment—there is never a fixed routine. Grasp this one point in reverse, and you hold the marrow of learning and the utmost of the Dao.

(Again) the question: What is meant by “Heaven,” and what by “the human”?

Běihǎi Ruò says: Oxen and horses are born with four feet—that is “Heaven” (the natural). Putting a halter on a horse or a nose-ring on an ox—that is “the human” (the artificial). Therefore: do not use the artificial to destroy the natural, do not use clever contrivance to destroy what Heaven has decreed, do not trade greedy grasping for empty reputation.

Exhortation (with Guo’s commentary appended)

Do not use human scheming to ruin what is naturally given; do not use forced artifice to harm life and true nature; and do not trade what you can actually hold for fame that never ends. Keeping to your lot without losing what is genuinely yours is called “returning to the real.” Guo’s note: the real lies within each person’s own share of nature.

Kui, the many-footed worm, the snake, wind, the eye, and the heart (each “pities” the next—envies what the other has)

The one-legged kui envied the many-footed worm (a centipede-like creature), the worm envied the footless snake, the snake envied formless wind, wind envied the eye, and the eye envied the heart.

• Kui said to the worm: I hop on one foot—nothing could be simpler—yet you need all those feet; what for? Isn’t it exhausting?
• The worm said: Not so. Watch a person spit: big drops like pearls, small like mist, too many to count. What moves in me is inborn mechanism; I myself do not know why all those feet move together.
• The worm asked the snake: I walk on many feet yet still cannot keep up with you without feet—why?
• The snake said: When heavenly mechanism stirs, how can it be changed at will? Why would I still need feet?
• The snake asked wind: I wriggle along back and ribs as if I still had feet; you roar from the northern sea and roar into the southern sea as if you were nothing—how?
• Wind said: Yes—that is how I go from north to south. Yet when people point at me, I cannot outdo a finger; when they step on me, I cannot outdo a foot—that is losing in small matters. But only I can snap great trees and tear off roofs. So: losing in many small ways, together becomes the great “win.” Only the sage can achieve that kind of great victory.

(Commentary also says the eye and heart are even more marvelous; everyone can feel this in their own body, so the main text only names “the eye pitying the heart” and stops there.)

Main idea: Each thing rests in its own heavenly mechanism; there is no need to compare who has more feet or who is faster. Wind “loses” when pointed at or stepped on, yet on a large scale it destroys trees and houses—the sage likewise need not compete in small branches but keeps the real and aligns with the great Dao.

Confucius was traveling in Kuang (some say it was actually in the state of Wei, where locals mistook him for Yang Hu, who had once raised trouble in Kuang, and so they hemmed him in). Layer upon layer of people closed around him, yet he still plucked his zither and sang without stopping.

Zilu came in to see Confucius and asked, “Master, in a situation like this, how can you still take pleasure in music?”

Confucius said, “Come here—I’ll tell you. I have long dreaded poverty and still cannot escape it; that is fate. I have long sought success and still cannot attain it; that is the season. In the age of Yao and Shun there were poor people in the world—it was not that they lacked intelligence and therefore rose; worthy men could all be employed—it was not by petty cleverness that they advanced. In the age of Jie and Zhou there were successful people in the world—it was not that they lacked intelligence and therefore fell; worthy men all hid away—it was not that they were stupid and therefore failed. This is how the times naturally are.”

“On water, to sail a boat and not fear dragons and serpents is the courage of a fisherman; on land, to walk and not fear rhinoceroses and tigers is the courage of a hunter; with naked blades before you, to treat death as if it were coming back to life is the courage of a martyr; to know that poverty has its mandate from Heaven and that success has its appointed time, and not to fear when great disaster strikes, is the courage of a sage. Zhong You, settle your mind and wait. My fate is arranged by Heaven above.”

Before long, men in armor came in, apologized, and said, “We thought you were Yang Hu, so we surrounded you; now we know we were wrong—please allow us to lift the siege and withdraw.” So they admitted their mistake, broke the encirclement, and left.

Vernacular Explanation

Gongsun Long questioned Wei Mou. Commentators note: Sima Biao held that “Long” was a man of Zhao and “Mou” was a prince of Wei. Yao Nai said that Gongsun Long and Zhuangzi were not contemporaries, and that this passage is probably a record by one of Gongsun Long’s disciples.

Gongsun Long said: In my youth I studied the Way of the masters; when I grew up I mastered the practice of benevolence and righteousness. I could debate “sameness and difference in names” and “hardness and whiteness,” mixing “so” with “not so” and “permissible” with “not permissible,” until the wisdom of the hundred schools was cornered and the arguments of every voice were exhausted. I thought I had reached the utmost limit. Now, hearing Zhuangzi’s words, I feel dazed—they seem utterly unlike what I knew. I cannot tell whether my discourse falls short of his or my insight falls short of his. At present I cannot open my mouth. I venture to ask what lies behind this.

The prince Mou leaned on his armrest, sighed deeply, laughed, and looked up at the sky. He said: Have you never heard of the frog in the well? “Kan well” means a shallow well. It said to a great turtle from the Eastern Sea: I am so happy! It boasted of its joy: when it jumped out it crouched on the well curb; when it rested it stayed by the broken brick of the well wall; in the water the water held up its armpits and floated its cheeks; in the mud it sank no deeper than the tops of its feet; looking back at the shrimp, crabs, and tadpoles in the well, none could compare with it.

This passage uses the contrast between the frog in the shallow well (the “frog in the pit”) and the great sea turtle of the Eastern Sea to show that a small realm cannot understand a great realm, and that small cleverness cannot glimpse the highest truth.

The little red worms, tadpoles, and other small creatures in the well—looking around at these tiny beings, none was happier than the well-frog. The frog monopolized a puddle of water and occupied the shallow well, believing this to be the greatest happiness under heaven. He therefore invited the great sea turtle of the Eastern Sea: “Why don’t you come in often and take a look?” But before the great turtle’s left foot had entered, his right knee was already caught at the mouth of the well (“zhi” means to be hindered or held fast). Knowing the well was too small to contain him, he hesitated and drew back, then calmly withdrew. He then told the frog about the sea: a distance of a thousand li is not enough to describe the greatness of the sea; a height of a thousand ren is not enough to fathom its depth. In the time of Yu the Great, there were nine floods in ten years, yet the sea’s water did not increase because of it; in the time of Tang of Shang, there were seven droughts in eight years, yet the sea’s shores did not shrink because of it. The sea does not change with the length of time, nor advance or recede with the amount of water—this is the great happiness of the Eastern Sea.

When the frog in the shallow well heard this, he was frightened and uneasy (“shishi-ran” describes a look of fright), and he felt small and abashed at his own littleness (“guiguiran” describes a petty, self-conscious appearance).

The author then comments: if a person’s wisdom cannot understand the ultimate boundaries of right and wrong, yet he wishes to observe and understand Zhuangzi’s words, it is like making a mosquito carry a mountain or making a shangju (a tiny creature of the millipede kind) cross a river—he will certainly be unequal to the task. If one’s wisdom is insufficient to discuss the most subtle principles, yet one is self-satisfied with a momentary petty advantage before one’s eyes, is this not the frog in the shallow well? The realm of which Zhuangzi speaks is one in which the feet tread the Yellow Springs and the head rises to the Great August (Heaven), far beyond what the well-frog can imagine.

Plain-Language Explanation

There is no south and no north: the Way opens freely in every direction and sinks into depths that cannot be fathomed. (Note: the character read as shi—Cheng Xuanying glosses it as describing sudden openness and unobstructed flow.)

There is no west and no east (Wang Niansun holds the line should read “no west, no east,” rhyming with tong “penetrate”): it begins from what is dark, remote, and abstruse, then returns to a state of great penetration and unity with the ten thousand things. Cheng Xuanying says: starting from the utmost mystery and obscurity, its Way is unfathomably deep; turning back to the midst of Heaven and Earth, it merges in great penetration with all things without obstruction.

Yet you fuss and fret, in a petty way, trying to grasp it with the eye of sharp scrutiny and to hunt it down with the tongue of disputation—Guo Xiang says: one who wanders in the infinite cannot be caught by scrutiny and debate—like peering at Heaven through a bamboo tube or pointing at the earth with the tip of an awl: is the horizon not far too narrow? Be on your way!

Moreover, have you never heard: in Shouling in Yan there was a man named Yu who went to Handan in Zhao to learn how to walk? (Sima Biao: one should not twist “Ding fu” into some other reading; Cheng Xuanying: Shouling is in Yan, Handan is the capital of Zhao, where people were skilled at walking, so the youth from Yan came from afar to learn their gait.) He failed to learn the Zhao way of walking and lost the gait he had had in Shouling; he could only crawl back on hands and knees. Cheng Xuanying: having gained none of Zhao’s skill and having lost his old Shouling step, he had nothing left but to prop himself on the ground and creep home.

If you still do not leave now, you will forget what you originally were and throw away what you already had achieved.

Gongsun Long (a leading figure of the Names school) gaped so wide he could not close his mouth; his tongue stuck out and would not go back in—then he turned around and fled.

Plain-Language Reading

Zhuangzi was fishing by the Pu River. The Pu was an ancient river in the eastern commandery, roughly in the area of today’s Puyang in Henan.

The ruler of Chu (note: some identify him as King Wei of Chu) sent two high officials ahead to find Zhuangzi and say to him: We wish to entrust you with affairs throughout Chu and ask you to come out and head the state.

Zhuangzi still held his fishing rod and did not turn his head. He said: I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for three thousand years. The king wrapped it in cloth, placed it in a bamboo case, and enshrined it in the ancestral hall. For that turtle, is it better to die and leave its bones to be honored and displayed, or to live and wag its tail in the mud?

The two officials said: Of course it is better to live and wag its tail in the mud.

Zhuangzi said: Go back! I will wag my tail in the mud.

Brief Background

“Wrapped in cloth and stored in the hall of the ancestral temple”: wrapped in cloth, placed in a bamboo case, and offered in the ancestral temple—meaning the highest honor. “Dragging its tail in the mud”: dragging its tail in filthy mud—a metaphor for a free, unfettered life, unwilling to be bound by power and status. The whole passage uses the sacred turtle as a likeness of Zhuangzi himself: he refuses office and would rather live freely like a turtle in the mud than be “honored” like a dead turtle enshrined in the hall while losing his freedom.

Huizi served as prime minister of the state of Liang. Someone told Huizi, “Zhuangzi has come—he intends to take your place as prime minister.” Huizi was alarmed and searched the state for three days and three nights. Zhuangzi went to see him and said, “In the south there is a bird called the yuanchu—a kind of luan or phoenix—do you know it? The yuanchu sets out from the southern sea to fly to the northern sea. It will not roost except on the parasol tree, will not eat except bamboo seeds, and will not drink except from sweet springs. Once an owl had gotten hold of a rotten rat. As the yuanchu flew over, the owl looked up and gave a fierce ‘sha!’—afraid the bird would snatch its rotten rat. Do you now mean to ‘sha!’ at me with your post as prime minister of Liang?”

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling together on a bridge over the Hao River. (The Hao is a river in the Zhongli region of Huainan; there is a tomb of Zhuangzi there, and it was a place where Zhuangzi and Huizi had often wandered together. The bridge was a stone span between the two banks.)

Zhuangzi said, “See how the minnows dart about in the water—so at ease! That is the happiness of fish.”

Huizi said, “You are not a fish. How can you know that fish are happy?”

Zhuangzi said, “You are not me. How can you know that I do not know that fish are happy?”

Huizi said, “I am not you, so I cannot know you; but you are not a fish in the first place, so your not knowing the happiness of fish is perfectly consistent.” (Huizi’s point is that there is no real possibility of mutual understanding between people and fish.)

Zhuangzi said, “Let us return to where we started. When you asked, ‘How do you know that fish are happy?’ you had already granted that I know—otherwise why ask me? I know it right here, on this bridge over the Hao.” (Zhuangzi’s heart was joyful as he walked the bridge, so he inferred that the fish swimming below in the Hao were joyful too.)

Does the world truly hold supreme happiness? Is there a way to genuinely preserve life? What should one do, and live by? What should one flee, and where should one stay? Where should one go, what pursue, what reject?—Here Zhuangzi asks: perhaps there are principles of supreme joy and nurturing life, but people take and leave them differently.

What people value most are wealth, long life, and smooth fortune; what delights them are bodily ease, rich flavors, fine clothes, beautiful sights, and pleasant sounds. What they despise are poverty, low status, short life, and wretched illness. When they cannot obtain these, they grow greatly anxious and afraid—treating the body this way is in truth quite foolish.

The rich toil hard and amass wealth they never exhaust, yet their bodies are enslaved by external things—this is to be “outside” the physical form (Guo Xiang says: what truly settles the body lies in knowing when one has enough). The noble worry day and night how to keep their rank; spirit and body grow estranged (Guo Xiang says: those who stay close to themselves need only find joy within the body).

From birth people live alongside worry and fear; the long-lived worry for ages that they will not die—what bitterness is that? Treating the body this way likewise misses the right path.

The martyr’s “goodness” praised by the world—once fame is won, it still cannot truly sustain the body.

I cannot tell whether what is called “good” is truly good, or not good at all. Treat it as good, and sometimes you cannot even preserve yourself; treat it as not good, and sometimes it is enough to save others. Following loyal counsel when it is offered can indeed save people. Hence it is said: “When loyal remonstrance is not heeded, withdraw and do not contend.” (“Dunxun” means to hang back and retreat.) For this reason Wu Zixu was ruined because he pressed his case too hard; had he not contended, his name for loyalty would never have been established either—meaning that some contend for the reputation of “loyal remonstrance.” Good and not-good are in truth hard to fix with certainty.

Turn again to what the world does and what it calls joy: I do not know whether that “joy” is really joy or not joy at all. I see what people rejoice in—crowds chasing after it, hurrying and scurrying as if they had no choice. Everyone says it is joy; I neither feel it as joy nor feel it as not joy—I have not lived through it myself. Is there such a thing as true joy? I do not know. I take Wuwei (non-action) as true joy, while the world treats it as great suffering. Hence it is said: “The highest joy is joyless; the highest honor is honorless.”

This passage mainly explains that right and wrong in the world are in fact hard to settle once and for all; yet there is a way to put strife over right and wrong to rest—and that is Wuwei (non-action). The commentator Cheng Xuanying says: when you let go of calculating over right and wrong, right and wrong can each return to their proper place.

When Zhuangzi discusses “Ultimate Joy” (Zhì Lè) and nurturing life, he says: what can truly let you live well and find joy in existence is probably only Wuwei that you can rely on. In both of these realms, Wuwei is what comes closest to the root. So let us try to explain it with principle:

Heaven is clear through Wuwei; Earth is tranquil through Wuwei. Guo Xiang explains: clarity and tranquility are simply how they are in themselves—they are not obtained by deliberate “doing.” Thus when the two Wuwei of Heaven and Earth join, the myriad things change and come into being along with them. Some versions read “when the two polarities (liǎng yí) unite, the myriad things are born and transformed” (an old Jiangnan text has “the myriad things are all born and transformed”), with much the same meaning: from the formless to the formed, the myriad things grow in just this way.

Next it describes that primordial state: vast and indistinct, hazy—seemingly there, yet seemingly not; you cannot pin down where it actually comes from. Seek again for its source, and you still cannot get to the bottom of it. In that haze, even a fixed trace is out of the question. The myriad things are multitudinous and diverse, yet all naturally sprout from Wuwei. Hence it is said: Heaven and Earth are Wuwei, yet nothing under heaven is not accomplished through them. What about human beings, then? Who can truly achieve this Wuwei? Cheng Xuanying says: if a person can be Wuwei, they share the same norm as Heaven and Earth.

Brief glossary of terms: Wuwei is not lying flat and doing nothing, but not acting rashly or forcing outcomes—entrusting yourself to what is natural. Liangyi (Two Polarities) often means Heaven and Earth or the dual qi of Yin and Yang. Zhì Lè (Ultimate Joy) is a Zhuangzi chapter title, discussing what counts as the highest joy and how to nurture life. Cheng (Xuanying), Guo (Xiang), Yao (Sui), Xuan (Ying) are scholars who commented on the Zhuangzi through the ages.

When Zhuangzi’s wife died, Huizi went to offer condolences. He found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs sprawled apart, drumming on an earthenware tub and singing. Huizi said, “You lived with her, raised your children together, and she grew old and died. Not weeping would already be understandable—but drumming on a tub and singing? Isn’t that going too far?”

Zhuangzi said, “No, it is not like that. When she first died, how could I not have been sorrowful? But I looked into the matter: originally she had no life—not only no life; originally she had no bodily form—not only no form; originally she had no Qi (vital energy). In that blurred, indeterminate state where something seems to be and yet is not, change produced Qi; Qi changed and produced form; form changed and produced life. Now she has changed again and returned to having no life. This is like spring, summer, autumn, and winter succeeding one another in order. She is simply resting peacefully in the great house of heaven and earth. If I were to chase after her, weeping and wailing, that would show I do not understand heaven’s way—so I do not weep.”

Zhishi Shu and Huajie Shu (Li Yun says: zhishi means forgetting the bondage of the physical form, and huajie means forgetting the reckoning of cleverness—meaning these two had already understood the principle of hua, transformation) went to visit Mingbo Hill. Li Yun says: Mingbo Hill is the name of a hill, symbolizing depth and obscurity. It was an open expanse of Kunlun, and also a place where the Yellow Emperor rested and wandered.

Suddenly, a tumor grew on Huajie Shu’s left elbow, and inside the tumor there was a sound like willow branches brushing together (the commentary uses the character for “willow” as a pun on the character for “tumor”). His heart was alarmed and uneasy, and he felt deep aversion.

Zhishi Shu asked, “Do you loathe it?”

Huajie Shu said, “No. What is there for me to loathe? Life is something borrowed for a time; this borrowed life is nothing but dust and filth. Death and life are like day and night. Moreover, you and I together observe hua—transformation—and hua has also come upon me. What could I have to loathe?”

Zhuangzi traveled to the state of Chu and saw an empty skull, still holding its withered shape. He tapped beside it with his horsewhip and asked the skull: “Did you end up like this because you clung to life and went against what is fitting? Or because your state fell and you died under the axe? Or because you behaved badly and felt ashamed before your parents, wife, and children? Or because you froze and starved? Or because your years simply ran out and nature took its course?”

When he finished speaking, he used the skull as a pillow and lay down to sleep. In the middle of the night the skull appeared to him in a dream and said: “What you said sounds like the talk of a debater. Everything you mentioned is the burden of the living; once dead, none of it applies. Would you like to hear what death is like?”

Zhuangzi said, “Yes.”

The skull said: “In death there is no ruler above and no subject below, none of the toil of the four seasons—you simply take heaven and earth as your spring and autumn, at ease. Even the joy of a king facing south could not match it.”

Zhuangzi did not believe this and said: “I will ask the Director of Destiny to restore your form, give back your flesh and bone, return your parents, wife and children, neighbors and friends—would you want that?”

The skull deeply furrowed its brow and knit its face and said: “How could I abandon the joy of a king facing south and go back to accepting all those human labors?”

When Yan Hui was about to go to Qi, Confucius’s face showed worry. Zigong left his seat and asked, “Your disciple ventures to ask: Yan Hui is going east to Qi, yet you look troubled—why is that?”

Confucius said, “You ask well. Long ago Guanzi said something I fully agree with: ‘A small bag cannot hold a large thing; a short rope cannot reach the water in a deep well.’ (Note: Guanzi refers to Guan Zhong, the famous minister of Qi in the Spring and Autumn period; the image means that container and tool must match the task.) Such ideas mean that each person’s allotted span and each configuration of form and qi have their proper measure—they cannot be forced larger or smaller. I fear that when Yan Hui goes, he will expound to the Duke of Qi at length the ways of Yao, Shun, and the Yellow Emperor, and on top of that add the teachings associated with Suiren and Shennong. The duke will compare himself inwardly, find he cannot live up to them, and when he cannot, he will be perplexed; when perplexity reaches an extreme, a person may go to extremes and even bring upon himself death. (Cheng Xuanying’s comment: unable to resolve the knot, the mind stagnates in doubt; resenting that the other surpasses oneself, one may kill Yan Hui.)

Have you not heard? Once a sea bird alighted in the outskirts of Lu. The Duke of Lu received it as an honored guest in the ancestral temple, had the music of the Jiushao played, and entertained it with the tailao—the most solemn sacrifice of three animals. The bird’s eyes were dazzled, its heart filled with dread; it dared not eat a morsel of meat or drink a cup of wine, and died in three days. This was using the pomp humans habitually deploy to keep a bird—not keeping a bird according to the bird’s nature. If one truly kept a bird in the bird’s way, one would let it roost in deep forest, wander sandbars and marshes, float on rivers and lakes, give it suitable food, and let it perch where it would—that would be fitting.

(In the text, “Aiju” is the sea bird’s name; some say it is “Zaxian,” a creature in legend resembling the phoenix. Details such as the Duke of Lu’s welcome and the banquet in the temple appear in sources like the Guoyu, with some divergence from Zhuangzi’s borrowing of the story for his argument; Zhuangzi’s main point is to criticize “measuring others by oneself.”)

Once a sea bird flew to the outskirts of Lu. The Duke of Lu welcomed it into the Grand Temple, treated it to the tai lao sacrifice, had the Jiushao music played, and set out a tai lao feast. The bird grew dizzy and dim-eyed, dared not eat, and died within three days. This was using the way one nurtures people to nurture a bird—not the way one nurtures birds. To nurture a bird, you should let it roost in deep mountains and old forests, drift on rivers and lakes, eat fish and insects, fly and settle with the flock, and stretch at ease like a serpent.

It simply hates the noise of human clamor—why startle it with all that uproar? If the Xianchi and Jiushao were performed with full pomp in the open wilds by Dongting Lake, birds would fly off at the sound, beasts would run away, and fish would dive to the bottom; only when people hear it suddenly do they crowd in to watch—for humans alone delight in bustle and listening to music. Fish live in water; people who enter water drown. Natures differ, and so do preferences. Therefore the sages of antiquity did not force everyone’s abilities into one mold, nor compel all to do the same kind of work (Cheng Xuanying: the sage follows each thing’s nature, lets each person be like a distinct vessel—without homogenizing their capacities, each matching their own disposition, without making their tasks identical). Names should rest on what is real (names arise from reality; names call forth what they name—one does not hunt for names beyond the facts). Rites and norms should be laid down where they fit (set according to what is suitable, merely adapting to nature). Reasoning of this sort is what is meant by clear principles in every clause and virtue and blessing held in one’s own keeping.