《庄子集解》Vol. 8

Guo Xiang’s commentary says: “Cen means the bank or shore.” The two men from Qi and Chu acted in just this way, yet never thought themselves at fault. These five gentlemen now each hold fast to their own view and take themselves to be right—how is that different from those two?

Cheng Xuanying says: The word read as li here is the same as li in the sense of clinging to or leaning on something.

Note: In the middle of the night, with no one else about, to quarrel with the boatman before the boat has reached shore may well cost one’s life; and conduct such as lodging somewhere yet reproaching the gatekeeper is enough to breed resentment and hatred.

When Zhuangzi went to attend a funeral and passed by Huizi’s tomb, he turned to those following him and said: “Long ago there was a man of Ying who had a thin smear of white lime on the tip of his nose—no thicker than a fly’s wing. He asked a craftsman named Shi to slice it off with an axe. Master Shi swung the axe in a gust of wind; the two were so attuned that the man could trust him completely—it was not that he shut his eyes and let him hack at random, but that they relied on each other and the stroke was uncannily sure. One blow removed every trace of lime, yet the nose was not touched in the least; the man of Ying stood there, his composure unchanged.”

When Duke Yuan of Song heard of this, he summoned Master Shi and said, “Try doing that for me once.” Master Shi replied, “Your servant could indeed perform this art in the past, but my ‘partner’ (zhi—the one who worked with me and with whom mutual trust was complete) has long since died.”

“Since Master Huizi passed away, I have had no one with whom to display that kind of perfect rapport, and no one with whom I could freely debate and truly meet mind to mind.”

(Note: In transmission, the received text here and the commentary’s quotation of what follows are often mixed together; the following interprets only the lines that can be clearly read as “Guan Zhong was ill, and Duke Huan inquired about it.”) Guan Zhong lay ill; Duke Huan of Qi went to see him and asked, “Is Father Zhong’s illness very grave?” (In the Liezi account of “Li Ming,” the wording is “ji yi”—both mean the sickness is severe.)

When Guan Zhong was gravely ill, Duke Huan of Qi came to see him and said: “Zhongfu’s illness is very serious; we can no longer keep this from you. If it reaches the end, whom should I entrust the state to?”

Guan Zhong asked: “Who do you have in mind?”

The duke said: “Bao Shuya.”

Guan Zhong said: “That will not do. Bao Shuya is upright and noble in character, but he will not deal with anyone he sees as less pure than himself; if someone errs even slightly, he hears it once and never forgets, always bringing up old scores. Put him in charge of the state and he will easily oppose and constrain his ruler above, and clash with the people below—it will not be long before he offends you.”

The duke asked: “Then who is fit?”

Guan Zhong said: “If you truly must appoint someone, Xie Peng will do. Toward those stronger than himself he can lower his pride and not contend; toward those weaker he neither keeps his distance nor abandons them. Though he does not measure up to the Yellow Emperor, he sympathizes with those beneath him and therefore does not cast anyone aside. To share the realm with others by virtue—that is what sages do; to share goods with others by wealth—that is what the worthy do. Using reputation for worth to press down on people wins no hearts; using worth to stand below others and honor them—there is no heart that is not won. In governing the state he does not fuss over every minor detail; in running a household he does not watch every small thing to death. If you must have someone, Xie Peng will serve.”

Note (for reading the main text): The original includes textual variants (e.g., Liezi, “Force and Fate,” has “the illness is severe,” “we can no longer conceal it,” and similar) and commentarial glosses (e.g., reading “gou” as “ju,” meaning to resist or go against the ruler; “forgetting above yet not rebelling below” means not being arrogant toward superiors yet not betraying inferiors). The vernacular above focuses on Guan Zhong’s point that Bao Shuya should not be used and Xie Peng should; philological detail is omitted.

The King of Wu went boating on the river and climbed Monkey Mountain. When the troop of monkeys saw him, they all fled in fright, abandoning their places and hiding in dense thorny thickets. The commentary explains that “xunran” means fear and “shenzhen” means thorny thickets; it also cites the saying “One need not be harshly exacting in everything; if unavoidable, then Xi Peng (a grandee of Qi) may be employed,” a point that is not the same matter as the Monkey Mountain story. But one monkey was calm and self-possessed, leaping and scratching, showing off its cleverness before the King of Wu. The King of Wu shot at it, and it nimbly batted and caught the arrows. The commentary states that “mingei” describes the monkey as quick and nimble, able to catch arrows, and that “jie” (“quick”) is interchangeable with “jie” (“to catch”). The King of Wu then ordered his attendant hunters to step forward quickly and shoot in unison, and the monkey was captured and killed. The commentary says that “xiangzhe” refers to those assisting the King of Wu in hunting, and “zhisi” means being captured and killed. The King of Wu turned to his friend Yan Buyi and spoke about this monkey.

The monkey trusted in its cleverness and quickness, acted haughty toward me, and was killed in the end. Take warning! Do not parade your clever face and smug manner to look down on others.

Yan Bu Yi returned home and made Dong Wu his teacher. Dong Wu helped him “plow away” the arrogant cast of his face—that is, to strip off the pride that came from his looks and bearing. Yan Bu Yi stopped chasing music and pleasure and turned down honors and high rank. Three years later, people throughout the state spoke well of him.

Nanbo Zique (that is, Nanbo Zique—“Bo” and “Guo” sound alike, and people in antiquity often treated them as interchangeable) leaned against his armrest and sat in concealment, sighing toward heaven. Yanchengzi came in to see him and said, “Master, you are truly outstanding among living kinds. Your body may indeed resemble a withered corpse, and your mind may indeed be like dead ashes—is that so?” (In Discourse on Making Things Equal (Qiwu Lun) the text has “withered tree”; in Gengsang Chu it has “branch of a withered tree”; in Knowledge Rambling in the North (Zhibei You) it has “withered bones”—all pointing to withered branches, withered remains, and the like; the sense is much the same, with only slight wording differences.)

Nanbo Zique said, “I once lived in a mountain cave. At that time, as soon as Tian He (one view identifies him with Duke He of Qi) caught sight of me, the people of Qi congratulated me three times. A note says: the ruler of Qi valued virtue, so the countrymen rejoiced. In truth, I had made a name for myself first, and only then did they come to know me; I had “sold” myself first, and only then did they come to “buy” me. If I had not laid claim to that reputation, fame would still have had its own source—how could they have known me? If I had not “sold” myself, how could they have come to “buy” me? Alas! I pity those who throw away their own authenticity; I also pity those who pity others—for that too is throwing oneself away; and I pity those who pity the “pitiers of others”—likewise throwing oneself away. Chasing the matter layer by layer like this, one drifts farther from authenticity day by day.” (Xuan Ying’s comment: when people’s hearts all race outward, descriptions like withered tree and dead ashes appear.)

When Confucius went to Chu, the king of Chu held a banquet in his honor. Sun Shuao stood by holding the wine vessel, and Shiniu Yilia took the wine, first performed the ancient libation to the spirits, then offered a blessing: “Ancient ones spoke such words on occasions just like this.”

The commentary notes that according to the Zuozhuan, Sun Shuao was minister to King Zhuang of Chu, when Confucius had not yet been born; by the sixteenth year of Duke Ai of Lu, after Confucius died, Duke Bai rebelled, and Yilia was not serving in Chu at that time. Also per Zuozhuan, Duke Xuan year twelve, there was a man of Chu named Xiongxiang Yilia, contemporary with Sun Shuao and far from Confucius’s era. Clearly Zhuangzi here borrows figures as allegory, not strict historical realism.

Cheng Xuanying says: in antiquity one always offered wine to the spirits before drinking; Yilia poured wine on the ground in libation, hence he was praying to the sage.

Xuan Ying says: at a banquet gathering is exactly when one invites someone to clarify the Great Dao; presumably Sun Shuao and Yilia were prompting Confucius to speak.

Confucius said: “I have heard of ‘wordless speech,’ yet never truly spoken it; today I will speak of it here.” Meaning: he had never before treated “wordless speech” as something to put into words; only now does he speak of it in this place.

Shiniu Yilia juggled pellets so that the peril between two houses was resolved. Sima Biao notes: Yilia was a Chu warrior skilled at juggling; when Duke Bai was about to rebel and kill Zixi, Ziqi and Shi Qi said: “In Shiniu there is Xiong Yilia; if we get his help, it equals five hundred men.” They sent to invite him; Yilia refused; someone put a sword before him—he still did not move, kept juggling as before, and said: “I will not reveal your plan either.” Later Duke Bai indeed killed Zixi. The houses of Ziqi and Shi Qi could only sigh; Yilia was not caught up in that disaster.

Editorial note: here the character read bian (dispute/explain) appears in some versions as bian (change/transform)—referring to textual variants, not quoted in Chinese here.

The label “hard to explain” is not quite right; it may also reflect discrepancies among different textual traditions.

When Sun Shu’ao slept peacefully while holding the feathered ritual banners, the people of Ying, capital of Chu, laid down their weapons. Sima Biao’s commentary says: Shu’ao rested calmly in the ancestral hall, cultivating virtue within, yet could repel enemies a thousand li away—foes dared not attack, and the people of Ying cast aside their spears with no campaign to wage. Ying was the capital of Chu. Lu Deming’s exegesis notes that “feather” refers to the plumes dancers held during drought rituals (yu sacrifice). The Huainanzi, “Main Principles,” has a parallel: “In antiquity Sun Shu’ao slept peacefully and the people of Ying had no use for the points of their blades”—closely aligned in meaning. (Wang Niansun’s Reading Magazine argues the character “harm” [hai] should read “use” [yong].)

(Confucius said:) “I wish I had a mouth three chi long—that organ of speech would be enough.” The text cites Confucius here. What is called “the Way that is not spoken as Way” refers to figures like Yi Liao (those who accomplished things without speaking); Shu’ao dispelled armed conflict without wasting words—an approach that does not take speech as its path. This is “argument without words.” Thus virtue resolves into unity with the Dao: however one practices virtue, the aim is always unity with the Dao. Speech, meanwhile, stops where wisdom cannot reach—that is the limit, and the passage above speaks of the bounds of wisdom and knowing. Each keeping its proper place is the utmost.

The realm where the Dao is one is not a place everyone who “has virtue” can enter together (Guo Xiang: not all who manifest virtue arrive at this level). What wisdom cannot fathom is also not something eloquence can fully articulate (Guo Xiang: not all skilled debaters can demonstrate it). To brandish the names of Confucianism and Mohism is “ominous virtue” (Guo Xiang: advertising oneself by labels is ominous virtue).

Therefore the great sea does not reject the waters flowing east—that is true greatness. The sage embraces heaven and earth, his grace reaching all under heaven, yet does not pose as patriarch of any single school. Hence in life no rank (Guo Xiang: having as if not having), in death no posthumous title (Cheng Xuanying: in life his merit extended to the ten thousand things, so in death nothing need be added by a title), solid benefit not hoarded (Guo Xiang: letting each thing find its own sufficiency), fame not erected—this is called the “Great Person.”

A dog is not a good dog because it barks well; a person is not worthy because they speak well—how much more so for being “great” (Guo Xiang: “greatness” cannot be pursued and seized)! To treat “great” as sufficient is already insufficient for true greatness—how much more so for De (Guo Xiang: only what is natural counts as De)! Nothing is more fully complete than heaven and earth; what do heaven and earth seek? They are complete in themselves from the start. One who knows “great completeness” seeks nothing, loses nothing, abandons nothing, and does not exchange oneself for things (Guo Xiang: the self is more precious than things). Turn inquiry inward and you are not exhausted; follow nature and you are not spent. To act in accord with antiquity without ornament—that is the Great Person’s cheng, sincerity or truthfulness.

Note on the phrase “this is what is called wordless disputation”

“Wordless disputation” means that the point becomes clear without arguing in words; one does not exhaust or nail the reasoning down in language—when you follow the principle as it goes, there is naturally no trouble of “running out” or hitting a limit. “Following the ancient without embellishment” means walking in accord with the Great Dao handed down from antiquity, without needing further polish or ornament. “The sincerity of the great person” means the great person’s heart is utterly real, without falsity.

Note: This entry is supplied according to the collected commentary edition of Zhuangzi jijie.

Ziqi had eight sons. He lined them up before him and summoned Jiufang Yan—a practitioner of the ancient arts of reading faces and bodies to tell fortune and misfortune—and said, “Look these children over for me: which one shows an auspicious sign?”

Jiufang Yan said, “The boy named Kun shows an auspicious sign.”

Ziqi was suddenly delighted and asked, “How so?”

Jiufang Yan said, “This child Kun will in the future share a table with a feudal lord and enjoy that standing all his life.”

Ziqi’s face turned gloomy and tears streamed down one after another. “Sudran” here describes tears falling in an unbroken flow.

Someone asked the Master: “Why have you fallen into such an extreme state?”

Out of sympathy, Jiu Fang Yi said: “To dine at the same table as the ruler is a favor that can extend to three generations of kin—how much more so to one’s parents! Now the Master hears that his son has such great good fortune yet weeps. That is rejecting fortune (‘yu’ here means to refuse or turn away). The son will be auspicious; the father, on the contrary, will not be.”

Zi Qi said: “Yi, how can you see through this matter? Calling good fortune ‘bundled fortune’ is really no more than the aroma of wine and meat entering the nose and flavor entering the mouth—say all you will, it comes to just that. How do you know where fortune comes from? The path by which it arrives is always through squeezing the common people. I have never kept sheep, yet a ewe appears in the ao (the southwest corner; in the Erya, zang refers to a ewe; ao is the southwest recess, associated with the wei position). I have never loved hunting, yet quail appear in the yao (some say the northeast corner, some the southeast). If you do not find that strange, why is that?”

(According to commentators: whence the ewe? From tending flock; whence the quail? From field hunting. Though you neither tended nor hunted, they appear from nowhere. It may not be as direct as a ruler taking from the people, yet there must be a source; that you never found it odd or never asked why—why is that?)

“I wander with my son by wandering in the space between Heaven and Earth—that is, roaming in free and easy wandering. With him I seek joy from Heaven and food from Earth (‘yao’ here has the same sense as ‘jiao’ in the Gengsang Chu chapter, where the text reads ‘jiao’). I do not join him in scheming over worldly affairs, do not join him in offering counsel, and do not join him in those bizarre contrivances (much the same as in the Gengsang Chu chapter). He and I ride upon the genuineness that Heaven and Earth inherently possess, and do not let external things crash and jostle one another…”

This passage explains how one should apply the mind in cultivating the Way, and presents several stories from Zhuangzi together with commentators’ explanations.

The Principle of Cultivating the Way

One should nurture sincerity within the breast and use it to accord with the natural dispositions of Heaven and Earth, rather than clash or resist them. This aligns with what was said earlier. I join in turning and flowing with things, yet do not deliberately pick out “what ought to be done and what ought not”; I simply accord throughout, without having to choose only “fitting” actions before acting. All of this describes the inner reality your son ought to have in cultivating the Way. Yet now there is a worldly “requital,” which is strange: your son was never one to crave worldly wine and meat, yet he clearly receives worldly requital of that sort—truly an anomaly. Whenever an anomalous sign appears, there is usually anomalous conduct behind it. The commentator Cheng Xuanying says: in worldly eyes this may sometimes look ordinary. But how dangerous! This requital ought not to fall on us father and son—your son was no worldly devotee of wine and meat, yet he gets worldly food-and-drink requital; it is too strange. Strange signs imply strange actions. Cheng Xuanying adds: now there is no strange conduct, yet there are strange signs; perhaps the fault is not entirely ours—it is almost as if Heaven intends harm to our house, which is why I weep. Before long your son was sent to the state of Yan; bandits robbed him on the road. Selling the whole body was hard to dispose of; cutting off a part made it easier to sell, so they chopped him up and sold him in Qi, right in the market street before the gate of Lord Qu’s residence—he became a gatekeeper and lived out his life on meat until he died. The commentary says Lord Qu was probably a Qi fief lord; as a doorkeeper in the street by the ruler’s gate he “ate at the ruler’s table,” hence the phrase about sharing food with the lord.

Nie Que and Xu You

Nie Que met Xu You and asked: where are you going? Xu You said: to get away from Yao. Nie Que asked again: why? Xu You said: Yao’s kind of “xuxuran” benevolent De—the commentator Wang Xianqian glosses this as a look of cherishing, caring, and busy toil—I fear he will become a laughingstock to all under Heaven.

When Nie Que met Xu You, he asked, “Where are you going?” Xu You replied, “To get away from Yao.” Nie Que asked, “Why?” Xu You said, “Yao puts on the air of a diligent, people-loving benevolent ruler—I fear he will become the laughingstock of the world, and later ages may even sink to men eating men.” (Note: one reading is that people chase only the reputation of benevolence and righteousness, neglect farming, and in extreme hunger turn on one another.)

He also said: gathering people is not hard—if you show them affection, they draw near; if you give them gain, they come; if you praise them, they are willing to work; if you do what they loathe, they scatter. Such “love” and “profit” usually fly the banner of benevolence and righteousness; few truly give up the empty fame of benevolence and righteousness, while many use them to seek profit. Once benevolence and righteousness are enforced under Heaven, sincerity is often lacking, and means borrowed from greedy birds fighting over food are used as well (luring the masses with “profit,” like catching birds with snares). To expect one person, acting on his own judgment, to “benefit all under Heaven” is as impossible as trying to take in the whole world with a single sidelong glance of one eye.

Yao knew only that the worthy benefit the world, not that the worthy can also harm it; only someone who does not treat “worthiness” as a big deal and does not keep it on his mind truly understands this.

People of the Nuan-shu type learn only a handful of phrases from one teacher, then bask in smug satisfaction, thinking they already know enough—without realizing they have never touched the root of things. That is what is meant by Nuan-shu.

People of the Ru-xu type are like lice on a pig. They cling to the long, sparse bristles and take that for a grand palace; they nest in the hidden folds at the teats and hocks and take that for a safe, comfortable home—never imagining that one morning the butcher will roll up his sleeves, spread straw, and fire up the cauldron, so that they burn up along with the pig. Such people advance and retreat only within a tiny compass; their coming and going are boxed in by their narrow world. That is Ru-xu.

People of the Juan-lou type—take Shun as the example. Mutton does not “seek” ants; ants seek mutton, because sheep carry a rank smell. Shun had a comparable “rank conduct” (deeds or style that draw others to him), so the people loved him. Three times he moved, and wherever he went a great settlement formed; in the empty lands around Deng there were a hundred thousand households.

Plain-Language Commentary

When Yao heard that Shun was virtuous, he put Shun in charge of a patch of “child’s soil.” Commentators explain: child’s soil is thin ground where nothing grows; some also say the idea was that Shun, once placed there, would spread kindness and transform the region. Shun was assigned to this barren land when he was already old, his sharpness was fading, and he still could not step down to rest and retire in peace—this is what is meant by “juanlou”: someone who toils a whole lifetime yet never gets to settle down.

Therefore the divine person (the transcendent who rises above the mundane world) dislikes having crowds gather around. Such a person does not want many people to cling to them. When too many people cluster together, genuine closeness is impossible; without that closeness, neither they nor others benefit. Commentators say: if you do not mingle intimately with the crowd, others will not think they can gain something by flocking to you. So such a person is neither especially close to anyone nor especially distant—only holding to virtue, nurturing harmonious qi, and moving with the world. That is what is called a True Person.

On “discard knowledge in the case of ants, take the lesson from fish, discard intention in the case of sheep,” Guo’s commentary runs roughly as follows: ants swarm on rank smell because there is profit to be had—that is their “knowledge”; the rank smell on sheep is something people can greedily pursue—that is “intention.” Ants are really without knowledge yet appear to have it; sheep are really without intention yet appear to have it—both should be set aside. Fish in the great rivers and lakes forget each other; people in the Way forget each other—why still chase rank smells and profit? Hence “take the lesson from fish”: to take mutual forgetting as the right strategy.

Again: let the eyes see only what eyes should see, without chasing outward things; let the ears hear only what ears should hear, without seeking beyond the environment; let the mind turn back to the mind itself, without outward cleverness. When you can do this, the inner mind is straight as if measured by a plumb line (correcting things without deliberate effort); when change comes, you can shift with it and not cling. You move with transformation without getting stuck. Such a person is a True Person.

Ancient perfected persons (zhenren) settled themselves by the Way of Heaven (tiandao). Chengxuan Ying explains that they applied the natural Way so the inner mind stayed empty and still and could follow along with outer things. He also says that in the phrase yi tian dai zhi (“to meet things with Heaven”), the word zhi should be read as ren (“person”) for the line to make sense. True persons do not use human cleverness to disturb or replace inborn nature and inborn wisdom. Yao Nai adds that bringing up “the true persons of old” again here is further praise of them.

On gain and loss, life and death: gaining “it” counts as life, losing “it” as death—yet sometimes what looks like gain is really death, and what looks like loss is really life. If what you gain is the natural Way and your whole authentic self, that is real life; if you lose what is natural, that is death. If you treat outer honor, profit, and empty fame as “gain,” on the Way that is death; if you can drop that outer glory, in spirit that is life.

As for drugs: aconite (wu tou, also written jin), its fruit; plus balloonflower (jie geng), “chicken mound” (ji yong—Sima Biao: the same as chicken-head, also called foxnut, qian), and polypore (zhu ling—Sima Biao: shi ling). None of these has a rank that never changes. When season and illness fit, whichever serves as sovereign drug (jun) or minister drug (chen) depends on what the moment needs; they can take turns on top. Drugs do have sovereign-and-minister roles, but you cannot nail one herb forever as emperor and another forever as king—the shifts are more than anyone can list.

Gou Jian once led three thousand armored men back to Mount Kuaiji and nearly lost the state. Only Wen Zhong understood how a country on the edge of ruin could still keep a thread of life (Chengxuan Ying: skilled at statecraft). Only Wen Zhong saw where a person’s fate or a state’s fortune would tip toward ruin. That matches medicine: different times, different hinges of survival—you cannot hold to one method and expect it to work everywhere.

King Goujian once led three thousand armored soldiers and withdrew to defend Mount Kuaiji. Only Wen Zhong understood that “when a state is on the verge of ruin, how can it still be preserved”—meaning he was skilled at planning how to govern the country. Yet Wen Zhong did not understand “how a person brings disaster upon himself,” that is, he did not know how to preserve his own life. So it is said: the owl’s eyes are suited to one kind of use (good at night, not at day); the crane’s legs are just the right length—if you forcibly shorten them you harm it, if you forcibly lengthen them you make it suffer. Wind blowing across the river causes the water to lose something; the sun shining on the river also causes the water to lose something. Yet if wind and sun were to stay over the river every day, the river would seem never disturbed, never diminished—why? Because the river has a source, flows without ceasing, and departs relying on that support.

Therefore water stays firm by holding to the land, a shadow stays firm by following a person, things stay firm by keeping to their kind—each type keeps to its own category, meaning each stops at its proper place and does not lightly change.

Thus eyes that insist on seeing ever more clearly come to peril, ears that insist on hearing ever more acutely come to peril, and a heart that insist on grasping outward things and utility also comes to peril—ability used to excess is exhausted. Whatever “talents” are stored in the viscera, using them likewise leads toward peril. Once peril has formed, there is no time left to repent. Misfortune piled up over long years gathers mostly on people, and likewise there is no time to turn back. Returning to one’s natural state often takes effort; truly turning back to the root also takes a long time. Yet people treat eyes, ears, heart, and viscera as their treasures and exhaust them with all their might, without realizing they are wearing themselves down day by day—is that not pitiful?

Hence the ruin of states and the killing of people continue generation after generation without end; people do not know enough to ask after the root cause, all because of the principles above—they have not seriously examined why this is so. (Note: in one reading, “this” refers to the origin or root.)

This passage explains Zhuangzi’s treatment of knowing and not-knowing, and several kinds of great wisdom.

Foot and ground

When the foot walks on the ground, we call it treading—yet what allows one to go far and stand firm is also what has not been stepped on: the earth is not only the small patch under the sole. The commentary notes that jian and nian both mean to tread or to walk upon; bo suggests breadth—extending far.

Knowing and not-knowing

What people take themselves to know is often very little. Precisely because it is little, one must rely on what is still not known before one can grasp what the Way of Heaven and nature truly are. Here the stress is that not-knowing, in Zhuangzi’s sense, is often genuine knowing.

Seven kinds of “great”

The text then lists several “great” attainments, with brief glosses from traditional commentators:

• Knowing the Great One (da yi): the Great One is Heaven, the whole; penetrating the ten thousand things, hence “throughgoing.”
• Knowing the Great Yin (da yin): Great Yin is Earth; able to dissolve entanglement and disorder.
• Knowing the Great Eye (da mu): seeing with the “great eye” means seeing the whole and the large pattern.
• Knowing the Great Equalization (da jun): jun carries the sense of following and according with; following each thing’s nature so each finds its place is Great Equalization.
• Knowing the Great Square (da fang): each keeps its allotment, each receives its share; when the myriad directions each attain, that is the Great Square.
• Knowing the Great Trust (da xin): ji suggests reaching and following; entrusting to principle and letting things be so each returns to what is real is Great Trust.
• Knowing the Great Fixity (da ding): when what is genuine is not disordered, fixity arises of itself; holding fast with Great Fixity.

Commentators say: only one who can know these has true knowing; everything else is secondary. This state is “ultimate.”

One may understand “all is fully endowed with Heaven” this way: the “seven greats” above—every major root principle—none of them arises outside what is so of itself (ziran). Again, “in following, there is illumination”: when you align with what is so of itself, wisdom naturally brightens and sees; you need not force it.

“In the dark and hidden, there is a pivot”: in depth and obscurity, you need not talk on and on about Heaven or about the Center; a kind of hub mechanism is already turning there. At the very beginning of the Great Beginning, the thread of “that” side was already present; within the Great Beginning, the boundary between “that” and “self” had already appeared.

Thus one is released—as if release were not release (Guo Xiang: release that accomplishes nothing, hence it seems like no release). One knows—as if knowing were not knowing (Cheng Xuanying: one can forget one’s knowing, hence it seems like not knowing). First there is not-knowing; only then does genuine knowing arise.

Ask about the Dao: you cannot fix a dead boundary, yet you cannot have no boundary at all—the Dao inherently has its proper place and direction. Things tangle and slip past one another (xiehua), yet each has its own reality (Guo: each thing has its own real principle). Past and present each keep their place; they cannot replace one another (Guo: each has its own reason; they cannot substitute for each other), nor can they fall short of their allotted share (Guo: each should fully fulfill its portion). In this sense, can we not say that the subtle principle is being displayed and discussed according to what is real? (Cheng: the Dao is vast—does this not mean displaying the subtle principle and weighing it against reality?)

“Ge” (same as “he,” why): why not push these ideas further—why still wander in confusion and act recklessly? (Xuan: ge is the same as he.)

For the sentence “you bi ze,” the old interpretation holds: “tian xun” means recognizing the mystery within constant wu (non-being); “zhao ming” means perceiving its boundaries within constant you (being). Since tian xun is substance, there is “shu shi” (the pivotal origin); since zhao ming is function, there is “bi ze” (a norm established by following external things). This means that one establishes norms by following the other, and there is no fixed, unchanging norm. This is not something possessed only by a particular person; everyone has it, but few can understand it. Moreover, it cannot be sought by intellectual comprehension alone; therefore, although asking is difficult, one cannot refrain from asking. This principle is true and not false. Why not ask and thereby avoid lifelong confusion? Here all these explanations are adopted together. To use one’s own “bu huo” (freedom from confusion) to remove others’ doubts and cause them to return to “bu huo”—only this can be called the highest level of “da bu huo”; that is, to use my freedom from confusion to resolve others’ confusion and make them return to freedom from confusion—only this counts as great freedom from confusion.

In Collected Explanations of Zhuangzi, juan 7, “Miscellaneous Chapters: Zeyang,” chapter 25: Zeyang (surname Peng, given name Yang, courtesy name Zeyang, a native of Lu) traveled to Chu. Yi Jie (surname Yi, given name Jie, a minister of Chu) recommended him to the king of Chu, but the king did not grant him an audience, so Yi Jie returned. The old commentary says that the king here refers to King Wen of Chu. Peng Yang went to see Wang Guo (a worthy man of Chu) and said, “Why, sir, do you not speak of me to the king of Chu and recommend me?” The old commentary says that “tan” means to speak of and recommend. Wang Guo said, “I am not as good as Gong Yuexiu (a recluse).” Peng Yang asked, “What does Gong Yuexiu do?” Wang Guo replied, “In winter he goes into the river to spear soft-shelled turtles (spearing and taking them with a fork); in summer he rests at the edge of the mountains. When passersby ask him for instruction, he answers according to what is asked.”

“This is where I live.” Note: The Guangya says fan means “edge” or “margin”; Sima Biao takes it as living in seclusion on the shady side of a mountain to make a name for oneself; Guo Xiang holds that these words were meant to check Peng Yang’s urge to rise quickly.

Yijie could not even manage that—how much less could I! I am still less like Yijie; our ways of being human are not the same. Yijie had no De (Virtue) yet possessed cleverness; though clever in the same way, he did not claim it for himself—he used cleverness to lend a numinous quality to his dealings, not mood or affection to puff himself up, and relied on recommendation alone to spiritualize the art of making connections. He did indeed turn things upside down in the thick of wealth and rank—not helping with De, but helping with xiao (dissipation); not helping through virtue, but helping by wearing virtue away. Someone frozen stiff who reaches spring is no different from borrowing clothes from spring; someone scorched by heat who catches a cool breeze is no different from being thrown back into winter.

The King of Chu—noble in bearing, stern in authority, punishing without mercy, savage as a tiger. Unless the adroit man (who wins by eloquence) and the man of upright virtue (who subdues through the utmost Dao) were there, who could make him yield? Note: Wang Bi says the adroit man prevails through debate, upright virtue breaks him through the supreme Dao; otherwise he cannot be bent.

So the sage—the “upright virtue” above and the “sage” here both mean Gong Yuexiu. In want he lets his household forget poverty; in success he lets kings and lords forget titles and stipends and become humble. Note: Guo Xiang says they lose what made them high. Toward outer things he shares their joy; toward others he rejoices in connecting with things while keeping himself intact. Note: Cheng Xuanying says he mingles in the human world without getting stuck; though he moves with things, he does not lose the self. Hence sometimes without speaking he lets people drink harmony within; Note: Guo Xiang says each person’s own satisfaction is that harmony—why wait for words? Standing beside others, he transforms them. Note: Guo Xiang says they look to his influence and bend like grass in the wind. Father and son each find their proper place; they (as in the Odes, “that man of theirs”) return to settled living; Note: “return to dwelling” is settled living. The Book of Changes says, “The father is a father, the son a son, and the way of the family is correct; correcting the family and all under Heaven is settled”—that is the idea. And once he is at leisure about what he does—having withdrawn and not going out, what he does toward things becomes easy and unforced. Note: xian here is read as leisure. Toward the human heart he keeps clarity and distance. So it is said: wait for Gong Yuexiu after all. Note: Guo Xiang says the hope is that (the King of Chu) will lay aside being King of Chu and follow Gong Yuexiu, using the breeze of stillness and peace to quiet his stirring mind.

Sages penetrate the tight weave of inner and outer life: from within to without they form one complete whole, without gaps. Their care for themselves is the same kind of wholeness. On many matters they do not clearly know “why it is so”; it is simply innate nature at work—not thinking everything through first and then acting, but nature expressing itself on its own. In movement and stillness alike they return to their natural mandate and take Heaven as teacher; ordinary people merely follow that natural mandate. “Acting” (zuo) means moving. Sometimes they seem to “know” what to do, yet that too is innate nature; there is no need to demand a clear reason for every single thing. Within movement there is sway and action; all of it returns to each person’s own innate mandate, taking one’s own Heaven as teacher—people simply go where mandate leads.

To be anxious merely because one “knows,” when the days one can actually act are often few—act and then stop at once, and what comes of that? Words and deeds ought not to come to rest.

Someone born beautiful: others take him as a mirror; when people tell him he is beautiful, it is as if they hold up a mirror to him; if no one speaks, he may not know that others see beauty in him. He seems to know, yet seems not to know; seems to hear, yet seems not to hear—yet the joy in this never stops, and people’s delight in him never stops; all of this is innate nature.

The above uses “beauty” as a likeness. Sages love people; others give them names such as “ utmost benevolence”; if no one speaks, they may not know they are loving others. They seem to know, yet seem not to know; seem to hear, yet seem not to hear—yet their heart of loving others never stops, and others’ settling peace in them never stops; again, this is innate nature.

To act in accord with innate nature—what is precious is that it never ceases.

Zhuangzi says that when you return to a familiar old homeland and catch sight of it from afar, the heart opens up and feels at ease. Some commentators use “native place” as a metaphor for a person’s original heart-mind: just as no matter how long you are away, the sight of home feels intimate, so too when one can return to one’s natural state, one feels that same release.

The text goes on to speak of hills and scrub obscuring the path in a dim, tangled way (the character mín is read either as vegetation interwoven and merged, or as murkiness so that one cannot see clearly; the phrase “dāng wǒ mín hu” in the “In the World” chapter carries the same sense). Even if nine-tenths of the way is hidden in hills and grass, someone who enters may still feel at ease; how much more secure in heart, then, when it is scenery and events one has seen with one’s own eyes and heard with one’s own ears—needless to say. It is also like a terrace ten rèn high, suspended right before everyone’s eyes and ears: all can see it and all can hear it; that kind of ease—clear at a glance, plain at a hearing—is even easier to imagine.

Another passage discusses Ran Xiangshi, an ancient sage in the historical records. In a Guo Xiang–style reading, he upheld the “center of the circle” (huán zhōng): the mind rests in empty clarity, does not cling to one fixed standpoint, transforms with things, and affairs complete themselves. Yu Yue notes that this account draws on the Ran Xiangshi material in the “Record of Lu” section “Suí Fēi” in the ancient history Lù Shǐ. The gist is: there is no need to force all things into fixed standards; to keep to centered emptiness and let things fulfill themselves in accord with their nature is to “obtain the center of the circle and follow completion.”

Ranxiang (a legendary ruler of antiquity) grasped the huanzhong—the center of the ring, a metaphor for the still, impartial pivot within—and followed things until they took shape on their own, without forcing or contriving. Yu Yue notes that the Lushi (Records of the Way), in the Xunfei annals, preserves an account of Ranxiang. Guo Xiang explains that by dwelling in empty clarity and yielding to the myriad things, the myriad things complete themselves of their own accord. The Collected Commentaries adds that the Discussion on Making All Things Equal states, “The pivot lies in attaining the huanzhong, so as to respond to the boundless,” which aligns with this meaning.

In mingling with things, there is no past (no beginning), no future (no end), and no fixed “present” moment (no “now,” no fixed time). Cheng Xuanying says: no beginning means no past; no end means no future; no “now” and no fixed time means no slice called “the present.” The Collected Commentaries further notes that the character ri (day) should be read with the preceding line, yielding wu shi ri—“no time or day.”

One who transforms and nurtures things together with them is, in essence, someone who is not transformed by them. Guo Xiang says: by transforming together with things, one is constantly without self; because one is constantly without self, one is constantly not altered by external things. The Collected Commentaries adds that this same idea appears again in Knowledge Wandered North.

“He—how could he ever leave it!”—walking with transformation, how could there be a single moment of separation?

If one tries to take Heaven (nature) as teacher yet in the end cannot become one who takes Heaven as teacher, and instead perishes together with things, what can such a person accomplish in facing affairs?

If one seeks to emulate Heaven’s spontaneity but ultimately fails, until one is lost together with things, what can one achieve by responding to events in this way?

In the sage’s mind there is no fixed clinging to “Heaven,” no fixed clinging to “human,” no fixed clinging to a “beginning,” and no fixed clinging to any “thing.” Xuan Ying says: the mind is without intention to this degree.

He walks with the world yet is neither replaced nor cast aside; what he carries through is complete and never corrupted. Wang Xianqian glosses xu as ruin or corruption. The Collected Commentaries adds: to advance with things without being discarded or superseded, and to bring every course to completion without corruption, is precisely what is meant by Wuwei (non-action) through which nothing is left undone.

What is it to accord with the Dao? It is to accord with the Dao without deliberate mind—and what is that?

The two occurrences of “what then?” (ruo zhi he) are meant to send the reader back to self-examination and choice.

This passage unpacks discussions in the Zhuangzi about Tang of Shang finding a teacher, governing, and treating things as equal (qí wù), and it cites various commentators and editorial notes.

Tang of Shang and his teacher

The text says that in managing affairs Tang could “forget things,” obtain good ministers as a teacher, and himself sit upright with hands folded without overstepping his role. In Guo Xiang’s commentary, sī yù and mén yǐn are taken as official titles; Xiang Zhu takes Dēng Héng as a personal name. The commentator doubts, on the sense of the passage, whether sī yù mén yǐn might be two offices and whether a character may be missing below yù, which would explain Guo’s reading that affairs are entrusted to the hundred officials while the ruler does not handle them personally. There is also more than one teacher, which is why the text goes on to say “following teachers without being confined”—learning from teachers yet not boxed in by any single teacher’s formulation; that fits the idea of huán zhōng suí chéng, responding from the “hub of the circle” and completing each thing as it arises without clinging to one corner.

“Doing for them the naming of the name”: Cheng Xuanying explains this as attributing merit to the supervisor (sī yù) and not keeping fame for oneself. “Yíng fa obtains its twofold showing”: with a yíng (easy, unattached) mind and no striving for credit, jiàn means to show forth; the editorial note says one need not fix on one set of “master’s methods”; ruler and minister each keep their place and each have their achievement shown—this is what is meant by “making the lord appear.”

“Zhongni’s exhaustion of deliberation—doing for them the mentoring”: Guo Xiang cites Confucius’s “What is there for All-under-Heaven to think or worry about? Worrying is already exhausted,” meaning deliberation can stop here; Xuan Ying says one should take Zhongni (Confucius) as teacher to transform All-under-Heaven.

The words of Lord Rong

Lord Rong (traditionally the figure who fixed the calendar in the time of the Yellow Emperor) said, “Remove days and there is no year.” Guo Xiang: the reason we now have “years” and still divide “days” is because there is a distinction between life and death; if there were no life and death, there would be no need to count by years and days. Gao You’s commentary on the Huainanzi, Běnjīng xùn, likewise treats Lord Rong as the calendar-maker in the Yellow Emperor’s era.

He also said, “No inside, no outside.” Cheng Xuanying: inside means self, outside means things; because people reckon life and death, they split inside and outside; if the burden of years and days were all dismissed, what would remain to fuss over between self and things? Yao Nai glosses it: “remove days, no year” is amassing the small into the large; “no inside, no outside” is amassing the subtle into the manifest—and he says this was an ancient maxim.

King Hui of Wei (Wei Ying) said helplessly, “What else can I do!”

Yao (an adviser who spoke up) said, “Drop the character for ‘day’ and there is no ‘year’—small amounts must accumulate before they become large; without inner there is no outer—tiny gains must pile up before they show plainly. That is a saying handed down from antiquity.”

King Hui of Wei had once made an appointment with King Wei of Qi (Tian Hou Mou); King Wei of Qi broke the agreement. King Hui of Wei was furious and wanted to send someone to assassinate him. Gong Sun Yan (at the time serving Wei as Xishou, a post comparable to a later “tiger-fang” general) heard of this and felt ashamed, saying, “You are a ruler of ten thousand chariots, yet you would take revenge like a common man!” He asked to lead two hundred thousand armored troops to attack Qi for his lord, capture the people, and drive off cattle and horses, so that the ruler of Qi would worry himself sick, feel a burning in his back, and then see Qi overturned. He also said he would drive Tian Ji away, then whip the Qi ruler’s back and break his spine.

Ji Zi (a Wei minister) heard of this too and felt ashamed, saying, “When you build a rampart ten ren high and it has already reached ten ren, then tear it down—that is the hardest labor for those who toil. War has not stopped for seven years now; that is Your Majesty’s foundation. Gong Sun Yan is one who stirs up turmoil under Heaven; you must not listen to him.”

Hua Zi (also a Wei minister) heard of it and found it ugly, saying, “Those who talk big about attacking Qi are stirrers of turmoil; those who talk big about not attacking Qi are also stirrers of turmoil; and those who say ‘whether you attack or not, both stir turmoil’ are still stirrers of turmoil.”

When Huizi heard this, he found the remark distasteful. He said: “Those who say Qi ought to be invaded are troublemakers; those who say Qi ought not to be invaded are also troublemakers; and those who say that both sorts of people are troublemakers are troublemakers yet again.” Cheng Xuanying commented that here Huizi was really describing himself. Xuan Ying added that he still could not keep his mind from getting entangled in worldly affairs.

King Hui of Wei asked, “Then what should be done?” Huizi replied, “Your Majesty need only seek the Dao.” Xuan Ying glossed this by saying that the Dao shares one body with the Great Void; even royal achievement is hardly worth speaking of, to say nothing of giving vent to anger and raising armies.

When Huizi heard this exchange, he presented Dai Jinren to the king. Dai Jinren said, “There is a creature called a snail—does Your Majesty know it?” The commentaries note the pronunciation of wo (as in gua), describe it as a small creature with two horns commonly known as the snail, and cite the San Cang lexicon, which calls it the ‘little ox spiral’ and gives it the folk name ‘yellow calf.’ The king said, “I know it.”

Dai Jinren went on: “On the snail’s left horn there is a state called Chushi, and on the right horn a state called Manshi. They constantly fight over territory, leaving tens of thousands dead on the field; the pursuit of a defeated army can go on for fifteen days before the soldiers return.” The king said, “Alas! That must be empty talk, mustn’t it?”

Dai Jinren replied, “Allow me to speak solid truth to Your Majesty. Do you suppose that whatever your mind can reach—above, below, and on all four sides—has a limit?” Su Yu notes that here zai means “to examine” or “to discern.” The king said, “It has no limit.”

Vernacular Interpretation

The guest said “wuji” (the boundless). King Wei asked: If the mind roams in the realm of the boundless yet returns to this open, visible world, is that like both seeming to be and seeming not to be? Guo Xiang’s commentary: What human footsteps can reach is called “tongda” (permeable access)—here, the four seas as they are today. Cheng Xuanying’s commentary: From the angle of large and small, you could say it is as if there is something and as if there is not. The king said, “Yes.”

The guest asked again: In this open realm there is the state of Wei; in Wei there is Daliang (Cheng’s note: Wei was first east of the River, took the name Wei, and was forced by Qin to move its capital to Daliang); in Daliang there is King Wei. Is there any difference between King Wei and the Man people of the frontier? The king said, “None.”

After the guest left, King Wei felt empty and adrift, as though something had been taken from him. The gloss: “chang” means that dazed, unsettled feeling. The line above already says the guest went out; repeating “the guest went out” here is mostly a copyist’s slip. The king said to Huizi, “That visitor was no small figure—even the virtue of sages Yao and Shun would not stand comparison with him.” Cheng Xuanying: The man of Jin spoke on a vast scale; even Yao and Shun could not measure up.

Huizi said, “Blow a bamboo pipe and you still get the ho-ho of real music; blow only the little hole in a sword guard and all you hear is a faint xue-xue, like wind passing through.” Yao and Shun are what people praise—but praising Yao and Shun in front of someone from the state of Dai is like that single xue: nothing at all.

Confucius was on his way to the state of Chu and stopped to lodge at the home of a man who sold fermented drink at the foot of Yiqiu (Ant Mound) Hill. Next door lived a household whose master and mistress, together with their servants and concubines, had climbed onto the roof ridge to look out. Zilu asked, “Why is such a crowd gathered over there?”

Confucius said, “Those are the attendants of a sage.” (In antiquity, people of lofty virtue were also called sages, so here Confucius is referring to Shinan Yiliao as a sage.) In other words, most of those assembled were Shinan Yiliao’s servants. This man blended in among ordinary people and concealed himself along the field paths; he spoke little, yet his aspiration reached far—it was fixed on the Dao. What came from his mouth was not necessarily what his heart truly meant; his mind often rested in still silence. He kept at odds with the common world and inwardly disdained going along with its ways. This is what is called “lu chen” (submerged on dry land): like sinking of one’s own accord where there is no water—hiding within the dusty world without showing oneself. Could that be Shinan Yiliao?”

Zilu was about to go and summon him. Confucius said, “Leave it. If he knows that Kongzi’s name has already reached his ears, and that Kongzi is heading for Chu, he will suspect that the king of Chu intends to send Kongzi to fetch him—and he will take Kongzi for a slick-tongued flatterer who curries favor. A man like Shinan Yiliao would feel ashamed even to hear such a person speak, let alone meet him face to face. He surely will not receive us. What would be the point of going?”

Zilu went to look; the house was already empty.

The gatekeeper of Chang Wu asked Zilao (Qin Lao, a disciple of Confucius): “When you govern, do not be careless and rough; when you instruct the people, do not be perfunctory or slipshod.”

Sima Biao explains: “Lu mang” means plowing shallowly and sowing sparsely; “mie lie” means cutting grass off casually without proper care. Lu Wenchao adds that in antiquity the characters for “rough” and “lu” were often paired, as in the Chunqiu fanlu line “beginning in the coarse, ending in the subtle”—there is no need to replace this with “careless and rough.”

The gatekeeper went on: “In the past when I farmed, I plowed carelessly and sowed at random, and the harvest repaid me in the same careless, random way; I weeded perfunctorily and mowed half-heartedly, and the harvest repaid me just as perfunctorily. The next year I changed my ways: I made the fields neat, plowed deep, and hoed the soil carefully—the grain grew lush, and I had enough to eat all year.”

When Zhuangzi heard this, he commented: “People today who tend the body and order the inner life are mostly like what the gatekeeper described: they turn away from what Heaven bestows, lose their native endowment, suppress genuine feeling, and scatter spirit; they take the crowd—the outer world, public opinion—as their standard and chase after everything. So those who treat their nature carelessly find desire and aversion sprouting like a tangle of harm, like wild reeds and rushes that wound the upright in them. At first it still seems the body can hold up; little by little it pulls up and twists the nature until it breaks apart and leaks out everywhere, with no chosen outlet. Afflictions such as carbuncles, scabies, and the white froth in the urine of those wasted by inner heat—illness born of inner heat—are precisely what comes of baiting the heart and uprooting the native endowment.”

Bo Ju (a person of the Way) sought instruction from Laozi (i.e., Laozi) and said, “Please let me travel with you to every part of the realm.” Laozi replied, “Never mind—everywhere under heaven is the same.” Bo Ju asked again, and Laozi said, “Where do you plan to begin?” He answered, “With Qi.”

When they reached Qi, he saw someone who had suffered guzhe (an ancient extreme penalty: after execution the corpse was hung up for public display; in Han times this was renamed “abandonment in the market”). He straightened and leveled the corpse, took off his court robes and covered the body with them, then looked up to heaven and wailed: “You, oh you! The realm has great calamity, yet you were the first to bear this punishment!” Here “great calamity” means dying by execution.

(The text then uses rhetorical questions to drive the point home:) Who is not taught the rule “Do not steal, do not kill”?—the implication being that people are clearly instructed not to steal or kill, yet still end up punished for theft and murder.

Once honor and disgrace are set up as standards, everyone can see what counts as fault and shame; once goods and wealth are amassed and displayed, everyone sees what people fight over. The gist of Guo Xiang’s commentary is: if everyone were self-sufficient, there would be no honor or disgrace to speak of; when gain and loss tangle together, honor and disgrace appear; once they appear, people boast of what they call “honor” and stand on tiptoe to outdo one another, rushing between boasting and rivalry—is that not itself a kind of sickness? If wealth meant having enough, why would there be strife? Yet now what people fear and suffer from (honor and disgrace, poverty and wealth, low and high status) is erected as the standard, and what people fight over (goods, rank) is piled in one place, exhausting body and spirit without rest—and still they do not see this step or live up to it. How could they? When those above have fixed preferences, those below cannot stay content with their lot.

Those who governed the realm in antiquity credited merit and benefit to the common people and took blame and loss upon themselves;

Taking uprightness as belonging to the people, and crookedness as belonging to oneself

Guo Xiang notes: When those in high office have their preferences, those below find it hard to stay in their proper place.

The rulers of old

Rulers of antiquity counted benefit and gain for the people and loss and fault for themselves; they placed uprightness and what is right on their own shoulders and kept wrong and distortion for themselves. (Cheng Xuanying: citing one’s faults and blaming oneself.)

Therefore, when a single person lost his proper form, the ruler withdrew and blamed himself

“One form” means a person. If even one person lost his constant nature and fell short of his proper role, the ruler would step back and take the blame. (Cheng: when one thing is out of place, its form and nature are harmed; self-blame like King Tang of Shang cutting his hair and going a thousand li to pray for rain.)

Now it is not so

Today the pattern is reversed:

• Hiding things and then calling others ignorant for not recognizing them: concealing what something is, then treating people as “foolish” for not knowing it.
• Creating great difficulty and then punishing those who dare not act: deliberately making tasks impossible, then penalizing those who “dare not” undertake them.
• Imposing heavy burdens and then punishing those who cannot bear them (Lu Deming cites): loading tasks beyond strength, then punishing the “incapable.”
• Setting the road impossibly far and then executing those who do not arrive (Lu): making the journey too long, then punishing those who “fail to come.”

When the people know their strength is spent, they follow with pretense

When commoners know their strength is exhausted, they can only answer with hypocrisy. (Guo: to escape punishment.)

Each day brings more pretense from above—how can scholars and commoners not pretend in turn? (Lu: what those above do, those below imitate.)

When strength falls short, there is pretense; when wisdom falls short, there is deceit; when wealth falls short, there is theft

Not enough strength leads to show; not enough wit leads to fraud; not enough means leads to stealing.

The practice of theft and plunder—upon whom can blame rightly fall?

(Guo: upon those in high office.)

Qu Boyu at sixty years had sixty transformations

Qu Boyu lived to sixty, and in those sixty years he changed every year. (Lu: not clinging to the old.)

Never did a year begin with “this is right” only to end by folding back and calling it wrong

In no year did he fail to start by thinking “this is how it should be,” only to turn by the end and judge “that was wrong.” (Cheng: within a single year right and wrong shift again and again; hence beginning with “this” and ending by bending back to “not that.”)

He did not know whether what he calls “right” today might not be one of the “wrongs” of the past fifty-nine years

He could not be sure that what today he took as “right” was not actually one of the “wrongs” from fifty-nine years of change.

(This passage aligns with the passage about Confucius in the “Fables” (Yuyan) chapter of the Zhuangzi.)

This passage comes from commentary associated with the Zhuangzi, recounting an anecdote about Duke Ling of Wei (the ruler of Wei) and later commentators’ reflections on it.

Cheng Xuanying’s explanation: When Duke Ling saw Shiyu (a worthy minister of Wei), he felt deeply ashamed and ill at ease. He pretended to send someone with gifts and silk to “catch” something, and had others support wings—a fable-like turn of phrase—to show consolation and send Shiyu on his way. He could treat Shiyu with such arrogance, yet show such deference when meeting other worthy men; that is precisely why he was called “Duke Ling.” Under the rules for posthumous titles, ling carries the sense of a subtle, penetrating quality in one’s moral character.

Xi Wei (traditionally taken as an ancient sage) said: After Duke Ling died, they first divined for a burial site at the old tomb—inauspicious; they divined again at Sand Mound and that was auspicious. When they dug several zhang deep, they found a stone outer coffin; after cleaning it, an inscription appeared, roughly meaning: do not count on descendants to guard the tomb—Duke Ling seized this place and buried himself here. Li here means to settle and be interred. Guo Songtao explained: in antiquity people buried the dead hoping descendants would stay nearby and tend the mound; Duke Ling himself “seized” this ground for his burial—showing that his lot as “Duke Ling” was fixed long before; how could those two men (the diviners or diggers) see through it?

Su Yu said: Xi Wei’s way of pulling together ideas of “what is fixed beforehand,” fate, and the divine belongs to a line of argument often cited in later talk about destiny and the roots of numinous order.

In plain terms: In the story, Duke Ling is outwardly rude to Shiyu while inwardly ashamed, yet ceremoniously respectful toward other worthies; after his death, the choice of burial ground and the inscription on the stone coffin suggest that he did not rely on descendants but took the grave site for himself. The commentators use this to show that his posthumous title Ling, his eccentric life, and the sense that things were “already decided” are not things ordinary judgment can fully explain.

Shaozhi asked Great Datiao for instruction: “What is meant by ‘words of the hill hamlet’?” Li Yi explained that four wells make one yi, four yi make one qiu; five households make one lin, and five lin make one li.

Great Datiao said: “The qiu-li is where people of many surnames and many names are brought together and a shared custom takes shape. Differences are merged into a single whole”—Li Yi said this means combining hundreds into a qiu-li; “and that single whole is spread back out into many differences”—Li Yi said this means dispersing the qiu-li back into tens and hundreds. It is like pointing at each part of a horse and never getting ‘horse’; only when the horse is hitched by the head and the hundred parts are held together as one is it called a horse. Li Yi added: one sees that only by merging difference into unity can the Dao be seen, and most patterns under Heaven work this way. Thus hills and mountains become lofty peaks by heaping up from low places, and streams gather to become great waters (Yu Yue held that “small” was probably a scribal error for “water”; high and low, small and large, are spoken of in relation to each other). The great person joins the multitude into one, and then impartiality and selflessness arise—Guo Xiang said that when there is no private favoritism toward all under Heaven, the temper of the world becomes one. What comes in from outside therefore has a presiding master yet does not cling obstinately—Xuan Ying said the heart is the great root of all under Heaven, so what enters from without keeps a master without partial fixation; what goes out from within attains the correct pattern so that things cannot refuse it—Xuan Ying said conduct is the thoroughfare of all under Heaven, so what issues from within attains the correct pattern and outer things cannot block it. Note: the reading “zheng” or “pi” is discussed in the commentary on the Tianyun (Heaven’s Revolutions) chapter. The qi of the four seasons differs in each season, yet Heaven does not grant favors with partiality, and so the year completes; the five officials’ duties differ, yet the ruler does not appoint with partiality, and so the state is well governed—Guo Xiang said each office has its own capacity, hence one assigns the post—it is not a private gift from the ruler. Civil and military capacity the great person does not “bestow,” and so virtue and talent are complete—Guo Xiang said the civil-minded are civil by nature, the martial are martial by nature; it is not that the great person grants this. If ability depended on being granted, gaps would appear. This is not limited to civil and martial roles; it holds for every kind of nature.

Commentary: In Xuan Yi’s edition, two extra characters appear below the character for “Wu” (martial prowess). The original text seems incomplete, but Guo Xiang’s recension no longer has them; Lu Deming’s Shiwen and Cheng Xuanying’s Commentary agree—likely a later interpolation. Each thing has its own distinct principle; the Dao does not favor one kind over another, so those two characters should not be there.

Main text: The Dao pervades and unifies the myriad things; it cannot be pinned down by a fixed name, hence it is called “nameless.” Because it is nameless, one speaks of wuwei (non-action); because the myriad things each operate according to their own nature, one speaks of “wuwei yet nothing left undone.” Cheng Xuanying says: Names should match what is real, hence wuwei; what is real is each thing completing its own affair, hence “nothing left undone.”

The movement of the times has beginning and end; the way of the world rises and falls; fortune and misfortune weave together and pull on one another—sometimes what seems against one’s wish is exactly what the situation calls for. Wang Xianqian says: Chunchun describes something flowing and coming and going without rest. Cheng Xuanying says: Fortune and misfortune form one whole, each leaning on the other; within disappointment there often hides a benefit.

Each person clings to a private view and heads in a different direction. Cheng Xuanying says: Xun means to chase after; mian means to face toward. When people dispute over right and wrong and hold stubbornly to their views, each pursues their own opinion and what they “face toward” differs. Forcing a single standard from outside is called “correcting,” but in fact both sides are already off. Guo Songtao says: Using different inclinations to press them into line is named correcting, but in reality both sides miss the mark.

It is like a great marsh: all kinds of timber drifts down with the current and is measured and put to use at the water’s edge—nothing is waste. Bi means analogy or comparison. Or take a great mountain: wood and stone share one foundation—they both arise from the mountain’s base. Cheng Xuanying says: Tan means foundation or base. This is what is meant by “words from the hillock and the lane” (qiu li zhi yan)—truth seen from one small rise or one neighborhood.

Shaozhi asked: “Then, is it enough to call it ‘the Dao’?”

Dagong Diao replied: “No. The count of the myriad things today is more than ten thousand, yet by custom we lump them all under the name ‘myriad things.’ Cheng Xuanying says: Qi here means to delimit or use as a collective name. Li Yun says: Du means to speak of or call something—one simply uses the name of whatever category is numerically largest as the cover term.”

Plain-Language Explanation

Therefore, Heaven and Earth are the greatest within form; Yin-Yang are the greatest within Qi; and the Dao is what Heaven and Earth and Yin-Yang jointly rely upon. Xuan Ying said: The Dao is the shared root of Heaven and Earth and Yin-Yang—it cannot be called simply “form,” nor simply “Qi”; it is greater than form and Qi, and there is nothing else on the same level to set beside it. Because it is so vast, people use the single word “Dao” to name it and to speak of it—and that is acceptable. Xuan Ying also said: It is like when things are too many to count, so we roughly use one label for convenience in speech. The Dao is vaster still and cannot be pointed to; we only borrow the character “Dao” as a rough name—how could there be some concrete thing that truly deserves to be called “the Dao”? Once the name “Dao” exists, it can no longer be compared on equal terms with what has no name. Xuan Ying said: Once there is the name “Dao,” it cannot be placed on the same level as “the nameless” for comparison. If one argued that way, it would be as if “Dao” were like the names “dog” and “horse”—merely labels for a kind of thing—and that would stray very far from the original meaning of the Dao. Xuan Ying said: If, like Shaozhi (Little Knowledge), one said “call it the Dao,” that would make the Dao like “the name dog” for dogs and “the name horse” for horses—pointing at a particular thing—and that would be very far from the Dao.

Shaozhi asked: “Within the four directions and in the midst of the six directions, where do the ten thousand things come from, and by what are they sustained?” Xuan Ying said: If you doubt that it cannot be called “Dao,” then by what root do the ten thousand things exist?

Taigong Diao replied: “Yin-Yang mutually illumine one another, mutually constrain one another, and mutually ‘harm’ one another (or govern one another). Yu Yue said: ‘Gai’ should be read as ‘hai’ (harm). According to the Shiyan: ‘Gai means to cut apart.’ The Shiwen notes: ‘In She’s version, gai was written as hai.’ Thus gai and hai were interchangeable in antiquity. Yin-Yang sometimes harm one another and sometimes govern one another, just as the text below says that the four seasons mutually generate and mutually slay. The four seasons turn in succession, mutually generate and mutually slay; attraction and aversion, going and staying—all of these take shape within that process.”

Source note

This passage comes from Zhuangzi, “In the World,” where Grand Master Diao (Taigong Diao) speaks on the limits of knowledge and words. The text includes commentary by the Tang scholar Cheng Xuanying (style name “Xuanying”); passages marked Xuanyun are his.

Plain-language reading

The Shiji, “Biographies of Mencius, Xunzi, and Others,” Suoyin notes that Jiezi was the name of an ancient author.

Grand Master Diao said: Cockcrow and a dog’s bark—anyone can perceive them. Even someone of great wisdom is the same as ordinary people in this respect—one cannot use words to exhaust the wonder of how each sound “just is as it transforms on its own” (Cheng Xuanying: if you trace every cockcrow and every bark back to natural spontaneity, even the cleverest person cannot explain that self-transformation); nor can one use the mind to guess what they will do next (nor can one infer their next move from thought alone).

“Si” means “to split apart, to analyze” (The Book of Odes has “the axe splits with it”). If you analyze the matter down to the finest grain—so fine that nothing can compare, so vast that nothing can be measured around it (“jing” means minute; “lun” means category or order). Cheng Xuanying says: if even the trivial crow and bark of fowl and dog cannot be explained as to why they are so, then for the small that has no inside and the large that has no outside, how could one proclaim it in speech or fathom it in thought?

“Perhaps something makes it so” (huo zhi shi) and “nothing does it” (mo zhi wei)—if you cling to either formula, you still cannot escape being pulled by outer things; in the end it is still the fault of setting up doctrines in words. Cheng Xuanying says: both views still stay caught in the burden of things; in the end speech has gone too far.

“Perhaps something makes it so” leans toward the real; Cheng Xuanying says: this gets stuck in deliberate action (youwei). “Nothing does it” leans toward the empty; Cheng Xuanying says: this falls into groundless emptiness (total void).

Having name and having reality is a footing in things; Cheng Xuanying says: to speak of “reality” is to portray the Dao as something things occupy—that is the error of the “perhaps something makes it so” line. Having no name and no reality is a footing outside things in emptiness; Cheng Xuanying says: to speak of “emptiness” is utter void—that is the error of the “nothing does it” line.

People think they can clarify it by speech and measure it by thought, not knowing that the moment you speak, you only move farther from the Dao (“yan er yu shu”: the more you say, the more scattered and distant from the true source).

What has not yet been born cannot be prevented from coming to be by taboos and prohibitions—before a thing has taken shape, you cannot use the methods of “avoidance and interdiction” to strangle it in the womb of the not-yet-born. What has already died cannot be kept from dying by blocking and hindrance—once a person is dead, no amount of obstruction or resistance can make them live again. (Note: in some versions the character for “block” is written differently from “go” or “depart.”)

Birth and death are not far away; they are right before our eyes; yet the principle behind birth and death is hard to see clearly—life and death are present to us, but their rationale is difficult to grasp.

“Perhaps something makes it so” (huo zhi shi) and “No one does it” (mo zhi wei)—these two ways of speaking are often the hooks on which later people hang their doubts and disputes.

If you look from the root upward, pushing into the past, there is no end; if you chase from the tip downward, seeking into the future, there is no stopping point. (The gist of Cheng Xuanying and similar commentators: to exhaust the beginning, the past is already endless—you cannot say where it starts; to exhaust the end, the future still has no limit—you cannot say where it stops.) “Endless” and “without stop” speak to the limits of language; this is of a piece with the way things themselves are—because reality is inherently inexhaustible, what can be said is also inexhaustible; only then can speech align with the same order as things.

“Perhaps something makes it so” and “No one does it” are two root explanations habitually used in discourse; people often run with them from start to finish; yet in doing so they still remain stuck on “things”, lodged in the concrete.

The Dao cannot be fixed as “being,” and “being” cannot be fixed as “non-being”—the utmost Dao is never cut off; it is neither purely existent nor purely empty; therefore clinging to being or clinging to non-being is wrong in both cases.

The name “Dao” is borrowed to mean the path by which all things proceed—things travel by it, hence it is provisionally called the Dao.

“Perhaps something makes it so” and “No one does it”, at the level of things, each grasps only one side; why use such partial accounts to argue about the “great square”—the great Dao, the total pattern?

If speech is “sufficient” (able to go beyond words and meaning to grasp the point), one could speak all day and still exhaust the Dao; if speech is not “sufficient” (unable to forget words yet preserve meaning), one could speak all day and only exhaust things, while the Dao would still not be spoken through.

When Dao and things are pushed to the extreme, neither speech nor silence can fully bear the load—at the limit of Dao and things, language and silence alike cannot wholly carry it.

Since it is not purely a matter of speech, nor purely a matter of silence, to ask whether it has an ultimate, you must enter that neither-speech-nor-silence level and apprehend it there.

Supreme Discourse (as explained by Xuanyun)

Xuanyun says: Only when one has left behind both speech and silence can one seek the Dao—this is the supreme judgment. When things reach their utmost limit, neither speech nor silence suffices to bear them; when one exhausts the utmost of the Dao and of things, neither speech nor silence can bear them. Being neither speech nor silence, to discuss it is to have a definite direction (one reading: “discussion has its limit”).

External Things Cannot Be Relied Upon

Matters concerning external things cannot be fixed. Whatever comes from outside—benefit and harm within them cannot be fixed.

Thus Long Feng was killed, Bi Gan was disemboweled, and Jizi feigned madness—Xuanyun says: goodness does not necessarily preserve one. Mo Lai was killed, and Jie and Zhou perished—Xuanyun says: evil does not necessarily bring ruin upon oneself.

No ruler fails to want loyal ministers, yet loyalty is not necessarily believed: Wu Yuan was sewn in a leather bag and sunk in the river (he remonstrated with King Fuchai of Wu and was killed instead); Chang Hong was exiled to Shu, lamenting that his loyalty had met with slander—he died when his belly was cut open; the people of Shu were moved and kept his blood in a casket; after three years it turned into green jade (see Lüshi Chunqiu).

No parent fails to want a filial son, yet filial piety does not necessarily win affection: Xiao Ji died in grief and hardship (son of King Gaozong of Yin, victim of the stepmother’s intrigue); Zeng Shen was supremely filial, yet his parents disliked him and often beat him, nearly to death, so he wept in sorrow (one reading: when a father hates a son, he often cuts off food until the son revives).

Main Points

Zhuangzi uses this chain of historical examples to show that loyalty, filial piety, goodness, and evil have no fixed correspondence with fortune and misfortune—“external things cannot be relied upon”; one must not cling to the idea that certain outcomes are guaranteed.

Plain-language commentary

Yu Yue notes that the Huainanzi, “Yuandao xun,” also has “when two pieces of wood rub together, they catch fire.” Yet wood rubbing wood does not always ignite; the next line speaks of “metal and fire,” so he suspects the first line should read “wood and fire” as well. Much of what follows is about fire, which supports reading it as “wood and fire”—both metal and wood are vulnerable to fire, and the example is meant to show how destructive fire can be.

When metal stays close to fire, it melts and runs.

When yin and yang go wrong in their courses, heaven and earth are thrown into great upheaval (the character read gai, like hai, means shock and disorder). Imbalance of yin and yang throws the cosmos into chaos.

Then come thunder and peals of lightning. Sima Biao explains “fire in water” as lightning: in a thunderstorm, bolts can set great trees ablaze.

Some things suffer extreme distress, squeezed from two sides with nowhere to flee.

Human beings have their own extreme distress: profit and harm.

Harm is harm, but profit can turn into harm too, so people often sit trapped between profit and harm with no escape.

Chen dun (timidity and shrinking)—Cheng Xuanying glosses the term this way—means that when one weighs external things too heavily, though one stays on guard all day, one still cannot bring anything to completion.

When the heart is xuan (suspended), as if hung between heaven and earth, feelings and thoughts race through the universe.

Moments of relief alternate with gloom (Li Yun takes the second mood as men, heaviness of spirit), with stagnation and stuckness.

Guo Xiang says that profit and harm rubbing together kindle much inner fire—the same as the fire that things stir up in the person—all of it “inner heat.”

The crowd burns away he (harmony): sunk in profit and harm, they scorch the great harmony within.

The mind’s native clarity is like the moon, yet it cannot master this “fire.”

Then comes tui (sudden collapse): people fail and the Way is spent—heaven’s norm is exhausted, life’s momentum stops, and the Dao runs out.

Zhuangzi’s household was very poor, so he went to borrow grain from the Supervisor of the River (a feudal lord in charge of river affairs). In Shuoyuan, this supervisor is sometimes identified as Marquis Wen of Wei.

The Supervisor said: “Very well. Once I’ve collected the rent from my fief, I’ll lend you three hundred jin of gold—is that acceptable?” (In antiquity, copper and iron were also called “gold”; here it means income from the fief, not necessarily bullion.)

Zhuangzi’s face fell at once. He said: “Yesterday on my way here I heard someone call me from the road. I looked back into a rut and saw a crucian carp. I asked it: ‘Crucian carp, what are you doing here?’ It answered: ‘I am a petty subject living under the waves of the Eastern Sea. Could you give me a dipper or a pint of water so I can live?’ I said: ‘Fine. I plan to go south to Wu and Yue and ask their rulers to lead the waters of the Western River to you—is that all right?’ (Western River refers to the river waters of the Shu region.) The carp’s face fell too: ‘I’ve lost my usual home and have nowhere to go. All I need is a dipper or a pint to survive, and you talk like that—you’d do better to look for me early in the dried-fish shop!’”

Lord Ren (Ren was a state name) rigged an enormous hook and thick black line, baited it with fifty jia (castrated stud oxen), squatted on Mount Kuaiji (in present-day Zhejiang), and cast into the Eastern Sea. He fished every day and caught nothing for a full year. Then a great fish took the bait, was caught on the huge hook, and was dragged down into the deep. (Note: jia means stud ox.)

(The two passages above are from the Zhuangzi: the first uses “the dried-fish shop” to satirize hollow promises; the second tells of Lord Ren fishing a great fish in the Eastern Sea—a metaphor for aiming high and waiting long before success.)

When Master Ren had caught that great fish, he cut it open and cured the flesh into jerky; from east of the Yellow River to north of Mount Cangwu, whoever tasted it was fully satisfied.

As the story spread, those of shallow talent who made a living by persuasion and self-promotion were all startled and afraid, and told one another about it.

As for those who carry a slender pole and fine line down to irrigation ditches and shallow brooks, waiting for loach and small crucian carp—to expect such people to land a great fish is very hard indeed. Likewise, to win high office and rich reward by clever words and little tales is far from the true Dao.

So whoever has never heard of a figure like Master Ren cannot be expected to use their methods to order the realm and benefit the people—the gap is enormous.

Some Confucian scholars plundered tombs while waving the banner of the Book of Poetry and the Book of Rites. As they dug into ancient graves, they used phrases from the classics to justify themselves. A senior scholar sent word down the chain of transmission: “In the east the sky has brightened—dawn has come; how far has the work progressed?” A junior scholar replied: they had not yet undone the skirt at the lower body, but the mouth already held a pearl. Lost verses in the old books had a similar drift: “Green wheat grows on the tomb slope. In life one would not give in charity—why hold a pearl in the mouth after death?”—a satire on living without kindness yet burying the dead with jade pearls in their mouths.

So they arranged the dead person’s temple hair, seized the beard, pressed a golden mallet against the chin, and slowly pried open both cheeks so the pearl in the mouth could be taken out without damaging the pearl.

Commentators such as Cheng Xuanying therefore said: Tian Heng used the name of benevolence and righteousness to usurp Qi; Confucian scholars recited the language of poetry and rites while opening tombs—from this one sees that the traces and models left by sages cannot be treated as excuses to rely on blindly. Su Yu said: without that rhetoric of poetry and rites, how would such wicked conduct arise? This is one-sided talk on Zhuangzi’s part, comparable to saying that Yao and Shun taught the people with benevolence and righteousness until the abuse went so far that people ate one another, and Tian Heng again used that to steal the state of Qi.

Laizi’s disciple went up the mountain to gather firewood. On the way he met Confucius, and when he returned he told his master: “Over there is a man whose upper body looks long and his lower body short” (Guo Xiang describes this as a figure “long above and short below”), “with a bent back and ears turned back” (Cheng Xuanying reads this as a hunched shoulder and back; Sima Biao as ears turned backward). “His gaze is far-reaching, as if he were surveying all under heaven and the four seas, yet I do not know whose son he is.”

Laizi said: “That is Kong Qiu—bring him here.”

When Confucius arrived, Laizi said: “Qiu, drop that stiff, self-important manner and that look on your face of parading your cleverness” (Cheng Xuanying: gongjin is a reserved, formal bearing; rongzhi is appearing very wise). “Only then can you count as a true gentleman.”

Confucius bowed and withdrew, his expression unsettled, and asked: “Can my learning and my path still advance?”

Laizi said: “You cannot bear to see one generation suffer, yet you use arrogance to bequeath trouble to ten thousand generations” (“ao” is the same as “ao,” haughtiness). “Are you narrow-minded and short-sighted by nature, or did you start with little inner substance, like someone in straits? Or is it simply that your scheming has not yet risen to this level?” (“wang qi” is read like “wu yi,” a rhetorical turn—much like our ‘could it be that…?’) “Taking the display of kindness and the winning of favor as your capital, you only feed pride—that is a lifelong disgrace. Those who reach this point are mostly ordinary people” (“zhong min” means mediocres; the phrase also appears in Zhuangzi, ‘Xu Wugui’). “You use reputation to draw one another in and private obligation to knit factions in secret” (Yu Yue glosses “yin” as ‘private,’ as in binding personal loyalties). “Rather than praising Yao while condemning Jie, you would do better to forget both good and evil and close the door on what can be praised or blamed” (the same idea appears in ‘Qiwulun,’ there as ‘fei qi dao’). “On this road, every turn harms someone; every move is already skewed.”

(Note: This passage belongs to the Zhuangzi-related anecdote tradition. Explanations in the collected commentaries—Guo Xiang, Cheng Xuanying, Lu Deming’s Shiwen, Xuan Ying, Yu Yue, Su Yu, and others—on wording and on lines such as “wang qi,” “zhong min,” and “xiang jie yi yin” are incorporated in the vernacular rendering above and are not listed separately.)

Plain-Language Commentary

Whatever goes against the inherent nature of things is bound to cause harm; whatever stirs and agitates the heart-mind is not the conduct of the Dao.

When the sage acts, he is unhurried and at ease—hence he often completes what he undertakes. Cheng Xuanying explains that chouchu (literally “hesitation” or “lingering steps”) here means congrong, composure: the sage has no stubborn private agenda; he responds to events as they come and moves with the situation. In handling affairs he never loses his calm or fights what things naturally are, so achievement tends to arise of itself. Su Yu adds that mei here is linked with min (quickness, keenness): by not forcing and not pressing, success actually arrives sooner.

(The original text also sighs:) Why must one go on shouldering all this, only to end up proud and self-satisfied?

(The line that follows is roughly this:) Alas, why must you keep carrying the whole apparatus of ren (benevolence) and yi (righteousness), only to finish by showing off and exalting yourself?

Duke Yuan of Song (Lord Zuo of Song) dreamed at midnight that a disheveled figure peered in from the e’men (the curved eaves at the corner of the roof) and said to him: “I come from the Zailu Abyss (the deep pool where the legendary divine turtle dwells). I was an envoy of the Qing River, on my way to He Bo (the god who governs rivers), when the fisherman Yu Qie (Yu Qie in Records of the Grand Historian, Treatise on Divination by Tortoise Shell) caught me in his net.”

When Duke Yuan woke, he had the dream interpreted and was told it was the divine turtle manifesting. He asked whether anyone among his attendants was named Yu Qie the fisherman; told there was, he summoned Yu Qie to court. The next day Yu Qie came, and the lord asked what he had caught. He answered: “I cast my net and caught a white turtle five feet long.” The lord ordered him to present the turtle. When it was brought, the lord wavered between killing it and keeping it alive, unable to decide. He divined again, and the oracle read: “Slaughter the turtle for divination—auspicious.” So they split the shell and performed seventy-two drill divinations; each time the signs held true, none failed.

Confucius remarked: The divine turtle could appear to Duke Yuan in a dream, yet could not escape Yu Qie’s net; it could endure seventy-two drillings without a single reading missed, yet could not escape the disaster of being gutted. Thus even “wisdom” has its limits, and even “spirit” has what it cannot reach. However great one’s wisdom, it cannot match the scheming of ten thousand people (the combined plots of the multitude—a theme close to Zhuangzi, “Mountain Tree”: “If you are worthy, they scheme against you; if you are unworthy, they deceive you”—the worthy are often plotted against).

Fish do not fear nets, yet fear pelicans (fish-eating water birds); in truth what harms fish more is the net, not the bird—people who rely only on petty cleverness are like fish that do not know to fear the net. Discard small cleverness, and great wisdom becomes clear: only by letting go of selfish, crafty “small knowing” does one align with the great wisdom that accords with things as they are. Discard deliberate small goodness, and true goodness arises of itself: without parading petty virtue, one naturally accords with the greater goodness of nature.

On the line about the “stone master”

The commentary notes that in some manuscripts the character for “stone” (shi) is written as the character for “shuo” (large, eminent). Shuo shi means a teacher of great learning. In the style of Cheng Xuanying’s explanation: a newborn has no famous teacher, yet can speak—because it spends all day among people who talk. That shows that without deliberately seeking zhi (knowing), people still have natural instincts.

Dialogue between Huizi and Zhuangzi

Huizi said to Zhuangzi, “You keep talking about ‘uselessness.’”

Zhuangzi said, “Only someone who understands ‘uselessness’ is fit to discuss ‘usefulness’ with you. Is the earth not vast enough? What a person actually uses is only the little patch where two feet stand. If you dug away all the ground beside the feet—every bit of the ‘extra’ earth—down to the Yellow Springs, would what had been ‘useful’ still count as useful?”

(Ce zu means turning the feet sideways; dian means to dig or excavate downward.)

Huizi said, “Then it would not count as useful.”

Zhuangzi said, “From this it is quite clear that ‘uselessness’ itself is also a kind of ‘use.’”

Zhuangzi also said, “People naturally know how to swim—can they therefore stop swimming? People naturally know how to settle themselves—can they therefore stop settling?”

Huizi said, “Useless.”

Zhuangzi said, “Then the ‘use’ that belongs to ‘uselessness’ is likewise plain.”

Zhuangzi says: If a person can roam freely, how could they fail to roam? If a person can be at ease with themselves, what situation could they not be at ease in? Conversely, if a person cannot roam freely, how can that count as truly roaming? If a person cannot be at ease with themselves, from where would self-contentment come?

One kind of aspiration is to drift far away and break decisively with the world—to live in hidden withdrawal like one who floats free and to cast off the dust of society entirely. Alas! That is probably not the path that “ utmost knowing” and “deep virtue” ought to take. True great wisdom and great virtue, one may suppose, would not limit themselves to only that.

There is another kind of person: knowing they may topple and fall, they still do not turn back; like fire racing forward, they rush on without regard for what lies ahead or behind—later ages called this “blazing speed” and “fiery haste.” Even when a fall is clearly in sight, they keep charging without looking back. These are people “ resolute in serving the world,” whose whole heart is set on getting things done in the world. (Note: Su Yu observes that “fire racing” also appears in the “Heaven and Earth” chapter.)

The roles of ruler and subject are likewise products of the times; when the age changes, neither side has grounds to look down on the other. In Zhuangzi’s view, these two types of people stand on the same level. Hence he says: the Ultimate Person (Zhi Ren) does not cling to one fixed way of acting here—the Ultimate Person has no such obstruction or stickiness.

Revering antiquity and belittling the present is a habit common among scholars. If one measured today by the standards of figures like Xuwei’s age, who could keep the heart from stirring? If one judged the present by the plain, ancient style of the remote past, who could keep the mind from wavering? (“Wavering” here means the heart moving, being unsettled.)

Only the Ultimate Person can wander in the world without becoming aloof, walk among people without shutting themselves in a small private realm—unlike “floating withdrawal and decisive abandonment of the world.” They can go along with others without losing their root—unlike “toppling without turning back, fire racing without looking back.” As for the doctrine of honoring the old and scorning the new, one need not swallow it whole; grasp its point and leave it at that—there is no need to argue superiority with those who preach it, and no need to lose oneself because of it.

The Senses and “Penetrating Clarity” (Che)

When the eyes penetrate fully, that is clarity (ming); when the ears penetrate fully, that is acuity (cong); when the nose penetrates fully, it can distinguish pungent from foul; when the mouth penetrates fully, it can taste sweetness; when the mind penetrates fully, that is knowing (zhi); and when knowing penetrates fully, that is De (Virtue/Power). Here, “che” means unobstructed flow and thorough penetration.

The Dao Dreads Blockage

The Dao is the open path everyone should walk, and what it dreads most is being blocked. Once blocked, things choke; when choking does not stop, people stamp and trample one another (pian), and every kind of harm arises.

Knowing and Breath (Xi)

Living beings with awareness rely on xi (breath) to thread Qi through the whole body. If one cannot stay centered and upright, that is not Heaven’s fault—Heaven’s endowed nature is never without harmony and balance. Heaven’s Dao pierces and passes through the ten thousand things without ceasing day or night; yet people constantly plug up their own openings and orifices.

The Belly and the Heart

The belly must have empty space within it so it can store and circulate fluids and breath; if the heart can achieve “Wandering in accord with Heaven” (tian you), even within a square inch it can roam freely—you need not seek vast forests and hills to feel at ease. When people today see open mountains and woods and rejoice, it is often because their hearts are usually cramped and their Shen (spirit) cannot sustain itself.

The Room and the Heart

When a dwelling has no spare room, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law will press and quarrel in tight conflict (boxing xi); when the heart has no heavenly wandering, the six openings will fight one another and seize against one’s true nature.

Summary

Commentators such as Cheng Xuanying stress: when the heart has heavenly wandering, one need not borrow outer scenery; when the heart lacks heavenly wandering, the six openings contend with one another, and even the finest hills are only a temporary substitute that one’s Shen cannot truly bear.

Plain-Language Commentary

Virtue and Reputation

Virtue often “overflows” into outward show precisely because there is a name (reputation) to uphold. Reputation, in turn, often “overflows” into spreading everywhere because people deliberately display it—or even use forceful, overbearing means to prop it up. In the “Rich State” (Fuguo) chapter of Xunzi, it is said that a reputation can grow so large that it “scorches people”—overwhelming them like fire; that is exactly this kind of relationship.

Strategy and Wisdom

A plan that can stand up to scrutiny often appears only when things have already become urgent (he, “urgent,” in the sense of pressing). Wisdom is often put on display only after people have already begun to contend with one another. In other words, urgency tests strategy; conflict brings out cleverness.

Steadfastness and Standing Alone Without Fear

Chai here suggests standing alone, upright and firm: only when there is first steadfast holding and inner commitment can one have the confidence to “stand alone without fear.” The “Perfected Life” (Dasheng) chapter says “standing like firewood in the center”—as a stick of wood stands in the middle—picturing a person steady and not toppling.

Official Duties and What the Many Can Accept

When offices are set up and tasks divided, a matter must first be something the many find fitting and can accept; only then is it truly carried out—and only then can it succeed. Guo hu zhong yi (“fruitful in suiting the many”) means just this.

Spring Rain and Farm Tools

When spring rain falls at the right time, plants and trees surge upward. Some read ri shi in the line as yue shi (“it is said to be the season”): once the spring rains arrive, tools such as the diao (a type of spade or plowshare for turning soil) and the nou (hoe) are first put in order. Among plants and trees, those that are hoed loose or turned over and then grow again often exceed half the total—yet people do not find that strange. It is simply what the season brings.

Making Laws and Following the Time

After hoeing, the turned earth and the regrowth of plants follow natural pattern; likewise, when laws and teachings are established, they too must follow the timely season—they cannot be imposed against the time by force.

Near Yan Gate (a gate in the state of Song), someone grieved so deeply over his parents’ death that he wasted away until little more than skin covered his bones. The ruler of Song honored his filial devotion and appointed him guanshi (an official charged with instructing the local community). After that, many in the same neighborhood who had been imitating him—damaging their bodies to show filial piety—died in half the cases. Guo Xiang’s commentary says people performed “filial piety” for reward; that was already far from genuine feeling, and it is precisely the harm that comes from esteeming reputations for worthiness.

Yao offered the empire to Xu You, and Xu You fled. Tang offered it to Wu Guang, and Wu Guang angrily refused. Ji Ta heard of this, took his disciples, and went to wait by the Kuan River. When the feudal lords came to offer condolences, they stayed for three years. Shentu Di heard of it, admired Ji Ta’s lofty name, and drowned himself in the river.

The fish trap (yú quán) exists to catch fish; once you have the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare (tù juàn) exists to catch rabbits; once you have the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist to convey meaning; once the meaning is grasped, you can forget the words. Where am I to find someone who has “forgotten words” so I can talk with him in a way that does not depend on words?

Miscellaneous Chapters · Fable (Yuyan), Section Twenty-Seven

“Fable” comprises nineteen entries. Cheng Xuanying says that such speech, which lodges its point in borrowed stories, makes up roughly nine tenths of the Zhuangzi.

Plain-Language Explanation

Fables account for nine tenths

Earlier commentators explained: “Words of entrustment make up nine parts in ten.” The point is that what the author really wants to say is here, but is spoken through other people and other events—hence “fable” (yuyan): the words seem to be about something else, while the meaning lands here.

Repeated citation accounts for seven tenths

They also said: “Weighty, cited speech makes up seven parts in ten.” “Repeated citation” (zhongyan) means speech that repeatedly invokes or puts in the mouths of ancients or authorities; it takes up a large share of the book.

Goblet words renew day by day

The “zhi” in “zhi yan” (goblet words) refers to a round-mouthed wine vessel. Commentators such as Wang Bi explained: when the vessel is full it is poured out; when empty it is turned up to receive again—it changes with how much is inside and does not hold one fixed posture. Applied to language, it means adapting to whoever listens and to the occasion, not treating oneself as an unchanging doctrine. Guo Xiang took “ri chu” (daily emergence) to mean something new each day—always changing, always renewed.

In harmony with “Tian Ni”

All of the above kinds of speech should match and harmonize with “Tian Ni”—the turning point where Heaven leads, the natural boundary—not a person clinging to one dead formula, but speaking in accord with the natural order.

“He” means accord; “tian ni” means the natural boundary and order. “He” is fitting and aligning; “tian ni” is the divide and pattern that heaven and earth naturally have. (Comment:) The point is that one can only respond in accord with the way of nature. In Zhuangzi, “yuyan” (allegorical speech) makes up about nine tenths of the book—using outsiders and other things to say what one means. Guo Xiang says: if words come straight from one’s own mouth, most people refuse to listen, so one borrows another’s mouth; that is “he” with the natural divide.

Figures like Jian Wu and Lian Shu — fictional or borrowed names such as Jian Wu, Lian Wu, and Lian Shu are roles borrowed in allegory to speak.

A father does not usually act as matchmaker for his own son. When a father praises his son, it is often less convincing than when someone who is not the father praises him. Cheng Xuanying says: “mei” means to bring together and speak on someone’s behalf; when a father talks about his son, many do not believe it; when an outsider praises him, more people believe.

“It is not my fault, but the fault of people.” This is not the fault of someone like Zhi Li Shu; it is the fault of the world’s reckless suspicion. The problem is not being born “crippled and scattered” by nature, but people fabricating right and wrong.

What matches oneself is affirmed; what does not match is rejected… hence allegory is needed. People often judge right and wrong only by whether something matches themselves: the same gets approval, the different gets rejection; what matches them they call right, what differs they call wrong. Since human sentiment takes sameness and difference as the standard of right and wrong, Zhuangzi must use allegory to expound the Way.

“Chongyan” seventeen tenths — Yao Nai says: in the whole Zhuangzi, speech put in others’ mouths is eight or nine tenths; within allegory, speech often put in the mouths of Shen Nong, the Yellow Emperor, Yao, Shun, Confucius, Yan Hui, and others heavy enough to stand for what the world respects—such cases are about seven tenths of the allegory.

Why “already-said” words… this is called “qiai” (venerable elder). In “yiyan,” “yi” means to stop or settle—to stop the world’s chaotic disputes. Such words are cited as the speech of qiai (elders, seniors). Erya Shigu: “Qiai means senior in age.”

Older in years, yet without warp and woof, root and branch… how can they count as “prior”? In affairs one needs order (warp and woof); in speaking one needs grounds and destination (root and branch). The “qiai” one respects should be old in years and also have insight. If one is only old in years, with no warp and woof or root and branch in the breast, merely occupying the label “old,” how can that count as being “prior”? Su Yu says “qi” is the same as “limit”—taking age alone as the limit. Elsewhere, Zeyang has “the count of things is not limited to ten thousand, yet one sets a limit and calls it ‘the ten thousand things’”—the sense of “qi” is close to here.

If one has nothing by which to be prior to others in human conduct… this is called a “chen ren” (stale person). If one cannot win trust in human relations and the way of being human, one cannot speak of being “prior”; without the human Way, one is merely a chen ren. Guo Xiang: simply someone stale with long years; Cheng Xuanying: like something rotted with age.

“Zhiyan” issues anew each day, harmonized with tian ni… thus to exhaust the years. Zhiyan (words like an inverted cup—square or round as the occasion demands, not clinging to one side) renews daily, harmonized with tian ni, unfolding along the pattern of things, to spend out this life. Cheng Xuanying: unfolding along the pattern of things, issuing anew without end, merely to fill the years. Discourse on Making Things Equal also says: “Harmonize with tian ni, follow it in endless extension—thus to exhaust the years.”

If one does not speak, things can be equalized… hence it is said: no words. Not speaking, the discourse on things could be equalized; once one speaks, there is partiality and bias—“equalization” and “speech,” “speech” and “equalization” never truly align, so it is better to have no words. Su Yu: without speech the Dao is present and discourse on things can be equalized; with speech there is rightness and deviation, never equalized forever, hence “better no words.”

“Speech that is no speech” — Guo Xiang develops this further (here following Guo’s layer of meaning on “speech that is no speech”): to speak again on the basis of “no speech”—that is the intent of Zhuangzi’s “zhiyan.”

Plain-Language Reading

Because the text speaks of “saying what others say,” on the surface there is speech, yet one is not stubbornly insisting on one’s own fixed “say.”

A whole lifetime spent speaking can amount to never having truly spoken; a whole lifetime spent not speaking can amount to never having stopped “speaking” in the deeper sense. (What matters is whether words carry a standpoint that is genuinely one’s own.)

The same matter can look acceptable from one angle and unacceptable from another; right from one side, wrong from another. Guo Xiang explains zi (self) as you (from): because you and I each cling to one side, distinctions arise between acceptable and unacceptable, so and not-so.

What counts as “right”? Right is right in the sense of “how things naturally ought to be.” What counts as “wrong”? Wrong is wrong in the sense of “how things naturally ought not to be.” What counts as “acceptable”? Acceptable is acceptable where things naturally can go through. What counts as “unacceptable”? Unacceptable is unacceptable where things naturally cannot go through.

Things inherently have their “ought to be thus” aspect and their “can be thus” aspect; nothing is absolutely “must not be thus,” and nothing is absolutely “cannot be thus.” (These ideas appear again in “Discourse on Making Things Equal.”)

Unless speech flows daily like ziyan (goblet words), harmonized with tian ni (heaven’s pivot, the natural boundary and spontaneous turning point), who could keep that up for long? Unless one uses this way of “speaking that seems not to speak,” who could transmit the Way far into the future?

The ten thousand things are like zhongzi (seeds): kinds succeed one another, only exchanging and transforming through different bodily forms. (Xuan Ying says: each has its kind; each appears in its form and passes the torch in endless succession.) From beginning to end it turns like a ring, with no fixed thread of principle to grasp. (Guo Xiang: lun is li, principle; like a ring with no head or tail, you cannot pin down a single standard.) This is called tian jun (heaven’s balance).

Tian jun is tian ni. Cheng Xuanying says: jun means qi (equalization); here it means the equality and leveling that belong to Heaven itself, not equality forced by human effort.